I love Star Wars. Growing up, I collected the action figures in my Darth Vader carrying kit: Princess Leia, Han Solo, Darth Vader, C-3P0, R2-D2, Boba Fett, Yoda and two Luke Skywalkers. One was Luke Skywalker the X-Wing Pilot, the other Luke Skywalker the Jedi Knight. The ultimate movie makeover moment of all time is watching Luke, all serious and dressed in black, coolly stroll into Jabba the Hutt’s cave, kill everyone and save his friends. You barely remember the farm boy he was in Episode IV.
I’ve always wanted a makeover. True, I was hoping for one that would make me capable of mind manipulation and transcendental object-lifting. But I suppose a spa makeover will do.
I have been told I have a colorist appointment, a stylist appointment, a facial appointment, a body facial appointment (I’m not sure what a body facial is. Apparently it involves something called an alpha-beta peel and cleansing mint mud?), a manicure appointment, a pedicure appointment, an eyebrow-wax appointment and a bikini-wax appointment, all at Bella, a Soho spa, all compliments of Party Girls.
Not sure why a bikini wax is necessary. Do Manhattan bars have hot tubs?
My Jedi training begins in the skin room, on a foamy lawn chair covered in a white paper towel motif. The walls are mirrored and windowless. A magnifying glass the size of a satellite dish is suspended above me. The room smells like pineapple. Beside me, Carrie sits on a stool, reading Elle. She will be accompanying me through all levels of preparation. I think she’s concerned that if left alone, I might bolt.
Post-alpha-beta peel (I still don’t know what that is), a cold and heavy mud mask hardens my face and limbs. I’m annoyed that the rims of my cotton panties and bra are mud-stained. Washing bras is such a pain.
Carrie looks up from her magazine. “Have you ever been to Pompeii?”
“Is that another salon?”
“It’s the city in Italy where the volcano went off and covered the whole town in lava. Quite remarkable. I was there last summer.”
“No. Did you see dead people?”
“You don’t actually see the dead people. More like the papier-mâché moldings of dead people. It was cool.”
“Is there an article about Pompeii in Elle?”
“No.” She looks back at her magazine. “Something reminded me of it.”
“What?”
“You.”
Next, I’m transported to the eyebrow room, which is essentially another cushioned lawn chair, with mirrored walls and a massive magnifying glass. “All the rooms are exactly alike. Why can’t I stay put and have the estheticians come to me?”
Carrie sits down on her new chair, which looks exactly like her old chair, and opens her magazine. “Look who’s already a princess.”
A shorthaired Brazilian woman in a white smock opens the door to the room. “Hel-lo, hel-lo,” she says. Her voice has a Mr. Rogers singsong quality. “I’m Jazelle, are you ready?”
I don’t think so. I’ve never waxed anything before. I shave my legs and bikini line when necessary and occasionally pluck my brows. Why spend hundreds of dollars on hair removal when I can do it for free?
Dana makes a trip to the waxer once a month for full hair removal. She raves about it but can never wear shorts or a bathing suit for two weeks a month because the hair has to “grow out.” What’s the point of all that pain and money if you can only show it off for half the month?
Jazelle lowers her face until she is just an inch above mine. I wish I had a breath mint. “Eyebrows and lip?” she asks.
My lip?
“Um…only my eyebrows.”
She nods.
“What’s wrong with my lip?”
She runs her finger over my upper lip. “You have lots of dark hair. If I were you, I’d remove it.”
Lots of dark hair? I have a mustache? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this? Isn’t that something that your best friends are supposed to tell you? “Okay. Take it off.” Do it! Do it!
She spreads the wax over my lip. That doesn’t feel too bad. Kind of nice, actually. Soothing, even. It’s—
“Fuck!” I scream as she rips the skin off my body. The sting slowly subsides.
“Lie back down, lie back down. I have to do the sides.”
After the sides, she moves on to my brows, which aren’t as excruciating.
When I’m escorted to the body-waxing station, I catch a glimpse of myself in one of the seven thousand mirrors and am pleased to see my brows looking fantastic. My lip makes me look like I’m part of the Got Strawberry Milk? campaign, but Jazelle promised that the red marks would disappear in an hour.
A Korean woman is standing, arms crossed, beside her room’s lawn chair. “Take off your pants and panties,” she tells me.
Carrie freezes. “I think I’ll go get a coffee.”
“Don’t leave me,” I plead in Carrie’s direction, but faster than the Roadrunner, she’s outta there.
I enter the room. The esthetician slams the door behind me.
I take off my jeans, fold them and place them on what should be Carrie’s chair.
The woman sticks her finger at my crotch. “Panties off.”
Why do I have to take off my panties? Can’t she just move them to the side?
I place my mud-caked panties on top of my jeans and lie back on the paper-covered chair. This is ridiculous. A Kleenex box is on the counter, so I pull a tissue out and cover the area between my legs.
The woman smells like antiseptic. She dips a Popsicle stick in hot wax and then spreads it on my right lower leg. This won’t hurt this won’t hurt this won’t hurt this won’t hurt.
Ouch.
It’s not as bad as my upper lip. I can handle it. And again.
Ouch.
She climbs her way up my right leg. And then over to my left leg.
Thank God I don’t have a lot of hair on my upper legs. It hurts a bit, but I can handle it. I’m a waxing pro.
She picks the tissue off of my privates. “Spread your legs.”
What? Does she double as a gynecologist?
“You don’t trim?” she asks.
Is this a lecture? “Sometimes,” I answer.
“What shape you want?”
“What are my options? I’ve never done this before.” As if she hasn’t figured that out.
“Take it all off first time. It grow back thinner.”
All off, huh. Sexy. Steve’ll love it. I’ll be just like the girls on the porn channel he loves, Hot ’n Sexy. What a fantastic surprise. I won’t even tell him, I’ll just wear a skirt and tell him I’m going commando and then…it’ll be fantastic. I’m the best girlfriend ever.
She spreads the wax over the outer edge of the left side of my pubic region. That feels nice. Hot. Oooh. Is it gross to get aroused at a bikini wax? And then—
OH. MY. GOD. I’ve never known such pain.
She pushes my legs apart. “Keep them open!” she orders Gestapo-style.
This is worse than the gynecologist.
She spreads the wax over the right side of my pubic region and then—
OH. MY. GOD. This is the most horrific pain I have ever felt in my entire life. Worse than when I spilled hot water all over my hands. Worse than slamming the car door on my fingernail. Worse than a visit to the dentist.
I try to see what she’s doing, but I feel dizzy. She’s spreading the slimy material over the top inch of my pubic region. This is going to hurt. I know this is going to hurt. Here it comes. She’s going for it—
“Owwwwwwwwww!”
She looks up at me and shakes her head. “If you open your legs properly it won’t hurt so much.”
Why would it make a difference how wide my legs are? It would make no difference. Absolutely no difference. This woman is a psychotic sadist.
“How much longer is this going to take?”
“I’m doing the lips now, and then the anus. Ten minutes. Spread wider.”
Anus? She thinks she’s waxing my butt? Ten more minutes of this torture? I don’t think I can do it. My body wasn’t made for this type of pain. She coats the left vaginal lip in wax. I take a deep breath.
Here it comes. And there it…
…goes. I think I passed out. I open my eyes and push her hand away as she’s about to coat me in more torture. “No, I can’t take it.”
“I’m not stopping now. Only half of you is done. You look stupid.”
I close my legs and jump off the table. “I don’t care. No more. I’m done.”
The woman huffs and stands back from the table as I hastily step into my muddy underwear. “It would have been easier if you kept your legs open,” she snarls.
Now I know why Dana made me get both my ears pierced at the same time.
The colorist and stylist loom behind me, one on each shoulder, like the angel and devil who personify TV characters’ consciences. Carrie sits at the unused hair station next to me, to coordinate.
“So what are going to do? A trim? A few highlights?”
“I could,” says the colorist. She’s about sixty-five and looks like a grandmother. Her shoulder-length hair is layered, blow-dried and colored adult-lady blond. When I first saw her from the back and didn’t see the wrinkles around her eyes and lips, I thought she was in her forties.
“No,” Carrie says. She’s filing her nails. “Not enough. Think glamorous starlet at the Oscars, not girl next door.”
I see the bags under my eyes in the mirror. “So what do you want to do? I’m too tired to care.”
The colorist picks up a strand of hair from above my ear and carefully studies it. The bags are really awful. I need to buy some more of that concealer stuff. Where did I put the one I bought once? Do I get free makeup with this show? This whole day has been full of mirrors. Who wants to stare at herself for that long? Are you supposed to look into your own eyes? Are you supposed to pretend you don’t see yourself?
“Love it. Love it!” Carrie says.
Sorry, too busy staring at myself, can you repeat that? “Love what?”
The colorist picks up another strand, this one from the top of my head. “I said let’s do something really different. Let’s make you beautiful.”
There’s an insult in that, I’m sure.
The colorist drops my hair. “Let’s make you blond.”
Blond?
“You’ll look gorgeous,” she says. “Like a beach babe.”
Blond? No way. “I’m not blond material.”
The stylist is nodding. She has short choppy purple hair. Why can’t I do that? “I’m thinking shorter,” she says. “Much shorter.”
Why do hairdressers always want to cut it all off? You’d think they hate hair or something. Shouldn’t they be picketing to protect the hair?
“Not too short,” I say. “Shoulder length? And no blond.”
Carrie pulls out a bottle of clear polish. “We have one redhead, one brunette and one blonde. Two blondes would work,” she says. “We live in a blonde-loving world.” When she talks, she watches herself talk in the mirror.
“No,” I say, louder.
“Lightbulb, lightbulb,” the colorist says, tapping her forehead.
“Anything but blond,” I say.
“Black,” she offers.
“Black?”
“Jet, wet black.”
The stylist nods. “Chin length.”
Carrie sighs. “You’ll be striking.”
I hesitate, then nod. “It’s better than blond.”
The colorist disappears into a secret room, and twenty minutes later applies a purple concoction to my head.
Carrie is blowing her nails dry. “It’ll be perfect. We’ll have a blonde, a brunette, a redhead and a black-haired…what’s a black-haired person?”
“A dominatrix?” I suggest.
While the color is setting, I’m sent to the manicurist and then to the pedicurist. I’ve only had one manicure before, for prom, and never a pedicure, so I let Carrie choose the color. She picks red, to “contrast my hair,” whatever that means.
Then I’m back to the sink and the color is rinsed. Ah. Scalp massage. With a towel on my head like a turban, I’m whisked to the stylist’s station. Carrie follows and sits down beside me. She attempts to engage me in conversation so that I don’t pass out at the sight of my hair accumulating on the wooden floor.
The stylist spins my chair around when she’s blow-drying. “No peeking. You’ll see when it’s done.”
I love the paper flip-flops the pedicurist gave me. I could really use these in my apartment. Will they be in my loot bag when I leave?
“Sexy,” Carrie shouts over the blow-dryer, pointing to my toes. “I love red.” She should see my inflamed vagina. I caught a glimpse of it in the bathroom and it didn’t look good.
“Flip your head back up,” the stylist says. “But don’t look.”
She blows and brushes and sprays and plumps.
“Your hair is gorgeous!” Carrie shouts. “Stunning!”
“You swear?”
“I swear. Why would I lie? I need you to look gorgeous. If it didn’t look gorgeous, I would make Dina do it again. You were right about the blond. It wouldn’t have been you.”
The blow-dryer is turned off.
“Are you ready?” the stylist asks. Suddenly she spins me around.
Lara Flynn Boyle stares back at me.
Kind of. Not as gorgeous, obviously. Or as skinny. But not bad. I think. But I look so pale. Washed out, even.
“I look like I’m on The Addams Family,” I say.
Carrie is smiling. “No, you don’t. You look so gorgeous, you could be a model.”
I smile. You could be a brain surgeon, just wouldn’t have the same effect.
“I need a tan.” Why didn’t I tan when I lived in Florida? I’ve seen the pasty color of the snowbirds when they come down for the holidays. It ain’t pretty.
It’s black. Black, black, black. I just have to get used to it.
I want my hair back.
I can’t cry at the salon. I think I’m going to cry at the salon. I can be a grown-up. It’s just hair. Why do I care so much about hair? I’ve never given it a second thought before. I swallow the tears. There. No one noticed.
The stylist looks at Carrie and shakes her head. “Honey, if she still hates it tomorrow, we’ll change the color, okay? It’ll be fine. But tell her to stop crying, already.”
After I have calmed down, Carrie takes me for lunch and then to my clothing makeover at Stark’s Department Store. Every time I see my reflection, I startle myself.
My personal shopper covers her eyes with her hands, in an attempt to give herself some vision. “You’re wearing the clothes on television. To nightclubs. You want trampy or you want sophisticated? There’s a difference between trampy sexy and classy sexy,” she adds with authority.
I wonder where she gets her definition of trampy, with her short, tight skirt and plunging neckline.
“Sophisticated and sexy,” Carrie says as we enter a private dressing room decorated with bowls of potpourri, a lush velvet couch and more mirrored walls.
My skin looks flawless. I also look about six feet tall and size two. “These are definitely good mirrors,” I say.
“Fabulous, huh? It’s a fun house in here.”
“And I get a thousand dollars of free clothes.”
“Yes, a thousand dollars a month. But don’t use that up today. Fashion evolves. Buy two fabulous outfits for the opening credits and promo ads tonight and something else for the first show on Saturday.”
“But the show airs a week from today. Why do I need something for promo ads? Haven’t you already been advertising?”
“Yeah, occasionally.” Carrie rolls her eyes. “I should warn you that not everyone at TRS is as gung ho about Party Girls as Stan, the VP you met, is. Some of the more traditional execs aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet. But yeah, they made a commercial, and Sheena, the girl who was arrested for shoplifting, is in all of them. We need to reshoot with you. I’m sure there are elements of the first commercial they’ll use, so tonight shouldn’t take too long.”
“Tonight?” No one mentioned a shoot tonight. I’m beginning to understand how this works. Reality happens on Saturday night, but the real reality—the preparations for reality—takes place all week long. And I only find out about them about four and a half minutes before the event. “I’ll get to meet the other girls?”
“Obviously.”
The personal shopper returns with a metal trolley filled with sweaters, tops, blouses, dresses, skirts, pants, stilettos and jackets—all, including the footwear, in a size seven. I read the labels: Kenneth Cole, Anna Sui, Betsey Johnson, Nicole Miller, Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang, Marc Jacobs, DKNY and BCBG.
I bet Dana would appreciate this a lot more than I do.
I’m the first Party Girl at Night, the bar where we’re filming. It’s a narrow and low-ceilinged rectangular space that is already crowded with Howard, Tania and various other crew members who are in the process of setting up. At the far end of the room a diamond-shaped window looks out onto the West Village.
Howard whistles when he sees me. “Is that our Sunny? Love the new do. Great outfit.”
I’m wearing my new Helmut Lang tight black pants and red scoop-neck top, red jeweled dangling earrings and black, stiletto, way-too-high, pointy boots.
Obviously I allowed Carrie to outfit me. I think I might have heard her call me Barbie by mistake.
Tania pops her head up. “Very Vogue,” she says, and disappears behind the bar. “Martin is waiting for you in the back room. Makeup.”
I hold on to passing tables and chairs for balance as I head around the bar. The back room is as small as a coat closet and is cramped with bar stools and one small desk. Martin steers me onto a stool. He brushes his bleached-blond hair back with his hand and then immediately smothers me in foundation.
“Can you make it natural looking?” I ask.
“It’s not supposed to be natural looking. It’s for television.” Martin has an emerald stud nose ring. Why do people want to draw attention to their noses? Is anyone’s nose that exquisite? What if he has a cold?
“Am I next?” A short, curvy girl in a black skirt that just about covers her crotch, a fuchsia tank top, black stiletto heels and a wide, black beaded belt. Chin-length chunky-platinum locks frame her face. “You must be Sunny,” she adds. “I’m Erin. The slut.”
“Sorry?”
She laughs. “The slut. I’m supposed to be the slut on the show. You know? You’re the anal one and I’m the slut.”
“Good to know. Nice to meet you.”
She drags over a stool and sits down. She crosses her legs, rotates her top ankle. “You don’t wear a lot of makeup regularly? You one of those natural types?” she asks, accusatorily.
Is that bad? “Yeah, I guess.”
“I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t wear makeup. Don’t you want to look your best?”
Um…Who is this girl again? The slut or the bitch? “I don’t care that much, I guess.”
“Look up,” the makeup artist says. I tilt my head toward the ceiling and he lines the bottom rim of my eye. “Stop blinking.”
“Sorry.”
Erin rummages through the guy’s makeup bag. “This whole free clothes, free makeover thing is out of fucking control.”
“I guess,” I say. I’m not sure what to say to this person. Why would they put someone so rude on television?
“I love makeup. I get off on changing my look. My hair used to be your color. Black. Have you considered going blond? It might suit you better.”
I shrug. Is she trying to intimidate me? That must be it. She’s trying to make me feel ugly.
Erin continues: “I’ve dyed it red, blond, black, pink, everything. The best part about being a woman is our ability to reinvent ourselves. I’m speaking from two nose jobs and a boob job’s worth of experience.”
Information overload. I’d look at her breasts but makeup man still has me looking at the ceiling. “Two nose jobs? What was wrong with the first one?”
“Not perfect,” she says, shrugging. “Have you ever thought of a boob job? You could probably use an extra cup size. Have you had any work done?” she asks.
Makeup man reaches into his bag to find something and I take the opportunity to get a better look at Erin. Her nose is small and slightly turned up. I don’t know if I’d have noticed if she hadn’t told me. The breasts on the other hand are too big and too perky to be anything but silicone-based.
“Me? No.” I had braces. But I don’t think that quite counts.
The makeup artist interrupts me to brush my lips with red.
“So how did you get to be on the show? I heard you had it easy,” Erin says.
Excuse me? I don’t think that’s any of her business. I decide to ignore the attitude. “I worked in business development in Florida. I wanted a change of scenery so I moved here and then I heard about this. You?”
“I wanna be a dancer. Like in music videos. I’m hoping this is my way in. Get noticed. You know. But back to you having it easy. You only had one interview, right? I had to produce a whole video—my friend taped me flashing bouncers to let me into red-roped bars.”
What a freak. “Intense,” I say.
“All done,” the makeup man says.
“My turn. How old are you? I’m twenty-four.”
We switch places. “Me, too.”
“Yeah? We’re the oldest. Have you met the other girls?”
“Not yet. Are they here?”
“You can’t hear them? I can hear Michelle’s nasal screech from here.” Erin snorts. “Michelle’s a total bitch. The whole city thinks she’s a bitch but everyone’s too chicken shit to say anything bad about Little Miss Page Six. She sits on her golden throne on the Upper East Side and fucks over anyone who isn’t paying attention.”
“So do you like her?” What’s Page Six?
Erin laughs and the light glares off her face. She has acne scars on her forehead and around her nose and when she sees me noticing, she turns away.
Back in the bar Carrie is leaning against the diamond-shaped window, talking to two women. One of the girls has Carrie laughing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as spectacular-looking as this girl who is making Carrie laugh. She’s like a lightbulb in a room full of mosquitoes: You can’t take your eyes off her. She looks like a real-life Ariel from The Little Mermaid, with red, first-season Felicity-style curls, fastened haphazardly on top of her head with a long tortoise hair claw.
Carrie air kisses me on the cheek. “Sunny, these are your costars, Brittany and Michelle. Brittany and Michelle, this is Sunny.” Michelle is the stunning one.
“It’s so wonderful to meet you!” Brittany says and leans over to hug me. She towers over me by about three inches and her wavy brown hair falls in front of her face.
She tries to put her arms around me, but they can’t make it across. Her massive breasts are in the way. They’re huge. They’re bigger than Erin’s and they hang down twice as long. I’ve never seen breasts this large. Bigger than Dolly Parton’s, I’m not kidding. A quadruple D, maybe.
“It’s nice to meet you, too.” They must be real. They’re too outrageous not to be.
Michelle is rolling her eyes. Is that at me or at Brittany’s cheesy friendliness? Michelle’s skin is smooth and freckled, the perfect showcase for her wide green eyes.
Brittany looks down and then starts to laugh. “They’re always getting in the way.”
“As long as they’re getting,” Carrie says and puts her arm around me. “Now you’ve met everyone. Hopefully you’ll hang around a little longer than your predecessor.”
Michelle twirls a curl around her thumb and looks me over. “You’re not going to pull a Winona on us, are you?”
What if these girls never like me? What if I can’t fit in?
“I don’t know,” I say. I motion to her purse. “I’d hold on tighter to that Louis Vuitton bag if I were you.”
Michelle tilts back her head and laughs, her long red hair cascading over her shoulders.
Carrie pats me on the back. “I can’t believe you knew it was Louis Vuitton.”
“The ad nauseum logo gave it away,” I say. “Or maybe I’m learning.”
Howard kisses each of us on the cheek. He lingers a little bit longer than necessary on Michelle. “The bar is ours until ten,” he says.
“We look like a Clairol hair color commercial,” Michelle says. “Red, black, brown and blond.”
“Charlie’s Angels,” I say. “Four of them.”
Howard laughs. A trickle of spit lands on his bottom lip and he licks it off, lizard-like. “We need some replacement footage. Sunny, I’m sure you’ve seen the commercial—”
“How could she have seen it when it’s never on?” Erin interrupts. Post-makeup, her skin is looking flawless. Martin must have applied a thick layer of foundation.
“It begins with a panoramic shot of the Manhattan nighttime skyline,” Howard continues, ignoring her. “Then a montage of images of the outside of clubs. Bouncers, long lines, secret entrances. Then, and this is what we need to replace tonight, we’ll get you girls drinking and dancing together. And we need an individual profile shot of Sunny. We already have the rest of you, from last time. We’ll shoot here and then move onto the street and then do a costume change and head over to Princess to get some interaction shots. First, let’s loosen you up a bit. Sound good? Mike?” he calls out across the room to the bartender. “Put anything the girls want on my tab. Sunny? Order your cocktail and then we’ll start with your profile shot right here. Nice makeup.”
As I sip my apple martini, Howard positions me in front of the window. “Gorgeous. Pete’s going to video, and Dirk’s going to snap some stills. Ready?”
I have no idea what to do with myself. Do I drink? Do I pose? Do I drink and pose?
“I want to see you smile, babe, okay?” Dirk says.
I smile.
“A real smile. A sexy smile.”
I try to smile sexy.
Dirk removes his head from behind his camera and flashes Howard a “she’s hopeless” look.
I’m horrible. I have no idea how to smile sexy. They’re going to cut me out of the show.
The three girls are whispering in front of the bar. What are they saying? They must be talking about me. They think I’m awful.
Fuck ’em. I can do this. Pretend I’m a Hot ’n Sexy woman. Stick my chest out. Sexy smile. If Steve could only see me now he’d have a hard-on in a millisecond.
I take a big sip of my cocktail and smile sexy for the camera. I laugh at myself and Dirk clicks away.
“Fantastic!” Dirk says. “Now turn sideways, give me a profile shot, perfect, now smile again, sexy, pretend you’re a Party Girl now, fantastic, now take another sip of your drink, there we go, you’re a natural, stick your chest out a bit, perfect, let’s see those sparkling teeth, rub your glass against your lips, angle your head to the right a bit, gorgeous the money shot, now take a sip, shit, be careful, can someone get Sunny a napkin? I think that’s a wrap.”
Erin, Michelle, Brittany and I are on the bar. Yes, on the bar. Short, tall, tall, short; huge-breasted, small-breasted, big-breasted, medium-breasted. Skirt, jeans, dress, pants. Blond, redheaded, brunette, black-haired. We’re like a rainbow of Caucasian diversity. A red strobe light is blasting and Howard has told us to dance.
“But there’s no music,” Erin protests.
“We’re going to superimpose music for the clip,” Howard says.
“We can’t dance without music,” Erin says. “We’re all going to be on different beats. Can’t you turn something on?”
“Fine. Tania, can you put on something the girls can dance to?”
Tania puts on a remixed dance version of Britney Spears’s “Oops!…I Did it Again.”
Our own Brittany adjusts her breasts. I’m not sure how she remains upright with those things. “I hate when they destroy good songs with a dance beat,” she says.
Michelle rolls her eyes again. Aha! She’s rolling them at Brittany, not at me.
I pinch her shoulder.
“She considers this a good song?” I mouth. “What’s a bad song then?”
Michelle smiles.
“Now dance,” Howard tells us. We dance. We go low. We go high. We wiggle our behinds. We dance carefully to avoid falling off the bar and cracking our heads open. When the song ends, we stop.
“Keep going,” Howard says. A new Britney dance mix begins.
We keep wiggling. This song seems to be the extended version. We wiggle some more. Don’t they only need about two seconds of this? Stiletto boots are not made for bar dancing.
“Sunny, dance with Brittany. Erin, dance with Miche,” Howard says.
Miche? Meesh? That’s the strangest sounding nickname I’ve ever heard. Why does he have a nickname for her? I want to call her Miche.
We couple off and continue dancing.
“I meant dirty dance,” he says. “You’ve got to work it, girls. Hollywood ain’t all glitz and glamour.”
Hollywood?
The last time I dirty danced was in 1987 when I had a Teen Beat poster of Patrick Swayze taped to my bedroom wall.
And I was alone. Not with another member of my own sex.
Erin shakes her behind down the ground around Michelle. Michelle’s hands are up in the air. They really do look like porn stars.
I don’t think we’re as sexy as the other team. Brittany’s breasts accidentally hit my thigh. I lose my balance but then steady myself before I topple headfirst into the bottles of vodka.
At one-thirty I creak open the front door. Two women are making out on the television. Steve is lying on the couch.
“Hi,” he says. “You look gorgeous. Very sexy hair. So how’s my favorite TV star?”
“You’re sure I’m your favorite?” I nudge my head toward the TV. I attempt to yank off my boots, but they’re too tight and finally they’re off and I slump on top of Steve. “My feet are in serious pain. I’ll give you a thousand dollars to rub them.”
The women on TV moan as Steve rubs little circles into the soles of my feet. “Packages from Stark’s were delivered.”
“Oh, good. I got a ton of new clothes for the show.”
He runs his hand down my tight baby-blue dress and then up my leg. “What you’re wearing now is hot.”
“Thanks. I am so tired, you have no idea. They made us dance for hours on top of a bar and I thought I was going to fall off. Then they made us do a hundred shots of tequila.”
“What? Did you pass out? I’ve never seen you do more than two shots without slurring your words.”
“The first one was real. Lick the salt off your hand, do the shot and then suck a lime. But then Howard thought it was too boring, so he made us lick the salt off each other’s necks and then down the tequila. Michelle, one of the other girls on the show, almost puked, so Tania suggested we shoot apple juice instead, but make a tequila face at the end. Then they filmed us hailing cabs on the street. They wouldn’t let us get into the cab, they just filmed us hailing them, which really pissed off the cab drivers when they stopped. And then we had to change outfits and redo our makeup and our hair and we went to a dance club, as if we hadn’t done enough dancing for one night. Princess, the club’s called. Have you ever been there? Everyone in the bar had to sign a waiver in case they end up on the show. They made us dance for another half hour. And then they made us do more shots. Then they got one of the guys to give us all body shots. Basically, he licked the salt off our—”
Steve’s eyebrows gather together. Abort discussion! Abort discussion! Perhaps the story regarding the male model licking salt off our necks, biting a shot glass from our cleavage and then sucking a lime out of our lips is not a good story to share. Since they’re only going to use one of those shots in the final commercial, what’s the chance that my inferior cleavage is chosen?
“Yes? Off where?” Steve says.
“—off Erin’s neck. One of the other girls. She might be a bit psycho. She had two nose jobs. Two.”
“Who is she, Michael Jackson?”
“Possibly. And she made a big deal about warning me about Michelle, saying she’s a bitch, but I actually like Michelle the best.” I start laughing. “She couldn’t hold up the shot glass because she’s so flat-chested and the apple juice spilled down her shirt.”
“Erin or Michelle?”
“It was, it was, it was just…” A thought occurs to me. He’s not concerned about the four of us girls all gyrating against one another and licking the salt off each other’s skin, but he practically blows a circuit when he thinks other guys are involved. Why do men not seem to think of their girlfriends engaging in a lesbian experience as cheating?
I’m too tired for this. “Why don’t we go to bed?”
“Bed. Yes, bed.” His face brightens. Is it me who put the hopeful look in his eyes, or what he’s been watching on the Hot ’n Sexy channel?
I follow him into the bedroom. I’m being silly. Of course it’s me he wants. He loves me, doesn’t he? I lift the blue dress over my head. My new Betsey Johnson dress. As I start removing my thong I feel a minor problem. Half of my pubic region has been waxed and the other half remains nicely carpeted. Crap.
Can I tell him it’s the new style? The Jekyll and Hyde?
He’s naked and changing the CD. “How about Barry White?”
“I just want to jump in the shower,” I say. I’ll be fast. I’ll shave it off. He won’t be able to tell. “I’m all grungy from the bars. Two minutes. Not even. Start thinking nasty thoughts and when I get back I have a surprise for you.”
Before he can react, I scurry into the bathroom, close the door and turn on the shower. I quickly wash my hair—where is my hair? There’s no hair left to shampoo. Then I soap myself, cover my bikini area in shaving cream and timidly bring the razor down south.
This is worse than brain surgery. One wrong move and it’s a clitorectomy.
I slowly and carefully shave off as much of the offending strands as I can. All clean.
I pose in my most provocative lean in front of the light switch. “What do you think?”
Steve recoils. “What happened to your pussy?”
Excuse me? “It’s a Brazilian.” I stomp over to the bed and hide my head under the covers. “I thought you’d like it. Excuse me for trying.”
“I do like it, let me see.” He tugs the covers off me and lightly touches. “It looks like a hairless cat.”
I yank the covers back up. “A Sphinx? You think I look like a Sphinx? That’s the last time I endure excruciating pain for your viewing pleasure.”
“I like hairless cats,” he says. “Let me see it again.”
I pull down the covers. “Wo-ow,” he says. “Very hot. Very sexy.” He continues stroking me and I feel myself getting turned on. After a few minutes of fooling around I climb on top of him and we start having sex.
I’m not sure if it’s because of the lack of hair barrier, but I’m much wetter than usual and I feel an orgasm coming on.
“You are so juicy,” he tells me. “Your pussy is so juicy like this.”
I wish he would stop saying pussy. And juicy. I was already having a hard time getting rid of the image of the Sphinx. Now I’m picturing a slobbering Sphinx.
“I’m going to come,” I tell him and continue thrusting on top of him. He’s holding me by the waist and helping me move.
“Me, too,” he says. “Tell me when.”
“Any second,” I say. Almost there…almost there…Steve is a wonderful lover. A considerate lover. He never allows himself to come until he’s sure I already did. Or I at least tell him I did.
I orgasm and then he orgasms and then I stop and lie on the soft brown hairs of his chest and fall asleep.
Later I wake up and remind myself that if I don’t pee right after sex I’ll get a bladder infection.
Hey there, I think to my vagina while I’m peeing. I haven’t seen it bald since I was eleven. I’ve forgotten what it looked like. I pat it and the sensation feels both smooth and bizarre. I flush, wash my hands, brush my teeth, then go back to bed.