Shaving

I slept in till 3 on Sunday, and then found out I’d ruined the same set of panties twice. Last night mom had handed them to me, “These are the ones you wear to bed on period days now.” They were the blue ones. I loved them much less now.

I thought of the trivial angst of having ruined my favorite panties. Wait. I had a support group now. I texted Autumn, “I ruined my favorite panties with my stupid uterus blood.”

“I like you bare anyway”

That’s to innuendo to pass up. “I thought you liked my fire-crotch.”

“I love it. But we all shave”

She hated my pussy. I buried my head in my pillow in shame. Then my phone chirped.

“I’m going to shave a little fire bolt into yours”

“Careful, you’ll burn your tongue” Look at that. I could flirt with girls too.

She sent me an emoji of a kissy face and a campfire.

Shower. I feel less gross today.

Old Tampon. This looks like a hell-cats hairball.

New tampon. It’s like getting a turkey baster filled with q-tips.

Stare in mirror. Less hair… Oh no!

I could see the little reddish hairs on my legs. Starting at my ankles and coming up to just below my knee. They were barely noticeable, but they were noticeable. I went to school, in a skirt, with my legs unshaved.

Everyone must have been laughing at me.

My life was over.

Damage control, well past the time it would have been useful. “Lol. Did you see I wore a skirt without shaving my legs?”

“No. When?”

“That one day I wore that skirt that time”

“Did you not shave? I didn’t notice”

Crisis averted! I kept crying anyway, and couldn’t stop. Everything was fine, no one cared, why was I still crying? God periods suck.

I managed to compose myself enough to slump down to breakfast in my pajamas. I was too embarrassed to be seen with bare legs, and too upset to put on real pants.

My mom was sitting in the living room, reading again. I called to her, “When can I get an appointment with the…the lady doctor?”

“You can make an appointment on Monday.”

“Will you make it for me?”

“No.”

“WhyyyYYy?”

“You’re fourteen and you need to start making your own appointments.” She looked over her glasses at me, “Besides, do you want your mom in the waiting room while you’re getting probed?”

“Do they do that?”

“They did for me when I had my first period. I’m told that the lady lady doctors have attempted to change this practice.”

“There are guy lady doctors?”

“Used to be that’s all there were.”

Nothing about that seemed right to me, and I took a moment to come up with an analogy while I sipped my coffee. “That’s like taking your car to a mechanic who has learned about engines all his life, and has never driven a car.”

“They used to handle dead bodies before they—” she made a finger fisting motion,” so think about how far we’ve come from there.”

I went upstairs and found the nook I had rooted. Spring Awakening was on Project Gutenberg, and I downloaded it, then went downstairs to read with my mom.

The crew was right, there were no stage directions. As a simple example, when Wendla hands Melchior the stick to beat her at no point does it mention that he takes the stick. As a complicated example the stage direction (Melchior rapes her) does not appear in the text.

Considering the political climate of 2017 it would be hard to think that—

Wendla.

Don’t——don’t, Melchior!——

Melchior.
Wendla!

Wendla.
Oh, Melchior!——Don’t, don’t——

—was anything other than rape. At the same time the fact that they even have sex isn’t in the text. You might actually think, as Wendla does, that babies come from kissing. The kissing isn’t in the stage directions either. She just tells him not to kiss her.

“What are you reading,” mom asked. She’d pulled out her knitting and was reading at the same time.

“The most fucked up play I’ve ever read in my life.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the play we’re doing.”

“Sounds great dear. Will I have an uncomfortable PTA meeting?”

“Oh, most definitely. I’m thinking it’s because of the cuts to sex-ed. Some redneck is going to complain that they should be teaching their child about sex.”

“Do you want to do it?”

“If it gets canceled the tech crew is canceled.”

Mom gave a sigh, “I suppose I’ll have to defend it in my first meeting then. It would be nice if you’d let me make friends before I alienate half the association dear.”

“I didn’t make a single part of this happen, mom.”

“No dear, you’re right. That was unfair, and I’m sorry.” She tucked her knitting away, “I suppose I should see what I’m defending. May I read it?”

I had finished, and I handed her the reader.

At first she just read, then she let out a little snicker. Then a guffaw. Then a graveyard cackle. It only took her about twenty minutes to read what had taken my forty, and when she got to the end she was wiping tears off her face. “This is wonderful Aisling. Are you sure you don’t want to be in it? You’d make a fantastic Ilse.”

After a mere week in tech is was ready to defend my social class, “I’m crew mom. Not cast.”

“You don’t want to be in front of the audience?”

“Ew. No.” And I was surprised to find that I didn’t. I wasn’t that great at acting, and acting meant leaving my friends. More than that though. Acting meant that I wouldn’t be making things, or making things happen. I wanted to build stuff. I wanted to be responsible for making the show happen. Not a collection of people and the audiences imagination, but a real show. With showy stuff.

The rest of Sunday drifted by. I read Odysseus. I went through my history homework. It was all on the computer, emailing my teachers the assignments. Except English, which I would only have to discuss in class.

Around 5:00 Regular Dave texted me the information for their Discord server. I pulled it up and took a look at the rooms. There was a room for dank memes, full of dank memes. Most of those were tumblr conversations I’d seen them share on tumblr. Seemed kind of redundant.

The chat board on the other hand was a long lesson in juvenile innuendo.

Bree: What’s everyone up to?

Wee David: porn

Rachel: porn

Big Davey: Your mom

Autumn: Hi Aisling!

Aisling: sneaks into room, sits on dave’s lap

Regular Dave: Which dave?

Aisling: All of them

It went on like that, and I found myself participating more and more. Then I got a PM.

Regular Dave: You fit in fast

Aisling: I got thrown in the deep end. Turns out I can doggy paddle.

Regular Dave: Can you now? Can you doggy…
Regular Dave: …
Regular Dave: … with a paddle?

Okay Aisling. Regular Dave is your fantasy, but fantasy isn’t reality.

Aisling: Well, buy me a drink before we start with the whips

Regular Dave: lol

Regular Dave: Coffee?

Aisling: When?

Regular Dave: Now?

He is a fantasy. You aren’t going to fuck him. You can’t even fuck yourself comfortably. On the other hand, Regular Dave had invited me into the group. Well, harangued me into the group. But the group was great. And Regular Dave was…

If you’re going to coffee you aren’t going to go confused, Aisling. That statement worked two ways. I wasn’t going to go into the situation, I was going to make a decision and then go to coffee. Easy decision Coffee was fine.

Because as long as I wasn’t confused, I was going to…

Make out with him? You’re still being confused.

Yup. Make out with him.

Aisling: Sure. Come pick me up.

Regular Dave: Address?

I gave him the address I’m not going to give you.

Regular Dave: An hour?

That should be just fine to get ready.

Aisling: Sure

An hour to get ready. I could finish this book of The Odyssey and have a half an hour.

I didn’t do that.

I sat on my bed for a long moment.

Then I went downstairs where my mom was on the computer, “Mom?”

“Yes, dearheart?”

“How do you… can you teach me… Ineedtoshavemylegs!”

She looked up from the screen and for a moment her face had an expression I couldn’t read. Or maybe I could and I didn’t want to because it was terror. As soon at it was there it vanished, and she gave me a soft and understanding smile, “Sure dearheart. Lets go upstairs.”

She took me to her bathroom. The one in her bedroom. The one that was strange, foreign, feminine, and that I only used in an emergency. The one where I had been careful to leave everything where it was and put the seat down.

I left the seat down in my bathroom now too. I hadn’t lifted it up in a month. I probably never would again.

Mom handed me her bathrobe, “I’ll wait outside while you take your pants off.”

“Can’t I just roll them up?”

“Can you?”

Oh, right. I could barely get these pants over my thighs from the waist hole, much less the knee hole. “I can’t.”

“Then no, dearheart. Pants off.”

She left, I put my pants on the floor, and opened the door wearing her bathrobe. It smelled like her shampoo.

“Sit on the toilet and put your foot on the bathtub,” she reached through the shower curtain as she spoke, and pulled out a can of Barbasol. It was pink. I crammed my second thoughts down into the bottom of my brain and took it from her.

“Put some in—”

“I know how to use shaving cream, mom.”

“Okay, then spread it on your leg.”

I started at my calf and quickly ran out.

“Ankle to thigh, dear.”

“But I don’t have hair there.”

“You didn’t have hair on your neck and you shaved it too. I saw you.”

“That was machismo. I might have had hair there some day.” Man that was easy to admit.

“Well this is whatever the opposite of machismo is.”

I spread more shaving cream around, “Femininity, mom.”

“I wasn’t going to use that word with you.”

My period started crying. Mom came in for a hug and I held up my hand. “I’m okay.” I sniffed and dabbed my eyes with the Kleenex on the back of the toilet, “Hormones.”

Mom didn’t say anything, just handed me a razor. I started, and she put her hand on my wrist. “Hold it perpendicular to the flesh. Don’t go in little strokes. All the way up your leg. Now just flick it into the sink. You should be doing this in the bath but…”

“I get you, mom.”

It took five minutes to do both legs, and the razor looked like I’d shaved a cat. “Can I use your shower?”

“Of course.”

It was just a rinse, but out of habit I got my hair wet, and came out of the shower with my hair dripping all over my mom’s bathrobe. “Do you want to wrap your hair up? It’ll dry faster.”

I blanched and felt the blood drain out of my face from the scalp down, “Too much mom.” But on the way out of my room I leaned in the door, “Mom?”

“Yes, dearheart?”

“… can you help me fix my hair?”