It has been almost 14 months since Caroline last let me shave her head (she actually kept it smooth for two weeks).
In the meantime she had grown her hair into a cute chin-length bob and kept her natural blonde color. But since the beginning of the lockdown, her hair has grown a lot longer. Her last salon appointment had been canceled due to the virus.
We are used to staying at home most weekends. Staying at home all day, however, gets on our nerves – especially on Caroline’s. Lately, she often lashes out at me because she is so stressed. The day before we had a fierce argument about her hair constantly clogging the shower drain.
While for me the argument was forgotten by daybreak, the matter was apparently still on her mind. When she came into my office room with a pair of paper scissors in her hand and an offer of reconciliation in her head, I knew that I was in for a treat.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked her.
–
This time we put a chair in the middle of the living room to get better light. I took the big wall mirror from our bedroom and put it against a table so that Caroline had a nice view of everything I was doing with her. Meanwhile she took a shower, dried off and put on a large T-shirt. Her hair was still dripping when she sat down. I stood there and waited and honestly felt a little guilty because I had started the fight the day before.
I said, “Listen, I appreciate the gesture. But you don’t have to get your hair cut just because we disagreed yesterday.”
She cut me off quickly, “No, it’s okay, sweetie! It’s not… well, not only because of that, but because I literally can’t stand this mess on my head anymore” she said, pointing to her wet hair.
It was easy to see her point. The tips of her once-bob reached down to the middle of her neck. They looked thin and lifeless. When they were dry, they even curled up, although her hair was usually very straight.
“Okay, fair point, I’ll give you that,” I admitted.
“Good. Well, why don’t you take it a bit shorter and bring me back my chin-length bob?” she suggested before I had the chance to open my mouth again.
You’ll have to keep in mind that I am in no way an expert or even experienced hairdresser. All my knowledge on this subject comes from surfing the internet, watching videos and reading stories about women getting their hair cut. So I was understandably under some pressure not to mess up my fiancée’s haircut, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity either. I took the scissors and a comb from the bathroom and stood beside her.
“Alright then, here goes nothing,” I whispered, more to myself than to anyone else.
I started on the left side and slowly approached her hair with open scissors, until a strand of hair hung right between the blades. Then I closed it with one decisive movement. *shnick*
The scissors cut effortlessly through the hair and it fell into her lap. Her eyes widened for a moment, but then she seemed to remember our last haircutting adventure and started to smile and look me in the eye. Only then did I realize that I held my breath and let out a sight of relief while returning her smile. From that moment on I knew that I could do it. I only had to work at the level of the line defined by my first cut, and her style would be ready in no time.
Once my confidence had returned, I quickly carried out my plan. I worked from left to right around Caroline’s head and combed the next part always straight down to make sure I cut in a more or less even line. She kept an eye on me in the mirror the whole time and observed my every move.
Sooner than I knew – and certainly sooner than I had hoped – the cutting was over. Caroline inspected my work, then stood up and sent the wet tufts of hair to the living room floor. She went into the bathroom to dry her blunt bob. I started sweeping the floor.
–
When she came back, she walked through the door and spun herself around so her hair flew outwards. When it fell back into place, the cut looked nice and pretty even. Just as she stopped right in front of me, she threw her hands around my neck and pulled me closer for a kiss.
“I think you’ve done a good job for an amateur. What do you think of it?” she finally asked.
I needed a moment to carefully consider the wording of my answer. Don’t get me wrong – I liked it. The style really suited her and she looked as good as in the past few months. However, I was still disappointed. Before I could find the words, Caroline noticed my hesitation.
“Don’t you like it? Wait, that’s not it… You’re just sad that you didn’t get the chance to cut off more, aren’t you?” I was trying to keep my best poker face – she had got me. “Well then, why don’t YOU tell me what you had in mind with my hair?” she said in a poorly acted, angry tone. For a moment I was confused. But when she dropped back on the chair, her arms crossed, with a hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth, I knew: the fun had just begun.
–
“For a start I think – maybe you let me take your bob a little shorter,” I said after I regained my composure.
“‘For a start’? Oh my, someone here is very confident of himself to think I might like his talent that much.”
She always put on this mocking facade whenever she tried to tease me, so I knew she liked the scenario.
“Alright, go ahead,” she commanded.
I quickly returned to the position I was in when I started my first cut. I placed the scissors an inch above her chin at lip level and snipped away. *shnick* Firstly, I noticed the different sound the blades made when they closed, and secondly, that the blades felt sharper when I first used them. But I didn’t let that deter me, and quickly cut cut further towards the back. Below her earlobes and then slightly upwards while I worked around her head. As I reached the left side, I hoped that I could eyeball the right height for my final cut. Fortunately my work seemed to be at least passable. When I stood up to look at my work, Caroline slyly grinned at me and tried to get up as well. I put my hand on her shoulder and gently, yet firmly, pushed her down again.
“Oh no, please, we’re not finished yet,” I said as I shook my head and gave her a mischievous smile. The confused expression disappeared and she just nodded. I slipped out the door and went into the bathroom and returned seconds later with my trusty beard trimmer in my hand.
“Let’s clean up your beautiful nape first, shall we?” I whispered into her ear and promptly popped on the small clippers. The familiar high-pitched buzzing filled the room and Caroline straightened up. I placed the vibrating blades at the bottom of her hairline and pulled them very slowly into her hair, up until the point where the scissor-cut hair ended.
The blond color of the stubble left by the #1 guard was so light that it was almost invisible against her light skin. Caroline moaned softly with joy, as if she had missed the clippers being used on her. This was obviously a great incentive for me, so I quickly followed suit and placed the blades right next to the path I had previously shorn.
I repeated this process until her nape was almost devoid of hair. As I turned off the beard trimmer and stroked slowly against the grain of the velvet fuzz on her neck, Caroline trembled and squirmed on her chair. She had her eyes closed and her cheeks turned rosy while I could hear her panting breaths. Suddenly an idea came to my mind. I got up, stood in front of her and studied how her hair framed her face.
She opened her eyes and said, “What is it?” “Just close your eyes again for a second, will you?” I said.
She did what I asked and began to comb the front of her hair into her face. While the tips of her hair tickled her nose, I advised her to sit still for a moment. I placed my comb and scissors in the middle of the hairy curtain and methodically cut in a straight horizontal line. When I was done, I told her to open her eyes again. I stepped aside so she could see herself in the mirror. Her short, angled bob was now rounded off with straight bangs at eyebrow level.
Caroline turned her head from right to left and from left to right and inspected my work. Judging by her satisfied look, she seemed to like her new hairstyle. I smiled contentedly and turned to get the broom as she grabbed me by the wrist.
She purred, “Whatever happened to ‘for a start’?” I was startled for a second, but I quickly regained my composure. I turned to her and waited for her instructions. After a short moment of consideration she said, “I was thinking – I haven’t had a bowl cut for well over a year…”.
–
I circled around the chair to make a plan of how best to approach this third cut. I imagined that the shaved hair on her nape determined how short I had to take the whole short part of the bowl. Then I used some pins to section off the upper part of her hair as best I could so as not to accidentally shave too much.
When it felt like everything was as good as it would get, I took a deep breath and switched on the beard trimmer once more. I told myself that I didn’t need to be afraid because my previous cuts had turned out well. And I had even shaved my fiancée’s head once before, so there was that.
“Ready when you are, sweetie,” Caroline said.
I started at her right sideburn and quickly worked my way past her ear. Two inch long clumps of hair fell in the wake of the clippers and landed on her shoulders and lap. After that I continued on her left side and spared the back part for last, knowing that she would enjoy it the most. When the shaving was over, I gave her a moment to feel the stubble around her head. She gave me a wink and a nod, and I took it as a sign to continue with the cut. I loosened the hair clips and combed her hair down from the crown once more.
The two previous attempts helped to strengthen my confidence, so that this time I didn’t hesitate to snip away at her now considerably less voluminous hair. By the time I was done, a bowl cut with a uniform length of about 3 inches adorned her head, her straight bangs integrated seamlessly into the rest of the style. Caroline ran her hands through the remainder of her hair, ran her fingernails over the shaved part of her head and laughed.
“That’s more like it. Thank you so much, sweetie,” she said. She almost swept me off my feet when she hugged me while she was still sitting in the chair, covered in hair clippings.
–
When she was finished laughing, she let out a little sigh and said, “Now there is only one thing I want to try for today”.
I must say that I was beginning to feel exhausted. We were at cutting her hair for almost two hours straight by then. And to be honest – when I thought about her incredibly sexy hairstyle, I just couldn’t hold back my excitement much longer. I had to have her, and soon.
“What’s that?” I asked, growing impatient.
“I’ve seen you looking for pictures online. I think what I want is called a ‘chelsea’. Do you know what I mean?” she asked. At first I thought I must have misheard.
“That’s a rather extreme style,” I said, “are you sure this is what you want?”
“I’m aware of that. I mean, you shaved my head – bald. So how much worse could it be?” she said, “And besides – while everyone’s quarantined, no one will see it, will they? And if I don’t like it, I’ll either let it grow out or we shave it all off.”
I had to admit that she was right, and it was not really in my interest to disagree with her. So I did what anyone with any interest in hair would have done in my place:
I flicked on the clippers.
–
But this time she wanted a go at it herself. I handed her the still running beard trimmer and advised her where to place it. I figured the best way for her to do it was to start right behind her bangs and shave along her parting of her hair towards the back of her head. And that’s exactly what she did. As she drove the clippers over the crown of her head, strands of hair slid down the left and right of it. When she had made the first pass, she bent her head down and examined her doing in the mirror. For a moment her mouth formed an expression of awe, and she obviously enjoyed the whole act.
From then on everything went by pretty fast. Caroline proved to be an expert with the clippers, and the rest of her bowl cut had no chance. It only took her a few minutes. Her straight bangs were all that remained. For a very short moment she seemed to consider shaving them off as well. Finally she just shrugged her shoulders and switched off the trimmer.
She turned her head towards me, stood up, and brushed off the hair clippings from her T-shirt. “How do you like my new look?” she asked with a broad grin.
I didn’t say anything and instead I just took her head in my hands. While I stroked the bristly fuzz on her crown and neck, I planted a kiss on her forehead. My lips touched her bangs and I could smell the scent of her hair. I knew then that we would both have a lot of fun with her new hairstyle – quarantined or not.
Author’s Note: Thanks for reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it. After the overwhelmingly positive reaction to my previous story, which I had actually had lying around on my hard drive for quite some time, I decided to quickly follow it up with this one. Stay safe, everyone!
– rightdownthemiddle