Hot wax

Never let it be said I would ask my girlfriend to do something I wouldn’t do myself.

There we were, on the corner of Bumpkin & Vine, in Seattle. In town for the annual 3-day Bumbershoot Festival of art, music, comedy and beer garden lines, we—well, I—decided some personal grooming was just the thing we needed to do to celebrate the Labour Day long weekend. So, on Sunday, a mere two days ago, I charged into a place called Wax On (shouldn’t it be called “Wax Off”?), just around the corner from our room at the elegant and somewhat retro El Gaucho Inn, and said,

“Give me a bikini wax.”

Actually, what I said was, how long does it take, do you have an opening right now before I change my mind, and does it hurt? 10 minutes, yes, and no, were the answers (in somewhat fractured English) given by Helen, my Asian wax person. (Waxer? Wax goddess? Waxarista?) How she kept a straight face for her last answer, I don’t know.

With visions of Steve Carrell getting his chest waxed in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I followed Helen into a small room in examination-room white, but with a giant Bumbershoot poster on the wall. Did many people, on their way to the festival, come in to get waxed? I wondered.

“Panties on, or off?” she asked. Did she really say “panties”? Ahem, I was wearing manly briefs.

I asked what was easier for her, and she said “off.” She told me to get undressed, and left. Before she did, she handed me a washcloth to hold over my privates. Just as I lay back on the table, my cell phone went off.

“Hey,” said my cousin. “Do you know any good places to eat in Seattle?” He was visiting the city too, with friends.

“Uhm,” I said, fully aware of where I was, and how there was no way of explaining it at the moment. “Yeah…”

After giving him a few suggestions I got back on the table. Helen opened the door. Was it too late to change my mind?

“First, one side,” she said, placing my hand and protective washcloth on top of my manhood, and to the right. She told me to bend my left leg, and she held up a wooden stick covered with a greenish substance. She blew on it to cool it off, and applied it to the inside of my thigh.

Now, I’m no expert, and in truth I didn’t know what exactly a “bikini wax” meant, i.e., what area it covered. Or uncovered. I soon found out.

She applied the strip of adhesive paper, pressed down, and pulled off. About a million hairs were yanked screaming from my flesh. I howled. “I thought you said this wasn’t going to hurt?”

“I lied,” she said.

She went to work on the area just above my groin. I stared up at the ceiling fan, feeling the hot wax, then the adhesive, followed by intense, searing pain. “Owww!”

“Sorry. You okay?”

I asked if she got a lot of men in here, and if a lot of her clients were adult movie performers. I’m not sure she understood the question, but she said yes. I replied it would be a good place to work, but at reception, since I didn’t think I was cut out to–

“Ouch!”

“Almost done,” said Helen. The thing is, they don’t warn you when you’re about to do something, because then you get anxious about the pain and it hurts more. At least, that’s what she told me.

“Do you want to leave some at the top?”

Uhm, I don’t know—do I? I guess so, considering the pain involved in getting rid of more.

In all, the waxperience took about 10 minutes, and was definitely painful. However, all the rest of the day I could think about nothing but my newly cleared path, and how I couldn’t wait to show it off back at our room… and at the nude beach.