An Eye for an Eye

“Close the door behind you”

Clara wasn’t sure why she’d been called into her boss’ office today, but she could tell by Lena’s general demeanor that it wasn’t going to be a fun meeting. She had been the controller for Lena’s Bakery and Catering for 3 years now, it was her first job out of college. The base pay wasn’t great, but Clara greatly enjoyed some of the side benefits.

“I hope you enjoyed your vacation, you’re looking rather tan.” Lena remarked.

“Oh yeah, it was real relaxing, just sat on the beach with a book most of the time.” Clara replied nervously.

“Ibiza? I’d love to go there some day, but finances have been tight here lately.” Lena said with a subtle eye roll.

“Yeah…” Clara paused to think about what to say next. She had only posted photos of her trip on her burner Instagram and wasn’t sure how Lena knew where she had been. “It was… it was a gift from my parents for my 25th birthday, they really went all out.”

“Wow, what a generous gift from them. Must have taken them a long time to save since they’re both teachers.” Lena was clearly being sarcastic at this point.

“Well… uhh… my grandparents left them some money and…”

“Cut the shit!” Lena snapped back angrily “While you were gone, I took a closer look at the books to see why I was barely making any money. Over the last 18 months or so, you’ve authorized about $78,000 in payments to an LLC registered in your name. You were sloppy enough about it that I figured it out on my own without even having to being a real accountant in. While I was working night and day and making all kinds of sacrifices to keep the lights on, you were out living the high life on my money. I’ve collected enough evidence here to send you to prison for 5-10 years!”.

Clara sulked in her chair. Her heart was thumping in her chest and she began to sweat. “Please… I can explain… I don’t want to go to jail” she begged.

“Prison” Lena corrected her “This is more than enough for a felony. And I don’t want you to go either, to be honest. Sure, justice would be done, but there is no chance in hell I’d ever get my 78 grand back. Even after you got out, you’d be lucky to find a job at Wendy’s. That’s why I’m giving you an out here. Pay me back every penny, and this will never see the light of day, it’s that simple.”

“Well… I… ” Clara began to sob and Lena cut her off.

“You spent all the money. I know. You can probably get a good chunk of it back by selling some of the clothes and shoes you bought, so that’s a few grand right there, and maybe you still have some left in the account. As for the rest, you’re going to keep working here until you’ve paid me back, but your salary is cut in half. I’ll apply that toward the debt, minus the cost of the auditor I’m gonna hire to make sure every god damn penny is accounted for. There is also another thing you have to do to make some quick cash.” She grinned menacingly as Clara gulped.

Lena opened her laptop. “Back when I was in culinary school… I guess this would have been 8 years ago… I had some unexpected expenses and was short on tuition. A friend of mine knew someone who could help me out. His name is Steve, and he produces specialty videos for his subscribers.”

“You want me to do porn?” Clara replied in disgust.

“It’s not exactly porn” Lena corrected her. “I mean… technically it’s not. They’re considered educational videos. watch!”

Lena started the video on her laptop and turned it so Clara could see. The video started with Lena posing in a red dress and shaking her voluminous blonde curls. She slowly slid the dress off, revealing the skimpy red bra and panties underneath that barely covered her perfect physique.

“Do I have to watch this?” Clara asked.

“You do if you don’t want to go to prison.” Lena barked back. “Let me just skip to the good part.”

Lena skipped ahead to 5:12 on the video. Now she was shown sitting completely naked in a barber’s chair, in front of a white backdrop, flipping her blonde hair around as a man walked up behind her. He held a black object in his hand and moved it towards Lena. She stopped him, took the object from his hand, and smiled directly into the camera. She flicked a switch on the object and it started humming. It was electric hair clippers. She smiled again and plunged them directly down the center of her scalp, using her other hand to brush the severed blonde strands to the floor. Then she handed them back to the man and sat in the chair as he buzzed the rest of her hair off. When he was done with that, he spread shaving foam on her scalp and shaved it down to the skin with a straight razor.

Clara was shocked by the video. She paused for a minute and had a question. “Wait, why is the title of the video ‘Fan Favorite Alicia Makes her Triumphant Return’?”

“Well…” Lena laughed “First of all, obviously they don’t use your real name. Also, this isn’t the video from 8 years ago. It was about 6 weeks ago. I was going to be short on payroll unless I could come up with some money fast, because for some reason, my company was out of cash, even though we had just our best quarter ever. So I found out that Steve was still in business, and he’ll pay double for nude models.”

Lena took off her baseball cap. Clara could tell that something looked off about her blonde hair. Then she took off her blonde wig, revealing the short pixie underneath. She glared at Clara, who slumped in her chair.

Clara began to sob “Please don’t make me do that. I love my hair. I’ve put so much time and effort into it. I’ll just do porn instead. I can probably make a lot of money if I start an OnlyFans.”

“Sure” Lena shrugged “You can start an OnlyFans. I’m sure you can pay back your debt a lot quicker that way, and there are definitely guys out there who are into bald girls, but this is non-negotiable. I’ve already called Steve and scheduled your shoot for this Friday, at 10 AM. If you’re not there, I go straight to the DA’s office and hand him all the evidence I collected. I showed you what I had to do to keep my business afloat because you stole from me. You think I didn’t love my hair too? You forced me to make that sacrifice, now I’m doing the same to you. An eye for an eye.”

Friday, 9:50 AM

Clara arrived at the address she was given. It was a suite in a dingy strip mall between a crossfit gym and a Chinese takeout restaurant. There was no sign on the door, but as soon as she walked up, a middle-aged man came out to greet her. He introduced himself as Steve and led her to the small studio in the back. The only other people back there were a young male camera man, and Lena, sitting in a directors chair, not bothering to wear a wig. She stroked her short fuzz with both hands, as if to taunt Clara that this was her future.

Steve instructed Clara to sit in a chair at the side of the room and lean back while he washed her hair in the sink. He was a professional and wasted no time washing, blow drying and curling Clara’s hair, getting it looking better than she had ever done herself. Clara signed the paperwork, and Lena reminded her, make sure to look happy and enthusiastic- otherwise she wouldn’t receive the full payment.

Clara expected Steve to tell her what to do but instead Lena was giving the orders. “It’s my directorial debut.”

Lena ordered Clara to pose for some before shots, in a variety of stances that accentuated her long brunette curls. Then it was time for glamor shots in the other outfits. Hanging next to the filming area was a black dress with matching bra and panties and a blue bikini.

“Lets do the bikini first.” Lena instructed.

“Umm… where’s the dressing room?” Clara asked.

“Seriously? I guess you can go use the bathroom in the front but it seems like a waste of time. You’re not going to be wearing anything when you get shaved, so you might as well get used to it.”

“Umm… it’s just… I’ve never been naked in front of strangers before.”

Lena rolled her eyes and stood up. She unzipped her jeans and dropped them to the floor, then took off her shirt and unhooked her bra. “See. Not that hard.”

Clara gingerly removed her tank top and jeans, then her panties and finally her bra. “Wow, pierced nips. Did not see that coming. You really are a bad girl!” Lena catcalled. Clara put on the bikini and repeated the poses, then did the same with the dress. Now it was time for the main event. Clara slowly slid out of the dress and undergarments as the camera rolled. Lena, still naked, reminded her to smile, and look sexy. “And CUT!”

“So who is going to be doing the actual… you know?” inquired Clara.

Lena laughed “You’re looking at the barber!”

“But I thought you were the director.”

“Tarantino is a director. Doesn’t stop him from stepping in front of the camera every time an actress’ feet come out.”

Lena put her clothes back on as Steve and the cameraman got everything ready for the main event. Clara put the black dress back on as instructed, with nothing underneath, and after doublechecking that she remembered her sparse lines, she motioned to the cameraman that she was ready.

Clara walked up to Lena, who was standing next to a barber’s chair.

“Hi, welcome to Alicia’s barbershop, what can I do for you today?” Lena smiled and shook Clara’s hand.

“It’s been soooo hot lately… so I was thinking something really short.” Clara said with a smile and a giggle.

“How short?” Lena inquired.

“The shortest as possible!” Clara answered back enthusiastically, unaware that she had botched the line.

“Sure thing. But just one little problem. Someone stole all my capes!” Lena said, feigning shock

“Wow, that’s awful, what kind of terrible person steals from a small business” Clara recited the line that Lena had added to the script.

“I know right! Well I wouldn’t want to get hair all over that pretty dress of yours, so if you could just slip out of it.”

Clara slowly took off the dress and sat down in the chair.

“Wouldn’t want to get hair on my clothes either” Lena added as she once again unzipped her pants and disrobed one article of clothing at a time.

Lena gathered the hair on top of Clara’s head into a ponytail and held the guardless clippers up to the camera. She slowly maneuvered the device towards Clara’s forehead as it hummed menacingly, then the humming got louder as it began to plow through the hair at the center of her scalp. Lena made more passes with the clippers until the last strands she held were freed, and held up her trophy triumphantly. Clara’s hair was still as majestic as ever on the sides, but the top was a ragged buzz with a few short patches. Lena passed over again with the clippers to clean up the spots on top that had been missed.

Clara expected that the rest of her long hair would be next, but instead she felt a warm foam being spread over the top of her head. Lena began to scrape away the shaving foam with a cheap disposable razor. She wanted to use the straight razor that had been used on her own scalp, but she wasn’t trained, and Steve wouldn’t allow her to. Safety first.

“And CUT!”

Clara was confused. What about the rest of her hair? Lena informed her that it was time to do the mid-cut photoshoot.

First, they took nude photos, with Clara rubbing her smooth scalp and looking shocked while Lena held the severed hair over her menacingly. Next, she was asked to do a variety of poses in the nude, then repeat them in the bikini, and again in the dress. This was far more humiliating than it would have been if she had just been fully bald. She looked like her aging metalhead uncle Chuck, who was hanging on to his long hair years after male-pattern baldness had set in, except she didn’t have a bandana to cover it up.

Once she was done and they were ready to start the next scene, Clara mentioned to Lena how much she couldn’t wait to just get the rest off and get it over with, so Lena decided it was a good time to take a lunch break.

Two hours later.

That was the longest lunch of Clara’s life. She wanted to stay back in the studio but Lena insisted she come along. Did she really have to ask the host at Chili’s for a table right in the middle of the restaurant, where everyone could see them? She felt relieved when Lena commanded her to disrobe for the next scene.

“And ACTION!”

Lena played with Clara’s brunette curls a bit before starting the clippers up. first, she buzzed the remaining hair on the right side down to nothing, then the left, then the back. She stopped to admire her work.

“Whoops, missed a couple spots.”

Lena turned the clippers back on and swiped them over Clara’s eyebrows. Clara responded with genuine shock- she had no idea that was going to happen. Lena spread shaving foam over Clara’s scalp and eyebrows and carefully scraped it off until almost nothing remained. After a second round of shaving foam and a new razor, zero vestiges of Clara’s treasured mane remained on her head.

She had to do the same photoshoot again, this time with no hair. To add insult to injury, they made her clean up the set, bag up her hair, and pose with it before finally calling it a wrap and letting her put her clothes back on.

Lena made sure Clara was in earshot when she asked Steve how long it usually took to grow out hair long enough to get paid the full fee to shave. He said it was usually about a year.

“Hear that?” Lena said to Clara “You’re coming back in a year for your ‘triumphant return.'”