An MPB dome of my own by Manny

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From the day I met my future step-father, the MPB dome fascinated me. His was large, and shaped almost like a lightbulb, with a huge expanse of skin and a wispy fringe close to the ears and nape.

My step-father’s sparse hair was a far cry from my natural father’s mane that flowed past his shoulders, Michael Landon style. I was told that my father had always been a playboy who was able to attract the attention of many women with his romantic long locks. It also led him away from the family when he grew tired of his spousal and parental duties...

I had inherited my father’s good looks and his plush sandy-brown mane. As a teen, I strictly followed the styles of the day. With a center part, feathered sides and an awesome mullet streaming down my neck, I was the envy of every boy in my high school.

Being raised by a single mother, things were tight financially, but there was always enough for me to have my hair styled at an upscale salon in the mall. Mom doted on my hair, and my new step-father was also a fan.

"Gee, I sure wish I had hair like that," he would murmur as I took my seat at the dinner table.

Secretly, I longed to accompany my step-father to the barber shop when he would, from time-to-time, get his fringe trimmed.

"No, son. People with perfect hair, like yours, go to a salon," he would say, as he caressed my mullet in a tender, loving manner.

I always wondered whether his dome, which had developed in his teens, had contributed to his humble, self-effacing, easy-to-get-along with personality.

Likewise, I equally wondered whether my father’s thick long flow had made him an arrogant prick.

The two men were the opposites in looks and personality, and in almost every other way.

In college, my curiosity about male pattern baldness grew. I was attracted to the fellows with thinning hair and advanced, receding hairlines. My best friend and roommate sported a modest dome. He would do his best to comb his wisps over the bare scalp, but the slightest breeze would reveal his MPB in an instant.

Periodically, I told him that the MPB made him look manly and attractive.

His response was, "You’re just saying that to make me feel better about hair loss. You can’t possibly know what it’s like. Look at your thick, shiny hair!! I’d swap places with you any day."

Each morning, my roommate would look with despair at the numerous strands of his hair on the pillowcase. Yes, he would sport quite a dome by graduation, I thought…

After college, men’s hair styles got shorter. First, I had my mullet cut off, which almost broke my mother’s heart. I remember the fear and excitement as I felt the steel blades of the shears snipping off the thick, wavy locks, revealing my white neck for the first time. Six inch clumps lay helplessly on the floor of the salon at the end of the haircut.

A few months later, I had the stylist start exposing my ears. At first, it was just the lobes. Later, the lower half and finally the entire ears were revealed.

In my early 30s, I settled into a longish business cut â€" no clippers used - with a big floppy top and forelock. My hair was as glossy and silken as ever.

That’s how my hair looked the day I met Scott at a bar.

He saddled up to the stool next to mine and ordered a beer.

I was blown away by his sexy dome! It was so much like my step-father’s, who had recently passed away.

I engaged him in chatter - sports, weather, politics…trying hard not to stare at the shiny dome.

After a few beers, I worked up the courage to say, "You remind me of my college roommate. I think it’s your hair…."

"Or lack of it!" Scott laughed nervously in reply.

"There’s nothing sexier on a man, than an MPB dome," I opined.

Scott looked startled, as if he’d never heard that before.

"Really? It makes me look like an old man. I’m in my 30s but a lot of people assume I’m in my 50s," Scott said.

"That smooth top makes me imagine gallons of testosterone sloshing about in your glands," I laughed. "So manly….."

Then, I worked up the courage to ask, "Would you mind if I touched your dome?"

Scott blushed awkwardly. Fortunately, we’d had plenty of beer.

He leaned forward, silently assenting to my request.

The creamy skin felt soft and satin-like. A mere passing touch sent shivers through my entire body.

"Why did you want to do that?" Scott finally asked, still taken aback by my request.

"I don’t know. MPB domes fascinate me. What I wouldn’t give to have one myself…." I commented wistfully.

"I think you’re romanticizing this awful eyesore," Scott scoffed.

He looked at my thick, shiny hair.

Then, he said, "If you really want one, I can take you to my barber. Mow off that glossy mane and scraped the dome clean. Leave a pathetic little wrap-around fringe as a reminder you once had hair. Then you’ll see it’s not what you’re imagining!"

I got an instant hard-on. OMG! The thought of sporting a dome myself…. Of course, an MPB-by-choice-dome had always existed in my secret fantasy world, but I had never heard those words uttered aloud.

"Would you?!" I stammered.

"Would I what?!" Scott replied, confused.

"Take me and explain to the barber what I want, what you think I need," I explained, tripping over my words in excitement.

It was Scott’s turn to touch my hair. He reached over and tussled my thick locks.

"Have all this mowed off, then scraped clean. Sure! Let’s go for it," he said.

I was frozen with fear and astonishment.

"NOW!" he urged. "Before this evening is over, you will have a dome of your own!"

We paid for the beers, and then Scott almost dragged me out of the bar.

"The Eagle Barber Shop is just a few blocks away," Scott babbled. "Bobby the barber is wicked with the straight razor. Do you want just a bit of a dome poking through the top, or a full blown MPB? Everything exposed but the narrowest strip of fringe, like mine? A #7 on the Norwood-Hamilton Scale?!"

"Oh, just like yours! The bit of fringe is so sexy!" I said, totally under the influence of alcohol. "Did your hair start falling out in high school?"

"Yep. The more I fretted about it, the more came out. I was mocked and humiliated mercilessly. They called me ‘Baldy’ - even some of my teachers," he intoned.

"My step-father lost his hair that early too. I think it made him a warm, generous, humble person," I remarked as we walked quickly toward the Eagle Barber Shop.

"Probably," Scott remarked. "I found I was always trying to compensate for my lack of hair….being kind and compassionate. I guess that’s not a bad thing."

"Not at all!" I exclaimed.

Scott pushed the door of the shop open.

Bobby greeted us.

"Who’s first?" he asked.

"He is," Scott said, indicating that I should move toward the big barber chair.

I mounted the steel stairs and slid into the leather upholstery. I shifted anxiously in the chair as the barber prepared to cape me by wrapping my neck with a tissue strip. The cape fluttered through the air. I was seconds away from explaining what I wanted.

"So? What’ll it be today?" Bobby asked, beginning to brush my plush business cut.

How to say it?! My tongue felt tied.

"Um, uh, something different," I began, tentatively.

"Shorter, of course," Bobby said. "Clippers?"

"Yes. Uh, and, a razor. I want a lot of skin showing…." I began to explain.

"Around the ears and at the nape?" the barber asked.

"No! That’s the only place I want hair to remain," I blurted out. "See Scott there. I want my hair cut just like his!"

The barber looked at my new friend with a look of total bewilderment.

"An MPB dome?" he asked, stupefied.

"Yes, he thinks that's what he wants! A #7 on the Norwood-Hamilton Scale," Scott clarified.

The barber started to grin as he reached for the balding clippers.

"What is this? Some kind of a lost bet?" he chuckled. "You’re going to lose a lot of nice hair, mister."

Bobby glanced at Scott again.

"Boy, that’s quite a dome you have there, pal!" he took the liberty to say.

"Had it most of my life," Scott muttered.

"Last chance to back out," Bobby said to me as he snapped on the balding clippers.

"Go for it!" I ordered, gripping the arm rests tightly under the cotton cape.

Slowly, the barber brought the screaming naked teeth of the clippers up past my blinking eyes. With a comb, he snagged my floppy forelock and lifted it off my forehead.

Then, a shriek of the clippers sounded, and I felt the vibrating machine move slowly down the top of my head. Mounds of my glossy hair fell in its wake. It cascaded down in sheaves in all directions. The cape quickly was covered with my cut hair.

And then, I saw the first shaved strip of scalp, like a skunk’s mane, right down the top of my head.

"WHOA!" I stammered as the barber continued the drive through the cowlick and down the back, a bit.

"No, backing out now, buddy. It’s MPB for you!" Scott laughed from the waiting area.

The barber came in for a second run of the clippers through the longest part of my hair.

"So, tell me about this bet," Bobby asked.

"There's no bet," I answered.

"No bet? Come on! Who would do something crazy like this?!" the barber asked, clearing away the third strip, leaving me with a definite MPB similar to a #5A on the Norwood-Hamilton Scale.

"I would, I guess. Actually, I am!" I replied. "The nicest people I have known all sport domes like Scott’s there. I find them manly. I've been curious about domes ever since I was a young teen starting puberty."

Bobby clipped the left side and then the right side, expanding the reach of my proto-dome. Then I felt the clippers taking the hair off the back, quite far down, just about an inch from the nape.

"The fringe, buzzed to stubble or left more longish and wispy like Scott’s. I can whittle it down with thinning shears for the sparse effect," Bobby explained.

"No stubble…but, yes to thin and wispy, please," I said, quite enamored with how I was looking without my pompous, lustrous mane.

Bobby had a grand time thinning the remaining fringe down to a very sparse collection of strands.

"Ready, for the lather and razor? I am going to leave your dome shiny as a lighthouse beacon!" Bobby exclaimed.

He dusted my head off a bit and then draped my dome with warm moist towels.

I loved the feel and closed my eyes, trying to remember how I looked with an MPB dome.

When the towels came off, the warm lather was massaged into nearly my entire dome.

The first stroke of the straight razor across the top of my head sent an electric jolt of sheer delight through my body.

"Oh, that feels wonderful," I murmured.

Then, Bobby scraped off another swath of foam and stubble.

"You’ll be smooth and silken as a crystal ball up here," the barber cooed.

"Keep scraping," I urged him. "I’m loving this."

"You know, this is the first time I’ve ever taken a man with a full head of nice hair down to a dome," Bobby chuckled. "I’m having fun too. I do hope you keep your new look. I’d like to shave you at least weekly."

"I have no doubt that I will not be going back to a tired businesscut….or a long, ostentatious mullet like I sported in my youth," I stated firmly.

I savored ever moment in the barber’s chair.

Then, Bobby rubbed my head with oil that made the dome glisten. I smiled broadly.

The final reveal of the new me with the hand mirror showing back the wimpy fringe in back was totally awesome. I loved it!!

"I’m not going back, Scott," I said with conviction as I descended from the barber chair.

I felt the smooth, shiny dome and smiled broadly.

"You look so different," Scott said, fingering my dome. "I remember how it felt when you first touched my dome in the bar."

"I hope you still like it after you sober up," Bobby commented as we prepared to leave.

The two of us walked away from the barber shop holding hands.

"How can I ever repay you, Scott?" I asked innocently.

"There is a view of the dome I’ve yet to see….looking straight down on it…." Scott murmured.

"Me, on my knees….?" I asked, hopefully, and eager to comply.

"And me, tenderly stroking your own new, shiny dome!" Scott replied.

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