He tickles my thighs and kisses my knees, then moves lower. I giggle. It seems the right thing to do.
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‘Don’t you shave your legs?’ He scratches his fingernails against the growth.
‘Sometimes.’
Sometimes is true. The hairs on my legs are fine and short, translucent apart from at the bottom near my ankles where they grow in a long fringe like the tassels on suede boots. I shave those off, periodically but casually, it takes thirty seconds max. He pinches a hair on my shin and pulls it, forcing the surface of my skin into a thin peak until the hair is ripped out and the skin flattens in relief.
‘Ow!’
He seems embarrassed now, but still tries to work out how far he can push me. ‘I just don’t like hairy women. I’m sorry if it hurt.’ He doesn’t say he’s sorry for doing it, though.
I give him the speech about how the waxing and shaving industry didn’t take off until 1920s because that was when they started making women be ashamed of their body hair. I go on and on, get really emotional about it. I threaten to finish with him. He doesn’t want that though, does he? I decide it’s his turn to be sorry.
‘Wax your legs,’ I say.
He wavers but I give him his due, he pours the hot wax onto his legs without complaint, and tears off the strips. Because it’s his first go he doesn’t yank them off quick or straight and the setting of his jaw and thick hairs thatched on the wax strips afterwards confirm pain, lots of it.
‘Sorry it hurts.’ I mean it too because his legs look really sore, rubies of bright blood squeezing out of his pores.
‘That’s alright.’
I feel bad about making him to do it now, guilt washes through me so I get on my knees and kiss his painful limbs. He giggles.
I dump him. Turns out I don’t like men who laugh like a girl.
BIOGRAPHY
Cath Bore is based in Liverpool. She writes crime fiction and short stories about the things keeping her awake at night. Her work has been published in the UK and US including Eating My Words (National Flash-Ficton Day Anthology 2014, Gumbo Press), Twisted Tales 2014, Geeked Magazine. Website: www.cathbore.com. Email [email protected]