Why the hell we had to get made up was a mystery to me. If the man buying me didn’t like me the way I came, what the hell difference would slathering on a bunch of makeup and body lotion and fancy duds do for me in the long run? I was a cowgirl. I worked on a farm. My hands carried calluses on top of calluses. There was no softer side, even though my “beauty attendant,” which I couldn’t even believe that’s what they called themselves, thought I had in spades.
Following along with Savannah’s constant chiding, I did as the beauty people bade. Then out of nowhere, we were transferred in a line to a big room that had several massage beds and stalls. For a minute I thought we were going to get massages. Now that plan I could get behind. Savannah was taken to the last spot just past mine.
At least I could keep an eye on my baby sister this way. For a little while longer, I reminded myself sadly. It sucked knowing that Savannah was giving up everything. Sure, I was too, and that was her argument, but it wasn’t the same. The big sister was supposed to take on the bulk of the responsibilities. We made things easier for our siblings. It’s why we were born first. Naturally, I wanted to take care of her, like I had our entire lives.
With the shitty situation our pa had left us in on my mind, I numbly did as the woman said and lay on top of the small bed. She proceeded to prepare something in a pot that had a lid.
“We’ll start by waxing your eyebrows,” she announced.
“Whatever,” I grumbled and let her do her thing.
I closed my eyes and imagined I was back home on the ranch. A few thousand cattle roaming the acreage. My sister sitting on the old tire swing our grandaddy hung for us. Her boyfriend Jarod pushing her on the swing, as he teased her with a kissing peck each time she swung his way. They were true high school sweethearts and deeply in love. And now what were they?
Broken apart by my father’s selfish deeds.
I hated him.
With every fiber of my being, I hated Pa more than those greedy, nasty Goodalls who wanted to get their grubby hands on our land.
The attendant placed something hot and sticky above and below my eyebrows as well as in between. She then placed a long strip over my upper lip. Why? I didn’t know, but I figured there was a lot I didn’t know about current beauty practices. I worked a ranch alongside men. Wore jeans, boots, plaid long-sleeve shirts, and a cowboy hat every day. I didn’t worry about things such as perfect eyebrows or girlie clothing.
Savannah, though, seemed to be having a grand ol’ time. With each new treatment she giggled and swooned.
When our hair was complete, mine came out a bright, healthy, golden strawberry-blonde with natural waves that fell to my shoulders. Savvy told me I looked exactly like Rachel McAdams from some movie called Doctor Strange. I hadn’t seen it. I didn’t have time for movies. There was always too much to do on the ranch for movie watching. Though I dreamed of the day that things were running smoothly again, like they were back when my grandaddy was alive and my father had no say in the daily business of the ranch.
Now it felt like I spent more of my time cleaning up Pa’s messes than getting any actual work done.
The attendant ripped off the pieces of wax, and I snarled at the pinch of pain, but it was gone quickly enough.
She did my legs which hurt more, but again, I’d felt worse, especially when I was kicked by old Marigold, our mother’s horse. After Mom passed, Marigold didn’t want anyone else getting near her. It took the better part of a year to get her to allow me or Savannah to ride her. And even then, she didn’t seem happy about it. Whoever said horses didn’t feel or grieve was out of their mind. Marigold was loyal to Momma. Too bad our momma wasn’t loyal to her, or to Savannah and me, leaving the world the way she did.
“I’m going to need you to spread your legs and hold the backs of your knees,” the attendant whispered in my ear.
Not paying much attention and keeping my eyes closed, I pulled my legs up toward my belly and held on to the backs of my knees. The attendant pushed my knees apart, and I ground down on my teeth as I displayed my lady bits.
“Wow, that’s a lot of hair,” she mumbled.
“Of course, it is.” I opened one eye to see her take the hot liquid stuff and promptly slather it over my private bits.
“Fuck!” I hollered in shocked surprise at how hot the wax was in such a sensitive area, but she held me down as she continued to apply the devil’s sticky, sap-like substance that burned like white-hot pokers being driven through my fingernails.
“What the fuck!” I wiggled my ass back and forth and could hear my sister Savannah laughing her ass off in the stall next to mine.
“Shut up, Savvy!” I yelled.
I flung my arm out to bring it up to my face so that I could bite down on my closed fist while fighting against the insane pain. Instead, my arm slammed down on the rolling cart that had the gross strips of used, hairy wax in a metal bowl.
The bowl went soaring across the room like a flying saucer in the sky before smashing against the opposite wall. The waxed bits of my hairy body fell like confetti to the ground.
Embarrassment burned hot on my cheeks and down my chest as pain bloomed at the side of my bikini line. Just as I was about to apologize for my accident, I felt fingers prodding at the top of my pubis bone.
“No!” I shook my head desperately. “I’m not ready…!!!” I begged, and then searing pain shot from between my thighs. Stars flickered across my vision as the attendant continued, pulling the other side of my bikini line. Just as I thought I might actually pass out, another strip was ripped over my anus, and, without even realizing it, I sat up, and cold-clocked the technician right in the cheekbone.
She screeched in horror and fell to the floor as my vision wavered in and out.
Savannah came around the side just as I lost consciousness.
I came to maybe a couple minutes after the entire thing. Madam Alana was standing to my side with a livid scowl on her normally pretty face. Actually, even mad the woman was gorgeous. Fifty and fabulous was what I called her in my head earlier. Now she looked fifty and furious.
There was another woman in a white doctor’s coat standing over me waving something small and white under my nose. “There you go. Welcome back, Mike Tyson.” She smiled.
Mike Tyson?
Oh, hell. I’d punched out my beauty attendant.
“Is she okay?” I croaked, my voice suddenly raspy and dry as the desert.
“She is tending to her wound in the bathroom. You have a mighty right hook, my dear,” Madam Alana stated flatly.
It’s all that fighting back when my father got drunk and handsy. Savannah didn’t see much of it, but he beat on our momma something fierce, then would do additional damage in the bedroom once he broke her down. When I got old enough, I had the ranch hands teach me how to fight. That helped for a while.
I sat up and cupped my lady parts as they throbbed uncontrollably. “I’m sorry, Madam Alana. I had no idea what that was going to feel like, and I just lost myself. Please don’t kick me out of the auction.”