B as in Beauty

by Alberto Ferreras

  “It’s not Toasted Hazelnut, it’s Death By Chocolate,” I replied.

  “Egyptian Gold eyeliner?”

  “Yep, Egyptian Gold eyeliner.”

  “Wow, I’m impressed,” she acknowledged.

  “You gave me good advice,” I answered back.

  She smiled, clearly grateful for the acknowledgment, and then, in an apologetic tone, she delivered her instructions.

  “I’m sorry, but Bonnie wants to see you right now.”

  I took a deep breath, but this time I got up and walked over to the bitch’s den without an ounce of fear in my body. As usual, Christine was there too, disgesting breakfast and gossiping away.

  “Good morning,” I said with a big smile.

  Bonnie and Christine looked up and almost choked. I could be wrong about this, but it wasn’t just my new outfit or my hair or my makeup. Bonnie knew that something had changed; though—in her best evil style—she immediately turned her face into the dry, cold rock that it has always been, and fired a round of ammunition.

  “You’re late again.”

  “Yes,” I said with a smile.

  “And?” she said, expecting to see me beg forgiveness.

  “And what? I’m arriving late because very often I work late, and it’s funny that you bring it up, because it never seems to bother you when I work late.”

  I had never seen the hyena speechless until this very moment. I threw her off. She couldn’t come up with anything better than the oldest cliché: “Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t ask me to work late again,” I said, and walked out.

  I have always heard with skepticism the stories of people who change overnight. This type of born-again attitude that I’m describing in myself has always been cause for mistrust, or at least an arched eyebrow. A woman goes out on a couple of paid dates, and suddenly she finds the self-esteem that she never had. Yeah, right! That’s exactly what I would say if I were hearing this story instead of telling it. But I was taking a calculated risk. My new job was giving me money, recognition, and thrills that I wasn’t getting at the office. I wasn’t going to throw away the baby with the bathwater, but I certainly felt a financial security that would allow me to flex some muscle with the harpy. If Bonnie tried to fire me, it would take her at least six months—and that’s if I didn’t fight back. I could make her life miserable if I put my mind to it.

  On the other hand, I did love my job, and as much as I knew that Bonnie would never acknowledge my talent, a small part of me still wondered if the talent was actually there to be acknowledged. I needed to bring it up to a higher level, but the corporate ladder was strict in that respect. I could never pitch my ideas directly to the Chicago Boss, or the client; my ideas would always go through Bonnie, and if she chose to keep them in the folder, forget it.

  I know that Latinos have a reputation for being passionate and volatile. I hate to confirm stereotypes, but—at least when it comes to my family—it is absolutely true. At home we would rather be aggressive than passive-aggressive. I know that others feel more comfortable fighting their battles with that indifferent attitude that my aunt Carmita described with one sentence: “ellos ni huelen, ni hieden” (they neither sniff nor stink). They act as if nothing affects them. Whatever happens inside, they keep it to themselves. But in my family we don’t just show our emotions, we blare them. Our fights are short but intense. We have big blowouts and fast reconciliations. If you’re angry, it’s clear and direct. I know it’s more intimidating to deal with a Cuban spitfire than with an icy Massachusetts maiden, but at the end of the day, with the Cuban you know exactly where you stand. That’s how I see it.

  Having been raised in New York City, I have learned to play both sides of this game. I can be a hurricane or an ice cube, depending on the circumstances. But playing it passive-aggressive with Bonnie would never grant me the victory. She was the queen of that genre. She probably invented it herself. So reaching out for my Cuban arsenal of weapons was only logical.

  That’s why, earlier that morning, after buying my new “armor” at the boutique, I also stopped by Radio Shack and got a secret weapon: a pocket tape recorder. So, after I left Bonnie huffing and puffing in her office, I perched myself feet-up in the bathroom stall again—but this time with my pocket recorder in hand. Calmly, I filed my nails until I heard Bonnie and Christine come into the bathroom, as always, to examine their fangs in the mirror. Then I pressed record, as I overheard once again the nasty tirade that Bonnie was dedicating to me.

  “Well, the truth is that very often she does work late,” said Christine.

  “I don’t care. I’m not putting up with this crap. Who does she think she is? That because she got a makeover she’s going to walk around with that attitude? As soon as we’re done with the UK Charms presentation, I’m getting rid of her.”

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  “That she’s too fat to work here,” said Bonnie, sounding more like a high-school girl than the regional VP of an advertising agency.

  “You can’t say that!” replied Christine, laughing.

  “Oh, I’ll set her up. I’ve done this before. How do you think I got rid of Miller and Jessica? Nobody, I repeat, nobody fucks with me.”

  El que ríe el ultimo, ríe mejor, we say in Spanish. He who laughs last, laughs the hardest. And now that I’m sharing clichés, let me throw one more at you: it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. And guess what? I was just warming up to sing a very high note.

  I waited until I heard Bonnie and Christine leaving the restroom; then I stepped out of the stall. But before I could conceal the recorder, none other than Mary Pringle walked in, and caught me red-handed. She looked at me, she looked at the recorder, and, based on her expression, I immediately knew that she understood exactly what I was up to. A seasoned saleswoman like her is always aware of her surroundings.

  She smiled, and winked at me. “I have a tape recorder just like that one. They work great.”

  I smiled back, and nothing had to be explained.

  I went back to my desk to lock the recorder in a drawer, and the rest of the day flew by like a breeze.

  It must have been almost one p.m. when I picked up a few reports and walked over to the copy machine, where I found none other than Dan Callahan chatting with Mark Davenport. He looked at me with his mouth semi-open, as if I were the centerfold of Sports Illustrated. I smiled innocently.

  “Hey, Dan.”

  “Hey, B!”

  Men are so obvious. Now that I didn’t care about him, suddenly he was making goo-goo eyes at me, hoping that I’d fall in his trap again.

  I moved closer to him, while he leaned proudly on the copy machine as if he were the only man on earth capable of achieving an erection. At perfume-smelling distance I whispered, “Can I ask you for a favor?”

  Leaning even closer to me, he whispered back, “Anything.”

  “Can you move over so I can make some copies?”

  Gotcha, you moron! I thought to myself. I didn’t want to abuse my recently acquired powers, but he was asking for it. He moved away slowly and arrogantly, giving me a sexy look in the process. The nerve.

  “Thanks,” I said, and smiled.

  As I was happily starting to make my copies, my red cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my brassiere, observing Dan’s stupid expression. He was clearly impressed by my new phone, and by my new cleavage too. Coyly, I turned away from him to take the call. That was enough to make him understand that I was done talking to him. He left the copy room, and from the corner of my eye I saw him turning around a couple of times to see if I was looking at him go. Not in this lifetime, you meathead! I would have told him, but I couldn’t be bothered. Madame started delivering her instructions.

  “Alberto will pick you up at nine. Your client is Richard Weber. He pays with a credit card, so Alberto will give you cash as you leave. Richard is going to give you a massage, but watch out, because this guy is a tease
, so please control yourself.”

  “I understand,” I said, feeling like a secret agent.

  I had the world on a string. After all those years trapped in my dead-end job, with my dead-end dates and my dead-end life, I was finally feeling that I could change it all.

  “Oh!” Madame added. “And get a good waxing.”

  “Legs?” I asked.

  “Everything,” she answered.

  “Ouch!” I said to myself.

  CHAPTER 13

  Brazilians have made at least two great contributions to humanity. The first one is music: the fusion of African, Portuguese, and native sounds that took place in Brazil has no precedents. Half of my CD collection is Brazilian music. Elis Regina, Gal Costa, Chico Buarque, Marisa Monte, Elza Soares, Antonio Carlos Jobim, etc., etc., etc. You hear two notes of a Brazilian song and, no matter if you’re burning in the darkest pit of hell, you immediately feel transported to the soft and warm sands of Ipanema Beach, surrounded by swinging palm trees, lying under a bright sun that caresses your skin.

  The other great contribution of Brazilians is their waxing technique. They figured out a process that manages to pull the hair painfully out of your coochie, while keeping you from bleeding to death.

  Following Madame’s instructions, I went to this waxing place in Manhattan that is run by a bunch of Brazilian girls. They’re fun, they’re crazy, and they’re damn good at what they do. As Elisa, my waxer, yanked the paper strips from my body, I yelled, cursed, and screamed over the Brazilian beats and the girls’ fast chatter, where every word seemed to end with “inha.”

  After Elisa was done with the painful treatment—and I lay there trying to recover—I noticed that she spent a few seconds looking at my privates. Suddenly she called one of her colleagues.

  “¡Ritinha, vem cá! ¡Olha que coisa mais bonitinha!”

  Ritinha came into our stall, and both girls stood there looking at my hairless genitals as if they were admiring a painting hanging in the Louvre.

  “¿Lindinha, não?” said Elisa.

  “¡Dá para tirar uma foto!” answered Ritinha.

  I was starting to feel really, really uncomfortable when Ritinha grabbed my hand and, with the casual tone that only years of waxing thousands of vaginas can give you, said, “Você tem a xoxotinha mais bonita que eu já vi.”

  I don’t speak Portuguese, but Spanish is close enough for me to figure out that Elisa was congratulating me for the looks of my pussy. This unexpected vaginal tribute caught me so off guard that I must have given her a very skeptical look, so Elisa—without missing a beat—put a hand mirror between my thighs so I could admire it too.

  “It’s okay, I don’t need to see it,” I said.

  “¡Não, olha! ¡Olha só como é linda! ¡Olha!”

  She insisted and insisted, to the point where I finally had to give up. Leaning on my elbows, I looked down between my knees, and I saw it.

  It’s hard to talk about your own vagina—and I don’t know enough about other vaginas to be able to compare mine with anybody’-s—but I do have to admit that it looked kind of pretty. It looked like a smile—like a fresh, pink, vertical smile. I spent a few seconds staring at it, its clean lines and lovely proportions, before realizing that it was the first time I had looked at my own genitals. Thanks to the insistence of my Brazilian waxers, I was finally reconnecting with an old friend.

  As I walked out I left a twenty-dollar tip for Elisa, but I wondered if the vaginal homage was just an act they performed for every customer in order to get a good tip. Later, I decided to dismiss that idea. As far as I could tell, an independent committee had determined that my pussy was pretty. All I needed to do was say “thanks” and walk through life proud of myself.

  The Brazilian experience inspired me to go on a fast but effective shopping spree. Afterwards, I walked out of the store a few hundred dollars poorer, but rich with confidence that my closet was finally catching up with me.

  It wasn’t until I got home later that it dawned on me that waxing everything, as Madame requested, surely meant exposing everything to tonight’s customer, and that’s when I started to panic. I immediately picked up my red cell phone and called Madame.

  “Madame, what exactly is going to happen tonight? Is this guy going to see me naked? What does he want? I told you from day one, no sex, and you said no sex. But if I had to wax everything for him, that means?—”

  “Honey, relax, this guy is just a tease!” she said, trying to interrupt my hissy fit.

  “But is he going to see me naked?”

  “He’s going to give you a massage. Have you ever got a massage before?”

  “Yes, many times.”

  “And what were you wearing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Point made,” Madame said, ready to hang up the phone.

  “Wait!” I pleaded. “What do I do if he tries to have sex with me?”

  “If he asks for sex twenty times, you say no twenty times, even if you want to say yes.”

  “What?” I replied, offended. “I would never say yes. It’s one thing to have sex with a man that I’m dating, but I’m not a hooker. I would never even think of having sex with one of your clients.”

  “Wait till you meet him.”

  And with those prophetic words she left me. According to her, she had somebody else waiting on the other line, but I suspect that it was just an excuse to stop my whining.

  I checked myself one last time in the mirror before I left the apartment. I was wearing one of my new outfits: a black low-cut dress with a soft gray suede coat fitted at the waist. It looked sexy and classic at the same time. I accessorized it with these cool earrings that I found in a vintage shop in the Village. They consist of a long, thin gold chain, with a little puff of mink that hangs at the very end. Finally, I added my virginity pendant to protect me from the unknown, and rushed downstairs, where Alberto was already waiting for me.

  The appointment was just a few blocks away from my apartment, but he insisted on driving and, naturally, waiting for me outside. He drove down Seventh Avenue, blasting a merengue-mix CD on the stereo while I took deep breaths on the backseat, trying to convince myself that I was seasoned enough to handle any challenge in my new profession.

  I’m a girl of the twenty-first century, I told myself. I went to a nude beach in the Bahamas once. I took my top off in Ibiza every single day for a whole week. I’ve been to the doctor countless times. I can be naked in front of a stranger without freaking out.

  Alberto looked at me through the rearview mirror and offered me his usual line of support. “If you need me, I’ll be outside waiting for your call.”

  “Thanks.” I exhaled one more time before stepping out of the car.

  I climbed up the front steps of a brownstone in the West Village, situated in a block where Gwyneth Paltrow was rumored once to have a house. It wasn’t a cheap block, that much I can tell you.

  I rang, and Richard Weber opened the door.

  “Wooooooow,” he said as he shamelessly stared at me up and down. That’s when I said to myself: “Houston, we have a problem.”

  Richard Weber was hot. Super-freaking-hot. He looked a lot like a famous actor, like one of the Wilson brothers—the blond one to be precise. Blue eyes, thick lips, pretty face, and a dangerously sexy body. This is the kind of guy that should charge me for a date. I thought about Madame’s warning: “This guy is a tease, so please control yourself.” If that was the case, he had a lot to tease me with.

  He welcomed me with a smile that spoke volumes about his sexual drive. I must have been his type, because he was clearly thrilled to see me.

  “Helloooo!” he said, stretching his vowels. “I’m Reeeeechard.”

  “Hello, my name is B.”

  Richard’s brownstone was sparsely decorated with impeccable metrosexual taste. It was a gorgeous house, but it had that impersonal feeling of a home where nobody lives: too clean, too organized, too—I don’t know—too perfect. Just like him. H
e looked good, smelled good, but there was something about him that sent a chill down my spine. I just didn’t know what it was quite yet.

  “Thank you for coming, B. I’m taking a course on massage therapy—you know, to make ends meet…”

  To make ends meet? What a pile of crap. His brownstone alone was worth about eight million dollars, and every single chair in that house had a last name. He had original furniture by Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, the Eameses—you name it, he had it.

  “…so it’s really great to have someone to practice the strokes with.” He finished with his lie and then smiled at me. When he smiled, he looked straight into my eyes for that extra second, which in the international language of seduction means, “I’m so shagging you if you let me.”

  “I have a massage table down in the basement. Why don’t you follow me?” he said, giving me a quick wink and another smile. Sexy bastard.

  Richard was like one of those Italian sausages that they sell in the street fairs—I always want to eat them, but I know that if I do I’ll regret it. Nevertheless, there was something to my advantage: he was a customer, and that was a boundary. I wasn’t there to do what I wanted, I was there to play his game, and according to Madame, his game was to tease me, and my job was to say no. That’s what I was getting paid for. So, following my intuition—and Madame’s instructions—I secretly vowed celibacy.

  Clutching my cell phone and overcoming a mild phobia for basements, which started after I saw Silence of the Lambs, I followed him downstairs, where a big surprise was waiting for me: a sex chamber.

  “What do you think of this room? I designed it myself,” he said proudly as he gave me a tour through his dungeon.

  Despite how it sounds, his sex chamber wasn’t creepy at all. Like everything else in the house, it looked like something that Phillippe Starck would have carefully designed for an airline. It was a dungeon, but the dungeon of a spaceship. It was all covered in black tiles, and it had concealed closets behind the walls that hid anything from a stereo and a plasma TV, to a vast collection of sex toys. The centerpiece was a stretcher covered with a red latex sheet.