1 Jessa
Iflicked the edgeof the hardened wax strip and cursed.It was too late to change my mind, but I deeply regretted letting my boredom lead me to this point.Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the end of the strip, and pulled.
“Holy mph-” The pain sent a cold sweat across my entire body and I dropped the hair-covered wax to the floor with a squeak of lingering pain.One look at my partially denuded undercarriage told me that I couldn’t stop now, not looking like that.
“Why’d you put the first strip down the middle, idiot?”I asked myself.I’d been doing that a lot lately, talking to myself, carrying on both sides of meandering pointless conversations.It was probably a bad sign, but there wasn’t exactly anyone else to talk to.
“It looks like my pussy has a receding hairline,” I said.“There’s no way I can live with myself and leave it looking like that.”
Giving myself my first Brazilian wax in six months had been my attempt at entertainment.It seemed like a good idea while I set up my little workstation, dusted every surface, sanitized and picked out my favorite lavender scented wax beads.Messing with the melting wax had kept me busy for almost ten minutes, and I’d even whistled to myself as I laid down that first, optimistic strip.
Now I was looking at a naked, angry red patch of skin dead center in the unshaved forest I was sporting, it wasn’t as much fun as I hoped.The newly waxed spot was hot to the touch, like my skin was trying to warn me off pulling anymore hair out, and tender.But I’d already committed by virtue of my impossible to ignore bald patch, so the rest of my poor bikini area would just have to resign itself to the massacre.
I sighed and dipped a fresh stick into the wax.
“This was a mistake,” I said aloud, carefully pushing the hot wax down the next strip of hair.“Massive, painful mistake.I regret everything.”
I swiped the wax into a handy little lip for easy pulling, if nothing else, Iwasa professional, and tossed the used stick away with a flourish.Looking around the empty spa, I waited for the wax to harden and wondered how long I could expect my latest distraction to last.
Not long enough.I’d run out of things to keep me busy months ago.The spa had its own well, solar panels, a septic field, a huge stock of protein bars, protein shakes and green smoothie powder.An appetizing diet it was not, but when the world ended, and aliens invaded, you didn’t look the protein horse in the mouth.
Whoops, I thought of the forbidden word again.Damn, I’d been doing so well, not letting my thoughts creep outside the protective walls of the spa.
Eager to push reality aside, I grabbed the cooled wax strip and yanked.
“Son of a-” I gasped in pain, pressing a hand to my abused skin and trying to gather the courage for the next strip.
“You should never have let the roots get this established,” I scolded myself.“Every eight weeks and it barely hurts.But you let it go for over six months and now you’re paying the price.”
In another life, standing in my workplace, pantless, talking to myself and clutching a dripping popsicle stick covered in hot wax would have been a sign of a mental break.But I hadn’t seen any of my coworkers in months, hadn’t talked to anyone in months, and frankly had stopped asking myself if I had a full inventory of my marbles.
It was just me, the bright, semi-flattering lights, and the quiet playlist I’d been playing on repeat because it was all I had downloaded and the internet was no longer a thing.Come to think of it, hearing the same fifteen songs all day for six months probably wasn’t helping my mental health.
Grumbling to myself, I propped one foot up on the waxing bed and tilted my hand mirror so I could get a decent view of what I was doing.I’d never actually done a full Brazilian on myself.Why would I when I worked with six other trained professionals and free spa services was a job perk?
My inexperience was one of the reasons I’d let things get so hairy, and I was struggling to suck my gut in enough to see what I was doing.I’d lost a few pounds on a diet of protein bars and ‘health’ smoothies that tasted like the color ‘kelly green’, but I had just enough pouch left to be in the way.
“Oooh, hot, hot, hot,” I chanted as I missed my mark and scorched a particularly sensitive area.Blowing out an exasperated breath, I straightened and waited for things to cool down.
“This is gonna suck,” I announced to the empty spa.Contorting myself into position, I grabbed the edge of the strip, held my breath and yanked.
BANG!
“What the-” my hand stopped mid pull, tugging painfully on the last few inches of hair and I whipped my head around, looking for the source of the sound.A feral, ear-piercing scream drowned out my playlist and my stomach dropped.
I’d heard that scream before, late at night, while I was curled up on the massage table that served as my bed.The sound had haunted my nightmares for months, so utterly foreign to the normal sounds of nighttime.I’d never had the courage to peek out a window and see the source, preferring to pretend it was a feral cat and live on in blissful ignorance.
But it had never sounded so close before.
Still frozen in my awkward hunch, one hand gripping the half pulled strip of wax, I held my breath and shuddered as the scream came again.It sounded like it was moving around the outside of the spa.Another crash came from the back room, and I started hyperventilating.
The main area of the spa was windowless, for obvious privacy reasons, no one wanted to bare their bits to an estheticianandanyone walking by.I avoided the reception area and its wall of windows because looking outside forced me to acknowledge how wrong everything looked now.
There were no cars driving by anymore, no lit OPEN signs in the shops across the street, no walk-in customers hoping for a quick pedicure on their lunch break.No cheerful Milly, manning the front desk and the phone.All the windows did now was prove that my little bubble was a drawn out episode of denial in my grieving process for the world I’d known my whole life.
I’d blocked the door to the waiting area when the first explosions started and I was alone in the spa for a deep clean day.But there was one other window, in the storage room, above the receiving area where we stored our deliveries.Back when we got deliveries.
From the banging and crashing, something had come in through that window.
