“I couldn’t agree more,” Marina said. “Life would be so much simpler if people were more honest about their needs.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still not getting any,” Peta asked.
Marina laughed. “Is it that obvious?”
“Yes,” Lizzie said, closely following behind Peta. “I’m working on getting her out of her shell.”
“If anyone can do it, it will be you, Lizzie,” Peta said.
She turned to James. “Honey, I’ve seen you here several times, but I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you.” Peta had a way of purring out the letter p in pleasure so that her lips pursed to form a kiss.
James stood with his mouth open catching insects as if he couldn’t quite believe Peta was real. “James Worth,” he said at last. He offered his hand to shake but Peta raised it to her lips and kissed it.
“Aren’t you the gorgeous one. Absolutely good enough to eat.”
“We haven’t waxed him yet,” Lizzie said, shooting an impish glance at James.
James’s eyes opened so wide, Marina could see the whites.
“I guess we could do a double session, see who copes the best,” Lizzie said, trying to keep a straight face.
“Only hurts the first time, honey,” Peta joined in with a giggle. “You have to push through the pain barrier. After that, the pain becomes pleasure,” she purred.
James blanched. “I’m out of here.”
Marina watched him retreat down the hall to his bedroom and close the door.
“You girls are wicked,” Peta said, “teasing that nice man like that. Mind you, he doesn’t look like he’s getting any either.” Peta sashayed into Lizzie’s bedroom and started taking off her clothes. With most clients the girls usually left the room, but Peta insisted that as an exotic dancer she was used to taking off her clothes in front of people, so they might as well stay.
“We’re a celibate household,” Marina said, rolling her eyes.
“So you won’t be setting Sydney on fire this Saturday night?” Peta said. She always asked what they were doing over the weekend because she enjoyed hearing what happened in the ‘straight’ world as she called it.
“’fraid not,” Lizzie said.
“And what about that hunk of a man?” Peta asked, her eyes gleaming with sexual interest. “Doesn’t he get tired of two girly roommates and want to spend some time with the boys?” Peta often asked what James was up to on the weekend and Lizzie was convinced she had a crush.
“Nothing going down for him either,” Lizzie said.
“Or no one.” Peta giggled. “Such a waste.”
“Let’s get started,” Marina said, and clicked on the CD player. Elvis’s upbeat music played softly in the background. She was rewarded with a nod from Peta whose grandmother had left her the complete Elvis collection when she’d passed away. Sometimes it took only a small thing to make a client happy and Peta, who always talked about her troubled love life while they waxed her, coped better when she listened to Elvis. She took a small spatula to do Peta’s eyebrows and loaded it with wax and started working to give Peta the perfect brow line.
“James likes our company,” Lizzie said. “We love him too.”
“I can see that,” Peta said, shooting Marina a perceptive glance as she lay on the massage bed. “He’s delectable. Don’t you think so, Marina?”
Marina shifted uncomfortably on her feet. Peta didn’t miss much. She gave a noncommittal grunt.
“James teases me about my boyfriends,” Lizzie continued, missing Peta’s knowing look, “so I tease him back.” She smoothed wax on Peta’s legs, placed a linen strip on the wax, and pulled hard.
Peta seemed oblivious to the pain. “What I don’t understand is what is a handsome honey like that doing single? In my world he’d be snapped up in a moment.”
“James’s gone off dating at the moment. One of his online dates didn’t go so well,” Marina said. She took some tweezers to Peta’s eyebrows to pull out the last resistant hairs. She didn’t mention the police visit, or the fact that the police had also gone to see his employer for a character reference. James was furious at the thought he could be a suspect and had sworn off online dating.
“Now that’s a shame,” Peta continued. “Fancy having to use a computer to find a date. I never heard of anything more ridiculous. Can’t stand computers myself. He should get into the real world to meet someone. A man with a mouth like that would know just how to give pleasure.” Peta opened her eyes wide and looked straight into Marina’s. “If you know what I mean.”
She blinked. Peta’s gaze was hypnotic. Her gray eyes were like swirling clouds and she was being drawn into them. In Peta’s eyes she could see a shape forming. A person. A man. You know me, don’t you? Her throat clogged as fear clutched her. What was happening? The man was back, taunting her, reaching out to her. But she didn’t know him. She didn’t!
“Marina. Marina!”
Marina’s head snapped up to see Lizzie motioning to her to get on with the job. She couldn’t say how long she had been staring into Peta’s eyes. Shivering, Marina rubbed her hands to warm herself. This was madness. It had to be.
“If you’ve finished Peta’s eyebrows, do you want to start on her underarms?” Lizzie tilted her head and looked at her.
Marina could see concern in her eyes. She rarely told Marina what to do because she knew how experienced Marina was.
“Yes, of course.” Muddle-headed and weary, she took a larger spatula and started smearing wax on Peta’s underarm. Peta had closed her eyes and was quietly singing along to Elvis, her mouth occasionally twisting as the girls did their work.
Marina put the linen strip over the setting wax on Peta’s underarm, waited a moment and pulled hard, repeating the process several times until she had a clean result. Peta could be picky about any remaining hairs so she always went over her with tweezers.
While she tried to concentrate on each underarm, her mind was in a frenzy. Why had the image of the man who had appeared in the scrying bowl returned? Trying to understand was like struggling in deep water because she was totally out of her depth. She shivered again as tiny hairs on her forearms raised like on a terrified animal. Something bad was going to happen and the image of the man had something to do with it. But she didn’t know him.
She ran her fingers along Peta’s jaw feeling the fine hairs under her fingers, her thoughts running higgledy-piggledy. Why was it that, with the clients she bonded with, she sensed danger? Was Peta in trouble?
She waxed Peta’s jaw noting that she had less facial hair each week she visited, due to her regular hormone shots. She stopped and stared at her. Peta’s beauty moved her because Peta’s face had a delicate fragility. The thought struck her that Peta could easily be mistaken for a woman.
Lizzie moved up beside her, gave her a gentle nudge with her elbow and started waxing Peta’s chest. “You okay?” she whispered.
Marina nodded.
Peta, perhaps sensing something was wrong, opened her eyes and looked at Marina.
“So I guess we’ll never see you on online dating, Peta?” Lizzie asked, engaging the client.
Peta stopped singing along to Elvis. “No, honey, not me. I’m a ‘shim’. That makes me in high demand already.”
“I knew you’d be very popular. Sydney has the second highest gay population in the world. If you went online, you’d be answering emails night and day like one of Marina’s clients,” Lizzie said with a giggle. “Tell Peta about your client who tried out different online dating looks.”
Marina related the story trying to keep her voice light. Her back ached and she wanted to lie down. Instead, she managed a professional smile.
“No, girls. You won’t see me online dating. I’m a computer-phobe. I’m not interested in staring at faces on a screen. As it is, I have men come on to me every night when I’m dancing at the Cross.”
Marina shivered. “I hope you’re careful. I wouldn’t like anything bad to happ
en to you.” Occasionally when she waxed Peta, she saw bruises on her arms and legs, but she never asked about them.
Peta gave her a sweet smile. “Don’t worry, honey. I don’t go home with them. Others think people like me are promiscuous, but it isn’t true. Inside, I’m a woman born in the wrong body and I want a man who loves me, not some guy who is going to use me for his own perverted needs.”
“Hey, that’s what I want,” Lizzie said as she worked her way up Peta’s thighs. “You’ve got a few ingrown hairs. Do you exfoliate?”
“Sure I do. I want to look perfect. There’s one man in the audience who comes to every show I do. He has short, dark hair and wears Italian suits. He’s always impeccably dressed. Too stylish for the Cross.” Peta sighed. “I want a man like that to love me. I think about him all the time and I don’t even know his name.”
Marina’s hands started trembling; she flexed her fingers trying to control it. Tucking her curls behind her ear, she forced herself to concentrate on the underside of Peta’s chin. Of all her clients, Peta seemed the most vulnerable. Despite her skillfully applied make-up, the skin was blue under her eyes as if she hadn’t been sleeping.
“Funny how we all want the same thing,” Lizzie said wistfully. “I mean, Fabio says he loves me, but you should have heard the stuff he called me in bed. Whore. Slut. It was horrible.”
“That’s a man with problems, honey. You stay away from him. Some men just pretend to love women, but inside, they hate them.”
Marina noticed the change in Peta’s voice. It was harder. Cold.
“Do you like women, Peta?” she asked.
Peta stared at her. Her eyes narrowed. “I hate that bitch of a boss you work for.”
Marina’s eyebrows shot up. The venom in Peta’s voice surprised her. “Why do you hate Natalia?”
“She accused me of something I didn’t do. Said I was stealing the nail polish. I was only sampling them. I wish her and her business all the worst luck in the world. She’s nothing but Euro trash with cheek implants.”
“Peta! She’s our boss. We like her,” Lizzie said. “And her cheeks are real.”
“She’s always been nice to me,” Marina added. “She’s pregnant now.”
“What? You mean she managed to catch some poor shmuck?” Peta rolled her perfectly made-up eyes in disgust.
“Poor is the right word,” Lizzie said.
Marina knew Lizzie was talking about Michael, who she didn’t like because he’d spoken to her once when she was late for work.
“Her husband is as rough as guts,” Lizzie added. “You should see how he dresses. Stomps around the salon wearing boots and shorts. What a loser. He looks like a brickie’s labourer.”
Gosh, this was turning into a bitch session, thought Marina. “It’s not Michael’s fault that he’s from a poor background, Lizzie. He’s a hard worker. There are plenty of guys like him back home.”
“Pah! He doesn’t bring any money in.” Lizzie shrugged. “Why doesn’t he go out into the real world and get a job instead of doing up the salon? We’re working all day to fund that.”
“He’s improving Natalia’s business,” Marina said. Lizzie could be so unreasonable when she took a dislike to someone. “He’s doing exactly what Natalia wants him to.”
“Ha! Natalia got herself a bludger then?” Peta asked.
“Lives off her,” Lizzie said.
“Hope the whole thing goes bust. Serve that Euro trash right.”
“Don’t say that, Peta,” Lizzie said. “We’ll lose our jobs if the business goes bad.”
“Anyway, it’s bad Karma,” Marina added, who didn’t like saying nasty things about other people. “It will come back on you too.”
“Sorry, girls.” But Peta didn’t look sorry. Instead her mouth had a petulant look. “Since we’re on the subject, I hate my mother too,” she added.
Peta’s jaw tensed under Marina’s fingertips. Marina looked at Peta concerned. Raw anger and pain shot up through her fingertips exploding in her brain.
She snatched her hands away from Peta, confused at her ability to feel Peta’s emotions. A pulse began to beat in her temple, the first sign of a migraine. The ends of her fingers tingled with energy.
“You finished?” Lizzie asked her. She gave Marina a look.
Marina felt cold. Too cold. “Y-yes.”
“Some mothers hate their sons too. Mine only wanted daughters. She made me wear dresses from the day I was born. Now she complains that I wear them all the time.”
Standing close to Peta, Marina could feel the anger emanating off her. She looked at Lizzie, but Lizzie didn’t seem to have noticed the change in Peta’s mood when she talked about her mother. Instead her forehead was creased in the tight little frown she got when she was concerned with her own problems.
“I don’t know what kind of relationship Fabio has with his mother. He never mentions her,” Lizzie said, twiddling her nose ring thoughtfully. She took up a pair of tweezers and plucked a few errant hairs from Peta’s nipples. “You’ve got fantastic breasts, Peta. Who did them for you?”
Peta relaxed and chuckled. “My last boyfriend paid a fortune for these beauties. Cost him ten grand. I wanted to do the full op for that man. Cut the whole thing off.”
Marina glanced at Lizzie who was staring at the bulge in Peta’s G-string, tweezers poised. “But aren’t you rather attached to your penis?” Lizzie asked.
“Lizzie!” Marina bit her lip hoping Peta wouldn’t mind Lizzie’s nosy question. Her head started to throb.
“Honey, all I ever wanted to be was a woman. You don’t know how lucky you are to have that perfect little body. Promise me you won’t change it for a man who doesn’t appreciate you.”
Lizzie smiled and for the first time in days, Marina saw her smile reach her eyes. Peta had a way of making a person feel good.
“I’ll think about it,” Lizzie said.
“Good,” Marina said, shooting a thankful glance at Peta. “You tell her, Peta. She won’t listen to me.”
She moved down to Peta’s thighs. “Time for the Brazilian. Can you move your bits to the left for us, Peta?” Marina asked. “Pull your thong over tight and keep your hand on your bits for traction. The tighter the skin, the less the pain. That’s it.” Marina tucked a tissue under her thong and dusted down the area with powder, relieved that Peta never became too erect like other male clients she had done. She worked with fine strips, which Lizzie applied, while she waxed to make the process faster.
Peta’s legs jerked as Marina worked over her pubic region, particularly as she waxed the delicate testicle area, but her facial expression didn’t change. Her eyes were closed as she sang along to the Elvis CD. Marina began to relax, no longer feeling Peta’s anger. So she had issues with her mother. So what? Most people did. Though her head ached, her vision was fine and Marina sucked in a sigh of relief. Perhaps she wasn’t going to get the threatened migraine after all.
“Open your legs Peta, one knee up, so I can get in between,” Lizzie said, moving the G-string aside. Lizzie applied the wax to the area under Peta’s testicles.
Marina tested it with her fingers, peeled back the edge and ripped. A scream, sharp and shrill, hit her ears, making her head jerk back. She stared at Peta. “Are you okay?”
Peta opened her eyes. “Sure, honey. Keep going.”
“But you screamed,” Marina said. “I thought I hurt you.”
“I didn’t scream, honey. You’re very gentle. Hardly hurts at all now.”
“Marina.” Lizzie gave her a friendly nudge. “Get on with it. Peta’s fine.”
“But Peta screamed. I know she did. I heard it.” Her voice rose in agitation.
“She didn’t.” Lizzie gave her another nudge with her elbow. “Come on, Marina,” she urged. “Finish the job.”
Both Peta and Lizzie stared at her.
A sickening feeling settled into the pit of Marina’s stomach. She’d heard a scream. A scream of pain. Of terror. The trouble was�
�no one else had. The last time she’d heard a scream like that, Adele had been murdered.
Chapter 8
Marina was certain she was being watched, yet the notion was ridiculous because she was in her cubicle on Saturday evening alone. Nevertheless, she worked faster to finish tidying her cubicle so that it would be fresh for Monday. From her window she could see the neon street signs springing to life. Soon Darlinghurst would be teeming with Saturday nightlife and music would be beating out of the bars, yet the salon was eerily quiet. She was restless and couldn’t shake the edgy feeling that something bad was going to happen.
She walked over to the doorway and peered out, but the landing was empty. Downstairs she heard the reception phone ring and someone answer it.
She sighed. “Get a life, Marina.” Glancing at her watch, she saw it was almost six o’clock and James and Lizzie would be waiting for her, probably fighting over which pizzas to order.
She didn’t normally work Saturdays and had done this one as a favor to her manager, Natalia, who did the waxing on Saturdays. However, Natalia, having recently announced her longed-for pregnancy, was already feeling the effects of morning sickness.
Footsteps on the bottom of the stairs signaled the presence of Natalia’s husband, Michael. His work-boots made a sliding, clumping sound. “Are you ready to go, Marina?” he called.
“Yes, I’m done.”
“Good. I don’t want to overwork my best waxer.”
She gave him a grin as she walked down the stairs. She knew Natalia was pleased with her work, but she rarely talked to Michael, who didn’t do much of the day-to-day running of the business.
“The renovations are looking good.” She nodded as she joined him in the foyer. Michael had also put up gilt mirrors on the landing wall and in the cubicles.
“Looks classy now,” Michael said. “Suits Natalia.” He crossed his muscular arms in front of himself and surveyed the freshly painted salon. He beamed with pride.
Marina couldn’t help beaming back at him. Wouldn’t she just love it if she had a husband who adored her like Michael adored Natalia? She was all class to his brawn, but they were terrific together.
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