Summary

The story opens with women waiting in the waiting room of the institute. They are excited for whatever program they are about to participate in. The assistant leads them into a room where a woman is laying on a cot and six tweezers are placed on a towel. The woman on the cot is placed face-down and is naked. When they are given the signal, the women get to work plucking hair from the body of the woman on the cot. Their skill level ranges, but “nothing deprives them of their pleasure” (103). The assistant glares at the woman on the cot when her legs tremble, and the woman knows that this means that her pay will be docked.

The story then turns into a flashback explaining the past of the woman on the cot. She lived with her mother near the river and one...