Feeling Curious (Part 2)

Previously

The next afternoon, I made my way down to the hotel spa for the massage Nick had booked for me.

Upon entering the Spa, there was something clean and slightly herbal underneath a faint marine fragrance, the sort of carefully chosen scent that immediately made you lower your voice without quite knowing why.

I approached the desk and gave my name to the receptionist.

One thing I had noticed whilst being at the hotel was the different hairstyles the ladies working there had. Her hair was dark and shaggy looking. Short at the front, long at the back. It suited her well.

She looked up with a welcoming smile, found my booking and confirmed that I was booked in for the massage.

“Yes. Three thirty.”

She walked in front her desk to give me a few straightforward instructions, then indicated the corridor leading away from reception and told me which treatment room to use.

I thanked her and followed the corridor.

——

A few minutes later, I was lying face down on the massage bed beneath a light cream sheet, my hair gathered loosely away from my neck. The room was dim, lit mostly by candles, with a soft ocean-like fragrance in the air and quiet relaxation music playing beneath the steady hum of the air conditioning.

Marija then entered the room, greeting me with the same easy warmth she had shown by the pool the day before. Without being able to see her, I knew it was her by her softly spoken accent.

For the first twenty minutes, I barely spoke at all.

Marija worked slowly across my shoulders and upper back, finding knots I had not realised were there until she pressed into them. At first, I caught myself resisting every movement, my shoulders tightening before her hands had even reached them, but gradually I stopped anticipating what came next.

Somewhere between her working along the base of my neck and pressing firmly beneath my shoulder blades, I realised I had switched off my mind to anything work-related.

For the first time in months, there seemed to be actual space inside my head.

I exhaled into the face cradle.

“You have a lot of tension here,” Marija said.

“That sounds about right.”

“You work on computer?”

“All day.”

She laughed softly. “Yes. This I can tell very easily.”

Another few minutes passed. I listened to the music, felt her hands move slowly across my shoulders and tried not to think about anything at all.

Then, somewhat inevitably, I thought about her hair.

“Can I ask you something?” “Of course.” “It’s about your hair.”

Marija laughed quietly. “Yes, of course. You can ask.”

I hesitated, suddenly aware that I had been thinking about the question since the previous afternoon.

“When you had it cut, were you frightened?”

“Oh yes, a little. But not for very long.”

“Really?”

“I did not plan it very much,” she said.

“I went only for a trim, but I was hot and bored with my hair. It was too much for me, too heavy.”

She worked her thumbs slowly along either side of my spine.

“I saw some the clippers on counter and asked my hairdresser how she thought I would look with a buzzed haircut.”

“And she just did it?”

“She said it would suit me. Then she asked if I was serious, and in that moment I said yes.”

In my mind, I tried to picture it. Marija sitting in a salon with almost waist-length hair, eyeing up a hair tool that would strip her of all her hair. The thought of this was beginning to take a hold of me.

“That easily?” I said.

Marija laughed. “Not easily, maybe. But quickly.”

I smiled into the towel. “She made four plait tails first,” she continued. “Then she cut them off and took the clippers before I had time to think.”

My hand shifted slightly beneath the sheet, instinctively moving towards where my own hair had been gathered away from my neck before I remembered I could not reach it.

“Wow.”

“Yes.”

“That sudden.”

“Yes. Very sudden.”

“And the clippers?” I asked.

“What about them?”

“What did they feel like?”

She paused for a second.

“Cold at first. And loud. Especially when they came near my ears.” She laughed softly. “But after this, very light. I could feel air everywhere on my head.”

I tried to imagine the whole scene now. Marija. Being buzzed so closely. Her discarded hair everywhere.

“What did you think when you first saw yourself?”

Marija worked one thumb slowly into the muscle beside my shoulder blade.

“At first? I thought, oh, I look very strange.”

I laughed.

“Not reassuring.”

“Only maybe thirty seconds,” she said. “Because I had never really seen my whole face before. My hair was always around me, everywhere.”

“And then?”

“Then I liked it. Very much.”

“Straight away?”

“Instantly. I was touching my head all the time.”

That made me smile into the towel.

“So you never regretted cutting your long hair off?”

“No.”

“Not even afterwards?”

“No. Not once.”

There was no hesitation in her voice.

“My long hair was beautiful, yes. I liked it. But now it has gone, I don’t think I want it back.”

That was the part I found difficult to understand.

Not that she liked the buzzcut. I could see that she did. It was the idea that something could have been part of how you looked for years and then simply stop being necessary.

Marija moved to the other side of the table.

“How did people react?” I asked. “It must have shocked them.”

“My mother? Oh yes.”

I laughed again.

“She loved my long hair very much. Even now she sends me old photographs sometimes.”

“Trying to persuade you to grow it back?”

“Yes, a little bit.”

“But it won’t work?”

“No. Never work.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “I love it like this.”

“What about everyone else?”

“Some loved it. Some asked when I will grow it back. Some wanted to know why I would do such a thing.”

“A bit like me, then.”

Marija laughed. “A little bit, yes.”

I realised how many questions I had asked her and felt faintly embarrassed.

“Sorry. I’m interrogating you.”

“No, it is okay. People ask. And I say some thing I told you yesterday. I wanted to do it.”

There it was again. Nothing complicated. No dramatic explanation waiting behind it. She had wanted to.

——

For several minutes after that, neither of us spoke.

The massage continued, and by then my body had become heavy against the bed. My arms felt almost detached from me, and when Marija worked carefully around the base of my neck and scalp, I realised how long it had been since I had allowed myself an entire hour in which there was nowhere else I was supposed to be.

By the time she asked me to turn over, I felt pleasantly disorientated.

I pulled the cream sheet securely around myself and sat upright for a moment while she adjusted the towels. From there, I could see her properly, having not being able to see her.

I noticed straight away that her hair looked different from the previous day.

“It looks shorter today.”

Marija smiled and ran a hand over the back of her head.

“It is. I buzzed it again last night.”

“You did it yourself?”

“Yes. Grade two. Six millimetres.”

I looked at her. “So have your own clippers and do it yourself?”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“Every week. Sometimes even sooner.”

“Every week?”

“I like when it is fresh.”

Up close, the pale-blonde hair was short enough to follow the exact shape of her head. There was no styling to it, nothing falling into place or needing to be tucked behind an ear; it was simply an even layer of soft blonde stubble.

“When it reaches maybe one centimetre, it already starts annoying me,” she said.

I smiled.

“One centimetre.”

“Yes.”

“That is barely hair.”

“To you, maybe. For me, already too much.”

“Fair point.”

Marija laughed and rubbed her palm slowly across the back of her head.

“You notice everything when it is this short. The direction, the places where it grows different. If one part is even a little longer, you feel it immediately.”

I watched her hand move over the short hair.

“What does it actually feel like?”

Marija looked at me.

“You never felt a buzzcut before?”

“No, not really.”

She tilted her head slightly.

I hesitated.

“Go on,” she said.

“Feel.”

She stepped a little closer and lowered her head just enough to make it easy. I put my palm carefully against the top of her head.

The sensation surprised me.

It was much softer than I expected, but resistant at the same time, like velvet brushed against its grain. When I moved my hand slowly towards the crown, the tiny hairs pushed back against my skin.

“Oh.”

Marija smiled. “Different from what you expected?”

“Completely.”

I ran my palm once more over the top, more slowly this time. The hair was warm from the skin beneath it. There was something oddly satisfying about the uniformity of it, the way nothing moved independently beneath my hand.

“Now go other way,” Marija said.

I rubbed my palm back towards the front and laughed.

“That is bizarre.” “You see? This is why I touch it all the time.”

“I actually understand that now.”

She smiled.

I removed my hand, suddenly aware that I had been studying her head with far more concentration than was normal.

“You are brave choosing this.”

“The brave part, if you want to call it brave, was only first time. After this, it is just maintenance.

I laughed because I could not understand that at all. I worried when Liz took more than an inch from my ends. Marija considered six millimetres maintenance.

—-

A few minutes later, as I stood, changed back in to my clothes and gathering my things, Marija glanced at the ends of my hair where they had fallen forward over my shoulder.

“People must tell you all the time, to never cut this hair.”

“I do get that from time to time.”

She smiled.

“But you? Do you want to cut it?”

“No,” I said.

Too quickly.

Marija did not challenge me. She simply gave a small smile and began folding one of the towels.

For some reason, I was glad she did not ask again.

——

I left the treatment room feeling lighter than when I had gone in.

Physically, certainly. My shoulders had dropped, my neck moved without the familiar tightness at its base, and for once there was no dull pressure sitting behind my eyes.

But as I walked back through the hotel back my room, my own hair felt more noticeable than usual.

I noticed the weight of it against my back. The ends brushing my bare arms. The heat trapped beneath it at my neck.

None of those things were new. I was simply noticing them in a way I had not before.

—–

That evening, after showering, I sat at the dressing table getting ready for dinner. Nick was somewhere on the balcony, already dressed and leaving me to take as long as I liked.

Normally, I enjoyed doing my hair on holiday because there was finally time to make an effort with it. I dried it carefully, worked a little product through the lengths and plugged in my curling wand.

I divided my hair into sections as I always did.

There seemed to be more of it than usual.

I wrapped the first copper section around the barrel and watched it form the familiar loose curl.

Then another.

Then another.

The routine was automatic. Clamp, turn, hold, release.

My hair looked good.

Exactly as it always did.

It was thick and healthy and a colour people regularly told me they would pay money to have. It fell several inches below my shoulders and, once I had finished curling it, looked exactly as I expected myself to look.

There was nothing wrong with it.

Yet while I worked, I kept thinking about the feeling of Marija’s buzzcut beneath my palm.

That strange soft resistance.

Six millimetres of velvet.

I picked up another section of hair and wrapped it around the curling wand. Mine went around the barrel almost twice.

For no sensible reason, I found myself wondering what it would feel like to have nothing there to curl.

I dismissed the thought immediately.

Then had it again.

By the time we went down to dinner, my hair was styled into glossy loose waves and I looked more like myself again.

Nick glanced across the table after we had ordered and smiled.

“You look relaxed.”

“I am.”

“That massage worked, then.”

“It really did.”

“I knew it would.”

“You have been waiting all day to say that, haven’t you?”

“Absolutely.” I smiled and reached for my wine.

“Thank you for suggesting it.”

“You’re welcome.”

“No, genuinely. I needed it more than I realised.”

Nick’s expression softened.

“You have actually stopped talking about work.”

“I know.” He was right.

The strange thing was that work had almost completely disappeared from my workaholic mind. The massage seemed to have cleared out all the noise I had brought with me from home.

While Nick talked about where we might walk the following morning, I listened, answered and laughed when I was supposed to. Every so often, though, I became aware of the curls lying heavily over one shoulder.

I would remember Marija’s hair beneath my palm.

Six millimetres. Warm, soft and slightly resistant.

Then I would look down at the copper lengths against my dress and wonder why I was comparing them at all.

I still liked my hair.

I just seemed unable to stop being too aware of it than before.

 

To be continued…