I needed a house painter by Shant

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I needed to find someone to help me paint a house. My neighbors told me about this guy, Tommy, that they had used to paint one of their businesses they owned. They said they were very satisfied with him. He was a good guy, did a good job, showed up on time, was dependable, and his price was reasonable.

They did tell me that in the beginning there had been a problem regarding his appearance, or better yet, his total lack of concern about his appearance. Tommy was a little guy, maybe 5’ 2" and 125 pounds, in his early 30’s. He had a full beard that almost touched his chest and his hair was almost to the middle of his back. He definitely looked like a hippie from the 70’s that had just come down from the mountains where he probably made moonshine. My neighbors said that when he first started painting for them, customers would ask if he were homeless and if it was safe to be around him. Obviously, not good for business.

My neighbors told Tommy about the comments they were receiving. They explained they wanted him to keep working for them but if he were to continue he would need to clean up his appearance. No problem, he said and the next day he showed up with a shorter beard and his hair just touching his shoulders.

I had to pass the shop where he was painting almost every day and over time got to know him. After talking with him for awhile and along with the referraI from my neighbors, I agreed to have him help me paint the house I needed to have done. He had about a month’s worth of painting to complete my neighbors shop and then would be able to help me with my house before starting their second building. This worked out great for both of us because I had plenty of prep work I could do before he started painting and he knew that he already had one more job to help tide him over the winter.

Once we started painting the house we started in the early morning to avoid the heat. We’d take a break for lunch and have a couple of beers during lunch to make the afternoon more bearable and then go back to work and work until about five.

Over the six weeks we worked on this project I got to know Tommy pretty well. He was the least vain person I had ever met. It amazed me how he never thought about his hair, beard, and overall appearance, especially when he had one of the best head’s of hair I had ever seen. It was the kind of hair almost all men would be envious of, dark brown, very straight, and the thickest I had ever seen. He parted it down the middle (when he occasionally did comb it) and I guessed it was about 15 inches long all over. It was a mess!

I’m not a fan of long beards. Neatly trimmed one’s can look hot on the right man, but Tommy’s looked like a bird’s nest. It was way too long and way too bushy.

One day during our lunch break I asked him why he paid so little attention to his appearance especially when he had such great hair. I asked him if he realized how envious almost every guy was when they first saw his hair. If he cleaned himself up he would be quite good looking. He said that he never paid any attention to his hair because he was always outside working with a cap on his head to avoid the sun and by the end of the day, his hair was dripping wet so he just ignored it and let it grow. He said that he usually found someone to trim it about once a year and that was fine with him.

Many days during our lunch break I would tell him how much I would like to cut his hair. I told him about my cutting the hair of all the guys in my fraternity and that I would love to cut his because I thought he would really look fantastic if he had a great haircut. No one would even recognize him if he came out from under all that hair. He’d often just smile and run his hands through his hair saying, "You’d really like to cut this hair? How about when we finish this house and before I start the other one, I’ll come over to your place and let you cut it for me?" The thought of that kept me fantasizing many a night for several weeks.

We finished the house and time went by and I never heard from him. A few months passed and then one day, I found an empty beer bottle on my back deck. No note or anything, but someone had obviously stopped by and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who it was. This happened four or five times during the next month and it was driving me crazy wondering who was dropping by, but not leaving a message.

I finally came home one afternoon, and there sitting on my deck was Tommy. It looked like he had done nothing to his hair or beard since I last saw him. I mean really, how can you have one of the best head’s of hair of anyone and not even care about it?

"Hey, it’s good to see you," I said. "I should have figured out that you were the one leaving me the empty bottle. You should have left me a message. How have things been going?" all the while I’m totally lost looking at his thick, long mane."

"I’ve been staying pretty busy," Tommy said. "I’ve been doing a lot of small jobs but now your neighbors are ready for me to start painting their other shop. That should tide me over for the winter months and then I’ll head south for awhile. They did tell me that I needed to clean up my act again if I wanted to work for them," he said with a laugh.

We had a couple of beers and continued partying, catching up on what we both had been doing. Finally I said to him, "Man, you really look wild with all that hair and especially with your beard. How long is your hair now? Stay here and I’ll be right back." I went into the bathroom and grabbed my hairbrush. Not a word had yet been said about Tommy getting his hair cut but we both knew it was going to happen. "How about sitting in this chair and let me brush your hair? I bet it will look great if it’s tamed down a little. You have such great thick hair. Do you realize how lucky you are to have hair like this? I can’t believe that you don’t really pay any attention to it."

Tommy sat in the chair and I stood behind him and started brushing his hair. He had a beautiful mane and despite him saying he didn’t really pay any attention to his hair, I could tell that he was enjoying my brushing it.

"I was wondering if I could ask you a favor?" Tommy said. "I really could use a shower and wash my clothes. I’ve been on the road for a couple of weeks and I really do need to clean myself up."

"No problem." I gave him some gym shorts of mine and a t-shirt to wear after his shower. They were a little big on him but I thought they might not stay on him very long anyway. There was definitely a sexual energy in the room. When he undressed I put his laundry in the washer and while he showered I got everything ready for his haircut.

When he came out of the shower I had him put my robe on. He sat back down in the chair and using a wide tooth comb I proceeded to comb his hair, getting any tangles out of it, parting it in the middle and brushing it back, just the way he would do it if he actually combed his hair. I had left it a little damp to help it stay in place and then I took a brush and brushed it all back, leaving no part in the middle and making it stand up as tall as it could. It had to be about 8 inches high on top! It was so thick that it stood up without using any kind of product. If you did, you could create the most fantastic pompadour imaginable!

I used my blowdryer and continued working on his hair. "I want to see how long your hair is," I said. I got out my tape measure and I combed a section straight up and measured it. At the crown his hair was 15 inches long! It was beautiful. I continued combing it and measuring it from different angles. If I combed the front straight down it went below his chin. The sides were down past his shoulders and the back was even longer. With it slightly damp and all brushed back it was really striking, not a hair out of place. I feel sorry for guys that have really fine hair. His was just the opposite, so thick it was hard to get a comb through it.

I continued measuring his hair and combing it and then without saying anything, I switched from the tape measure to my scissors. I combed the front up and without saying a word to him, cut off almost 8 inches! He didn’t react at all. "You knew you were going to get your hair cut if you came to see me." I said. "I can’t wait to see how you are going to look without all that beard and hair. You won’t even recognize yourself."

I continued working from the front, lifting up a section and cutting off a mass of hair. I blended the sides into the top and then cut the back so that it just touched the top of his collar. I left the top almost 6 inches long and if he took the time, all he had to do was brush it straight back and it would look awesome.

Cutting all that beautiful hair off and with him not saying anything made me more aggressive than I had planned. Originally I was not going to use clippers on his head because I imagined it had been years since anyone had used them on him, but I changed my mind, put a #2 guard on and starting at his left sideburn ran them up the sides and back. As I moved towards the top, I left it longer, tapering it to about 3 fingers above his ear. This gave me plenty of hair to blend in. I would have given anything to have my hair look like his.


I then took my clippers to his beard. I don’t have alot of experience trimming beards so I put the guard on which left his hair an inch long. After I had run the clippers over his entire face, I had him go into the bathroom and trim the beard and mustache down close. While he was doing this, I went down and put his clothes in the dryer. When I came back up he had finished and the difference in his appearance was amazing. I was so envious of his hair!

Tommy and I played around some more and he said that he actually liked the way he looked and realized that his hair would be a lot easier to deal with now. I told him we should get together once a month and he should let me keep him looking sharp.

And that’s what we did for a long time. Eventually he let me cut his hair even shorter and then into a flattop. I really enjoyed that because his hair was so thick and straight. I squared up the back and sides and then took the top down. Another time I even shoed him and he never said a word, he really just didn’t care how I cut his hair, which let me have some really fantastic times.

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