Thu, January 25, 2007

“open legs for me,”, says the woman i have just met, after she’s summarily pulled off my underwear. 

hmn! 

ok, maybe we need to back up a bit here. 

in preparation for leaving the country again for a very long time, i’ve been getting serviced. i had the pap smear last week, had blood work done, i’ve been to the aesthetician, i’ve been extracted and painfully peeled and i’ve been mercilessly scrubbed by korean women, but nothing prepared me for today. first; 

the place: st john tower imaging. 
the time: first thing in the morning. 
the occasion: my annual mammogram. 

ok guys, you try having your gonads yanked unceremoniously away from your body, placed between two disrespectful and very cold slabs, then brutally and painfully squished together before having radioactive waves pulsed through your body. all this while you hold your breath as you follow the strangely inflected instructions of the woman with the unplaceable eastern bloc accent, to, “NOW. PLEASzsE. dooo NOT MOoove….”. 

then do it again. and again, and again. all of that before 10a.m. on an empty stomach. though maybe an empty stomach is a good thing because otherwise you might be retching through the discomfort of it all. 

next on the to do list today: waxing. half leg and bikini, seeing that i’m going back to summer. now, i’ve done this before. no biggie. pull in the sides of my panties, a few well placed strips and i no longer look like a coir mattress which has sprung an unfortunate leak. i get on the table and (i do not know this yet) my future torturer approaches. i’m about to get ready to pull together the lacy sides of my underwear so that i’ll be left with a very large runway strip – one that would do any busy international airport proud – when she summarily pulls my panty away, inspects my pubic area and then matter of factly, pulls them off. 

so we’re back to where i originally started. 

“spread legs for me”, she says. 

okay! i’m a big girl, i decide. i’m not going to be embarrassed by this, though it’s not what i planned, i’m going with it. 

she applies the first patch of hot wax, places the strip of fabric, pats it down and RRRRRIIIIPPPPPPPPPS! and no, i am NOT resting in peace – i am doing my best to not let out a blood-curdling scream that would rival the best horror movie heroine. in a move which i assume is meant to alleviate the pain, but does absolutely nothing of the sort, she gives me several sharp little slaps on the spot where she’s just ripped my hair, roots and all out of my body. then she proceeds to repeat this little routine several times. i’m amazed that i am able to stifle my screams. 

after a while she takes my leg, lifts it up in a sort of splits, and props it against the wall in order to get in even closer. i can barely (pun intended!) believe it when she grabs hold of my lips, spreads them and then in what seems like the equivalent of several turns on the proverbial thumbscrew applies hot wax and once again, RRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPS!!! 

OH MY GOD! 

she manipulates my labia on the other side and DITTO! my disbelief swells (as does my pubic area under this onslaught) when she places her face right up to my crotch and starts BLOWING on the area she’s just depilated. I. AM GETTING. A BLOW-JOB!!! this is (almost) funny. 

it’s too late to stop now. i am jack bauer. this torturer will not get the better of me. the fate of the entire country depends on me. 

ok, so maybe the pain is making me hallucinate. 

i grit my teeth. 

she, it seems, is finally done. but no, not quite yet. now she takes her tweezers and starts to pull at individual hairs which viciously determined, are resisting her efforts. the pain is excruciating! all the while she keeps murmuring, “your hair strong, your hair strong…”. no lady, i am the one who’s strong; strong enough to resist the urge to strangle you! 

she finally tells me to turn over, in order to do the backs of my calves, i think, but before i can blink, she has spread my cheeks, applied wax and ripped. i try not to let my other cheeks burn with mortification and embarassment – my god, i don’t recall when last any one was this close to my privates! and poor, poor rosebud! 

when she is finally satisfied that she’s done what she can with her wax, she then takes a pair of scissors to the minute patch she’s left behind (the only evidence that i’m not 12 years old or a plucked chicken), leaving me looking like i’m sporting a merkin resembling a miniature hitler moustache. i have survived! hail the victorious! sieg heil! 

she leaves the room and returns with a wet cloth which she then uses to wipe down my pubic area. i am trying to be worldly, but in reality i am feeling like an embarrassed little girl. i retrieve my underwear and my pants and waddle out of there and away from hannah, which i discover is the name of my heretofore anonymous torturer. i can’t believe that she spends her day with her face and fingers in people’s crotches! someone who is into pain could get a helluva kick out of a visit with her – all for under twenty bucks! i read somewhere that one of the functions of pubic hair, is lubrication and protection and as i try to walk so that my stinging nether regions aren’t further aggravated, i am very much reminded of that fact. i feel strange and sticky and BARE! 

this was certainly an interesting, though damn painful experience. i like to think that i’m open-minded, but speaking for myself, i’m a grown woman and i like looking like one – especially underneath my very grown up, mostly functional, sometimes lacy knickers. i know they say one has to suffer for beauty, and boy, have i suffered, but this to me is not beauty. i am not 12 years old, nor would i ever want to be 12 years old again. i’ll leave it to the playboy girls and porn stars to look like, in my opinion, plucked chickens. when this grows out, i’m going back to my wide landing strip. 

any guy who has a problem with that, can just jolly-well go land somewhere else.

(this is reposted from my first blog over on tribe.net. i thought it was appropriate in view of my other modern day torture posts.)