”Hey Mir, listen! Here is an ad that says that Hairwonder can make your hair grow four times quicker than normal! Whatdye think?’

Meerah grabbed the magazine from Conchita’s fingers.

“Phew, it’s 120 dollars for a three weeks cure. Forget it! We couldn’t afford that, ever never. And how many cures will be needed?”

”Dunno but when we are very careful with our expenses it should be possible. In any case I want to give it a try.”

Meerah and Conchita were roommates and freshmen at New York University. Meerah (usually called Mir) came from India and Conchita (called Conny) from Columbia. When the girls had arrived in NY they both had had straight waistlength black hair but soon Conny had got the idea that their appearance had a too high high school standard and she had Mir persuaded to come with her to visit a unisex salon. They had got short haircuts, much shorter than they had wanted and immediately had regretted having done this. They wished to let their hair grow again but it would take years to get the former length back.

The Hairwonder lotion arrived. Conny read the prescription: ”Rub the emulsion every night into your scalp when going to sleep. To obtain best results it is advisable to start from zero….”

”Zero? What does that mean?” asked Mir.

Conny made a gesture meaning not to interrupt her: ”It means to shave your head before the first application.”

”What?! cried Mir. ”Shave my head !! Never ever!”

Conny pondered: ”Listen, Mir, when your hair grows four times faster it will grow out not by 1/2 inch but 2 inches per month. That means 12 inches in half a year. That’s longer than it at the present time is.”

At that moment Josh, a fellow student, entered their apartment. ”What’s the matter, gals, I heard you screaming outside.’

Conny explained their predicament.

”Let me read the instruction,” he ordered.

”It says that success cannot be guaranteed if you don’t strictly follow the instructions.” He looked into their eyes: ”Have not much choice, babes. Your hair has to go.”

”I’ll never go to a barbershop and have my hair chopped off while everyone is looking on,” Meerah said.

”There is no need for that,” Josh said, ”I’ll borrow a pair of clippers and do it for you. No problem.” He made a negligent gesture with his arm.

”Not for you but Mir has strong objections.”

”Come on, Mir, this is not India, you live in New York now. no one will take offence at a girl that has a shaven head.”

Surprisingly Meerah suddenly laughed. ”Of course we are in NY. In India it would be a shame if a girl has a shaven head. Go and get your tool.”

Josh grinned: ”I’ve my tool always with me. But you two don’t seem to appreciate that I make use of it.”

”Perhaps you are not insistent enough,” remarked Conny.

”You are naughty girls and you deserve to be punished,” Josh said with a wink and left.

”Gee, what did we say? Didn’t we go too far?” Meerah was embarrassed.

”Oh, Josh won’t mind. You are too prude, Mir.”

”It’s my education”

”I know but don’t bother, you will change.’

It was not only her education but also her character: a natural shyness. Back in India she had never been alone with a boy, one or more other people had always been around. So at thee age of nineteen she never had had the opportunity to lose her virginity. At NYU several boys had tried to date her but Meerah had been reluctant due to her education as well her caracter. Was she really going to change? Owing toher shyness she didn’t make contacts easily. On the contrary Conny had no problems doing so and she had got a lot of invitations and had excepted a lot of them too. Though Conny and Meerah were friends they were not so close that they told each other everything.

Meerah had been surprised that her father had allowed her to study in the USA. She had suspected that the elder brother of her father and his wife had persuaded him to let her go. He had studied in the States too and met his wife there who was of Indian descent but born in the USA. A sister of Meerah’s aunt, Devi, had been married to an American and was living in Boston. She had visited Meerah once when she had just arrived at American soil and she called her every week. In this way Devi acted from a distance as an adviser and supervisor of Meerah. Devi was the youngest of six descendants and in fact only seven years older than Meerah.

In the meantime Conny made preparations: she had spread a sheet on the floor and put a straight kitchen chair on it next to a powerpoint. On a small table she set ready shaving foam and disposable razors.

Soon Josh returned; ”Fine, I see the chair is ready for your execution. I think Conny will go first.”

Conny didn’t seem to bother. Grinning she took the seat.

”Mir, will you tie her up,” Josh said, ”You know that is usance when one is to be exexuted.”

With a wink he handed her four leather restraints and Meerah tied the wrists and ankles of her grinning roommate to the chair.

”And now, my dear Conny, to be sure that the deadly current reaches your brain your head must be shaved.” Josh flicked on the switch of his clippers.

”That’s not funny, Josh,” Meerah remarked.

”Come on, Mir, it is a game,” Conchita said, somewhat less self-confident now.

”We don’t do this for fun, remember,” Meerah answered, ”All the same we’ll be bald for some time.”

Meanwhile Josh had put the clippers at Conny’s right cheek and moved them upwards in front of her ear. Her sideboard vanished as the clippers made their way to her temple and her ear was exposed.

Meerah looked on in awe how the black hair was reduced to short stubble and the pale skin of her scalp shone through. Josh shifted to Conny’s left side, then to the back and at last the hair on top was removed. He took the towel from her shoulders, shook it out and brushed off her shorn head. The sheet was littered with black tresses, lying limp and useless all over. Meerah looked at her friend: she looked like a stranger without her black hair.

”Mir, will you apply the shaving foam?” Josh asked.

Josh took a disposable razor and started to remove the foam together with the black stubble. Now really creamy white skin became visible, overshadowed by a bluish haze caused by the black roots. Conny moaned and seemed to like the scraping

Meerah noticed that Josh was aroused by the shaving of the girls’ head; his erection was clearly visible.

” Soon I’ll look like her”, Meerah thought. ”Would the skin of my scalp be just as white as hers?” Her skin colour was darker than Conny’s.

Josh untied Conny and she reached with both hands to her head. The girls looked into each others eyes for a moment.

”Wow, insane, you should feel it, Mir, so smooth!” Conny exclaimed and raced to the mirror. Meerah looked surprised to the backside of her friends head looking so weird depilated, her nape nude and her ears sticking out so funny.

”That’s how I will look from behind soon too,” she thought.

”Your turn, Mir,” announced Josh.

Her heart began to pound when she sat down on the chair and Conny tied her.

This time Josh put the clippers at her hairline and went right through the middle from her forehead to her nape creating a nearly two inches broad centrepart. Too late for backing out! While hair was raining down her head soon was covered by stubble only. The colour of the skin indeed was lighter than the skin of unhairy parts of her body but not as white as Conny’s. Following the shaving Meerah was just like Conny as bald as a cueball.

Together they looked at their image. ”The shape of my head differs from that of Conny,” Meerah thought, ”Mine is oval and Conny’s is rounder.”

But it was not as bad as they had thought. Josh stationed himself behind the two bald girls and put his arms across their shoulders.

”Well, cueballs, do you like your new hairstyles?”

Meerah was taken
aback by this question but Conny answered mockingly but cheerfully: ”Sure! Very elegant, isn’t it?”

”And do I get a reward ?”

Conny looked at him with an enigmatic smile: ”Mmmm……maybe. Come with me and bring your tool.”

She grabbed his hand and drew him towards the bedroom, leaving a surprised Meerah behind……

They rubbed the Hairwonder emulsion into their scalps after Josh had left.

The next day Devi called Meerah and announced that she would come to NY one day later and make use of the opportunity to visit her. Meerah was startled. She should have told her aunt about her radically changed appearance but couldn’t find the guts to do so. The first and only time the two had met Meerah still had long hair reaching her butt………

Devi was dumbfounded when she was confronted with two girls with shaven heads. When she could speak again she flew at her niece: ”Have you gone nuts?! You look horrible! What will your father say when he hears that his lovely daughter looks like a freak?”

”Oh please, don’t say anything to him, please! My hair will grow back very fast.”

She wanted to tell about the cure with Hairwonder but she began to crie and sob which made her hardly understandable and Conny had to take over. When Conny mentioned that hair would grow four times faster Devi interrupted: ”Ridiculous! There isn’t any stuff that could accelerate the growth. Noway! Are you two so silly to believe that?”

Her initial anger had faded and she began to laugh: ”Oh my! I cannot believe that two reasonable girls can make such fools of themselves. It is all humbug, sweethearts! Well, let me see the prescription.”

”Listen: it reads: the effects will not be obvious immediately; it may last three weeks before you experience an acceleration of the growth. Well, I shouln’t wait for it and skip at once. Oh, and did you read the small letters? I don’t think so. In some cases, dependent on the texture of your hair, Hairwonder has no effect at all. There you are! Has your hairtexture been examined? Of course not! No, it is humbug, girls, you shaved your heads bald in vain.”

Before she left Devi promised Meerah that she wouldn’t inform her father but advised her to stop experimenting.

Meerah and Conchita were dowhhearted but after Devi had left they tried to cheer up each other. ”

”We’ll see, Conny said, ”three weeks and then we’ll know whether it works or not.”

And they decided to go on with the application of the emulsion every night.

In the next three weeks their hair grew a little but uneven and at some places hardly any hair appeared. Meanwhile they had ordered a new cure and Conny thought it to be advisable to shave their heads anew before applying the emulsion. Meerah didn’t show much enthusiasm but Conny persuaded her and so the girls were bald again.

Of course the results of the second cure didn’t differ from the first. And after they had tried a third one after having shaved their heads for the third time, the hair grew back even slower and, more seriously, much sparser.

The girls were disappointed and dishearted. They noticed horrified that even the small amount of hair on their heads tended to fall out! Despairing they consulted a dermatologist. He asked them to bring the remaining lotion and after having it examined told them that the so called hairgrow stimulating emulsion contained a variety of products without any specific action.

”After some time your hair will come back but I cannot tell you how much time it will take. In the meantime there is nothing you can do except waiting and of course stopping to use this stuff.”

Devi asked a lawyer if the manufacturer could be charged for deceit but he said that the prescription mentioned a clear warning and that it would be very difficult to proof.

”I hope you have learned your lesson,” Devi told them, ”You shouldn’t have been so naive and gullible.”

She said a lot more and she really gave the girls a good dressing down. They listened meekly and assented to all she said.

But after Devi had left Meerah started to laugh: ”What the fuck, to hell with this lousy hair.”

And she and Conny had Josh shave off the paltry outgrow and again they were bald.

Of course initially the chrome domes of the girls had caught a lot of attention when they showed up at college after their radical make-over but after some time the girls as well as their co-students had been accustomed to their appearance. They were called ”the two cueballs.” Those who didn’t know them so well thought them to be lesbians but others knew that they had experimented with their hair with dramatic results. Nevertheless they were looked on differently as their lack of hair was contrary to the norm. And just that made them striking. It didn’t bother Conchita much owing to her already rather libertine lifestyle but particularly Meerah had changed: with the loss of her hair and the resulting growing interest of male students she had got more self-confident. She didn’t more turn down every invitation for a date. One night she excitedly came home and told Conny that Neill, a co-student had asked her if he could shave her head.

”I accepted so he will come to me tomorrow night and ….well……..maybe……….”

She didn’t say it but Conny understood very well what she meant and laughed: ”Well, well, sounds as if you at last show adult behaviour. Congratulations, Mir, I wont bother you, I’ll be out tomorrow night and come back late.”

”Where are you going?

”Oh, I’ll see, there are many places to go for me.”

Neill came, gave her a smooth and shining dome and kissed it after finishing the job. Soon they got so horny that he started to undress Meerah and then carried her naked body to her bedroom…..

When Conny got home she saw Meerah’s clothes scattered on the floor of the living room and she smiled: ”At last she has come of age.”

And Devi? She remembered her own time as a student, not so long ago, and the crazy things students sometimes do.

”The folly will pass away once”, she thought.

But for the time being Conny and Meerah didn’t worry about changing their behaviour and appearance! They loved their obtained freedom too much!

The only advice Meerah accepted from Devi was a visit to a gynaecologist to have herself prescribed a contraceptive.

The end.