Momsi Fashion
Boulder
Jonah, the barber, came half an hour later.
Never had I seen someone look so ridiculous. The man was about my age and had a hairdo and a beard that had me seriously doubting his sanity. It was cut to look like what can best be described as an open-mouthed shark, ready to attack.
The sharp point of hair on his forehead was mirrored by his beard cut into the same pointy “teeth” look.
“Oh wow, you truly weren’t exaggerating,” Jonah breathed to David and looked us over with curiosity.
“No, these are real Nmen,” David said. “The question is, how do we make them blend in?”
“Leave that to me, I’ve always loved a challenge,” Jonah said excitedly and pointed to me. “You,” he commanded, “we’ll start with you.”
I exchanged a glance with Magni, silently telling him that I didn’t appreciate being bossed around by a Momsiboy and that I didn’t feel comfortable with Jonah’s style.
“Make it as simple as possible,” Magni said. “Aren’t there any normal-looking men here?”
“Normal-looking men?” David asked. “I’m pretty ordinary, I think.”
“You look like a boy with that flawless skin, and how come you don’t even have a stubble? Did you just shave?”
“No.” David shook his head. “I had my beard removed permanently.”
“You didwhat?” He might as well have told me he had his dick removed by surgery. What kind of man would do something that absurd?
“It’s standard here; actually, Jonah’s having a beard is uncommon,” David explained.
“Well, I don’t want eyebrows like that.” I pointed to David’s fine lines that curved unnaturally and returned my gaze to Jonah. “And I don’t want my hair to look like sharp teeth like yours. Just make it simple.”
“Oh my, aren’t you a big dictator,” Jonah purred, and his feminine way of flicking his eyes at me made me take a step back.
“Come on, darling, take a seat.” He pulled out a chair and I hesitantly moved to it.
Bending forward and letting his hands run along my jaw, Jonah said, “I would looove to go crazy on you but since you won’t appreciate my art, I guess we’re doing it the boring way.”
“Yes, as boring as possible,” I agreed.
“We’ll need make-up,” he muttered and frowned. “You both have scars and that’s rare to see here. We take really good care of our skin, and we have excellent surgeons should we be unfortunate enough to get a scar.”
With a hand under my chin he moved my head from side to side. “You have nice bone structure; we could do an elegant cut that would enhance that – hmm, maybe go with a vintage look.”
“What’s a vintage look?”
“Undercut in the neck and over the ears and longer on top,” he explained. “It’s a classical hairdo that was popular back in the day and one you can still get away with, although most would never dream of doing somethingthatboring.” He gave another long speculative glance at me. “Or I could braid your hair in the butterfly style. That would look pretty.”
“Cut it,” I said. To me this was about more than blending in. I wanted Christina to find me attractive, and maybe cutting my hair would have the same effect on her as the time I shaved for her.
My hands clenched the armrests of the chair tightly when Jonah went to work. I didn’t have a mirror but felt my long hair fall to the floor indiscriminately.
I can grow my hair back, I kept telling myself, and truth be told there were men in the Northlands who preferred their hair short. It was rare, but not as uncommon as it had been when I was a child.
A childhood memory played in flashback – when the master at the school I grew up in had once shaved off all my hair because of problems with lice among the children. If I had been the only one it would have been humiliating, but he did it to all thirty of us and that left all the students in the same boat. I vaguely remembered the feeling of running my hand over the short hair back then and liking it.
“Voilà,” Jonah exclaimed after a while. “Boring, but still much better than the messy nest you had on your head before.”
I stood up and brushed hair off my shoulders before I moved to the bathroom and looked myself in the mirror. The front of my hair fell down in an edgy way but the sides and my neck were completely short.
