Catch My Fall (22 page)

“Wait long enough for it to harden, but not too long because then it will just crack and crumble,” Meghan had said. With every attempt to reassure and sell this deed, she’d managed to confuse the shit out of me. Honestly, I was probably doing it just as much to shut her up as I was to be hairless. I rolled the wax between my fingers, feeling it harden and pull free of my skin. I let the tiny ball fall to the bathtub surface before checking myself yet again. Not even tacky, really. Oh shit, this is it.

I pulled the edge of the wax upward just to get a finger hold, feeling my skin pulling under it. To say it didn’t feel nice would be the understatement of the century.

“What have you fucking done?” I asked aloud.

I arched my back and pressed my fingers against my skin to hold it taut.

“If you don’t hold it taut you’re going to fucking destroy yourself. Hold the skin taut, and you’ll hardly feel it.”

I took a sharp breath and yanked. The wax came free in my hand.

I froze, my eyes wide as the pain registered. The exposed skin where it had been glued was now blindingly hot.

I started laughing like a complete maniac. It was a sardonic, involuntary laughter, the kind that draws the eye of strangers in a crowded room. It deferred to a giggle, and I found the burn had faded to a warm pulsing sensation. I looked down to find my skin pink and smooth.

So unbelievably smooth.

Oh, I can handle this, I thought.

I quickly dipped into the wax, its consistency still thin and liquid, dousing the other side of my ‘holy triangle.’ I waited, checking the wax impatiently, then tore myself asunder, yet again. This moment reminded me of Dr. Hoar, my biology teacher in high school, who explained to class that the human mind is incapable of remembering pain. This is an evolutionary feat and exists for the sheer purpose of maintaining our species. He said, if a woman could remember the pain of childbirth, there would be no second-borns.

I found the notion intriguing as I pulled the third and largest strip of now hardened wax from the further recesses of my nethers. I was getting to regions that practically required contortionist moves to reach, but with each section, I felt reborn. Even the pain began to feel rudimentary as the flow of the routine smoothed out. I’d managed to de-shag the regions of closest reach, but if I was going to do this, I might as well do it properly. I scooped up another glop of wax, reached blindly downward, and as I watched helplessly, a huge glob of the stuff plopped off the wooden stick and onto my skin. I lunged downward, trying to spread it out before it ran down my ass, but I couldn’t find the stuff. Instead, I simply smoothed the wax I still had on the stick, the globs becoming more and more viscous as the moments passed. I leaned forward, returning the stick to the tub and made the decision to trudge downstairs and reheat the stuff after I pulled this bit off. I settled there in the tub, my arms sprawled out along the ridge of the tub as I waited for the wax to reach the appropriate state.

I couldn’t help but picture myself there, half naked and brutalizing myself for the pursuit of – well, I wasn’t even sure what. I imagined being sprawled out like this at the mercy of the Vietnamese woman Meghan goes to. I chuckled at the thought of Meghan calling me a pussy as I shrieked from behind some salon curtain. A comic strip crossed my mind - Super Crotch, a cartoon version of Meghan whose nether regions were impervious to blows. I laughed loudly, the sound bouncing off the walls of my small bathroom. I let the tip of my finger tap at the wax and found it well hardened. I shifted my body to reach down, only to be met with a flash of white hot pain. I froze, feeling almost frightened. I shifted again, only to be met with the same sharp pain from the furthest recesses of my down below. I slumped back to relieve the pain and stretched the tip of my fingers down as far as I could. The mysterious glob of wax, the one that had lunged at my crotch before I was ready – yeah, that one - it was now hardened and glued to my ass.

Glued to the hair of my ass and the bathtub, to be more specific.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’d glued my ass to the bathtub.

I began to feel a dry panic that one only feels when their pubic area is in jeopardy.

“No. No, no, no,” I said, as though somehow the word would make it untrue. I found the edge of the wax that I’d intentionally spread across one side of my private area and with the determination that only comes from the fear of God, I prepared to pull it free. The wax pulled at hair I didn’t even know I had, and I couldn’t reach down to pull the skin taut without extreme trauma to my glued bum cheek. This was a kamikaze mission. I took a breath, assuring myself that by now, I must’ve grown at least a little desensitized. Right?

I yanked and every inch of skin, every hair that I’d ever had in that region rallied together in protest. I screamed bloody murder. The wax pulled an inch, then snapped off in my hand.

Oh Jesus. I waited too long!

I tried to pull the edge up, but the wax was further out of reach now, almost impossible to grab onto without pulling at the glob that now held me like concrete to the bathtub surface.

“Only you would fucking glue yourself to the bathtub! Of course!” I hollered at myself.

I had a sudden bout of inspiration. Maybe, if I could heat the wax it might soften enough to pull myself up from the bathtub. I kicked a foot out toward the faucet, hooking my toes on the handles and turning them. The shift in the pipes reverberated through the bathroom wall, then a deluge of frigid water blasted from the faucet, drawing shriek of abject horror from my lips. I frantically kicked my foot at the faucet to shut it off.

Oh yeah, Faye. That’s right, the hot water in your shower’s broken, remember that?

I growled and tried to reach for the wax again, my lower half now covered in goosebumps and freezing wet. My fingers grazed the edge as the pain shot through my poor hoohah like split second bee stings. I was completely fucked, and I knew it.

I slumped back against the cold bathtub and wiped my watering eyes. Suddenly that crazed waxer didn’t seem so scary.

“Suck it up, woman! Suck it up, or you’re going to be found here by loved ones in a week, half naked and starved to death. Suck it the fuck UP!”

It was do or die. I wrenched my fingers around the rim of the bathtub, closed my eyes tight, and flung myself forward. I then followed this action with a slew of expletives that even I thought truly inspired. I’d felt a shift under me, but couldn’t begin to guess how much I’d freed myself, or if I’d simply managed to flay my tralala in the effort. I reached for the wax between my legs. Though I could only grapple with the very edge, I could reach further than a moment before.

This was joy, this was progress.

This was going to fucking hurt.

At least there was an end in sight - an end that existed on the other side of a football field of hot coals that I apparently had to drag my naked ass across, but in sight nonetheless. I wiped my eyes yet again and braced myself for another tug.

“Fuck your mother cocksucking bitch whore!”

Yeah, something like that.

An inch maybe, a fraction of an inch more likely, but still, progress. I leaned back against the tub, my breath shallow with the effort of constant anxiety. I waited a moment, praying that Dr. Hoar was right and that if I gave myself a minute, I might forget the agony.

The house shook with the force of the front door. I froze, my eyes wide. I listened to the footsteps circle the downstairs.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Faye! Where are you, woman?”

God, if you see fit to give me an aneurysm, please do it now.

I kept silent, listening to Stellan clomp through the house. My bedroom door opened. I held my breath.

“Faye?”

He rapped his knuckles on the bathroom door, his tone urgent and excited.

“Yeah?”

“You decent? I gotta show you -”

The doorknob to my bathroom door twisted, and I must’ve pulled myself another inch of freedom when I jumped in terror.

“Don’t! Don’t fucking open the door!”

The knob stopped. This was my fault. Stellan knew I rarely used my bathroom for more than makeup and hair. Downside of having a defunct facility.

“Shit, sorry. Well, come out then!”

I covered my eyes with both hands. “I can’t.”

“You gotta. You’re gonna lose it!”

“I know -”

Stellan was right outside the door, his voice agitated. “Literally, you’re going to fucking freak out!”

“I know, but -”

“Hurry up woman! I can’t wait to see the look on your face!”

“I can’t, Stellan.”

My tone was far more stern than I’d intended – side effect of having your shebang brutalized. There was silence on the other side of the door.

“But I want you to see -” He stopped and tapped a hand to the door. “Are you alright?”

I sighed. “Yes, I just – I’m just indisposed at the moment. Just go home, and I’ll see you there.”

The hardwood shifted beneath him outside the door. “I thought we were going to go together.”

His voice had descended to this soft and almost childish place of honest disappointment.

I cringed to hear him like that. “I know, I’m so sorry, but I’m completely fucked right now, ok?”

“Do you need help?”

Again the doorknob twisted, this time with purpose. I’d clearly concerned him.

“NO! Don’t open the – I sweartoGODStellanIwillfuckingstabyou!”

Again the doorknob went still.

“Faye, you’re freaking me out here.”

“I know. It’s alright, just – faaaaaahk!” A sudden tug and the response was involuntary.

“Can I do
anything
?”

“I’m alright,” I said. Then inspiration struck. Perhaps there was help to be found. “Actually, do you think you could - like if you literally just open the door enough to stick your hand through, and nothing else – could you throw me my cell phone?”

He moved outside the door before the door creaked. “Here,” he said, holding it just inside the door. It would do me little good five feet away.

“Just throw it toward the bathtub.”

“The bathtub? Faye, what the hell are you doing in the bathtub? What’s wrong?”

“I’m alright, I’ll be alright. Just throw it, please.”

“It’ll break!”

“I’ll catch it! Just throw it, please!”

He disappeared for a moment, then his arm reappeared, and he tossed a bundle of wrapped up fabric into the bathtub. I exhaled gratefully, unwrapping the red CCCP t-shirt I’d loved so much in high school.

“Thank you! I love you! Now please, just go home, and I’ll see you later. Please? I’m sorry. Please?”

He sighed heavily. “Alright. Cool.”

With that the door closed, and his footsteps shifted outside the door. It was as though I could hear his inner debate through the door. It really was asking a lot of Stellan to expect him to leave when he assumed trauma. Finally, he walked downstairs and out the door. I’d never loved him more than I did at that moment.

“When Karma comes for you, I hope it hurts half as bad as this!” I hollered into the phone when Meghan answered. I relayed my situation to her only to be met with uncontrollable laughter.

“Turn on the hot water, it will loosen the wax.”

“Uh, broken shower? Thought of that.”

The laughter returned. I cursed her, her name, and the day she was born; she just kept laughing. Finally, she offered to come over. I turned her down outright.

“Yeah, I already had Stellan bangin down my door a minute ago, I’m all set.”

“Well, what do you want me to do then?” Meghan asked, breathless.

“Honestly? Suffer like Christ!”

She laughed again, and I explained that as punishment I felt she should be required to listen to my suffering. She agreed to the task.

It took six more outbursts of cursing God before I was detached, then another three minutes of tearing and pulling to get the last chunks of now brittle wax from my region. When I was done, I’d never felt more relieved in my life.

No, I rephrase - I’d never been more thankful to be alive and free to wear pants, in my life.

I ran my hand down across the mound of what I’d once thought of as a sensitive and delicate region. No blood, no torn ligaments or bruises, just baby smooth skin.

Well, on one side. The other side was still a jungle.

“I’ve managed to give myself a crotch Mohawk.”

The piercing cackle carried through the phone for a moment or two.

CHAPTER Twelve

“I
’m not strutting through downtown Concord in these heels, honey,” Meghan said, pointing out the pencil thin spike that protruded from the bottom of her boots.

Why Meghan? Why do you always have to make everyone else look like hobos? Seriously.

I was wearing several layers of the puffiest clothing I’d been able to procure from all three remaining clothes closets in the house. My mother’s offered little more than some older vintage pieces I might’ve tried were I going as a member of the Scooby-Doo gang, but I was not. I was going as an 80’s icon, and as you’ve been informed, the 80’s are in my DNA. Dishonoring their memory would be a cardinal sin.

My lace gloves were pulled to the elbow, the fingers cut off, my skirts were layered and lace trimmed, pink over black over white. I’d teased my newly rust colored hair out to the moon on one side of my head, leaving the other side combed flat. My lipstick was bright red, my eyeliner as thick as I could smear it, and my bracelets so innumerous that I felt like I was doing bicep curls if I deigned to pick anything up. The final touch felt a little inaccurate, but I had little choice as we were coming down to the wire. My high tops had seen better days, and they fell apart when I tried to put them on. Instead, I’d torn the ever living shit out of a perfectly good pair of black stockings and put on my mother’s ancient black cowboy boots. Her feet were at least a size bigger than mine, but I made due with a couple pairs of socks. My feet were still slipping around inside the boots with every step. Ah, what a woman will do for era specific fashion statements.