“I got an abort-mission text message about an hour later.” Jana slid off the kitchen stool and wiped the grease off her hands with a paper towel. “I don’t know, maybe she panicked or something. I never got to talk to her. I’m guessing she got past whatever it was that spooked her into wanting to leave.”
Grady let that information settle as he finished his last slice and washed it down with the last of his beer. He didn’t like the idea of Lucy being stuck somewhere she didn’t want to be. But maybe it was for the best. Some things she had to figure out for herself. He could only hope that realizing this was all a phenomenal waste of time was one of them. “Wonder what happened,” he said, after promising himself he wouldn’t.
Jana grinned. “I’m guessing she’s past the welcome stage and into the plucking stage. And we both know Lucy’s not big on pain management.”
Grady flinched in automatic sympathy. The idea of having any body hair removed in any manner other than shaving . . .
Jana just laughed. “God, you two are such a pair.”
Grady made big business of cleaning up the empty pizza carton and tossing the empty cans in the recycling bin. Yeah, he thought, we’re a pair, all right. He just hoped that status remained quo.
Ouch! Shit! Christ!” Lucy all but came off the padded table entirely as the swatch of linen was ripped quite rudely, not to mention abruptly, from her skin. Her very tender skin. The kind of tender skin, she was now quite certain, that was never meant to be abused in this fashion. When she finally blinked away the tears that had sprung instantly to her eyes, she glared at the woman seated at the base of the table.
The woman, whom Lucy had already christened Sadistic Susie and her Wonder Wax of Death, smiled blandly in return. “Relax. You must relax. It will go much easier.”
“‘Relax’?” She didn’t exactly screech the word, but only because her throat had closed over when Sadistic Sue had lifted another glob. “Are you on crack?” Fighting not to hyperventilate, Lucy immediately craned her head around until she found Vivian, who, true to her pledge, had not left her side since she’d entered this torture chamber. “Is this part really necess— Holy Mother of God!” She jerked her thigh away from Susie, who was currently slathering very hot wax on parts of her anatomy that had never been exposed to sunlight, much less a tongue depressor coated in molten lava. “When you said I could have baby-smooth skin, I was thinking more along the lines of softening the skin on my face.”
With a knowing, if not entirely soothing smile, Vivian stepped over and gently pushed her back down on the table. “I know this is difficult the first time. But I assure you, you’ll thank me later.”
And if I don’t? Lucy grumbled silently. “I find it hard to believe that women actually put themselves through this willingly. OW!” She yelped as another strip of wax-coated fabric was stripped from her skin, snatching yet another patch of her privates bald. She covered herself with her hands and glared at Sue yet again, all but daring her to even think about putting hot wax on her skin. “Wait a minute, okay?” She glanced up at Vivian, tears pricking her eyes again. “You know, I don’t have a high threshold for this kind of thing. Actually, I don’t have any threshold. I’m a total wuss with pain. And I don’t really feel the need to overcome that particular fault.” Her neck developed a crick and her glasses were sliding down her nose, but one glance at Sue and her Tongue Depressor of Torture, and she kept her hands right where they were. She shot a hopeful look back at Vivian, tried for a winning smile, but missed it when her lips trembled. “I mean, don’t they make products that just dissolve the hair now? Couldn’t we just do that?”
“It’s not the same thing,” Vivian informed her kindly. “This does a far better job and lasts much longer. Besides, you’re half done. You can’t stop now.”
Lucy removed her hands and hiked herself up on her elbows. Her glasses slid almost completely off, and when she went to push them back up, she almost rolled off the table, and would have if Vivian and Sue hadn’t grabbed an arm and a leg respectively. Blushing sheepishly, she angled herself up, then craned her neck and looked . . . down there. Sue helpfully held up a small hand mirror. Lucy gasped and her eyes went wide. “Wow.”
Vivian’s smile widened. “Exactly, darling.” She stroked Lucy’s hair and settled her back down on the padded table. “The first time is always the worst. It will get easier each time you do it.”
Lucy hated to break it to Vivian, but baby smooth or not, even with a gun pointed to her head, she was never going to do this again. “I still don’t see the benefit. I mean, not when contrasted with the pain,” she added, not wanting Vivian to think her ungrateful for the change. “It’s not like it even matters. I wear a bathing suit a maximum of, like, five days out of a whole year. And that’s just with Jana when we do our girls weekend in Rehoboth. And I’m not even going this year because I came here instead.” She heard Jana’s I-told-you-sos echo clearly through her mind.
“I’m not concerned with making you presentable for bathing-suit season, darling. Think of it this way: one of the benefits of this is rather like that of making sure your man has a really close shave.”
Lucy craned her neck again, hissing in a breath as more hot wax met more fragile virgin skin. Virgin in more ways than one, it seemed. “Huh?”
“Razor burn. Men don’t like it any more than we women do.”
It was probably the haze of pain she was currently enveloped in, more than the fact that she was out of step with the specifics of giving and receiving sexual pleasure. At least, that’s what she told herself. Just because the opportunity hadn’t presented itself lately—okay, ever!—didn’t mean she was naïve to such things. She read Cosmo.
“Can I just go on record as saying that, while I appreciate doing what I can to ensure my partner’s pleasure,” Lucy paused long enough to send what she hoped was a feral scowl in the direction of Sadistic Sue as she began fingering yet another cloth strip, “I honestly don’t think this makes even the top-ten list of things I’m most concerned with at the moment. Or the top twenty, for that matter. Shouldn’t we be focusing on the more . . . obvious? SHIT!” Through watery eyes, she propped herself up on her elbows and glared at the tiny blonde woman seated at the other end of the table. “You enjoy this, don’t you?”
The Glass Slipper skin-care tech glanced nervously at Vivian, who smiled and merely made a small motion for her to ignore Lucy’s outburst.
“Vivian, come on,” Lucy pleaded. “Is it really that important? It’s not like anyone’s even going to know.”
“Have faith, darling,” she admonished. “Besides, most important in this is the fact that you’ll know.” A rather wicked smile curved Vivian’s perfectly painted lips. “Trust me, I can always tell when a woman has had a Brazilian. She carries herself completely differently.”
“Yeah. Bowlegged from permanent scarring.”
Vivian laughed. “You’ll see what I mean when this is all done.”
Lucy grumbled but lay down again. “I just don’t see why we couldn’t have started on something a little easier and more obvious, like my eyebrows.”
“We’ll get to that. But we haven’t much time here. I thought it best to start right off with something that would alter your very state of being.”
“Plucking me bald will do that?”
“Darling, nicely shaped eyebrows are important, but when you’re walking down the street, you don’t feel them, so you don’t really feel the difference. You know they’re there, but it’s a rather detached appreciation. With this, every single step you take, you will feel differently about yourself, about your body. You’ll feel voluptuous, sensual. Ripe.”
Considering the pain radiating from every single violated pore, it was more than a little disconcerting to feel a sort of stirring sensation. Down there. Vivian spoke with the kind of conviction that only a woman who’s walked the same path could possibly have. Lucy tilted her head back. “‘Ripe,’ huh?”
Vivian’s smile widened furthe
r, but her thoughts had seemed to turn inward as she took a deep, appreciative breath that threatened to strain her well-strapped-in bosom. “You’ll see.”
Lucy was still contemplating Vivian’s promised rewards when the sadist patted her on the knee and announced, “It is done. In a few days, when you have sufficient growth, we’ll do your legs.”
“Oh, goody,” Lucy muttered.
“I’m going to step out and take care of some other business,” Vivian told her. “Sue, you can handle things from here.”
“Wait—” Lucy said, lifting her head, but Vivian had already left. Lucy looked warily back at Sue, wishing now she’d been a little nicer to her. “Listen, if you’ll just let me leave now, I swear I won’t say a word. You can get some time off, and I can go have a nice soak in the tub. In my room.” Alone. This had all been a shock to her system in more ways than one.
Sue gave her the standard Glass Slipper Stepford smile. “You’ve made it through the hard part. Now comes the nice part. Close your eyes. Lie back. Relax. No more pain. I promise.”
Lucy stared at her for another moment longer, trying to deduce Sue’s exact intent. After all, she was lying on a padded table, naked except for the folded sheet draped discreetly across her torso. Up until right now, she’d felt more like an assembly-line part than a woman. But something about the way Sue was smiling at her had her wondering. “What exactly does come next?”
“Close your eyes. I’m going to dim the lights down now.”
Lucy complied, but her eyes flew back open on that last part. “Excuse me?”
Sue’s smile might have become a tad more pronounced, but she maintained the Glass Slipper status quo and managed not to laugh directly at Lucy’s less-than-worldly reaction. “It’s okay,” she assured her. “I’m just going to make the pain go away. I promise. Now close your eyes.”
Still wary, Lucy closed her eyes, but secretly she tensed her muscles, ready to leap off the table like a well-oiled spring if Sue so much as breathed on her in a way that could be even loosely interpreted as sexual. Okay, who was she kidding. “Well-oiled spring” was probably overstating her abilities. She’d likely drag the table over, splattering hot wax all over the walls and floor, before tripping over the neat stack of towels and linens on the low side table, landing in a sticky heap somewhere over by the door.
Besides, when you thought about it, Sue had already performed acts on her that were all kinds of socially unacceptable.
Exhausted by the whole process, both mentally and physically, she just let it go. What the hell. Pleasure was pleasure, right? Considering her love life of late, she could hardly afford to discriminate. Who knows, maybe she’d even learn something new.
The light through her eyelids dimmed. And the soft sounds of running water, like a fountain or a waterfall, filled the room. A moment later she was gasping in absolute pleasure. “God, that feels amazing.”
“Just lie still,” Sue said softly, perhaps the barest hint of smugness in her tone.
That was totally okay. Lucy didn’t mind. The wet, warm, and very soft towel she’d just had draped between her legs felt so good against her freshly abused skin that she didn’t care if Sue stripped naked and danced around the room like some kind of a forest sprite. Ripe and sensual, huh? Yeah, baby!
“Now we work on smoothing the rest of your skin.”
Lucy managed enough alarm, despite the languor swiftly spreading through her body, to crack one eye open. “Beg pardon?”
Sue moved behind her head. “Full massage. Then facial. Manicure and pedicure come next.”
Lucy sighed and let herself completely relax for the first time. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.” Jana and Grady, eat your heart out.
Do you feel this is necessary, Vivi?” Aurora slid off her tiny, gold-framed bifocals and let them dangle from the long beaded chain around her neck. One of many. She put down the folder of papers she’d been studying and gave her partner her full attention. “It’s not standard protocol.”
“Says the woman who sat in for Phoebe’s initial interview.” Vivian waved off Aurora’s defense, causing the lamp lighting to bounce off the multiple gemstones adorning her hands. “Since when do we place store by standard protocol? We didn’t get where we are today by not following our instincts. That’s all I’m doing.” Under Aurora’s studied gaze, Vivian examined her nails, noticing that the diamond in her right pinky was situated slightly lower than the one in her left. “Consider it my pet project.”
Mercedes signed several documents, then sighed as she closed another file and handed it off to Aurora. “Vivian, we’re in the middle of negotiations with a new distributor for the magazine, and we have yet to firm up our somewhat extensive travel plans for our overseas trip. It’s one thing for Aurora to step in and help out in a staffing emergency, quite another to take on a client’s entire program.”
“I don’t believe I’ve dropped the ball anywhere, Mercy,” Vivian said, rising to her own defense now. “Are you intimating otherwise?”
If Mercedes was surprised by the edge to Vivian’s tone, she didn’t comment. Which was just as well, because it wasn’t until she’d had to defend her position on this that Vivian truly realized how important working with Lucy had become to her.
“I’m merely saying that this is why we hire the best personnel,” Mercedes went on. “Certainly we have the appropriate staff to handle this particular client.”
“Yes, of course we do. I simply happen to feel Lucy will benefit more from some direct attention.”
“Honestly, Vivian, must you complicate matters by—” Mercedes broke off, massaged the bridge of her nose. “What am I saying, of course you must. It’s like a disease with you.”
Vivian’s smile didn’t so much as waver. “Much like micromanaging is an addiction for you, Mercy darling.”
Never one to tolerate the least hint of tension, Aurora’s hands fluttered as she shushed them both. “Come now, surely we can all discuss business without being snarky.”
Vivian raised an eyebrow in Aurora’s direction. “Watching Saturday Night Live again, are we?”
She merely sniffed. “MTV. One must remain current. And don’t tell me you weren’t glued to the set watching that nice young man, what was his name? Bad Mo Z? Z Dog? I can’t keep them straight.”
“Being the rap afficionado that you are and all,” Vivian murmured, ignoring Mercedes when she motioned her quiet.
“I happen to like music with a distinctive bass line,” Aurora said. “I don’t quite understand the fashion statement they’re making by allowing their briefs to show above the waistband of their trousers, however.” Her brow crinkled. “And perhaps they are a little heavy-handed with the jewelry, but—”
“Bling-bling,” Vivian supplied.
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. Can we move on to the next order of business?”
Aurora looked nonplussed for a moment, then pointed a heavily ringed finger in her direction. “You’ve gone and distracted me from the point I was making, don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“Of course not,” Vivian deadpanned. “Nothing gets by you.”
Aurora huffed a little. Mercedes merely lifted her gaze to the ceiling.
Ever the mediator, Aurora gentled her tone. “You know I adore Lucy, too, Vivi. There is something endearing about her. We’re just concerned, Mercy and I, that this distraction will prevent you from focusing your attention on these other, more pressing matters.” She slid her glasses on again and opened the next file.
Vivian tapped the gold-tipped end of her slender cigarette holder against the arm of her chair, wishing like mad she hadn’t given up smoking. Truth was, it had been harder to give up what she’d always referred to as her “tiny little social habit” than she’d expected. And she’d die before admitting as much to these two. In addition to other things, Lucy Harper had been a welcome distraction from nicotine withdrawal.
Of course, her interest was far
more complicated than that. She’d dealt with her share of wallflowers before, but there was something about Lucy that called to her specifically. She didn’t have to dig too deep to understand what that was. Vivian hadn’t always been the maven of fashion she was today, the former dresser to the stars whose every stylish whim had become an instant trend; adopted, copied, and relentlessly covered in every major magazine during the sixties and seventies. Until the nightmare that was disco erupted, anyway. The thought of all that polyester still made her shudder.
Long before all that, she’d just been chubby little Vivian from Chelsea. Like Lucy, she’d been teased relentlessly by her classmates. Nor was “graceful” the adjective anyone ever associated with her as a child. Vivian had long since packed away the memories of her less-than-lovely youth. Then Lucy had tripped on the walkway, making the kind of embarrassing entrance only the child Vivian had been could truly appreciate, and bam!, all those memories had rushed to the surface.
But the connection went further than that. What the girl lacked in style and grace, she more than made up for with grit and determination. Vivian distinctly remembered her own stubborn refusal to cave to the greater force of peer pressure. She’d defiantly worn her beloved rhinestone-studded, bright blue cat’s eye glasses to school every single day, even knowing it would earn her nothing more than being ostracized and ridiculed by every table in the lunchroom.
Whereas Lucy had been teased for her gawky, gangly height, Vivian had been a short, stout fireplug of a girl, with an unfortunately pronounced Roman nose and as questionable a taste in fashion as she’d had in eyewear. But though she’d cried buckets of tears in private, in public she’d refused to let the bastards see how much their torment hurt. In the end, with gritted perseverance, a lot of hard work, and a little luck (and the help of a lovely plastic surgeon in Tribeca), she’d shown them all, hadn’t she?
Sleeping with Beauty Page 10
