“There you go, hon. All finished.”
I turned off the clippers and unsnapped the cape from my wife’s neck, letting the dark, clipped locks fall gently to the kitchen floor.
Ellie glanced into the mirror I held in my hand and briefly ran her hand across her neatly-clipped nape.
“I don’t understand why you want me to look like a boy,” she said as she stood up and started sweeping up her shorn locks.
“No one could possibly mistake you for a boy,” I said laughingly. “And you have gorgeous features, it is a shame to have them hidden under a lot of hair. I think this is a fantastic cut on you.”
She shied away from my stroke of hand over her hair by bending over to sweep her severed locks into a dustpan, and emptying the contents into a trashcan.
“I have a headache. I’m going to bed.”
I met Ellie in college, was immediately smitten by her exotic looks and vivacious love of life – which I knew meant love of self. She lived for being the center of attention. Everyone loved Ellie. And who could not?
Her lustrous waist-length black locks fell to my shears in an unexpected (by her) cut, when I gave her a Louise Brooks bob. Beautifully highlighting her shapely neck and delicate features, the bob was a great hit with everyone, except Ellie.
During the following months, my scissor work was closely monitored – I never cut her hair unless chaperoned by another person and then I was usually restricted to the simplest of bang trims.
She became increasingly disgruntled when I started cutting the hair of her roommates. She may not have wanted me to cut her hair, but she wanted me cutting the hair of other women less.
Our relationship became on-again, off-again, depending who else she had in the wings. Finally, she left my life entirely, and I assumed for good.
Then the call came. It had been three years, but to her, it had been but a day’s passing. “Hi, Martin!” she said without preamble or introduction. “I thought I would stop by for a visit.”
A trip from Kentucky to Savannah , Georgia was not exactly a drop-in, hi, I - was -in-the- area kind of visit, but Ellie still had me, and she knew she had me.
Three months later we were married.
I knew I had a tigress, accustomed to her own way and prowling at her whim. Unrestrained, she would eat me alive. I didn’t care. Or, more precisely, I did care, but was willing to see how things played out.
Her bob and bangs had both grown over during the three years since I had seen her. Now her hair fell in one length to the middle of her back, beautifully trimmed and conditioned.
Ellie was a late riser, and the first night in my apartment as man and wife had been longer than usual. I got up and went into the kitchen – first things first – and laid out my barbering supplies – cape, scissors, comb, thinning shears, clippers. Then I started breakfast.
The smells of food stirred my wife, and she came sleepily to the breakfast nook and grabbed the proffer ed cup of coffee, pushing her hair back over her shoulders, out of the way.
During breakfast, we chatted about how we were going to spend the day (intended as a continuation of the previous night), how we were going to spend our lives, the usual chat of people in love, but not yet really knowing each other.
When we had finished eating, I beckoned her into the kitchen, and told her to sit in the stool by the hair utensils.
She immediately grasped the import. “I just had my hair cut before the wedding, Martin. I really don’t need anything done for a while. But thank you for thinking of it.”
“It’s too long on you, sweetheart. I would like it shorter on you.”
Ellie laughed and tossed her hair. “Oh, darling, you know what happened the last time you cut my hair. It would be a really bad idea for you to do that again.”
“Ellie,” I said sternly. “You are my wife now. That is the difference. Now, hop in the chair.”
You can take the girl out of… and all that. At her core, Ellie still had the sensibility that the orders of the husband were to be obeyed.
She slowly sat on the stool, and fingered her hair as I snapped the cape around her neck.
“Please,” she looked at me pleadingly. “Not too short.”
“Bend your head down, hon .”
I felt her shudder as I turned on the clippers, and ran the half-inch guide up the back of her head to the crown. Her thick black, lustrous locks tumbled to the floor, quickly covering my feet.
No Louise Brooks bob this time, my wife, my love, was getting the sexiest of cuts, a short boy-cut. Closely-buzzed sides and back, cropped top and a longer fringe.
Ellie sat silently as the clippers buzzed around her head. She didn’t utter a word of comment or protest as I switched from half-inch to quarter-inch to eighth-inch guides, finally doing touchup with work with no guides all, the bare head of the clippers caressing her exquisite nape.
She offered no surprise as I took scissors and thinning shears and lopped the locks on top of her head from an inch at the crown to two inches at the front, using the thinning shears to soften and layer her bangs.
She offered no encouragement, when upon finishing, I took off the barber’s cape, letting her tresses tumble to the floor, then taking her had led her to the bedroom.
She accepted me as a wife is to accept her husband, but without passion.
I had won round one.
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