Big Brother J by cut.the.flow

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Follow me on Instagram: @cut.the.flow

In college I was in a fraternity. My university was small, so the fraternities weren’t like the ones you see portrayed in the media. It was a more laidback group of guys. I knew all of them and was decently close with all of them too. I was really close with my Big Brother in the fraternity. We got really close really fast. His name is Jade, but he just went by J.

He had long brown hair that flowed right past his shoulders. It moved beautifully anytime he was moving as well.

He had contemplated cutting it for a while, but kept chickening out. So one Saturday night I brought it up again.

"J, you know I cut my own hair. Why don’t you just let me cut yours?" I asked. He was always defensive and skeptical, so he began questioning me. "Don’t get me wrong, your hair looks great, but this is completely changing my look, so I kinda want to get it professionally done." "Okay. Let’s do that then." "Well, I don’t know if I wanna spend the money right now and I don’t know if I even wanna cut it for real." He always had an excuse. I began, "You always y’all about wanting to cut your hair, but never follow through. I’m tired of hearing about it." Suddenly I had an idea, "What if you let me cut it and if it turns out terrible then I’ll pay for it to get fixed wherever you want to go."

My offer perked his ear, "You’ll pay for it if you mess it up?" "Yes." "Well I don’t know if-" "J, Stop. Just be impulsive. You have a tattoo you got impulsively one night. I know it’s in you. If worst comes to worse, you can just grow it back out. Sadly, you can’t undo something like a tattoo." I could see him coming around to the idea, so I spent the next 30 minutes talking him into it, explaining it to him.

Finally, he agreed. Only after I offered to pay for the fixed cut if I messed it up. He agreed that he was talking about it so much that he knew the other brothers were tired of hearing him say it.

I pulled out a chair into my kitchen and got a towel for him. As he set himself up, I got my clippers and scissors. The day I had dreamed of had finally come. I went back into the kitchen where J was set up. He had pulled a mirror into there so he could see what was going on. I set up shop and looked at him in the mirror for a minute, studying his hair.

He began, "Now remember what I said and don’t forget that you can look at the pictures I pulled up." He pointed at his phone on the counter next to us with hair pictures on it. He had told me explicitly how he wanted it cut.

I combed through his beautiful tresses. I couldn’t wait to watch them fall to the floor. His hair sat on top of his shoulders. I sectioned his hair off because he wanted the top longer.

"Ready?" I asked him. "As ready as I’ll ever be. Just do it."

The clippers with a fairly long guard came to life. I placed them at the side of his head and ran them up to where his hair was sectioned. He let out a yelp as he covered his mouth with his hand. The hardest part, the first cut, was done.

I asked him "Are you good?" He removed his hands and faked a smile. I awkwardly nodded and continued.

I clipped off another strip of hair. His locks were slowly falling to the floor. As I watched his hair cascade to the ground, I couldn’t help but feel giddy. By now, I had chopped about half of his hair off. "Do you feel like Samson yet?" "The bible guy? I hope not." We laughed as I continued to follow the shape of his head with the clippers. A pile was accumulating on the floor. Finally, I finished up with the sides.

I brushed him off and then unclipped the top half of his hair. It fell down and juxtaposed the now short hair. I really realized then how much hair J had. J began, "You actually did a good job on the sides. Now just don’t f*** up the top." "I know. I know."

He whipped the long hair on top back and forth for a minute. We were laughing. Now it was time to negotiate with him about the length of the top. He wanted it longer than I did. I brushed the top forward and pointed at his eyebrows and said "I think cutting it here would look best with it." His eyes bulged as I said this, "No. I said about to the lips." I took his hair and brushed it back to show him how each would look. He still wanted it to his lips. "J I promise you can trust me obviously. It will look so much better if you cut it to your eyebrows. It will be light and you can style it. If it’s to your lips it’s gonna be heavy and get in your face. Isn’t that the reason you wanted to cut your hair is because it was always in your face?" "Yeah, but still I wan—" "No ‘buts’! It makes no sense to cut it to your lips just so you can complain about it again. I’m cutting it to your eyebrows."

I can’t believe I just took control like that. J didn’t say a word. I took his hair and brushed it forward. Quickly, I cut it at his eyebrows. I realized J was a little upset, so I apologized, "I’m sorry for using that tone, but I’m just tired of hearing you complain about your hair, so cutting it to here is the only way to ensure our sanity." "That’s fine." he said.

I kept cutting the top, sending brown locks to the floor. Finally, I was done. took the towel off of J. He slowly stood up, examining his short hair. He said "You actually did a really good job. I really like it." Then he hugged me. "You’re a good Little Brother. Thank you for doing this."

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