Born to Be Flat by Alloffplease

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The small salon was neat and its furniture an acquired taste. Brightly lit against the winter night outside, it looked like a place the owner put a lot of herself into arranging to her own designs, not like all these “fashionable” chain salons springing up all around town, where it’s merely about practicality, efficiency, “hello, get your hair done, goodbye, who’s next?”. There were three stations in all, even though the stylist was working alone, one to my right in a kind of little alcove decorated with bamboo stakes and fake reeds, two to the opposite side, where she was putting the finishing touch to the haircut of a middle-aged, balding man, chatting animatedly about events in the neighborhood and things. A new-age style interior fountain at the back was echoing their conversation, to which I paid very little attention. My eyes were locked on a big mirror next to said fountain, where I could at leisure watch my reflection, unobserved. Not out of vanity, just to step into the full awareness of how long my hair actually was, the longest I could recall having since childhood: a full 5.5 inches on top. My ears were invisible under the weight of this dark brown mop. Just a few more minutes, and nearly all of it would hit the floor. I was getting the haircut of my life. I was going for a flattop. My first in nearly two decades, since I was 14 and the style went out of fashion. And what I was meaning to get that night would be nothing like a little boy’s neatly groomed, longish flattop. A too long unquenched haircutting fetish tolerated no half measures...

The stylist unfastened the man’s cape. My turn in the chair was imminent. My heart rate predictably rose by a few beats per minute... It had all started about three months previously, when I suddenly realized it was high time to finally “f*** it” and go ahead treating myself with a clipper ride to remember. No girlfriend anymore, no real obligation to sport a “socially acceptable” haircut at work... “To hell with inhibitions”, I thought, and for the first time the thought stuck and turned into a resolve. At the time my hair was already in need of a good trim, but I decided to let it grow as long as I could bear, assuming that the more hair stripped from my head at once, the bigger the enjoyment... And so there I was, three months later, seated in that beige wicker chair, waiting for the customer to pay up and step out into the cold evening, leaving me all alone with the woman who was to perform the “deed”.
Choosing that particular salon had been a rapid but careful enterprise, first looking around on the Internet for options within 15-20 minutes walk from my flat, then actually going into the field and strolling inconspicuously in front of the window to make sure it was the right place. Sounds like stalking to most people I’m sure, but everyone with a hair fetish will know what I’m talking about... My main prerequisite was a salon with a single stylist. I didn’t want to run the risk of ruining the experience by being in a salon full of people babbling about and possibly even commenting on my haircut in progress.
Besides, the haircut I was longing for de facto excluded a young stylist. It had to be someone who had been trained at a time when flattops were still a frequent request from male customers. Looking in her mid- to late-forties, this particular stylist would know what to do, I figured. On top of that, she was totally good-looking, about 5.4 feet tall, her silhouette graceful for her age, she wore thick-rimmed glasses and her hair, chestnut with a few golden strands, was cropped reasonably short, in an attractive “business-like” style. Having that woman in charge would definitely bring an added thrill to the whole thing. I made an appointment for 6.30 pm that same day, and spent all day at work in febrile anticipation, knots building in my throat whenever I thought of the moment I would push the salon door open, the moment she would throw a cape around me, the moment she would comb my overgrown hair backwards and ask me what I wanted, and the “no turning back” request that would then come out of my mouth.

“So, young man, I’m all yours”, were her first words to me (apart from “good evening!” earlier), as she smilingly handed out a big white cape with sleeves for me to don. I stood up, half-expecting my legs to tremble, but the only symptom of my nervousness was a dry throat. I knew what I wanted and in this very moment felt totally good about it, unlike on so many previous salon trips where I had contemplated going short for real, and always chickened out, mainly because my (now ex-)girlfriend would have killed me... I always left the salons with variations on the same cut, which was a number three on the sides, the top shortened with scissors and left a little messy.
The stylist directed me to the bowl and proceeded to wash my hair in silence, which was ok as I find talkative stylists an annoyance most of the time, but for some reason, I felt like breaking the ice a little and we spent the rest of the shampooing talking about her business. Among other things, I learned that she’d inherited the salon from her mother and had been her own boss for over ten years.
Soon it was time to move over to the mirror and the welcoming chair. I made myself comfortable while she wrapped a black cutting collar around my neck, and stared ahead into the mirror at my uncombed “glory”. Not for the first time these past few weeks, I could hardly believe I had worked up the patience to let it grow that long. The strands in front reached almost past my nose. Boy, was I going to give that woman some work to do! Just then something surprising happened. Something pleasantly surprising. Basically, most stylists will just ask you what you want, more seldom something like “when was the last time you got it cut?”, in order to roughly assess how much they should snip off. That’s the tricky part where I usually yield and go conventional. But what this beautiful, short-haired stylist asked me that night while holding a strand up between two fingers was something new entirely: “I take it we’re cutting it short?”.
“Short...” She had used the word, of her own accord, with no previous clue or input from me. Given the length I had, I’m sure most hairdressers would have settled on a trim and a side parting or something. Nothing could go wrong from there. I simply had to seize the bait, and so did I: “Yes, very short actually, I would like a very short flattop haircut”. I could see that the request took her aback, and for a second was assailed by the fear she would try to talk me out of it. “Let me be sure we understand each other”, she went on. “When you say flattop, you mean you want your hair cut super short all around and the top like this?”, she asked, running the palm of her hand in a swift gesture above my head to illustrate her question. “You got it, just like that”, I said, feeling a powerful rush of confidence wash over me... “All right”, came her immediate reply, “we won’t be needing scissors then”. I liked the way this was heading and, as she rummaged through a drawer to retrieve a pair of competent-looking chrome clippers, felt more than a little excitement building up somewhere in my trousers...

And then it got even better... “Fine, you want the sides as short as possible, then?” Had I actually died and gone to heaven? To this day I still have no idea if she read though me. Maybe she did have a haircutting fetish herself? I couldn’t tell but never mind, all I knew was that she meant business, and that she wouldn’t hesitate to use those clippers bare if I asked her to! I decided to play it out a little, get some extra enjoyment out of it. “What is the shortest you can do?”, I asked candidly. A mischievous expression painted itself across her face. She looked gorgeous. “You’re not used to having a flattop, are you?”, she asked, combing my left side sleek. God, was my hair long... “It’s been a while”, I admitted. Which was the truth. 20 years is a while... “Well, this one here will take it really short”, she said, holding up a number one. I knew exactly what a number one would do: it was the last step before getting white-walled. The fact that she was suggesting a number one in the first place made my head spin, but I managed to keep a straight face. “You know what, I’ll start a bit longer and you’ll tell me”, she continued, attaching a number two to the ominous-looking blades. “That’s the length I usually do for super short clipper cuts, it should be enough for you, it will be a big, big change already”, she added, lifting a strand high between her fingers again for emphasis, as if to say: “Take a good look boy, this is what you’re losing tonight”. I nodded in approval, taking a long, hard stare into the mirror. A dark-haired sheep ready for the shearing looked back. Helpless.
The clippers came to life with a loud pop. The stylist rested her left hand gently on top of my head, then pushed the blades slowly up into the forest of curls on my left cheek. Up they went, up, up... right to the top. One length, no tapering business... I swallowed as a shocking mass of hair dropped to my shoulder and slid down the cape, unleashing a wave of adrenaline. I was getting seriously hard. The clippers fell silent. “Well? Short enough?” I brought my left hand up and made a show of assessing the situation. This was already the shortest my hair had ever been. Not by far, but there was no mistaking the difference from a number three. Why stop there, though... “Hmm... Let’s go for the small guard I guess”, I said, stuttering a little because of my parched throat. The stylist flashed an understanding smile, as if my decision had been no secret to her. She switched to the number one and buzzed the already short part down to 1/16 inch, then moved just above the ear and made another pass, sending more wet hair into my lap. The pleasure I got out of these few moments was beyond awesome. Impossible to tell what brought the most delight, from the smooth bite of the clippers running up my temple, to the sight of my hair tumbling down in thick chunks, on the cape, to the floor, everywhere, to the spectacle of this very attractive woman standing there, stiff and professional, clipping away like she got to do this kind of haircut all day long, not showing the slightest bit of remorse at depriving me from so much hair. Well I had asked for it after all, hadn’t I...

The whole left side done, I came “awake” from my torpor and surveyed the damage. This was downright extreme, much too short I knew, but I was way past caring. Regrets, if any, would come later... Under the bright neon light of the salon, it looked all but bald. At any rate I felt bald. I felt great... The stylist moved to the back of the chair, and I tilted my head forward a little, without her asking for it, in a gesture of submission that felt appropriate. My cock was now pressing really hard against my zipper. The shaving resumed, again right up to the top, and with every flick of her wrist, the stylist sent clouds of hair flying across the room. A few strands stayed stuck in the guard. She grabbed them and unceremoniously dumped them on the cape over my shoulder, then immediately dug the clippers again at the base of my nape, to clean away the next path...
From the corner of my left eye I could see that some people out in the street were slowing down to get a closer look, probably wondering what could possess a man to willingly have his hair brutally peeled off like that, and at the heart of winter to boot. I made out a young blonde woman with a ponytail who stopped in her tracks and stood there for at least twenty seconds, watching... That excited me all the more, the thought of sitting there, caped, chin pressed against my chest, the entire back of my head mowed from long to nearly zero in seconds, white scalp exposed for everyone to watch. Public humiliation and a haircut fetish make a perfect match...
“Your friends won’t recognize you”, said the stylist merrily as she finished the back. “Oh, they’re used to this, I’m all for a radical change from time to time”, I lied. In truth, I could already hear the shocked and/or amused comments my co-workers would throw at my face the next day: “Dude, the Army called or what?”, “Were you attacked by a lawnmower in your sleep?”, or the more prosaic “O my God! Why did you do that?”, which Mary-Jane the receptionist actually gave me as I came into the office, her eyes wide with disbelief, and probably disgust.

Once the hair on my back and sides was history, the stylist put down the clippers. I thought she might want to take the remaining bulk down to a more manageable length with scissors first, but apparently she wasn’t planning on bothering with that, as she proceeded to blow-dry my hair to make it stand up straight. Well, sort of... In two minutes I was left with a goofy kind of high-and-tight palm tree look. Clippers would sort it all out, and I sure didn’t complain about that! Fidgeting in the drawer again, the stylist produced a big comb, the kind of comb that only comes in handy for serious tasks...
She slid her index finger under my chin and straightened my head, then inserted the comb horizontally just a little distance from my forehead. “Stay very still”. She didn’t have to say that twice. As the bare clippers made contact with the plastic teeth, holding my breath and staring ahead was about all that my brain could have me perform... With a steady hand, she moved the clippers slowly across the whole width of my head, severing all in their path. I can’t even begin to describe the sensation that was unleashed through me. The vibrations were echoed tenfold in my skull with a thousand tingles of pleasure. A few stray locks came loose and fell slowly before my eyes, like feathers, but the clippers drove most of the hair to the side like a snowplough would clear a country road in winter, and as the blades ended their course, I couldn’t suppress a loud intake of air at the sight of the huge pile that cascaded on my shoulder. That was a sexual thing, no less.
For a weird instant I found my thoughts wandering back to a video I had seen on the Internet years before, of a lovely girl having her shoulder-length bob taken boy-short by ruthless clippers-over-comb swipes, her hair raining like mad. For a second I wondered what it must have felt to her, if it already felt like this to me...

“Are we good?”, the stylist asked briskly, and it took me some time to realize she was talking about the length. Actually, what I understood looking in the mirror was that “as short as possible” was the name of the game again, only this time she had spared herself the asking. From the look of it, she would have to press the comb absolutely skin-tight once she reached the top. There was no way around it if had to be a “flat” top. Of course she knew that just as well, yet had decided to leave me fresh out of options. Did she mean to teach me a lesson? Or was she just giving me what I wanted, plain and simple? “Looks all right to me”, I said. As if I could argue at this point...
The next two stripes were cleared and more hair was in for a final visit to the white tiles. At that moment the door was pushed open and the noises from the street rushed in together with a freezing breeze. A woman walked in, holding a 5- or 6-year-old girl by the hand. Her slightly older brother followed them inside. In my desire to be alone in the salon, I had made sure to book the last slot on the agenda, but apparently something had come up in the meantime. Well, I would have to cope with it, the haircut was almost done anyway. The kids paid no attention to me and ran off to the back, near the fountain, arguing as kids do. Their mother stayed behind to say hello, calling the stylist by her name: Marion. That woman was about my age, maybe early-thirties, a little overweight, with a cute round face. She would definitely not be the one having her hair done, as her short stacked bob, dyed black with heavy side-swept bangs, was styled impeccably. Our eyes locked for just two seconds in the mirror. Although her face remained blank, I could totally read was she was thinking from the way she glanced very briefly at the floor and up again: “What the f*** is going on here?” She made an apology for dropping in so late, something with a bad traffic jam. She could come back another day. “No, no, don’t worry about that!”, the stylist exclaimed. “I’ll just finish up mister here and I’ll do your little monsters, no big deal!”
“Finish” was the right word, as she wasted no time buzzing the remaining length down and shaping the flattop nice and square, blending the top with the sides in a few expert moves. As expected, the whole middle part was no longer than 1/8 inch (the width of the comb). Pale skin showed awfully through. A “very short flattop” I had asked for, a high-and-tight near-horseshoe I was leaving with. Not only was it obviously the shortest haircut I’d ever had, it was also the shortest anyone in my male circle of friends had ever sported, and by far. There was going to be some talk about that in the next few days...

The stylist held a round mirror for me to check out the back. Not that there was much surprise there... I looked like a skinhead proper, ears sticking out a little more than expected. “Maybe you should give Matthew the same style, that would save me time and cash!”, the woman shouted from her chair, where she was sitting cross-legged, grinning. They both laughed and I busied myself removing the cape to avoid blushing too much. As I stood up, all the hair collected in my lap fell to the floor in one big mound. The tiles all around the chair were literally hidden under.
My thoughts went back just thirty minutes before, when I was still in the waiting chair, repeating to myself “it’s all going down, sweet Jesus I’m having it shaved right now!” Well, it had happened, years and years of fantasizing about doing something that drastic. And I had just done it, and it had been so f***ing good. My mind was having a hard time switching back to reality though, and apart from handing out 12.50 bucks and bidding good night, rewarded by an actually friendly smile from the mother, I remember nothing much of the way home, until I locked the door behind me, ran off to the bathroom and, while rubbing my naked head frantically in front of the mirror, jerked off like the world ended that night...
Next time, in at least six months, who knows, I might even ask Marion for a headshave, bootcamp style, and something tells me she will know better than to object!

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