A Lesson In Trust
Two weeks after my wedding my husband asked me “How much do you love me?”.
It was an odd question given that the photos of our happy wedding we had just been poring over was proof of this. Me in my beautifull satin ivory wedding dress with the beutiful burgundy, pink and peach-coloured flowers and my waist-length wavy brown hair cascading freely down my back with curls to frame my face. My bridesmaids with matching flowers with pale pink dresses. I stared at him. He smiled at the photos.
“Do you love me enough to let me have control of your image? I promise you’ll look good- hey it’d reflect badly on me if you didn’t?!”
I thought about it. I knew I trusted him and he would do me right. He was my husband now after all. “OK” I said with a smile.
He asked me to leave him my wardrobe. He was in there alone for two hours. The first I knew he was finished was when I saw him over the barbecue we used in the summer. I joined him as he burnt my clothes. “Don’t worry, I’ve put aside some money for some new ones.”
“I’ve made an appointment for you.” I looked at him quizzically. “At the hair salon.” “Well, we’ve come this far” I sighed.
So here we were. I had a fabulous new wardrobe at my husband’s expense and I had grown to realise that I had desperately needed something like this to believe in my trust for him and re-affirm my new life as a married woman. I sat in the chair, caped while he spoke to the stylist in the background and paid for what was going to be done. I’d only had trims before and was quite excited. Any cut would be good and I trusted my husband as never before. I realised that it wasn’t the style I was concerned about but fear of the unknown I HAD NEVER HAD MY HAIR CUT PROPERLY BEFORE.
The stylist returned after receiving our money. He was a good-looking Italian and he knew it. “Are you ready?” I smiled meekly with a small nod. He picked up a big hair-brush similar to the one I had at home and brushed from the top of my head along the length of my hair to the ends. I watched as he put it down swapping it for a comb and some scissors. I felt butterflies in my stomach. My husband smiled at my reflection reassuringly. “When I’m done with you, you are going to be even more beautiful.” I closed my eyes.
He combed a lock of hair on my right temple so it held the hair in the air and started to cut close to the scalp. He worked his way around my head. If he saw a long lock he would chop the full length close to my head then move on to another and another. I was astounded as I watched my hair start to disappear right before my eyes. The shape of my head in the mirror was beginning to change- first one side then the next. I was breathless as I saw lock after lock of long hair lying on the cape in front of me and on the floor.
The weirdest feeling was when his comb picked up the huge locks around my ear which was where my pony-tail hair came from. I felt it pass my ear as I heard the scissors snap deafeningly right next to my ear as the hair hit my shoulder before falling to the floor then came the back of my head. He picked up the remaining hair on my head at the back in a familiar pony-tail and pulled it hard until it hurt then I felt the scissors chew my hair free from my head in a happy release as he threw it to the floor with the rest of the gathering pile. I was in shock.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and didn’t recognise this new woman emerging. One side of my head had been severly cropped shorter than any boys. The stylist tidied one side before commencing the other side- any stray long hair were snipped as close to the scalp as possible. I glanced down again and saw the huge tresses on the floor and was over-come with I don’t know what?! There was one tress which went from near the neck of my cape to where I was sitting- I was losing A LOT of hair. The stylist had conferred with a colleague and returned to the other side.
He finished the second side quickly snipping the locks off as close to the scalp as possible. Running his hands through what remained of my hair- it felt weird- he nipped shorter and shorter.
WOW! My features really stood out.
He looked at me in the mirror and frowned then I heard a noise I wasn’t expecting to hear, the low hum of clippers as he pushed them onto my scalp from my forehead with little resistance from the remaining hair- it was a shock to feel the vibration as even more hair fell, shorter this time. I blinked as the shorter hair fluttered past my eyelashes as the clippers moved over my head to the back of my head and neck as he mowed my entire head creating line after line.
Wow, my head felt light, nothing holding it down. Suddenly the noise was gone. “Would you like to touch it?” I hadn’t even seen the finished article yet?! My hand automatically went to my head as it had so often in the past to remove a lock nearly in my eye only it wasn’t there anymore. The hairs on my head weren’t even 5 milimetres long. I had never had short hair let alone this short?! Nobody I knew wore their hair this short! The more I touched the more alien it felt, yet I was drawn to it as I watched my reflection in the mirror. This was my head?! I touched my huge head all over. “Beautiful.” my husband had appeared at my side. “Now the whole world can see your true beauty.”
He was right. It was true. The stylist said “Enough, I need to brush away any stray hairs unless you want it all off?” Both mine and my husband’s perplexed expressions explained our confusion. “A head-shave?” The tension was released as my husband smiled “Maybe next time.” Then to me “I love it. Do you still trust me?” I flung my arms around him and sealed it with a kiss. “Does that answer your question?”
“Please.” The stylist was anxious to finish. The stylist brushed away the stray hairs on my neck and head then ran a gel through what was left of my hair. It made me shiver. I learnt in time that a man touching my bare head turned me on and this was the first time as I adjusted to my new reflection in the mirror. “Now you come back in 6-8weeks and I touch it up for you, or you buy your own clippers? Or you grow it and I see you in maybe 8 months but if I were you I’d keep it like this” and the stylist was gone.
It amazed me to see the long locks still on my cape. They fell to the floor as I stood up. I looked at the floor. The risk had been worth it. I’d loved my hair but this was better. My husband had been right. It just felt weird to touch. I don’t think I was ready to go completely bald, yet this style was so feminine despite its’ obvious masculinity- a true paradox- and so flattering. I watched as the assistant made a pile of the bulk of my hair and brushed it away to the bin.
I kept my hair-style as I looked good in any clothes I wore with it. And I trusted my husband until his death.