Long2Short
Hey everyone! I’ve been a contributor to the older sites (1hss, haircuttingstories.com, etc) for decades, and after reading some very kind words regarding my work from one of your contributors, I decided to re-upload most of my old stories onto the new site, along with a few of my most recent commissions. Hope you enjoy!
DAY 1
I took a deep breath as I looked at myself in the mirror, my dark brown hair looking thick and healthy and my light blue eyes set with grim determination.
Enjoy this, I told myself, this is the last time for a VERY long time your hair is ever going to look like this. In my right hand I held something that I was about to pass through my locks, and as I took another deep breath I reached up, placing the instrument at the front of my hairline…
…and ran the brush through my short, spiky hair. I flicked it through a few more times before setting it down and taking another long look at myself, wondering why I had even taken on this stupid bet in the first place.
All through high school all of my best friends had long hair, and I was always the odd girl out with hair that never reached past my collar. My freshman year I had worn my hair to just above my chin, my sophomore year I had cut it back to my ears, my junior year I had tried to grow it out to a chin length bob and kept it there until now, just two days before graduation I had chopped it all off into this new short, spiky haircut that I loved. My friends… not so much.
“But why Natalie? Why?” my best friend Holly asked, “Why would you cut your hair like that right before graduation?” she asked aghast. Her own beautiful dark blond hair fell in a straight fall to the top of her jeans, and she had the longest, most beautiful hair of all my friends in the room.
“Because I like short hair OK?” I replied, running my fingers through my short spiky locks and still a little stunned at how much silky bulk was now missing.
“But Natalie, your hair is so beautiful! I don’t understand why you don’t try growing it out because even when it was to your chin you can tell how thick and shiny it would be if you did for once,” Emily said, sitting on the love sack and sipping a diet coke. Her own dark red hair was lightly curled and immaculately fashioned in a spitting image of singer Karen Gillan’s distinct style that fell to the small of her back before she had shaved it.
“But I don’t want to grow it out is what I’m saying. What’s in it for me besides a giant pain in the ass to get ready every day?” That seemed to shut them up, but my three friends all looked at each other with a strange grin that made me feel a little uncomfortable.
“What if we made it worth your while?” Mindy asked, her own tightly curled strawberry blonde hair tumbled to below her bra strap in a beautiful fall of silky curls.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“Well… we’ve been talking, and we’re willing to make a bet that we can get you attached to long hair. For every ten inches you grow your hair, we’ll put a hundred and fifty dollars each into an account. You keep growing out your hair and the pot will keep getting higher. Once you get to forty-five inches though you have to make a decision, either keep your hair the way it is and break even, or shave your head and by that point there should be about 1800 dollars plus interest in the account that becomes yours.”
“But…” Holly interjected, tossing her lovely long hair behind her, “if you end the bet early and cut your hair short again, then we take back whatever is in the pot. That’s the deal.”
My three best friends stared at me as I considered the deal. I didn’t want to grow out my hair as I simply hated it long, but my hair grew obnoxiously quick, and standing at 5’7” would mean that 40 additional inches would result in me with hair down to the bottom of my butt, possibly past it. While the thought of so much hair sounded intolerable, the sound of 1800 plus dollars was certainly tempting. After a few minutes of debating, I looked at them with a smile and simply replied “Deal”.
So here I was, with my short, cropped hair about to become a thing of the past. At the rate my hair grew, I would have to wait until my senior year of college to get rid of it, but on top of how good shearing all that long off would feel would be almost 2000 dollars to sweeten the pot.
I set down my brush and crawled into bed, turning out the light and running my fingers through my short hair one last time before closing my eyes.
DAY 30
God, my hair was a mess! As I tried swishing my hair about my face to make it look presentable I began to silently curse myself for taking on this bet. My hair had grown out quickly as the summer began, and now my hair hung to my chin in various layers as a long shag made famous by Keira Knightley when she first hit the big screen. I had to get to work, but my hair looked ridiculous. I was only thirty days into this bet and I was already being driven mad by my growing hair. I knew this stage of growing was the hardest part, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. Finally after ten minutes of fussing, and a whole lot of help from some mousse, I got it into something resembling a style, so I walked out the door and headed to work.
DAY 91
“Are you as nervous as I am about college?” Holly asked me as we laid out on the beach on a warm August day, her amazing long hair tied back in a thick ponytail.
“A little, but excited too.” I replied. College was just a week around the corner, and my four friends and I were all enrolled in the same college, so even though I was a little nervous about starting, I wouldn’t be doing so alone.
“So how are you doing with your hair?” Holly asked.
“It’s irritating, but not as bad as it used to be,” My own hair had finally reached a tolerable length, and I had chopped the layers into a more manageable and evenly layered chin length bob, just like I’d had it most of senior year. I had reached my first ten inch benchmark and the girls had plunked the first 450 dollars into a saving account, but I knew this would be the easiest ten inches I was going to get to.
“So do you think you’re going to be able to make it?” Holly asked. I shrugged.
“I don’t know, but it’s going to be an irritating ride whatever happens.” I replied.
Day 214
Holly, Emily, Mindy and I were all sitting at our favorite bar, enjoying drinks and having a good time.
“So is this officially the longest you’ve ever had your hair?” Emily asked me as she delicately reached out and tucked a loose sheaf of hair behind my ear. She had recently just cut her hair into a cute, layered, bouncy style, but lost several inches in process and it now fell to just below her bra strap.
“Close,” I replied, “when I was little I had it down to my shoulder blades, but that was way before I met you guys.” As I spoke another loose lock had tumbled in front of my face, and I playfully blew it away from me. As for my current length, my hair had grown out to fourteen inches with regular trims and now just barely brushed my shoulders when I wore it loose, which was rare. As I grew it out I had taken to normally wearing it up (which was alien to me since ponytails had been a foreign concept to me most of my life), but the girls had found this unacceptable and added a stipulation to our contract that I had to wear it down whenever we were together.
“I have to admit, it looks really good on you Natalie.” Holly added. She had recently confided in me that she was going to grow her hair out to show support for me and her gorgeous golden locks now fell halfway down her butt. “What do you think about it now?”
“Still hate it.” I replied as I took another drink. I didn’t care how great my hair looked or how gorgeously it shined (as my friends often commented on), all I could think of as I dried it every morning for what seemed an eternity was the thought of one day shaving all of it off, like peeling an onion.
“Well, it’s still early.” Mindy smirked.
DAY 392
Holly and I jogged down the boardwalk on a warm, pleasant June day, our ponytails swishing in unison against our backs. My own dark, thick pony dangled down to my armpits at twenty-three inches and looked rather lovely, but it still couldn’t hold a torch to Holly’s thick, golden mane that fell to the bottom of her ass, tied into a braid that was as thick as my relatively athletic arm.
The summer was still young and fresh, rejuvenating us to get our firm, toned high school bodies back. We had each put on roughly ten pounds during our freshman year and while the weight barely showed on our still relatively fantastic bodies, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to shed that weight before our sophomore year.
“So what do you think of Emily’s new cut?” Holly asked. Emily had recently chopped off several more inches, and her dark red hair now tumbled to her shoulder blades.
“Oh my God, what’s she doing to her hair?” I asked, “Why would you do that to hair so beautiful?”
“I know huh? It would be a shame for someone with such gorgeous hair to just… cut it so short.” She turned to look at me with a smirk pulling at her mouth and I saw what she was doing, her braid draped over her shoulder and falling to her leggings.
“Oh no way, not funny,” I replied with a smirk, “that’s completely different, her hair is way prettier than mine.”
“I respectfully disagree. Her hair is just longer than yours. Come on, you have to admit, it looks pretty darn good on you,” Holly egged me on, and even though I did indeed agree that I thought I looked good with my new, long, glossy chocolate locks adorning my back, I just didn’t think it fit me the same way as my old haircut.
“If you want it, you can have it.” I replied right back with a smile.
“Not until another twenty-three inches girl,” Holly said. She had been designated to be the one who kept tabs on my hair growth, and she was good at it, OBNOXIOUSLY good.
DAY 476
“Twenty-Nine inches!” Holly yelled as she rolled the measuring tape back up. Emily and Mindy squealed in delight and I smiled reflexively. We were all gathered in Mindy’s room when Holly brought up that it was time to check my hair’s progress again, so out had come the tape and a quick measurement made. My silky brown hair now fell to my bra strap and looked just as healthy and beautiful as it normally did. “So are you ready to admit that you like long hair yet? Mindy, will you STOP THAT?!?”
“I’m sorry, I’m just nervous is all!” Mindy replied as she continued to run a brush through her beautiful, wavy strawberry-blond locks. She had been concerned because the last few weeks she had noticed more and more hair in her brush whenever she brushed out her hair, but we assured her that this sort of thing happened all the time to people. Sometimes stress, or diet, or just natural aging caused hair to fall out in spurts, and with her hair so thick it wouldn’t even show.
Secretly though I had been a little worried about Mindy’s mane. It certainly didn’t look any less thick, beautiful, or shiny, but something about it had seemed… off the last few weeks. Normally her gorgeous, bouncy mane shined and moved with a life of its own, but lately it seemed almost like it was… slack… or lifeless.
“It’s only because you keep brushing it so much.” Emily replied, walking behind her and taking the brush from her hand so she could take a turn brushing it. “So Natalie, you never answered.”
I remembered that Holly had asked me about my hair, and in a moment of weakness I had almost let it slip that earlier this morning after I had dried my hair into its perfect poker-straight fall of silk I had tried my hand at a braid that Holly had been teaching me how to do. Over my life my hair had rarely been long enough to put in a ponytail, let alone braid, but Holly had a talent for teaching hair care and had taught me how to do it in about a week. Now as I fashioned my long hair into a tight single braid I looked at myself with a smile and thought I like this style… I like… my hair? It was a shock, the thought of myself admitting that I liked my hair long, but it was undeniable, I was starting to actually appreciate my hair long and beautiful.
“Not a chance.” I replied with a smile, but unconsciously I reached up and fiddled with a lock of my hair as I turned to look at Emily, who was pulling another bundle of Mindy’s hair out of her brush with a look of honest concern crossing her face.
DAY 505
I put on the last of my makeup and fluffed up my hair, which now hung down my back at thirty inches in a silken curtain. We were going out to buy drinks for Mindy to cheer her up since she had just been diagnosed with something called Alopecia Totalis, which was slowly claiming her beautiful, bouncing, strawberry-blond waves.
It had barely been a month since she recognized something was wrong, and in that short time we could now notice patches of her hair that had thinned noticeably already. Poor Mindy’s crowning glory was her hair, and cruel fate was slowly taking it from her.
As I stared at my lovely brown locks though all I could think of was why this had to happen to poor Mindy and why it couldn’t happen to me. Sure, I was growing fond of my growing locks, but they only tumbled down just past my bra strap at thirty inches…
DAY 591
… to my waist at thirty-three inches
DAY 622
…to my elbows at thirty-five inches…
DAY 656
…to my tailbone at thirty-seven inches.
“Perfect!” I said as I looked at the back of my hair in the reverse reflection of the handheld mirror I was holding and placed it back on the counter, “this came out MUCH better than I was expecting”.
It had been five months since poor Mindy had been diagnosed with Alopecia and in that time my hair had grown seven whole inches! Even with my hair growing longer and more beautiful by the week, it showed no signs of slowing with length, and it now fell to my tailbone and just a few inches from the top of my butt in a lovely and thick blanket of flowing, rippling silk, with the color and sheen of melted chocolate. I took a moment to take in just how different my hair was from 655 days ago. It was stunning to think that in such a relatively short time my hair could have made me look so different.
I had spent some extra time tonight trying out a new hairstyle, and the result had come out BEAUTIFULLY. I had curled the bottom third of my hair into big barrel curls, then mixed them in with the rest of my straight, flowing, chocolate locks. As a result, my hair now stacked off my back beautifully, adding so much volume and “oomph” that it looked like a modern marvel of hair. But for all its beauty and sheen, my friends’ hair had changed dramatically.
Gone were Emily’s long, healthy tresses as she had methodically taken her gorgeous dark red mane shorter and shorter in steady stages. She had first taken her waist length hair to her bra strap, and then her shoulder blades, and then her shoulders despite our pleas for her to keep it long. It now hung in a thick bob to just below her chin, and we had a feeling that there was still more to come from the always unpredictable Emily.
The condition of poor Mindy’s hair had deteriorated quickly over the last five months, with patches of her gorgeous soft hair falling out seemingly at random and leaving her with slowly growing bald patches covering the crown of her head. She had taken to pulling her hair back into a tight bun to cover the damage, and while this style currently worked at covering up the growing bald spots spreading over her crown, the size of her bun had progressively shrunk over time. At the rate it was fading it was only a matter of time before this style could no longer hide the damage this disease had done to her formerly beautiful mane. We were taking her out tonight to try and boost her spirits, and in retrospect, I was beginning to worry if this style was a bad idea for tonight. I felt bad that my hair had come out looking so thick and so amazing while hers was slowly being stolen away.
As for Holly, she was now my only partner in keeping her hair long and beautiful. She had initially decided to grow her hair out in support for me during my bet, but as her hair had crept past her butt she had quickly given up on her show of support and chopped her hair back so that it now hung to where he butt met her thighs. She still had me beaten for length, but as thick, healthy, and shiny as her gorgeous mane was, my own beautifully luscious locks were clearly much healthier and thicker than even her remarkable mane could hold a torch to…
…but for how much longer? I couldn’t deny that time was running out for my beautiful mane, and even though part of me still longed for the money and the comfort of having short hair, a new part of me had awoken that had grown to love this amazing mane, and I didn’t know which side would win out.
DAY 745
Is this it? Is this what I really want to do? I asked myself as I looked in the mirror at my gorgeously long princess locks. My silky tresses had crept down to the forty inch mark, and the ends now dangled just below the top of my shapely bottom. I had tried to ignore this decision for a long time, but I could ignore it no longer, time was running out, and I had to come to a decision about the fate of my hair. I thought I had come to a decision, but I couldn’t believe what that decision had ended up being.
I pulled my long locks back behind my head as tightly as I could, trying to picture myself without my soft, silky hair framing my face as beautifully as it naturally did. It had been over two years since I had started growing, over two years of regular trims and long drying sessions and deep conditionings. But now, two long years later, my gorgeous mane was now running out of time. But as much as I craved my short, inch-long hair, as irritating as this massive bulk of heavy, thick, living silk could be, and as relieving as the thought of shaving it all off felt, there was one small detail keeping me from going through with it.
I fucking LOVED my hair!
Is THIS my final decision? Am I deciding here and now that… I’m going to KEEP my hair after all? The large toothy grin that was spreading across my face was all the answer I needed. YES! That voice resounded in my head. That voice resounded in my head. Yes I most certainly am!
I laughed at myself in the mirror in disbelief as I released my flowing locks to fall back into place like they always did so perfectly. The girls had done it… against all odds, they had caused to fall madly, desperately, hopelessly in love with my hair!
I can’t do it… I thought to myself as I ran my fingers all the way through my butt length mane, I can’t part with my hair, Holly was right!
Part of me hated my friends for tricking me into this, part of me hated the fact that they had gotten me into this mess in the first place knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to cut off my hair, but at the end of the day I couldn’t stay mad at them. As I continued to run my fingers through my soft locks I realized that a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. My hair was mine, it was all MINE, and even though I may not be keeping all that money after all the hard work I had put into my hair, it didn’t matter because being able to keep my hair was totally, unequivocally, undeniably worth it!
DAY 790
Holly and I were running once again down the boardwalk on a hot July day, just like every Saturday since we began our weekly tradition to maintain our solid bodies. Holly’s amazing honey blond ponytail was tied up once again in a massively thick ponytail that still hung down to the bottom of her butt. I had tied my own beautiful hair (now forty-two inches and ready to pass Holly’s record length of the bottom of my butt) into a loose, floppy braid that was as think as my arm. We stopped at the drinking fountain and I tossed my long braid over my shoulder with a well practiced flick of the wrist. As I sipped the warm water, Holly leaned on the nearby table and eyed my long braid.
“You’re keeping your hair, aren’t you?” she asked point blank.
I choked in surprise at the question, as I hadn’t even hinted that I had decided to keep my hair after all. I had been planning on keeping my friends in suspense on my decision until the day I hit forty-five inches, which at this rate was still three to four months away. “What? What makes you think that?” I asked, still coughing between words.
“I can just tell. I see the way you play with your hair now, the looks you give it when you’re brushing it, the tiny smile on your face when you’re braiding it, the little things that tell me that… finally… you’ve fallen in love with your hair.” Holly smiled a sly, knowing smile.
“Whatever,” I replied, I had been tempted to cave and tell her about my decision, but I had come this far already, so why blow it now? “keep thinking that, it’s only going to surprise you more when I take it all off.” I mimed running a razor over my head, but inwardly I shuddered at the idea of losing my newly treasured locks to the clippers.
“We’ll see,” Holly continued, “it’ll be a shame if you do though, we need someone in our group to carry on the long hair tradition, may as well be the newest member.” She pulled her long ponytail over her shoulder and began fiddling with the ends.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, you know… Emily is a lost cause, Mindy’s losing more hair by the day, and I… well… I may not have long hair forever.” Holly said in a tone of voice that I couldn’t decide was quiet sincerity or subtle teasing. What did she have in mind?
“What do you mean?” I asked, walking over to her. Emily had indeed cut even more of her hair off, cutting it back to an ear length bob and Mindy’s poor mane was thinning to the point where she couldn’t hide it in a bun anymore, but Holly? Was the leader of our hair cult planning on doing something to her treasured mane? A mane that I had spent countless hours brushing for her and styling? “Holly, what do you mean?” I repeated, a hint of panic creeping into my voice.
“Let’s head back.” Holly replied, but I grabbed her elbow before she could take off. Her head whipped around to look at me, her long ponytail swirling about her head and the soft locks caressing my knuckles.
“Holly… tell me you’re not planning on doing anything to your hair!” I nearly yelled. She sighed and smiled back at me.
“Fine… I’m not planning on doing anything to my hair.” She said.
DAY 822
I snapped the clippers on and Holly raised an eyebrow playfully. “Holly, please don’t make me do this.” I begged as I advanced on her. Holly’s hair gleamed brilliantly in the lights, freshly styled and lightly curled at the bottom immaculately for its final hours.
Yesterday Holly had told Mindy, Emily and me about her apparent lifelong dream of growing her hair to her butt and then shaving it all off, and that after almost three years of fighting the urge, she had finally decided to go through with it now that she had what she called “a worthy successor” (i.e. me) to carry on the tradition of having beautiful hair. She said she wanted us there with her when she did it and she wanted one of us to do the actual clipping, but even if we said “no way” she was just going to march into her bathroom and do the job herself. We begrudgingly agreed, and after drawing straws it was decided that I would be the one to send her beautiful mane to the floor.
“Natalie, don’t make this harder.” Holly said as she shut her eyes and took one last deep breath. “Okay… do it.” She said, as she gripped the edge of her chair and bounced her leg up and down nervously.
I looked at Emily, whose once waist-length dark red hair had been slowly reduced to a ear-length bob. Then I looked at the newly bald Mindy, whose once ravishing and thick, lightly-curled hair had been slowly eaten away into a stray wisps of thin hair that were still continuing to vanish off of her head. It had gotten so bad that tonight, on the night of Holly’s shave, she had taken the chair first and had us clip off the last remaining patches of hair so she could join Holly.
Some horrible curse had fallen on our group, and as soon as I pushed these clippers into Holly’s head, I would be the last person in our group with long, beautiful hair. True, it was enough hair for four people, but I still felt like it wasn’t fair for me to continue this tradition, no matter how much I loved my hair. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I felt like if I were to destroy Holly’s beautiful hair, I would be cursing myself somehow, that the God of Hair would somehow demand my beautiful locks as well in order to appease its appetite.
I looked down at Holly’s hair, so full of life and shine that the strands almost seemed to glow. Every tiny movement of her head caused them to flutter softly and shimmer beautifully like it was alive, it was strange to think that hair so thick, so heavy, so warm and so soft, was moments away from a quiet death, doomed to fall to the floor and slowly wither away, becoming nothing but a memory.
“DO IT!” Holly yelled, eyes still closed. I jumped a little, but then advanced and in one swift movement placed the clippers at the center of her hairline and pushed them back into her lush jungle of golden silk. She gasped in surprise and her eyes shot open, her mouth hanging open in a silent scream, but as the clippers moved deep into her thick pile of hair a grin began to spread across her mouth. The pitch of the clippers changed to a dull roar as Holly’s thick hair briefly put up a fight for its life and clogged the razor sharp blades, but it was a losing fight, and with the slightest of pauses the blades picked back up and continued to systematically destroy her golden mane.
I slowly continued to push the clippers deeper into Holly’s luscious tresses, watching massive sheets of golden blond silk slip silently off of her head and fall to the floor with an audible thud. It was a testament to the health of someone’s hair when it could make an audible thud on the floor when it fell. I finished the first pass and gasped when I saw the white, sick looking strip right in the middle of Holly’s beautiful and thick golden locks.
I paused then and there, taking in the strange sight of so much hair surrounding a bare patch of scalp. It was so bizarre to see, so wrong on Holly, who for years had been the poster child of long, beautiful hair, but it was undeniably real. Here was the beginning of the end for the most magnificent mane I had ever seen (until mine had usurped it of course), but with a grim determination, I set out to finish it.
I placed the clippers at the side of her head, close to the edge of the denuded strip that ran down the middle of her head, and peeled off another sheaf of thick, golden silk. It was like harvesting a treasure of hair, and I felt like I was committing a crime against humanity by destroying this hair, but I needed to see it through. I made another pass and another, and soon the only hair on the right side of her head was the small strip still clinging for dear life over her right ear, but with a quick flick of the wrist, even that hair disappeared.
Thick, luscious blond hair still covered the left side of her head, a shocking and stark contrast to the harsh, prickly stubble adorning the right side, so I set off to end that terrible contrast. I moved the clippers off and made another pass down the left-center portion of her head, spreading the irreversible destruction of her gorgeous hair to the other side of her head. I debated taking a break before making another pass, but I wanted to end this massacre of beautiful hair as quickly as possible, so I kept working.
I took two more massive swipes of hair, removing the hair from the front of her head to the very back with each swipe. It wasn’t long before history repeated itself and the only hair left on her head was a strand hanging over her left ear, and once again, I removed it with a quick flick of the wrist. Holly’s gorgeous hair, which had made countless girls in high school and college green with envy, was gone forever, replaced with a soft pelt of barely visible stubble. The floor at her feet was a pile of thick golden silk, the floor completely hidden under all that hair, hair which had just 90 seconds ago bounced playfully and danced beautifully atop Holly’s head.
“It’s… it’s all gone,” Holly said as she reached up and slowly, tenderly, ran her hand over the prickly stubble that had just moments ago been a jungle of lush, golden silk, “oh my God, it’s GONE!”
“Yeah,” I replied slowly, adding my hand to the top of her head, “I hope it was everything you were expecting, after all, I know all about…”
“Oh God!” I was cut off as Holly let out a single loud cry and buried her face in her hands.
The rest of us looked at each other with wide, shocked eyes, not understanding what just happened, but suddenly we heard deep, weeping sobs rise up from Holly, her face still buried in her hands. We each went over to her, Emily and Mindy hugging her tight while I rubbed her back lightly to comfort her. After a few moments the sobs stopped and she raised her face, tears streaking her lovely features.
“This was such a mistake,” she said softly, and we looked at her with shocked faces, “I thought this was what I wanted… but I already miss my hair. And now… now it’s all gone.”
“But your hair grows so fast!” Mindy said as she kept hugging Holly tight, “you’ll have it back in no time.”
“And I’ve gotta say, you look GREAT with a shaved head,” Emily added, “you can really pull it off.”
“Holly, if you hadn’t done it, you’d be regretting it your whole life,” I added, I wasn’t sure if that was what she wanted to hear, but I knew for a fact she NEEDED to hear it, “you’d have your hair, but you’d be wondering your whole life what it would have been like if you had gone through with your bucket list. Now when it grows back, it will mean that much more to you.”
“That’s… a REALLY good point Natalie,” Holly said, and I saw her face brighten a bit, “and thank all you guys, I’m sorry I broke down like that, I was so sure this was what I wanted… but now all I want is my hair back.”
“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir sister!” Mindy said as she ran her hand over stubble, and we all laughed.
“Well, the good news is that now we have someone to carry on for us,” Emily said as she looked to me, “and I’ve gotta say, she’s a worthy successor.”
“Well don’t get too comfortable with that line of thinking,” I said as I stretched my back, tilting my head back to let my long hair spill even longer down my back, “because pretty soon, you’re going to be the last of us with ANY hair.”
“Uh huh, sure,” she said with a smile as she ruffled her spiky pixie cut, her newest chop had taken her to the length my hair had been when this all began.
I smiled sardonically, trying to keep up the façade, but fooling no one. It looked like everyone was in on the fact that I had decided to keep my hair after all, but I decided there was no harm in pretending otherwise.
If I only knew that I may have just jinxed myself with that little stunt.
DAY 924
“Shit, shit, SHIT!” I said as I looked over my bank account, “what the hell was I THINKING?!?”
I gathered my long, thick hair and pulled it over my shoulder as I pulled up a sheet of my finances, the soft weight of my silky locks giving me comfort as I tried not to panic.
I had left my job last week for a new, better, higher paying job. I had been ecstatic to start, and did the one thing I swore to never do, spent a lot of money I didn’t have.
I had bought a new wardrobe of expensive business suits, financed a new car, indulged myself and treated myself like a queen, because after all, this job was AMAZING!
Or it would have been… if I had started when they promised.
But alas, two days before I was supposed to begin working I received an email saying they were pushing my start date back by a month due to legal issues with them creating the new opening. So here I was, needing to find a way to make it through the next month on a shoestring budget and maxed out cards. After crunching the numbers and cutting every corner I could think of, this still left me in the whole by close to 1000 dollars. I needed money to make it until my job started, and I needed it FAST!
“Fuck, what am I going to do?” I asked nobody in particular.
Rent was due way before my first payday, and if I didn’t pay, there went my credit score, and with it, my new job. I reached up and ran my fingers through my beloved locks, an action which always soothed me when I was stressed. The feel of my soft hair, the slight whisper as my fingers slid through, the way it glistened in the lights as they fluttered with the movement, it was all wonderful.
There IS another way to get that money, I heard a voice in my head said, there’s always… THAT option.
My eyes flew open as I sat up straight in my chair, looking at myself in the nearby mirror, unable to believe what I was thinking.
“No,” I said quietly to myself as I shook my head, “no, absolutely not! There has to be another way!”
My mind desperately tried to rationalize, and I thought in silence for 15 minutes, but I knew this to be a false hope. If there was any hope for me to pay my rent and bills on time to avoid a smear on my credit report, my beautiful long hair was going to have to come off. I slunk down into my chair in dejection, grabbing two massive fistfuls of my gorgeous, flowing, silken lock and tossing them over my shoulders as I stood up and walked to my nearest full-length mirror.
I turned and looked at myself and my hair in its full glory. We had decided that forty-five inches was the bottom of my butt, and when I wore it down the tips fell nearly half an inch past it, thick, beautiful, and gorgeous all the way through. The time had come to decide my hair’s fate, but now it seemed like cruel fate had made the decision for me.
“Noooooooo…” I moaned as I sank into a nearby chair and lamented the fact that my hair was doomed after all, “this isn’t fair! I love my hair! I don’t want to lose it after all this hard work!”
But I knew it was futile. After nearly three years of growing out this beautiful hair, of caring for it, deep conditioning it, brushing it, doting on it, pampering it, and finally, falling completely and impossibly in love with it, my hair was suddenly living on borrowed time. My rent was due in 9 days, but I knew the girls were measuring my hair out again in six. That left me with enough time to pay rent, but it also meant that my hair only had six days left on Earth. After all this work, and I only had six days left to enjoy my wonderful hair. I wanted to cry, but I refused to. If this was truly the end for my gorgeous hair, then I planned on spending the next six days enjoying it as much as possible.
Because it would be my last chance to do so.
DAY 930
The girls all gasped. Emily and Mindy sat there dumbfounded, unable to move, as Holly’s hand flew to her mouth at my response. Finally, after a few moments of dead silence, Holly lowered her hand and confirmed what she had just heard.
“That… that was a joke, right Natalie?”
“No joke Holly, it’s game time,” I said to Holly as I sat in the chair with a forced smile, my hair spilling over my shoulders tumbling down the sides of my lap, then I turned to Mindy, who was holding the clippers with trembling hands, “get rid of all this hair.”
All things considered though, I had to admit that I was handling the situation pretty well. After nearly three years of hard work getting my hair to where it was, my glorious mane was now moments away from being cruelly stolen away from me after I had finally fallen madly in love with it. But even though I was dying on the inside, I was still managing to smile in the face of my hair’s impending doom. I was wearing a simple green cotton dress to try and keep as much of my soon-to-be-sheared hair from clinging to me.
But to be fair, a lot of that probably had to do with the fact that I was just plain cried out over the idea of losing my hair. I had spent the last 6 days wearing my hair in every style I could imagine, spent every second cherishing the feeling of it swishing around my head as I walked, and every moment committing the feeling of my soft, silken locks to memory. Last night in particular had been very rough, as I had spent three straight hours in a white tank top and tiny denim shorts pampering my long mane for the last time:
Fluffing it…
Brushing it…
Tossing it…
Or just playing with it. Running my fingers through the warm, soft lengths, usually with tears in my eyes knowing that by this time tomorrow, I’d never be able to do so again.
Needless to say, I shed a LOT of tears last night, but on the plus side, it had finally hardened me for what was coming.
“I… I don’t…” Mindy said, her hand still trembling as she fiddled with the controls of the clippers, “I don’t know if I… but WHY Natalie?!? Why are you doing this to your hair? I mean, LOOK at it! It’s so beautiful!”
“Oh you don’t need to tell me how beautiful it is,” I said with a grin as I ran my fingers through my remarkable mane, doing so very slowly and methodically as I knew it would be the last time, “after all, it’s on MY head… well, maybe not for long.”
“Nat, PLEASE don’t do this,” Holly said as she plucked the clippers from Mindy’s still trembling hands, “I know more than anyone how much you’ll regret this, how much you’ll miss your hair when it’s gone.”
“Oh I know I’m going to miss it something awful,” I replied with another sly grin, “but that’s beside the point. So are you going to shave me, or am I going to have to do it myself?”
There was a long moment of silence as the girls looked at each other, and for a moment… just a moment… I began to feel hope in the impossible. For a moment, I began to think that the girls were going to pull a fast one on me, to let me keep the money in exchange for keeping my hair, and for a moment I felt my heart race at the idea of being able to keep my beautiful long hair forever.
But then I gulped as I heard the familiar SNAP BZZZZZZZZZZ of Holly turning on the clippers, and I felt a small tremor begin running down my body as she brought them closer and closer to my hairline, my beautiful long hair fluttering with the motion in its final moments as I continued to shake uncontrollably, as if it was begging for its life, and I knew this was the end for my hair.
Holly placed the clippers on my forehead at my right temple, right next to my eyebrow, and then she tilted my head to the left. I heard her take a deep breath, and I realized that she was dreading what was about to happen to my mane just as much as I was, and she was steeling herself against the idea that she would be the one to destroy such beautiful hair. I was hoping the pause would go one forever, or that she would hand the clippers off to Emily, anything to give me even one more second with my remarkable mane, but then seemingly out of nowhere, her resolve doubled, and she quickly pushed the clippers up my sideburns and into my hairline over my right ear.
I gasped as the clippers bit into my hairline, sliding into my thick locks and almost stopping completely as my super thick hair slowed the blades dramatically, but only for a second, and then I heard the blades pick their speed back up, and the complete and total destruction of my hair began in earnest. Holly had taken care to sharpen and oil the blades for her own shave, and now the clippers slid through my hair like a blowtorch through butter, severing 46 inch-long locks from my head. Thick, soft, silken hair, freshly separated by the steel blades, slid down the right side of my head and fell to the floor in a chocolate-colored pile of shining silk.
Holly had stripped away the hair over my ear from my temple all the way back to the back of my head, and I wanted to scream “STOP!” right then and there. I still had the bulk of my beautiful hair, and I could still pass off the damage as a side-shave, which everyone was doing these day. It would take years to undo the damage that a single swipe had done, but it would be worth it if it meant I could still keep my beautiful hair. But then the feeling passed as I realized I still needed the money, and I let Holly continue to strip away my treasured locks.
Holly pulled my hair up and slid the clippers into another large chuck of my mane, peeling it away cleanly like she had been doing this for years. I felt some of the locks get stuck in the hard, bristly stubble that had replaced the beautiful, soft jungle of silk that had just adorned the area, but the vast majority of it slid down the side of my head and joined its fallen brethren on the floor. It was in that moment that I realized just how much hair I had, I had only lost two strips of it to the clippers, barely 10-percent of it, and the pile on the floor was already absolutely massive!
The bulk of my hair still remained on my head, but Holly changed that on seconds. Swipe after swipe reduced the remaining hair at a rapid rate, and before long, the entire right side of my head had been deprived of the gorgeous, long, glistening locks that had covered it mere seconds ago, leaving a pelt of rough, harsh stubble in its wake. I looked in the mirror while Holly took a brief break and gasped at the stark difference between the two sides of my head.
Half of my head was still covered in a sea of flowing, silken locks that tumbled down to my butt, the other half was a barren, nightmarish landscape of hard stubble. I tilted my head to the side and closed one eye, able to picture my entire head still covered in those glorious, lost locks, but Holly continued onto the other side, and stole even that fleeting hope away from me.
I expected Holly to move to my left ear and shave the second half of my head the same way she shaved the first, but instead she continued moving from right to left, continuing to strip the hair from the top of my head and moving towards my ear. My head was getting lighter and lighter by the second as the heavy weight of my hair was removed faster and faster, reminding me just how heavy my magnificent mane had been with each swipe. Pass after pass stole more and more of my hair from me, and the last traces of my formerly glorious mane were slowly and systematically stripped away from me. Before long, all that remained was a single thick strip of chocolate brown hanging from around my left ear, but with one final swipe, even that strand was severed, and the final trace of what had once been the most beautiful mane in the world (at least to me) was gone forever.
“I hope you’re happy,” Holly said angrily as she turned off the clippers and watched me rub my hands over the stubble that had once been my glorious hair, “whatever it was that you were trying to teach us, I sure as shit didn’t learn it.”
“Yeah Nat, what the hell?” Emily asked, “we know you were finally in love with your hair, why would you do this? Just to spite us?”
I continued to rub my head as I looked at myself in the mirror, ignoring their questions for the time being. It looked terrible, even worse than the pixie cut that had begun this crazy wager. My beautiful hair was all gone, but at least it was over, and the horrible fear that had been plaguing me incessantly for the last six days had passed. I wanted nothing more than to be reunited with my beautiful mane, but the girls deserved an answer for what had just happened. So after getting over the abomination that was my new haircut, I turned to them with a sigh.
“No Emily, it wasn’t to spite you,” I said slowly and sadly, “and you guys were right, against all odds, I DID fall in love with my hair, but to put it simply, I just needed the money.”
I explained the situation to them, and watched their anger dissolve quickly into sympathy.
“Oh honey,” Holly said as she walked over to me and hugged me, “Oh dear, dear Natalie, I wish you had just told us this from the beginning, we would have just GIVEN you the money.”
“Yeah, totally!” Emily said, joining in the hug, “we would have considered it a low interest loan!”
Holly and Mindy looked at her dangerously.
“Zero interest loan?” she corrected sheepishly.
I laughed, but wiped away a tear I was shedding at the compassion of my friends.
“I know you guys would have, that’s why I didn’t tell you. It wouldn’t have been fair. A part of me needed to pay for that colossal mistake of my hubris, and losing my hair was a good a punishment as any,” I said, reaching down and picking up a massive bundle of my hair from the pile, “besides, I was looking for prices online for selling hair, and this mane of mine will be getting AT LEAST an extra thousand dollars.”
“Good,” Holly said with a smile, “then you can buy us an apology dinner.”
And we all laughed.
DAY 2390
It’s been three years since I surrendered my beautiful hair to the clippers that fateful day. Three years that felt like they flew by, and while the four of us were still close, so much had happened in our lives that we seemed like different people.
Mindy had graduated at the top of her class, and was working for the conglomerate research lab “Galley Pharmaceuticals”. She was one of the best at her job when it came to researching cures and treatments for rare diseases. As for her hair, well…the last traces of it had vanished within months of her shaving her hair off, the Alopecia claiming her stubble bit by bit until it was impossible for her to grow anything on her head. But one day that may change, as Mindy was currently using her resources to work on a cure for Alopecia in hopes of one day being reunited with her beautiful mane of strawberry-blond curls.
Emily had gone into the world of fashion, growing out her fiery red hair into a unique inverted ear-length bob that quickly became her trademark style. It was shorter than it had been in its glory days, but was still longer than it had gone to during the days of the wager. Emily’s first year as a designer had been nothing but hard work, but it had paid off, as her designs and fame were really blowing up in the fashion industry.
Holly had gotten a paid internship at a local investment firm her senior year, and by the time she had graduated she had proven herself as a truly lawyer at her firm and was making a killing at it. She had also been working tirelessly to grow back her own beautiful, golden mane, and over the last three years had grown it out all the way to the small of her back, and in another year or so, her hair would probably be back to the middle of her butt like she wanted. It was looking like they might be looking to make her partner, and her gorgeous hair had earned her a nickname in the courtroom, “Lawyer Barbie”.
As for me, I had gone into architecture, and was a rapidly rising star at my current firm. My designs were simple, but elegant, and highly sought after for someone who had been in the business for as short a time as I had.
As for my hair, well…
I had tried, I REALLY had. The months after the shave I had dedicated myself 100% to growing my hair back to the beautiful, shining, soft blanket of silk that had fallen to below my butt, but as time went on and my hair grew out, I realized that things were different. The drive and motivation that the wager had given me to follow through on this adventure just weren’t there anymore, and after about a year I had called it quits when my hair had reached to about my bra strap. I had cut it back to my shoulders and had worn it at that length ever since, still longer than I had it before my wager, but a far cry from the beautiful silken treasure I had once possessed.
But I still thought about it… I still thought about it constantly. The wonderful sensation of brushing out that magnificent hair, the gentle tugs on it from the men I would date as they played with it, the soft whisper of my fingers gliding through it, there were so many things I missed about it. Even the inconveniences it brought me like the pain of sitting on it, or when it would get stuck in a door were events that I found myself looking back on fondly and missing terribly.
One night I was getting ready for bed, putting my hair up in a simple bun, when I began thinking about my lost hairstyle once again. What would it be like to grow it all back again? How long would it take? My hair was already much longer than it had been when I began the wager, down to my shoulders instead of that awful pixie cut I had loved so much, so instead of a full three years to get to that length, I could likely do it in two, two-and-a-half tops.
I sighed and thought long and hard, like I had so many times before when I debated whether or not to pursue my dream of being reunited with my beautiful, goddess hair. I was only 25 years-old, if I wanted to, I could have my long hair again by the time I was 27. Did I want to do this? Would I follow through this time?
I sat at my vanity for a very long time that night… wondering.
THE END
As I mentioned above, I have a massive collection of haircutting and shaving commissions on my DeviantArt page, most of them commissions, which can be viewed here: https://www.deviantart.com/writer4hire0316/gallery
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