The Option by A Recruit

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"I have considered your appeal of the punishment that was imposed. What you did was serious--you put yourselves at risk and damaged the reputation of the institution.

Six weeks total 'grounding' would certainly get your attention, but I think it is not completely appropriate. You need some physical and social activities, or I am afraid you may get in further trouble. So I will offer you an alternative.

It's 1:15 now, and I have meetings till 3. "If you want the grounding lifted, be back here at 3:30 with your heads shaved--really shaved. And plan to keep them shaved for the whole six weeks. You don't have to do this. It's your decision, but it's both of you or neither.

Everything you need is in the box." Mr. Jamieson paused and reached behind him for a cardboard box and handed it to Mark. Mark and Jon stared at Mr. Jamieson for a moment until he waved them out of the office. "Great alternative," muttered Jon as they walked across the quad towards their dorm. "Should we do it?" said Mark as he looked in the box. "I guess he really means shaved-there's clippers and a razor in here. It'll grow back, I guess, but he said we had to keep doing it. What do you think?" Jon had the longer hair of the two; down to his collar in back and really long on top.

He parted it off center, but one brown lock was forever falling in his eyes, so he had a good case of the "twitch", where he tossed his head to the side to toss the hair out of his face. If the truth be told, he was very vain about his hair; shampooed it daily and spent a lot of time with the drier and comb every morning. "No way I'm gonna! Old Jamieson can stuff it!"

Mark stopped by the mirror as they walked into their room. His dirty blond hair was pretty long too; he had been meaning to get a haircut any day now for the past two months. He pushed his hair back with his hands and tried un-successfully to visualize what he would look like without it.

Memories came past of the summer brushcuts when he was much younger-the cool bristly feeling. These weren't 'forced" or 'punishment' cuts--just something you did in the summer. "What the hell! Lets do it--it beats being cooped up in this room for a month and a half." "You can, if you want, but not me. I don't want to look like a geek." "Well, you have the choice of looking like a geek (though I don't think you will) and looking like your old hairy self with nobody else to look at you, except me, and I'm going to get pretty sick of it. Come on, Jon, it's just hair. Think of all we'll miss stuck in this room for a month and a half."

Jon ran his fingers through his hair, futily pushing it out of his eyes. "We'll look like a pair of aliens if we do it." Mark noted the slight shift in Jon's position and pressed the attack. He had decided that his hair could go-he wanted his freedom, and he just had to convince Jon. The conversation went back and forth for a while, with Jon slowly and reluctantly abandoning his "no way" attitude.

Finally Mark said "Look, we've got to do it now! We are supposed to be back in Jamieson's office at 3:30. We can't keep on talking about it. Get over here and sit down." Jon got up off his bed and looked at himself in the mirror for a long minute, then sat down in the desk chair in front of Mark. Mark took the plastic apron out of the box and hooked it around Jon's neck and plugged in the clippers.

They were the vibrator type with an adjustment lever on the side. Mark pushed the lever all the way up and switched them on. Jon sort of jumped at the sound, and then closed his eyes.

Mark surveyed the territory, deciding where to start. Then he ran his fingers across Jon's forehead and lifted up the lock of hair that was always in his eyes. He had often wondered why Jon didn't do something about it; well he was going to do something about it.

He put the humming clipper blades against Jon's forehead and slid them back until the lock of hair came off in his hand. It seemed even longer than when it was attached. "Here you go, Jon," he said, dropping it in his lap "No more hair in your eyes." Therewas now a patch of tiny crisp stubble on Jon's head through which his pink scalp showed.

Mark put the clippers back and pushed them over the patch again, going back a couple of inches farther. The patch expanded between the severed ends of Jon's long hair. He ran his fingers over Jon's head, gathering up the loose hair and feeling the stubble. He was starting to enjoy this a great deal.

Gradually he worked his way back along the part line, clipping and lifting off what the clippers had cut. Soon he had a wide bare swath extending all the way from the front to the crown of Jon's head, below his part, and Jon's lap was getting full of the hunks of hair that were falling away.

Mark moved around to the side, slipped the clippers in under the hair in front of Jon's ear, and steadily pushed them up 'til they came out in the stubble on top. He moved a little faster now and after a few passes the whole side of the head was stubble.

The contrast between the closely cropped bristles and the long hair on the rest of Jon's head was startling. The next cut was a long one from front to back, widening the bare swath by half an inch or so. The cut hair didn't fall away, but mostly just lay there, the cut ends, no longer attached, lifting away from the scalp.

Mark alternated long narrow cuts with sweeping away the cut hair, enjoying the sensation of running his fingers over the stubble until the top of Jon's head was bare. Then around to the other side and the clippers ran up the side, again and again, working their way back and across the back.

Finally it was all gone, except for one great long lock coming from just below the crown, that Mark had saved for last. He ran his fingers over the stubble to surround this last bit and slid his hand out along the hair, holding it away from Jon's head, ran the clippers across where it was attached, and dropped it in Jon's lap.

He rubbed his hand over Jon's clippered head. "Done! How's it feel?" Mark took the apron off, dumping the hair on the tiled floor in a great heap. Reluctantly Jon put his hand to his head, habitually making the motion to sweep the hair out of his eyes, and encountered nothing but bristles. He rubbed his hand over his head and got up to look in the mirror. "God, it looks different! I don't recognize myself." "And you get to have it shaved really bald, don't forget!" "After I use the clippers on you," said Jon, motioning Mark towards the chair.

Mark, who by this time wasn't at all reluctant, went to the wall mirror and lifted it down. He propped it up on his desk and pushed the chair in front of it. "I want to watch this," he said. Jon snapped on the clippers and started them up the side of Mark's head in front of his ear.

He pushed them steadily upwards, past the corner and onto the top of his head. The hunks of hair fell away, burying the clippers and Jon's hand. He pulled the clippers and most of the cut hair away leaving the bare scalp. With Mark's blond hair, the stubble was less visible so the swath looked really bare. Jon repeated the pass, moving back along the side of his head, running the clippers up and about a third of the way across the top. In a moment the right side of Mark's head was clipped.

Mark turned his head so he could see the damage and pulled his hand out to feel of his head. Jon slapped him away, "You can play with it when I'm done." Jon ran his hand over his own head, feeling the crisp stubble, and then returned to his work. He came around to the left side and repeated the process, clipping away the hair, longer this time because of being on the other side of Mark's part.

The clippers had heavy going in Mark's heavy hair, but in a few minutes his head was clipped, except for an inch-wide strip down the center that was the original length. Jon asked, "How do you like your Mohawk? It's a little long to stand up ." Mark, who had been thoroughly enjoying the performance, got his hand out and pushed the long hair straight back down the center of his head. "There, that looks more like it, but you're right, it's too long. Better do something about it." "Happy to oblige", said Jon as he dropped the clippers onto Mark's forehead and slowly pushed them back, plowing the short-lived Mohawk right off the back.

The apron came offf and Mark's blond hair joined the heap on the floor. Mark rubbed his bristles as he studied his new look in the mirror. "Really different, but not bad," he thought. He went to the box and pulled out the can of shaving cream and the razor. "Round two!" he announced. Jon looked at himself in the mirror and felt of his stubbly scalp."I wish we could leave it like this.

This isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I'm not sure about being really bald" "Well, you don't have a choice. We've got this far; we can't quit." Jon shrugged and sat down; Mark laid down a good squirt of lather on Jon's head and rubbed it into the stubble, leaving a thin layer all over.

He let it sit for a few minutes while he went to fill a plastic pot with water. He clicked in a new blade and set the razor down on Jon's forehead."Here goes nothing!" "Make that 'here goes everything'" said Jon as Mark pulled the razor back through the soapy stubble.

The razor could go an inch or so before it started to clog and had to be rinsed. Mark laid down carefully overlapping swaths and marched the razor down the center of Jon's scalp. The brown fuzz vanished as did the bristly feel, leaving smooth skin in the blade's wake.

The new blade cut smoothly with no pulling and in little time the whole top of Jon's head was smooth. Mark turned his attention to the sides and back, shaving upwards against the way the hairs grew. It all took maybe 5 minutes. Mark wiped off the last of the shaving cream with Jon's washcloth and inspected his work.

A couple of places where a bit of stubble had escaped got a bit more cream and a swipe with the razor, and Mark pronounced his victim finished. Jon's head was smooth and hairless, with a bit of a shine. There was a bit of a color contrast between the newly shaved scalp and the rest - the shadow of the dark hair below the surface. Jon looked in the mirror and ran his hands over his skull, "It feels like smooth skin! Hell, of course it does--I don't know what I was expecting." "Well, get used to it. Better do me, its getting late."

Mark picked up the shaving cream and squirted a pile on the top of his head as he sat down. He liked the feeling of Jon's fingers working it into the stubble, and the sound and feel of the fresh blade as it scraped over his head. It was all he could do to keep from leaning into the razor to make it cut still closer. Mark was almost sorry when Jon announced that he was finished.

He took a good look at himself in the mirror and liked what he saw. Being blond, there was no visible trace of where the hair had been; even the transition from tan to no tan was gradual because his hair had been so long. His head was well shaped and looked good bald, he thought. The coolness and the ability to feel every breath of air was awesome.

The two walked back to the Administration building, drawing a variety of responses from the people they met: startled looks, amused looks, fascination. Jon felt embarrassed, but Mark, being more of an extrovert, got a kick out of it.

Mr. Jamieson looked up and grinned as they walked into his office. "So you did it! I would have only given 50 - 50 odds. Ok, the grounding is lifted, but those heads get shaved every morning for the next six weeks. That should serve as a daily reminder of what happened. And stay out of trouble. Ok?" Jon & Mark nodded and left the office.

As they walked back Jon grumbled "We've got to stay bald for a month and a half. That's going to seem like forever." Mark ran his hand over his head. "Yeah!" he said, and continued under his breath "and maybe forever isn't such a bad idea!"

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