It had been several months since my young cousin Lucy had stayed with us. Because of a botched up job by her doctor in removing a couple of sebaceous cysts from her scalp, Lucy had come to stay in our quiet village because she was upset about having a couple of huge shaved patches on her head. Of course, there’d only been one thing to do and that was to buzz the lot – something Lucy had hated and then grown to love. In the month she’d stayed with us, I’d kept her hair buzzed to a number two fuzz, and the bald patches weren’t noticeable by the time she went home.

Her posh school wasn’t impressed with her haircut, but understanding why she had it, they permitted her to stay at school.

Lucy, however, must have picked up my genes somewhere in her ancestry. Her hair had barely grown out to a pixie crop when she slipped away from her boarding school one Saturday afternoon and visited the local barber’s, returning with her head scalped to a number one. This would have perhaps not been so bad had she not convinced one of her classmates to come with her and have her long plaits buzzed to a number two. The other girl was still crying three days later.

Unsummarily, Lucy was thrown out.  Her mother, Genevieve, fumed down the phone at me. “We don’t know what to do with her, Ella.  She’s always done what she’s been told and now THIS!”

I had a hunch it was the normal rebellion of the fifteen year old trying to prove she was grown up, and NOT doing what she was told was foremost in her mind, but it was pointless to say that to Gen, who was too busy ranting to listen.

“We’ve tried to get her into eight different schools but they won’t take her. Word gets around at that level of school. Not that you’d know, not having children,” Gen said sniffily, as if she was the only person in the world to have a child. “She’s getting a reputation as a troublemaker.”

My kind of troublemaker. I’d rebelled at fifteen, too. I’d lopped my long locks off to a bob – not quite as drastic but it provoked much the same reaction in my own mother. “I’m sure the local school at Dorminster could take her, send her here,” I found myself saying.

My husband Josh was making astonished faces and shaking his head but I ignored him.

“A comprehensive school? Oh, really, Ella! I don’t think so.”

“How many schools did you say you’d tried?”

“Eight, but I haven’t tried local grammar schools. We want the BEST for Lucy, Ella.”

Lucy picked up the extension at her end. “I want to live with Ella and Josh. I HATE boarding school. I WANT to go to a comprehensive. Or else I’ll run away, and you’ll never see me again.” And she hung up again.

“See?” said Genevieve.

“Send her,” I said. “Maybe a few months at the local comprehensive will do her good. They’ll give her a rough time because she speaks `proper’ and comes from a different background to most of them. You never know, she may be begging to come home and behave in a short while. Living out here in the sticks can be very boring for a girl used to Holland Park and having all London as her playground.”

Genevieve sighed, agreed, and said Lucy would be on the train this Saturday. I could hear a loud cheer in the background before she rang off.

“Why did you say that?” Josh said. “Do we really want a fifteen year old girl living with us? Might cramp our style a bit, El.”

“She’s sweet, and she loves both of us, and she needs to find out who she is, not who her mother tells her to be,” I replied. “She’ll probably spend most of her time in her room listening to her iPod anyway. Teenagers usually don’t want to spend much time with grownups. We’ll just have to restrict sex to our bedroom,” I grinned.

“Instead of the sofa?” Josh pounced on me. In the light of the table lamp I could see bristles growing on his shaved head, and rubbed my hand over them; sandpaper, lovely sandpaper.

“Better enjoy it – while – we – can!” I gasped as Josh tugged my jeans off, ripped open my shirt and unclasped my bra with a practiced hand. He ran his hands over my crewcut head, making me shivery and aroused all at once, and took me with a passion that overwhelmed both of us.  Sated, we lay on the sofa, our sweaty bodies entwined, our hands caressing each other’s shorn hair, until the chilly evening had us reaching for our clothes again.

Next day brought Chloe to the little barber’s shop I’d set up in the studio in our garden. Her hair had grown out to almost an inch long, lush and red and spiky. The transformation from a wildly curly-haired painter to one with a severe crewcut had provoked questions in the village, and now some villagers looked askance at me while others stared with frank interest. A couple of them had peeked in at my little shop, but so far nobody but Chloe had dared to sit in my chair.

“Time for a trim, Ella,” Chloe announced, swinging herself into the antique barber’s chair and spinning it around. “Look at all this hair, it’s positively long again, I can run my fingers through it!” She demonstrated.  “Take it all off, Barber Ella,” she said dramatically, spreading her arms in an expansive gesture.

Grinning, I caped her up. “Number two again?”

“Yes, please. It was a shock at first waking up to see myself in the mirror every day, but you were right, it made me look much younger and more interesting.”  She bent her head forward, waiting for me to turn the clippers on and push them up the back of her neck.

I obliged, and Chloe shuddered as the throbbing guard touched her nape.  Knowing that Chloe found the experience sexually exciting, I made it last a long time, pushing the clippers up slowly, and enjoying the experience myself of watching her bright hair fall away to leave a velvety strip behind on her scalp.

“Short enough for you?”  I let her feel the back of her head, where the hair now lay very close to her skin.  Her hands wandered like pale spiders up and down her head, and she gave a delighted groan.

“Oh, yes! Don’t stop, Ella!”

So I didn’t, bending her ears forward to buzz around them, tossing the clippings onto her lap; under the cape her hands were moving suspiciously.

I straightened her head. Her eyes were closed and she was well away on the path to orgasm as I clipped the hair in front of each ear. Her breathing was quicker as I plunged the clippers – quickly now, more assertive, more climactic – into the hair at her forehead. She opened one eye briefly to see her reflection, and the hair peeling away, and I had to stop clipping her scalp for several seconds while she gasped and moaned and came. Grinning, I waited until the final “ahhh!” before whisking away the last of her crop and delivering her a number two buzz.

Chloe recovered her dignity and looked at her reflection with delight, turning her head this way and that, admiring the shape of her skull. “I wish I’d had the courage to have my head buzzed years ago,” she said as I unclipped the cape and dusted her neck. “I feel so alive. You wouldn’t believe the paintings I’ve done since you cut my hair off a few weeks ago. It’s like my imagination has gone into overdrive. I’m using colours I’ve never had much use for before. Come with me to the studio, Ella, and have a look. It’s not as if you’re overwhelmed with clients,” she said, a little sadly.

It was true. Chloe was my sole customer so far. But the lezzies, a couple in their forties and fifties, had looked at my hair with undisguised interest each time I cut it shorter. They both had boring hair; maybe their work demanded a more feminine look, although the older lesbian’s frizzy bob would look superb transformed into a strong, steel grey flattop.

Chloe’s paintings were wonderful. Lime greens and scarlets dominated one of her abstracts, and I told her I wanted to buy it.

“Have it,” she said generously. “I’m giving it to you, for the gift you gave me in cutting off all that stupid hair.” She pushed it into my hands. It would look superb i
n our dining room, which had white walls that were much too bare.

We had coffee and chatted for a bit, Chloe absently rubbing her head from time to time and purring like a kitten. Finally I left to go and tidy the shop – ie sweep up Chloe’s bright clippings – just in case I got another customer.

Fat chance. It was another quiet afternoon. I mentally worked out how much money Josh and I had socked away and how long I could afford to keep this sweet extravagance running before I had to find a real job again. About two months, I thought.

Sighing, I went back into the house to prepare dinner. Only two days and Lucy would be here. I hoped Genevieve would send money to look after her, or I’d be back at a 9 to 5 job quicker than I’d dreaded.

Saturday.

Lucy jumped off the train at Dorminster, dragging a large rucksack and a suitcase on wheels. It seemed she intended staying for a long while!

“Ella!” she screamed, and dozens of people turned to look at the pretty teenager with the shaven hair that had been dyed bright pink. Among the carefully coiffed females of Dorminster – the Dorminster dormice -  she looked exotic and dangerous. And me with my spiky crewcut, well I probably fell into that category too.

She hugged me and I hugged her and heard a man mutter, “bloody dykes”. I ignored it. Some people are just so judgmental.

“Let’s go home,” I said. “I love your hair, by the way.”

“Mum hates it,” she said smugly. “Especially now it’s pink.”

“Is that why you did it?”

“Partly. But I just like the feeling of having it all cut off really short. Like shaved, you know?”  She grinned. “Headmistresses seem to have an issue with that.”

“Dorminster Comprehensive might have an issue with it, too. Remember this is the country, and the country can be very conservative.”

She shrugged that particular shrug that teenagers perfect. “I’ll get by.”

We loaded her stuff in my car. “So what made you drag the other girl with you to the barber’s?”

Lucy grinned rather evilly. “She’s a pain. Nobody likes her, and she’s really vain about her hair. Always preening and saying she’s got better hair than anyone else. So I pretended to be her friend – Ella, don’t glare at me! – and told her that if she wanted more friends she’d get heaps by cutting her hair off.”

“That wasn’t very nice, Lucy,” I said. “I’m disappointed in you.”

“I thought you’d think it was funny,” she said, a hurt look on her face.

“It was a deception. Is she more popular now?”

“Nope. Everyone still hates her, especially as she spends all the time in front of the mirror crying about her stupid hair. But, oh, Ella, watching the barber take out his big scissors and cut both her plaits off! Snip, snip. He just dropped them on the floor as if they were rubbish, with the ribbons still tied at the ends of them. It was unbelievable,” she sighed. “She was so shocked she didn’t say a word as he got the clippers out and started cutting all her hair off. Hair flew everywhere and her skin started showing through what was left. She just sat there, staring in the mirror, like she was in a trance, and he turned her into a boy in about three minutes flat. It was only after, when he turned the clippers off and started dusting the hairs away, that she looked at her buzzcut and the hair on the floor and started to cry.”

Lucy was a born storyteller. My attention almost wandered from the road until an ancient Allegro blew its horn at me. I had to admit, the thought of the plaits going and the clippers plunging in for the kill WAS rather erotic.

“And while she was still crying it was my turn,” Lucy sighed. “I initially asked for the same and then I said, no, cut it shorter, give me a number one. Portia was going through the tissues and her neck was red where he’d shaved it. I think the barber secretly enjoyed scalping her. Do you think all barbers enjoy cutting off lots of hair? Anyway, he smiled when I said that, and I put my head forward and when he started shaving my hair off my head felt all cold at the back. Like he was shaving me bald. He was using those big clippers where you adjust the blade rather than use a guard, so I could feel the teeth and the blades going through my hair. It was scary and fun as I watched him buzz the sides of my head and I looked like a pineapple, with some spikes left on top. Then he held my head still and started to shave off the top, really close, with those blades tickling my scalp, and I really looked like a skinhead when he’d finished. Like I just had a brown fuzz over my skin. Wicked!  It’s grown out a lot in a week and a half,” Lucy finished proudly.

I pulled the car into a layby so I could gather my senses. Phew!  I opened the car window, aware my face was red with arousal.

Lucy grinned. “Hot stuff, isn’t it, cuz? Hey, do you think Dorminster Comprehensive will allow me to have pink hair? You might have to shave it all off and I’ll have to start again,” she said winningly, running her hand over her hair, which hovered somewhere between a number two and a number three.

“They’d probably prefer pink hair to bald,” I said, wondering just what the local school would make of this girl, who had become so much her own person in the last few months.

“It’s half term next week, I needn’t start till after than and by then it will have grown out a bit. I can always say I did it for charity, that would make them think I’m a nice person. Please, Ella! Shave my head, I’m dying to know what it feels like and this will be my only chance!” She grabbed my hand and made it caress her soft, featherlike downy hair.

Put like that, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I started the car and sped us home, and Lucy ran into the barber shop with a cry of delight.

“Oh, ELLA! It’s fantastic!” She caressed the lovely old chair before climbing into it.

“Are you sure?” I said, as I caped her up. “These new balding clippers really do make you bald. No mercy. No turning back. No hair.”

Lucy nodded. “Shave me bald,” she whispered. “I have to know. have to feel it.”

Knowing Genevieve would be furious if she found out, I plugged the clippers in and turned them on.

Lucy’s outrageous pink head stuck up from the cape, looking a little vulnerable. There was a frightened and excited and pleased expression on her face; that sounds silly but all those emotions were there, as well as the sexual desire that is always just under the surface with girls who have found what aroused them.

I placed the clippers at her forehead. “Ready?”

“Oh yes.”

With that I drew them back into her hair, and shocking pink fell away leaving a white strip of very bare alabaster skin in its wake. Deliberately I drove the clippers all the way to her crown before lifting them. Lucy had a landing strip a Cessna could use down the top of her head.

She gasped, and raised a hand from under the cape to touch her naked skin. “Wow! Ella, it’s smooth!”

“Smooth as you’ll get without lather and a blade,” I agreed. “Now, let’s get the rest of it off.”

Lucy’s eyes were huge as she watched me shave her bald.  I had to admit it was exciting me, too, watching all that bright pink hair get mown off, leaving the pale skin underneath bare to the world.

The scars from her operations were now only tiny pink lines, barely noticeable. She was going to look spectacular with a shaved head, and I told her so.

Without me asking, she dropped her head down so I could shave the back of her head. Starting low on her neck I moved up to the soft nape and Lucy moaned. “So nice,” she muttered above the hum of the clippers. She wriggled ecstactically and I held her head still so I could make another pass up the back.  Three more passes and the back of her head was shaved clean.

There were just the sides left, and Lucy gazed in the mirror as what was left of her buzzcut fell away, leaving her little ears pink and sweet against her shaved scalp.  There was a
faint shadow showing where her hair would grow back, but that was all. She was a fifteen year old bald beauty.

“Oh, Ella, it’s sooo cool!” she beamed as I uncaped her and she stroked her shaved skin. “I love it! It feels so clean and fresh, and it looks awesome!”

We grinned at her reflection in the mirror. “Your hair looks long compared to mine,” she said.

It did, too. It had been about three weeks since Josh had buzzed it to a number two for me.

“I could trim it for you,” Lucy offered.

Could I trust her? The village wasn’t ready for me to be totally bald – yet.

“Do you think you could do it?” I said. “I have a number two all over. You’ve never used clippers – have you?”

“I’ve watched you, and I watched the barber cut Portia’s and my hair. You can’t screw up if you’ve got a guard on the clippers,” she said confidently.

I pondered. If I were in her shoes, it would be unforgettable. I’d never forget the first time I buzzed someone’s head – Josh’s in this case. That remarkable feeling of satisfaction and arousal.  I took a deep breath, attached the number two guard to my new clippers, and sat in the chair.

“I’ll tell you what to do,” I said, hoping my voice wasn’t shaking in fright. Enthusiasm and inexperience can make for a dangerous liaison. “Firstly, put the cape around my neck. Nice and tight, we don’t want clippings getting inside. That’s fine.

“Now, turn the clippers on. Good. See that tube? It’s clipper oil. Put two drops -only two – on the blades. Great. Now. Over here.”

Lucy bit her lip nervously and stood in front of me. “Start at the front?”

“Yes. Slowly, that’s right, rest the guard against my forehead and push the clippers back over my head.”

She was tentative at first, but once the clippers were in my hair and doing their work, she was more confident.

I watched her face, a study in concentration, as she brought the clippers up for a second pass over my head. Slowly she relaxed as she saw the clippers had no option but to cut off my hair evenly. I wasn’t aware I’d been holding my breath and let it out in a gentle sigh.

“It feels so easy to cut,” she muttered. “There’s no resistance.”

“There shouldn’t be, the clippers are new and sharp, you oiled them properly. Looking good, Luce. Do it again near my forehead, you missed a little tiny bit. That’s it.  Now, the rest of the top, once nice fluid movement from front to back.beautiful! Do the back now. I’ll bend forward for you so you can get it all even.”

The hum moved behind me and came closer. I couldn’t help but quiver when I felt the guard on my neck, knowing what lay ahead (and what lay on the floor).

“Even strokes, Lucy. Careful up the occipital bone – that’s it, that felt good. Now, right down on my neck so you get any stray hairs. You’re doing well.”

“Thanks,” she said as she buzzed away at the back of my head. She was developing a rather professional, smooth action; not tentative like some beginners.

I felt her buzzing up around my crown, a rather sensitive, ticklish area. I always enjoyed having my crown shorn. Then it was time for the sides.

“Bend my ear forward gently so you can clip around it,” I suggested. “That’s it. Careful with the guards, you don’t want to prod your client’s ears. Well done.and up the side so you meet the bit at the top. If you miss any, just go over that area again, you can’t cut it any shorter than the guard allows. Now, in front of my ears and my temples. That’s good. Don’t be afraid of going near my face, you have to get in close to clip around the temples. Oh, very professional!” I finished as Lucy clipped the last of my hair and surveyed my head to see if she’d missed any.

It looked good, a nice even buzzcut. Lucy uncaped me with a flourish worthy of a bullfighter.

I spun the chair around and froze.

Two people were watching in the window.  The Lovely Lezzies, to be exact. They were smiling – a good sign.

One of them opened the door and they walked in, hand in hand.  “Hallo,” the older one said. “You must be Ella. And this is?”

“My cousin and.er.apprentice, Lucy,” I said, and Lucy blushed all the way around her bald head.

“I’m Pauline – Paul -  and this is Jackie – Jack. You’ve seen us around.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Well, yes, I have, and I’m delighted you’ve dropped in. Can we.er.help you with anything?”

“We’ve been talking to Chloe, and she suggested you give us a makeover. She looks years younger with that haircut. We’ve both decided life’s too short to be what other people expect to be, which is why people we work with think we are heterosexual women with typical middle aged women’s’ hair. The village knows we’re life partners, and to be honest, people think all lesbians have short hair anyway. We’re coming out to the whole world, we’ve decided. What do you think would suit me?” Paul said.

“A flattop,” I said instantly. “You’ve got such thick hair you could carry it off easily.”

“And me?” said the quieter Jack, stroking her shiny brown pageboy bob.

“A crewcut like Ella,” piped up Lucy.

Paul and Jack looked at each other and nodded.

The barber chair was still warm where I’d been sitting in it. I spun it to face them. “Who’s first?” I said.

To be continued

c 2006 BarberElla