Affliction by Lavro

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Affliction

It's the first thing, when you wake up, have your coffee, see your reflection after you rinse your face in the bathroom sink. Your hair is getting long. You need a haircut. Recognition of that is the easy part. Letting the gravity of that reality anchor you to the floor, immobile, is another. Because you can't just get a haircut. Not like any other guy in his twenties might. No. You are doomed by the affliction. The anxiety. The desire. The lust. That is, for something you cannot will yourself to do, even if the prophets have already told you that eventually, resistance will no longer suffice. 

It follows you everywhere. You walk to the train platform on your way to work, and they surround you. Fresh haircuts. Shaggy, attractive men. Shaved heads. Buzzcuts… your favorite, but never on yourself. That would be insane. A glance from that passing Adonis tells you that you probably stared too long. You couldn't help it, but you'll remember to be more careful. You were imagining asking him to come home with you to buzz his hair short.

You stand to get off the train, waiting patiently with the masses. Yet your eyes fixate on the back of the head in front of you. You know that high fade is fresh. He must have had it done… last night? Dare you reach out to touch it? Of course not. Instead, you remind yourself, running a hand through your own hair, that you would never cut yours short like that. You would never let your skin show. You are prude, like a nun or monk, always covering those indecent ears, that scandalous forehead, and the seductive back of your neck. 

You are off the train, walking through the crowded morning streets. It's warm. Too warm for so much hair, you tease yourself, while you admire the stubble and curls and long fringes that pass by each second. He passes you. The jogger in tight pants who you see every morning. His hair is evenly clippered short, as usual. Dare you look back to watch perfection stride away from you? And if that is perfect, why do you resist it for yourself? 

The best and the worst has happened. Your handsome colleague at work got a shorter haircut than usual. It's a crewcut. The kind you dream of asking a barber for since you'd never dare ask for a buzzcut. Everyone compliments him naturally while you adjust yourself. What do you say? You always realize that telling people in your life that their haircut looks good, a social obligation even if the haircut is quite bad, made you feel like you were asking about their sex life. You choke on your words, but the compliment is taken for nothing other than would be expected. Unless of course, he has the same affliction as you. If he does, he does not show it.

Yes, you keep looking at him. No, you are not interested in him, just like you are not interested romantically in the hundreds of heads that pass you on the way home, in the city, and on the train. The interest is a type of involuntary fascination, one that excites you, but you are always certain to not cross any lines. 

Once home - you live alone - the thought always crosses your mind. You could cut it yourself. You have clippers under the sink in the bathroom, left to you by an former, devilishly sexy roommate. You've never used them, but even inside your own head you are embarrassed at yourself. You have smelled them. Turned them on. Let the motor vibrate against you, also turned on. You even noticed some of his hairs still in the blade, and you did not clean them, but you don't know why. Was it safer if they remained somewhat removed from you, still belonging to their previous owner?

Yet, among those clippers and the black plastic guards are a pair of scissors. You do have options you realize. You could give yourself a proper trim. You really need it. You open and close the scissors to feel the rush of their destructive tune. You could do what something deep inside you is begging you for. Destroy it. Hack it off. Buzz it down. Shave it smooth. Get rid of it. 

You stare at yourself in the mirror. Your shirt is off. You're happy with your physique. Pecs are coming in. A buzzcut would look good. Or, instead, you do what has always worked; You tease yourself with those scissors. After all, all you need is the rush and the release. Even if it is anguish, you have to do something. You have to feed the beast.

Snip. Shock smears across your face at the lock you uncontrollably cut from your hair. It falls to the porcelain sink, dark brown against stark white. You tell yourself to stop as the blood rushes. The heart pumps. That's your hair lying in the sink. Why did you do that? It doesn't make sense! 

Snip. Another lock falls but your swelling excitement is close, though not there yet. Use your free hand. Comb your unruly bangs forward. Ok, put your hand back where it belongs. Just one piece… snip. You do not see it fall, blinded by ecstasy, deafened by moaning. 

When the light returns, you panic. You were out of control. Your fringe, which dangles to your nose, was now missing a lock, cut to your eyebrow. Idiot. You shouldn't have done that, but… you comb your bangs to the side, and the gap in the fringe mostly disappears. You didn't ruin it this time. You sigh in relief and regret, shame and pleasure. Satisfaction. 

The next day, you return to the symptoms of your affliction. At the platform and on the train, heads of hair taunt you. You see your colleague and desire his crew cut. Running your fingers along the shortened lock of your fringe obsessively, you revel in the blunt end you made the night before. You go home, too scared to even dare break out your clippers. And this happens over and over again. You never go to a barber, even though there is one with a man you find attractive near your home. You walk by sometimes, looking in to see what haircuts were happening, appearing casual, you hope. 

These thoughts, obsessions, never subside. Some days they are less intense, muted, unremarkable. Other days, they are nearly overwhelming. Scouring the internet for the scant porn that fits your taste becomes like watching the same boring rerun of a television show you hate. Your hair is growing longer. You feel it weighing on you. Maybe another kind of release?

You meet a guy. He is very attractive, and you both know that you have a common goal. Like every time before, that intimacy is but an imprint of your real desires. Yes, you enjoy the touch. Yes, you are glad you can touch his hair. You wish he would touch yours more. Then it is time to finish, and you can only do so by summoning the fantasies of your affliction. You stare at him, on top of you, and imagine him running clippers through your hair. That seems to work to keep the thirst at bay, but it does not quench.  

Have weeks passed since you teased yourself with the scissors? Or months? You made an odd decision and took out the clippers. Now they are plugged in, and left on the sink. You see them in the morning. You see them in the evening. Even one of those evenings you picked them up and turn them on, staring evilly at your overgrown reflection. But no, you could never do what you always said you wouldn't. 

Not today. Not tomorrow. But the third day, you repeat the process, pushing back your bangs, placing the clippers against your hairline now. You explode inside your gym shorts, but you weren't even touching yourself. How did that happen? Your body was screaming for you to satisfy yourself. Begging you to find the courage and the will. Each time you went to the mirror felt like an involuntary act, each time weakening your fractured willpower. It was your skin and bones, dragging you helplessly to the bathroom like a marionette. 

It’s a Sunday. The day before you have to return to work, and here you stand again shirtless, gym shorts, wild hair. You hand reaches for the clippers without your consent. Your brain is submerged in euphoria. The bathroom fills with the mechanical grind of the clippers, rattling off of the tile. Why are you shaking? Is it your lack of control, or the inevitable embrace of desire? Does your shaking mean that you know you can resist no longer? 

You can live your fantasy. All you have to do is touch the clippers to your head. You are sweating. Erect. Unconfident, but that has nothing to do with this. Your eyes lock with themselves in the mirror as you are overwhelmed by an impossible urge. Your hand raises the clippers above your hair, which lays flat. The bare blade hovers above your hairline, concealed under your thick, overgrown fringe. Using the clippers would get rid of all of it, you know, so you urge yourself to put them down, unplug them, and throw them away for good. But your hand does not obey. 

Stop, stop, stop. You beg yourself. But you have waited too long for this, even through your denial and through your diligent resistance to impulse. Futile resistance. You breathe in… the breathing in of a deep breath that one takes right before they do something that is battling against every hesitant nerve in their body. And then, resolve. Gently at first, clippers meet your hair, causing your bangs to finally be free, falling down your face. Then, the clippers connect more firmly, and you push them back with some aggression, satisfaction, and alarm. The long locks fall onto your shoulders, leaving behind a white strip of bare scalp down the middle of your head. 

F***. You almost want to chastise yourself, but you can’t. Your whole body warms with the thumping of your pulse. You feel severed hair lightly fall to your toes. For the first time, the bodily pleasure you had always felt imagining what you had done is replaced with a higher sensation of ecstasy and delight. That is, the highest degree of pleasure. You did what you always said you would never do. The prophets were right. You have crossed the threshold, and you have to finish what you started. The clippers rise again. You are amazed by how quickly you begin to look like someone else. The top is gone. You let your fingers graze over the bristle stubble. 

Soon, your ears are revealed as the sink becomes full with the luscious hair that was yours only minutes before. Then the back goes, making your neck look longer, exposed. You wonder, is it the process of removing the hair that is so titillating? Is it seeing yourself transformed? Or, perhaps it is that you are now in a position where your hair is so so short that you cannot simply make it come back? You have to embrace this new image, at least for a meaningful amount of time. 

Here and there, some missed strands remind you to go over your head again with the clippers. You do so with delight, passing over every inch of your pale scalp with those merciless metal teeth, in every direction to get it all cut to an even spread of only a mere shadow of a buzzcut. Your hair is about as close to the scalp as possible, but it has always been thick and dark, and that still shows. It shows on the floor too, and in the sink. 

You delight in how big the pile of hair is. It didn't look like that much when it was attached. You begin to sweep it up, taking every chance you can to catch a glimpse of yourself transformed in the mirror. Dumping the hair into the trash can feels almost funerary. At last, you are reduced to a form of yourself that is the embodiment of craving. 

Monday morning, you rise to begin your day, immediately shocked by yourself as you rinse your face in the sink. Who is that in the mirror? There are still a few locks of your hair around the faucet that you did not clean so attentively, reminding you that it is indeed you in the reflection. Now, on the train and in the streets, you notice eyes on you. You wonder if there was someone like you, seeing you, and likewise feeling excitement about what you’ve done. You wonder if like what happened to you, your closely clippered hair is going to contribute to pushing someone else over the edge. It is more than a hope. 

You arrive at work, miserably anxious to show yourself to your colleagues. You just want to enjoy your transformation without loud recognition. But the comments that you allowed to cause you anxiety stop after the first thirty minutes of your day. They were even nice, and reassured you that you managed to pull off this radical change. You joke that you went crazy, but part of you knows that you have been all along, and that the result was pure satisfaction. 

Your instincts continue to cause you conflict. Half of you says to grow it back. You had your fun. Time to get back to normal. Yet, the affliction does not simply stop, but adapts and transforms, always demanding something more. 

Once the first week passed, you were shocked at how quickly nothing became something. You are not ready to let that happen again. Not yet. You never unplugged the clippers. Like before, but with no hesitation, you bring the clippers to your head again. 

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