One night after sex she droned on and on about my bum and eyelashes.
'If you could design your fantasy face you'd almost certainly max up the lashes,' she said 'Take Barbie's for example, which virtually graze her eyebrows.'
She was so proud of me - she wanted to introduce me to all her girls at the salon. Yes I was flattered yet I thought it was for the wrong reasons. She didn't talk enthusiastically about my male characteristics but more about aspects of me that where deciding girlish. She was persistent but I always declined. 'Meet me after work for a drink or pop in at lunchtime.' She would ask but I didn't want to be shown off like some trophy especially when what she considered my most redeeming features are not what I'd consider manly. Soft skin, flawless complexion, long eyelashes, hippie bottom - these are just some of the descriptors you wouldn't use to describe an ideal hunk of a man. I know I didn't posses a six-pack or a trunk like neck or rippling muscles of steel but I didn't want her friends to think of me as weedy an effeminate..
On recollection, I was probably my own worst enemy, as I would frequently let her use me as a model to try out some new product for work. Why she couldn't put it on herself I will never know. I would sit patiently at her dressing table as she amused herself with groovy eye shadow, pearly lipstick and eyebrow pencils. I normally let her have free reign but one day she got so carried away she tweezered my eyebrows into a feminine arch. She said brows are the defining feature of any face and without plucked eyebrows, the drawing is incomplete. I wasn't so sure. In fact I was mad, terrified everyone at the bank would laugh but Melanie was delighted with the result.
Instead of apologising or attempting to cover it up she insisted that she maintained them that way and sure enough she incorporated it into what she called 'my beauty routine.' This seemed infuriating as she used to preen and pamper me more than any woman. It all seemed very high maintenance. She even tampered with my hair which I thought was a great natural colour and nice and thick but she was never satisfied and she would put lowlights then highlights in it as well as make me grow it to almost shoulder length. According to her I was the reason for her success at work.
