"Hi Karen!" Lisa heard the booming voice approaching their table. Karen returned an enthusiastic "Hi!" to the rather handsome man who had greeted her. He immediately smiled at Lisa. "You must be Lisa. I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like I know you already. My name is Bob."

Lisa was surprised that Karen had never mentioned Bob to her, while she clearly had told him about Lisa. He seemed nice enough, however, and he sat down to join them for coffee.

Karen had never seen Bob before in her life. She was pleased that he had handled the introduction so smoothly, and she checked him off on her mental list. Seven more people were expected. She wondered how long it would take for Lisa to become suspicious.

They sat in the coffeehouse for half an hour, and were joined by Kathy and Liz, then Jim, then Alex and Amy. This is weird, Lisa thought. All these people who seem to know Karen, and I’ve never heard of any of them. None of them seem to know each other. Yet they all were making conversation like old college buddies. One last couple, Greg and Jen joined them, then Karen spoke up.

"I’m really glad everyone could come today. Lisa, I have a little surprise for you." Everyone stopped and stared at Lisa, as Karen handed her a local alternative-press newspaper, several weeks old. It actually was dated two weeks after Karen had interviewed Lisa on videotape. Lisa was very uncomfortable from the silent stares, and took the newspaper. There was a page marked with a post-it, and on that page, she saw a personal ad circled in red magic marker.

Lisa read the ad, and felt a lump in her throat.

The bold print at the top of the ad said: "HAIR FANTASY?"

It began to dawn on Lisa that she was being set up. She read the ad:

"My beautiful blonde girlfriend is going to have her wonderful hair cut short. Very short. Would you like to watch? Call…"

Lisa remembered everything she had told Karen about her fetish. Her cheeks were turning red. She felt very warm. Karen had invited all these people to watch her get her hair cut.

Lisa looked up at Karen, then at the eight strangers who were quietly staring at her. She was deeply embarrassed. Karen smiled at her. "Is everyone ready for a walk to the barbershop?" The group enthusiastically agreed with the idea, and they all got up to leave. Karen kissed Lisa on the cheek. "Enjoy it honey." She ran her fingers through Lisa’s thick blonde locks. "You know we’re going to."

Karen took Lisa’s arm firmly in her own, and the group began walking. One of the women had brought a magazine full of short hairstyles, and they began passing it around as they walked, commenting loudly on how none of the styles were really short enough.

The barbershop was a couple blocks away. Lisa walked along, remembering all the secret fantasies she had shared with Karen. Fantasies about watching beautiful girls get haircuts they didn’t want. About how she would laugh and mock them as they sat helplessly in the chair. How they would cry as they saw their soft hair fall onto the tile floor. The fantasy was perfect, except she was on the wrong end of it. She was helpless and embarrassed and aroused. Deeply aroused.

When they arrived at the barbershop, there was a customer getting a haircut, and another waiting. It was an old fashioned barber shop, much like where Karen had gone for her shearing several weeks before. They stopped in front of the big plate glass window, and Karen turned to Lisa. "Go on in honey. Sit and wait your turn." Lisa opened the door, and looked up to see the barber stare at her as she entered.

"May I help you?" the barber asked. "I’m waiting for a haircut" Lisa replied. The barber raised one eyebrow, then went back to his work. She sat in one of the orange plastic chairs, and looked at the magazines. Field and Stream, Car and Driver, Guns and Ammo. Nothing she wanted to read. She looked up, and saw Karen and her crowd of new friends outside, talking and laughing, looking inside and pointing at Lisa. Someone had gone to his car and come back with a video camera. A couple of the others had regular cameras as well.

The barber finished with his customer, who paid and started to leave. As he opened the door, Lisa could hear the laughter and joking of the group outside the big picture window. Some other people had joined them, and Karen was talking to them and pointing through the window at Lisa. Some of them had decided to stay and watch the show. The customer who had just left stopped to chat for a few minutes, and apparently said something funny, because the whole group laughed and looked in at Lisa again.

Lisa turned her attention to the remaining customer, who climbed in the chair. Lisa tried to focus on him, rather than the crowd outside, or the fact that she was next in the chair. She ran her fingers through her hair. Her longish bangs would have completely covered her eyes, if she didn’t push them out of the way. Her ears were completely hidden by her soft blonde locks, and the collar of her shirt was hidden under the 5" layers near her nape. She realized that she was still playing with her hair, and she looked through the window, to see her audience watching her with rapt attention. She blushed, and turned her attention back to the barber. He was just finishing with his customer.

Lisa heard the door open, and saw Karen coming into the shop, leading the rest of the group. All the people from the coffees hop, plus four or five more that Karen had apparently met on the sidewalk in front of the barbershop, came in to watch. Lisa tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.

"You don’t mind if we make it a spectator sport, do you?" Karen asked the barber. He started to say something about scaring away his regular customers, when Karen handed him a small wad of bills. "We want to make sure you can afford to take your time." The barber chuckled, and turned and winked at Lisa. "I don’t know who is odder, you or your friends."

Lisa climbed into the warm leather barber’s chair. She faced herself in the mirror, while the barber made a bit of a ceremony out of covering her with the cape. He combed her hair as she watched in the mirror, and then spun her around to face the waiting crowd. She was greeted with applause and flashes from several cameras. She turned beet red again. "What’ll it be?" the barber asked, addressing the entire group. "Start with her bangs!" replied an unfamiliar voice. The barber took his comb, and combed Lisa’s bangs straight down over her eyes. She could barely see the approach of the scissors, but there was no mistaking the feeling of the cold metal as the scissors settled against her forehead near her left eyebrow. She felt the hair fall away, as she heard the crunch of the scissors. Another crunch, and suddenly, her left eye was uncovered. Crunch again. She felt the hair slide down her nose, as she saw the camera’s flash again. Crunch again. Her right eye lost its curtain of blonde hair. One last crunch, and she had an even line of bangs. Lisa winced, as the crowd began to applaud, and more photos were taken. Karen looked closely into Lisa’s eyes. "I seem to remember Lisa saying that when she was little she had really SHORT bangs." The barber took the hint, and placed his scissors halfway up Lisa’s forehead. "A little higher." Karen suggested. He moved them further up, and Lisa heard the crunching begin. Since there was less hair, it fell more slowly, tickling her entire face. More photos, and the barber finished to another round of applause. He spun the chair, and Lisa stared in horror at her image. She was all forehead. It looked horrible. But the embarrassment was so strong, it was turning into something else entirely. She felt the dampness between her legs.

"What about the back?" somebody called out. "Yeah, let’s see some nape!" The barber left Lisa facing the mirror, and began cutting at the back of her head. Lisa couldn’t see what he was doing very well, and was forced to watch the expressions on all of the faces enraptured with her haircut. She felt the cold metal against her nape, as the barber cut straight across her neck, right at the hairline. He got halfway across and stopped. He turned to Karen. "You seem to be the ringleader. Care to take a snip yourself?" Lisa couldn’t believe it. At least it was Karen he was handing the scissors to. Karen’s free hand mussed the back of Lisa’s head as she accepted the scissors. "You know, I’m less interested in the nape, than I am in her ears. She came around on Lisa’s right side, and grabbed a clump of hair right above her ear. She snipped it off, then dropped it in Lisa’s lap. She turned to somebody else. "Weren’t you the one who wanted the nape?" Lisa saw Karen hand the scissors to somebody she didn’t even know. He continued at her nape, where the barber had stopped, making sure that Lisa felt the cold steel against her neck. Next somebody grabbed a large lock from the crown of her head, and soon everyone was taking a turn. More scissors were produced, and Lisa’s hair was being hacked away by two or three strangers at the same time, with cameras flashing the whole time.

When they finally stopped, her hair was sticking out in uneven one and two inch clumps from all over her head. "Only one way to fix this mess" the barber said, reaching for the clippers. "Where should I start?" he asked Lisa. "In the front or the back?" Lisa pulled an arm out from under the cape, sending piles of blonde hair cascading onto the floor. "Right here" she said, as she touched her left temple. The barber obliged, slowly clippering her neatly down to 3/8" all over her head. It was strangely erotic to feel the clippers peeling all her hair off. If it weren’t for the crowd, Lisa thought, I’d touch myself. She remembered Karen’s orgasm at her first clipping. She tried to relax and enjoy the sensation. All too soon it was over, ad the barber spun the chair to face the crowd. There was applause, and more flashes from the cameras. The barber took a small bow. "Shorter!" someone called out. "High and tight!" called another. "SHAVE HER!" They started chanting: "SHAVE! SHAVE! SHAVE!"

Karen held her hand up, and the group quieted. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I’m sorry to say that the show is over." Several people moaned. "Please do sign Lisa’s guestbook." Lisa remained seated in the chair as several people variously thanked and congratulated her, and Karen. Everyone wrote something in the book Karen had brought for them to sign, and they slowly began to leave. Someone handed Karen a videotape of the event, and several promised copies of photos. Bob, the first to arrive and the last to leave, had turned out to be the most avid photographer. "Five rolls of film!" he exclaimed to Lisa. "I’ll make you a scrapbook." The barber shook the cape off, and Lisa began to stand up. Bob was explaining to Karen how the binary group on Usenet worked, and about the new hair-fetish binary group. Lisa jumped up. "You’re not going to post those pictures, are you?!?"

Karen laughed. "It turns out, my dear Lisa, that Bob here is one of the people that you fibbed to." Bob smiled at Lisa, nodding his head. "I figure that the least I can do, to protect your on-line reputation, that is…" He winked at her. "Is to post the evidence that you finally did get your crewcut."