The Aesthetician’s Table Changed Everything

Camila had planned the trip with her friends for months. Five days on the coast, no work, no schedules, nothing but the sun and the sound of the sea. A week before they were due to leave, an idea had gotten into her head: to have, for the first time, a full wax, the kind they do in a proper place, not with pharmacy wax warmed up on the stove and a crooked mirror in the bathroom of her apartment.

She searched online until she found a salon right in the center that had good reviews and photos of an interior that looked more like a spa house than an ordinary beauty parlor. She booked an appointment for Thursday in midafternoon, when the city starts to slow down.

The place smelled of eucalyptus and something sweet she couldn’t identify. She was greeted by a woman with black hair, so dark it had blue highlights under the light, and green eyes that looked at her for a second longer than necessary.

—Hi, I’m Renata —she said, extending her hand—. You must be the five o’clock appointment.

—Camila —she replied, and felt Renata’s hand, firm and warm, around hers.

Renata was in her early thirties. She was slim, with slow, assured movements, like someone who was never in a hurry about anything. She had an air of calm that Camila found strangely magnetic, almost unsettling, as if the woman knew something she still didn’t.

—It’s my first time doing something like this —Camila confessed as she followed her down a hallway with sand-colored walls—. The full wax, I mean. I’m a little nervous.

—That’s normal —Renata said without turning around—. Most people come in tense and leave floating. Trust me.

The private room was small and warm. A table in the center, a low lamp, a shelf with jars of wax and oils. Renata closed the door with a gentle gesture and asked her to take off her clothes from the waist down and lie back, that she would cover her with a towel.

Camila obeyed. She lay down on her back, her heart pounding harder than the situation really warranted. Renata came back, washed her hands, and sat on a little stool at the side.

—Ready? —she asked.

—Ready.

***

The first touch was professional, exact. Renata applied the warm wax to her leg with a spatula, pressed on the cloth strip, and ripped it away in one clean motion. Camila bit back a sound more from surprise than pain.

—Too much? —Renata asked.

—No, it’s fine. I thought it would be worse.

—Almost everything we imagine ends up being worse in our heads than in reality —Renata said, and something in the way she said it made Camila look at her.

They kept talking as the work went on. They discovered they had studied at the same university, two years apart. That they had both had the same unbearable Literature professor. That they both liked the same books, the kind one doesn’t admit out loud to reading. The conversation flowed with a ease that unraveled Camila.

—I’ll confess something to you —Renata said as she ran a cold cotton pad over the freshly waxed area—. I’ve always thought this, done properly, can be one of the most sensual things there is.

Camila swallowed.

—Really?

—The skin ends up so awake… —Renata slid two fingers along Camila’s thigh, right where she had just worked—. Feel that? Every nerve ending is on edge.

Camila did feel it. She felt the trail of those fingers like a current climbing up her leg and settling in her belly. She should have said something, set a boundary, remembered that she was there for a routine appointment before a trip. She said nothing.

—Show me —she asked, and her voice came out lower than she intended.

Renata smiled. It was a slow, unhurried smile, the same smile as someone who never rushes anything.

***

Renata’s hands changed professions without warning. What had been a technical massage turned into a caress. Her palms moved up and down Camila’s legs, opening toward the inner thighs, pausing just before the place where Camila most wanted them to go.

—Tell me if you want me to stop —Renata murmured.

—Don’t stop.

Renata leaned down and left a kiss on the taut skin of her thigh. Just a brush of warm lips, enough to make Camila arch her back. Then another, a little higher. And another. Each kiss was a question and each of Camila’s silences was the answer.

The towel slipped to the floor. Neither of them picked it up.

Camila had her eyes closed and her whole body focused on the advance of that mouth. When Renata’s lips finally reached between her legs, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Renata’s tongue moved with the same calm precision with which she had worked the wax, unhurried, finding exactly the right place and rhythm.

—God —Camila whispered, burying her fingers in the woman’s black hair.

She didn’t rush her. She let her go on. Renata read every tremor, every tension in her thighs, and adjusted accordingly. Camila felt her whole body gathering into a single point, a pressure that kept growing and growing until there was no way to hold it any longer. The orgasm hit her long and deep, and she bit her arm to keep from crying out in that small room with its thin walls.

When she opened her eyes, Renata was looking up at her with those green eyes lit from within.

—I told you to trust me —she said.

Camila propped herself up on her elbows, still breathless, and looked at her with a new clarity.

—I want more.

***

Renata stood up and, never taking her eyes off her, unfastened her apron and let it fall. Underneath, she was wearing almost nothing. She took off her clothes with the same deliberate slowness as everything else she did, revealing a slender body with pale skin and a narrow waist. Camila watched her without hiding it, surprised by the direct desire she felt at seeing another woman like this.

—Make room —Renata said, and climbed onto the table.

They lay on their sides, facing each other, and for a moment they only looked. Then Camila kissed her. It was a kiss unlike any she knew, without the awkward urgency of other times, a mouth that knew how to wait. Their tongues sought each other slowly while their hands began to explore new territory.

Camila dared. She ran her palm over Renata’s chest, felt the nipple harden beneath her hand, slid down over the flat stomach. Renata sighed against her mouth, and that sound emboldened her. She wanted to give her the same thing she had received. She wanted to understand what this pleasure was made of from the other side.

She slipped her hand between Renata’s legs and found her wet, open, waiting. Renata bit her lower lip when her fingers began to move.

—Like that —Renata murmured against her ear—. Just like that.

Camila learned quickly. She learned to read the broken breathing, the way Renata’s hips sought her hand, the moment to speed up and the moment to hold. Renata clung to her shoulder, dug in her nails, and when she came, it was with a deep groan that Camila felt vibrating against her own chest.

They stayed still for a moment, tangled together, breathing in unison.

—I don’t usually do this with clients —Renata said, with a faintly guilty smile.

—No? —Camila arched an eyebrow.

—Almost never. —She brushed a strand of hair off her forehead—. But there are people who walk through the door and you just know.

***

It didn’t end there. They found each other again on the narrow table, with less fear and more desire, discovering positions, laughing when something wouldn’t fit, helping one another. Camila ended up with Renata’s leg between hers, the two of them moving to a rhythm they found without speaking, foreheads pressed together, their names turned into whispers. The second orgasm found them almost at the same time, and this time neither of them bothered to stay quiet.

Afterward they lay there a long while in silence, embraced, the lamp’s low light drawing shadows on the sand-colored walls.

—I have to finish the waxing —Renata finally said, and they both laughed like girls.

She did. She finished the work with her usual calm, as if nothing had happened, except that every now and then her fingers lingered an extra second on Camila’s skin, and Camila felt that all of her was still awake, on the edge of every nerve ending, just as she had been promised.

When she stepped out into the hallway, dressed again, Renata handed her a card.

—In case you want to repeat the experience —she said—. The waxing, I mean.

Camila slipped the card into the back pocket of her pants.

—I’ll come back in a week, as soon as I get off the plane —she replied.

She went out into the street with her skin burning and a smile that didn’t fade all night. Her friends would notice something different in her on the trip, she was sure of it. But that, what had happened that afternoon on the table, she didn’t intend to tell anyone.