Beware of Burning Candles! by Shant

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This is a true story...

When I was in college in the 70's, it was a tradition each year for one of the fraternities to put on a musical during Homecoming Week. My senior year it was our turn and I was really looking forward to it. Not only frat members, but anyone that was a student could audition. Six students who were not members of the fraternity were cast. It was a lot of fun getting to meet new people and working together on something we all enjoyed doing.

One guy, not in the frat, was especially good looking. His name was Matt and he was a sophomore music major. He had a beautiful voice. He also had beautiful hair. It was a dark chestnut color, very thick, with a slight wave to it and had great texture.

As was popular at the time, he wore it parted down the middle with the sides brushed back, entirely covering his ears, with the ends just curling up as it touched his shoulders. Every guy wished he could have hair like that and couldn't help but be envious about how great his hair was. I cut all the guys hair in the frat and no one had hair as nice as his. I could not quit looking at it and thinking how much I would like to cut it. Little did I know that I was going to get my chance that very night.

Most nights after rehearsal, a group would get together and party a little before ending the evening. One time we were all just hanging out in my apartment, listening to music, sitting in a circle on the floor, drinking, smoking pot and just having a great time. It was obvious that Matt was not used to partying as much as the guys in the frat did and he started fading a little.

As the evening wore on, Matt ended up getting a little too high and fell asleep with his arms wrapped around his knees, remaining in an upright position. We just left him alone and didn't think anything of it. We were in college! This was the 70's! People were always passing out! There was many a night when someone was not able to make it home.

All of a sudden I realized that I could smell something odd. Something was burning! I looked around and saw that Matt, while asleep, had leaned back and his hair was directly over the flame of a candle that was behind him. His hair was probably about 10 inches long and it fell directly into the flame and caught fire. All of a sudden the entire back of his head was burning and he was still asleep! Talk about a rush! Having a buzz on from partying made the situation seem even more unreal! I mean, how often do you see a guy's hair go up in flames?

Everyone immediately freaked out and burst into action. We doused out the fire causing Matt to finally wake up. "What, what's going on?" he asked. "Your hair was on fire! You're lucky we were able to put it out as fast as we did."

Matt got up and went to the bathroom to check out his hair. It didn't look bad from the front and the sides but when he looked at the back he saw that most of it had been burned nearly down to the scalp. The fire of course had also left it ragged looking. "What am I going to do?" Matt cried. "I don't see how it can be fixed. Am I going to have to cut all my hair off?"

I looked at the back of Matt's head. His hair was pretty much destroyed. He was so upset that I hated to tell him how bad it really was. "You know I cut hair for all the guys in my frat, Do you want me to try and even it out for you?" I asked him. "It's going to have to be short in the back to even it up and that means that the sides and the top are going to have to be taken down quite a bit in order to blend in, but I'll do my best to leave it as long as possible."

"Okay," Matt said. "Go ahead and do whatever you have to do. It's gotta be done and I don't want to wait until the barber shops open." This was a Saturday night so shops would not be open until Tuesday. "Let me go and get my tools and we'll see what we can do to make your hair still look good."

When I came back I told Matt the first thing we needed to do was wash his hair to see how much damage had been done. I had him take off his shirt and get down on his knees, lean over the bathtub and put his head under the faucet. I took a large amount of shampoo and began the task of cleaning his hair. Even though the back was trashed it was still extremely erotic leaning over him and washing his hair. There was still so much hair on the top and sides and it was so thick and beautiful. Only the back had been damaged. It was a shame it was going to have to be cut, yet at the same time, I couldn't believe I was going to get to do this. Ever since I had met him at the auditions I had fantasized about cutting his hair.

After we finished, I had him sit in a chair and I combed his hair just like he wore it - parted down the middle and brushed back. An awful lot of hair was going to have to come off to make it blend in with the back. I was glad he was a little drunk, hoping that he might not realize the pruning he would be getting.

I started on the burned section and using only scissors started cutting it to see how short it was going to have to be. Even though I really wanted to take the clippers and buzz him down I was afraid that would really freak him out and he had been tramatized enough for one evening. I'm sure clippers had not touched his head in years. To get the burned area evened up I had to cut it down to about the thickness of my finger. Ten inches down to about a half inch!

When I had finished with the back, it was time to start working on the sides. I wet his hair again and combed the sides straight back. I then parted his hair on each side, combing it to the midldle. It was awesome how tall and thick his hair was and being wet, it absolutely gleamed. It was truly a mass of incredible hair. A huge amount was going to be coming off. I knew that this was really going to be painful for him and I felt a little guilty about how excited I was to get to cut his hair so short.

Starting towards the back at the part I had made, I combed out a section and snipped it off, cutting it down to about a half inch at the neck and letting it be about an inch and a half at the top near the part I had made. Again, this meant taking off at least 8 inches. Methodically I worked from the back to the front. Matt just sat there and a few times I thought he had gone back to sleep. I thought to myself that this was great because I could enjoy cutting almost all his hair off and he wouldn't even realize it until morning!

I couldn't wait to cut the top of his hair. I combed his forelock straight up and chopped off about 6 inches, still leaving the top about 4 inches long. I then continued working from the front to the back, taking it down shorter as I got to the crown so that it would blend in. It actually turned out looking pretty good because his hair was so thick and had so much body. I was able to brush it all back and he looked like he had an incredible pompadour, really long on top, with the short sides blended into the back.

When I finished, he just moved over to the sofa and crashed. I wondered if he even realized what had happened to him. The next morning I was sure to be up before him because I couldn't wait to see what his reaction was going to be. I was right, he remembered almost nothing of the night before and really freaked out when he saw how short his hair was.

We told him the whole story and he realized how lucky he was not to have lost even more of his hair. He also admitted that he actually liked the way it looked. When I told him that I had cut it for him he said that from now on he always wanted me to cut his hair. That was definitely fine with me. I'd really enjoy getting to be his barber all year. We also agreed that we would no longer be having candles burning while we were partying!

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