Johnny's impulsive decision by Manny

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I had enjoyed my private city tour, visiting the classical sites and ending the afternoon by treating my hired guide, Johnny, to a lazy coffee at the seafront.

He was an incredibly handsome man with flashing dark eyes and olive skin. Johnny had the thickest, most beautiful black hair I had ever seen, along with a massive dark moustache that graced his dazzling smile.

"You are my very last client, my last tourist ever," Johnny sighed, as he sipped his demitasse of coffee. "Monday, I begin my new career as a government employee. A bureaucrat! Short hours, little work and a regular check with an early pension. It’s every Greek’s dream."

"And you won’t miss getting to know people like me and answer the same questions over and over?" I laughed.

"Of course, I will," smiled Johnny. "Life is full of tradeoffs."

He leaned back and let his thick long hair dangle freely. The sun danced off the locks of ebony. His hair flowed in a lovely cascade past his shoulders as he ran his fingers through it.

"I suppose this is what I’ll miss most about shifting gears professionally," Johnny remarked poignantly.

"Your hair?" I asked.

He held up his fingers and simulated a pair of snipping scissors.

"A few minutes in the barber chair and I’ll come out looking like a bureaucrat," Johnny explained.

"Really? There’s a dress code?" I asked.

"Unwritten," he muttered. "Can’t start off on the wrong side of anyone. There’s a probationary period. The person who interviewed me made it clear that I needed to cut it short before reporting to my new office. ‘We need to project a professional image,’ or something like that was what he said as he pointed to his short, business cut."

I imagined how fun it would be to watch Johnny’s transformation from longhaired tour guide to non-descript bureaucrat.

He pawed at his hair some more, enjoying the silken feel through his fingers.

"I suppose there will be some things I won’t miss about all this hair," Johnny remarked dryly. "The hot sweaty neck in summer. Being mistaken for a woman from behind…."

"I’m sure all it takes is one glance of that mustache to set the record straight," I laughed. "Is it coming off too?"

"This?!" Johnny said in a surprised tone, stroking the massive pelt that covered his whole upper lip and extended beyond the sides. "It’s my manly pride. I’ve never thought of shaving it off. Should I?"

"It might be exciting to go for a total, dramatic change," I suggested.

"Funny you say that. I’m still debating having the barber leave my hair as long as I think I can get away with…or, going brutally short, like a military length. What do you think?" he asked.

"I hope you don’t get the wrong idea," I said cautiously. "You have such beautiful hair….I’ve been admiring it all day."

"I noticed," Johnny said with a broad smile, giving me a knowing look.

Then he added with an enthusiastic shout, "I just decided! It’s going to be cut brutally short!! A barber with fastfeed clippers putting an end to the long hair. And a razor to scraping off the mustache! No one will recognize me. No one will believe it! Total transformation! I’m psyched!"

I imagined the mane falling in sheaves to the barber’s cape, Johnny’s head bowed low watching the pile of cut hair in his lap grow.

"Why don’t you come with me and take photos of the makeover? Laid back tour guide to uptight bureaucrat. The whole thing from me enjoying my last moments with long hair to the barber sweeping all the cut hair into a dustbin and tossing it in the trash," Johnny said, as he laughed nervously.

"I’d love that assignment! You should find a traditional shop with a grumpy old barber who won’t contain his delight in giving you a ‘proper’ haircut," I suggested.

"I know just the place. Let’s go!!" Johnny exclaimed.

"Wait," I said. "Let me snap some photos of you enjoying your hair….you know, running your fingers through it, swishing it about in a sexy way….stroking that thick stache with an alluring, come-hither look."

Johnny hammed it up perfectly, posing like a male model. He leaned across the table toward me, puckering his lips slightly. His mustache was on display.

As Johnny touched the massive mustache gently, I wondered what it would feel like kissing him.

"You missed your calling," I laughed. "Become a model instead of a bureaucrat!"

"Nope, I’m tired of gig work….and now I’m more than ready to have all of this chopped off!" Johnny exclaimed. "I can’t wait to feel the clippers mowing it all off."

"I can’t wait to watch!" I laughed.

Spontaneously, I reached over and caressed his long hair. It felt amazingly soft.

"You’ve wanted to do that all day, haven’t you?" Johnny laughed.

I blushed, and didn’t deny it. My hand plunged into his mane…

"And something else," I admitted shyly.

"This," he said, leaning over and kissing me on the lips.

He nuzzled his huge mustache against my naked lip. He took his time and felt totally uninhibited making a public spectacle.

"That was wonderful," I said. "If I weren’t leaving, I might be lobbying for your massive mustache to be spared from the razor."

"Come on! Let’s find the barber shop before I chicken out of the drastic makeover," Johnny urged. "If I don’t do it now, it will probably never happen. I need your support to go through with it till I’m totally unrecognizable."

We walked to a very small hole-in-the-wall barber shop that was a few blocks away from the water. It had a working-class feel to it and absolutely no frills. The elderly barber was leaning in the doorway, his belly barely concealed by the tight white barber jacket.

He scowled, then growled at Johnny, "I don’t cut that kind of hair. Girly long hair." His mutter was full of disdain.

"I need it all clipped off, to a military length. This needs to come off too," Johnny said, stroking his lovely mustache.

The barber could not help but smile. "Then, you’ve come to the right place. Come in and take a seat."

The one barber chair was traditional and oversized. It virtually filled the small shop.

He pointed at three clippers hanging from the counter. "Short, shorter and shortest. Those are your options."

Johnny gave me a look like "Yikes!" before climbing up into the barber chair.

"My friend needs to take pictures," Johnny explained.

"He’ll be getting the same haircut?" the barber asked.

Johnny sniggered, "Yes. We’re both tired of hair care."

The barber yanked a comb through Johnny’s thick locks. "This is a disgrace!" he snapped. "You look like a woman."

"That’s exactly what my grandfather always says," Johnny replied as the barber cast the cape.

The barber smiled. He clearly approved of grandpa’s shaming tactics.

I got some good shots of the cape flying through the air and of Johnny looking absolutely sick as the barber pulled it tight about his neck.

The thick, long, dark hair resting on the white cotton cape looked doomed as the barber grabbed a pair of shears and primed them perilously close to the shimmering mane. Johnny swallowed nervously.

Then, without any ceremony, the barber thrust the scissors into the lovely flow and delivered a few haphazard whacks near the nape. My camera snapped furiously, recording the shiny silver blades lopping off Johnny’s ebony locks.

Mounds of cut hair fell to the barber’s feet. A bit of Johnny’s white neck poked through a missing of chunk of hair. The barber seemed irritated that there was so much hair to cut and chopped away more aggressively.

"No backing out now," I said, moderating my tone of glee, as the barber delivered a few more whacks with the scissors.

The back of Johnny’s neck was fully uncovered.

"I’m already regretting it," he moaned.

"I have even begun the real haircut, fellow," the barber warned. "Just wait till I fire up the clippers! It’ll be short on top, shorter on the sides and back, and shortest at the nape and around the ears. Just like an army recruit."

I snapped a few photos of the clumps of hair on the barbershop floor. Johnny’s beautiful hair at the barber’s feet looked so meaningless. And to think, his manly mustache was in line to also fall….

Once the barber had easy access to the nape, he swapped the shears for clippers. He snapped on the "shorter" clippers and took them straight up the back of Johnny’s head.

"Whoa!" the caped lad exclaimed as sheaves of hair tumbled. "Is there anything left back there?"

"Not much," I chuckled. "You are getting a real makeover."

"More like, I’m really getting inducted into the army," Johnny sighed.

The barber continued clipping above the ear. Cut hair began falling to his shoulders and then sliding down into his lap. Johnny looked full of remorse.

"This was not a good idea," he pouted. "I don’t know what I was thinking."

As if to pile on, the barber swapped clippers and took the "short" length straight down the top of Johnny’s head. His beautiful hair fell in every direction, leaving a very short clipped swath on top.

"I’ll be bald by the time this is over," Johnny whined, his eyes with a look of slight terror.

"Virtually," the barber chuckled. "You’ll get used to it, and you’ll like it."

"I won’t have a choice, will I?" Johnny lamented.

"Your grandfather will be so pleased," the barber noted.

I stood to record Johnny’s final moments with any length. The barber mowed off the few remaining locks that had escaped the clippers. Johnny looked like an army cadet. The hair on top was no more than half an inch.

"You’re a good boy," the barber said, playfully rubbing the clipped pelt.

Then, without warning, he clipped off one side of the mustache.

"Hey, I changed my mind about the stache," Johnny protested. "I decided to keep it."

"Too late," laughed the barber, "It’s coming off."

Johnny watched helplessly as his badge of virile manhood was shaved off.

"I haven’t had a clean upper lip since I was 15," he murmured.

I got a few more pix of the new Johnny. He was unrecognizable with no mustache and a clipped head.

The barber took the cape off and shook it so that all the cut hair fell to the floor. The small shop was virtually carpeted with a pad of shimmering ebony. I snapped more photos of all the cut hair on the floor.

Then, the barber reclined the chair and applied lather to Johnny’s upper lip. He carefully scraped off the remnants of what had once been a dramatic and formidable mustache. He cleaned the face with a moist towel and dabbed on a bit of witch hazel. Johnny jerked at the sting.

"There, you’re a new man! A real man, now!" the barber announced, as he brought the seat up.

Johnny stared dumbfounded at the new look in the mirror.

"What do you think?" he asked me in a wobbly voice.

"Looks totally different, but fantastic," I said, disguising my true feelings. The fact was that I missed his sexy long hair and manly mustache.

"Good, now it’s your turn in the chair," the barber said, pointing at me.

"Oh, no…I’m…uh, not here for a haircut. Just to take photos of my friend’s makeover," I protested.

I glanced at my treasured chestnut-colored locks with fiery auburn highlights. The plush businesscut had been with me since I had joined the professional workforce. I had no intention of adding to the piles of lovely black hair that were strewn all around the barber chair.

Johnny paid the barber. He took one final look at the new him in the mirror, one final glance at the massacred locks on the floor, and then we left the small shop.

I could tell he was really struggling to accept his new reality.

Finally, as we walked away from the barber shop, he spoke, "You told the barber my haircut looked fantastic. Did you mean it?"

I didn’t know what to say. Speak the truth or keep trying to buoy his spirits….

I fondled his clipped nape lightly. I felt like I could not lie to him; undoubtedly, he already sensed my true feelings.

"The truth is, I miss your amazing long hair. It was so sexy, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The mustache too," I confessed.

Johnny swallowed and we walked on in silence. He touched his shorn head and shaved upper lip several times.

At length, he replied, "I miss it too. It was a foolish impulse…."

"No it wasn’t! You begin your new career on Monday! Salary, benefits, pension….and cutting your hair was a sacrifice. Life is full of trade-offs," I said honestly. "When your hair is gray and thinning, that pension will still be rolling in each month! You’ll look back on today as a necessary change."

Johnny slipped his hand into mine as we walked.

"I still have one asset that hasn’t been cut off; it’s extra-long and oh so sexy, just like my hair used to be," he said, with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

I jolt of excitement throbbed through me.

We spent a wonderful evening together, but it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for Johnny. One minute he was full of laughter, the next pensive and serene, and then rushing to the mirror and returning despondent.

I comforted him, as best I could, stroking the clipped pelt and telling him it felt amazing. I also tried to tell him it was just a haircut, that it would grow back and that he looked fine with short hair.

"What if you had been shaved bald in that chair?" he finally snapped, irritated. "This pampered, fussy businesscut stripped off…nothing but stubble left up here?!"

He grabbed my quiff and gave it a bit of a terse yank.

Then, his mood shifted, and he apologized profusely.

"The truth is, what’s getting me so down….it’s not my just my hair, it’s really you leaving," Johnny confessed. "I wish you would stay here, with me."

"Is that an invitation?" I asked, my eyes lighting up. "If I had a place to stay, I could work remotely."

"Of course you have a place to stay! This apartment is big enough for both of us. You can work remotely from here while I go off to the Ministry each day. Evenings and weekends will be for us! There is so much to see in Greece!" Johnny exclaimed.

Johnny stroked my hair tenderly.

"Would you?" he asked in a tentative voice.

I knew what he was suggesting. His fingers continued plying through the silken chestnut-colored locks.

Johnny’s sad face moved me to whisper, "Yes, I will. Clipped exactly like yours, if you want."

I felt nervous and excited about my offer as I lay in bed, probably like Johnny had felt when he declared to me that he was shedding the mane and mustache.

"I won’t feel so bad if both of us…." Johnny began to explain.

"I want a new experience," I assured him, still trying to convince myself I wouldn’t regret it as much as he had. For starters, a lot less hair would come off.

He kissed me passionately. Again, I thought about his massive mustache against my naked lip. I wished it hadn’t been shed in his zeal for a drastic makeover.

The next morning, Johnny’s wonderful moustache reappeared slightly in the form of dense black stubble.

"Fortunately, my hair grows fast," Johnny commented as he pulled me out of bed. "We need to be off to the barber shop for your transformation!"

I mounted the footrest of the barber chair slowly. It was no longer covered with shorn shanks of lovely black hair. I knew I would soon be looking very different.

The old barber tapped the chair impatiently as I settled into it, ready with cape in hand.

"A change will be good for you," he said encouragingly.

Johnny beamed as I squirmed uneasily in the worn leather upholstery. The barber gave a quick smile of satisfaction as he cast the cape.

"At least there’s no girly long hair on you, sir," he said as he secured the white cotton cape with the huge metal clip.

I glanced into the mirror and saw Johnny exploring his shorn head and closely shaved upper lip with his hand.

"So what’s it to be?" the barber asked.

"Ask him," I answered, nodding toward Johnny.

He stood and came to the chair with a broad smile.

"This is very shaggy, don’t you think?" Johnny asked the barber, stroking my soft mane. "What do you think will be the best look for a more mature man? Short, shorter or shortest?"

The barber selected the "shortest" clippers.

"Single length, all over! Military induction cut!" the barber announced.

In a flash, the old man pushed my head forward.

I felt a jolt as my plush businesscut gave way to the harsh metal teeth of the clippers at my nape.

He continued taking the "shortest" clippers right up the back of my prostrate head.

Johnny clucked gleefully, "I can’t wait to see the ‘new’ you! Clipped down to the wood!"

The barber was efficient as he reduced the sides and back of my businesscut with the clippers to stubble. I watched helplessly in the mirror. Only Johnny’s big grin kept me on track to shed my hair for him.

"Sit up, straight!" the barber instructed as brought the clippers toward my forehead.

My treasured forelock fell like an overwhelmed defensive tower. In a flash, it lay in my lap.

He continued running the "shortest" clipper down the top of my head, stripping off all the overgrowth! Finally, nothing was left but STUBBLE! I was totally aghast.

"I like your new, clipped head," Johnny said. "It gives you a boyish, innocent look."

I blinked nervously and my stomach churned anxiously. I stared at the big cauldron of cut hair that had emerged in my lap.

"There you go!" the barber announced, snapping off the machine.

He quickly removed the cape off and sent my chestnut locks to the floor. "The butch cut is very practical. No hair care in the morning or worrying about the wind."

Johnny gave the barber a big tip. He was in high spirits and rejoicing with my new look.

We walked back to where Johnny had posed as a male model with his glorious long hair the day before.

As we sipped coffee, I went through the photos of his makeover.

"This is my favorite!" I chirped. "The barber whacking away at the length in back. Look at the flashing silver of the shears! Oh, and this one. A real action shot with a massive cut lock in free-fall towards the floor! How about the look on your face in this one? Total shock!"

"If you’re staying here with me, it was all worth it. I would do it all over again," Johnny said.

"So would I," I laughed, feeling my stubble for the umpteenth time.

Then, I added, "And, soon, your mustache will be back, thicker and more luxuriant than ever!"

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