Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
For his pleasure. For his use.
For one awful moment I pictured my own body in the lingerie: waxed, smooth, waiting.
I shut the drawer.
The ground-floor salon—though salon made it sound frivolous, and the place itself seemed more discreet than that—occupied a suite off the main lobby, accessible through a soft-lit corridor lined with framed abstracts and luxurious silence. A brass plaque by the door bore a name I did not recognize. Of course Selecta or Porter or both had chosen somewhere that did not advertise itself.
The receptionist greeted me by name before I had fully approached the desk.
That made my face warm at once.
“Ms. Murphy? We’ve been expecting you.”
Her smile seemed professional, pleasant, impossible to read. If she knew what sort of arrangement had placed me there, she gave no sign of it. Perhaps women came and went from this building for just such appointments all the time. The thought should have comforted me, maybe, but instead it made the whole thing feel more institutional and overwhelming.
A few forms waited on a tablet. Preferences, skin sensitivities, acknowledgment of services. I signed where indicated with a composure that felt increasingly theatrical. Then another woman appeared, introduced herself as Lena, and led me back through a hushed hallway into a treatment room that smelled faintly of antiseptic.
It was not erotic. That somehow made it dismayingly erotic for me. I felt myself warming down there, and I tried to focus on the clinical character of the equipment rather than the reason my sponsor had sent me here.
The room was warmly lit, with a padded table draped in white paper, cabinets of supplies, neatly arranged jars, a stool on wheels. Nothing lurid. Nothing designed to underline the humiliation.
Lena spoke in a calm, efficient tone. “Go ahead and undress from the waist down to start. You can hang your dress there. I’ll step out for a moment.”
When she left, I stood in the room alone and looked at the table.
This is ridiculous, I told myself.
Then I took off my dress.
Standing there in nothing but my own skin under that warm neutral light, I felt more innocent than I liked to feel. More exposed, too. A stranger was about to inspect and alter one of the most private parts of my body because a man wanted me smooth for him.
I got onto the table and draped the provided towel over myself though it covered very little.
When Lena came back in, she did not blink. If she registered my tension, she met it only with professional kindness.
“First time?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll talk you through everything.”
That nearly made me laugh, though there was no humor in it really. Porter talked me through my humiliations too. Apparently this was simply my life now.
She began conventionally enough. Within moments I understood why women complained about waxing. The first pull took my breath. “Ow,” I said before I could stop myself.
Lena smiled slightly. “That was a small one.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
She worked, and I clung to the table paper and tried not to think in words. Each strip stung sharply, then left behind an oddly vulnerable smoothness that I could feel even without touching. My body reacted in contradictory ways. Part of me wanted to squirm away from the pain and exposure; another part seemed unable not to understand the process in relation to Porter. He wanted to find me smooth and innocent. Prepared. More bare for him than I had been for any man.
The thought brought heat into my face and, hideously, elsewhere.
When Lena asked me to let my knees fall apart a little more, I obeyed with a blush so fierce I was grateful she did not comment. The towel had long since ceased to provide any meaningful concealment. I stared at the ceiling and concentrated on its recessed lights.
“You’re doing well,” she said.
The praise, innocent from her, still made something in me jump because I had spent so much of the last day being evaluated, corrected, approved.
Then Lena said, in the same composed voice, “All right. Turn over for me, please. Knees up a little. And use your hands to part your cheeks.”
For one second I thought I had misheard her.
Then I felt the blood rush to my face so fast it seemed to make my ears ring. But of course: Porter had said so. He had discussed it in that quiet tone of his, as if grooming my anus for his inspection and use were no stranger than selecting wine with dinner.
I turned over, the paper crackling beneath me. My heart beat far too hard. I drew my knees up awkwardly, feeling absurdly exposed even before I obeyed the rest. Then, because there was no graceful way to resist and because resistance would only make this more theatrical, I reached back and spread myself for her.