Nathan Comes On Strong by Manny

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I had noticed him watching me discreetly as I nursed my beer at the bar. He was at a small table with a few other fellows who appeared to be shooting the breeze. Every time I looked at him, the man would quickly glance away.

From the distance between us, it was hard to tell how old he was. He seemed to be the youngest at the table, and the most handsome.

"You ready for another one?" the bartender asked me, jerking me out of my curiosity.

"In a bit," I replied. "Say, can I ask you something? The guys at that table. Are they locals?"

"Yep, Nathan and his cronies. Here every Friday night," the bartender replied. "He operated a garden center down the street before he retired."

"Retired?!" I sputtered. "He doesn’t look, uh, I, uh….really?"

"It’s that hair of his, still thick and full, like a lion in his prime. He’s young at heart, too! Very active in the community," the bartender said. "Why did you ask?"

I should have anticipated that question. My face flushed. I ran my fingers through my hair, as I tended to do when I was nervous. It was every bit as full and long as Nathan’s.

"Oh, I, uh, thought I knew him from college days, but if he’s a local then that’s probably not the case," I said quickly, hoping I was coming across as nonchalant. "I’m just in town for a few weeks, working on a special assignment. We’re trying to determine whether there’s enough of a market for our product here."

"If it’s about local business, talk to Nathan," the bartender advised. "He knows everyone and has his pulse on what’s happening in the community."

Then, to my surprise, the bartender walked over to the table and chatted with Nathan. The group looked at me. Nathan, in particular, smiled broadly as he gave me the once over. His tossed back his mane of wavy blond locks and chuckled.
In my opinion, Nathan was a definite exception to the conventional attitude that mature men look best with hair cropped short.

The handsome man with the leonine mane got up from the table, walked over and took a seat on the stool next to mine.

"Welcome to town," he said, offering a polite handshake.

His grip was firm and dominant. His stare seemed to penetrate right through me, as if he were reading my mind. The handshake went on a lot longer than expected; it almost seemed as if it were a bit of a power play. It made me feel curiously submissive.

Up close, I could see that he had matured exceptionally well. His tanned skin showed character, not age. As the bartender had noted, Nathan’s his hair was his crowning glory. A lovely color of sand dunes with a small streak or two of silver that made him look distinguished, even sexy.

"Thanks," I said, feeling a bit awkward. "I’m Damian. I didn’t mean to take you away from your friends."

"You’ll be in town for a few weeks on business, I hear," Nathan said, still making no attempt to hide the fact that he was intensely interested in me for some reason."

I took a swig of beer.

"Yes," was all I could muster, withering in his penetrating gaze.

I ran my fingers through my hair nervously.

"And, you could use my help, my advice," Nathan continued to press.

"Yes," I said meekly, looking down at my beer.

"I’m just trying to be friendly," he said, sounding a bit exasperated by my monosyllabic answers.

"Of course, yes! I’m not sure why I got tongue-tied. It’s not like me, normally," I stammered, my heart beating.

"We’re friendly folk down here," Nathan said, leaning forward so that very little personal space between us was left. "And, I feel like I know you."

He was so close, I feared he could hear my heart absolutely pounding.

I let out a nervous little laugh. "That’s how I was feeling. Like I knew you."

"Well, maybe we have more in common than being handsome men with great hair," he said.

In an instant, he had given my chestnut-colored locks a brief caress.

It was uncharacteristic of me to feel as submissive as I did at that moment.

In my professional life, I was one of the big bosses. Over a thousand employees worked under me, doing everything I instructed. Hopping about with their "yes, sir’s" and "right away, sir’s!"

I blushed and basked in Nathan’s praise.

"I’d been feeling a little lonely, hanging out here with just a beer for company," I confessed with an emergent grin.

"Well, I’m here now," Nathan beamed. "Like the song goes, ‘you’ve got a friend.’"

"Yes," I said, reverting to my shy, simple response.

After a pause, Nathan asked, "When was the last time your hair was cut?"

The question totally surprised me. The wording too….it was very direct. ‘Your hair was cut’ and not ‘you got a haircut.’

"My hair?" I stammered. "Cut?"

First he had touched it and now he had asked me about it. He was obviously interested in it.

"I don’t remember, exactly," I murmured. "A month, maybe two."

"You’re overdue for a crop, then, is what you’re telling me," Nathan pressed.

"I’m not in a hurry. That’s something that can wait until I get back home," I said quickly. "Longer hair suits me."

I averted his gaze, by looking down. As I bowed my head, I noticed the heavy forelock dangling in front of my face. It was at least six inches long.

"Look at the length of that forelock! It needs to be pruned -- and that is my expertise, pruning! I’d like to cut your hair, if you’d come home with me," Nathan said.

"What?!" I stammered. "You want to trim my hair?"

"No, not trim it," Nathan stated decidedly. "I said cut it. Short! VERY short."

My head was spinning. Everything seemed bizarre.

But, I loved his dominant directness. The situation was strangely wonderful, especially my unaccounted-for submissiveness!

I looked up at him and admired how handsome he was. And his hair! So thick and long and full of body.

Yes, he was definitely into men’s hair. And I had quite a bit of it. And he wanted to cut it!

I needed some space to process things.

"Excuse me," I said, still struggling to make sense of my jumbled emotions. "I need to use the men’s room."

I scampered away from the confusing and unusual conversation. On one hand, there was a complete stranger telling me he wanted to cut my hair short. One the other hand, he seemed like an intimate friend I had been in love with for ages.

I half thought he would follow me into the restroom, but he didn’t.

I looked in the mirror. My hair was probably my best feature -- something I spent time with and took care about. I always wore in on the long side. Something between a business executive’s pretty boy hair fashioned into a GQ style and a healthy surfer’s shag. Full of body, covering some of my ears and almost my entire collar in back. My forelock swooped to the side and rested halfway over my eye. It made me feel sexy and suave.

But, he had said he would cut it VERY short. What did he mean? Clippers?!

I brushed through my locks and felt antsy. In those few minutes, I began missing Nathan. Yes, I wanted him to caress my hair.

Then, I felt the butterflies go into overdrive in my stomach. And, yes, I wanted him to cut it. SHORT! Possibly VERY SHORT!! Sitting with my head bowed submissively, perhaps in his kitchen, watching my treasured hair fall in sheaves to his feet. He obviously wanted to do it, and I felt an overpowering desire to please him, to submit to his forceful charm.

I worked up my courage to go back into the bar.

When I looked around, Nathan and his cronies were gone. I felt crestfallen! Perhaps he’d felt rejected.

I’d been an ass….

I ordered another beer and hoped Nathan would come back to the bar. An hour later, I gave up and returned to my hotel.

But, I couldn’t sleep. Then, I did some googling. It wasn’t hard to find Nathan’s Nursery and the name of the proprietor even though the place was no longer in business.

I began fantasizing about being with Nathan, about letting him cut my hair. Of seeing how excited he was to fire up the clippers. Watching piles of my hair collect on the floor. Feeling my shorn head for the first time. How gleeful he seemed in my fantasy world, to rub my bristles while he flaunted his own locks.

I fell asleep with visions of myself smiling shyly as I gazed in the mirror at my clipped head, looking like an innocent school boy with a baldy cut. In those thoughts, my new friend was beaming assertively, having stripped me of my locks, standing amid strewn trophies at his feet.

I was still thinking about Nathan when I woke up. I took extra time with my hair, lathering it up twice in the shower and then blow drying it for the best effect. I had a lot of hair, but each strand was fine and silken.

The blast of the heat and the feel of the brush through my hair was pleasing.

I brushed the forelock down and felt the softness against my cheeks. It was so wonderfully long!

An image of Nathan slowly snipping it off at the top of my forehead made me feel terrified….and excited. My exquisite, pampered and protected lock….dispatched to his kitchen floor!

I needed to find him and had the weekend to do so.

I headed down for the hotel’s complimentary breakfast.

To my astonishment, who was sitting in one of the lobby…?

"Nathan!" I exclaimed.

He was staring at me, giving me the twice over, grinning from ear to ear.

"You remembered my name," he remarked casually, flicking his hair back in a sexy manner.

His lovely hair with natural highlights shone in the morning sun. The sight of him made me burn with desire.

"I haven’t thought of anyone or anything else since we met," I babbled. "Where did you go? How did you find me?"

"This is the closest hotel to the bar; it’s the type of place I thought you’d be staying at. I wanted you to have space and time to think things over," Nathan said, rising to his feet. "Last night, I obviously came across as too direct. Can we hit the reset button over breakfast?"

"I need to explain, Nathan," I babbled. "It’s that I have an important meeting on Monday with the mayor. It’s key to this whole trip. If I showed up with some home-haircut botch job…well…."

"Don’t explain anything," Nathan said with a casual dismissal as we took a seat in the breakfast area. "I’ll take you to the best barber shop in town. You can’t see our mayor looking like a beach-bum hippy! This is a small town in a conservative part of the country."

The chemistry throughout breakfast was instant and intense. We talked on a number of topics, including plants. I quickly realized that pruning hair and pruning plants were two of Nathan’s passions.

"Haircut time, pretty boy!!" he announced cheerfully as we finished breakfast. "Floyd’s Barber Shop is just opening â€" it’s our own little Mayberry-like establishment. And, you’re going to come out looking like the spitting image of Andy Griffith with a spectacular wavy quiff swirled into a real show piece!"

Then, he added, as we left the hotel, "If you’re still up to it, after the meeting with the mayor on Monday, I’d like to have a go at you in my kitchen. I need more practice in giving flattops…."

As we walked, Nathan reached up and put his hand into my hair and grasped it gently. I knew what he was imagining!

The mention of a flattop made my groin surge. Sitting in Nathan’s kitchen and letting him butcher my hair….

My heart beat rapidly, and I almost had to trot to keep up with Nathan as we made a bee-line by foot to our destination. The name was painted in steady, confident strokes on the big plate window: "Floyd’s Barber Shop -- Since 1953." The huge plate glass caught the strong morning sun which also illuminated the classic red‑white‑and‑blue barber pole spinning lazily beside the door. As we approached the shop, I could hear the pole humming faintly as it swirled around with a near-mesmerizing effect.

Once inside, the floor spread out before us like a checkerboard of black‑and‑cream linoleum tiles. It had been worn smooth by decades of boots, work shoes, gym shoes and dress shoes trudging in to get shorn or tidied up. The air smelled faintly of talc, bay rum, and warm clipper motors.

My focus quickly became the three massive Koken barber chairs which dominated the small shop, their chrome gleaming and the leather cracked from age. The footrests were engraved with ornate scrollwork. Behind the chairs was a long wooden counter, cluttered with jars of blue Barbicide holding combs, a hot‑lather machine, whisk brushes, straight razors, bottles of witch hazel, and an assortment of shears. Beneath it hung a row of Oster and Wahl clippers, their cords looped and jumbled, as well as one hair dryer. Overhead, tracked neon bulbs glowed with stark white light.

The walls of the shop were decorated with a mish-mash of Americana: faded photographs of baseball players from the 1950’s and 60’s; framed straight razors and manual clippers from earlier decades; a calendar from the local hardware store, etc. In the waiting area, a small table stacked with aging Life, Look, and Popular Mechanics magazines gathered dust.

Nathan warmly greeted the two barbers on duty, neither yet occupied with a client. My mane would be their first task of the day and my locks the first to pile up on the immaculately swept linoleum floor.

Barber Jim was tall and lean, with a neatly trimmed mustache and silver hair combed straight back. He sported a white barber’s tunic with shoulder buttons, which was pressed so sharply it could stand on its own. Frank appeared shorter and rounder, with a warm face and thick glasses that slide down his nose. His hair was clipped into a short crewcut. While he sported the same traditional tunic as Frank, his was slightly rumpled. Jim was obviously the talker of the two and told us to make ourselves comfortable.

Nathan was gleeful as he walked me over to Frank’s chair. I suspected, of the two barbers, Frank was the more aggressive when clippers were in hand.

"My friend Damian has been absolutely a slug about having his hair cut to a decent length," Nathan announced as I settled into the leather upholstery. "And, he has an important meeting with the mayor on Monday. He needs a very clean-cut look, very spiffy, freshly barbered."

"Looks like he’s been following your sloppy ways, Nathan. How about you popping up into my chair," Jim urged. "That mane of yours is in need of a good shearing too!"

Nathan demurred and quickly took a seat in the waiting area.

"So, what’ll it be for you, sir?" Frank asked.

My heart beat quickly and I struggled to come up with a cogent instruction. I shuffled nervously, and the leather creaked beneath me.

Frank began shaking out a fresh white cape, snapping it in the air. It settled over my body like a heavy curtain, and then the barber pulled it snug around my neck -- too snug, as if sealing my fate into a drastic makeover.

Still waiting for an instruction, the barber studied my chestnut mane, swept back and spilling over my ears generously and very copious at the nape. He brushed through the capstone of my coif, the thick forelock that announced a certain confidence (even when I didn’t feel it, like at that exact moment). In his eyes, I noticed a distinct look of disapproval.

"Well?" Frank demanded, beginning to sound irritated.

"Uh, oh, sorry," I stammered. "I hadn’t quite decided."

"Nothing fancy. Just give him a ‘short back and sides’!" Nathan called out from the waiting area.

My throat tightened, and then the words come out thin and shaky. "I… I want a short taper around the ears and at the nape, but leave it full and long on top. Especially the forelock."

Frank gave a single nod -- not agreement, not reassurance, just acknowledgment. And then, without a single clarifying question, he reached for a huge set of Oster clippers.

The clippers hummed to life with that unmistakable 1950’s vibe of the Progienic Oster clippers -- heavier, deeper, more mechanical than modern ones. Frank placed a steady hand on the crown of my head and tilted it forward. As I felt the pressure of his palm and the authority of his grip, my stomach dropped.

I sensed that the first pass up the back of my head was shearing off my hair at a shockingly short length. Cool air hit my nape instantly. I imagined a heavy shank of long hair sliding down the cape and falling to Frank’s feet. A second drive came in rapid succession. This time, I saw that an awkward clump of lush locks lay lifelessly on my shoulder, resting precariously on the white cloth.

Frank worked with the calm, unhurried confidence of a man who has cut thousands of heads in his decades of service to the community. I began to suspect that the mature barber trusted his own judgment more than any nervous instruction from a one-off client.

He continued to clear away my lush overgrowth at the nape, taking the Osters higher and tighter with each pass up the back. I knew that it would be extremely short, too short for my taste.

Frank swapped out instruments, momentarily, as he began to focus on the sides. With a huge pair of steel shears, he prepared to remove my coif from the ears. Almost mechanically, Frank lifted the sophisticated locks away with a comb and sheared them off short, exposing the ear completely. As the clump of cut hair fell to the cape, my pulse surged. Then, the same treatment was given to the other side.

Nathan chatted amiably with Jim while Frank hacked away, removing the lush growth on the sides.

Quite suddenly, he yanked by forelock straight down with the comb. The marvelous cascade of hair covered my eyes completely with a dense veil of hair. For a few panicked moments, I sat in the dark, waiting for the shearing of my prized forelock.

I heard Frank priming the shears.

I was about to remind him that I wanted with forelock to remain long, but his quick thrust marked my intention as OBE, overcome by events!

SNIP, SNIP, SNIP!

High on the forehead!

I gasped.

"I said that I wanted the bangs left long," I stammered, staring in disbelief at the truncated fringe.

"That’s long in my book," Frank harumphed.

Five lovely inches of chestnut lay atop all the cut locks and snippets that had collected in my lap.

"Remember Monday afternoon, Damian," Nathan reminded me cryptically from the waiting area.

Of yes, the follow-on haircut he was going to give me! I squirmed with the excitement and fear of submitting to an amateur crop in Nathan’s kitchen.

With the forelock almost history, Frank seized the clippers again and began inflicting a very short taper around the ears. I was resigned to whatever he had in mind for me. There was no possibility I might open myself up to another reprimand like ‘that’s long in my book’ from Frank! He tapered it short up both sides and then started taking down the length on top, clipper-over-comb. I was going to leave the shop with the ‘short back and sides’ Nathan requested at the onset. But, not before an exhaustive round with the thinning shears. Everything that was short now becoming sparse and wispy!

Frank stepped back for a moment, studying the shape he’d carved out of my onetime lush executive shag. He took pride as he held up a mirror so that I got a full view of the tapered back, high and clean, as well as the top -- neat and disciplined.

It was time for the traditional finishing touches! Frank pumped warm lather into his palm and spread it carefully around my ears and along the nape -- the places he’d already clipped my hair shockingly short. The straight razor whispered as he shaved the edges crisp and bare. Each stroke seemed like an appeal to commit zealously to the new, shorn length. He wiped away the remaining foam, then splashed witch hazel generously along my freshly exposed skin. The sting was immediate -- sharp, bracing, almost punitive. I flinched, and Frank gives a tiny grunt of approval, as if my reaction confirmed he’d done the job right.

Then came the duster brush, loaded with talcum powder. Frank whisked it about my neck, ears and face with vigorous strokes, clouding the air with that unmistakable barbershop scent. A cloud of sickly-sweet talcum powder settled into my collar, which also harbored an uncomfortable collection of loose hair snippets. I longed to reach back and scratch the itch the cut hair inflicted.

But, that was not the end! Frank squeezed out a dollop of pomade, warming it between his palms, and then working it through what remained of my hair. With a comb, he crafted a ramrod straight side part, plastering the top to my scalp as he combed -- taming every stray strand, bringing it into conformity with the 1950’s look I was now sporting. The shine was an unmistakably classic, disciplined, barbershop gloss.

I looked like a kid who’d just been "cleaned up" for the first day of school!

Frank unfastened the cape -- ah, finally to be set free from my agony…but, my legs were like jelly.

A torrent of chestnut clippings slid to the floor -- thick clumps that once brushed my collar, shielded my ears, and dangled across my forehead. Now, they lay in ruins, scattered around Frank’s shoes like a shed identity.

I ran a tentative hand at my nape as I headed over to the cash register to pay. Finally, some positive feelings! The bristles at the nape felt incredible. I glanced at the mirror and barely recognized the shorn man looking back at me.

Jim was already on the scene with his broom.

"All that from one haircut," he murmured.

He swept my hair into a neat pile and nudged it toward the dustpan.

As I waited for Frank to make change, I watched Jim dump the first load of my shed identity into the metal trash bin unceremoniously.

"I think two full loads is going to do it," Jim announced as he clanged the metal lid of the trashcan closed.

Nathan gave Frank an elaborate compliment for the way he’d ‘cleaned me up’ to ‘look professional’ for the Monday meeting with the mayor. Frank grinned from ear to ear.

"Well, he looks loads better, if I may say so myself," Frank announced with a smug smirk.

The bell over the door jingled as Nathan and I stepped outside into the sun.

Instantly Nathan burst into a howl of laughter -- at my expense!

"You look awful! Like a little schoolboy!" he teased. "I thoroughly enjoyed the show. What a transformation!"

What hurt most, was that it was true (and that he enjoyed it!). To rub salt into my wounds, Nathan flaunted his mane in my face playfully. He still had beautiful, long hair…and I looked like a geek.

The afternoon sun hit my freshly exposed nape, startlingly cool. I caught a final glimpse of the new me in the barbershop window’s reflection. A neat side part. Shiny pomade. Ears fully exposed. A tight taper. A clean outline.

I determined to wear my new barbered look with pride! Regrettably, that was a fanciful idea…far from my real feelings but my shorn head.

Not only did I look like a grade‑school kid in 1965 who’s just been marched to the barbershop by his father for a "proper" haircut, but I felt exactly that way too -- small, tidy, chastened, and strangely light.

At that moment, I felt that there was no way on earth I could endure a second round of torture against my hair in Nathan’s kitchen….unless….

(There’s potential here for a sequel. Drop me an idea!)

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