Bradford Bastard (Bradford Bastard 1)

It seemed easy enough, so I shoved the hot wax into the microwave and followed every instruction until it was time to finally spread my legs. I swallowed my fear and held my head high. I knew other girls in my class who’d tried it and they didn’t have too many complaints. It couldn’t have been that bad, right?

Fucking wrong. So fucking wrong.

With the small handheld mirror propped up against the bathroom wall, I lost my pants and dropped to the ground. One leg went to the left, braced against the shower glass and the other to the right, propped up over the edge of the bathtub. It was the most dazzling sight, you know, minus the bush between my legs.

The freezing bite from the tiled floor assaulted my asshole as I crouched over and got into a good position.

After scooping out a large dollop of wax, I smothered it over my most intimate parts. The hot wax burned my lips and I cried out, trying to blow on it to cool it down as it ran and made a mess. The wax slowly hardened in delicate places it wasn’t supposed to find itself, and I told myself that the first time is never supposed to go well. I’d know better next time. In hindsight, I now know the importance of trimming first, not that I’ve ever attempted this shit again.

Next came the mental pep talk good enough for an Olympic-level coach prepping his star athletes for the biggest game of their lives, and with that, I clenched my eyes and tore that wax off my coochie as hard as humanly possible.

My hand slipped off the edge of the wax and I gave myself a black eye, but that didn’t matter because half of my left lip was HANGING OFF MY FUCKING COOCH! Blood was spurting as agony tore through me. I screamed until my throat was raw, terrified I was going to bleed out and my mom was going to come home to find me dead, spread-eagled on the bathroom floor.

It was a bloodbath. A massacre of the highest degree.

Only moments had passed, and I was contemplating my death, when my older brother came storming through the bathroom door, all but breaking the damn thing down. His eyes were wide and frantic after hearing me scream, but nothing was worse than watching as his gaze dropped and saw the wax, the bush, the blood, and the hanging lip.

The big bastard had to carry me out to his car, still spread eagle and screaming while the neighbors watched in horror. Then to make matters worse, he made me wait while he laid a towel down because I couldn’t possibly risk bleeding all over his stupid wipeable leather seats. Asshole.

Not going to lie, that was the most humiliating moment of my life.

Or so I thought, until half an hour later when I was lying on a hard bed in the emergency room with an ice pack on my face and a team of doctors and nurses studying my vag. Not to mention the hundred-year-old nurse at my side telling me all about the dilemmas she has with her own bush.

My brother was off in the corner on the phone with Mom, unable to look me in the eye while a male nurse on his first day of prac stood between my legs with a hair dryer, trying to heat the wax enough to start removing it. After all, they couldn’t possibly stitch me up with the mess surrounding the disaster that shall not be named, and I quickly learned that scissors and shaving weren’t going to do the trick.

Thirteen stitches later, a night in the hospital, and a vow to never speak of it to another soul, and I was home free. To this day, my secret has remained my own—apart from the millions of medical staff who insisted on coming to have a peek. That was the worst day of my life. Not even the day my father walked out on us can top that shit. Though to be fair, he was a spineless sack of shit who was only holding us back.

Nothing has come close to the humiliation I felt that day, until right this very minute.

Music blasts through the McMansion. At least, it’s a McMansion to me. To these rich kids around me, this place is probably sub-standard with its three levels, private bar, and a pool that is somehow both inside and outside at the same time. Either way, it doesn’t matter to me because I have absolutely no plans to return here ever again.

My shoulder presses up against the doorframe of one of the many spare bedrooms, watching as my boyfriend, Colby, goes to town on some cheerleader-looking princess, giving her the whole experience, grunts and sweat included.