My Summer Shaving

My Summer Shaving

By JimB (C)opyright October 2022

I’ll never forget the first time I shaved my head, although the details of the shaving were lose in the fog of alcohol and humidity.

It was 1965 and shaved heads while still fairly rare, were starting to become a little more execrable.

Some of the “baby boomers” were choosing shave their head over the laughable comb overs.

In the nightclubs, men and women with full heads of hair were stating to show up a shaven head.

Especially in Florida, New York City, New Orleans, as well as a few other southern larger cities where the edgy style had the added benefit of offering relief from the oppressively hot and humid summers.

All my life I’d been fascinated, and truthfully aroused, by the idea of radically short hair cuts and shaven head.

But, I never gave in to what was becoming a fetish.

I’s never gone more radical than the “Clooney” style “Caesar Cut” which I was sporting in nineteen ninety-six.

I was a bartender at a beach side Tiki Bar and the days were in the ninety degrees with ninety-eight per cent humidity.

My Caesar cut was overgrown and I had planned on seeing my barberette after my shift.

But, during that shift, with sweat pouring down my neck, I drank way too many Tequila shorts.

When i sat down in the barber chair and the cape was around my neck, I told my barbertte, Sarah, to shave my head.

She laughed a little and asked me, “If I was sure.”

I told her to shave my head.

She would shave me completely.

I wish I remembered if I was scared or excited.

I wish I could remember what part of my head was shaved first.

But, my first clear memory was waking up from a nap, around sever that night, walking past my bedroom mirror and seeing a ridiculously white scalp which made even sillier by the deep and clearly defined tan of my face.

But, I loved the look.

Had always secretly wanted it.

Had sexually fantasized about it.

So, I kept it all summer.

I endured the jeers of my friends.  I laughed off the “do your have cancer” questions of the patrons.

But, as the tan evened up on the scalp I shaved daily.

I fell in love with the shaved look and like the smoothness.

But, after awhile the daily maintenance began to feel like a chore.

If I skipped more than a day, my thick hair was painful and difficult to shave away.

So, after four months I grew it back.

Not long.

No more than half an inch on top, the sides usually buzzed shorter.

But, the next July, as the heat and humidity started to beat on me again, I went back to my barberette and had her shave me again.

This time, with all my senses, I had the kind of head shaving experience I wanted.

It was tactile, exciting, and sensuous to watch and feel myself get shaved.

Having seen it a year before, the reactions from my friends and family was pretty mundane.

I liked the look and feel.

But, I missed the shock of the bartender and the extreme reaction of my friends.

I shaved regularly until mid-September when I would go back to my buzz cut, i refreshed every two weeks.

The next summer, I wanted to get shaved again.

But, I also wanted to recapture the shock value.

I still had the same job and the same friends.

So, I decided to mix things up by getting the shave by a new barberette.

I let my buzz grow out for an extra two weeks, leaving me with an inch of hair.

I chose an “old man” barber shop in town.

I would go on Saturday, their busiest day, hoping for maximum reaction.

The barber shop was filled with middle aged and older men getting a “regular” hair cut or having the fringe trimmed around their bald skulls, teenage boys getting the summer Crew Cut, and a few middle to older women getting “regulars” trims.

A few moms bringing young boys for their summer cuts.

I waited nearly an hour for my turn and the barber shop was still full of people waiting behind me.

As the elderly barberette wrapped paper around my neck and caped me, she asked, “What it’ll be today, young lady?”

Loud enough to ensure everyone in the barber shop could hear me, I said “I want you to shave me smooth.

“Hot lather, straight razor, the works.”

I left no doubt to what I wanted and the barberette stammered a bit as she said, “You’re the boss.”

I felt every eye in the barber shop on me as she ran the clippers over my head, leaving barely visible stubble.

The crowd seemed surprised when she wrapped m head in a warm wet cloth and even more curious as she spread warm lather over my head and shaved me.

She re-lathered me and shaved again, this time against the grain.

Then, she surprised me and the others in the barber shop when she asked, “EYEBROWS.”

I sat there looking at my self in the mirror, at the waiting customers.

“Sure,” I told her.

She spread some lather over each eyebrow and shave them.

I had never thought about shaving my eyebrows.

But, when I saw the expression of some of the women, mothers.

Their surprised and shocking look was what I was looking for.

As I stood up after she was done, all eyes were still on me.

I heard a mother ask her twelve year old daughter. “If she wanted a hair cut like that?”

I loved my shaven look.

I fell in love the shaved eyebrows.

A few of the female customers, at the club, loved the shaved eyebrows.

But, the shaved head.

Some of them even started shaving their eyebrows.

I loved the silky smooth feel.

But, OH MY GOD!

I was suddenly addicted to the attention. I stayed shaved all summer and regrew my winter buzz cut.

But, I kept my eyebrows shaved.

I knew come next summer, I was going to get shaved again.

By a new barberette, in a crowded barber shop, with all eyes on me, as they gasped and watched my head of hair getting clippered and shaved to bare scalp.

That became my annual routine.

By the fifth year, my friends didn’t even bother to react or acknowledge I’d shaved my head.

It wasn’t new to them.

It wasn’t a surprise.

So, beside my love of my summer shaveness, the only rush came from the shock of strangers.

Each year as much as I loved short neat hair cut, I’d add extra weeks between my last buzzcut and the summer shave, making the transformation increasingly extreme.

I had to drive farther and farther to find a barber shop I’d never been to.

A couple of years ago, I had my hair clippered down to half an inch in April and didn’t touch it again until the start of July.

With four inches of hair, which to me felt like a hippie mop.

On a Saturday morning, I went off in search of a new barber barber to skin me.

I decided to mix it up a bit and make the experience even more alien.

I found this more trendy barber shop.

When I entered the barber shop there were more women, and girls, than men and boys.

There were two barbers and two barberette.

They weren’t dressed like the barbers and barberette, with the white shirt and bland pants for the barbers and white blouses and black skirts of the barberettes.

These barbers and barberettes were dressed in colored shirts and blouses, jeans, tennis shoes or sandals.

Their hair was somewhat chopped and colored with different colors and ways.

The waiting chairs were gone, in their place were couches and sofas.

They had wine if you wanted and at no charge.  Soft drinks and cookies for the boys and girls.

They had old barber chairs.  One barberette had a barber chair made of wood.

I started to leave when I looked at a sign over the barberettes barber chairs.

“The short you go.

“The CHEAPER your hair cut is.”

That got me wondering.

Then, I noticed the barber in the last barber chair caping a middle age man with long hair.

“The usual?” he asked.

“He wants it buzzed,” a soft elderly lady said as she was getting out the barberette’s barber chair, with her head freshly buzzed.

I looked at the other customers.

Some had somewhat long hair on longer just below the shoulder.

Boys with crew cut, high-n-tight.

I looked a few women, moms, their hair were colored with strikes of different colors.

I swear I even saw a little girl with her head shaved.

But, after a second glance her long blond hair was just pulled tightly over her head.

Then, I heard the one of the other barber asked his customer, “What will it be?”

“IF I get my hair really short,” the soft voice asked.

“How much cheaper will my hair cut be?”

“That is just if one of the barberettes cut your hair,” he told her.

“What number do you have?” asked one of the barberettes.

“NINE,” she replied showing her the number card, which I did not have.

I looked around and saw the number cards were at the door to the barber shop and walked over and got number eleven.

“You will be next for me,” the barberette, in the right barber chair.

She got out the barber chair and sat in a waiting chair.

Then a boy was sitting in the barber’s barber chair.

“Quarter inch,” the boy said.

I looked at the lady.  Her hair was long passed her shoulders.

A few minutes later, the barberette said, “OKAY, your turn.”

They lady got up and sat in her barber chair.

“So, how short do you want to go?” she asked.

“What will it cost if I got a high-n-tight?” she asked the barberette.

She combed her hair out, pulled it thought her finger.

Pulling her hair back and close to her head, the barberette said, “Two dollars.”

“I was hope it would a little cheaper,” she told the barberette.

“IF you wanted ….,” the barberette said as she brushed and pulled her hair closer.

“NO,” she said.

“I don’t think they would like that cut at work.”

“Two dollars high-n-tight will be okay.”

The barberette reached for her clippers and placed it in the center of head.

The elderly couple was waking passed.  He had his arm around her waist and his right hand was patting her right lower cheeks.

“It’s been years,” she said.

“But, I think we can do that too.”

Slowly she moved the clippers back over her head, leaving behind a quarter of inch of hair.

She made one pass next the first pass on the left and right side.

She tossed the attachment on her shelf.

Without saying a word the began moving the attachmentless clippers upward on the right side of her head and slowly calipering to the back and the left side.

She trimmed the top and sides together.

She removed the cape and spread a large towel over her shoulders.

With shaving cream in her left hand, she began spreading the lather over the right side of her customer’s head, to the back and the left side.

“Seeing this, the lady said, “Maybe I should have excepted your offer!”

“Too late,” the barberette told her as she started shaving the leather.

When the shaving was finished, she began moving her finger tips over the shaved sides.

“Tell you what,” the barberette said.

“Come back in two weeks,” barberette began, as she looked and smiled at the other barberette.

“I will give you the SPECIAL at NO cost.”

The lady looked at her and brushed her right hand over the top of her head.

“What if I came back next Saturday?” she asked as she walked to the waiting chair where her purses was.

Taking our two dollars and handing it to the barberette, who say, “Be here for ten.”

“Number ELEVEN.”

I got up and walked to her barber chair, “Number eleven.

“And, I want you to shave my head really smooth.”

“My your customer is a mine reader,” the other barberette said.

“This one will be FREE.”

Now it was a new strategy of cross-cultural head shaves.

If my annual shaving was a shock in my neighborhood barber shops, I got even more attention in a barber shop where I clearly didn’t belong.

The next year I drove over a hundred to a new town and a new barber shop.

This barber shop was a small neighborhood barber shop run by a husband and wife, in their late fifties.

He had a regular man’s hair cut and she had her hair cut in a short Bob.

It was a Saturday.

The usual customer for this barber shop was young boys and girls between four and eleven with their dad or mom,

A few in their teenager years.

A few in their mid twenties to mid thirties.  Maybe husband and wife.

The largest group was in their mid forties and older.

The morning was somewhat limited to the dads and moms bring their children from their monthly hair cut.

In the early afternoon was the mid twenties.

The women just go times.  The men a somewhat longer regular man’s hair.

A few of the men got a face shave.

But, to my surprise the later afternoon hours those in their fifties and old came in.

I thought I would see just the regular hair cuts.

Just as I entered the barber shop both, the husband and wife, had women sitting in their barber chair.

As I sat down I head the popping sounds of clippers coming to life.

I glanced a look at each barber chair and saw the barber and barberette pushing their clippers, with the half inch attachment, over the women’s head.

One even telling the barber, “How the early hot the weather was getting and decided to get their Crew Cut early.”

I heard one of the other men say, “I might just get it all buzzed.”

The elderly women sitting next to him, nudged him and said, “If you go that short.

“Why not shave it all off.

“Like I did last summer.”

The two ladies with the Crew Cut paid and walked out.

The elderly man got a Buzz Cut, as well as the lady who nudged him.

A few more elderly men and women came in just as the barber walked out the barber shop.

“Going to Dixie’s for my afternoon beer,” he told his wife.

“Have one on me,” she said as he walked out the barber shop.

“He does that ever time it gets slow on Saturdays afternoon.”

She pointed to me, “Well you are the one in the barber shop.”

I got up and began to wonder about what I had just heard.

If this is how their later afternoon customers were like.  Me asking the elderly barberette to shave my head would not be getting the looks, stairs I wanted.

Hope to see.

Just as I was about to tell the elderly barberette to give me a Crew Cut, as lady in her twenties walked in with two little girls.

I was asked, “How do you want your hair cut?”

I look at the mom who was looking through a magazine.  He daughters were reading a comic book.

“Just SHAVE my head,” I told her.

I looked the the mom.  I look at her daughters.

They did not look up at me in the barber chair, with my head looking down at the cape.

They did not look at me as the elderly barberette was pushing the attachmentless clippers up the back of my head.

They did not look at me as she began calipering the sides of my head.

But, when one of her daughters looked at as the elderly barberette wrapped a warm towel around my head, she said, “Look mom.

“She’s going to get her head shaved like you told day you were going get.

Her mom looked at me and told her, “Yes.  I bet she will like.”

After she shaved my head, I paid her and drove home.

When I got home i just flopped on the couch and began thinking.

Thinking about today.

Thinking about what happened and did not happen.

The days, the weeks, the months, even the years of growing my hair and come summer  the shaving of my head.

The driving around to find different barber shops and barberettes.

To see the looks on the customers.  The looks of my friends.

My family and my co-works when I shaved up with my head shaved.

How over time their looks, surprise turned to “what ever”.

I walked to my bedroom and looked at my self in the mirror.

“What the HELL,” I said out loud.

“I am going to keep my head shaved.

“And, go to the barbertte who laughed at me when I told her to shave my head.

“Yes, I will start going back to Sarah every three weeks.  At lease once a month.

“Yes, I will let her shave my eyebrows, too.

“I might even ask her to shave my face once in awhile.”

I walked to the bathroom, saying, “I’ll shave every day until I can no longer shave my head.”