A Hairy Ordeal

I am one of those unfortunate souls who do to some

genetic quirk in life was born with hair in all the wrong places.  Whenever I feel down about it I thank my lucky stars I am not a woman. The reasons for that gratefulness will become abundantly clear as you work your way through this missive.

For some reason the legacy of my maternal grandfather decided that I should have little hair on my head and all of it on my body.  Like a puzzle from the past our genetic code decides our fate like the emperor of Rome presiding over gladiatorial combat. It can bring disease and it can provide long life.  It dictates the color of our eyes and if our appearance we will be beautiful or simply like that of a toad.  In Asia people are largely hairless and my abundance of it becomes a rather quaint oddity.  I am not quite sure how they view me.  Half simian perhaps?  I like to think they find it uniquely sexy.  At any rate women touch it as if it is a delicate foreign object of great curiosity.  They lightly feel the texture as if they are afraid pushing too hard might in some way cause my skin to disintegrate before them.

I have come to terms with my grandfather's legacy.  The hair on the legs, fine, arms acceptable, chest,  well it once embodied male manliness.  The one area I despise my hair is my back.  That is when man sweater really hits home.  It feels freakish in some way.  Like it is beyond what should be and crosses me into the realm of the Neanderthal.  With this in mind a few years back I paid to have laser done.  It was pretty effective and removed the vast majority yet like a persistent weed a certain amount does love to grow back.

Not me.  Illustrative purpose only

For a long time I have been curious about waxing.  I know, they say it hurts but its women saying that after all.  Hell these are the creatures that get the slightest cut and start to cry.  Of course they also give birth but for conversations sake I won't discuss that right now.  I figured if they could do it, I could as well.   I had been looking out for a place and the other night while walking around Chiang Mai I spotted a small massage body therapy shop.  I went for the massage but while examining the menu of treatments spotted waxing and decided it was the perfect opportunity.  I discussed price and was led first through a hobbit size door into a private massage room.  The lighting was dim and a soft Asian instrumental music filled the air.  The woman accompanying me handed me what was essentially a temporary paper underwear and left the room.  When she returned I pronounced myself sexy and she laughed at my feeble attempt to escape the perception of my diapered condition.  My masseuse, a Thai woman in her forties named Oi had magical hands.  I chose an oil massage and for the next hour felt her work each and every muscle like a master.  We had discussed some soreness prior to commencing and she was simply extraordinary in the way that she worked specific areas with all the skill of a craftsman.

When finished she led me out back through the hobbit door and into another room slightly more clinical.  There was a bed but this time it had a hole where the head would rest.  As I lowered my head into the hole I half expected that I would be strapped down and forced to engage in some kind of perverse ritual.  In truth having been violated in some way would have been preferable to what followed.  It started with a burning as hot waxed was spread across patches of my back.  Moments later the slight sting turned to abject torture as sheets of my hair were ripped from my body.  There are few times in my life when I have felt such stinging pain.  I gripped the table with anticipation as each new rip separated more of me from my body. 

The gentle masseuse from minutes ago had turned complete pleasure into abject pain.  With each cry of agony Oi laughed and every time I thought we were nearing completion she would say there was another patch that needed to be fixed.  My teeth grit, my eyes watered and every inch of masculinity

seeped out of my body like a dam breaking.  I tried to laugh but wanted to cry.  At times Oi would show me strips of wax filled with my hair.  It seemed a kind of trophy much like an American Indian holding up the scalp of some poor settler.  When the last rip separated hair from skin she softly rubbed baby powder and lotion over me.  The compassionate Oi had returned, the sadistic one had left.  She smiled and asked if I would like my chest done?  "No, I beg you no," I said as I looked up at her standing beside me.  Pitifully I raised my head and extended my arms.  "Hold me." I pleaded.  She actually gave me a small hug as if to acknowledge the suffering she had caused.  Out of my eyesight however I wondered if her eyes were filled with compassion or victory.

Sitting just outside my torture chamber had been an old fat western man getting a foot massage.  I had passed him when I entered but he was gone when I left.  I can only imagine what he must have thought as he listend to my cries of anguish.  Perhaps it was pity yet I suspect in reality it was something more like, "what a dumb ass."

When I left the cottage Oi had placed a small cup of tea on a plate beside a chair.  As I drank the tea I promised myself that when I returned I would seal away the waxing in a corner of my mind.  I would lock it in a box that even after hours of expensive psycho therapy must never again see light.  No, next time I would certainly select the herbal facial massage. 

I wonder if Oi will remember me the next time I return.  Honestly how could she not.  She is probably still laughing with her friends about the Farang (pale white westerner) and his "Hairy Ordeal."