Return of the Haircut Model

I close the door and crash onto the couch.

I had just bid my husband Ed goodbye. Ed works in finance, and the nature of his work requires him to travel around the world from time to time. Today he leaves for Hong Kong to meet with some clients, and he will be staying there for the weekend. While the exact nature of his work remained beyond my understanding, I do know that Ed is a top employee at his firm. Not because he tells me about it – he’s too modest to do that – but because his coworkers’ wives, who are good acquaintances of mine, are always going on about him.

I twiddle with my wedding ring. I sure consider myself lucky to have found Ed. We first met at a grocery store of all places, and things developed from there. A year later we married, and in another year I gave birth to my son, Cody. Cody is now eight years old.

Ed is a wonderful husband. He works a lot, but when he isn’t, he is looking after me and our son. He cares for me when I’m feeling particularly down, and he is always showering me with gifts.

Ed is not the kind of man I would have thought of marrying before I met him.

I go to my room and dig through my drawer of special possessions. Buried in the lower depths of the items is an old phone. It is a Blueberry, bought in 2008, but looks new as ever. The last time I took it out, which was years ago, I promised to myself that it would be the last. Out of respect for my husband. And out of respect for our marriage.

I plug the charger in and wait. The screen dances to life and the unmistakably late 2000s start up chime plays. I lie on my bed and bury myself in blankets, flushed with anticipation. The screen shows that my SIM card is still inside, and surprisingly, that it has connectivity. But I didn’t take the phone out to make calls or send messages.

I open the photos app. But instead of my gallery, my phone displays a prompt. A prompt for a passcode to unlock the app.

I smack the frame of the bed. I don’t remember ever putting a passcode on the app. I rack my head, hoping to remember something. Over the years, I’ve used an array of four-digit numbers as passcodes, but for the love of my life, I cannot remember which one I used here. I curse myself. Why on earth did I set a passcode? Who was I hiding the pictures from? My parents? Myself? Or was it… him?

Him. God, now I remember. I enter the birthday of the man, DDMM format, and the phone opens. I hold my breath as the photos appear on the screen.

The first photos to appear are the most recent ones. Everyday snapshots. I’m posing in front of a restaurant, sitting by a fountain in the mall, watering the plants, and so on. Except, in the pictures, my hair is short. A pixie cut. And from how shortly cropped my hair is, I can guess that the pictures were taken not too many days after the big event. I scroll down, and there come the pictures that I really came to see.

The pictures are shot from a variety of angles and tell a story. A story of transformation. One thing never changes. In every picture, I’m naked and strapped to a chair. The first pictures show the aftermath – I am sporting a near-buzz cut, and my body and the floor are covered in hair. My eyes are teary, traumatized by what had just unfolded in front of them. But as I scroll past, my hair gets longer and longer in the pictures, and I reach the picture that depicts the before. My hair is in pigtails, and held up and out on either side. My face carries a broad grin, and behind me is the man. Him.

I put down the phone. I can hear my heart thump against my chest. It has been years, but even seeing the pictures brings a whiplash of emotions that completely shake me. I’m a respectable woman, an obedient wife, and a responsible mother. The woman in the pictures, was in every sense of the word, a whore. Yet, her memories are mine, and what images of what unfolded that day stay with me not just on this phone, but also in my mind, albeit in the deeper recesses of it.

I go to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. My face, and even the shape of my body for that matter, have not changed much since the time of the pictures, but there is a change in the way I present them. Looking back at me from the mirror is not a young girl desperate for even the slightest attention from men, but a reformed woman. That same pixie which I once wore is now a thick blanket of hair that goes down to my knees. I run my fingers through my hair, and as I do, I’m reminded more of the woman that I’ve grown into. It is quite validating of my new self-image.

Yet, I wonder, why do I need validation? In the end, it is simply validation for a social role that I feel obligated to fulfil. My hair is both a safety net, but also a sacrifice. A sacrifice of my desire to self-express. And right now, it feels less like the protection that it is meant to be and more like a compromise…

I pick up the phone and go to messages and I unbutton my shirt. First on the contact list is him. I open the chat, and my fingers hover over the buttons as I consider what I’m about to do.

“Hey,” I drop a simple text. I wait for a while. A minute, maybe two. No response.

I set the phone aside and turn back to the mirror. My shirt is open, and my boobs, held by my bra, are out in the open. I have always had sexy boobs, but motherhood has only made them bigger. Besides my hair, I consider them my best feature, yet Ed has never commented on them, and that frustrates me.

I take my bra off. My nipples are hard. I grasp my tits, and draw circles around my nipples with my fingers. The sensation is invigorating. I begin to moan, and I don’t think I can resist it any longer. My hand flies to the confines of my crotch, but just then, my phone beeps.

I gulp. Though I’m alone in the room, I feel like I’ve been caught. Caught doing something I shouldn’t be doing, caught enjoying myself too much, caught doing something blasphemous. I button up my shirt and check the phone.

It is a reply. A reply from him.

“Hello Liv,” he says. “Long time, no talk. What’s up?”

“How are you?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” he replies. “But why the sudden text? Cut to the chase.”

I fluster. It’s been years since we last spoke, yet he talks with a level of comfort that suggests that it had only been yesterday.

“Are you free?” I ask.

“Free?”

“Like free today. For a chat?”

“A chat?”

“Yeah just a normal chat. Nothing really.”

“My shift at the barbershop ends at 6. Wanna meet then? You can come to the shop, it will be closed then.”

I freeze. The barbershop. He still works there. It’s the very same barbershop where… that happened. I do not wish to go there. But it’s just to meet… right?

I hesitate. “Okay. I’ll be there at 6.”

 

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Today is my weekly hair routine day, and I do not plan to let the meeting get in its way. My thick, fast-growing hair growth isn’t just a result of genetics, but also of the elaborate hair care routine that I’ve developed over the last decade. It is a costly routine, but one that Ed has funded with no objection. My hair felt especially weighty today, and every touch lingered longer than usual. I go through the weekly motion of applying different bottles of leave-in conditioners and oils, before brushing through my hair and putting it up in a bun. There’s no time to wash it.

I then go not to my wardrobe, but the storage room. I will be meeting someone I haven’t met in years, and so I wish to wear clothes I haven’t worn in years. The storage room has a lot of things, but the trunk wasn’t difficult to find. It sprang open the moment I undid the buckle, almost as though it was as eager as I was.

I feel déjà vu as I dig through the trunk, as it feels not too dissimilar to when I uncovered my phone from my special drawer in the morning, the phone that started it all. The clothes stashed here are of a kind that I cannot be seen wearing in the neighborhood, because they in no way represent the kind of woman I am today, at least in the way people know me, oblivious to my deeper desires. The clothes are skimpy, and the idea of putting them on is thrilling. I actually wore them during our first year of marriage, but lost interest because Ed showed no signs of liking the dress beyond some tame compliments which sounded more polite than excited. Oh Ed.

I find the clothes that I was looking for. One is a simple pale pink sleeveless top, and the other is a pair of baggy light blue jeans. The jeans fit with little difficulty, but putting on the top was a struggle. The top seems to be a bit tight, now that motherhood had left me full-figured. But embarrassingly, I like it this way.

I put on my hoodie, and set off towards the barbershop.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I enter the barbershop, and he is there, waiting for me, a subtle smile on his face. Mark.

Mark has changed. Back then, he had a boyish charm. He had a pretty face accentuated by makeup, he was just the right amount of lean for Bieber-era teen girls to fall in love with. But he has grown. His boyish face is no longer boyish, and is instead… handsome. Devilishly handsome. His face is all straight lines and sharp angles, and a beard well-trimmed with surgical precision. His body is still on the leaner side, but his chest puffs out and is broader. What hasn’t changed are his eyes, and just as they did before, they still bring warmth to my cheeks.

Mark looks at me, and smiles.

“How are you, Liv?”

“I’m… fine.”

“How’s home? How’s Ed?”

“We are all good, thanks.” I do not say it with much conviction, and Mark sees it.

Mark nods. “Okay. So, what would you like to talk about?”

I hesitate. I was hoping that we would ease into discussion, and not jump straight into the heart of the matter. With Mark, everything is direct.

“I… I don’t know who I am. The person I’ve become.”

I look at Mark, hoping he understands what I’m trying to say. But he looks completely confused.

“I mean, I know who I am. I am a faithful wife, and also a mother. Yes, I am a mother now. But with marriage and motherhood… I feel like I’ve lost a part of my younger self, you know what I mean?”

“Sounds to me like you’re just describing… life?” Mark chuckles.

“Well… yes I guess I am.” I shake my head. Of course, the real reason I came here is Mark, but I just cannot say that. I’m going to make him ask.

Mark closes his eyes, his brows furrowed in deep thought. “Okay… I actually do know just the feeling you’re describing. Why don’t you have a seat?”

I pause. “A seat?”

“Yes, a seat on the chair.”

“Wait… why?”

“Nothing, I just want to see that beautiful hair of yours.”

I hesitate, but cave in. I sit on one of the empty chairs. The chair and the floor beneath it are covered with clippings of hair, but I pay no mind to it. Mark comes up behind me, and his hand hovers over my bun.

“May I?” he asks. I nod. I hope Mark does not see the red on my face. It is a normal action, him touching my hair, but it is doing wonders to me.

Mark holds a part of my bun and gives it a slow tug, guiding it first but then letting it unravel by itself. My hair comes tumbling down, falling behind me and the chair. When it has fully fallen down, I see through the mirror the ends brushing the floor. I gasp. Sometimes, even I forget just how long my hair has gotten.

On the other hand, Mark laughs.

“Oh my goodness! Who would have thought that you, Liv, of all people would have this long hair? Y’know, when you first entered the shop and I saw your bun, I wasn’t surprised that you didn’t stick with the pixie cut all these years, but I thought you’d still keep something… chic! Like a cute longer bob, or layered waist-length hair. You’ve come here dressed like your bimbo self but with the hair of a mother of ten from Utah!”

My face turns redder, and I do not know what to say. Mark’s reaction is exaggerated, but he was likely not expecting the hair because he is correct – it is not the kind of hair I wore when I was younger.

Mark takes a brush and combs my hair. He makes slow and uninterrupted passes through hair – uninterrupted because my hair is oiled and devoid of tangles. “Your hair is beautiful, Liv, don’t get me wrong,” he says, “but how and why did it get so long?”

I watch through the mirror as Mark lifts pieces of my hair and brushes through the ends. “I… I don’t know. I guess I thought having long hair would make me more of a woman and less of a girl.”

“I see,” Mark murmurs. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Yes, it makes sense.”

“What would you do if you were in my position?” I blurt out. I immediately regret it.

Mark lets down the brush, and his face scrunches in the same thinking expression that it displayed before. “I would add some movement, and trim the ends.”

I turn back to face Mark. “My ends need trimming?”

Mark pulls the ends of my hair up and holds them before my eyes. “Liv, your hair is wonderful, but honestly? The ends need to go. They’re quite thin, and cut a stark contrast with the rest of your length which is quite thick.”

“Okay… just an inch or two, right?”

Mark sighs. “Nope. Eight inches off at least.”

I internally gasp. Although I never trimmed my hair in the process of growing it out from the pixie, I always believed that my hair was in good shape, with all the meticulous care I put into maintaining it. To be told that eight inches had to go felt like a slap in the face.

“Also, I would add layers. Your hair is long, but it is dull in the sense that it lacks movement – it simply falls straight down. Adding some layers and face framing, like curtain bangs, would help. To blend the framing with the rest of your length I would cut your hair in a v-shape, but since I know you’re quite fond of the length, we don’t need to do that.”

Every sentence feels like a cold water dousing. It indeed has been a while since I’ve done anything with my hair, and even the thought of a pair of scissors within an inch of it scares me. Yet, there is something exhilarating about the thought of a little makeover. I look like a boring old mother, and a haircut is maybe just the thing that I need to bring back a little life to me. The offer is now too good to resist.

“Let’s… do it.” I say.

Mark’s face broadens in a grin. “Excellent! Let’s get started. First, though, we need to wash your hair. It looks rather oily.”

Mark leads me to the washing area. The washing area has a distinct smell about it that differentiates it from the rest of the shop – the scent of different oils, conditioners, and soap. I sit on one of the seats, and lie down. Mark gathers my hair into the basin.

“Liv,” he says, “you should see the basin. You have so much hair that the basin isn’t big enough to contain it.”

I blush. “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah. You really are due a haircut.”

Mark grabs a few bottles of conditioners and gets to work. He flips open the bottles, and one-by-one, pours them into the basin in precise proportions. I do not get the best view of Mark from my position, but seeing him work in such a methodological way is fascinating.

Mark turns the water on and begins to massage my scalp. He starts from my temples, moves to my forehead, and then to the back of my head. It is an incredible feeling. Mark’s fingers have a soft touch, and I feel a weight lifting of my head. The smooth runs of Mark’s hand through my hair, the smell of the conditioner, and the splashing sounds of water and oils – all combined feel euphoric.

“God, what on earth have you been eating? Your hair is wonderful.” Mark remarks.

I wish I could stay there forever, but the washing was done. I get up, a tad disappointed that it had to end, but nervous about what’s next. I sit in the barber’s chair, and Mark leaves and returns with shears. The shears are new and packeted.

“When was the last time you had a haircut?” Mark asks.

‘Well…”

“Oh, you don’t tell.”

I nod.

Mark un-packets the shears and clicks it, presumably testing how it feels in his hand. “Are we not going to talk about it?”

I fall silent. “There is nothing to talk about it.”

Mark snorts. “Really? Nothing at all?” He makes passes through my wet hair with his comb, gathering the ends into his hands. “I would like to talk about it, if you’re okay with it.”

I feel my breathing sharpen. “Okay, what?”

Mark combs my hair up to the top, making sure the ends are visible to me. He holds his shears to the ends, and starts snipping. I expected myself to close my eyes, but I do not. They remain wide open as I watch a good half foot of my hair being snipped off.

“You were wonderful that day. A good sport. I do not know if you know this, but people still comment on the video. It occasionally gets posted on the fetish forums and servers, and people write all kinds of things about you.”

I stay quiet. I had blocked the video, and so Mark’s words are news to me.

“What did you do with the money?”

“I… put them in the bank.”

Mark makes the final cut, and the last strands fall to the floor. He drops his hands and my hair falls down. It is still wet, but it feels much lighter. It still falls down, but not as flatly as it did before, and it seems to now have a bit of bounce. All the result of taking a bit of length off.

“Would you like to know what I did with your hair?” he asks. Mark draws out a triangular section of my hair in the front, and combs it forward. The amount of hair gathered is not much, but it is thick enough to cover my eyes. He moves his shears up and down along the length, before settling on my chin. I take a sharp breath.

“Well, you sold it… right?”

“No. I kept it,” he says, “all of it.” Before I react, there is the sound of a loud snip. The bangs are cut, and long strands of shorn hair collect in my lap.

My hair. Not the hair that has fallen today, but my hair from ten years ago. I picture it, the thick ponytail that it was, still bound by the scrunchie that held it to my head. I thought it was gone, sold to someone from the other side of the world, never to be seen again. But apparently, it has been right here along.

“Where is it, Mark?” I ask. My voice cracks. The very possibility of seeing my hair from that day is doing things to me. I sweep my new bangs out of my face, and look at my new look in the mirror. I certainly look younger than I did before, with my bangs and other face-framing pieces, but I do not think much of it. All I can think of now is my old ponytail.

Mark stops. He was running the dryer on my hair, but he sets it aside. He opens the drawer, and pulls it out. My ponytail. It is, marvelously, in more or less the same state that I had last seen it. It is not as long as my hair is right now. But it is curlier, a texture reminiscent of my younger days of forcing my ways into ringlets. Nonetheless, it is my hair, and when Mark lays it in my hands, I grasp it tightly to my chest. It is a strange thing, holding it.

Mark turns the dryer back on and dries the rest of my hair. My hair already looked a notch more beautiful with the bangs, but the blow-dry is the finishing touch. I look lovely with the hair, and I feel younger. However, with my old ponytail in my hands, my thoughts keep drifting to the last time I was here. I remember walking out of the shop with my bold pixie, and how exhilarating the whole experience felt. It was not just a haircut, but more than that, courtesy of Mark. The stark change in length was already exciting, but on top of that was the fun we had, both of us naked, him filming and I sat in the chair helpless yet consenting. I think about the video that came of it.

The video. I had seen it a week after my cut, and the comments were wild. They come flashing to my head one after the other, from the deeper reaches of my memory. Comments about my hair, comments about my emotional state, comments about my body, comments detailing the fantasies of a hundred thousand who had seen the video.

“Cash or card?” Mark asks.

I was apparently so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed myself getting up from my chair and walking over to the counter.

“Uhm… cash.”

I run my fingers through the shorn ponytail. It stretch out the curls, and observe the way they bounce back into place when I let it free. I feel my nape, searching for the cleanly trimmed area that sat below my pixie, but instead find my hair, my old long hair, only a little different from what it was when I entered the shop today.

“I want an undercut,” I say. I bite my lip. The words just came out.

Mark looks up. He is amused. “An undercut?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it.”

Mark’s furrowed expression grows into a smile. “Really?”

I hesitate. What am I doing? I have already gotten a nice haircut, and as a bonus, I have also received my old ponytail as a gift. Today was a nice day, and I should go back to my life of comfort, happy with my small newfound rejuvenation.

“Yes, I am positive.”

“And what about the length of the remaining hair?”

“Keep it at the same length.” An undercut is a drastic enough change for me. I do not want to lose the length, too.

“Okay then,” Mark says, clearly trying to suppress his own excitement, “let’s head back to the chair.”

I sit on the chair again, but this time, the place feels different. The shop suddenly feels hot, and I can feel sweat on my face and on my nape. My heart is beating, and I can hear it. I would have never thunk to do this a month ago, or even a week ago, or even yesterday, but here I am. Reliving the experience I keep coming back to.

Mark does not cape me. He takes a brush and combs the top of my hair, gathering it in his hands. He makes a few twists and turns, and pins it to the top of my head with a sectioning clip. The ends of the clipped-up hair falls to the front, hovering above my eyes.

“Are you ready?” Mark asks.

I look at myself in the mirror. The woman I have become, moments away from undergoing a change more in line with the adventurous little brat on the inside. But I’m not satisfied yet.

“Film it.” I say quietly.

Mark turns his head toward me. “What?”

“I… want you to film it. And upload it.”

“Oh.” Mark smiles. “Anything else?”

Mark knows what I’m gonna ask. I know what I’m gonna ask. I think about Ed. I think about our marriage. I think about our son. But ultimately, my desires win out.

I take off my shirt. I take off my bra. My boobs are out in the open, but I’m not done. I unzip my pant and pull it down with my panties. I feel like a dirty slut, but I’m loving it.

Mark, however, does not seem to be as eager as I am. He circles around the chair, viewing me from every direction. He touches different parts of my body – the skin on my arms, my hand, my shoulders, my thighs – and each touch sends a jolt through me. I haven’t felt like such an object of desire since a long time.

As Mark watches, I masturbate. One hand rubs my nipple, and the other my clit. I feel ten years younger, even though my hair is still intact. Mark, presumably satisfied with his viewing, lowers the chair and jumps in on the action. He takes off his pant, and one hand on his cock, which dangles above my head. begins to masturbate. It is how things always were between the two of us – no contact, but high intensity.

The two of us moan with little care to keep our voices down. Mark ejaculates, and I do not need to touch the back of my head to feel the presence of his white nectar dripping down my hair. It is apparent that Mark is rearing to proceed, because he loses the composed gracefulness that he maintained through the initial trim. He takes a clipper, turns it on, and pushes it against the back of my head without a guard on. The metal of the clipper feels cold yet electric against the back of my head. First I feel chunks of hair falling down my back, but as Mark moves to my sides, hair begins to fall down my shoulders and tits too. There is hair all over my body and the floor.

I glance at the mirror. With my sides clean short and the remaining hair pinned on the top, I sure do look like a bimbo. I look at the camera positioned in front of the mirror, and picture all the men who will be pleasuring themselves to my video once it comes up.

But then there’s a sound. A sound of metal getting stuck in hair. Mark gasps. His expression is horrified.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Liv… the clipper… it…”

“It what?”

“I pushed it too forward, and it has caught itself… in the bun. The top section.”

I touch the back of my head, and my hand comes back with clumps of hair. Hair specifically sectioned off to preserve my length.

I shriek.

 

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I am in my room. Ed will be home any minute now. I had planned to cook – Ed loves my cooking. But I instead wasted away my whole day in my room, and so I ordered takeout.

The new video outdid the old one. The views received are already ten times more the original, and the comments were more interesting. This time, however, a significant fraction of the comments were sympathizing, mourning the loss of my hair. I couldn’t bring myself to read those.

Mark shared the link to an old forum. It is a forum that was specifically dedicated to the original video. It was apparently decently popular at the time, with several hundred weekly visits, but after the new video got posted, the forum experienced a resurgence. The forum was relatively unmoderated, and so I read comments of a much more colorful tone to those that I had read on YouTube. A whole thread was even dedicated to predicting my next big haircut.

The bell rings. I come out of my stupor. I close the phone and head downstairs. I pause, and open the door.

Ed gasps. “Honey?”

“Yes?”

“What has happened to your hair?”

“I… wanted a haircut.”

“I thought you loved your long hair.” The line stung.

“It was getting boring, and so I chopped it.”

“Okay, but why a mullet?”

I touch the back of my head, thinking of an answer. The hair at the back was long enough to cover my nape, but the hair at the top is now shorter even than Ed’s hair. It was a suggestion by Mark, but I hate it.

I do not hold it in any longer. I sob into Ed’s chest. He doesn’t ask another question. He simply holds me while I cry.