Escalation
Last night Becca and I cut our hair.
We’re both in highschool, both 15 and we have long hair. Mine’s jet black and hers is strawberry blonde, all straight, one length and falling down to our jeans. Or at least it was until we got going last night.
She was sleeping over and we saw this silly movie with some space chicks or something. They had this haircut and I thought it was very neat. I got to thinking and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to get my hair cut like that. Right then and there. I talked Becca into it too.
Next all we needed was a pair of scissors and some fiddling with them and it was done. We were both sitting atop of my bed with thick black and golden strands of hair all around us, giggling like mad. We cut ourselves straight thick bangs, covering our eyebrows, and in the back we cut it in a perfect straight line, quite a few inches shorter than it used to be.
When I got up in the morning I had already forgot about it. Imagine my surprise when I looked up in the bathroom mirror. I thought it still looked great even uneven after sleep, and it looked amazing once I combed it. Then I got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.
My mom was sitting at the kitchen table and it was probably a good thing. I had forgotten all about what she was gonna say. She’s always on my case to do this and that with my hair and it’s never good enough. She always uses my big sister as an example and it’s enough to drive any sane person mad, it makes me climb the walls.
Anyway, she said “Good morning, Marissa”, and then she looked at me and did a double take.
“God damn it, Marissa,” she said. Then she just sat there and looked at me until I thought I can feel my new bangs start to smoke and her eyes drilling into my head.
“Come over here,” she said.
I had stopped at the door and didn’t quite wanted to get closer. She doesn’t usually beat me or anything like that, but if she’s really really pissed off and I take her by surprise she may slap me around once or twice. And it’s not like I enjoy it. So I took my time until she raised her voice.
“Get your butt over here now, Marissa Jane!”
I could feel my cheeks burning ahead of time, in preparation for the slapping. But she just got her hands into my hair, fluffed my bangs, moved them around, but they kept sliding back in a perfect line over my eyes. I was quite proud about that, to be frank, and I was just about to smile happily but then I caught myself just in time. It wouldn’t do to provoke her.
She turned me around next and examined my hair in the back, tried to push it around my years and all sorts of stuff. Then she pushed me back and just looked at me with her jaw set.
I wasn’t very sure how I should react. It was what I called her poker face, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She may sigh and leave it alone, or she might take my head off.
For some reason this though got into my head at that precise moment. It said I’m 15 and practically a grown-up and if I wanted to cut my hair it wasn’t anybody’s business. So I went for the defiant look. Yes, that one. You know what I mean.
Moments later she started simmering and it was then I realised it wasn’t exactly my best ever choice. Before I knew it *slap* *slap* both my cheeks were burning and my mom let me really have it. She must’ve went on for at least 15 minutes straight, I’m not kidding. She told me all about how I refused to grow to be a proper young lady, how she was after me for ages to be sensitive and care properly for my hair (God, as if I didn’t know), how my sister was so much better than me about this (and I was careful not to roll my eyes because I didn’t want to be slapped again). Maybe you don’t remember it if it’s been a while since you were a young girl, but those slaps *sting*. Luckily it was a Saturday, because people will laugh at you at school if you go with handprints on your cheeks. Then she started saying that perhaps, just perhaps I should take example from Rebecca if I didn’t want to listen to her or my sister, and that’s about the time when Becca decided to come downstairs too and entered the kitchen.
It was a killer moment, let me tell you. Becca is a sweetheart in the morning, right after she wakes up, she walks around kind of dazed for a while and looks at everybody lovingly with her big blue eyes. My mother did a sort of oink when she got sight of her hair, right when she was saying how well behaved and sensible Becca is. They stood there staring at each other, Becca totally serene and innocent and not knowing what this was about, and my mother speechless for the first time in 15 minutes.
In retrospective, this was probably the breaking point. If I were to go back in time and do that moment all over again, would I choose to keep my laughter in or not? Anyway, I let it rip and didn’t care anymore. It was just too funny.
When I got to, my mom’s face was just inches from my own and my cheeks suddenly stung me again. But she didn’t slap me, she just stared straight into my eyes all quiet all of a sudden and said “Marissa Jane, you and Rebecca stay right here. Do not go anywhere, you hear? Don’t move an inch if you know what’s good for you.”
Then she went out of the kitchen and I heard her talking on the phone.
I looked at Becca who was still out of it. She looked absolutely darling with her blond hair all tousled and her dizzy face and the new haircut, she looked like a doll. I wanted to grab her and squeeze her but I figured I’d better pretend I was a good girl just now.
Mom came striding back in the kitchen and stopped in front of me with her arms crossed.
“Now, young lady,” she said. “You take the airhead with you” (ah, she wasn’t the sensible and well behaved girl anymore) “dress her up then take her by the hand and don’t stop ’til you get to your sister’s. Do you understand me?”
I nodded on principle, and got myself moving, but I already didn’t like the sound of it. Upstairs I just went through the motions and tried not to think about it. I made Becca wash her face and combed her hair, and then I thought about it and while she was getting dressed (God, it’s like dressing a 5yr old when she’s sleepy) I decided to put her hair up in a high ponytail and even put in a blue bow. And since I was doing that I put mine up in a high ponytail too, only with a red bow. I figured it couldn’t hurt, and I thought it looked very cute. Becca alone was sweet enough to bite.
When I got downstairs again, with Becca’s hand clamped in mine, mom was nowhere to be seen. So I set off out of the house and down the street. Only then did I start thinking what I’ve gotten myself in.
You see, it was a Saturday, and this means that big sis is at work. So “my sister’s” means the place she works at, which is a salon. During the week she and Sandy work there together. Sandy is her friend and they own the salon together. I would bet they do more than that together if you know what I mean, but I digress. Anyway, on a Saturday only one of them is in, and this Saturday it was sister’s turn. Just my luck.
I’m not exactly thick in the head, you know. If my mother doesn’t like my haircut and says “go to your sister’s”, I know what it means. She wants her to “fix it”. This made me sigh, and I looked at Becca, then ran my hand along my own thick long ponytail. Becca’s hair looked just lovely in the bright morning sun, and mine felt great. Honestly, why can’t she just leave me alone? I swear it looks wonderful, why can’t she see that?
We were at the salon all too soon for my taste, but I didn’t dare to be too late. My mom must’ve called sis by now and I knew that being late counted as insubordination.
The little bell at the entrance chimed when we got in. Becca followed me quietly inside. She was out of her daze by now. She’s usually pretty quiet when she’s out in public, and she’s also at least as smart as me. So she had a good reason to keep quiet this time, having figured out what was going on in the meantime. Sometimes she pisses me off, that’
s why my mom and everybody thinks she’s so “well behaved and sensible”, because she keeps her mouth shut, not because she’s any more sensible than me. So I gave her a shove when she went past me, but then I felt bad and pretended I had tripped. She still didn’t say anything, just looked at me for a moment. She knows how I am.
My sister was sitting in one of the chairs and she turned it around slowly when she saw us. She looked us over and I swear she was looking just like Whitey, Mrs. Smitty’s cat, the day she knocked over the milk bottle at the front door and stuffed her face full of it before Mrs. Smitty caught her. I mean she was bursting with joy.
You see, my sister is a bit of a sadist. OK, she’s a big sadist. She likes to cut hair. Short. Her salon only gives “radical makeovers”. Sandy’s hair is cut in a short crop, all spikey and stuff, and my sister’s is cut in an asymetrical bob with the ends curved to meet her lips, and completely shaved underneath, in the back, way up to her ears. It looks good on her, too damn good, and she knows it. She looked more like a cat than ever as she got out of the chair and slinked towards us. She’s tall and thin and moves like a big cat and I totally hate her at times like this.
She came next to me and I saw her smirk when she noticed the fresh slaps on my face. Her long manicured fingers brushed my nape and ears and she played with my ponytail.
“Well, well, little Marcy,” she said. I just hate that nickname.
“You know what? Mom just called.” I rolled my eyes. No kidding, really? What a surprise.
“And you know what she said? She said she had a talk with Rebecca’s mother and also said something about the last straw or something. Anyway, she said I should give you both haircuts. And she said I can give you any haircut I want. *Any* haircut at all,” she purred.
OK, this one was a bit of a surprise, I had to admit. I mean, I figured she’d tell her to even it out or something, but let her loose? Was mom crazy? And Becca too. Did Mrs. Smitty lose it as well?
As I looked at Becca and she looked at me I saw the look in her eyes and that was the moment I got this cold shiver up my spine. I looked at her long silky ponytail and she looked at mine and for the first time I realised this whole thing may have at some point gone terribly wrong.
“What do you think, sis?” I heard my tall Nemesis say. “I’ll let you choose who’s gonna be first in the chair. Do you want to sit in the chair and look at Rebecca waiting for her haircut while I cut off yours, or do you want to watch her get shorn while you wait your turn?”
By now the shiver had become a definite sickness in the pit of my stomach, because I had realised just how bad this was. My sister wasn’t even trying to hide it, she was spelling it out. She was going to take us as short as she dared, and I shuddered to think what that was.
Even so, somehow it seemed terribly wrong to push Becca in to be first, since it had been my idea and all that. So I told my sister that I’d go first. Later on Becca told me that having to sit and watch me get my hair cut knowing she’d be next was like the biggest torture. But at that time I hadn’t thought about it.
What went on next happened as if through a daze. My sister took me by the arm and led me to a chair, then sat me down. It wasn’t the first time I was sitting here, I got all my haircuts here, but this time everything looked so alien. She spread the bright white cape around me and tied it behind my neck, moving my ponytail over my shoulder, to the front. I sat there, arms resting on the arms of the chair, and looked in the mirror. Saw myself with my fresh bangs and my ponytail hanging over my shoulder and Becca sitting a little to the side, in the waiting area behind me. She had a look on her face like she didn’t know if she had to cry or to go to the bathroom.
Next thing I knew my sister was next to me and I couldn’t see Becca anymore so I looked in the mirror at myself. The next things went over as if watching a movie.
I could tell my sister was overjoyed. She has a thing for cutting hair off, I told you, and I suppose cutting both mine and Becca’s in the same day was like the greatest for her.
First she pulled on my ribbon and all my hair came tumbling down around my face and on my shoulders, in a thick heavy mass. She just let the ribbon fall to the floor. She then reached over to the counter and lifted a pair of clippers. They were red and not very big. I just stared at them as my sister fiddled with the blade for a moment, and the sick feeling in my stomach intensified.
she turned them on and they buzzed quietly. She looked at me in the mirror. “I won’t have to tie you down or anything, do I?” she joked. It didn’t even register, I was too out of it. Then she put her left hand on my forehead and pulled my thick bangs up. She lifted the clippers in her right hand, and she put the blade in at my forehead, under the bangs. Then she simply started pulling the vibrating blade against my skin, over my head.
The thick strands of hair started falling like rain. I felt the blade of the clippers whirring against the skin of my head, in a place and in a way that skin had never been touched ever before in my life. I was dumbfounded, I just watched as she cleared a path of skin up and up and up, to the top of my head. There was only smooth skin left behind. She was shaving my head.
My bangs stuck out at odd angles now, due to that gap in front. She used her left hand to lift another section, at the right of the first, and she applied the clippers to my skin once again. And again she moved them up, over my head, up and up and up, while my black silky hair was falling all over the place like mad.
She lifted the bangs on the left next and once again I felt the clippers against my skin. As they went up over my head for the third time I realised most of my blunt fringe was pretty much gone. Not only that, but the entire top of my head was already pretty much free of hair, after only three swipes. I just couldn’t believe it had been just a few seconds. I had a full head of hair there, thick and black, and now there was just smooth white skin, without a trace of hair.
She didn’t give me much time to think. Next thing I knew, she placed the clipper blade on the right, against the hair I had there, and took another long swipe over my head. By now she had pretty much shaved the top, so I felt her hand move my unresisting head, making it lean to the left on my shoulder. the next swipe started low as she applied the blade against my cheek and moved up, shaving my sideburn to the skin and leaving my temple completely free of hair. Next she placed the blade in front of my ear and moved around it, and continued in a long motion toward the back, following the shape of my head.
It had only been moments and already I was well on my way to being shaved. I was looking fascinated at the way the still intact hair on my left curled as I kept my head leaning over that way. It was so beautiful. It didn’t last long, though. My sister made me raise my head and lean it the other way. I felt the long hair against my left cheek and temple, so familiar, like it had always been. But on the top and right side my head felt cold. She moved around and before I knew it I felt the blade on my left cheek, sliding up and shaving my other sideburn clean. Then again around the ear and to the back.
As she made me lift my head straight I saw that the entire top of my head had been denunded. It was all white skin wherever I looked. Then I felt her hand push my head forward until my chin rested on my chest. I felt her parting my hair in the back and the blade applied to my neck. Then it started to slide upwards and I felt the hair separate from my head all along the back, all the way to the top. Then she applied it to my nape and it slide again up and up and up, shaving my head. The moment it passed over the middle of the back of my head, on the third run, a shudder went through my body. Then again, it shaved to the right of that place, and then
all to fast it was buzzing next to my ear again. A couple more swipes as she cleaned isolated strands and it was over. I was bald.
For a while after that my sister kept the clippers running all over my head. The touch of her hands on my naked skin made me shudder again and again. It was such an alien feeling. The clipper blade had grown warm, almost hot, as they roamed all over my naked head. Then all of a sudden it was all over.
I raised my head as I realised the clippers have stopped. I looked in the mirror, transfixed, as my sister brushed my head with a soft brush.
I was completely, totally, bald. Shaved smooth, where only a short while ago I had long, thick, black hair down to my waist. I kept telling myself that I had gone from waist long hair to shaved smooth in one go, but it just wouldn’t register. I stared at my image in the big mirror. My head seemed so small without all that hair. My eyes seemed huge, but maybe that was because they were threatening to go out of my head. My years were small and pink. The shape of my head was pleasant, I had a perfectly round head, but God I looked so very alien.
For some reason I lowered my eyes, and then I got the biggest shock. In my lap was the biggest pile of black hair I had ever seen. I just looked at it and could not believe all that had come off my own head.
I don’t know how long I sat there, staring in my lap. I know that in this time my sister covered my head in white foam and I felt her hands and the blade of a razor shave my head completely smooth. But I was out of it and time didn’t register anymore.
I came to as she undid the cape and lifted it. I watched fascinated as all the hair in my lap tumbled down to the floor. I got up as if in a dream. I kept looking at the floor. All around the chair the floor was covered in piles of black hair. My hair.
Then I looked up and met Becca’s eyes. The look on my face was nothing compared to the look on hers.
My sister had to take my by the arm and walk me to a chair, then take Becca’s arm and walk her to the station, like she was doing a prisoner exchange or something. I sat down. I looked forward, seeing Becca taking her seat, with her long golden ponytail bouncing around and the blue ribbon flutter. She caught my eye once again as my sister was caping her, and she had a look of despair, like she was asking for help. What do you want me to do, I heard my voice in my head.
I felt the shudder build inside me again as my sister fiddled once again with the clippers and I watched Becca sit there with her long strawberry blonde hair in that cute ponytail. Then my sister pulled the ribbon out of her hair. I was in awe as golden sheats of silk tumbled over her shoulders. She looked so vulnerable and sweet and adorable as she sat there, all caped and waiting to be shaved. The shudder was slithering down to my loins now and it had grown hot.
It grew even hotter as I watched my sister shave my best friend’s waist long blonde hair all off. It was the best few minutes of my life. As she neared the end and started roaming the clippers and her hands all over Becca’s bald head I raised my hands to my own head and felt my smooth naked skin for the first time. I touched it with my palms and moved them all over my bald head and I had a series of shattering orgasms right there, in the chair, as my sister was shaving Becca with the razor.
When she got her out of the chair I stood right up, went over, caught her hand and marched right out the door. I heard my sister shouting something but I didn’t care. Becca had reverted to her morning daze and seemed completely unfocused and out of it. She didn’t protest or say anything as I walked her fast to my house. I went right through the hallway and up the stairs, then into my room and locked the door behind me. I don’t know where my mom was and if she had seen us or said something. I didn’t care.
I wanted to be the first to feel Becca’s smooth head with my hands, and I wanted to be alone with her and undisturbed when I did that. I wanted to take my time.
My room was darkened, because the drapes were drawn. I felt Becca’s head and looked in her eyes. She was starting to focus again and I saw some tears. I wiped her eyes with my hand and then I got back to feeling her head. I felt her hands on my hips, then my shoulders, then she started roaming her own palms over my head. We were in a frenzy, and before I knew what happened I was holding the back of her neck and I was kissing her. I had my eyes closed because the feelings and the tactile sensations were too much even without the images adding to it. I felt her soft lips against mine, and they felt glorious, like the fluffy paws of a cat. I felt her breath on my own lips, short and fast. I got my tongue out and in a moment of craziness I stuck it in her mouth. A moment later I felt the tip of her tongue meet mine and my world exploded.