Frank Submits to the Ennis Grooming Code by Manny

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This is part 4 of a series. The previous three stories are:
- Simpler Times for the Ennis Family (1)
- Steve Ennis and the 1964 Falcon (2)
- Ron Ennis Enforces a New Grooming Policy

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Mrs. Ennis heard her husband’s car pulling into the garage and quickly hid in the kitchen pantry. She wanted her big reveal to surprise him.

No sooner had he stepped into the kitchen when she called out, "Are you ready to see your new wife?"

With that, she flung the door open, and popped out wearing a nicely pressed cotton dress, low heels, an apron about her waist…and….sporting a modest bouffant hairstyle!

Mr. Ennis dropped his jaw when he saw his sweetie in full "traditional wife" mode.

"Oh, honey!! I love it!!!" he exclaimed.

She did a 360-twirl so that he could see how the permed curls had been combed out in perfect rows around her head. When he had left her that morning, her hair had hung in a luxuriant drape down to her waist. Now, it was like a fluffy cap perched atop her head.

Mr. Ennis took a whiff. The faint smell of the perm solution sent him over the moon!

"No more casual ponytails for me," Mrs. Ennis giggled. "Marge Colton made sure of that!"

She fondled the brittle locks that covered her head; the padding of teased fluff had been sprayed securely into place.

"I want to hear all the details!" Mr. Ennis exclaimed. "I can just imagine what the floor of the salon looked like at the end of your transformation."

"Well, Mrs. Colton picked me up right on time and gave me a lot of encouragement for ‘doing the right thing’ as we drove to the Beauty Shoppe," Mrs. Ennis began. "I had pinned my hair in a bun. It was a relief to not have that heavy mane plastered to my neck."

Mr. Ennis could not take his eyes off his wife. She had shed the casual girlish look for that of a mature matron.

"Once inside, I didn’t have to say a word. Mrs. Colton was marvelous. ‘Not one hair longer than two and a half inches,’ she told Gwen very firmly. It would all be snipped off to a uniform length before the perming," Mrs. Ennis recalled.

Then, she continued, "Gwen got me caped up. She pulled the pins out of my bun and the weight of my long hair falling in back of the chair almost gave me whiplash."

Mr. and Mrs. Ennis shared a laugh at the description.

"Gwen brushed it all out one final time, and then the shearing began. As the long hair fell to the floor, I felt such liberation. No more tyranny of tired tresses! Gwen was thrilled to whack it all off. She knew I would return to being a Beauty Shoppe regular. And Mrs. Colton stood by beaming and fussing about her instructions. Of course, the highlight was having the rods wound so tightly to my scalp that it almost hurt. And, Mrs. Colton insisted that the solution be kept in extra time to make sure the hair was dry and brittle. She knows so much! That’s her secret to keeping the bouffant so perfectly in place all week. We will now go together, on a set schedule, to the Beauty Shoppe," Mrs. Ennis explained.

Then Mrs. Ennis cozied up to her husband. "I just wish you were on better terms with Mr. Colton. We could go out on dates together, the four of us. Marge â€" she said I could call her that â€" thinks that a flattop makes a first rate man stand out above an ordinary man."

The comment caught Mr. Ennis off guard. Perhaps, he could benefit from a closer exposure to Mr. Colton’s guidance (and his firm hand!!), he thought to himself. Besides, he had always admired the military-length flattop….

"And, now about my day! I’ve just come from the barber shop," Mr. Ennis said. "It’s becoming my go-to place! Young Sebastian Cockburn needed a bit of hand-holding to comply with the new grooming policy at work."

"I hope you gave him all the attention and support he needed, like Marge gave me," Mrs. Ennis said.

"He was so grateful! He will be a great deputy. In my new position, I will have to travel a lot. And, having Sebastian there to help with all the logistics will be so important," Mr. Ennis said. "After the barber finished with him, he looked amazing, shorn of that shaggy mane. Nothing beats whitewalls and a clipped top. I’m thinking of having my sides and back skinned too. Maybe I should consult with Mr. Colton…."

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The next morning, Mr. Ennis was tooling around in his garage, thinking about the fun he had in the missionary position, fondling his wife’s bouffant, when an unfamiliar car pulled into his driveway.

Out stepped Frank Smith! His MPB dome looked more pronounced than ever…and his huge handlebar mustache even more lavish. But his face was haggard and worn.

"Frank!" Mr. Ennis stammered, flummoxed by the unexpected visit.

"I need your help, desperately," Frank pleaded in a meek, contrite tone. "I know I was impossible at work, sometimes…."

"Sometimes?!" Mr. Ennis gasped. "More like all the time!"

"I heard you got my old job," Frank continued. "And you must be hiring to replace your old position. I need that job, Ron! I resigned in anger. My resume is not competitive. People take one look at me and think I’m a step short of retiring."

"I’ve decided to hire Sebastian Cockburn to be my deputy," Mr. Ennis replied, unmoved by Frank’s plight.

"He doesn’t know anything, compared to me," Frank blurted out. "I used to run that operation!"

"But now I’m the boss, Bud!" Mr. Ennis snapped.

He spied a huge pair of heavy duty shears on the work bench. Oh, how fun it would be!

"That said, if you’re interested in Sebastian’s entry-level position…." Mr. Ennis purred, oozing with schadenfreude.

Frank Smith’s dome began to sweat, bathed in a hot glow of nerves.

He gulped. "I am. I need a job. I'm running through my savings so quickly. I need the health insurance," Frank begged.

"But there’s still the matter of the grooming policy. You should see Sebastian with his hair shorn very short!" Mr. Ennis exclaimed.

"I’ll cut my mustache off," Frank eked out.

"No! I will cut your mustache off!" Mr. Ennis retorted curtly, reaching for the industrial shears.

Frank hemmed a bit….it would be such a humiliation.

"You have until I count to three. One, two…" Mr. Ennis began.

"Okay!" Frank conceded.

"Over here. On your knees," Mr. Ennis instructed, relishing the power he had over Frank.

Frank knew better than to try to negotiate. In a flash he was kneeling before Mr. Ennis, looking up, making his treasured mustache available to the eager shears.

Mr. Ennis's dream was about to come true. He took the shears and lopped off the left handlebar. It fell without ceremony to the garage floor. Then the right one came off.

Tears were welling up in Frank’s eyes, and Mr. Ennis felt bad.

"Listen, Frank. The important thing is that you accept the way you look. Yes, you even need to accept the big bald head," Mr. Ennis said, tenderly. Then he blotted Frank’s eyes, followed by the sweaty dome, with a clean hanky.

"Some people find MPB sexy - virile and manly," he said, speaking from experience.

With the shears, he sliced off most of the left side of the mustache, holding with brittle collection of hair before dropping it two join the two severed curls.

He finished cutting the left side completely off, down to ragged stubble. The right side got the same treatment. Frank’s flashy mustache was history!

But, Mr. Ennis wasn’t finished with Frank yet.

"I want everyone on my team to exceed the grooming policy. Sebastian and I are opting for whitewalls," Mr. Ennis said.

"But, whitewalls for me would mean….a cueball!" Frank gasped.

Mr. Ennis stroked with soft fringe that wrapped around Frank’s head. Frank remained submissive and docile through the caresses.

"I take your point," Mr. Ennis said, suppressing a chuckle.

Hadn’t he tormented his former tormentor enough, he chided himself?

"But, I do want this tapered â€" how about a low and tight? You will have only a hint of hair left, I suppose," Mr. Ennis said, again fondling Frank’s hair.

Suddenly, Mr. Ennis felt his groin surging. The sexy MPB dome, the soft youthful hair of the wrap-around fringe. Frank Smith in total submission, groveling for an entry-level position. He knew if he required something even more intimate, Frank would suck up!

"Can I get up?" Frank asked, impatiently.

"Yes. And, I recommend you head straight to Mr. Lee’s Barber Shop. Have the lip scraped clean and the fringe tapered around the ear and at the nape. Come to the office on Tuesday to fill out of the application form," Mr. Ennis instructed.

Frank left as abruptly as he’d arrived, exploring the absence of his mustache.

As Mr. Ennis tidied up the garage, he started to think about how many people had turned him on of late â€" and all connected to the cutting of hair. Who would be next?!

Then, his thoughts turned to Mr. Colton. Hadn’t he once offered to fire up the clippers in the garage and give him an old fashioned butch cut? And, there was that other matter….the promised paddling! He was instantly hard as a bat!

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