Rune

Part 1: Disruption

“This is by far the sketchiest talisman I’ve ever decrypted. Where did you say it came from?” asked a middle-aged man in a polo, narrowing tired eyes at a computer screen.

“A guy at a night club…” confessed Lucas, the sullen younger man across from him, frowning at a small box plugged into the laptop’s USB port. Beneath the device’s clear lid, a rune etched on a smooth stone dimly glowed green. 

“Was he licensed to practice magic?” the professional wondered.

“How should I know?” the sharply dressed client answered.

“I’ll just assume he wasn’t insured either,” the man mumbled disapprovingly.

“Can you tell me what it does or not?” Lucas demanded impatiently.

“What was it supposed to do?” 

“Isn’t it your job to know?”

Unamused, the expert began, “Well it sure looks like a virility spell… but…” and trailed off to concentrate.

“But what?” his customer insisted.

“There’s all this extra code that doesn’t make any sense.”

“How so?”

“It almost looks like something a phantasmic agent would write.”

“Is that normal?”

“I thought someone your age would have learned this in school.”

“Can you tell me what’s different about it?” Lucas deflected.

The man behind the computer rolled his eyes and continued, “A phantasm’s part in a spell is to approve or reject offerings in exchange for arcana. Sometimes they suggest small changes, but the practitioner reviews those. Going through all this would take forever. I’ve never known a phant to bother with this much code instead of just rejecting the offering…”

“What did it change?”

“I’m trying to figure that out but it would be easier if you would tell me what’s going on…” the expert prodded.

“The guy said it was good for a month of… virility… but so far it’s doing the opposite,” Lucas confessed at last.

“It sounds like you really pissed off the phant,” the other man remarked with a barely contained smirk. “What did you offer?” 

“A lock of hair,” Lucas answered as he raked his fashionable mop of layered light brown hair out of his face. 

“A lock of hair?! For a whole month?! That would normally run you at least a liter of blood and a week of fasting.”

“He said that’s all he needed!”

“That sounded legit to you?”

“He said the size of the offering was a skill issue…” Lucas elaborated. 

“Holy shit, what a hack. Angering a metaphysical entity enough to rewrite your spell is bad enough, but to then actually run it is deranged,” the analyst marveled.

“Is it reversable?” 

“Maybe… the software found a section on arousal and what looks like a condition that needs to be met,” he explained, studying his screen and tapping at his keyboard. 

“What condition?” the client eagerly wanted to know. 

“It’s still analyzing, but I recognize a reference to the offering…”

“What about it?”

“It says… you can’t reach climax until you offer the rest of the hair on your head… or until the spell expires a month from now.”

“A month!? Can’t I destroy it?” Lucas suggested, prying the box open to snatch the stone from its housing.

“Careful!” the analyst barked, retrieving the sensitive hardware. He continued, “That would risk the spell binding to something completely random. At least the stone is secure. If you destroy it, anyone could access your data and cast spells as you, like really illegal ones.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

“Well, then you know what to do,” the expert offered, gesturing at Lucas’s head. 

“Absolutely not. There has to be another way. My cousin knows a guy who busts spells.”

“Trusting a shady amateur got you into this mess! You have no idea how much worse this could have gone! Your generation has to to stop listening to these damned influencers who think they’re ‘disrupting’ anything but people’s safety. Magic doesn’t just cost money and sacrifice to rip you off. Be glad you only have a month of blue balls and not an eon in the torment nexus. Got it?” the frustrated professional lectured. 

“Yeah man, I hear you,” Lucas mumbled.

“Look kid, take a Cialis next time. I think my part here is done. If you need help, try the barbershop down the street,” he concluded, gesturing to the door. 

Lucas sulked home, dragged down by the weight of the stone in his pocket. He reminded himself that chucking the thing into the river wouldn’t fix anything. He couldn’t decide what was more humiliating, being lectured or his recent disaster in the bedroom with a woman he brought home from the club. Gifted with decent enough looks and social graces, unlike many of his peers, Lucas never found female attention hard to come by. What to do with it was inexorably more complicated. Performance anxiety was a recurring issue, especially with new partners. When Lucas hit it off with a new acquaintance, he wanted the best odds of a perfect night. Then he let the enterprising gentleman at the bar upsell him on a whole month of peak performance, guaranteed. 

As Lucas undressed the eager woman back in his room, he could only muster a degree of enthusiasm that better suited unwrapping a plain Poptart. Unlike his previous botched encounters, nothing even started to stir or budge. After enough fumbling, the lovely stranger shuffled off into the night, uninterested in apologies or excuses. The severity of the situation really sank in the next day when he couldn’t manage a modicum of self-pleasure for truly the first time. His favorite adult content was as compelling as an instruction manual for an airfryer. 

A few days later, a defeated Lucas trudged away from the expert’s office reflecting on the monastic month ahead. That train of thought was interrupted by a mesmerizing swirl of red, white, and blue about a block ahead of him. He cocked his head at the barber pole and allowed himself to consider if all the hair on his head was worth getting this over with. It would take much longer than a month to grow his hair back to its current state, skimming his jaw and meticulously framing his face. Lucas could not imagine women would want anything to do with him until then. Even if it would cost him his love life, would the option to jerk off in the short term be worth it? He eyed his reflection in a nearby car window and tried to imagine himself without hair. The mortifying thought brought an unexpected but pleasant flush to his cheeks.

The warm feeling escalated as he got closer to the barbershop. His footsteps fell silent in front of the window. The scene inside was irresistibly fascinating, especially the dark ring of fallen hair circling an occupied chair. A flicker in Lucas’s groin revealed the unmistakable arousal behind the warmth in his face. He glanced at the dark-haired woman wielding clippers as she added to the pile. Although she had an understated appeal, there was nothing remarkable about her as she diligently did her job. Nonetheless, she was more captivating than all the porn on the Internet had been a day earlier. Lucas forced himself to look away before being noticed. For the rest of his way home, he endeavored to visualize beautiful barberettes butchering long locks. 

In private at last, he went online and found that watching videos of heads being shaved came with a sharp thrill and rush of blood. He was tantalized to discover new layers to his affliction. Instead of rendering him asexual, the talisman had completely transformed his appetite into… this. As he explored his imagination, he understood that sex and hair were ineffably bound, at least for the time being. The more he thought about hair, the more he viewed it as a vehicle for tension and an obstacle to release. He vicariously enjoyed a fraction of satisfaction by watching videos of other people’s transformations. As promised however, he was unable to bring himself over the edge. Although masturbating wasn’t quite the same without finishing, this was at least something.

He was haunted by follow-up questions about how exactly the spell worked. Unfortunately he could not afford the expense or humiliation of another professional opinion. He researched and pieced together that the talisman would be completely inert in 26 days. All the effects, including his unusual fantasies, were seemingly temporary. Just as Lucas started to believe he could endure this ordeal with his hair intact, he received a crushing text.

Part 1 recap: Lucas traded a lock of his hair for a spell that would cure his performance anxiety in the bedroom. A disgruntled entity instead cursed him to be unable to climax for a month or until he shaves his head. Lucas discovered he is only turned on by fantasies of cutting hair.

Part 2: Benefits

Marissa: “I’m in town for a few weeks. Can we meet up?”

He could blow off anyone on Earth but her. He was flooded with fond memories of his former friend-with-benefits who had vanished to study biology abroad just as he had started to catch feelings. That was almost two years ago and the last time he connected to a woman on a level besides sexual. The accompanying dirty selfie made him feel more sentimental than horny. He eagerly accepted her invitation without a plan for the issue of his arousal.

Over drinks, the slim sarcastic blonde reminded Lucas what he saw in her the first time. He asked all about her adventures. Despite having her own agenda, she indulged him politely.

“I’m preparing for three months of fieldwork, collecting data on the relationship between wild arcana deposits and the local ecosystem,” she explained.

“Cool. What do you expect to find?” he inquired.

“Nothing, probably. We’re mostly interested in the effect of altitude on toad reproduction, but if you want funding these days you need magic in your application,” she said, rolling her gray-green eyes. “I guess people need their weight loss and boner charms…” she continued with a cynical shrug.

“Ha, right!” Lucas laughed, eager to brush past the sore spot.

“So… Do you still live nearby?” she coyly implored, tucking her long honey-colored hair behind her ear. Out of diversions, he paid their tab and led her back to his place.

Nearly an hour in, Marissa softly growled, “Don’t you think you’ve earned a turn?” in Lucas’s ear as her hand wandered up his thigh.

“Don’t worry about me,” he insisted with his hands around her waist. She giggled as he guided her on to her back in a swift purposeful motion. He parted her knees and bowed his head. Before he could resume pleasing her, she seized his shoulders.

“Take it easy tiger. I’m not complaining, but is everything okay… down there?” she asked as gently as possible.

“I’m fine… I want tonight to be about you,” he offered. 

She released him and scoffed skeptically, “Whatever. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“It’s no big deal. Just be real with me,” she leveled at him. 

“Fine… I can’t get hard because of… medication. It’s just temporary,” he managed.

“That’s good. I was sort of looking forward to getting railed before spending the rest of my summer with the toads…”

“When do you leave?”

“Two weeks from Friday.”

“I don’t think I can deliver by then…” he admitted after some mental math. His predicament wasn’t set to expire until the day after.

“Oh… well don’t stress. Forget I mentioned it. Okay?” she said with a soul-crushing pat on the head.

He nodded and forced a sad smile.

“Anyway, where were we?” she asked, collapsing back into the pillow. 

Their next meeting entailed an ill-fated attempt at intercourse. Lucas found it remarkably difficult to focus on what he was doing and fantasize about headshaving at the same time. Marissa was nonchalant about resorting to alternatives. He tried to match her energy, although it destroyed him inside.

As she got dressed, she lifted the glowing stone from his shelf and toyed with it.

“What’s this for?” she remarked casually.

“Uh, sports betting,” he improvised. 

“Does it work?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

“Figures…” she scoffed as she set it down.

A few days later, Marissa shuddered in Lucas’s bed as he embraced her from behind, one hand between her legs and the other on her breast. Her moans fell musically on his ears, warming his heart more so than his loins. When she’d had enough, he offered, “Can I walk you back to your hotel? We can stop by the night market for dessert.”

“That sounds remarkably like a real date…” she observed. 

“So what if it is?” her fuckbuddy intoned. 

“Did you forget I’m leaving for three months?”

“That’s not exactly forever,” he murmured into her neck. 

“Come on Lucas… I thought we were on the same page.”

“What page exactly?”

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re a good lay… like really good… but there’s a reason we didn’t work as a couple last time.”

“Yeah, why not?” he pouted wryly.

“You… take yourself so seriously. That’s just not my style.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he inquired, becoming defensive.

“It means you’re so worried about looking cool, always fussing with your clothes and hair,” she elaborated as she slinked away.

“Since when is looking nice a bad thing?”

“It’s not, but how am I supposed to keep up? If you want to date, it would help to loosen up and laugh at yourself a little.”

“Keep up? You always look incredible and I can laugh at myself!”

“Can you? You’re so tense and cagey about your boner problems.”

“That’s different. You wouldn’t get it.”

“It’s perfectly normal–”

He winced, shook his head, and raised his hand for her to stop. 

When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “If this is getting too real for you, maybe we shouldn’t see each other again. I’m about to leave anyway,” Marissa offered.

“No, I can do casual. Can you just keep an open mind? I’m really not that uptight. See?” he promised, vigorously ruffling his hair until it stuck out in every direction. 

She sighed and cleared the hair from her suitor’s pleading eyes, deep and brown. “I can do an open mind,” she conceded.

He channeled the least self serious version of himself for their next encounter. Near the end of the session, Lucas posed, “Are you free tomorrow?”

“I can’t do tomorrow. I need to pack and get a haircut.”

“A haircut?” he repeated with piqued attention. 

“I don’t want to deal with all this in the wilderness for months,” she elaborated as she gathered the fair tresses that ended between her shoulder blades into a messy bun. 

“What’s your plan?” he asked, trying to appear the normal amount interested.

“I don’t know. Like up to here,” she answered, gesturing to her collarbone. “I guess you’d call it a bob?”

“Woah, that’s a lot,” he mused with a sparkle in his eye. 

“Yeah, and?” she pried with a suspicious smirk.

“And… that sounds sexy,” he said with a genuine smile, abruptly dragging her on to the bed in an embrace. This was a new development in his fantasies.

“I guess?” she giggled.

“You’re gonna look so fucking hot,” he approved with his face buried in her neck. 

“Gee, thanks. I hope the toads like it,” she remarked with a chuckle. “So uh, how’s that medication treating you?”

“What?”

She pressed into him and noticed, “Seems like it might be wearing off…”

“Oh! Maybe…” he yearned.

“See you Thursday?”

“See you then,” he agreed and readied himself to leave with a renewed pang of guilt for lying to her.

Over the next day Lucas was torn between relief that his month-long sentence was nearly over and despair that he wouldn’t be able to share it with Marissa. If that wasn’t enough, he also couldn’t find his wallet.

Lucas: Did I leave my wallet in your room?

Marissa: Let me look.

Marissa: Found it.

Lucas: Can I drop by before work to pick it up?

Marissa: No problem!

The morning before their last night together, Lucas knocked on the door of Marissa’s hotel room. When she opened the door, he forgot his reason for being there, struck dumb by the sight of her. He exhaled in disbelief. 

“What?” she puzzled, narrowing sleepy eyes at him. “Oh right. Do you like it?” she inquired, smoothing a shaggy mop of soft hair that barely reached her ear lobes.

He nodded in a dreamy stupor and followed her inside. 

“Thanks. It’s a bit more than I bargained for…”

“You look amazing,” he fawned as Marissa sidled up to him and slipped his wallet into his pocket. From there she rested her head on his chest and lifted his hand to her neck. As he tenderly stroked the short hairs along her nape, his other hand found her ass.

“I realized too late that the bob I wanted was too short to tie back. The whole point was to get it out of my way, so I had to go a lot shorter to avoid the hassle of pins,” she explained. He silently drew her closer by her rear and gently tilted her head. As he kissed her exposed neck, she sweetly cautioned, “Easy tiger… Don’t you have to be at work?”

“Fuck work,” he growled in her ear.

“I’m flattered but not awake enough,” she chuckled. “Hang in there buddy. I’ll see you tonight,” she teased with a pat on his chest.

The rest of the day was a blur. Lucas tried and failed to devise a sane reason to be suddenly bald. He changed his mind practically every ten minutes, each time equally certain about the fate of his hair. On his walk home from work he passed the foreboding barber pole, reminding himself that in two days everything would be back to normal. A moment later, his phone buzzed and he opened a dirty selfie from Marissa sporting her new hair and same old smirk. He abruptly turned around and marched inside.

Part 2 recap: Lucas agrees to a short term fling with an old friend despite serious feelings for her and his inability to stay aroused. Just before she is set to leave town for months, she gets a drastic haircut that turns Lucas on so much he decides to sacrifice his own hair to be able to have sex with her.

Part 3: Offering

By the time Lucas could form another lucid thought, he was being greeted by the dark-haired stylist he had previously admired. “Welcome! I’m Claudia.”

“Lucas,” he returned shyly.

“Well Lucas, I’m glad you finally decided to stop in!”

“Huh?” he grunted, trying to conceal the tidal wave of adrenaline he was riding.

“Pardon me. I think I’ve seen you at the window a few times now,” she clarified with a disarming smile and unwavering eye contact, projecting compassion and poise.

“Oh yeah! You caught me… Can you take me now?” hoping none of the bubbling erotic subtext had surfaced.

“Sorry dear, I’m wrapping up my shift. Have a seat and my colleague Bill will be right out to take care of you,” she explained and resumed cleaning.

Lucas was a little disappointed as he accepted the invitation to sit at a different station. Then he realized that completing his offering at the hands of someone he was remotely attracted to might be too much to handle. He needed to save his energy. 

“Bill! You have a walk-in,” Claudia called to the backroom as she sat and turned her focus to a tablet. 

A boisterous bald man of about forty emerged and enthusiastically shook his new client’s hand. Introductions and a mind-numbing barrage of small talk followed. The chatty barber didn’t even produce a cape until after a monologue about the weather. Using all his effort to appear calm and collected, Lucas worried that any attempt to hurry things along would come off as hostile. He didn’t want to repeat his regrettable rapport with the magic expert. 

“Wow, you’ve got some killer hair here. What are we doing today?” Bill asked at last, running a comb through it.

“Shaving it all off,” Lucas answered only a little impatiently.

“Ha, you’re funny! But seriously, what’s the plan?”

“I am serious…”

“No way man! You just need a little shape up.”

“Nope, all off,” the client insisted. Lucas could hear that Claudia had stopped tapping at her spreadsheet but couldn’t bring himself to look at her reaction.

“You sure? If the length is bothering you, I can bring the sides in tight and see how you feel from there.”

“I’m sure,” Lucas lied.

“You’re killing me man! I started losing my hair at your age. I’m telling you to enjoy this while you still can!”

Claudia chuckled audibly. “Come on Bill. That’s not his problem. Did anyone tell you the customer is always right?” she teased with none of the warmth she had shown their guest.

“I look out for my customers!” Bill defended.

“Thanks but I really need it for an important offering,” Lucas clarified.

“Offering? Please, that magic crap doesn’t work,” the barber scoffed.

“Trust me, it does…” the seated man attested.

Bill expounded, “Some wizard told me it would take $1500 and a six month vow of silence to grow my hair back. Sounds like a scam…”

Claudia snorted, “I think it’s worth a shot!”

“Of course you do,” her colleague bantered.

“Didn’t the customer feedback surveys say you need to listen more?” she scolded playfully.

Bill rolled his eyes and returned to his client. “As I was saying, you’ve got a lot of hair here. I’m sure there’s enough for your spell and then some. I don’t want to be a part of anything impulsive that you’re going to regret. What’s the harm in starting slow?”

The harm in going any slower was the fact that Lucas had somewhere important to be in 45 minutes. By then, irritation had crept onto his face. Nonetheless, Lucas couldn’t help but hear out the older man’s counsel. Perhaps by dragging this out, Bill had done him a favor. It wasn’t too late to get a normal haircut and send Marissa off with the same treatment she was used to by now. Was his full functionality really necessary when she was pretty clear that she didn’t feel the same way about him? Soon, she’d be gone and his sex life would be back to normal, whatever that meant. He mulled this over while Claudia finished her business and locked her tablet in a drawer. The sway in her hips as she crossed the room to grab her purse reminded Lucas of the world of possibilities remaining once Marissa inevitably broke his heart again. Just noticing a woman’s figure made him feel a little more like himself. 

Bill answered the silence by pulling out his phone and proposing, “Let me show you some shorter styles that I think would really suit you.”

On her way out the door, Claudia stopped to shake her head disapprovingly at her colleague as he looked at his screen. Lucas was too consumed with his own personal problems to care what was going on between them. He was too preoccupied to even notice that she had clippers in her hand until they were touching his forehead. Lucas’s dilemma came to a loud and sudden end as she activated the machine and swiped it straight back, purging the path of hair. She calmly replaced the device and gave Lucas’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. 

“He was never going to shut up. You’re welcome,” she said with a self-satisfied grin, swiping a delicate finger at the strands of hair draped over Lucas’s nose. She cast them onto the floor and disappeared out the door as quickly as she had intervened.

Stunned, Bill hid his annoyed expression behind his palm. Lucas used the other man’s brief blindness to shudder. Chills radiated from the bare strip all the way to his toes. After steadying himself, Bill dryly grumbled, “Any way, where were we?” 

Like a splash of cold water, the inelegant touch of a man was a much needed reprieve from the deluge of endorphins. It was enough to stave off arousal, even as Claudia’s scent lingered in the air and hair tumbled down the cape. Lucas decided it was much better to be judged as a sucker instead of a pervert. He was unsure which was closer to reality. 

“Leave the stubble or go all the way?”

“All the way,” the man in the cape answered, unsure if it mattered. He had come this far and wouldn’t risk it on a technicality.

“Even if I had my reservations, I’m flattered by the imitation!” Bill quipped cheerfully, referring to his own shiny dome. Lucas did his best imitation of being at all amused as the other man spread foam over his sensitive head. 

After minutes of tedious scraping with the razor, Lucas was face to face with his uncanny hairless reflection. It didn’t feel quite real. Part of him didn’t hate it but most of him was determined to dissociate until further notice. Getting home and into the shower took priority over processing the change.

“Hang on!” the barber cautioned after accepting payment. He hastily swept the clippings into a dust pan and transferred them into a paper bag. Lucas accepted it with barely disguised disgust. “For your offering. I don’t know how that stuff works,” Bill explained. Truthfully, neither did Lucas. “What’s it for anyway?” Bill questioned. 

“Gambling,” Lucas answered flatly.

“Well if you hit it big, don’t forget about me!” the barber bantered. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t!”

Part 4: Reveal

At home, he hurried to his room and discovered that the glowing rune had begun to slowly blink. “What the fuck?” he mumbled. Google AI gladly summarized, “Depending on the speed and brightness, a flashing talisman may indicate the successful completion of a multi-stage offering, a malware attack by a wraith, or pairing mode. Do you want me to find a list of reputable magical professionals in your area?” That was good enough for him to ignore the bag of hair and jump in the shower.

Refreshed, he sank on to his sofa wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled over his newly bald head. With barely a moment to spare and sit with what he’d done, there was a knock at the door. 

Frozen with nerves, he beckoned, “Come in.”

Marissa obliged and teased, “Can’t answer the door for me? I thought you were some sort of gentleman.”

Lucas exhaled a nervous laugh and retorted, “I’m uh… trying out more of a bad boy thing.”

“Oh really?” she responded from his entry way, removing her shoes. 

“Yeah. I used to be a nice guy until this chick ditched me to hang out with toads. Now I’m dark and mysterious,” he riffed.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Dark and Mysterious,” she said seductively as she approached the couch. He removed his hands from his sweater pocket to guide her on to his lap. Her careful descent was electrifying. 

“Wait–” he tried to blurt before his companion removed his hood. It was too late.

“What?” she exclaimed, bewildered.

“I can explain.”

“What the hell did you do?” she grilled, cackling with surprise.

“Uhh…” he stammered. Verbal faculties escaped him as his face turned even more red than his scalp was pale. “It’s a long story,” he managed at last. She scoffed and reached to feel his head. He shuddered at the faintest contact. Overstimulated, he reflexively clasped both her hands. 

“Are you okay?” she interrogated with discernable concern. 

“Yes,” he promised, kissing and hiding his face behind her hands as he burst into sheepish laughter.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m laughing at myself, aren’t I?”

“Is that what this is about?!” she posed with worry. 

He released her hands, caught his breath, and shook his head. She tentatively stroked his smooth scalp, sending rapturous shivers down his spine.

“Well then what is it about?” she pried as she explored the contours of his skull. 

He opened his mouth to answer, but could only moan. Her face shifted into a hesitant smile as she released some of the tension she’d be holding since the big reveal. He took her head in both hands and touched their foreheads together. With his fingers tangled in her blonde crop, he finally found the words to beg, “Can it wait? I can’t think about anything but fucking you right now.”

“But–” she began, going suddenly quiet as he lightly tugged her hair, guiding her deeper into his lap to graze his erection. With a shrug and a smirk, she kissed him and reached for his zipper. 

In the afterglow of an explosive finale, Lucas rested his hairless head on his lover’s belly.

“Oh my god. You’re such a dumbass,” the reclining woman delighted once Lucas finished the full story.

He shrugged and snorted into her navel.

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” she continued.

“You mean I was…” he bemoaned.

“You still are,” she said with a light smack. 

“You’re just being nice.”

“I would never!” she asserted with mock offense.

“Thank you,” he murmured in sincere need of the validation.

“I wish you had just told me,” Marissa complained. “I’ve never shaved anyone’s head. It actually sounds kind of hot,” she continued.

“Yeah right,” he groaned.

“I’m serious! Bzzzz…” she teased, tickling him. 

“I’m never doing this again,” he insisted, flinching.

“Too bad… It’s still probably the most trouble anyone has gone to for the privilege of nutting in me. Was it worth it?”

“Oh fuck yes,” he testified.

“That’s actually pretty sweet,” she conceded wistfully.

“Sweet enough for a real date?” he proposed. 

“Can you wait three months?” she asked.

 

Epilogue:

A little over three months later Lucas placed the lifeless talisman on the magic expert’s desk.

“Is this acting up again?” the man asked, sounding surprised. 

The younger man nervously rubbed his hair that was just long enough to style again. “No actually… Can you reactivate it?”