Snagg
Janis was in his early 20s, studying modern languages. He was neither particularly tall nor particularly short. He was slim, not very muscular, with little body hair and sparse facial hair.
His light brown, slightly wavy hair fell in a tousled mess. It was about 10 centimeters long on top, slightly shorter in the back and on the sides.
He had a silver earring in his left ear, narrow braided leather straps around his wrists, and was wearing white briefs. Other than that, he was naked. He stood in front of the mirror and examined himself.
He was a twink. And he had no problem with that. He liked his body; building up a lot of muscle mass wasn’t his ideal. He exercised both to stay fit and because he enjoyed being active: swimming once or twice a week, jogging now and then, and judo every Thursday.
Next to him on the bed lay the floral shirt and the blue jeans that he had first put on and then taken off again.
“I don’t want to see myself in those clothes anymore!” he thought.
His closet was full of brightly colored clothes. Had he actually liked them when he bought them? In any case, now he was feeling less and less like wearing them.
“These clothes… that’s not me. Or not anymore.”
He took out the camouflage pants he had bought a few weeks ago, which had been sitting unworn at the bottom of his closet until then.
“What do you want with pants like that?” Marius, his best friend, had asked. “Are you trying to act all tough now?”
Janis hadn’t dared to wear the pants yet, any more than he had dared to wear the black combat boots he’d bought online.
In an online forum, he’d asked, “Is it okay for a twink to go for a look like a soldier?”
“There’s no law that says a twink has to look like a pop star,” had been one of the replies.
His body trembled as he put on the pants. They were in woodland camouflage, his favorite camouflage pattern.
“Will my skinny body look ridiculous in army gear?” he had asked on the forum.
“A look only looks ridiculous if you don’t own it.”
He took a pair of thick, dark red socks out of the closet, put them on, and then slipped into the boots. He stuffed his pant legs in, then laced up the boots.
Next, he put on the olive-green T-shirt his brother had left behind on his last visit. He tucked the T-shirt into his pants and fastened his belt.
He checked himself in the mirror. He looked like someone who didn’t care about pleasing anyone. For the first time in a long while, the reflection felt honest. But the change didn’t go far enough. He wanted an even rougher aesthetic. More offensive, more aggressive.
He ran his hand through his hair. How many times had he googled things like “twink buzz cut” or “twink head shave”?
At first, it had seemed like just an idea to him, but then the urge had grown stronger. He longed to get his hair clipped down to extremely short stubble. An induction cut.
He didn’t want his head shaved completely smooth; that was too polished, in his opinion. He favored the look of a new recruit or a prisoner. Badass and submissive at the same time.
“What’s holding you back from looking the way you want to look?” BaldBob, a guy from the forum, had written to him.
“I’m afraid of how others will react, my family, my friends, the people at university.”
“They’ll probably react, but not necessarily as much as you might think. You should be more afraid of not being yourself.”
Janis picked up his phone from the desk, took a deep breath, and then dialed Marius’s number.
“Can we talk?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Do you remember those pants I bought the other day…”
When Janis had finished, he heard Marius laugh. “That’s it? Well, if you don’t have any other problems, I’m relieved.”
“So it doesn’t bother you that from now on I’ll be walking around in army clothes and, on top of that, shaving my head?”
“If that’s what makes you happy, go for it!”
“Thanks!”
“Thanks for what? Did you think I’d end our friendship just because you’re changing your style?”
Half an hour later, Janis had taken off the T-shirt again and was standing in front of the sink in the bathroom. He was holding a pair of clippers, without a guard, ready to slice off his hair. But he hesitated. Again and again, he brought the clippers to his hairline, then let his hand drop back down.
The doorbell rang. Who could it be? He wasn’t expecting anyone.
He walked to the front door and looked through the peephole. Marius was standing outside.
Janis opened the door. “I thought you had lectures all day today.”
“I actually do,” said Marius, walking past Janis into the apartment. “But I thought you might need some support.”
“Support?”
Marius pointed at the clippers. “How long have you been holding those, afraid to take the plunge?”
“How did you know…?”
“I’ve known you since the first day of school. I know how much it sometimes takes for you to work up the courage to do something, even though you actually want to do it. If I hadn’t kicked your butt, you still wouldn’t have had a date with a guy by now.”
Janis grinned sheepishly. “What can I say? You’re probably right.”
Marius nudged Janis toward the bathroom. “I’m going to shave your head now, and then we’re going shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“I guess you could use a second pair of camouflage pants? And a few other new clothes?”
Janis nodded. “I’d really like to get a whole new wardrobe.”
Marius positioned Janis in front of the mirror above the sink. Then he took the clippers and turned them on. “Relax and enjoy your makeover!”
Before Janis could even say anything in response, he already felt the clippers against his forehead, and Marius quickly pushed the blades through the hair.
The first strands came loose from his head and brushed against Janis’s upper body on their way toward the sink and the floor.
A shaved strip appeared right down the middle of the skull. “This is so overwhelming! Finally seeing my scalp!”
Marius kept going, and the strip grew wider and wider until only ultra-short stubble remained on top.
“I think it’ll take me a little while to get used to your new haircut,” said Marius as he exposed the left side of Janis’s head.
“I, on the other hand, won’t have to get used to it. With the help of AI, I’ve created so many images of myself without hair that I already feel very familiar with my new look.”
After Marius had finished both sides, Janis ran his hand over the parts that had been shaved so far. “Reality is way better than AI, though. AI doesn’t give you a sense of how thrilling a shaved head feels.”
Finally, Marius placed the clippers against the nape of Janis’s neck and began cutting the hair at the back. Janis couldn’t see what was happening, but he felt the blade move up his head and watched his hair slip past his collar.
“You’ve got a pretty big bulge in your pants,” Marius said.
Janis had hoped Marius wouldn’t notice.
“But don’t worry, bro. I’ve seen you hard plenty of times when we used to jerk off together as teenagers.”
Marius turned off the clippers. The massacre had lasted less than five minutes. “I never thought of you as the kind of guy who’d shave his head, but I have to say, it suits you. You radiate some sort of rough-and-tumble boyishness.”
Janis regarded himself in the mirror. “It’s freaking awesome! I can’t imagine ever letting my hair grow out again.”
Marius patted Janis’s bulge. “I’ll let you jerk off and take a shower now. I’ll be chilling in the living room in the meantime.”
“Have you ever thought about shaving your head?” Janis asked as they walked down the stairs half an hour later.
Marius touched his close-cropped crew cut. “I like my hair pretty short, but not shaved bald. Never had that thought.”
They walked out the front door onto the street.
“I’ve thought about it so much that I couldn’t resist it anymore.”
“Am I right in assuming that you not only want to be bald yourself, but also want to date bald men?”
“You’re damn right!”
Janis bought some new clothes and donated his old clothes to a clothing drive. From now on, he let the clippers touch his scalp three to four times a week and he started dating dudes with shaved heads.
At first, his parents were shocked. “But darling, you always looked so handsome!”
After a while, they calmed down. Janis noticed that they occasionally looked at him with a puzzled expression, but they had stopped commenting on his appearance.
His friends were surprised, but also supportive, after he explained the desire that had led to his transformation.
The first time his new image caused him to be truly rejected was when he didn’t get the job working as a guest assistant at a major international conference hosted by his university.
The coordinator in charge hadn’t said outright that his appearance was the reason for the rejection, but her glances during their brief meeting in her office had been unmistakable.
“What are you going to do now?” Marius asked. “You were counting on the money from that job.”
Janis grinned. “One of my dates owns a gay club on the coast. He offered me a job as a bouncer for the summer. He needs someone who speaks several languages, and he doesn’t want just beefy bullies at the door.”
“Well, for one job, you look too extreme; for another, extreme is just right.”
“Chris, the owner, said I could look even a little tougher for the job. I took that as an invitation to get a tattoo.”
Janis pulled off his hoodie, revealing a vicious, prehistoric-looking fantasy creature adorning his left forearm.
“I don’t long for an extreme look myself,” Marius said, “but I’m proud of you for following your own path.”
