Page 64 of Shades of Henry
Lance got there when they’d just got to his legs and ass, which was the worst part.
His face had a little ginger scruff, and his chest hair was barely there. But his ass had a full complement of red fur, which might have added to the breakouts, considering the heat. Right as Lance walked up, Henry had grabbed a big strip of the black mask and yanked hard, wincing at the holler and whimper that emerged from Randy’s already shredded throat.
“What the holy hell?” Lance asked, taking the stairs two at a time. Randy had buried his face against Billy’s neck, and Billy was stroking his hair back and soothing him like he would a child, while the others tried to clean the discarded black seaweed wrap and the painful amounts of ginger hair from the cement.
“We tried using hair clippers on it,” Henry said unhappily, “but that didn’t work either. Nail polish remover, baby oil—nada. There was no choice. We had to rip the whole thing off.”
“Oh, honey,” Lance murmured. Fisher was already squeezing an almost emptied bottle of green goop over Randy’s exposed skin. About the time they’d finished with his back, Henry had sent Curtis out for three more bottles.
They were down to two.
Randy whimpered some more, and Henry went after the next strip. He’d taken off his sport coat and jeans before he’d started ripping, and was wearing his board shorts and an old T-shirt—covered in ginger hair.
“Okay, Randy, we’ve only got a little longer here. I need you to be strong.”
“O-o-okkkayyy, Henry!” Randy wailed, and Henry shored himself up and went for it.
Schwack, more hair. And there went Zeppelin with the washcloth, then Fisher with the green goop, and Curtis and Cotton finished up with a broom and dustpan.
Cotton had arrived about a half an hour after they’d started, which had been odd because he should have been busy for another couple of hours. He hadn’t said anything, though—he’d just jumped in to help.
Bless the kid, he’d been the only one able to calm Randy down when they’d had to wax his balls.
And again. And again. Lance took over the green-goop duty and shooed Fisher into the shower, and together they soldiered on.
Finally—finally—it was over. Henry finished with the last of the washcloth, and Lance finished up with the lidocaine-aloe mixture, and Randy sobbed on Billy’s shoulders.
“I suggest a cool bath with some oatmeal,” Lance said. “Maybe wait until the rest of us shower. Then have somebody put the lidocaine on you again.” He grimaced. “Then take two more ibuprofen and go watch some mind-numbing shit on television, okay? You’re king of the remote control today—nobody’s gonna fight you for it. You can even lie on the couch naked. We’ll all find places to sit.”
Randy nodded sadly, and Cotton said, “I’ll go put an old sheet on the couch so he can sit down until it’s bath time. How’s that, Randy?”
Randy nodded again, and Billy and Cotton escorted him inside while Lance and Henry gave the porch a thorough once-over for all the hair they’d missed.
“God, that sucked,” Henry muttered, tying the garbage bag in a knot. “I can’t even believe how much that sucked.”
“It would have been worse if you hadn’t been here,” Lance said. “Nice thinking on the aloe lidocaine, by the way.”
Henry shrugged. “My mom put it on everything from mosquito bites to sunburns. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
They both let out a breath. “So,” Lance said, “about that errand we were going to run…?”
Henry shook his head. “Tomorrow. Man, they need us today.” He looked out from under the landing, where the sun had barely started to lower. It was afternoon already. “Do we have enough ices for everybody? Fizzy water? Is there enough comfort in the fucking apartment for all those fucked-up kids?”
Lance gave him a lopsided smile. “Yeah,” he said. “And you know what? We’re part of that.”
Henry grimaced. “You know, I was so excited about getting some better paying jobs and finding a way to move out of here, but….”
Lance nodded, and it was like they both shared the same thought. “How are we going to have our own sex in an apartment with five other guys?”
“Nooooo…. Doesn’t one of us have to have a uterus before we squirt out sextuplets?”
Lance raised his hand so he could laugh behind it and then dropped it because like everything else on the landing, it was covered with ginger fuzz. He bent over double, laughing harder, until Henry wrapped an arm around his shoulders to bear him up. And while they were losing their shit, semi-hysterical with laughter, the door across from them opened up.
Henry could swear his freshman English teacher stuck her head out. A tiny, wizened, disapproving woman in her seventies glared at the both of them until they fell abruptly silent.
“Is that young man done screaming?” she asked.
“Uh… yes?” Henry said. “Yes, ma’am. He’s going to be okay now.”
