The esthetician spoke English with an unidentified Latin American accent. “I’m Liliana,” she said, looking me over. “Take it all off, except the bra.” She turned her back, as if privacy were going to be possible. I realized I hadn’t shaved my legs or armpits in months. The hair was dark and baby fine. I didn’t want Liliana to see, but there was nothing I could do. I lay down on the table. She waxed my legs and underarms, my upper lip and eyebrows, then took a pair of scissors from a drawer. “Don’t move,” she said as she began cutting the hair between my legs. She cut from the top all the way down to my ass. “You want a little Hitler?” she asked me. Had she said Hitler? “You want a little Hitler here?” she said again, putting her fingers on my mons. “Little strip, like Hitler mustache?” I said no.
Liliana dusted me with white powder, as if I were an enormous baby. She spread hot wax into every crevice and fold, all over my vulva and the sides of my legs, ripping off the wax with strips of cloth as she went. I gritted my teeth and held on to the table as what felt like a thousand ants bit me in the crotch at once. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” I mumbled when I saw the silver cross flailing around Liliana’s neck. She lifted my left leg up, bending it at the knee and pressing it back toward my chest. She asked me to hold it there while she grunted and smeared the wax around. “Hold it! Hold it!” This part of my body was a wild expanse of uncharted territory, unknown to man, but Liliana wasn’t deterred, attacking the thicket with gusto. She wiped off the blood with cotton pads, then slathered me with antiseptic ointment. I rolled over onto my stomach and she continued her work, spreading my butt apart and smearing wax in the crease, ripping it off with the strips. She asked me to get up on my hands and knees so she could have a better view, and pulled stray hairs with a tweezer. I was so embarrassed, I nearly left my body and floated to the ceiling. I wondered what it was like for the tiny Latina immigrant to spend her days in this basement room, her face in women’s vulvas and asses, making perfect Hitler mustaches. The American dream, I thought.
When I left the room, I felt like I’d just stepped off a roller coaster, winded and dizzy. I limped up the stairs, grasping the wooden rail. In the mirror I saw that my face was swollen and red, as if I’d been slapped around. I went to a drugstore to buy some ibuprofen. Marlowe trailed after me, but I didn’t speak to her. “Are you all right?” she said when we were outside the drugstore and I was trying to remove the childproof cap from the bottle of painkillers with my teeth. She took the bottle from me and opened it. “I feel weird, like something is missing,” I said, washing down the pills with Diet Coke (FREE FOOD).
“No cushioning,” said Marlowe. “You’re like an animal without her fur.”
Next Marlowe took me to a department store, leading me to the plus-size area that was euphemistically labeled the “women’s section,” and Marlowe said, “Aren’t we all women?” We were there to buy new bras and underpants. Marlowe read aloud from her book as we browsed the bikini briefs, boy shorts, and thongs, all of which were referred to as panties, as I had called my underwear when I was a little girl. Marlowe picked out a selection for me. When I tried on the bras in the dressing room, they actually gave me cleavage, like a busty wench in a pirate movie.
The salesgirl said I needed to buy Thinz. “No offense. Even lingerie models have to suck it in.” Thinz were the latest must-have item, like a girdle except they were sleek and almost invisible. Thinz were sold for the bottom to compress the hips, stomach, and thighs; for the top, there was a squeezy camisole. Putting on Thinz felt like crawling into a caterpillar’s skin. Marlowe paid for the lot of it.
I left the department store wearing control-top tights and Thinz under my clothes. On my feet were the pair of impossibly high heels Marlowe had purchased on the way out. The heels thrust my bust forward and my butt up. Marlowe read from her book as we navigated the crowds in Herald Square. “Page ninety-seven: The fuckable woman puts her secondary sex characteristics on display, like a baboon with a throbbing red ass.”
I hadn’t worn heels since my college graduation and felt like a kid who’d raided her mother’s closet. I hobbled down the street and held onto Marlowe for support. “I can’t breathe,” I said, and complained that I couldn’t bend or sit either, thanks to Thinz. I was a sausage in casing. All of my rolls and layers were squeezed in, but where had they gone?
Marlowe said, “A fuckable woman doesn’t take up space. Fuckable women are controlled.”
I said, “Control-top pantyhose.”
“Fat women are not controlled. They are defiant, so they are unfuckable.”
Once again I wondered about the logic of this makeover. How would telling me I’m unfuckable change my mind about the surgery?