Dianne was vexed. She had been working up to this moment for weeks. Ever since she’d noticed the nervy kid tugging awkwardly at the ill-fitting hairpiece, groping underneath for new growth, before verging gawkily out into the real world with wispy strands of her own, she just knew that somewhere, somehow there was a connection to be made. Ms. Lean could sniff out a dyke from a hundred paces – without fail. This one in particular – her ordeal would turn anyone off the un-fairer sex. And now, having put all the required effort in, her chosen intimate wasn’t just playing hard to get, but demanding …what was that again?

“So, let me get this right. You are telling me… you’re actually saying, that you want to shave my head? All my lovely hair, gone?”

“Every last bit of it.”

“But why, Tracey?”

“Because I have to, that’s all.”

“Unbelievable. Right, listen up. It’s not going to happen, do you understand? Not now, not ever, never! Just how you imagined you could march in here, obviously intent on… it’s just bloody ridiculous!”

“I think you’ll find that it was you who invited me.”

“I don’t care! Okay, so I invited you. But not for you to… I’m just completely amazed! For a start, I’m `Fem’, and always have been! Surely you could sense that! Never been `Butch’, ever, and even if I was I wouldn’t….”

Tracey wasn’t listening. She’d gathered up the chunky, blue cordless clippers and was taking in her friend’s startled expression with a smile.

“Calm down, you daft bitch! I’m only putting you on. See, they’re not even plugged in!” Dianne looked uncertain. The things Tracey was waving around looked harmless enough, so why bother bringing them?

“So this is all a stupid joke then, is it? I suppose you want me to play along with you, and no doubt you’ll be telling me to `keep my hair on’ or some such banality. Well ha fucking ha! And who are you calling `bitch’, anyway?”

“Just affectionate, you know. Relax, like I said I’m only kidding! I know this isn’t for real, but can you just let me pretend?”

“Whatever for?”

For some reason, Tracey’s crestfallen expression hit home, so Dianne relented. Perhaps, after all, this was the girl’s strange idea of foreplay. “All right then, if you really must. But don’t mess my hair up. And then ,maybe, we can get down to business?”

Tracey positively yelped. “Sit up. Now, if I were to take your hair off right here, I’d start at your forehead, like so, and I’d run them right down the middle – like this – bzzzzz!!!!” At that point she made a sound like a swarm of bees, and a few playfully exaggerated passes over her subject’s immaculately coiffured head.

“Something I forgot to mention,” Dianne butted in, “I think you are truly and categorically weird!”

“Oh, and something I forgot to mention…”

In an instant the machine had clunked `ON’ and was carving out a very real pathway through the center parting which separated the expensive, expansive, shiny curtains of hair framing her round face.

“… batteries were included!”

The droning blades had crunched their path right to the crown before Dianne had even time to think. What could not possibly be happening, was happening. First realization: In a trice her £100 haircut had been completely ruined. Second – her assailant had fully anticipated her fight response and clasped both wrists hard with one hand. With the other, she appeared hell bent on removing huge chunks of hair as unceremoniously as was possible . Positioned full on they hacked away at the temple where the hair had been at its thickest. So much so that the buzz tone lowered half an octave as a dense mass, keeping its shape perfectly, thudded on to the bed. Third – it was clear from the outset she would not win a battle of strength with the girl. Aided by the apparent possession of a lunatic, Tracey must have worked out rigorously, and those toned muscles, previously so admired, could physically overcome any resistance she had to offer. Dianne felt a blast of unfamiliar fresh air to the side of her head. No, not the ears…”

“Hey, take a look at this fine specimen!” Tracey whooped in triumph.

The victim could only plead for insanity. “You’re mental! Fucking fruitcake! And you’re hurting me – owww!!”

But Tracey had the upper hand, in more ways than one, and was not giving up her advantage. “Now, we can do this two ways. The black and blue way, or a far easier way. But I’m telling you – either way, you will be bald as an onion come tomorrow morning.” This only led to more struggling, answered by an even tighter, almost vice-like grip. Protest was becoming redundant.

“I can’t wait to see it. Your head as smooth as a hen’s egg, and those lovely jug lugs on full view! Like the handles on a trophy. I mean it,, I can’t imagine why you wanted to cover those beauties up! Now, if you would please let me continue…!”

And with that she drew the humming, uncovered blades right up the sideburn and round, leaving Dianne’s splendidly protuberant ear completely bare. It was at this point, when the woman realized she could take no more, that the tears finally began to flow and resistance ebbed away into nothingness. This time, instinct screamed there was nothing she could do to stop the insane girl from ridding her of that which she held most dear. Her pride and joy being swept away and discarded like so much garbage. She sobbed uncontrollably now as the greedy clippers swiftly removed the locks that had draped so elegantly over the other ear, falling slow motion-like in one heavy lump, first onto her shoulder, then breast, then further, delivering a fleeting impression of a hirsute pussy .

Dianne wept over at painfully returning childhood memories. Ones she never thought would be revisited. She’d considered having the ears pinned back, but her kindhearted mother had advised against surgery. `Always make sure you have enough hair to cover them up’ had been her counsel. Out of sight, out of trouble. Even so, cruel kids would tease her whenever they peeped through; “Dianne Dumbo!” Which was the reason she’d never, ever, gone fully cropped; and now every savage pass of Tracey’s shears was consigning her to returning ridicule.

As the clippers scythed another broad path, all Tracey could see was: `Di’s hair style is just so top heavy! I’m practically having to wade through it! Good job I packed Long Life!’ and `How those so nape bristles simply sheared off in all directions! Look at them go!’

“Nearly finished with the buzzing!” An odd cut, the angled bob. You would surely have to classify it as a `short’ style, but you try shaving it all off and you find yourself with enough to fill a small pillow. Even the heavy duty Duracells were beginning to drain, but there was only ever going to be one winner in that contest, and only after the last stray tuft had succumbed, did Tracey allow herself to exhale. PHEW! Tracey was glowing like a beacon. The other just sweated, now that Dianne the Seriously Fashionable had become Dianne Of The Concentration Camp. It took a few minutes before she dared speak.

“Is that it?” Her voice barely rose above a forlorn whisper. “Can I go now, please?”

“Not quite.” And out of Tracey’s handbag popped a water spray, shaving foam and a Mach 3 razor. Oh yes, she had come prepared, and her `client’ didn’t even blink when her head was wetted then lathered up. Somehow she’d gathered there was more to come. All of a sudden, a creeping, sickening thought: The two of them were, or had been, co-workers. Once this got out, one of them was heading straight for jail, their livelihood in tatters. Or maybe not? No…surely not…?

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” she ventured in a voice barely audible. ” Then hide my body somewhere. You can’t afford to let me live. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be stupid! I’m not a gangster, you know! Anyway, do you think I’d go to all this trouble over a corpse?” Whether Tracey’s instant response confirmed its veracity, or simply that she’d prepared for the question, Dian
ne had really no choice but to accept it. Though she was acutely aware that it did not constitute denial. At least Tracey had relaxed her physical grip. Dianne took this to mean relaxation; it actually spelt increased self-confidence.

“Now for Christ’s sake, keep your head still. We don’t want any blood.” Was that supposed to be reassuring? Dianne froze her entire body as Tracey’s razor scraped inexorably back from the top of her forehead. The overhead strip light reflected sharply off the white strip carved out in the foam, but Dianne could only feel the warm blades’ surprisingly soft raspy caress, like a cat’s tongue, as they laid waste a band of hair parallel to the first one. Skrrrittch!! The sound resonating with such amplified exaggeration through Dianne’s skull as she wondered if her brain had gone missing. That may at least explain how she came to be here, in her own home, being balded by a subordinate.

“Shall I fetch you a mirror?” suggested the young girl.

“What’s the point. I may as well wait for the finished product.”

“You’re going to love it, I promise.”

“What, like you did?”

“That’s different. I was unconscious. Not only are you awake, you’re finding this fun!”

“Really? What the fuck makes you so sure?”

“Because – you want me, we both want the same, and I’m enjoying this like you wouldn’t believe! Now hold still!”

Once again, one-nil to Tracey. But so expert was her work, there was not a nick, blemish or finally a single follicle to be seen on her `client’s porcelain head as the last vestiges of hair were removed from the sideburn, the back, around those oversize, 90 degree ears and of course the crafted nape, as was. No need to wait for the finished product – there it was; a smooth, gleaming, oval dome.

“Perfect” was Tracey’s unbiased appraisal. “Oh, don’t look so miserable. How’s about you borrow my wig, you remarked before how much you admired it, and it does a very good job keeping your head warm!” That was to prove unnecessary as Dianne’s head flushed puce when the girl produced two strips of plastic-coated paper from beneath her own breasts. “You didn’t notice me slip these under when we started fighting, did you? But I had to keep them somewhere hot.” Tracey couldn’t resist another dig. ” Mine can’t hold anything, but yours are really good at keeping things in place, know what I mean?

“That wasn’t kind.” Deflated, it was the best response Dianne could muster. She’d thought that was it, but as her tormentor peeled back the plastic to unveil two hot waxing strips she knew that only pain lay ahead. Who, if they have any shred of dignity, allows a far younger person total control over their very well being? Well, someone who wants to live, that’s who. Who knows what this psycho is capable of. So Dianne let out barely a whimper as the warm strips were clamped tight to her light, delicate eyebrows, pushed down, hard into her forehead, then smoothed out to ensure maximum contact.

“These must remain on for ten minutes.” The tone was so casual, so matter-of-fact, as if reading from a newspaper. “Which gives me just enough time to complete the process.” The clippers buzzed on again. Just when Dianne thought she had seen everything. What `process’? How `completing’?

“Now, I know, like any self-respecting dyke, leg-shaving isn’t your number one priority, but this really won’t do. It’s like a carpet down here! But there’s no time for wax so I’m just going to whizz through. Sit still.” It was a long journey from ankle and elegant tibia to firm and cellulite-free thigh, but the downy baby hair fell slowly and soundlessly as snowflakes. At least that was painless.

“There we are, super model legs! Now, Dianne, I want you to be brave for the final act. Can you do that, Dianne? Can you be brave?” The victim nodded, helplessly. “Right then.”

No warning. Just Ssssshhrrrrip! “AARGH!!”

Ssssshhrrrrip! “OOWWAAARRGH!”

A dagger of agony arrowed into Dianne’s forehead as every single hair that had formed her eyebrows became instantly detached from their host, forever. Their fate was to adhere forlornly on a strip of hot wax paper, like iron filings on a magnet, thereafter consigned to the trash. Dianne was to learn hers soon enough.

“You may has well have that mirror, now.”

Dianne knew that the face staring back was not going to be one she recognized, but a sense of shock was unavoidable. Could that even be called a face -or just a visage? Your face is your physiognomy, your personality. It reflects you. But this: It was as if all the `you-ness’ had just vanished, been rubbed away. Not Dianne Lean’s. This was a `funny’ face with a dome instead of hair, sticky-out cartoon ears and her finely arched brows completely erased. Look surprised? How would anyone notice? Would anyone notice that she was even a woman, any more? Barely a few hours ago, she exuded the confidence of an executive with style and hair to kill for. Now, splayed out on her own bed, acting out purely at the behest of a mad woman, she was a trembling wreck, still unsure how or even if this would finish. As the wild-eyed one circled the bed like a predator, Dianne was inwardly begging her to break the silence and end this trial. Please. Finally, Tracey lay down on the bed and Dianne found herself drawn in to a close, sweaty, full-body embrace.

“So, this is how you want me, is it? Pink, plucked and totally hairless, like a supermarket chicken? Because that’s just what I feel like.”

“I did say `every bit of it’. But a plucked chicken? Yes, I like that. But no, I don’t want you. But I do need to take a good look at you. I want to every part of your body as close to mine as humanly possible, which is why you are as you are. Don’t you feel that this whole hair thing is just incredibly overrated? I know I do. Yet all of us, to a woman, we still hide behind it. Long, short, bobbed, curled. A hairstyle for every occasion to make us feel like something we’re not. But underneath, we’re all the same, isn’t that right?” Dianne nodded, miserably. “Here we are, soft, pink, bald and vulnerable, just as God intended. And we’re together. Doesn’t that just give you a fuzzy, warm feeling inside?”

“No. Also, that isn’t quite true. Your head’s still covered, isn’t it?”

“So it is – in fact I nearly forgot, Di.. Thanks for reminding me – I have a final favor to ask from you.”

“I can’t imagine what. But I guess you’ll have it anyhow.”

“Look, I am really sorry about this. I had to pretend to be gay to carry out my plan. Honestly Di, if you had suffered the stares, the whispering, the rebuffs, the ridicule that I have, you’d know where I’m coming from. Ha! No pun intended! But please bear with me, you have to do this, Dianne. Right now, you are going to give me some head!

And with that the girl rose up towards the bed head, and positioned herself astride Dianne’s skull. Then placing her thighs flat up against Dianne’s temples, and clasping those big floppy ears for leverage, hauled herself into position to rub her dilated clit, up, down and around the polished surface, groaning with pleasurable anticipation of the inevitable. And when it happened, it happened! Oh, pathetic men with their pitiful mini-orgasms! Dianne, too terrified now to move, recoiled as the sticky, hot cum first scalded the top of her cranium then drizzled down slowly, glutinously, in all directions. “YEEEAAAGHH! WAAUUGHH!” And this was the gift which kept on giving. The torrid torrent burnt a rivulet into her skull before it ran down unabated on to her neck, into her unprotected eyes and into her poor red ears, smarting ever more from the incessant tugging. OH! OH! OH! AARRGH! The pain giving way to suffocation. Not merely in the literal sense; a suffocation of the spirit, a loss of the will to live out a life that could always recollect this unrelieved degradation. A steady stream of pungent goo gushing onto her head that would scar for life. And it tasted like… It tasted as if the end of the world had truly arrived.

---

Counsel For The Defense considered their case to be g
ood . For sure, their client had denied the plaintiff any choice in the matter; but cruelty simply wasn’t part of her makeup. She was, in fact incapable of cruelty. This had been a no more than temporary mental imbalance, a direct consequence of the day she woke to find herself humiliated and de-feminized, and craved, more than anything, for just one other person, not only to sympathize with her plight, but to empathize, truly feel her pain, so they could both work it out together. Ms Whitehead wasn’t bad; just momentarily unhinged , and deserved a second chance.

The Prosecution did not say much beyond how the defendant had `lain in wait’ for their client. They didn’t need to. The hunched, skinhead-cropped and sunken-eyed woman shuffling into the courtroom, in that creased Dior suit that somehow didn’t fit right anymore, and literally addressing the floor in the flat, lifeless monotone of the helplessly broken was enough to move the jury, and send Tracey down for five years.

For Dianne, however, the life sentence was only just beginning.