“Take off your pants and lie on your back." Leah is stirring a pot of wax on a counter set up along the wall.

I falter for a moment. Just take off my pants? I pictured her leaving the room and me getting at least a paper gown to cover myself with. Everly was wrong. The gynecologist visit was less awkward than this.

Leah turns her head and sees me just standing there. "Your underwear too. We're doing a full Brazilian, right?"

Okay then. I nod and toe my shoes off without bending over. I unzip and slide my jeans off before folding them and placing them on an empty chair with my bag. So, my underwear. This is weird. I slip them off too and look at my folded jeans. I should tuck my underwear under my jeans, right? I know I'm standing here naked but I don't want her to see my underwear just lying on the chair.

I glance down. Socks. Dammit with the socks again. On or off? On. Definitely on. She's not waxing my feet. I hop onto the table and lie back. No poster on the ceiling here. I stuff my hands into the pocket of my hoodie. It's so weird that I'm only naked from the waist down.

Leah turns away from the pot of wax and inspects me. Literally. "Okay, let's see what we have to work with here. Pull your knees up and drop them to the side. Like a frog."

"There's no poster on the ceiling!" I blurt out.

"What?" Leah looks confused.

"Um. You should have a poster. On the ceiling. For me to look at. Or maybe a TV?" I look at Leah. She's not looking at me anymore though. She's got a big popsicle stick of wax in her hand and she's about to slather it on my body.

This is it. I'm about to die. Of humiliation. My hand bumps the cell still stuffed in my hoodie pocket. I should send a goodbye message. I pull out my phone. I text Everly and tell her I hate her.

The first coat of wax hits my skin. That's not so bad. It's warm. Kinda pleasant even. Minus the fact that I'm lying half naked on a table in front of a woman I just met.

Leah drops the stick in the trash and presses a cloth on top of the wax. Pressing it down with her hand. Yeah. This is fantastic.

Not.

Leah presses one hand flat against my abdomen and rips the wax strip off with the other.

I wait for a blinding pain combined with a flash of white light inviting me to cross over to the other side. Ouch. That hurt. But I don't think it's going to kill me. It wasn't so bad. It burns a little.

It's more embarrassing than anything. I let out a huge breath I didn't realize I was holding.

Leah's back with another stick full of wax. Spreading and ripping. "Looks good!" she chirps from between my thighs. "Your boyfriend is going to love this!"

"Yeah," I reply. "I'm sure he will. So, do you wax yourself?"

"Oh, no," Leah replies. "We wax each other."

"What?"

"The other waxers. We just grab whoever's not busy and do each other."

"You let your co-workers wax your vagina? People you see every day? And meet after work for drinks?"

Leah laughs. "Yeah. Who cares?" She shrugs. "You have to be careful with co-workers though. Sometimes we mess with each other for a laugh."

"Practical jokes with wax?" I ask.

"Exactly. One time"—she has to stop because she's laughing—"one time Laura waxed Katie’s bush into the shape of a goldfish cracker." I try to discreetly check out my vagina in case Everly's arranged for some practical joke to my nether regions. "Katie was into some 80's phase where she was only doing her bikini line." Leah has regained her composure. "Totally unacceptable, obviously."

"Obviously." I don't agree, but I'm half naked on a table and Leah is controlling the destiny of my vaginal hair, so I nod.

"I mean, get some leg warmers if you're going retro. Am I right?" Thankfully Leah doesn't wait for me to respond to that before continuing. "So Katie doesn't even notice. Until that night when her husband goes down on her and starts laughing so hard they have to stop." Leah tries not to laugh, which causes a snort to escape.

"So what did she do?" I ask. "Fix it herself? Or live with it?"

"Oh, no." Leah is suddenly very serious. "That is not okay, Sophie. Never wax your own vagina." She shakes her head. "Never. Waxing yourself is the devil. The pain is totally different when you're inflicting it on yourself." She waves at my vagina. "This isn't so bad, right?"

"No." I have to agree. "It's not that bad. I thought it would hurt worse."

Leah nods and rips another strip of hair off my body, then scrutinizes her work. "There's a few strays. Hold on." She returns and leans over my crotch with a pair of tweezers and yanks.

Oh. My. God. Why does it hurt so much more one hair at a time? I can't believe this woman is hovering over my vagina with a pair of tweezers. I want to tell her not to bother, Mike can deal with a few stray hairs, but I feel like it would be rude to tell her how to do her job. On my vagina.

My phone beeps. It's a picture of a kitten. In a bikini. Don't be a pussy, wax your kitty, Everly's typed.

"Almost done!" Leah says. "Knees up to the ceiling now and hold 'em."

Did she just ask me to flash my asshole at her? "What?" I ask.

"We need to get the hair between the cheeks now." Leah picks my leg up for me and bends it so my knee is at a ninety-degree angle. "Here, put your hand under your knee. Now grab the other one." She turns to grab another wax-covered stick while I put myself into a mental coma to deal with this humiliation.

"Drop your knees open as far as you can." Leah is now spreading wax between my butt cheeks. I wasn't even aware I had hair there. I wonder how much hair I have there? Holy shit, did Luke see my asshole hair? I'm suddenly thankful to Everly. At least Mike won't have to see it.

"We also do vajazzling here! Anything you can think of, we can do." I can't believe Leah is selling me on sparkling my vagina with crystals as she wipes wax between my ass cheeks. "I do a really nice Hello Kitty."

"Um, okay?"

"Your socks." Leah gestures to my feet that are hanging in mid-air. I forgot I’m wearing Hello Kitty socks. I should reconsider my grandparents' offer to live with them in Florida after graduation. I could donate my entire sock collection to Goodwill and wear nothing but flipflops in Florida.

"All done!" Leah tosses the last strip into the trash and grabs a mirror and holds it between my legs. "See? It looks great." She's beaming at me. Does she want me to check out my vagina and compliment her? I take a quick glance in the mirror. Huh, it does look different without hair. "Looks good," I reply politely. I start to get off the table.

"Wait! You need aloe!" Leah pumps a gob of aloe into her hand and smooths it over my vagina. With her hand. My humiliation is complete.

I scoot off the table and dress as quickly as possible while Leah cleans the table and gives me aftercare instructions. She tells me she also does organic goat-milk facials and hands me a coupon for a free facial with my second Brazilian wax. I'm still not sold on this waxing thing, but I'm pretty sure I won't be signing up to get a facial and a Brazilian wax from the same person anytime soon.

Back in the lobby Everly tries to high-five me, but I just mouth, "I hate you," and flop onto the couch to wait while she goes in for her wax.