Celeste’s Salon

I thought it was only a little strange when a man called my salon that morning asking if I had any openings today for woman’s haircut.

“It’s for my girlfriend,” he’d said. “I want to surprise her.”

It didn’t seem too out of the ordinary—what woman wouldn’t want a surprise pampering session? Probably a trim and a blowout. I told the man that I had an opening at the very end of the day, right before closing. He booked an appointment.

For the rest of the day, I was too busy with clients to even think about it. It was a packed schedule—I had a full foil, an all-over color, four women’s haircuts, and two men’s barber cuts. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I loved everything about working with hair, even when the days were hard. I’d never admit it to any of my clients, but transforming their hair made me feel powerful, and inexplicably aroused. It always had. It was the reason I got into the business in the first place. The bigger the transformation, the more my heart would race. I don’t know where it came from, but I’d always felt that way. My predilection for hair, particularly cutting it off, predated my memory.

Personally, I’d only cut my hair short once, during cosmetology school. I’d let my classmate practice her balayage on me and it turned out so bad I had to have my teacher cut my hair into a chin-length bob. Since then, I’d not had the courage to do anything drastic to my hair, so I just let it grow. It was heavy, dark and thick with a slight wave to my waist. I fantasized about cutting it short often, but I could never find the courage.

Sweating from a hard day of work and the early evening summer heat, I was twisting all my hair up into a bun on the top of my head just at my last client of the day walked in the front door of my small salon. The two other girls who rent booths from me had long since gone home and it was just me and the couple. The man was older than his girlfriend, handsome and tall with dark hair shot with gray. He was wearing jeans that cupped his ass perfectly and a black t-shirt. The woman with him had blonde hair nearly as long as mine and a downcast expression. He urged her forward with a firm hand at the small of her back.

“Welcome in,” I smiled to them. “I’m Celeste.”

“Hi,” he replied, with a serious expression. “I’m Nathan and this is my girlfriend, Jen. We’re here for your 6:30.”

“Yes, hi.” The more I looked at him, the more disarmed I felt. He was seriously hot, and not just the way he looked. It was his energy. Something about him made me flustered. I looked to his girlfriend. “You’re here for a haircut?”

She looked at her boyfriend with an indiscernible expression and he just stared back at her, unyielding. She coughed and replied meekly, “Yes.”

I beckoned her to sit down and she settled into my brown leather and chrome chair. As I draped a black vinyl cape around her, lifting up her soft, golden hair so I could fasten the snaps at her neck, she took a look around my salon with big eyes, her breathing fast and shallow. Must be shy, I mused as she looked at all my plants and art. I prided myself on having built a beautiful and comfortable space.

“So,” I said, draping her hair in front of her. “What are we doing today?”

“Umm…” she faltered, and Nathan stepped up.

“She wanted me to help describe it since we’re going for such a big change. She’s nervous. But I have a picture here,” he said and turned his phone to me.

I must have gasped. The picture was a super short pixie cut, if you could even call it that. Maybe two inches on top with close-clippered sides. “Oh wow, this really is a big change. Are you ready to lose all this hair?” I asked, running my hands through her lengths. It really was exceptional hair—she had what looked like natural highlights from the sun and very little damage. She’d obviously taken great care of it for the years it had taken to get so long.

Her voice was quiet as she said, “I understand if you aren’t willing to cut so much—“

“—Oh, no,” I cut her off with a wave. “I think you can definitely pull it off. I’m not one of those stylists who won’t ‘let’ you cut your hair. It’s your choice, right?”

Her boyfriend smiled at her and squeezed her caped shoulder. “You’re going to look great with this cut, babe. You’re being so brave.”

“It’s nice to see a man being so supportive of his partner cutting her hair all off,” I said to him. “Usually my clients say they’d cut their hair short if it wasn’t for their boyfriends and husbands begging them not to.”

“I like short hair on a woman,” he said simply.

“Me too,” I said.

“But your hair is so long,” my client interjected, almost as if she was trying to get me to talk her out of it. But she was outnumbered.

“I guess I’m not as brave as you!” I turned back to her. “So, are you ready? I’m thinking that I’ll do the bulk of this cut dry. No sense in washing hair we’re about to chop off, right?”

She looked like she was going to cry, and maybe at that point I should have stopped. It really felt like this cut was her boyfriend’s idea, not hers. But my hands were already itching to grab my shears, to render her long thick hair to practically nothing. I knew deep down that I was going to remember this haircut forever and I couldn’t bring myself to intervene.

Nathan spoke up before she had a chance to answer. “I think we’re ready, right babe? You ready to say goodbye to all this hair?” He stroked her hair one last time. Was his action loving or taunting? Maybe a bit a both? I didn’t have a firm read on the dynamic between these two.

She just nodded and I got my scissors ready for the initial chop. He stood back a few paces and brought out his phone to take video. “I’ll film, Jen. That way you can post it on Instagram if you want.”

I hoped he’d send me the film later so I could watch whenever I wanted to be transported back to that moment. “OK, no turning back now,” I smiled as I pulled her hair back into my hands in a loose ponytail and without giving her a second to back out, I plunged my shears at the base of her neck, sawing through her thick blonde hair for what felt like forever. The slicing sound must have been particularly loud in her ears and I could see a rim of tears form in her waterlines.

“I get it, hon,” I said to her without pausing my chopping. Arousal pooled deep inside my core but I did my best to keep my demeanor professional. “Change can be emotional.”

Slowly, what remained of her hair fell forward against her cheeks, short and choppy hunks where flowing Rapunzel hair had just been. I finally finished my onslaught as I cut free the few remaining hairs connecting her past as a long hair woman and future. Nathan was taking video from various angles, making sure to capture both her shearing and the range of emotions on her face.

I held what was easily a foot and a half of hair in my hand and asked her, “Do you want to hold it?”

She nodded and grabbed the bundle from me, feeling the blunt end of the cut side. “Wow,” she said, clearly at a loss for more complex words, and then handed it back to me. I set the harvested hair gently down on my station.

“It’s looking good already,” Nathan said. “I’ve been telling you that you don’t need to hide behind all that hair.”

“It’s just…so short,” Jen breathed out. “I just wasn’t expecting it to be so short.”

“Well the picture y’all showed me is even shorter than this so I figured this would be a good place to start.”

Jen looked at Nathan in the mirror, their eyes locking with some inscrutable communication passing between them. I realized then that she’d never seen the inspiration picture, but it felt too late to say anything. Who knows what she thought she was going to be getting when she walked into my salon that day, but it certainly wasn’t a boy-short cut. She turned back to me, “Yes, good point.”

I took my comb and sectioned out her hair, clipping the top portion and leaving a sizable chunk on the sides and back free. “Have you ever had clippers cut your hair before?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “My hair has always been long.”

“Well then this will be a great new experience for you today.” I plugged my Oster clippers in and popped on a #2 attachment and debated where I wanted to start before landing on the back. “Head down.” I pushed her head firmly into her chest and plunged my clippers up the nape of her neck, leaving a pale strip of blonde stubble behind in its wake. Hair gathered around her shoulders before falling into her lap. Her small hands emerged from under the cape to feel some of the strands as they piled up as I made my way around her head and I could swear that I heard a moan of pleasure escape her lips. I was so lost in my task that I almost forgot that Nathan was filming and for a second I worried he was capturing how much I was enjoying this on my face. It wasn’t every day that I was able to so drastically transform such a beautiful woman. I did my best to collect myself.

“Do you want me to fade her sides?” I asked as I finished up the overall buzz.

“What?” Jen asked at the same time that Nathan replied, “Yes.”

I took his answer and nodded. “I was thinking the same. To the skin?”

Jen looked confused as Nathan just nodded in agreement. I clicked off my attachment and carved in a line a few inches lower that her current undercut and shaved everything beneath to the skin before popping back on my #1 and blending the two sections together. The result was extremely short, but extremely smooth and well-executed.

“Touch it, babe,” Nathan said as he walked over to run a hand along her buzzed sides.

She lifted her hands to feel and could only touch it for a few seconds before removing her fingertips, like she had accidentally brushed up against a hot stove.

I guided her to the shampoo bowl and washed and conditioned her hair, taking my time to massage her scalp, savoring in the feeling of her freshly cut ends under my fingertips and her freshly buzzed sides. I could tell from her closed-eye ecstasy that she was enjoying this part at least.

When I brought her back to my station, I unclipped the top of her hair and made quick work cutting it down to a little under two inches. I spent time texturizing it so that it was soft against the hard faded sides, retaining a touch of femininity. The cut brought out the blue of her eyes, her high cheekbones, her full lips. She might not be sold on it yet, but I knew Nathan agreed with me—she looked so hot.

Finally I brushed her neck off with a fluffy brush and removed her cape. She looked like a little sprite with her super-short pixie and lavender sundress. Nathan grabbed her hair from my station, which I’d been secretly hoping he’d forgotten about so I could take it home. With a little devious smile, he rolled the hair tie that Jen had on her wrist off and said, “I guess you won’t be needing this, right?” and with practiced hands tied her cut hair together into a ponytail for transport.

I could smell Nathan’s clean and woodsy scent as he brought out his credit card to pay me, the long cut ponytail just dangling free in his left hand like a trophy. My heart was racing from the entire interaction and I could barely make eye contact with either of them. I wished them a good evening and closed the blinds and locked the door behind them, but as soon they left I checked my phone. They’d triggered the shop’s Ring security camera, so I sat down at my station to see what they were talking about.

In the footage, I could see them clearly. They stood outside of my salon, embracing, Nathan’s hands rubbing up and down Jen’s hair sensuously.

“You were such a good, brave girl in there.”

“I didn’t think you’d make me cut my hair so short, daddy,” Jen pursed her lips, her voice wavering from the threat of tears.

“You shouldn’t have disobeyed me, then. You knew the rules. You knew you’d get punished.” They started kissing.

I was watching them, transfixed. They must not have realized that I could see their entire interaction, let alone hear the intimacy of their words. I wondered what she’d done to warrant such a strict punishment from her lover. A surprising thought occurred to me…I was jealous of her. The idea of someone, especially a man so handsome, controlling my hair like that sent a huge jolt of electricity through me.

“And my hair stylist was so pretty,” Jen said. “Celeste. She made me nervous, her hands all over me. I’ve only had boring cuts before—a short haircut requires so much more attention, and touching.”

“Yes, she was,” Nathan said. “Her hair was too long though. Did you see how long it was when she was putting it up? It almost touched her ass.”

Jen laughed. “She would look great with short hair.”

Nathan slung his arm around her shoulder as they started to walk down he street toward their car. The last thing I heard him say was, “I bet we could get her to cut it.”

Shivers went down my spine and I touched my huge bun on the top of my head as I realized they almost certainly could.

(Let me know if anyone would want to see a Part 2)

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