Keeping Up with the Belks

This post is heading south. Way south. And uh, mom, if there was ever a time for you to not read, this is probably it. Seriously, close the window now and back slowly away from the screen.

With a summer trip coming up as well as my new boyfriend’s birthday, I decided it was time to get my first bikini wax. And if you’re going to get your hair violently ripped out from your skin, you might as well have them take all of it, right? I said a short prayer, popped 800mg of Ibuprofen, and headed to Brazil.

Before I went, I googled the topic extensively. Every article more or less said the same thing: You have to be naked. That might feel weird. And it will hurt a little, especially as it gets closer to the “middle”. But remember, it doesn’t hurt that bad and plenty of people do this all the time. It’ll be over before you know it!

Now let me tell you what it’s really like.

My appointment was at Euphoria Salon and Spa where I had a gift card. This led to one of the many uncomfortable moments of the experience when my esthetician, with her hands on my stuff, asked how I heard about the Salon. I got a gift card from my boss. Why, why, Meck, did you have to say those last three words? Not all my moments require complete honesty. Must. Remember. This. Really, she said, I hope your boss wasn’t the one who recommended the Brazilian. No. No he wasn’t.

After I arrived at my appointment, I was given a drink and sent upstairs into what looked and smelled and sounded like a massage room at a spa, but was actually a medieval torture chamber. Inside the chamber, Carmen, a polite middle aged woman with a thick accent, introduced herself, handed me a white washcloth and instructed me to take off my pants and underwear and place the washcloth over myself. That’s exactly the way she said it, “over yourself”.

As I was getting undressed I contemplated for a moment whether there were any ex-pats living in Spain and waxing strange women’s vaginas. Hi, my name is Virginia, it’s nice to meet you and your lower-half. Here’s your washcloth. Then as I laid back on the deceptively comfortable Rack and covered “myself” I wondered if this wasn’t a huge mistake, if it was still possible get up, get dressed, go home, and shave.

Then Carmen knocked on the door. She came back inside and jumped right in. Literally. She shut the door behind her, pulled a large lighted magnifier over my crotch, snapped on some gloves and started examining. Not looking, though. Pulling apart and investigating. Very good, she said. Um, what?

What are you wanting today?
A brazilian?
Yes but there are many kinds. There is the triangle
WTF?
The landing strip
*frown*
Or the whole thing
Yea. That’s the one I want. The whole thing. Also, Carmen, did I mention already that I hate myself?

She started from the outside going in. Just like the articles said she would. Spreading on the wax and laying on the strips. Don’t be so nervous, she said trying to calm me. You can’t possibly imagine how many of these I see a day. Then she started to pull.

And you know what? It didn’t hurt so bad. Near my legs it felt no worse than getting an eyebrow wax. This is going to easy peasy, I thought. I was worried for nothing. Then she started getting closer to the “middle” (or, you know, my genitals). This hurt more. First a little. Then a little more. Then a lot more. Then a helluva lot more. And it wasn’t so quick as an eyebrow wax. When it was all said and done, I was in Carmen’s little shop of horrors for a good 45 minutes. This part was taking time. Too much time. And during all this, for the first time in two months of dating, I contemplated breaking up with my boyfriend.

It would never work, he and I. Rip. We want completely different things. Tear. I’m a feminist, damnit. Pull. But he, he wants me to look like a fucking hairless little girl. Rip. He’s disgusting. Rip. If I stay with him, he’ll spend his whole life looking for something better, younger, hotter, than what god gave me. RIP. And I, I’ll spend my entire life on my back. PULL. And on this god forsaken table. YANK.

Just I was going to run naked and screaming from the room, I was drawn from my cycle of madness by Carmen, who placed a piping hot dollop of wax directly on “myself” and started to smear it around the middlest part of the goddamn middle that you can get to without actually having sex with me. When we’re finished, she promised, you’re going to look just like a baby. And at that moment I knew, it would not end well between Carmen and me.

Just as I was expecting the worst, she starting plucking some strays. That’s another thing all the articles said. The plucking hurts the most. Ask them to let you do the plucking at home. It’s the most painful part. Ha! The plucking doesn’t hurt here any more than it hurts on any other part of your body. I wish the whole thing was plucking. I wish there was a salon that’s estheticians charged an hourly rate and I could just go and have them pluck the whole thing. Each hair one by one and I could just lay there listening to Enya and relaxing. You’re doing great, Carmen said, so much calmer than my other clients. As she plucked away I had already started to make amends with my boyfriend in my mind. Accepting his apology for being so chauvinistic, welcoming his cooing that he loves me just the way I am.

Then, remember that last strip Carmen laid down? Then. THEN. She fucking pulled it. At that moment, three things happened simultaneously:
#1 The wind was knocked out of me
#2 My heart skipped a beat.
#3 I said, rather loudly, (although I don’t think you can technically count it as yelling) OH. MY. GOD.

I know I may have exaggerated my usage of the numbers 1 and 2 in the past, but this time I mean it. For one excruciating moment I convulsed upward from the table, shocked by what was, and still is, the single most physically painful second of my existence, and all I could do was gasp for air and look at Carmen and convey with my eyes, as convincingly as I could muster in my agony, “bitch, I will end you”.

Now please roll over.
What?!
I assume you want the back done as well?
Motherfucker

I turned on my side. That’s good, she said. Now cross one leg over the other. And please take this here (she was pointing to my right butt cheek) and lift. I stared at her blankly for a couple seconds until she promised that it didn’t feel anything close to what she just had done. Compared to that last one, she said, this will be nothing! And I was inclined to believe her since I couldn’t begin to imagine anything hurting more.  I dutifully lifted my cheek and wondered how it came to be that I was in a place in my life where I was now spreading my ass open for strangers. The hot wax was spread down my crack and then just as quickly as she put the strip down, she pulled it off.

You’re done, she exclaimed.
What? I’m, I’m alive?
I’ll leave so you can get dressed.

And just like that it was over. I was completely bare.

I put on my clothes, paid, for some reason tipped and thanked Carmen, and headed to my truck where the first thing I did, after staring at my face for three minutes in the rear view mirror for reassurance, was to call my boyfriend.

hey baby, what’s up?
YOU BETTER LOVE ME.