by Jessie Jones
‘Thanks!’ I chirped. God, was I keen?
Alexia was stunning. I mean take-your-breath-away, drop-dead gorgeous. She sashayed into the salon wearing an ivory two-piece suit, towering over me on legs that practically qualified as stilts. That’s one of the things she was in for: a leg wax. I looked at her and estimated it would take a year’s supply of wax to get from one end to the other.
As I gave her a manicure, I wondered if she was like a lot of our clients. That is, some rich businessman’s rich wife. ‘Do you stay here a lot?’ I asked, testing the waters with a gentle opener. I didn’t want to come over like some ditzy hairdresser who expects your complete life story in between the shampoo going on and the conditioner coming off. Hairdressers, eh? Nothing like us beauty therapists.
‘About once a week,’ she said. ‘When business brings me here.’
I raised a discreetly curious eyebrow – I was good at the discretion thing.
‘I’m in light entertainment,’ she said.
‘Television?’
‘TV, that’s right,’ she smiled.
I finished her nails and she held her hand up to the light. ‘That is an exquisite French polish,’ she purred. ‘Where have they been hiding you?’
‘Oh, I’m new,’ I said, batting my eyelashes and loving the compliment.
I was going to wax her next, before finishing with a facial.
I never got as far as the facial.
I led her through to the treatment room and left her alone to strip to her underwear. ‘Lie on the couch and put this over you,’ I said, handing her a big fluffy towel. ‘I’ll be back in a second.’
Georgina was at the reception desk, attacking the appointments book with a rubber. Cancellations, I thought. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, great. She’s lovely,’ I said.
‘Isn’t she?’ she smiled. ‘OK, busy, busy, busy. Back inside.’ She shooed me away with a bat of her hand.
In the treatment room Alexia was lying on her back, her eyes closed. The towel covered her legs and went all the way up to her boobs, which seemed to defy gravity. I wondered – discreetly of course – if they were fake. None of my business, I decided, as I got the wax ready in preparation of making those endless legs silky smooth. I folded the towel back to halfway up her thighs and took an immediate intake of breath. The woman was hairy. Not the usual girly re-growth, but thick mats of black running up her shins and over her knees. But she didn’t flinch when I started work. Waxing her was like using tiny tweezers to pull out big rusty nails and it must have been agony. Obviously she was used to it though.
After a while – far longer than it usually took – I’d restored her lower legs to gorgeous hairlessness and I folded up the towel to begin work on her thighs and bikini line …
You know, I should have seen it coming, shouldn’t I?
If I’d had to catch my breath at the sight of her shins, the sight that greeted me next made me want to scream. Not a little yelp, but a full-blooded, glass-shattering SCREEEEEEAM!!!
She’d done her best to pack it all away, but there was no way of completely hiding what she had between her legs under her tiny triangle of lingerie. I swallowed hard, just about suppressing my scream. I forced myself to look away from Alexia’s surprise package, but only got as far as her face. Her eyes were open now.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked, sounding surprised. But there was a twinkle in those eyes of hers. Her eyes? His eyes? Jesus, I didn’t know. Whatever, its eyes were definitely taking the piss.
‘No, nothing,’ I stammered. ‘Just got a pain … Right here …’ I slapped my hand onto my stomach. ‘… I think it’s my appendix.’ I quickly shifted my hand over to the appendix side.
‘Oh dear,’ she/he/it said. ‘Do you want to go and lie down or something?’
I desperately wondered what the hell to do next. I couldn’t wax this person. Holstein had given me an excellent grounding, but, unless I’d gone to sleep in the crucial lecture, we’d never covered de-hairing men’s bits.
OK, something like that wouldn’t faze me now. I’ve waxed, buffed and polished several transvestites since then, but less than a month into my career and still dripping wet behind the ears, I was so not ready.
‘Er … Right … Yes … I’ll be back in a mo,’ I told it as I fled the room.
‘You won’t believe this,’ I hissed at Georgina, who was still at the desk.
‘What?’ she hissed back.
‘That’s a man in there!’
‘Nooo.’
I nodded frantically. ‘It’s a man! Dressed like a woman!’
Victoria appeared from one of the other treatment rooms. She looked at me, then at Georgina. Then she burst out laughing.
‘What?’ I said, the penny dropping finally. ‘You knew?’
‘Sorry, Dayna,’ Georgina said, laughing as well now. ‘Just thought we’d give you a little surprise.’
‘Our way of welcoming you to the wonderful world of female beauty,’ Victoria managed to say between giggles.
‘That was really mean,’ I said stupidly, feeling my face shift to deep crimson. ‘You should’ve told me.’
‘Sorry,’ Victoria said. ‘Look, I was just about to start Mrs Connolly’s back massage. Why don’t you take over? I’ll finish Alexia off.’
‘Whatever,’ I muttered as I shuffled towards room two and Mrs Connolly.
Blame it on the mixture of shock and humiliation I was feeling, but I didn’t give a thought to what Georgina had been doing when I’d fled from my client. The till was open, her handbag was up on the counter and what looked like a roll of notes was being transferred from one to the other.
Eleven months later I was still there. I was a model therapist. I turned up on time, worked hard and was never less than courteous. In fact, I was so good that after Liza and Katja had gone, Georgina found that she didn’t need to hire anyone else. Where she’d needed four therapists before, now she could manage with three.
I was good all right, but I was also a complete mug. I was working so hard that I didn’t realise I was being taken for a ride. Who was handling over half the clients? Who got all the difficult ones? Who did the graveyard shift when the salon stayed open till ten? That’s right, me, me and me. But I didn’t say anything. It was my first job and I was still terrified of mucking things up. Besides, I told myself, it’s all good experience. God, I was so wet behind the ears.
Things started to change when Georgina took me aside one morning. She had a look on her face that I hadn’t seen before.
‘Why did you lie to me?’ she demanded.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. I had no idea what she was talking about.
‘At your interview. You lied.’
‘I didn’t.’ I thought back, desperately trying to remember any fibs on my CV.
She arched an eyebrow at me. ‘You and Simon, just friends, eh?’
I flapped my mouth at her.
‘I know all about the two of you. A little birdy in room service told me. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I don’t know … I didn’t think it … It didn’t seem relevant,’ I managed to say.
I had a point. What did my relationship with Simon have to do with my abilities as a beauty therapist? But she had a point as well. She had asked me if we’d had a thing going on and I had said no.
‘Anyway, we weren’t together when I had my interview,’ I went on, desperate to justify myself. ‘It had been over for ages.’
‘I know,’ she said, and then her voice softened. ‘My spy told me Simon was screwing anything with a pulse back then. But you’re young. You’ll learn. It takes experience to keep a man like him in line.’
I was blushing, yes, but, equally, I was furious. Who did she think she was? She wasn’t that much older than I was. And she was making a great job of keeping Simon in line, wasn’t she? Over the last few months I’d lost count of the women he was screwing behind her back. So who was she to talk to me as if I was s
ome kind of mug?
Which, of course, I was.
After that I started to resent the way I was being treated. And for the first time I began to wonder seriously if I wasn’t the only one that Georgina and Victoria were making a mug of. I had a feeling they were taking the salon’s owners for a ride as well.
The day I spotted the till open and Georgina’s handbag on the counter wasn’t the only time I’d seen something dodgy going on. And for a small salon, we got through an awful lot of rubbers.
Let me explain. When an appointment was made, it was written down in pencil – if it got cancelled, it would be rubbed out. But something told me those two women were erasing more than just cancellations.
I decided to keep a tally of how many women I’d treated. Then, after a few days, I sneaked a look at the appointments book. I reckoned I’d done thirty-two clients. The book said I’d done twenty-two. There were only two possible reasons for this:
1) Georgina and Victoria were thieving bitches.
7) I couldn’t count.
I did the bulk of the work in that salon. The only time they helped me out was when I brought a client to the desk to settle up. One of them would always be there, saying, ‘Don’t worry, Dayna, I’ll handle this.’ I figured that any cash payments were going straight into their pockets. And if they were scamming my clients, how many of their own were they doing?
I was working like an idiot and they were sitting on their arses, skimming the profits. But what could I do? Keep my head down and my mouth shut, that’s what.
But Georgina didn’t keep her mouth shut. After our little chat about Simon, it became a fixation with her. Seems that this ‘experienced’ woman didn’t have complete confidence in her abilities to keep him in check after all. Every opportunity she got, she’d quiz me. How long had I gone out with him? Had he ever told me he loved me? Had we ever had a threesome?
I lost it when she asked me the last one. ‘Georgina, please! It’s over between Simon and me. Finished. Besides, you know what he’s like. Why put up with it?’
‘Because I love –’ She stopped herself. ‘Why won’t you tell me what’s going on with him? Are you still sleeping with him?’
‘That’s ridiculous. It’s over.’
‘Why do you see so much of each other, then?’
‘It’s not against the law. We’re friends.’
‘Don’t give me that. You can’t be friends with an ex, sweetheart. It just doesn’t happen. Why are you still seeing him?’
‘We’re friends, for God’s sake. And … And …’
‘And what?’ she asked triumphantly, feeling she was on the brink of getting a confession out of me.
But she wasn’t. ‘He sees me a lot because I’m helping him with the Marines thing,’ I said.
Although it had been about a year since I’d filled in the forms for him, Simon was still no nearer to becoming a Royal Marine. First, he’d lost the forms. So I filled in a fresh batch. Then he lost those … And he found them again. Then he pulled a hamstring so he couldn’t go to his first PRMC (Potential Royal Marine Course – yes, I knew all the jargon by then). Then he’d put off the next one because he had to get himself to the peak of physical perfection … Loads of excuses and I’m sure none of them had anything to do with him being absolutely terrified.
‘What Marines thing?’ Georgina asked.
I couldn’t believe it. Simon had a total Green Beret obsession, but he hadn’t mentioned it to her.
‘He’s trying to get into the Royal Marines,’ I said.
‘Well, you managed to keep that pretty secret, didn’t you?’ she snapped. Then she stalked away, leaving me with the feeling that I wouldn’t be working there for much longer.
I was right, but I got a surprise before I left – an un expected opportunity to extend my stay at the salon. Let me explain.
I had walked into a treatment room and found Georgina and Victoria divvying up a wad of cash on the couch. I walked straight back out, but after we’d closed up for the day, they took me for a drink. I assumed they were going to tell me in the nicest way possible that things weren’t working out – that perhaps it was time I looked for something else. But they took me by complete surprise when they told me about their scam. I nearly choked on my Diet Coke.
‘What do you think?’ Georgina asked.
‘I … It’s … Er …’ I stammered hopelessly.
‘It’s brilliant, isn’t it?’ Victoria gurgled, giving me a hint as to where this was going.
‘Look, you’ve been with us nearly a year now,’ Georgina said. ‘We trust you.’
‘In a good week you can more or less double your wages,’ Victoria the master thief trilled. ‘Tax free too.’
‘Do you want in?’ Georgina said, finally asking the question they’d been skirting around for the last ten minutes.
The choice was absolutely clear. I could double my wages and stand a chance of having a proper holiday that summer.
Or I could go home and spend time with the job ads.
Georgina left it a polite two weeks before she fired me. I mean, she wouldn’t have wanted me to think that my leaving had anything to do with me declining her offer. No, it was because bookings were down, the owners wanted cutbacks, blah, blah, blah … And I told her I understood, it had been a wonderful experience, blah, blah and more blahs … And then out I walked with my wages and holiday money and a reference.
To my credit, I didn’t burst into tears until I was halfway to the tube.
* * *
I was in a terrible state by the time I got home. The flat felt so empty. And I was missing Emily. She hadn’t called for days. Max had taken her away for another long weekend in Thailand. Not content with abducting her halfway round the world, the bastard kept whisking her off for five-star mini-breaks. Put bluntly, these were bribes. Emily hated the expat life and all her recent calls were about how miserable she was at having to spend another two years out there. Of course, I gave her my pep talk – the chance-of-a-lifetime-to-experience-different-cultures-expand-your-horizons-and-get-some-great-shopping-in speech – but all I really wanted to tell her was to get her arse back to London and leave Max to make his first million on his own.
I sat in my living room that evening feeling terrible: unemployed, lonely and resenting the hell out of Max. Why did he have to be so amazing? Why couldn’t he be slightly useless like the rest of us?
By eight o’clock I was losing the will to live. I had to do something. I forced myself off my sofa and put on my shoes. I was going to go out. To the cinema. I’d never been to see a film on my own before, but it seemed slightly less desperate than going out to eat by myself. And at least I’d be in the dark.
Halfway down the stairs I bumped into Kirsty, who was on her way up. She looked as miserable as I felt.
‘You OK, Kirsty?’ I asked.
‘My date stood me up,’ she growled. ‘You?’
‘Lost my job today.’
‘Damn. Beats mine. Wanna drown your sorrows with me?’
‘I’ll be shit company.’
‘I love shit company. Makes me seem more interesting. Coming up?’
I quickly weighed up the prospect of going to the cinema on my own against that of having some decent conversation with my fun neighbour. Then I followed her back upstairs to her flat.
I’d been to Kirsty’s for a drink a few times over the past year. We’d both got to feel comfortable in each other’s company and had talked about all kinds of stuff. Of course we’d discussed relationships, but never quite like this. This may have had something to do with the fact that we were now on our third bottle of wine.
‘My love life is a total disaster,’ I wailed. ‘Bloody men.’
‘I tried it out with a guy once when I was at college,’ she told me. ‘Strictly on the basis of the only wise piece of advice my mom ever gave me.’
‘What was that?’
‘That you can’t say you don’t like something until you’ve tried it
. She was talking about eggplant though.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Kinda slimy the way she cooked it.’
‘No, the sex.’
‘The vilest fifteen minutes of my life. Slimy too. Male bits. Total gross out. What the hell are they all about?’
‘Making babies?’ I suggested.
‘Women need to be told they can get a perfectly good turkey baster at Woolworths for a couple of quid. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. OK, I know I’m in the minority here, but I just don’t get the appeal.’
‘Well, I don’t get the appeal of women. I mean, they’re great as friends, for going to the shops with and stuff, but anything else … I don’t think so,’ I told her.
We drank in silence for a while.
Then she said, ‘Of course, you know what my mom would say.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘You’ll never know unless you try it.’
‘Shit, you’re going to cook me eggplant, aren’t you?’
For some reason Kirsty found this hysterically funny and set off on a roller coaster of giggles. Perhaps it was the wine, but I found the fact that she found it hilarious equally side-splitting. We collapsed against each other on the sofa feeling as if the laughter would never subside.
When it did stop I could feel her breath on my neck, but something – maybe it was the wine – made it impossible for me to move myself upright again.
‘Have you really got a turkey baster from Woolies?’ I asked.
‘Yep. And I’ve got a tub of sperm in the freezer too. A gay friend of mine suggested it. He wants to be a daddy one day, so, who knows?’
‘Really?’ I don’t know why this surprised me. Kirsty was wild enough to try anything. ‘You’d do-it-yourself?’
‘Why the hell not? I think of it as insurance for the future. Just in case I get maternal.’
And lying there, half-pissed, I thought it was a bloody brilliant idea.