Lolita's Travels

Yes, massage?

I have been hurt. By warm, strong, tiny hands! I asked for it, but tiny hands struck again. Waxed underarms and half-leg. Geeze Louise! Now I know why I haven’t really done either. It hurts! And it’s annoying growing the hair out long enough. Twice a girl looks and says, “Small,” but to me I’m the wooly mammoth. “Try Padma,” she suggests.

Yes, all leg? No thank you. Yes, bikini? No thank you.

Shivers, sharp attacks on my feet, the ankles, cold sweat after cold sweat, I am exhaling, staying calm. I know there is an end point, I remind myself I waited for this, have been wanting this. Like the sea bugs that were biting in the Bali Sea this morning, but the least painful rips of the long strips of cloth and wax are ten times worse than the insidious Bali Sea sea bugs and the ankles and feet are ten times worse than the rest. She goes over the same area a few times, rip up, tear down, rip up to the left, tear more off the ankle. Then she gets the tweezers out. Tiny prick after tiny pinching prick, one shiver after another goes all through me, my foot jumps. Three times. The other foot as well. I take it my leg hair is course. “Tough, yes?” I aim to support, perhaps to distract.

She smiles and motions for me to turn over. The hair on the back of my lower leg is much thinner, I am good to be done, but I can handle this. She approaches the bed with a pot that is steaming. She again slabs wax indelicately up my leg with a wooden spoon, the wax is much hotter now and I feel like the layer of wax could be thicker, but who am I to challenge the methods of Padma Hassta?

I remind myself that It is only $5 for underarms and $10 for half-legs so I deserve this, all the pain and tingling and sharp, acute, biting pain. Then I feel two wooden spoons and very hot wax on both legs, two girls are working on me. Let’s get this girl done, I figure they were thinking. I had gone from two girls conjointly working on my underarms, to one girl (warm, strong, tiny hands from the Balinese massage earlier in the week) as a couple came in for a massage, and I had moved after that to another ‘room’ – what is in this case what I would call the hallway near the bathroom and the back room, but they got inundated with walk-ins so they had to get me out. Rip, tear, tear, pinch, prick, prick. Yes, good, I lied. Well not entirely, fait accompli, yes, but forty minutes later my legs are itching and burning. Small price to pay for keeping the wooly mammoth at bay, I suppose.