She Said Yes: Part Two

“No. No!” Michelle said for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. “I’m not cutting my hair. I was just caught up in the moment last night. I love my long hair.”  Running her hands protectively through the thick, chocolate brown waves that fell past her shoulder blades she reiterated, “I’d never cut it short.”

“Yeah,” Kyle chuckled running his hand over his head, “I thought so, too, and we see where that ended up.” After voicing a secret desire he never expected to be enthusiastically accepted, last night Michelle had taken Kyle to the barber shop where his eleven inch ponytail had been chopped off and the rest of his hair buzzed to ¼ inch on top and faded down to bare skin on the sides and back of his head.

His hippie days were now long gone, replaced by a tight buzz cut.

As Michelle had been lovingly encouraging Kyle to lean into his desire and cut his hair she told him, “Sometimes I wish I could just buzz mine off. But, I think I’d look weird. You have to have a certain face for it – which you do. I imagine it feels very liberating. I think you should. You seem to really want it that way, so go for it. Your hair grows super fast! And you might actually like it. You won’t know until you try. If you hate it, then you never have to do it again and you grow it back.”

Kyle reminded Michelle of her words and he told her, “Listen, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. I love you and I love your hair. And I loved our being the ‘sexy longhaired couple’ as much as you did…up until yesterday when this happened.” He ran his hand over his soft stubble again, sliding down his nape to bare skin which hadn’t seen the sun since he was a baby.

Pulling Michelle into a hug Kyle said, “Don’t do it if you don’t want to. But, just like you told me, I’d love to see you with short hair. And I think you’d look sexy as hell.”

“You do look sexy as hell,” Michelle said as she ran her hands over his buzzed head. “Your long hair was the first thing I noticed about you. You look so much more clean cut now…but it suits you. I love it.”

“And I love you,” Kyle said, kissing her. “Cut it. Don’t. Do what you want. But don’t leave it long because you’re scared. I’ll love you no matter what.” Gathering her hair in his hands he added, “For what it’s worth, I think it’s time for you to cut all this off. Go outside your comfort zone. Be bold. If nothing else, think of all the money we’ll be saving on shampoo.” With that, Kyle smiled at her and left for work.

Michelle sat at the kitchen table and ran her hands through her hair as her mind drifted off. Since she was a little girl she’d been told how beautiful her long hair was. Her mother had made it clear that her long hair was the prized possession of her femininity and the guys she dated loved it just as much.

Her only foray into short hair was a horrible mistake in her middle school years. In the name of helping her mom juggle two jobs and four kids, her aunt had picked Michelle up one day to run some errands. In addition to grocery shopping, her aunt pulled into a hair salon. Michelle was confused but her aunt explained.

“Your hair’s a mess,” she said tugging on Michelle’s waist-length brunette locks. “You need this cleaned up. When I suggested I get your hair cut, your mom agreed and thanked me for saving her the trip.”

Sometimes Michelle still saw it, twenty years later, when she closed her eyes. Following her aunt Peggy’s instruction to “take some weight off and add some layers,” the stylist lifted the hair at the crown of her head and began chopping it aggressively short, leaving nothing but three inch lengths behind. In her memory three foot chunks still rained down over and over again. Michelle sobbed, begging the stylist to stop. She didn’t want her hair short! She loved it long! Her hair was what made her feminine! It made her pretty!

Eventually the stylist relented, leaving three inches of hair atop her head, blending down to an inch around her ears…and a foot of hair hanging down the nape of her neck past her shoulders. It was a horrific mullet a decade after any degree of coolness had left the style. Her mother was furious with her sister.

After the arguing stopped, her aunt left and Michelle begged her mom to help. She couldn’t go to school like that! “There’s only one thing we can do,” her mother said. Ruefully she gathered Michelle’s remaining long hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck and cut it off with her kitchen shears.

They both cried at the loss of Michelle’s pride and joy but at least the mullet was gone. Michelle was left with a horribly botched pixie cut. She grew her hair out and hadn’t cut it above her shoulder blades since.

Childhood trauma aside, Michelle was being honest when she told Kyle she fantasized about shaving her heard. Who doesn’t? It took her so long to wash and so long to blow-dry and no matter how she wore it up, during a summer like this one was shaping up to be it always felt oppressive. The humidity made it worse, curling into her hair into an homage to the most outrageous ‘80s hair metal manes when she didn’t straighten it into submission. That took forever, too.

Plus, Michelle thought, she had a partner who loved her. If she was going to dive so far out of her comfort zone, now was the time to do it, right?

But was she going to dive out of her comfort zone?  Did she even want to?  Really?

She spent the morning at work quietly watching haircut videos on YouTube, letting her fear and intrigue dance with each other as butterflies in her stomach. She jumped when her friend Kellie came up behind her and started again when she turned around.

The long blonde hair which had hung below Kellie’s shoulders yesterday was now dyed back to her natural red and cut right below her ears! Her nape was buzzed below the ear-length bob, too.

“That’s not funny,” Michelle mumbled. “What?” Kellie asked, “My haircut?”

“No,” Michelle laughed. “I love it. It looks so good! I was talking to the universe. What made you cut it so short??”

“Eh, for fun,” Kellie answered. “It’s been so long for so long that I decided to change it up. It feels so good! And the little buzzed part feels so soft.” Emphasizing her delight, she rubbed her nape as she talked. “Why is the universe not being funny?”

Michelle relayed the last few days to Kellie – Kyle’s text, his buzz cut, and her saying that she’d like to buzz her own hair off, too.

“Kyle cut his hair?!” Kellie yelled. “I need to see pictures!” They spent the next few minutes marveling at how much sexier her former-hippie partner was now with his close-cropped buzz cut. Then Kellie said, “So you’re going to cut yours, too?”

“No. No,” Michelle said, with less conviction than she had felt that morning. “It’s my hair.”

“Yes,” Kellie agreed, “it is. And it will still be your hair when it’s short.”

“But shaving my head?!” Michelle said as she ran her hands through her hair protectively. “That’s not ‘short.’ That’s so short. That’s shaved!”

“Yes, but you want to cut it. Kyle wants you to cut it. And clearly the universe does too, given the super sexy, badass sign it’s sending you,” Kellie said as she pointed to her own ear-length bob and smiled. “So what do you say?” she asked, gently pulling on Michelle’s long, dark waves. “Are Kyle and I the only badasses here? Or are you gonna cut your hair?”

Michelle took a deep breath and said, “…yes.”

On her way home after work, Michelle drove past Terry’s shop, where Kyle had his long hair buzzed the night before. No other cars were in the lot; it was kismet. Before she could think twice, she pulled in.

“Aw, hello again!” Terry said in a sunshine-y voice. “How’s your boyfriend? Any buzz cut regret?”

“No,” Michelle said, a bit awkwardly. “He loves it. I love it! In fact, I was thinking, kind of, about maybe, uh, cutting…my hair, uh…too.”

Terry flicked her own blonde bob back and smiled. “You two are certainly full of fun surprises! Hope in the chair.”

Michelle’s stomach was performing the sort of flips usually reserved for Olympic gymnasts as Terry buttoned the white cape around her neck and draped her long hair over it. “So,” she asked, “what are we doing? Are we going for another buzz cut?”

Terry laughed. But Michelle quietly murmured, “Well, maybe. Yes. I think.” Terry’s eyes opened wider than they had the night before when she took in Kyle’s long locks. “Really?!” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Michelle said with a sigh. “I want to, but…” She relayed to Terry her conversations with Kyle, Kellie’s surprised ear-length bob, and allllllll the conflicting feelings swimming inside her. There was something comforting about Terry, something that naturally made Michelle open up to her. Her presence, the warmth in her eyes and her hand on Michelle’s shoulder, reassured her.

“Well,” Terry suggested, “how about this? You and Kyle really enjoyed his buzzing last night. And from what you’ve just said, you two enjoyed it even more once you got home. You’re still a little unsure, naturally. What if I cut your hair short – nothing too wild, just up off your back. Then if you like it, you can come back here with Kyle sometime and I can give you a buzz cut, too? It sounds like he’d enjoy seeing you get all your hair cut off as much as you loved seeing his cut. What do you think?”

Michelle took another deep, shaky breath and she said, “Yes. If Kellie can do that, I can cut my hair to my shoulders.”

With that, she put Michelle’s hair into two ponytails…and just cut them off.

“Oh…” Michelle said quietly as her pride and joy was severed at her shoulders.

Given how thick her hair was, the ponytails didn’t go without a fight. But each crunch of the scissors led to explosions of warmth in Michelle’s stomach. Her hair. Her hair was being cut off. And she wasn’t crying!

“For dramatic effect,” Terry said with a smile as she dropped the cutoff hair into Michelle’s lap. Her eyes bounced back and forth in the mirror, alternating between looking down and at her head as Michelle thought, “There are these piles of long hair in my lap. And she keeps cutting more off.” Her thirteen inch ponytails, now sitting in piles on her lap, were followed by 3-6 inch pieces as soft layers and sideswept bangs emerged.

When Michelle entered the shop her hair hung below her shoulder blades. Now it barely brushed her shoulders. Michelle doubted she blinked once during her entire shearing.

“What do you think?” Terry asked.

“I…I think I love it!” Michelle said, as surprised by her own enthusiasm as she was by the fact that she just cut off two thirteen inch ponytails followed by all those other inches for her new layers and bangs.

“Well, I hope you and Kyle have as much fun with your new haircut as you did with his,” Terry said, smiling.

“I think we will!” Michelle said, unable to stop playing with the bouncy shortness now swinging free above her shoulders. “And remember,” Terry added with a wink, “my clippers are here for you if you decide you want the buzzed treatment, too.”

Michelle thanked her, paid, and texted Kellie as soon as she got in the car.

“It’s done,” she texted. Then, “It feels really weird.”

A second later her phone chimed. “I’m really proud of you for going through with it!” Kellie said. “And it does feel weird at first. Is it fun weird of regret weird for you?”

Texting with one hand because the other was still playing with her new short hair Michelle said, “Right now, it’s a fun weird.” Then she added, “It was fun all around.”

Her phone chimed and Michelle saw several smiling emojis alongside the haircut emoji. Then Kellie added, “Yay! That makes me so happy to hear!”

Kyle was so happy when Michelle got home, too. Though he was admittedly sad he didn’t get to see her long hair get chopped off himself. “You got to see me get buzzed. You masterminded the whole thing!”

Michelle laughed, “‘Masterminded’ seems a strong term for encouraging you to do what you said you wanted to. Though, I guess I did jump at the chance to see your hair cut with clippers. And I guess I was the one who made the appointment. And drove you there. And, you know what? Okay, you’re right. ‘Masterminded’ it is. But I had to do it impulsively! Otherwise I would’ve backed out. But I promise, if I decide to get a buzz cut like you, you’ll be there with me the whole time.”

“So, are you going to get a buzz cut like me?” Kyle asked, hopefully and more than a little aroused.

“…well see,” Michelle answered with a playful smile.

Over the next few days, Kyle made it very clear how much he loved Michelle’s shorter hair. “I’m having a lot harder time not kissing you than usual,” he’d whisper when they were waiting in a crowded checkout line or navigating herds of fellow shoppers at the mall. “You look so sexy,” Kyle told her every chance he got. “This is such a turn on. The courage you had to chop your hair off is sexy as hell, too.”

Kyle couldn’t stop playing with it. To see Michelle’s hair just brush her shoulders and swing about them as she moved was so sexy. Her hair no longer hid her shoulders or her breasts and he could see the bare skin of her neck at the top of her back when she’d lean just a little bit forward…which he kissed every chance he got.

For Michelle’s part, she loved it, too. “It’s so much easier!” she told everyone who would listen. “To get ready, to blow dry, it’s so much easier!” She couldn’t stop playing with it, running the shortness through her fingers and feeling the ends.

Gone was the river of waves that once tumbled down her back. Now when she pulled her hair back it was in a cute little ponytail which, if she was being honest, she found as sexy as Kyle did. She continued to tug on it absentmindedly, enjoying the surprise and feel of the shortness of it. Michelle marveled at the healthiness of her hair, how all of it now felt so healthy and thick.

Laying on the couch with Kyle about a week later, he ran his hands through her hair as she said, “I’m going shorter next time.” Kyle froze and looked down at her, as Michelle gestured vaguely between her shoulders and chin. “You know,” he told her, “if this experience has taught me anything it’s that those are the five sexiest words you could say to me.”

He bent down and they shared a passionate kiss. “Well, in that case…” Michelle said, letting her sentence linger there.”

Kyle held his breath. Beginning to run his hands through her shoulder length hair again, pulling it back off her face, he asked, “Do you mean…like…shaved?”

Michelle pulled him into another long, slow kiss. Then she said, “Yes.”

After an orgasm-filled night and a day of nervous butterflies endlessly flapping around her stomach, Michelle found herself pulling into Terry’s barber shop again, for another last appointment of the day to avoid any potential onlookers. Though this time it was her hair – her new, sexy, fun shoulder-length hair! – that was destined to meet the clippers, not Kyle’s.

Terry was ready and eagerly waiting for them. “You know,” she said, offering Michelle and Kyle a big smile as they walked into her quiet shop, “you two have become my most fun clients, by far!”

Michelle strode right to the chair, sitting down and grabbing the armrests as though they were the lap bar on a particularly nasty roller coaster. “Let’s do this, before I come to my senses,” she declared confidently.

Terry whipped her white barber cape over Michelle, her shoulder-length hair being far easier to mange with the cape than her breast-length hair was. Michelle’s heart was in her throat and Kyle’s blood was pumping in other areas as Terry got right to work securing the hair on top of Michelle’s head with several large alligator clips, leaving everything from her eyebrow level and below hanging down.

“As I told Kyle last week, I’d ask if you’re ready but his smile tells me this is happening and you’re sitting in the chair so, here we go.”

Michelle felt Terry gently nudge her head forward. With her chin resting on her chest Michelle heard the buzzing before she felt it.

Just like that Terry began slowly moving the clippers up Michelle’s neck, stopping when she reached the pinned up hair, and the repeating pass after pass after pass.

Michelle had never felt anything like this before. While the scissors had to fight to get through her thirteen inch ponytails just a week before, now her shoulder length hair was sliding down her neck and back like water. She could hear each chunk of hair hit the floor and her stomach flopped with each one.

“There, how’s that feel?” Terry asked as she lifted Michelle’s head back up and ran her hand across the freshly buzzed back of her head. Michelle’s body came alive in a way it never had before! Nerves she didn’t even know existed tingled and the electrifying energy which now coursed through her left her heart beating faster than her fear did.

Michelle didn’t know what guard Terry was using; there was no discussion of length beforehand. But now she could see as well as feel. Terry placed her buzzing clippers at Michelle’s left temple and slowly drew them upwards, stopping again at the pinned up hair. With that excited energy pumping through her Michelle’s eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped when she saw her own white skin peering through the super short stubble Terry was leaving behind.

Michelle was mesmerized as she watched her hair – her femininity, her security, her sex appeal – come pouring off her head, sliding down her shoulders, and settling in her lap where her ponytails had lain just a week before.

Staring in the mirror Michelle saw her hair was everywhere. It was all over the floor, the cape, even her feet, nervously tapping and bare in the flip-flops she’d worn that night, had clumps of hair on them.

She was surprised she still had so much hair left after her ponytails were cut off. Michelle was even more surprised to find the gentle buzzing of the clippers as they slid up her head and severed her beautiful hair was the best feeling ever.

I finally understand why people get buzz cuts, Michelle thought to herself.

Terry had moved to the right side of Michelle’s head and began pushing her relentless clippers through the last long hair Michelle had hanging down. Pass, buzz, flip, fall; pass, buzz, flip, fall; pass, buzz, flip, fall; pass, buzz, flip, fall – and just like that, the girl who hadn’t cut her hair above her shoulder blades since middle school had the entire sides and back of her head shaved.

Terry undid the alligator clips on Michelle’s head and her only long hair left fell back to her shoulders. Because Michelle’s hair was so thick, the buzzed part of her head was completely hidden.

“I’ve been thinking,” Terry said, “when you two came in last week you were a longhaired couple but your hair was longer, Michelle. So it only seems fair that I leave your hair longer than I did your boyfriend’s.”

Michelle felt a wave of conflict within. Yes, this undercut seemed a perfect balance. She had her hair buzzed. She felt her hair buzzed. And that soft stubble that covered Kyle’s head was now something she could pet on her own whenever she wanted…but the remains of her shoulder length hair hid all that, too. She was still a longhaired girl, sort of. Did she need a buzz cut? Or was this a happy medium?

Before she could voice these questions, Michelle learned what Terry had meant.

She snapped the #3 guard on her clippers and pushed them down the middle of Michelle’s head. At this Michelle let out a gasp. Her new bangs, which she had come to love in that week, fell into her lap with the rest of her hair. What was left in the clippers wake was 3/8^ths  of an inch of hair, contrasting with Kyle’s quarter inch.

Unlike the hair on the side of her head, Michelle felt each wave of hair brush past her face on its way to the ground, tickling her cheeks.

With all the hair on top of her head buzzed, Terry switched the guard on her clippers and began fading Michelle’s just as she did Kyle’s, down to the skin on the sides and back of her head.

Michelle hardly noticed as the piles of hair – her hair! – which lay on her shoulders and lap spilled to the floor as Terry took the cape off nor did she register stepping over her pride and joy as she and Kyle went to pay. All she could do was touch her head. It felt sooo good! And so soft!

Before they left Terry said, “I have one more present for you two.” And she offered them a case with a pair of hair clippers and a variety of guards in it. “You two have been so fun I wanted to help you keep each other cleaned up between visits. I imagine it’ll add all sorts of fun to your lives. Just so long as you promise to still come visit me!”

Michelle and Kyle thanked her. Michelle gave her a big, long hug and Terry rubbed her buzz cut until they parted. “Thank you,” Michelle offered with the first glint of a tear in her eye. Unlike her middle school trauma though, this was the beginning of tears of joy.

Michelle couldn’t believe how much better everything felt with a buzz cut. Driving home with the windows down felt incredible! The wind whipped around her head and it moved every single little tiny hair. When she got home she learned even taking her shirt on and off felt better! The shirt slid over the little furry stubble and felt like a head massage. Sleeping was like that, too! Her pillow rubbed the little stubble and it felt like another massage. And the shower! When the water hit the shaved spot at the bottom of her nape she orgasmed right there – something she’d repeat with Kyle several more times before their night was done.

Laying in each other’s arms, Michelle felt that excited warmth surge through her each time Kyle stroked the soft stubble which used to hang past her shoulder blades. Moaning a bit Michelle asked, “Remember how much I loved running my hands through my long hair? This feels a thousand times better!”

Kyle chuckled and agreed. Michelle continued, “I keep getting surprised when I catch a glimpse of myself in mirrors, windows, and screens! From the front it isn’t too shocking. I used to – it’s so weird to use the past tense! ahhh! – pull my hair back all the time. But from the side?!? It’s so crazy! There’s nothing back there. Hunny, it’s sooooo short. I love that! I love how short it is! I love how it looks and how it feels this short.”

“Me too,” Kyle agreed, pulling her into a long, slow kiss as he gently brushed his fingers against the newly discovered sensitive spot on her nape. Michelle shivered and returned his kiss.

Michelle had spent her entire life guarding her hair as the cornerstone of her femininity. It was her security, her sex appeal. It was who she was. It was what made her beautiful…except, except she had never felt sexier or more beautiful than she did then, laying in her partner’s arms, his lips on hers, nuzzling each other’s newly shaved heads.

“So,” Kyle asked when they finally parted, “what do you think? Are we growing it back? Or do we love this? Are we the sexy buzz cut couple now?”

Michelle rubbed her hand over her buzzed head yet again as she moaned softly, smiled widely and said, “Yes.”

(Note, if you’d like to go back and read about Michelle taking Kyle for his first buzz cut, you can find that story here.)