Our second month of dating, I shaved off all my pubic hair for the first and only time. I did it with a penis-shaped, pink-and-white vibrating razor, which I pressed to my skin. Despite my best efforts with hot water and soap, I trimmed too close. Days later, my skin burned as I sat at my computer, researching admission prices for the Field Museum. Hydrocortisone didn’t help.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether you have hair down there or not,” you said.
I couldn’t sleep, my pubis pulsing and burning. I managed to draw blood on the walk from the Chicago “L” Pink line to the museum’s entrance. I dabbed on hydrocortisone and Vagisil at every available restroom. Each soothing moment gave way to another of pain. But I wanted to be with you, surrounded by dinosaur bones and a massive Arkansas diamond, warm and safe from the November chill. We took photos with Sue the T-Rex, watched a slideshow of waves in the Wild Color exhibition. I missed the beach town I once called home, where the ocean was a short drive away and I could wear shorts April through October.
On the ride home, I leaned on your shoulder, pain bobbing like waves. At my apartment, I cried in front of you for the first time. I stayed in bed while you marched through the windy night to buy me hydrocortisone and king-sized Reese’s, our favorite. We ate al pastor tacos in bed, passing a mango Jarritos back and forth, Blockbuster playing on my laptop. You texted the next day, and the next one. My pain wavered, spiked, subsided.
In June, an all-female mariachi played under the setting sun, and you held me in my lace dress between the white and gold walls of the Chicago History Museum. You confessed, I’m falling for you at the Navy Pier and I said it back. On a ninety-three-degree day in September, we squinted in the sunlight along the lakeshore until the air conditioning of the Planetarium embraced us. We planned a road trip to the only remaining Blockbuster in the United States, then to our home states.
I left my drafty garden apartment with the broken front gate and no central heat and moved into your one-bedroom in the suburbs. We found a new taco spot and stocked our fridge with Reese’s. My pubic hair grew back. You never asked me to shave it in the first place.
