The Man Cave Collection: Manservant, Man Flu, Man Handler, and Man Buns

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “Why are you so invested in me getting nailed by Logan?”

  Her car lights flash in front of us as she unlocks the door. Failing to offer a reply to my question, she scurries through the snow in her heels, while trying to skip between the snowflakes so her hair doesn’t get wet. I make my way around her little red sports car and slip inside. I know how she feels about my mom-van, but it’s probably a hell of a lot safer in snow and ice. Thankfully, this place is just two blocks away.

  “It’s not that I’m invested in you and Batman putting the p in the v, but let’s be honest with ourselves. It’s been well over a year since you’ve had your butter churned, and Logan looks like David Beckham with salt and pepper hair. He’s hot, Hannah. These opportunities don’t just come around all the time after you’re thirty. You know that.”

  If I haven’t already gotten in trouble for molesting the temp, I wonder if I would get in trouble for slapping my assistant. “Thanks for your honesty …, and how the hell would you know what ‘opportunities’ women over thirty get?” I snap back.

  “Whoa, I’m just assuming. Geez …” she rebuts. Even though she doesn’t know how hard it really is to find a single, hot man in his thirties, it is, and it’s nice to have someone like Logan interested in me. I’m still not sure why he is, but I guess a lack of self-confidence can cause beer-goggles, or a willingness to settle for a downgrade.

  “Plus, why do you think I’m about to go through the pain of having every hair torn off my lady bits? Just for fun? No.”

  “Oh, so you have decided to go with the Hollywood glow?”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Hair or bare, duh,” she says, playfully.

  “Like, completely bare?” I question.

  “Don’t you watch porn?”

  I laugh because I think she’s kidding, but I’m quick to see she is not. “No, Brielle, I have a five-year-old, which doesn’t leave me a lot of time to watch porn.”

  “So, you don’t … you know, make yourself happy?”

  “This conversation is so not appropriate to be having with my assistant.”

  “Which means you don’t,” she says, dryly, while pulling into the spa’s parking lot.

  “Brielle, I make myself happy.”

  “With a vibe, your hand, shower hose, or another kind of household object?”

  “Please stop.” Another household object? I’d have to throw it away after. I’d rather not think about people using household products. You just never know what you’re touching in someone else’s house, I guess. I’m going to be thinking twice before I touch anyone else’s salt and pepper shakers from now on, though.

  “Ah, you’re a handy girl. There’s nothing wrong with that. You do vibe though, right?”

  I groan because I’m not answering these questions. “Do you order yours from Amazon because I’ve wondered where they came from and who has touched them before me, but I suppose I’d wonder that no matter where I buy it. I always give it a good rinse first. You do that too, right?”

  “Stop.”

  I continue pushing away the subject as she pulls into a parking spot. “Does yours have a name?”

  “Please don’t go there,” I tell her. If she can’t hear the pleading in my voice, she’s either deaf or doesn’t care.

  “Mine is Eggerman,” she says with a smile, like she’s in love with the thing.

  “What the hell? Why Eggerman?”

  “Well, it’s kind of in the shape of an egg, and I like eggplants, and men, so, it just fits, you know?”

  “That’s insane, Brielle.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s completely normal to name your vibe. One of my friends I went to college with had one named Shermanator. Honestly, that’s the best vibe name in the entire world.”

  “Shermanator? Like, from American Pie?” I laugh because that’s creative. I’ll give her that. I can’t remember the quote exactly, but I remember Sherman calling himself some kind of sex god.

  “Yes, like American Pie. So, you have one, right?”

  I open the door. “Yes, Brielle, I have one, plus some others. I’m single and lonely as hell. Give me a break, will you?”

  She steps out of the car too and meets me out front on the curb. “Okay, well you’ll feel a lot closer to whichever is your favorite if you give it a name. What color is the one you use the most?”

  I open the door to the spa and walk in, trying to brush her off my shoulder. “Good afternoon,” an older woman at the front desk greets me. “How can I help you today?”

  “She needs a Hollywood glow, stat,” Brielle speaks for me. The thought of going completely bare makes me cringe, but maybe that’s what Logan likes. He’s probably been with a lot of women. Well, before the incident. Hopefully, he didn’t catch a peek at my current situation. I think I stopped that in time.

  “Follow me,” the woman says.

  I unbutton my coat, slip it off, and hand it to Brielle. “Thanks.”

  “Enjoy!” Screw you.

  “Please take off everything from the waist down. Here is a sheet you can cover yourself with.”

  “Thank you, I’ll just be a minute,” I tell her. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a spa where a seventy-year-old woman is a waxer. She must think I’m a whore, unless this is the treatment women commonly request.

  “Oh, do you want your friend to come in and hold your hand?” the woman asks as if it’s a normal thing to do.

  “Oh, no, no, no, thank you. I’m more of a modest type of gal.”

  The woman’s eyebrows rise about a half inch. “Modest, huh? Well, you won’t want to be very modest when I’m through with you.” She winks. She just winked at me. Oh God, she winked, and she’s about to strip me clean. What the hell! “My name is Mary, in case you need anything.” She offers me a cute, wrinkly smile before leaving me alone in this quaint, relaxing room with soothing music before I’m massacred. The irony.

  I take off my pants and panties and pile them up on the stool in the corner of the room. Oh, this is just lovely. It’s like I’m at the OB, but this is going to be way worse, I suspect.

  I climb up on the table and wrap the thin sheet around my bottom half. “I’m ready, Mary,” I shout.

  I hear Brielle laughing hysterically in the hall, and it stresses me out. I just want to get this over with, and she’s out there chatting this woman up. This is why I wanted to come alone.

  Mary re-enters the room and takes a pair of knitting-circle-like eyeglasses off the prepping counter and slides them on. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and I need to see what I’m doing. Don’t want to wax the wrong part off!” she says with a hoarse laugh.

  She finds that funny? “Wait.” I push up on my elbows. “Is that possible? Can fragile parts be torn off?” Like Logan’s ball. I guess it wasn’t torn off, but things are delicate down there. “Is there any danger to this?”

  “Oh, no, dear. That’s just a little esthetician humor.” Fabulous. How nice to be in the company of an old, funny pube-snatcher.

  I lay back down and hear her gloves snap into place. “I’ll be quick, honey. Don’t worry.”

  “Thank you.” But I am worried.

  The hot wax is spread in a thick coat down one side of my lady bits, and I close my eyes in preparation for the next steps. The cloth adheres with the assistance of the lady’s palm, which is so weird. There’s an old lady’s hand on my crotch. I’m going to be traumatized when I leave here. “Your friend told me to remind you about figuring out a name for your vibrator. I think it will be a great distraction,” she says.

  I’m going to kill Brielle.

  The first rip comes, and I feel the need to scream a line of obscenities at old lady Mary, but I bite my lip instead.

  The next layer is applied, and I do what she suggested and begin the consideration of vibrator names. The cloth is on, and I’m trying to think. Think, Hannah. Think. Muffin-beater? Ow, mothertrucking ow. Ow. Camel-pole? No, that’s weird. Ummm, oh, Mr. Wiggle
s! No, no no, no. Oh, there’s wax all the way in there. “Oh my, I might need two rounds on this section, so I’m sorry in advance,” Mary says, interrupting my train of thought.

  Am I abnormal or something? Why act surprised? It’s a vagina, lady. Come on. It’s perfectly normal. That’s what you’re supposed to tell me. Maybe I should name the vibrator Norm? Norm is good. No, Norm isn’t good. Why am I even thinking about this? Why am I doing this? Holy mother of—no, that feels like it was a part of my body that should still be there.

  I’m doing this because of Logan, the Beefcake Batman. All this pain for a man. Well, if that’s the case, I might as well name my vibrator after him. Batman, it is. I’ve made a decision.

  Shittttttt.

  “This is the worst part, so just think about whatever name you’ve come up with. Ready?”

  There? She’s putting wax there? Why the hell would she be putting wax— “Mothertrucking, Batman, nooooo!”

  “I’m sorry, dear, but we’re all done now.”

  “No, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scream at you.” I am humiliated. I can’t believe I just screamed that out loud, and I’m sure Brielle heard.

  “Oh, trust me, I’ve heard far worse.”

  “Let me just clean you up really quick. You might be a little puffy for a few hours, but you should be ready to get on that saddle by night time.” I hate myself. I hate everything about this hour of my life. Why did I think this was a good idea? I feel like my vagina is on fire, and her little dabs from a wet wipe are doing nothing to soothe the burning sensation, nor did she hit every forsaken area. Whatever, I need to get the hell out of here, now.

  “You know, we do have a laser option available. It may be something you want to consider in the future.” I would probably laugh if I wasn’t trying so hard not to cry, but I don’t think I could ever lie on a bed like this again and ask for a repeat of what just happened I feel somehow violated, like the last of my remaining innocence was just stolen by Mary.

  “Thank you, I’ll take that into consideration.”

  “Take your time getting dressed, and I’ll meet you out front.”

  I sit up, and it burns. Shit, does it burn! I swing my legs off the side of the table, and it burns. I stand up, and it burns. I’m burning inside and out, my asshole too. I’m on fire. I need to sit on ice. I need to kill Brielle. If slapping doesn’t get me fired, killing her sure as hell will. Why would someone intentionally get this done more than once? Every bottle of body wax I’ve ever purchased explicitly says it should be used on the outside of the body only. Wax should not be anywhere near the inside of my body, yet there it was, all the way up there, and back there, and up and back there. I have been mutilated. When that hair grows back, I’m going to feel like I’m being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles all at one time, and God knows how many days in a row that will last.

  It hurts to lift my legs. Everything hurts so badly. I now have a name for my vibrator, but I don’t think I can get near myself with Batman, never mind Logan’s Batman. I’m going to need to tell him I have a sunken ship inside of chapped lips.

  Chapter 23

  Maybe a little ice might help … Nope. No, it won’t

  “Women do this every day, Hannah. I think you’re overreacting,” Brielle has the nerve to tell me.

  “I need ice,” I tell her.

  “The burn will be gone by the time we get back to the office. Seriously, everything is going to be okay. You’ve been waxed before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but for maintenance, not for a deep cleaning.”

  Brielle leans back into her seat and focuses on driving through the wet snow. “At least she was fast, right? We’ve hardly been gone forty-five minutes.”

  “True. If anyone asks, we were shipping a couple of boxes down to the expo, and I needed your help getting them into the mail center.”

  “Did anyone see you walk out?” she asks.

  “I doubt it.”

  Stepping out of the car and into the snow proves to be far more painful than when I left the spa, despite Brielle telling me I’d feel better by time we got back. Umm … no, Brielle. You were wrong on this one.

  “Are you feeling better?” she chirps as we cross the parking lot.

  I must be walking like I have a pole up my ass, just to ensure none of my effected parts rub against each other, so I don’t think she needs to ask me. “No, Brielle. No, I’m not feeling better.”

  “Really?”

  I choose not to respond, and I also choose not to speak to her throughout the elevator ride. I’m not blaming Brielle for what happened since I intended to get waxed, but I never would have opted for the package deal I got if it wasn’t for her.

  “Am I walking funny?” I finally speak just as we’re about to enter the office.

  “Just a little, but I’m sure no one will notice.”

  I do my best to fight the pain and scurry by Logan’s cube, in fear of him calling me in, since there’s no way I can stand right now.

  Of course, I try to sit, but um, that’s not working either. I was able get into the car seat, but sitting down in a right angle is not working. The burn has subsided, but now I feel like I’m tearing open. This can’t be normal.

  I sit sweating for more than a few minutes, kind of just waiting for the pain to go away or at least recede, but the tearing sensation continues to increase, and I don’t know what I can do for relief.

  I need to get a closer look at this situation, so I rush through the office, walking like a penguin, and make it into the—thankfully—empty bathroom. I lock the stall and drop my jeans. I just had to wear jeans today. Of course.

  I place my hands on my hips and twist as far as I can to see my back end, and now the ripping, pulling, and burning is all happening at the same moment. Are my ass cheeks glued together? That can’t happen. No. She’s a professional. She has to have a license—not that I looked, but she must, right?

  I grab each cheek and slowly try to peel them apart, but um, yeah, that’s not working. Oh, dear. Oh no. Noooo. No, no, no.

  My heart is beating in my throat, and I’m sweating through my shirt. I don’t know what I’m going to do, or what I can do, for that matter.

  I don’t have my phone, and I can’t just start screaming in here. Dammit to hell. I pull my pants back up and waddle back through the office, stopping in Brielle’s cube. “I have a situation.”

  “Are you okay?” she asks. She’s concerned this time. I can see it on her face, probably because she can see it all over mine.

  “No, I need you to be quiet when I tell you this, but my ass cheeks are waxed together, like dried and stuck. I’m a human, freaking candle without a wick, Brielle.”

  Her mouth drops open, and it looks like I may have to catch her eyeballs in a second too. “What?”

  “I’m not repeating it. You heard me,” I tell her. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Ladies, ladies, ladies,” Taylor says as he blocks the opening of Brielle’s cube, cornering us into six square feet of open space. “How is all the prep work going for the event?”

  “Great,” Brielle pipes up. “Everything is just about done. We might even be able to get out of here early today.” On the contrary, I haven’t gotten a thing done in preparation for this week. I don’t have any handouts or speaker notes prepared. I should have had this done last week, but everything has gone nuts, or nut. Nut. Why?

  “Perfect. I was meaning to tell you that there is an attending vendor for a breast pump company looking for potential ad space. His name is Keith Champ. Hannah, I’m going to need you to turn up the charm with this one. Take some time and buy him a drink or two. Maybe even share your experiences about breast-pumps.”

  I don’t know when I placed my hand on the side of my face or when I fell against the wall of the cube, but Taylor has managed to shock me yet again. He has no filter, and basically no brain. I’ve reported him to Human Resources so many times that I’m sure he has dirt on Human Resources since I�
�ve never seen him receive so much as a slap on the wrist for the crap he’s pulled. Brett has sent him home a few times for the things he’s said, yet here we are, talking breast pumps.

  “Taylor, despite knowing what my job is this week, telling me to charm a vendor and talk about my experiences with breast pumps is highly inappropriate. You do know this, right?”

  Taylor scratches the back of his head, then pushes his black-framed glasses up his nose. His glasses are prescription-free, their sole purpose to offer him an intelligent appearance. “Uh, Hannah, do I need to remind you that you spent an entire year in one of our offices pumping milk out of your breasts? Do you know how inappropriate it was to have to listen to that day after day? We didn’t even get to watch. We could only listen. Now that, that is inappropriate. So, since we’ve been through that annoyance, I think you can do the company a solid this week. Am I wrong?”

  “Yeah, man, you’re wrong.” Logan walks up from behind the cube wall I’m leaning on. “I just heard that whole thing.” Logan is visibly enraged. His face is a dark shade of red, and his top lip is slightly curled to one side. “Get the hell out of her cube before I do something far worse than what Human Resources would do.”

  I can’t lie and say I don’t love having someone stick up for me here. It’s been years of battling this crap on my own, and I’ve gotten nowhere. Last year at the expo, Taylor asked me to set up a kissing booth, along with assuring me that he and Nick would be the first in line. That same trip, I got calls at midnight with requests to visit their hotel rooms for a late-night rendezvous as if I were some paid prostitute. Each situation was reported. Each situation was ignored. No proof, no story. It’s nice.

  “Logan, don’t bother trying to explain anything to him,” I say. Can this situation get any more complicated right now? What I urgently need is to figure out how to re-split my ass cheeks apart from each other before I die of pain, but instead, I’m talking to the world’s biggest pig.

  “Aren’t you just a temp?” Taylor asks Logan. “I’m sure you have some papers to be collating somewhere else, don’t you?”