Quackadilly Blip
“I want my lawyer. Now”
Bella shouted it as soon as the bag was taken off her head. On the advice of the men who had arrested her about an hour ago, she had exercised her right to remain silent, but enough was enough. These cops had nothing on her.
At just 22 years old, she had already made herself a tidy sum in the world of corporate espionage. It was an easy game, really. She’d find a lonely man high up in the corporate IT structure, make him think they had something, sleep with him a couple times and then, when he wasn’t looking, copy his corporate key fob and send it to her contacts, place a virus on phone or his laptop, and disappear to a new city. She would change her style, her mannerisms and her name, but the one thing that always stayed the same was her hair. Her beautiful, reddish blonde hair. She played it like a musical instrument, twirling it with her fingers, subtly flipping it with each precise turn of her head. More than any other part of her body, it was her ultimate tool of seduction.
Her vision began to come into focus. There was a man sitting across from her. Early fifties, likely. She could tell from his posture and haircut that he was ex-military. He laughed.
“You want a lawyer? Oh you think we’re law enforcement. That whole ‘you have the right to remain silent‘ schtick was just so we could have a quiet ride over here, and it worked. No, we’re not the cops. That may be a lucky thing for you, or it may be an unlucky thing. That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Then who are you?” she asked, confused. She looked around the room. It wasn’t a police interrogation room, but rather some kind of back office. All the blinds were shut. Beside from the man across from her, a bearded man with a baseball cap fumbled with cords as he set up a camera on the table, like some kind of back alley boardroom deposition.
“My official job title is ‘Security Consultant’.” He answered. “Look, I know this situation must be confusing, so let me just fill you in on what is happening right now. You can call me Mike, and this is my associate Jim.”
He reached out to shake her hand, his demeanor more that of a salesman than an interrogator.
“You did a job a while back. The end result was a tech startup suffered a massive data breach, and right before they were going to IPO. Real bad timing. This, in turn, cost my client tens, if not hundreds of millions. Now, to someone of his net worth, this would be the equivalent of a normal person, say, getting a speeding ticket, so this might seem like an overreaction. Then again, people do tend to overreact when they feel they’ve been unjustly issued a traffic citation. So he hired me to track down the person responsible, and when he found out about you, and what makes you so unique, he made a special request.”
“Just kill me then. Get it over with.” she stared back, stoically, though internally she was screaming.
“What!? No! We’re not going to kill you. Again, we’re security consultants. We’re not hit men. What we can do, however, is put you in prison for a very long time. You left quite a paper trail, back in Denver. We could turn over the evidence that we collected to the police and you’d be looking at anywhere from 3-20 years in prison, depending on your willingness to squeal on your co-conspirators. Or you could follow the instructions you’re given and we’ll drop you off right back where we picked you up, free of charge and charges. That sound good?”
“Fine.” Bella’s heart rate began to slow, now that she’d been given assurances she would make it out alive.
“Great. What we’re going to ask you to do is follow some simple instructions. At any point, you may choose yo opt out and try your luck with the legal system. My client has requested that Jim and I not get our ugly mugs in the picture, so we’ll be standing in the back giving you instructions. Understood?”
Bella nodded. Jim placed a mirror on the table right next to the camera that allowed Bella to see herself. They double checked to make sure the camera was rolling.
“Please look into the camera and state your name.”
“Isabella Murphy.”
“Thank you.” He placed an object on the table. It was a pair of electric hair clippers. “Now please look into the camera as you shave your head.”
That escalated quickly. The words sent shockwaves rippling through Bella’s body. Her beautiful hair. Without it, what was she? She couldn’t bear this humiliation.
Mike picked up his phone. “Should I call Detective Johnson of the Denver PD?”
Her beautiful hair would grow back in a lot less time than she’d be sentenced to if she got caught. Fuck it. She picked up the clippers, turned them on, and ran them right down the middle. Determined not to cry or show any sign of the devastation she felt, she simply glared at the camera and pushed the clippers back, again and again, as chunks of her prized locks fell on the table and the ground like dead leaves, severed by her own hand. She finished shearing the last stray hairs and put the clippers down. Only about 1/8 of an inch of hair remained. “There. Done.”
“Excellent job” Mike praised her. He placed a small open tub of a white cream on the table. “Spread this cream over your scalp and eyebrows. Use all the cream in the container.”
She spread a thick layer over her scalp, covering every inch, and Jim reminded her to get the eyebrows as well. Jim wiped the remaining cream off her hands with a towel.
“You will see sets of cuffs attached to the chair. Fasten them around your ankles and wrists.”
Bella did as commanded and shackled herself to the chair. It was surprisingly heavy, she couldn’t tip it over if she wanted to, at this point.
Mike picked up the empty tub of cream, placed the lid back on, and placed it in front of Bella. “Please read the lid out loud.”
Bella looked down and read “Extra strength depilatory cream… Leave on for 2 minutes to remove hair… Warning! Do not leave on for longer than 5 minutes. Leaving on for longer than 5 minutes will result in permanent hair loss… For experimental use only… Not for retail sale… Wait what the fuck is this?”
Mike placed a stopwatch on the table. A minute and a half had already elapsed.
“The final instruction is to wait 10 minutes.” He saw the panic in Bella’s eyes “But you’re always free to opt out. I could wipe it off and uncuff you right now if you want.”
Bella paused, but she knew she had no choice at this point. She couldn’t make a sound come out of her mouth, so she just shook her head ‘No’.
“Jim, let’s go get a coffee.”
They left her alone to watch the timer, as her scalp began to sting more and more while she struggled, unable to touch it. The stinging intensified, the feeling of her beautiful tresses melting away forever. The timer had passed 15 minutes by the time they came back to wipe the cream off Bella’s head and stop filming. She looked at herself in the mirror. Nothing was left. Without eyebrows, she looked alien, and the only indication that there had ever been hair on her scalp was a faint tan line. It was perfectly smooth to the touch, as if she were caressing a part of her body that had always been hairless.
Mike and Jim packed their bags and escorted her back to the vehicle, a black Suburban with dark tinted windows. They had blindfolded her again.
“Was that stuff real?” She asked nobody in particular, choking back tears.
“Maybe, maybe no, I got no idea” Jim replied to her, speaking for the first time. He had somewhat of a Brooklyn accent. “I’d think that if a product like that was real, it’d put every laser hair removal place out of business. Then again, maybe that’s why you can’t buy it in stores. Maybe it’s kept a secret. I guess you’ll find out when and if your hair ever grows back. Let me tell you what is real though. Your career as a con woman is over. Everywhere you go will be tracked by facial recognition, so maybe I’ll check back in a few months and see if your hair’s started to grow. If it hasn’t, I need to see if I can have some of that stuff for my back.
