The Insistent Barber

The Insistent Barber

 

By Shorngirl

 

I have always had very fond memories of my childhood. I grew up in a small town, no different than most midwestern places. There was a main street with a myriad of mom-and-pop stores lining its wide sidewalks and like many others, a small shopping plaza at one end of town.

Davy’s Barbershop wasn’t much of a place. It was nestled into one end of the small strip plaza, between an appliance store and a dry cleaner. To this day, I remember it vividly. The sounds and smells of the two-chair shop echoed in my mind; the memory as thick as molasses. Necessarily, my father would bring me along when he and my two older brothers were due for a trim.

I don’t remember my mother. I learned when I was older that she had left us, having fallen for a younger man. My brothers were old enough to miss her, but all I had were photographs, and those were few and far between after my father purged the house of them.

I was a towhead when I was little, but as I grew older, my hair slowly darkened, taking on a sandy shade. It was still blonde, but only a few shades lighter than brown. I wore it long because that’s what was normal in my small town. Girls had long hair and boys had crewcuts.

Every once in a while, a friend of my father would stop by and give me a trim. I was pretty sure there was something going on between the friendly brunette and my dad, but I never asked. After a while, she stopped coming over, and my hair started to get a bit raggedy at the ends.

It was during this time, that I learned the pleasure of sitting in a barber chair. I think I was twelve when it first happened. We were at Davy’s and my brothers had just finished getting their tandem buzz cuts. As they climbed out of the chairs my father asked a question that would change my life.

“You all don’t cut women’s hair at all, do you, Davy?” My father asked, seemingly reticent to broach the subject.

“I don’t, Butch, but Tommy there, he’s given a few ladies a trim.” Davy pointed to his younger partner, who shrugged at the inference.

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give my Sophie a trim?” Dad suggested, looking down to see my questioning stare.

“That’s okay, Dad. My hair’s just fine as it is.” I insisted, not at all excited about allowing this man, who had just skinned my brother down to the bone, anywhere near my waist-length hair.

“Sure. I can trim her up, Butch.” The barber looked my way. “Sophie doesn’t look too eager though.”

“Now, you told me before we left that you needed a trim, Honey.” My father pointed out.

“Yeah, but…”

“Don’t you worry a bit, Sophie. You’ll be the spitting image of your brothers in no time.” Tommy joked.

The thing was, even though his jovial prodding was nothing more than bluster, I felt a shock travel through me with the suggestion. I was far too young to know what it even meant, but I felt my face flush suddenly, and I knew I was blushing.

“Tommy!” Davy scolded. “Stop scaring the girl.”

Tommy held up his fingers an inch apart and motioned to his chair. “Just a trim, I promise.”

Reluctantly, and still reeling from his outlandish suggestion, I climbed into the large metal-framed chair. The leather felt cool against my bare legs, having worn shorts to stave off the summer heat. “Just a trim,” I repeated. “You promised.”

He crossed his heart and lifted a cape from the counter and fastened it around my neck. For a moment I felt trapped and panic set in. I very nearly jumped from the chair, but with my father and brothers looking on, it would have been embarrassing.

I felt a comb running the length of my hair, tugging at the ends where the damaged ends were. Suddenly serious, Tommy turned the chair to face the mirror.

“The ends are pretty rough here, Sophie. What would you say if I trimmed off two inches? That’ll give you a nice healthy start.” The barber suggested.

Considering it had been at least three months since my last trim, I didn’t think that it was too much to cut. “If that’s what it needs. Okay.” I said, sheepishly.

The funny thing was, the entire time he was carefully working the scissors along the bottom of my hair, all I could think of was him taking the clippers and doing me up like my brothers. I would have been horrified, naturally, but the idea seemed to have sparked something inside that I was either unwilling or unable to stifle.

The trim was over in short order, and I looked back at the even job Tommy had done in the mirror. To be honest, he’d done a much neater job than my father’s friend. He declined any sort of payment, which pleased my father to no end, and everyone left Davy’s that day with a fresh new look.

And so, from that point on, Tommy trimmed my hair whenever my father and brothers would go for their haircuts. It became a regular thing, and I thought no more about climbing into his barber chair than I might have done sitting anywhere.

I think I was twelve or so when we made our regular pilgrimage to Davy’s and found that Tommy had moved on. Davy said it was something to do with his family. My father thought nothing more of it, but I was a bit leery of the smart young barber who had taken Tommy’s place. He didn’t seem nearly as willing to trim my hair. In fact, he made a bit of a fuss about it.

“I’m not a hairstylist, Dave, I’m a barber.” He insisted. I went without a trim that month, and I missed the friendly conversations with Tommy as he skillfully nipped the ends off my hair.

One month led to four and then six, until my hair was in desperate need of a healthy trim. I was getting too old to go with my dad and brothers to Davy’s if there wasn’t a haircut involved, so I stayed at home.

Depressed over the whole thing, I started wondering what on earth I was going to do. Once, I’d gone to a hairdresser in town and had a few inches taken off, but they charged an arm and a leg.

Three years had gone by, with me struggling over my long hair. That’s when I noticed another barbershop had opened about halfway down Main Street. One day after school, I worked up the courage to stop in.

I could tell that things were just getting off the ground, and everything had a sort of newness about it. It was very different from Davy’s, with none of the old wooden plank floors and the smell of hair tonic and clipper oil hanging heavy in the air.

“Can I help you, young lady?” Asked a man, about my father’s age, emerging from a back hallway.

Clearing my throat, I managed to speak. “Do you cut girl’s hair here?”

“I haven’t yet, but I imagine I could. I’m surprised you don’t frequent Roberta’s Cut n’ Curl down the street.”

“She’s too expensive.” Not wanting to sound cheap I added. “I usually just get a trim.”

“Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll see what I can do for you.” The man suggested.

“Oh, I didn’t mean right now. I was just seeing if you did…, cut girls’ hair, that is.” I stammered.

“You’re sure? No time like the present, I always say.” The barber smiled.

I knew all I had in my purse was about eight dollars. “I don’t think I’ve got enough…”

“Tell you what, young lady. I’ll give you the trim you’re looking for, and it’ll be on the house. If you like it, then you can come back and pay me for the next one.” He seemed eager, and I wondered if he wasn’t getting too many customers yet.

I really couldn’t think of a reason not to take him up on his offer. I hung my jacket on the wall and climbed into his chair. It felt the same as Tommy’s, but the leather was stiffer, newer.

He shook out his cape and slipped it around my neck, the smell of new cotton wafting into my nostrils. “My name is Rupert, but everybody calls me Rupp. What’s your name?” He slipped the clasp along the top of the cape, the cold metal pressing against the side of my neck.

“Sophie,” I said, just then catching my reflection in the mirrors that lined the opposite wall. It did that infinity thing when I looked back over my shoulder into the large, stenciled mirror that dominated his workspace.

“Well, Sophie. How much are we trimming?” He asked.

“I guess it depends on how my hair looks back there. It’s been about eight months since my last trim, so…”

“Well, hair grows about half an inch a month, so how about we start with four inches and see where we are?” The barber suggested, slipping a comb from his pocket and gently working it through my long, somewhat unruly hair.

It sounded reasonable enough, so I just smiled and nodded. What happened next was a bit unexpected. Instead of lifting his scissors from the counter, he reached beneath it and grabbed a set of clippers from their hook. I knew my eyes must have been wide as saucers as the machine whirred to life.

“You are just trimming the ends, right?” I asked, shakily.

He laughed. “Oh, you’re worried about the clippers.” Silencing them, he explained that they cut a much more even line than scissors ever could. He demonstrated how he would hold his comb and run the clippers along its length, so I wasn’t so frightened by them.

It all seemed logical to me, but just the idea of him using them on my hair gave me that same jolt of electricity in my belly. I was old enough to know what I was feeling and shuddered slightly. I wondered if he had noticed.

There was an insistent tug at my hair from the end, followed by the sound of clippers running lengthwise down a comb. The staccato quills of the comb sounded almost musical as the humming blades slid across their surface. A chill ran down my spine as I saw four-inch-long hanks of my hair tumble to the floor in the mirror. Where the clippers had passed, a jet straight line terminated the fall of hair that now rested a good deal shorter than it had moments before.

Rupp continued across, cutting each section methodically until the entire length of my hair was shortened by the prescribed amount. He smiled at the thickness of my hair, but then frowned as he combed out the length. “I wonder if you’ll let me try something. Your hair is extremely thick and a little undercut might solve the problem.”

“Undercut?” I questioned, my twelve-year-old brain trying to search its limited experience for anything related to his suggestion. “What is that?”

“I would clip a section of hair from beneath your length, which would thin it considerably.” He explained.

“Clip it, where?” I asked, earnestly ignorant.

Thinking that a visual demonstration would speak louder than a verbal description, the barber sectioned off a portion of my hair, pinning the bulk on top, but leaving a horizontal part that cut straight across the back of my head. Rupp grabbed the section that still hung down. “All of this…, goes.” He said, holding the clippers up to indicate how.

For a second I panicked. Was this guy really going to buzz the back of my head all the way up to the part he had made? My mind went back to Tommy’s suggestion years before when he joked about cutting my hair like my brothers. This may not have been my entire head, but a good portion of it would be buzzed if this guy had his way.

Part of me wanted to object, but another longed to feel what those clippers might feel like as they did their worst. I could swear I heard my heartbeat quicken as I looked up at the man. “Go ahead.”

As though I might change my mind, Rupp wasted no time plunging the clippers into my nape, severing the hair a fraction of an inch from my scalp. Two-foot-long strands of hair fell to the floor, puddling around the barber’s feet. The jet-white skin stood out starkly as it was exposed, pass after pass until my nape and nearly half of my head were close to shaved.

My shock and awe over the event kept me from realizing just how those electric tingles had culminated in the pit of my stomach. It was only after the clippers fell silent, that I realized just how I had been affected. A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead as he allowed what remained of my hair to cascade over what he had just shaved.

“You see. No one will be the wiser. It’s our little secret.” He winked.

I slipped my hand out from under the cape and found the stubble the clippers had carved. The skin was damp but most definitely exposed and I found it difficult to pull my fingers away, enjoying the newfound sensation.

“It feels so weird.” I sighed, as he combed out my hair once again.

“You see how much nicer it falls now.” He wasn’t wrong. My usual thick mane had been reduced by nearly half its volume. It looked wonderful, but I couldn’t help but worry about what seemed like a sizeable bald patch in the back. He saw my concern. “As long as you’re careful, no one will be the wiser, Sophie.”

I walked out of the barbershop that day with a feeling of accomplishment and wonder, tempered with a healthy dose of concern. How could I have let him do that to me? There would be no more ponytails or putting it all up to get the hair off my back on warm days. Then, I had the most horrible realization. Gym class. What if we were swimming? There would be no hiding my bald patch then.

As it turned out, we weren’t swimming in gym class, so I was off the hook, or so I thought. I had gym class first period that semester, and it fell upon the instructor to make sure everyone didn’t have to put up with a bunch of stinky girls for the day. This was high school, and the hormones had kicked in full force. She was a stickler, insisting that we all take showers before returning to class.

I knew that if I put my hair up to keep it dry, as we all did, the cat would be out of the bag. Everyone would see what I had done. So, I opted for the obvious out. I tried to sneak out of the locker room without showering.

“Sophie Meyers. Where do you think you’re going? You know the rules, young lady.” The teacher ushered me back to the showers, watching me disrobe this time. It was embarrassing enough to have to strip down in front of everyone, but this sort of supervision was humiliating.

I folded my clothes neatly on the bench and made my way to the showers. Everyone else was dressed at that point, so I was the only one left strutting around with nothing on. Ms. Spaulding, our gym teacher stood outside the group stall and watched as I lathered and rinsed.

Of course, my hair got totally wet as there was no way I was putting it up. It was the first time for that since the barbers, and I suddenly realized that I had an audience.

“Just what have you done to your hair, Miss Meyers?” There was some general tittering from the half-dozen or so girls who had gathered outside the stall. To my complete astonishment, Ms. Spaulding stepped into the shower and lifted my wet hair away from my neck, revealing my freshly clippered nape.

“Whatever possessed you to do that?” She asked, much to the amusement of the growing audience of my peers. Not only was I naked and wet, but I was being ridiculed as well.

“The barber said it would lay better.” I managed, trying to speak low enough that only she would hear.

“The barber!” She laughed. “Maybe he should have finished the job then.” She chuckled, walking away and leaving me to the wicked mercies of my schoolmates.

Of course, I was the laughingstock for some time after that. Everyone seemed to need to lift my hair at the most inopportune moments. Outwardly, I was horrified by the attention, but somewhere inside I was enjoying it. I never let on how I was feeling, mostly because I didn’t understand it myself. Each time someone would slip a hand under my hair to feel my barren scalp or lift it for all to see, that electricity would return in my belly.

So, a few weeks later, I returned to see Rupp in his new barbershop, which seemed to be doing quite well all of a sudden. He was doing so well, in fact, that I was forced to pluck a number from the rack near the door, taking a seat along with three men and a boy. I did garner a few curious stares as I took my place on one of the plastic chairs. Rupp noticed me then and cast a smile in my direction.

“Hello, Sophie.” He said, loud enough so everyone heard. I just sketched a wave and glued my eyes back onto the comic book I was reading.

The haircuts he delivered were no different than those down at Davy’s place. The men all got something at least resembling a crewcut and the boy got skinned as my brothers had. When it was finally my turn, I was hoping the shop would be empty, but a father and son had slipped in a few minutes behind me.

I saw the boy eyeing me as I made my way to Rupp’s chair, a little smile appearing on his face. Without asking, Rupp simply tossed the cape around my shoulders and fastened it tight around my neck.

“Another trim?” He asked, examining the length of my hair.

All the ridicule and taunting in school had changed me inside, and I was feeling just a little naughty that day. “I think I’m ready for something shorter,” I announced.

“Well, I can certainly do shorter.” He chuckled. “Now the question is, how much shorter?”

“Can you take a foot off the back, and I think I’d like some bangs too.” I suddenly realized what I was saying. Now, I’d never had bangs in my life and the idea had simply sprung up in my mind, for some reason.

Rupp leaned in, whispering in my ear. “And… what about our little secret.”

“Well, it’s not really a secret anymore. Everyone saw it, so I think I’ll keep that too.” I boasted, reflexively reaching up under my hair to feel the slightly scruffy undercut that had grown in a bit.

Rupp measured out what looked like more than twelve inches, and just as he had the last time, clippered the line along his comb. I was spun away from the mirror and was facing the boy directly. He gave me another smile as the barber shortened my hair by more than half its length. He might have been a little younger than me, but I had seen him around school. I wondered what he was thinking, seeing this girl submitting to the barber as I was.

When Rupp finished cutting the back, I looked down to see a carpet of sandy blonde hair coating the floor. My hair, which once reached my waist, now only just grazed my shoulders.

“How’s that look, Sophie?” He asked, spinning the chair.

I tossed my head this way and that, the abbreviated locks swinging around my head. “Perfect,” I exclaimed, excitedly.

“Now for the bangs.” Rupp declared, still brandishing the clippers. He combed the hair down over my forehead and I felt the blades cut in just above my eyebrows. They did spring up a bit and I knew I would be showing off a good half inch of my forehead. They were shorter than I wanted, but I didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I almost wished they were even shorter and very nearly asked.

The bangs cut in bluntly, he spun the chair again so that I was facing the boy once again. The smile on his face was wider than ever now, as he watched. The little bulge in his shorts gave him away and I tried not to imagine what was going on in his head.

When the barber pinned up the back, revealing my clipper patch, the boy’s smile turned to a grin, and I knew he had seen it before. Perhaps he had been watching when one of the girls had so boldly lifted my hair in the cafeteria or the halls.

“Just like last time?” Rupp asked, scruffing the half-inch stubble with his fingers.

I looked straight at the boy and said, “Can you take a bit shorter?”

“Well, I can blade shave it, if that’s what you want,” Rupp suggested.

I watched as the boy’s face grew flush, and the bulge grew just a little more. “Shave it then.” I managed, giving the boy exactly what he wanted, no doubt. I wondered if I would have been so daring had he not been there. I wasn’t sure.

Rupp picked up a smaller set of clippers and started in on my nape. They felt a bit different, finer, as though they might shave my hair right to the skin. I could feel Rupp’s breath against my scalp as he worked, and I knew just how short it must have been.

Once the clippers fell silent, he spun me back around, so my little patch of shame was on full display to my audience. With a damp towel on my shoulder, he lathered up the back of my head. I could swear he had taken the undercut a bit higher than last time, as a few errant hairs were hanging free from where it was pinned up on top.

The rasp of the razor was exhilarating, and that insistent feeling was back. Between the boy and myself, there were enough vapid hormones in the room to light a fire.

As the razor slowly scraped away the last vestiges of stubble from my nape, I realized just how much I was enjoying the sensation. Not just the sensation, but the fact that the entire spectacle was being witnessed by this boy. I was being shaved, where girls just didn’t get shaved, ever. I felt the razor slip over the small knob on the back of my head, confirming that Rupp had gone higher with the undercut.

It was plain enough when he let down my hair and a small cascade of loose strands fell from underneath, slipping over the cape and onto the floor to join the rest. “I had to go a bit shorter with the undercut. With your hair so much shorter, you needed it done.” He said, almost sternly.

I simply nodded, accepting the fact that the barber was now dictating just how he would cut my hair. “Thanks.” I managed. As I stood from the chair, the boy shifted uncomfortably in his chair as if trying to hide what had been so apparent the whole time. I reached up under my hair, feeling the broad expanse of silky-smooth scalp extending more than halfway up the back. I knew just how much he wished it was his hand up under there.

I paid for the cut this time, as agreed, but as I turned to leave, Rupp surprised me with his comment. “Two weeks, young lady.” Again, the stern attitude caught me a little off guard.

Of course, my father and brothers were all a bit shocked by my transformation. There was nothing they could say or do to change what I’d done. Finally, after a few days, my father gave in, saying that it was my hair to do with as I pleased. I was free to do as I wished with it, although I would soon discover I was mistaken on that score.

The shorter hair was a bit harder for the girls to get ahold of for their forced reveals, but I had stopped caring now. I knew that as my hair moved, the shaved white skin of my scalp was plainly visible to anyone looking.

I saw the boy in the halls, his head clipped down to fuzz; a sharp contrast to the unruly locks he sported when I had seen him in the barbershop. He would eye me as we passed one another, and I knew that all he wanted was to get his hands on my little bald patch.

Quite some time had passed, and I was not unaware of his continued attention. So, one day, while I was rummaging in my locker, I felt someone behind me. Not like physically felt, but a presence. It was after school, and the halls were empty except for the two of us.

“Why do you do it?” He asked, and I knew it was him before I even turned around. He’d been back to the barber and his head was all but shaved. Of course, I’d been back too, many times, following Rupp’s brisk authority. He’d taken another two inches off this time, and the bob only just covered my earlobes, exposing my hairless nape. Each time, Rupp had gone a little shorter, and all without asking. The freedom I thought I had won from my father was only an illusion.

I shrugged at his question. I was seventeen and knew exactly what the bulge in his jeans was all about. “I like the way it feels,” I said, reticently. With that, I turned around to face my locker. Tipping my head forward, expectantly, I knew that my hairless undercut was on full display. “Go ahead, then.” I sighed.

He didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He slipped across the narrow hallway, his hand finding my tonsured nape almost at once. “You’re a very naughty girl, Sophie Meyers.” He uttered. His words could not have been more true or affected me more.

Having given him enough, I spun around, only to find him almost too close. There was that pregnant pause, where time stood still, but nothing could stop what happened next.

His lips felt warm; wet…, and that urge I felt as the razor caressed my scalp was surging in my belly. Approaching footsteps split us apart, but a bond had been made and I wasn’t sure how things might go from there. Was it just a fleeting kiss, a moment lost amongst so many others?

“Lawrence.” He said as he slipped away and out of sight.

It was a week after graduation, and I was pondering just what I might get up to over the summer. I was heading off to university in a nearby city, knowing that I had one last chance to live it up before life’s responsibilities fell upon me.

Rupp had taken firm control of my hair, but I really wanted to grow it out a bit before college. I skipped a few weeks before finally showing up, an urge to feel his razor on my scalp a call I just couldn’t ignore.

He gave me a look when I stepped through the door, and for a moment I almost retreated. He seemed almost annoyed. That was when I spotted Lawrence in one of the chairs. Nothing had ever really happened after ‘the kiss’. He was still a year younger than me, but it was starting to matter less and less the older we got. He just never pursued me, and I wasn’t one to chase after a boy. I figured he’d gotten what he wanted.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Sophie.” Rupp scolded, reservedly. “Don’t bother with a number. You can join your errant friend over there.”

I was used to seeing Lawrence with his usual skinned-down scalp, but he seemed to have skipped a few visits to the barber himself. It was long enough to lay down on his head, a bit like it was the first time I saw him. Did Rupp have us both in his little tonsorial web? Then I began to wonder just how many kids he had wrapped around his finger.

“I’m heading off to college in a month and I…”

“You thought you’d let things grow out a bit?” Rupp asked, finishing my statement for me. “I think you could do with a fresh look for school.” He announced. “What do you think about that, Lawrence?”

Wisely, he said nothing. I could tell he was just as nervous as I was. He simply shrugged in the chair and returned to studying his shoelaces.

The man Rupp was working on escaped with a little bit of hair on his head, but I could tell it was a bit shorter than he had asked for. He ran his hand up the back, wincing, before paying Rupp at the register. Judging by the pile of brown hair around the chair, he’d lost a lot more than he had bargained for.

“Two weeks,” Rupp stated, the man nodding silently before slipping out and onto Main Street. “Now, you two.”

Rupp spun his chair to face us as we sat like lambs for the slaughter. “You first, boy.” I’d never seen Rupp so terse and forceful, and I was justifiably worried. Lawrence stood and walked straight-legged to the chair where he was quickly caped.

“You really shouldn’t slack on your grooming, Lawrence.” He grunted, lifting a set of clippers from under the counter and oiling them carefully. “Well, let’s take care of that.” He spun him around so he was facing me, and I could tell Lawrence was less than pleased with me watching what was about to happen.

Without any hesitation at all, Rupp ran the whirring clippers down the center of the boy’s head. The missing guard made for a stark white strip that was mowed right down to the skin. I watched as Rupp quickly and efficiently skinned his head. Thirty seconds later, Lawrence was bald. His face reddened with embarrassment, and I couldn’t help but smile. I knew that feeling all too well.

“What are you grinning about, girly girl?” Rupp grumbled. “You’re next.”

Lawrence almost tumbled out of the chair as the cape was removed, his hands running over his naked head. As I got a closer look, it really was shorn down to the skin.

“Where are you going, bulb head?” Rupp asked as the boy set a twenty on the counter and made for the door. “You sit right there and watch what I’m going to do to your girlfriend here.”

For a moment, I thought about running. Whatever Rupp had planned, it didn’t sound like something I wanted to experience. My hair was already in a chin-length bob, and that was grown out from the ridiculous pageboy cut he’d given me for graduation. A full two inches of my hairless nape was on display for the ceremony, and I knew he had done it on purpose.

Turning the chair my way, I knew that there was no escaping. My need for his firm rules and permissionless liberties had me right where he wanted me. “I think something shorter. What do you say, Sophie?” He asked, mockingly as he fastened the cape too tightly around my neck. I said nothing, knowing full well that what ‘I’ wanted, meant less than nothing.

“Yes, college is a land full of temptations. All those upperclassmen anxious to score a little freshman ass.” He spun me to face Lawrence, who was still lamenting his bald head. “What do you say we make you a bit less tempting?”

I saw the clippers at the last second as he slipped them underneath my bangs, drawing them forcefully over the top of my head. The clippers labored with the thickness of my hair, but as hanks of it began tumbling over the cape, I knew my fate was sealed. He took a little longer than he had with Lawrence, but there was no doubt I had been skinned just the same.

The boy had stopped rubbing his head and had locked his eyes onto what must have been my own bald head. The telltale bulge in his shorts was evidence enough that he was enjoying the show.

I was ready for Rupp to uncape me and force me out into the world. I think he liked that feeling, knowing each time he cut me a bit shorter, I was left to deal with the aftermath. He enjoyed that power over me.

“I know you like things razor-shaved, now don’t you, Young lady?” Rupp asked, mockingly. There was no denying that I did. I had been asking for it all along. What he had in mind now was a very different story.

I could do nothing as I felt the lather being spread over my entire head. Still facing Lawrence, I was powerless to react. I knew I was probably enacting a dream come true for him. So as the blade began scraping away the stubble that only just sprouted from my scalp, I couldn’t help but allow a smile to spread over my face.

Would I let the boy have me like this? I asked myself that question as our eyes locked. Would he even want me? The question burned in my mind, and elsewhere.

With a quick slap of his palm on my head, Rupp released me from the binds of his chair. “You two bulb heads run along now. Oh, and Sophie, have fun at college.”

 

***

 

It was the first time I’d been back to my hometown since my father had passed. Both my brothers had moved on with their own lives, and so had I.

Having graduated from university, I landed a job at an investment firm and never looked back. It was a successful career, and I was in a position to retire at the early age of thirty-three. Oh, I stayed on for a while as a consultant after they begged, and it was lucrative enough. Eventually, I tired even of that, severing ties, but with a healthy golden parachute to float down on.

I was traveling, and my journeys took me close to the old homestead. I thought had no reason to go, but something drew me back.

I drove past my old house, and nothing looked the same. The neighborhood was a little more run-down, and a gas station had sprung up a few doors down. Not the same.

Looking for a little nostalgia, I walked down the old strip plaza, most of the stores shuttered, and the windows papered. It was a bit depressing. Even old Davy’s barbershop had gone the way of the others.

I wiped away a spot in the dust, trying to see inside. Most everything was still there, including the chairs, and it brought back a little of the old times.

As I made my way up Main Street, things started to look up. Many of the mom-and-pop stores had been replaced with franchises and chains, but at least there was vibrance; life.

Just as I was about to turn around and head back to my car, I looked up to see a familiar face. He was older, for sure, his hair greying and trimmed short as it had always been. “Sophie Meyers.” He chortled. “I never forget a face.”

“Hey, Rupp. How are you?” I asked, almost afraid to make the connection. This was the man who had made my freshman year in college a humiliating hell. It was bad enough that he had shaved me bald a month before I left for school, but he had insisted that I travel home every other weekend for a refresher. I stayed bald for the entire year, until it started to affect my prospects.

He wasn’t happy but understood. I still remember that last shave. He lathered me twice, promising to get it closer than it had ever been. His last words to me were haunting. “You’ll be back one day, Sophie Meyers. Mark my words.” By then, it was no secret to him just how much I relished the humiliation he inflicted upon me. He knew it, and I was certain he got off on it too. The idea didn’t upset me. It was a somewhat perverted symbiosis, to begin with.

“You always were a daydreamer, weren’t you?” His voice shook me out of my reverie.

“Still cutting hair?” I asked, unable to avoid the subject.

“Oh, I let the shop go a while back. I still see a few of my more ‘loyal’ clientele in my home. I’ve set up a little barbershop in my basement.”

“Really?” I chuckled. I knew exactly what he meant by loyal. I wondered just how many of us he had managed to string along, caught in his web. I knew that feeling, that loss of control. I didn’t exactly miss it. But…

“You should stop by. You look like you could use a trim.” Rupp smiled.

I had been wearing my hair in the same style for years, and never thought of changing it. It was that businesswoman lob that was just boring enough to be respectable. Now that I had retired, I had let it go a bit, and it was past grazing my shoulders.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to be a bother. Besides, I’m just passing through.” I said, fighting that familiar sensation between my thighs.

“It’s no bother at all, Sophie.” He insisted. “You’ll come along with me.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

Every fiber of my being fought with the urge I was feeling. I couldn’t let this man work his way back into my life. Not now. I was rich and had the world at my fingertips. But, just as before, I was powerless to resist his scorching words.

“Okay.” It was all I could manage because I was no longer thinking with my head. I swore I could smell my own arousal as we descended the stairs into his basement. A few more steps and we were there.

At the center of the small room was the same barber chair where all my humiliating haircuts had taken shape. There were no windows, and the single fluorescent light gave the place a clinical feel.

“Have a seat.” He sighed, almost resigned. Did he really feel so confident in my acquiescence? I suppose he did.

“I really…um…I don’t really…”

“I think you should make yourself more comfortable. I know you always wanted to. Now you can.” He shrugged.

“But…”

“It’s alright, Sophie. Just go ahead.” Rupp coaxed, and that same insistent authority came through as though not a day had passed.

Slowly, deliberately, I began removing my clothes; the Armani jacket and skirt, the silk blouse and bra, and finally the Louboutin heels, hose, and Victoria’s Secret panties I had picked out that morning. They all sat crumpled in a pile on the concrete floor. Now I most definitely could smell myself, and I was certain he could too. Naked and utterly exposed as I suppose he had always wanted me, I stood silent.

“Now, is that any way to treat your clothes, young lady?” I looked down, my expensive outfit beneath my bare feet. I shook my head, bending over to retrieve them, only to feel his hand on my shoulder. He pushed a milk crate to the center of the room with his foot. “In there, Sophie.”

I was under his spell all over again. As hard as I fought against this moment, and I can’t tell you how many times I had fought that fight, I was powerless. I was forced to perform exactly as he asked. I watched, frozen, as he set my purse on top of the crate and carry it out of the room. I heard something that sounded suspiciously like a safe being locked; only then did the panic set in. What had I done?

At that moment I thought I could bring myself to run up those stairs and out into the world, as naked as I was. I made it as far as the door when his voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Sophie Meyers. Where on earth do you think you’re going?” He reached up the short flight of stairs and pulled me back into his basement. “You, young lady, are naked. That’s right, naked as a jaybird.” He backed me into his barber chair and spun it, so my reflection was cast back at me. “You’re not going anywhere.”

I looked at the woman in the mirror, her face and breasts perfect, the best money could buy. The clinician’s laser had made quick work of my body hair and given me a permanent Brazilian, something that I was certain wasn’t lost on Rupp. It was cheap consolation for the one thing I couldn’t have. Not a woman in my position. No one would have understood.

You see, it wasn’t by choice that I had abandoned my allegiance to Rupp and his barber shop rules. No, it was the demands of a promising career that had forced my hand. Now, with that career finished, there was nothing standing between me and that once-revered commitment.

What was happening now, however, was entirely unexpected. Not that I hadn’t fantasized, masturbated even, over a scenario exactly like the one that was unfolding. I just never imagined that I would succumb to it, not now, not with all I had to lose. But there I was, my clothes and identity undoubtedly locked away, sitting in his chair all over again, naked.

“So, young lady. I’ll be picking up right where we left off.” He lifted the unguarded clippers from their hook and fired them up, the whir of their insistent blades gnashing hungrily, finding their home against my scalp.

He peeled me slowly, deliberately, stroke after stroke, my pampered hair falling in clumps onto the bare concrete floor. I felt it now, as I had never done, falling over my exposed breasts, between my open thighs, and sticking to my moist hairless folds. My hair, which had seen me through countless board meetings and midnight liaisons with prospective clients, was falling all around me.

I was crying, but I knew that they weren’t tears of grief. No, not at all. I had wanted this for so long, yearning for the humiliating blades to rid me of the burden of hair.

“I know, Sophie. I know. It’s all over now.” He comforted, severing the last strand of hair that still clung tenuously to my barren scalp. As I stared at the all too familiar reflection in his mirror, I smiled at last.

Of course, the blade shave followed, and he encouraged me to do what I had always wanted to do. I masturbated in his chair, in front of him, wetting the leather with my juices as his finely honed edge reduced me to what I needed to be. He spared nothing, my perfectly threaded brows the last to be scraped away.

It was only as he led me out of his little barber shop of horrors, that I realized just what he had in mind. In a darker more secluded part of that dank cellar, he showed me to my true destiny.

“In you go now, bulb.” He directed, holding the door for me as I knelt, crawling on all fours into the claustrophobic little cage. I imagined I’d be there for a while, and I laughed inwardly over my predicament. No one would miss me, I realized, and I considered the fact that Rupp probably knew that too. Yes, I imagined I’d be there for a very long while, indeed.

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