yep. I'm pretty swiss-cheesed, I guess. No one really says a whole lot about it. I usually wear make up every day, so my foundation covers the hair I have left. Not perfectly, but it usually works. most people may not notice if you're only halfway done. People that do, well you can tell them some variant of "I got sick of shaving, so I'm doing laser to get my hair removed".
The swiss cheese patter becomes more noticeable if you have very light skin and very dark hair, like I do. Even after a very good, close shave, I still have a beard shadow, the hair shows through the top layers of my skin. I've always been like this. That's part of the reason why I need to use make up so often.
wrt to your original question, can you stop after a few sessions, start again later, etc. and how do you manage your appearance at intermediate stages: you can start and stop sessions as much as you want. Part of the trick with laser though, is to catch hair follicles in the growth stage. This results (in theory at least) in the destruction of that hair follicle. If you go once, you should ideally go again 4 to 6 weeks later, since a new set of hair will be in an active growth phase. The hair you already zapped the first time should be dormant at this point. More sporadic visits will result in catching more and more hair already in a dormant stage, so it won't be much better than a really good shave. You will get some hair clearance, don't get me wrong, it's just not as effective.
