Couples Counseling

Caitlyn was sweeping up the dusting of short clippings left behind after her sister Amanda’s visit. It was four months since Amanda’s first haircut after giving birth to her new daughter and while it had been quite the spectacle of protest and tears as Caitlyn chopped her sister’s chest-length hair into it’s current pixie-cum-crew cut, she hadn’t missed a monthly clean-up yet. See, Caitlyn sighed as she dumped the tiny dustbin of her sister’s hair into the trash, I knew she needed short, cute, and easy, not all that long hair she was so attached to. I’m the professional. Why doesn’t she ever trust me?

Ruminating on her sister’s doubt, Caitlyn looked up through the wall of windows that was the front of her salon to see her 3:15 walking in. She’d been cutting Rachel’s hair for three years. In the beginning it was quite the process to undo the damage Rachel’s ever-changing home dye jobs had wrought on her hair but Caitlyn was good at her job and had lovingly nursed those waist-length locks back to health. Currently they were dyed jet black with vibrant purple streaks running through them but Rachel’s hair was once again as soft and healthy as if it had never been colored.

Tucking her own chin-length bob behind her ears, Caitlyn smiled at Rachel as she came in. She took great pride in the resurrection she had performed on the young girl’s hair. Caitlyn had been cutting hair for fifteen years and had met few people – her sister included – more attached to their long hair than Rachel was.

“Hi Rachel, how’ve you been?” Caitlyn asked as she waved Rachel over to her station.

“Fucking miserable,” Rachel lamented as she dropped into the chair with a thump. “Eddie cut his hair off. It’s a fucking flat top.”

“Oh my God, really?” Caitlyn asked with genuine shock. She’d seen Eddie before and his lion’s mane of curls hung to his shoulder blades with a wild beard to his chest. Even a ponytail barely managed to contain his hair, fitting given he spent his weekends playing in a classic rock cover band. “Why did he do it?”

Caitlyn knew, in addition to loving her own hair, Rachel also loved guys with long hair in a kink-bordering-on-fetish kind of way. She couldn’t imagine the haircut was something Rachel suggested.

“A fucking mistake,” Rachel spit. “He’s too damn quiet so the girl at the salon didn’t hear his phone number correctly and gave him someone else’s fucking haircut. And if the flat top wasn’t bad enough, she also shaved off his beard! He has this stupid little mustache now. Ugh, I hate it.”

“That is a big change,” Caitlyn said as she secured the white cape around Rachel’s neck and pulled her sea of waste-length hair out to lay down the back of the chair. “How’s he handling it?”

“That’s the worst part!” Rachel said. “He said he hates it and it makes him sad but he got it done five weeks ago and he’s went back twice to get it shaved again. Twice! And he keeps asking me to touch it. Ugh. I feel nauseous running my hand over that stubble.” She said stubble like it was a dirty word.

“Well it’s different, I’m sure,” Caitlyn said, “but clean cut is sexy! You just need to get used to it. Plus you’ve told me you’ve never met a kinder guy who treats you better. What’s one short haircut in all that?”

“It’s not a ‘short haircut,’” Rachel moaned, “it’s like he’s in the military. I used to cum just thinking about his hair. It’ll be years – years! – before he has that again. And that’s only if he stops shaving it!”

“Yeah,” Caitlyn said as she combed through Rachel’s hair, “but Eddie’s more than his hair, right?”

“I know. I know,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “And I feel shitty for even thinking of breaking up with him over this but…I hate short hair. I hate it. I’ve never dated a guy with hair shorter than his shoulders. And I’d never, ever cut my own hair. I feel like a bad person but long hair is so important to me.”

“How’d it go over with his band?” Caitlyn asked.

“They’re fine with it! It looks like they have a new bass player but I guess you can look like a conservative ass and still be in the band.”

“Does he still play as well?” Caitlyn asked.

“Of course,” Rachel sighed. “But he looks…”

“I really think you’re making too big a deal out of this,” Caitlyn cut her off. “You’re twenty-four-years-old. Isn’t this a little immature?”

“Yeah, and I said I feel like a bad person,” Rachel conceded. “But long hair is everything to me.”

“Well, I have a solution,” Caitlyn said and, without pause, picked up her scissors, pulled taut a section of hair at Rachel’s left temple, and snapped the blades closed so close Rachel could feel them sliding on her head.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!!” Rachel shrieked as she jumped up. “What the fuck did you do?!”

“Listen,” Caitlyn said as calmly as if they were discussing the weather, “I’m the stylist. This is what I do. I saved your hair years ago. I’m not going to do anything that won’t look good. Your relationship needs this haircut. You need this haircut.”

“I’m not letting you cut my fucking hair!!” Rachel screamed as she paced, nearly hyperventilating.

“It’s a little late for that,” Caitlyn pointed out as she dropped the severed waist-length locks to the floor. “You’d look ridiculous if you left like that. I’m the professional. I know what I’m doing. You’ll still be the alt rock girl when I’m done. Trust me. Sit down and let me finish my job.”

Tears began to fall down Rachel’s face, streaking her cheeks with eyeliner, as she tried to control her breathing. What the fuck is happening? was all she could think as she settled back into the salon chair. She didn’t know what else to do. Plus she doubted her shaking legs could hold her much longer.

Picking up her hair clippers and snapping on a guard Caitlyn explained with a smile, “This will be quicker and look cleaner. And you’ll love the feel! I bet your boyfriend keeps going back because there’s nothing like the buzz of clippers on your head. Don’t worry, this is a #3 guard so I’m not shaving you bald. It leaves 3/8 ^ths of an inch of hair behind.”

That is fucking bald, Rachel glowered to herself.

Her seething was interrupted by the POP and BZZZZZZZZZZZZ…. of the clippers. Rachel’s tears began again in earnest as Caitlyn started sliding them over the section she had already cut off but the real pain came as the clippers made contact with her long, beautiful hair.

Rachel couldn’t believe how something she loved so much could so easily be severed – no, shaved she thought with disgust – from her.

Working on the back of Rachel’s head, Caitlyn began each upward pass with her clippers just above the nape and pulled them away at the rough line she had established right above Rachel’s eyebrows.

Caitlyn chatted away, a sunny tone to her voice, but Rachel didn’t listen. All she could hear in the moment was the sickening, silky sound of three feet of cut off hair sliding down to the cape with each godforsaken pass of the clippers. There was no resistance; nothing stopped her hair, even for a moment, on its way to be trampled under Caitlyn’s feet.

I hate you. I fucking hate you, Rachel fumed each time the clippers pulled away from her head and more of the most precious, defining part of her identity fell to the floor like so much garbage.

“Well the hard part’s done!” Caitlyn proclaimed in a sing-song voice as she buzzed away the long hair at Rachel’s right temple. “Makeovers are always so much fun.”

“I look fucking ridiculous,” Rachel hiccupped between sobs. Looking in the mirror – and for as much as she hated what was happening she couldn’t look away – the hair on top of her head was a rough, uneven helmet and, most absurdly, there was still the final remnant of her waist-length hair hanging at her nape. “What the fuck is this even supposed to be?”

“Not finished yet,” Caitlyn answered as she changed guards on her clippers.

She’s going fucking shorter?! Rachel blanched. A fresh torrent of tears fell as Caitlyn began running the clippers over the already buzzed hair. Rachel watched the #3 guard become a #2 then a #1 then a #1/2 before the bare blades made their appearance.

When Caitlyn finally set the clippers on the counter Rachel took in the damage. The hair at her temples had been shaved to the skin and it faded longer – ugh, Rachel flinched at the designation, how is this longer? – to 1/8^th of an inch on the back of her head.

The cut was far from finished as Caitlyn wet the hair remaining at the top of Rachel’s head and began slicing through it with her scissors. The same scissors which started this shit, Rachel thought.

The feeling of tiny clippings of hair falling past her face, tickling her nose and her cheeks, was as foreign a feeling as it was unwelcome.

When Caitlyn finished, black and purple hair mixed in a textured bowl cut, blending seamlessly into the buzzed hair all around Rachel’s head. Her bangs rested an inch above her eyebrows and the tousled layers were short enough that a slight ruffle left them standing up at the back of her head.

“And now for the pièce de resistance,” Caitlyn smiled as she gathered the last waist-length tresses hanging at Rachel’s nape into a ponytail and chopped them off in five quick snips. The hair was dropped to the floor as carelessly as the rest and Caitlyn returned her attention and her scissors to Rachel’s nape.

Finally, Caitlyn held up a mirror so Rachel could see the back of her head and she gasped at the light, wispy layers of hair hanging down her neck…and no further. They didn’t even reach her shoulders.

“See?” Caitlyn said. “A sexy pixie mullet, with the sides shaved and the back buzzed short, too. There’s nothing conservative about this! But now you have short hair, just like Eddie. You need to grow in ways that’s not your hair. It’s a new phase in your life and in your relationship. I told you I wouldn’t let you down.”

With bile in her throat Rachel had to admit the haircut was beautifully done…and she fucking hated it.

“You loved my hair,” Rachel said with fury and despair mixing in her voice. “I loved my hair. Why would you ever do this to me? You didn’t even ask me!”

“Because you needed to grow up,” Caitlyn said as she took the cape from Rachel’s shoulders, dumping the rest of her hair into the seemingly-endless piles on the floor. “And if I asked you, you would’ve said ‘no,’ obviously. But to think about breaking up with a great guy because he cut his hair? That’s terrible. You needed to see short hair can be sexy and fun. You needed to feel it. And I still love your hair! I might love it even more now.”

As Caitlyn finger-combed the short layers on top of Rachel’s head and stroked the buzzed back, Rachel wanted to throw up. “I’m booking another haircut for you in six weeks,” Caitlyn said as they made their way to the computer at the front of the salon. “I want you back regularly to keep this looking badass. But don’t worry, you’re saving so much on getting your hair dyed you won’t even notice the extra cuts. It’s so short I’ll just charge you for a guy’s cut, too.”

Of course you will, Rachel thought, paying on instinct and fuming internally, because there’s no hair left to cut.

Back home, Rachel fell into her bed crying and her entire body shook with the force of her sobs. Her pillow felt cold against the bare skin on her head. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” was the endless mantra she mumbled between gasps for breath.

When Eddie got home from work he tried to comfort Rachel but she was inconsolable. He tried to tell her how pretty she was and remind her that hair grows but that just made her cry harder. And each time he stroked her buzzed hair or fingered the short shock of hair left at her nape in a way he never touched her long hair, Rachel felt worried and wondered what her future held…

If you’d like to read the story of Caitlyn cutting all her sister Amanda’s hair off, you can here. Or if you’d like to read about Rachel’s boyfriend’s unplanned flat top, you can here.

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