The Point of No Return

“Might be time for you to cut my hair.” Leah typed the text and hit “send” before she could second-guess herself for the hundredth time. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach but, as she fingered the dark hair curling down towards her collar, she knew it had to be done. She needed to fix this mess.

Save a status quo-rejecting pixie in high school, Leah had always had long hair, tumbling freely past her shoulders with just a hint of wave. She didn’t love her hair but she didn’t hate it either. She felt safe with it. And she knew she looked sexy as hell with long hair, too. Much of her confidence grew from her hair. But life was restless and heavy and Leah noted that gnawing urge returning.

For the first time in twenty years she craved that incomparable feeling of having someone gather her hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck and then just…cut it off.

Summoning her courage and her desire for the new life which always seems to follow new hair, Leah went to her stylist, her phone loaded with pictures, and boldly declared, “I want to go short.”

“No,” Mel said flatly, “short hair isn’t feminine. I’m not going to do it.” Then she proceeded to give Leah the regular half inch trim she always did.

Leah could’ve simply went to another salon but she trusted Mel. She’d been cutting her hair for years! She would have been even more nervous undergoing such a major shearing with anyone other than Mel. Plus, how could Leah ever go back to Mel with her long locks chopped into a short crop by someone else’s scissors?

What followed was a year of asking, reasoning, and cajoling.

Leah’s persistence paid off and Mel finally agreed. With the holidays behind them, Leah found herself sitting in the salon chair in mid-January as Mel slowly razored off each section of hair, dropping the now-useless ten inch locks into Leah’s lap. The gentle tugging, rasping, and separating of each strand of hair was a long, slow process but Leah marveled at the new her oh-so-slowly emerging in the mirror.

While Mel agreed to chop her hair off, she wouldn’t go as short as Leah wanted. The end result was a very layered, wispy pixie cut. Leah’s new bangs now covered her eyes if not brushed aside and her sideburns curled down past her newly exposed ears and onto her cheek. The longest hair left on her head was no more than four inches while the hair remaining at her nape was razored to barely half an inch long.

“So, what do you think?” Mel asked, finally setting her razor on the counter.

“I love it!” Leah beamed, fingering the hair remaining at her nape. “It’s short. But I love it!” Immediately she felt younger. More than that, Leah felt free.

Leah felt this was the dawning of a new her with a new life. Her Short Hair Era had arrived!

….and two months later the Covid pandemic erupted and lockdown descended.

With her life now lived on Zoom calls, Leah had a front row seat to see just how quickly her short, playful pixie turned into a shaggy, shapeless mess. By April a ragged mullet was curling down to her collar.

She hated it. It had to go. So she pulled out her phone and opened the text message thread with her best friend, Danny. Danny had no formal cosmetology training but he loved cutting hair. For years he cut his own hair, partners’ hair, and several close friends’ hair.

As Leah had lamented the state of her hair to him again and again, he told her, “You know, I can cut your hair for you if you want. No pressure of course! I’m fine either way. But I’d be happy to help. It would be super easy, too. Your top layers aren’t bad. We can just buzz the sides and back real close.”

With his offer swimming through her mind and the horrid feeling of her hair laying on her neck and tickling her collar, Leah sent the text. “Might be time for you to cut my hair.”

Danny’s reply came instantly. “I’d be happy to do it! I’ll do it in stages so you can pick the length you like.”

“It’s getting to be a ruckus,” Leah texted back.

“Well I’m glad to help. Then you can enjoy the fun, light feeling of short hair again!”

Leah sent an “lol” followed by a photo of Scarlett Johansson in her buzzed undercut pixie days. Danny replied, “Yep, not a problem at all. Your hair is almost that length on top so I wouldn’t touch that. I’ll just cut the sides and back closer.”

The butterflies in her stomach swirled with new energy as Leah texted back, “I’m in.”

Danny said, “Yay! This will be fun! And the hair underneath is all cut with clippers so there’s no way to mess it up or get it uneven. You can pick the guard length, too, so it’s not too short or long for you.”

While this was meant to be reassuring, it only fueled Leah’s nerves. She never had her hair cut with clippers before, not even in her high school pixie days. But her reply was, “Woohoo!!” followed by a “You know how much I trust you, right?”

“Absolutely,” Danny replied. “You don’t get to be best friends without trust! But I feel this kicks the trust thing up a few levels ;D.”

As close as they were, Leah and Danny were in each other’s “Covid bubble” and spent time with each other during lockdown, savoring the all-too-rare bits of human comfort that world afforded. So the next morning Leah walked into Danny’s kitchen to see a shining pair of hair clippers, scissors, hair ties and clips, four guards ranging from a #4 down to a half, a smaller pair of clippers for trimming, a hand mirror, a towel, and even the dustpan to sweep up her buzzed off hair after the fact arrayed on the counter.

Most prominent of all was the chair pulled to the middle of the kitchen, awaiting Leah and her hair.

“You’re a multifaceted man,” she said giving Danny a hug hello and taking in the instruments soon to be applied to her own hair and her seat for the shearing.

Seeing the clippers sitting there, hungry for her hair, all of a sudden the raggedy mullet hanging down her neck didn’t feel that long. No, Leah thought, I can tie those damn hairs at my nape into a little ponytail again. They have to go. This has to happen.

“You sure you want to do this?” Danny asked. “You want me to cut your hair? This short?”

Leah sat confidently in the chair, both eager and anxious over what was about to happen. “Hell yes,” she told him. Danny draped a white bath towel around her shoulders and began slowly pinning the hair he wasn’t cutting up and out of the way, taking time to be sure the line he’d be buzzing to was straight.

“So, Scarlett’s hair is buzzed to a #2 in those photos,” Danny explained. “But I figure we start a little longer and then we can go shorter if you want. I’m thinking a #4.”

“I like that plan,” Leah agreed, projecting confidence. Whatever nerves were fluttering in her stomach weren’t worth focusing on. This was happening. This was going to be fun. Her hair was going to be short again! Shorter than it’s ever been! She wanted to savor this.

“I’m a virgin, you know,” Leah said as Danny pinned her hair up. “I’ve never had my hair cut like this before. You’re popping my clipper cherry.”

“And we’re going to be cutting off a lot of hair with them,” Danny said as he ran his hands through her hair, playing with the four-to-five inch strands that would soon be shaved down. “I’m not going to be able to do this once we’re done!”

Finally pleased with the line he made (and relishing the fact that he was the first to place clippers on his friend’s head!), Danny just picked them up, switched them on, and started buzzing.

There was a tightness in Leah’s chest as she heard them begin humming. When she felt the clippers make contact with her nape and begin sliding upwards she thought, Well he did ask if I was sure before he started pinning my hair up. I guess there was no double checking. We’re past the point of no return now.

Her breath caught in her throat as she felt the humming machine move slowly up and into her thick hair, growling a bit as it made contact. She didn’t know what she was expecting – a tugging? a pulling? for it to hurt? – but the swift, smooth shearing was one of the best things Leah had ever felt.

This wasn’t the gentle, tugging rasp of the razor Mel had used to slowly sever her hair. These clippers slid through her hair with ease, her head tingling with the most erogenous massage she’d ever felt in their wake.

Danny completed the first pass and tossed the large clump of cutoff hair to the floor. As it sailed past Leah’s eyes and landed, with stark contrast on the white kitchen floor, she momentarily forgot the sensation of the clippers. Her eyes got wide and she noted, “Wow. That is a lot of hair.”

Wanting to soothe any nerves, Danny paused and suggested, “Why don’t you feel it?”

Reaching up Leah did just that, touching the half inch of hair buzzed into the midst of her otherwise raggedy long locks. She could pinch the remaining hair between her fingers…just barely.

Abandoning herself to the process and the epic experience of the first time she let a non-professional cut her hair and the first time she let anyone buzz her hair with clippers, Leah encouraged Danny to continue.

As Danny kept cutting Leah closed her eyes, savoring every second. “Mmmm,” she said, “that feels so good.”

“It does,” Danny agreed, “getting your hair cut with clippers is the best feeling in the world.” While his hair currently hung past his shoulders, he had done more than his fair share of experimenting and had buzzed it to the skin more than once. He grew it out in part for the thrill of shaving it off again.

Leah had never felt more alive nor more aroused as Danny took his time, meticulously buzzing first the back, then the right side, and then the left side of her head. To be certain it was perfectly even, he ran the clippers over her head again and again – finally leaving them to the side as he did the touch test and traced his fingers over her freshly buzzed head.

Oh my God, this is better than sex! Leah thought as his hands rubbed the short, fuzzy pelt of hair now covering two thirds of her head.

Then Danny took his smaller clippers and trimmed her hairline, trimmed around her ears, and shape the little baby sideburns she had left. Yes! she thought. Get rid of those long curly wispy things!

Then it was time to take off that white towel and let down the longer hair on top.

While Leah wished the buzzing could’ve gone on forever, she was also eager to see the final result.

“Oh my God!” she said as Danny handed her the hand mirror. “I look so damn sexy!” Given how Danny had parted her hair, most of the longer layers fell to the right so her left side showed off her new short buzz cut hair. It looked great!

Leah couldn’t stop smiling. She kept playing with her hair, taking pictures, and running to the bathroom to look at herself in the big mirror. She was so happy! Danny was so happy for his best friend, too.

Leah couldn’t stop touching her hair either. This is exactly how she wanted her hair cut when she chopped it off back in January but Mel wouldn’t go this short, due to her very traditional ideas of beauty – and she’d never have used hair clippers to buzz her head!

“You did a better cut than Mel did,” Leah said coming back out of the bathroom, smiling from ear to ear. “What the hell am I going to the salon for?”

Danny laughed and Leah continued, “No, really. Would you be willing to start cutting my hair for me all the time? This is the best haircut I’ve ever had!”

“I’d love to!” Danny agreed happily.

They hugged. They played with her hair, Leah getting wonderful chills shooting through her body every time her hands or Danny’s slid over the buzzed parts. It was a dream come true!

Later that night Leah texted Danny. “I look so damn sexy,” she said again.

Again, his reply came right away. “You do! Leah, it looks so good on you. We nailed this. I’m so happy you like it :).”

“You’re amazing!” Leah texted back, on hand on her phone and one in her hair. “So…” she added. “What do you think about cutting my hair for me again?” and then “Next week?”

Leah’s smile grew as Danny’s enthusiastic reply came back. This was the new her she was seeking for all those months. And now Leah knew her Short Hair Era was here to stay! Weekly haircuts with her best friend sounded like the best thing ever.

Though that #4 guard had to go. Leah was already sure of that. She knew next week she’d have Danny use the #3. What’s the point of having short hair if you don’t have short short hair? Leah thought.

And if she was considering the #3, maybe it was a good idea to just skip down to the #2…