FIC: Star Trek RPS -- Training Wheels (1/5)
Title: Training Wheels (1/5)
Author: the_deep_magic
Pairing: Pinto
Rating: PG-13 (this part, eventual NC-17)
Word Count: 5,622
Warnings: AU, angst, h/c, nonexplicit discussion of past sexual abuse
Disclaimer: nothing pertaining to Chris or Zach is true, but the therapy described is real
Summary: surrogate (n): one appointed to act in place of another; a substitute
A/N: Prompted many moons ago at phenylic's (formerly caughttheact's) Pinto meme. This is a work in progress, but I hope to post at least once a week.
The knock on the door came at 3 pm exactly, and though Zach was expecting it, he still jumped a little. As he stood, he smoothed down his favorite striped shirt - what exactly does one wear for this sort of thing? - and tried not to panic. Doctor Patel knew this guy, this counselor, and had referred patients to him before. He was a professional; this was all part of Zach’s therapy.
Zach was so paralyzed with worry about himself that he actually gasped when he opened the door and saw the man for the first time - perfect hair, blue, blue eyes, a warm smile. Zach should’ve paid more attention to the literature; was it a requirement that all sex surrogates be preternaturally gorgeous? It would make a certain kind of sense.
“Hello, Mr. Quinto,” the man said, reaching out his hand. “I’m Chris Pine. Dr. Patel set up our appointment today.”
“Yeah,” Zach said dumbly, shaking the man’s hand automatically. He was strong, the skin of his hand dry and smooth. “C-come in,” Zach stuttered, stepping aside and letting him in.
The man moved easily into the living room, looking more at home in Zach’s house than Zach did. “Mind if I have a seat on the couch, Mr. Quinto?”
“Of course. Please, call me Zach.”
He smiled. “And you can call me Chris.”
Initial formalities out of the way, Zach was lost. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, hands stuffed helplessly in his pockets. “So, um, what should I… How does this…?”
“I think it’ll be easier if you start by sitting down,” Chris said, and though Zach’s immediate reaction was to think the man was mocking him, the warmth in Chris’ eyes made it seem less likely. Zach sat on the easy chair by the couch. “Thanks,” Chris said with a soft laugh. “The very beginning is always the most awkward part. It gets easier from here, I promise.”
Zach nodded, folding his hands on his lap. “Okay.”
“Why don’t we start with you telling me a little bit about yourself?”
“Uh, alright. How much has Dr. Patel told you?”
“Just the very basics. And I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Well, um,” Zach began, his fingers starting to twist together. “I’m a graphic designer. I work mostly out of my house. I’m originally from Pittsburgh - moved out here about ten years ago, right after college. I majored in theatre, so I thought I’d try to break into the acting business, if you can believe it,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Didn’t work out, obviously. I live alone. Well, I have a cat and a dog. Harold - the cat - he’s pretty shy around new people and I put Noah in his crate because I wasn’t sure if you liked dogs.”
Chris’ lips rose in that dazzling smile again. “I love dogs. Would you be more comfortable if he were out here now? I’ve found that it’s harder to be nervous with a pet around.”
Zach nodded silently and went to his bedroom to get Noah. The dog leapt happily as Zach opened the door to his crate and Zach immediately felt himself relax as Noah sat patiently for a treat. As soon as they got to the living room, Noah darted over to the couch to thoroughly investigate the stranger, mostly by licking. Zach breathed a sigh of relief when Chris chuckled at the dog hair now covering the legs of his pants and reached down to scratch Noah behind the ears.
“He’s a terrible guard dog,” Zach said, finally able to crack a smile. “He loves everyone. You could be making off with my TV and my stereo and he’d just keep bumping your hand with his snout until you petted him.”
“I’ll take a sweet dog over a protective dog any day. Noah, was it? Who’s a good boy, Noah? Is it you?”
By now, Noah had flopped on his back, legs pinwheeling blissfully in the air as Chris scratched his tummy. Zach had a momentary flash of himself in the same position, belly up and naked on his bed as Chris rubbed his stomach, babbling “Is Zach a good boy? Is he? Yes he is!” The thought should have been funny, but instead Zach froze and the smile dropped from his face. Chris wasn’t here to be his new friend. Chris was here as a therapist.
And apparently a pretty good one, because he picked up on Zach’s change of mood almost immediately. “You were telling me about yourself?”
Zach sat back down in the chair, feeling a little more at ease when Noah came over, plopped down on his foot, and started lazily scratching himself. “So, um, I don’t have much of a social life. I go to yoga classes a couple of times a week. My brother lives around here - he stops in every once in a while. And I have a few friends that I see every now and then, but… they always want to go out in big groups, to clubs or bars. They think they’re helping me, trying to introduce me to new people all the time, but it doesn’t really take. I just end up kind of shutting down.”
Chris wasn’t taking notes or anything - Zach wondered if he should be, but he was obviously listening very carefully. “Is this the stuff you’ve been working on with Dr. Patel?”
“Mm-hmm,” Zach said, glancing down at Noah. “But all that stuff is kind of symptomatic of, well, I’ll just go ahead and tell you, get it out of the way…” He took a slow breath, let it out. “My dad died when I was seven. My mom remarried a couple years later and my stepdad abused me. Sexually. It didn’t happen often, so he was able to get away with it for a long time. Eventually, my brother found out, and he convinced me to tell my mom. She was great, really supportive - brought him up on charges and everything. I know she feels guilty that she didn’t know it was happening and wasn’t able to stop it sooner, but she and Joe - my brother - have been really good to me.”
Zach hazarded a glimpse up at Chris, who nodded sympathetically but stayed quiet. “So that’s, you know, what it is,” Zach continued. “And I’ve been in therapy for a long time, worked through a lot of my crap, but I’ve never really been able to do the romance thing. For a long time I was okay with that because I thought eventually I would get over it and the whole relationship thing would just kind of… happen. And I have tried. But it hasn’t happened.”
“And you want it to?” Chris asked quietly, and Zach nodded. “Okay, I’m going to ask some really personal questions. You can tell me as much or as little as you want, but usually, the more I know, the better I’ll be able to help you.” Zach nodded again. “So let’s say you meet someone you like, someone you could be interested in. What happens? Walk me through it.”
With a humorless laugh, Zach said, “I haven’t even met someone like that in a long time. But when I did, I would usually, I don’t know, try to get near them, see if they were interested.”
“And if they were?”
“It would start okay, we would talk, get to know each other. Even… have sex - though that didn’t happen a lot, and hasn’t in quite a while. But then they’d get tired of me, or tell me I was cold or weird, and it would be over before I even knew what happened. I know I have trouble getting close to people, but lately it’s gotten worse.”
“Lately?”
“Over the past couple of years. My friends have introduced me to a couple of guys, but I haven’t even been able to get past that initial conversation. I think I come off as anxious to the point of terrified, and I tend to freeze up if someone touches me. I even overheard one guy ask my friend what was wrong with me.”
“But obviously you’ve been able to get past that, at least at certain times.”
“The closest thing I’ve had to a relationship was in college. This guy, Travis, he was… I told him everything and he was really understanding, took things really slowly. We were able to, y’know…” Zach trailed off, trying hard to put it into words without fidgeting. He gestured vaguely. “… do it. But then we graduated and he wanted to stay in Pittsburgh and I just… couldn’t. I needed to get away from there.”
Chris nodded. “Have you been with anyone since then?”
“Kind of. Nothing that lasted, but I’ve had sex a few times.”
“When was the last time? Not only penetrative intercourse, I mean, but any sexual activities with another person.”
Zach flushed. He didn’t talk about things like this with anyone but Dr. Patel, but Chris was regarding him evenly, without judgment. “I don’t know the exact length of time. It’s been maybe two, two and a half years now. I tried… about six months ago, there was this guy my friend introduced me to, and I tried, but I couldn’t… I just couldn’t.”
Mercifully, Chris didn’t push him on that point, but he did ask, “Do you masturbate?”
Zach groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, I was raised Catholic and we never talked about…” He trailed off, then shook his head to clear it. “You’d think with all the therapy I’ve been through that I’d be better at verbal communication. Yes, I masturbate.”
“How often?”
“Maybe once or twice a week? I don’t know.”
“Does it feel good?”
“Well, I mean, yeah? Kind of. It doesn’t feel bad.”
“Would you say it’s satisfying?”
“No,” Zach sighed. “Definitely not. And it’s not like the sex I’ve had - what little there was - was spectacular, either, but I miss that closeness, you know?”
“I know,” Chris said softly, leaning forward. “And you can relax, I’m done with the questions for now. We’ll come back to this later, but I just want you to know that you’re not broken. There’s nothing inherently wrong with you - it’s just that some of your coping mechanisms get in the way of your social and physical interactions with other people. You deserve love and intimacy and really good sex,” Chris said with such confidence that Zach was tempted to believe him. “Can you at least agree with me on that?”
“I guess,” Zach said carefully, trying to look Chris in the eye.
“That’s a start.” Chris leaned back against the couch cushions. “Now what questions do you have for me? I know you’ve got some.”
Zach didn’t even know where to begin. “What exactly do you do?”
Chris chuckled. “That’s a good place to start. I’m a certified sex surrogate, trained by the International Professional Surrogates Association - yes, that’s a real thing. I’m not a doctor, but I do have a master’s degree in counseling from UCLA. I work mornings and some nights at a hospital counseling center. I only do surrogate work with people referred to me by doctors and therapists I know well, and I only work with one client at a time.”
“Do you just work with men?”
“Both men and women. Though not many women use surrogate therapy.”
Zach glanced down at his hands. “So, um, what do we do?”
“That will depend on a lot of things - your goals, your comfort level. We’ll work on your social anxiety, what keeps you from getting close to people. Some of the same things you talk about with Dr. Patel, only with actual practice. Lots of touching, both sexual and nonsexual. Very little of our time will be spent actually having sex. I always tell people up front that if you just want to get off, find a hooker. It’s faster and a hell of a lot cheaper.”
Zach was absolutely dumbstruck - until he registered the impish grin on Chris’ face, then he burst into laughter. “You seriously tell people that?”
“Only the ones I know will appreciate the joke. But I have to get the prostitute comparisons out of the way at the beginning. It’s sort of a sore spot in my line of work.”
“But, um,” Zach said, looking away and squirming, “we will have sex?”
“Again, that’ll be determined by the goals you set. But if that’s the end result you’re looking for, then yes, we will.”
“Wow. Just like that.”
Chris smiled gently. “Sounds so easy when I say it, doesn’t it?”
“What if I can’t-” Zach sputtered, his heart starting to race. “I mean what if, when it’s time, I can’t-”
“Slow down,” Chris said gently, sliding forward on the sofa until his knees were nearly touching Zach’s. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before we get to that. You wouldn’t learn to ice skate by starting off with one of those triple loop jumps, would you?”
“No,” Zach admitted, trying to calm himself down.
“Zach, I’d like to touch your hand. Is that alright?”
Zach nodded, his palm starting to sweat as Chris reached over and set his hand on top of Zach’s where it rested against the arm of the chair. He gently rubbed his thumb over the back of Zach’s hand. “Zach, I’m not here to seduce you or make you do anything you don’t want to do. Sometimes I’ll push you a little bit outside your comfort zone, but that’s my job. And I promise you, I’m good at my job.”
Zach looked into those bright blue eyes as long as he could stand it and tried to see himself as Chris saw him. “So, how do we start?”
&&&
Three days later, Zach awaited Chris’ return with a scribbled-on legal pad and an uncapped pen. Chris had told him to start thinking about his goals, and possibly a timeline for accomplishing them. “I’m happy to work with you as long as you need me - within reason,” he had said, “but I know my fee is pretty steep.” Zach wasn’t overly worried; he had a small house, all the computer equipment he needed, an old but reliable car that was already paid off, and a decent savings account. Really, what was he going to spend his money on? Noah already had a bandana for every day of the week.
And he’d purposefully left Noah out of his crate this time. Chris had been right - having the dog around had been comforting, and Noah certainly took to Chris easily. The dog actually tried to follow Chris out the door last time, and the way Chris had given him one final, regretful pat on the head, Zach was a little worried Chris might try to keep him. Harold, at least, seemed to be keeping some perspective on the situation. He had come into the living room, circled around Chris’ feet once, and - deciding Chris was something that could be neither eaten nor batted around - promptly left.
Chris greeted him at the door with another handshake, and Zach made a point of firmly gripping his hand back and looking him in the eye. Chris looked pleased with that - until, of course, Noah darted between them and bopped Chris’ other hand with his nose.
Chris laughed. “Well, one of you is certainly attention-starved.”
“And the other one is paying by the hour,” Zach said pointedly, as though Noah could understand financial management.
“How have you been?” Chris asked, reaching up to set a gentle hand on Zach’s shoulder.
Zach tensed, but only for a second. Chris’ touch wasn’t intimidating or expectant, just warm and solid. And, surprisingly, good. It took Zach a moment to realize he’d been asked a question. “Pretty good, I guess. I’ve been doing some publicity work for an independent film studio, so that’s been exciting. Well, about as exciting as graphic design gets. How about you?”
“Not too bad,” Chris said, dropping his arm and walking into the living room. “It’s been a little bit crazy at the hospital. There’s been some staff turnover and nobody seems to know who reports to whom.”
With a light sense of admiration, Zach noted Chris’ correct use of whom. “Do you, um, want anything to drink? I’ve got water, of course, and some juice. Coffee and tea, too.”
“No thanks. Hey, I’m going to make a suggestion, and I want you to hear out my reasoning before you react.”
“Okay,” Zach said nervously, not knowing what to expect.
“I suggest we move the conversation to the bedroom.” Zach stiffened, and Chris quickly continued. “Not because we’re going to do anything that requires a bed. I just want us both to get used to the setting. That way it doesn’t feel as weird when or if we do need the bed. Okay?”
Zach nodded quickly. He scooped up the legal pad from where he’d set it on the couch and looked at Chris awkwardly for a moment until he realized that Chris was waiting for him because he didn’t know where the bedroom was. Zach immediately felt stupid for it, but Chris said nothing about the pause, just followed Zach down the hallway and into the bedroom.
Zach quickly yanked the comforter up over the slightly rumpled sheets and glanced around. Luckily, he’d tidied up some the day before, so all he had to do was kick a few pairs of shoes into the closet and shut a drawer or two. Noah came trotting into the room just as they sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Mind if I take off my shoes?” Chris asked and Zach shook his head. After taking them off, Chris pushed back a little to sit cross-legged on the bed, looking completely at ease, and Zach mirrored him. Chris nodded toward the legal pad. “Is that your list of goals?”
“Yes,” Zach said, looking over the edge of the bed to see Noah sniffing around Chris’ shoes. When he warned Noah away, the dog backed up, looked up at Zach, and hopped shamelessly up on the bed. Normally, Zach didn’t let him on the furniture, but Noah laid his head plaintively in Zach’s lap and he was glad for the familiar comfort, especially given what they were going to be talking about.
“Let’s hear ‘em,” Chris said.
“Okay. Um, first, I want to be more comfortable in social situations with people I don’t know.”
Chris nodded. “Good. We’ll probably have to break that one down into some smaller, measurable goals, but it’s a good place to start. Go on.”
“Two, I want to feel capable of starting a romantic relationship. You know, just be able to talk with someone. Maybe flirt? I don’t know.”
“Definitely possible,” Chris said with a smile.
“Three, I want to be more open to physical touch. I kind of just… lock up sometimes when people touch me, and I want to get rid of that reaction. Four, I want to feel more confident about myself, about my body and because I’ve had more, um, experience.” He felt his palms start to sweat and hoped Chris knew what he was alluding to without having to explain. “Wait, I guess there should be a four and a half - to be more comfortable talking about relationships and, you know, sex and stuff.”
“Is that it?”
“No. Five - this is the last one - I, um… god, I kind of phrased this weird, but…” Zach took a deep breath. “I want to know what the big deal about sex is. The little I’ve had, I just couldn’t get out of my head long enough to really enjoy it. I know there’s more to it than that. There has to be, or else everyone else on the planet is seriously deluding themselves.”
Chris actually laughed at that. “Well, I wouldn’t discount that completely. But I think you’re right - there’s more to sex than what you’ve experienced. They say that there are better things and there are worse things, but there’s nothing quite like it.”
Zach didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but fortunately Chris continued. “That’s good. I think these are great goals. Usually, I work with people over the course of about fifteen to twenty weeks, two or three times a week, though that’s flexible.”
“It seems like a lot to cover fifteen weeks,” Zach admitted.
“Well, obviously the difficulties you have won’t disappear at the end, but I think you know that,” Chris said, leaning back on his hands. “I can already tell you’re one of the more self-aware people I’ve worked with, and really, that’s a great place to start. Sometimes people will come to me not even knowing what they want to work on - they just show up, say ‘fix me,’ and expect me to flip a switch that will turn them into Don Juan overnight. But I can honestly say I think we’re going to make progress.”
Zach had always known, rationally, that he simply couldn’t be the most fucked-up man on the planet - statistically speaking, it was almost impossible. Still, hearing it from Chris, whose job it was to see and work with and touch fucked-up people… It felt good, physically good even, like a weight lifted from his shoulders.
Chris must have noticed it, because he tilted his head and mused, “You don’t get much positive feedback, do you? Socially, I mean.”
“I guess not.”
“I’ll remember that,” Chris said with a smile, and something deep in Zach’s chest creaked open at the sight. “Here’s some more: for just having met me a few days ago, you’re doing really well. If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t know you get stressed around people you don’t know.”
“Yeah, but… ” Zach shook his head. “This is different. You’re the therapist, I’m the patient. There’s, like, a framework already there, so I kind of know how we’re supposed to interact.”
Chris’ smile just got wider. “See? Totally self-aware. I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’re going to work really well together. Hell, we might actually have some fun.”
&&&
This time, Noah was waiting by the door when he heard Chris’ car pull into the driveway. But when Zach opened the door, Chris didn’t move to come in. “You feel like going out today?” he asked.
Zach balked. Where exactly would a sex surrogate take him? “Uh, depends on where, I guess.”
“Spa day,” Chris said with a grin. “Pedicures for both of us. I’ll drive.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Pampering, Zachary - you could use some, but I think the full-on massage might be a bit much yet. Ever gotten a pedicure before?”
“Um, can’t say that I have.”
“It’s really nice. I know a good place, Paula Abdul-approved and everything. You get hot towels, a foot massage, the whole deal. And you don’t have to get the pink nail polish, but it’s the cherry on the sundae, if you ask me.”
Zach still couldn’t quite find the presence of mind to reply properly. Sensing his hesitance, Chris quickly said, “We don’t have to. Not today, not ever if you’re strongly opposed. I just thought it might be nice to get out of the house.”
“Why pedicures?”
“To help with your issues with physical contact. I know it involves a stranger touching you, but in one specific place and for one specific purpose. No expectations, no need to return the favor. But if you think you’ll be too uncomfortable…”
“No, it’s not-” Zach took a deep breath to steady himself. “Yes, I’d like to get a pedicure. I just wasn’t expecting to go out today. Let me get my shoes.”
Chris nodded. “Why don’t you drive and I’ll navigate?”
Years of therapy made Zach aware of what Chris was doing - ceding him some control over the situation to make him more comfortable. And even though Zach could see the gesture for what it was, it worked. He quickly took Noah back to his crate and grabbed a pair of flip-flops.
The ride to the salon was mostly silent except for Chris’ occasional direction. He didn’t press Zach to talk while he was driving, and Zach wasn’t sure what to make of it. They ended up at a nondescript beauty salon in the middle of a strip mall. Even though Zach knew that Chris wasn’t conspiring to make him drive into the middle of nowhere for god knew what sinister purpose, he was still relieved at the normality of the place. God, Zach had been wound tighter than even he realized.
The other clients in the salon were mostly women and Zach blushed a little as the woman behind the counter looked him up and down. But Chris took care of the formalities and soon they were led to side-by-side chairs with built in tubs of water at their feet. Zach followed Chris’ lead, taking his shoes off, rolling up his jeans (or scrunching them as best he could - skinny jeans were obviously not the best for this), and sticking his feet in the warm water.
For such a simple thing, it felt surprisingly good, and as Zach relaxed back into the chair, he spied the control panel perched on the arm. “Is this a massage chair?”
“Welcome to the lap of luxury,” Chris said, his tongue poking ever so slightly out of his mouth as he fiddled with the controls on his own chair. Zach felt a surge of, well, something at the sight, though the feeling was gone as soon as he realized it was there.
After a few minutes of soaking, a small balding man came over with a bucket of various intimidating-looking utensils and sat on a small stool at Zach’s feet, smiling. He tapped at Zach’s right ankle until Zach lifted his foot out of the water. The man’s touch was entirely professional. He poked gently at Zach’s heel and then began digging in the bucket. As he did, a younger woman sat by Chris’ feet. He favored her with a bright smile and Zach couldn’t miss the way her cheeks flushed as she coyly looked away.
Once they got to work, the two pedicurists began chatting away with each other in what Zach thought might be Vietnamese, and he felt foolishly grateful that he wouldn’t have to try to carry on a conversation with them. He felt like an ass, but talking to people with heavy accents made him even more self-conscious. He wondered if he should talk to Chris, who hadn’t yet picked up one of the many magazines stacked around the chairs. There were some things Zach was curious about anyway, so he leaned slightly toward Chris and murmured, “So, how does this work? Like, can I ask you personal questions about yourself?”
“Sure, ask away,” Chris said, relaxing back into the chair. “If there’s anything that’s too private or I don’t want to answer, I’ll let you know, but I want to be as open with you as I can. After all, you’ve told me a lot about yourself.”
Zach nodded. “How exactly did you get into the, uh…” He glanced down at his feet, but his pedicurist didn’t seem to be paying him any attention. “…the surrogate business?”
Chris smiled. “My second semester in grad school, I took a couples and sex therapy course and ended up writing a term paper on surrogacy. Turned out my professor was good friends with the woman who runs the surrogacy training center in the Valley. I talked to her, learned about the program, and got really interested in the work. The summer after that, I started taking the courses and eventually got licensed. I got to know Dr. Patel and his associates and started working with some of their patients. Aced that paper, by the way.”
“Wow. That sounds so much more… normal than what I was expecting.”
Chris laughed, the sound shaking a little with the vibrations of the chair. “There’s not some mysterious underground initiation center where we learn depraved sexual secrets or anything. Actually, anyone can take the classes, though you need some extra work and an internship to get certified.”
“What do you learn?”
“Therapeutic stuff, of course - communication, the importance of body image, different types of treatments. Some anatomy and physiology. A lot of workshops on relaxation and touching exercises.”
“But does your family know what you do?”
“Some of them,” Chris said with a grin. He’d obviously gotten that question before. “My mom and sister are both psychologists, so they can appreciate my job for what it is. My dad is mostly supportive, though I’m pretty sure he thinks it’s a phase I’m going to grow out of. A couple of my cousins know, but we leave it out of the yearly Christmas card.”
Zach snorted with laughter a little too loudly, drawing the attention of the man working on his feet. Zach blushed to the roots of his hair and sank down a little in the chair, embarrassed. But the man went right back to trimming Zach’s cuticles.
“Anything else you want to know?” Chris asked.
“Nothing I’d feel comfortable talking about in a nail salon,” Zach admitted. “Actually, nothing I’d feel comfortable talking about at all.”
“I’m going to start pushing you on that a little bit. Not now, obviously, but soon. I think you’ll be surprised at how much easier it’ll be when you get over the language barrier.”
It was sort of hard for Zach to believe - he could hardly imagine himself talking about those things. He could hardly think about them. Luckily, he was startled out of his building anxiety by a sharp slap to his lower leg. He yelped and jerked straight up in the chair, and the pedicurist looked nearly as shocked as Zach did.
“Crap, I should’ve warned you,” Chris said quickly, trying to fight down a laugh. “The massage part can be a bit… percussive?”
Despite Zach’s shock, Chris’ good mood was infectious and Zach chuckled and turned back to the man working on his feet. “It’s okay. Please, keep going. You just startled me.”
He nodded and resumed, knocking Zach’s calf muscle around a little bit. Once Zach could see what was coming, he actually started to enjoy it. The massage felt good and his feet felt cleaner than they probably ever had. But he started getting a little worried when his pedicurist took a good look at his face, turned to the woman working on Chris’ feet, and started talking animatedly, gesturing to his forehead. Zach was pretty sure they were talking about him.
Chris must have seen him shift uncomfortably in his seat, because he murmured, “Don’t quote me on this, but I think they want to wax your eyebrows.”
The man must have overheard at least the end of that sentence, because he quickly turned to Chris and nodded. “Eyebrow wax?” he asked Zach.
Zach’s hands flew to his eyebrows. They’d always been a point of self-consciousness for him. He plucked just enough to keep them from turning into a full-on unibrow, but he didn’t know what else to do - he hesitated to alter them too much for fear of making them look even stranger.
But when he turned to Chris for support, the other man just looked thoughtful. “Have you ever had your eyebrows done?” Chris asked.
“N-no. You think I need to get them done?”
“I don’t think you need to, no,” Chris said, shaking his head. “But maybe you ought to try it. Sometimes it’s the little things that help you feel better about yourself. And I get mine shaped up every now and then.”
Zach stared hard at Chris’ eyebrows. He never would have guessed - they looked pretty natural, but they had cleaner edges than Zach’s. They looked good, though there was really nothing about Chris that didn’t. “Um, okay,” Zach said.
His pedicurist nodded enthusiastically and slipped Zach’s flip-flops back on his feet. “This way,” he said, gesturing Zach toward a chair on the other side of the room. Chris’ pedicurist was still finishing up, so Zach sat alone for an interminable few moments while the man went into the other room for supplies.
Finally, Chris came over, and Zach felt much better having him close by. “Does it hurt? Not that I’m, uh, worried about that.”
“It stings a bit. Your eyes might water - in a completely manly way, of course,” Chris said with a soft nudge of his elbow.
The salon man, who looked oddly excited about the prospect of grooming Zach’s eyebrows, brought over a stern-looking woman who had Zach tilted back in the chair and was spreading the wax before he could process what was happening. “Not too much,” he said quickly. “Just a… trim?”
A strip of fabric went down and the woman looked ready to rip. “Keep breathing,” said Chris with a smile and a thumbs up.
Amazingly, Zach managed to contain his reaction to an appropriately masculine grunt. It stung, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. After that, the woman worked quickly, and she was done much sooner than Zach expected. In a matter of minutes, he had a mirror shoved in his hand. His fingers flew up to poke at the tender skin, which was red and a little puffy, but overall, he looked… good. Not that he was an expert on these things, but his features looked sharper somehow, his eyes a little more prominent. He looked over at Chris.
“I like it,” Chris said, his grin even wider.
Continue to part two