The Ghostwriter's Words

Sara: Reflections on Grooming

Sara gazed at her reflection, her thoughts racing back and forth across space and time. She tried to recall the first time she'd shaved any part of her body and why. She would have been ignorant of such grooming practices before fleeing her father's house, let alone little wigs to wear on her bald hoo-hah. She likely had hair beneath her arms, too, as Sammy watched her emerge from the pool beneath the waterfall. She recalled that she had hair below. Her untamed bush and breasts were all she'd had to support her contention that she was of age. Her face argued the contrary.

She would have appeared even younger than she did at present that day at the waterfall. She was beautiful when Sammy first saw her, or so he'd told her. She'd been a "stunningly gorgeous, dangerously tempting, petite bit of jailbait," was the Professor's pronouncement; intended, as always, he swore, in the best possible way, as an off-colored compliment or his version of one. That was probably a few months following her emergence from the pool beneath the waterfall. She hadn't yet matured into the tall, athletic, "magnificent beast" - again, the Professor's words - that she presently observed standing naked before the mirror, unchanged since the day she'd become Immortal. Except, in addition to body hair, her body art, she reminded herself, turning slightly to admire the beautiful angel wings covering her back, which would be an inevitable topic of discussion upon returning home, bald hoo-hah or not.

Returning her focus to her unshaven bush, Sara knew she would never have shaved her armpits or legs before leaving home. Had there even been a razor in their house? Her father's house, according to him, which she'd later learned was far from the truth. He'd worn a beard, which she recalled her mother trimming with a large pair of shears, manufactured for some purpose that had nothing to do with human grooming, just as she'd cut his hair as part of what had once been their monthly bath routine. And less often, she had trimmed Sara's and her own, only so neither accidentally soiled it sitting in the privy.

Sara recalled that bath days hadn't become weekly until her body began transforming into womanhood when she'd first bled and was informed that she 'was of age.' Before this, her father had insisted bathing once a month was more than sufficient, no matter how her mother had pleaded that her 'courses' had just ended, whatever those may have been. Reflectively, Sara recognized that the change in the schedule hadn't been merely thoughtfulness for her hygienic concerns since, as she understood, or came to, her mother still bled monthly, or they may have gone even longer between baths. It seemed a mystery at the time, never explained, and nothing, once decreed by her father, dared to be questioned. But she also remembered the first time she'd caught her father peering around the edge of the blanket they hung to provide them privacy for their baths. Supposedly.

She'd been standing, completely naked, with one leg in the tub, facing him so that he had a full-frontal view. For some bizarre association of memories, Sara also recalled that the water in the tub was always used first by him, then her mother, and be dirty and never more than tepid once it became her turn. The memory of her mother holding her hand followed, as her mother had many times, helping her step over the side of the tub, encouraging her to hurry while the water still had some warmth. And she recalled her mother helping her into the tub before reaching for the towel, also shared, to cover herself. When Sara climbed out of the tub alone, the communal towel was waiting where her mother hung it, too wet by then to be much use for drying herself. She remembered still being damp while she'd hurriedly dressed after her bath, partly because she didn't want to remain unclothed longer than necessary, worried that her father would be peering around the blanket for another look.

She also recalled her mother catching him. Again, when she'd been getting into the tub, Sara decided. Her mother would have still been standing naked beside her. And her father insisted he was only admiring his wife – as near a compliment as he ever gave. It was his right, as her husband, to see his wife's naked body when he liked. But observing the flickering redirection of his eyes, her mother scolded him, a dangerous reaction to anything her father did. Still, Sara remembered how her eyes found his, even scolded. They swept down her body as she stood paralyzed for a moment before futilely attempting to cover herself.