Flavius nodded. “I can do that.” He snipped his scissors experimentally.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. But you’re paying for this.”
Sandy squeezed my shoulder. “Baby doll, I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Tell me to fuck off if you want. We’ll leave and never speak of it again.”
I knew he meant it. He wouldn’t force me into anything. “It’ll grow back.”
He kissed me on the cheek before standing upright again. “Flavius! I summon you!”
And as Flavius descended, cheesy music began to play overhead, and I hated everything.
I closed my eyes.
“DONE,” FLAVIUS said a couple hours later, panting as if he’d just had a religious experience. Or an orgasm. “My greatest creation. My finest hour. I have been to Nirvana, and it was glorious.”
I opened my eyes.
And stared at my reflection.
The sides and back of my head had been shaved closely. The hair on top of my head was in a small afro, the tight curls bouncing as I turned side to side to see what he’d done. I still looked like me, just… different.
I reached up and ran my fingers through it. It felt softer than I’d ever felt before. It was almost shocking, and I felt a small cramp in my stomach, wondering if I’d made a mistake.
Flavius leaned over, his hands on my shoulders. “You were beautiful before,” he said quietly. “And you’re beautiful now. No more, no less. This will work with whatever you’re feeling. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman. And if you ever want to change it again, you come and ask for Flavius. It will be on me.”
The cramp lessened slightly. “You think it looks all right?”
He laughed. “Darling, if my wife wasn’t in the picture, I’d be scooping you up for myself. Hell, she might not even have a problem with it now. Now, let’s talk some products that Sandy will be paying for.”
“Spare no expense,” I told him.
He grinned at my reflection. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
SCENE: #2.
Location: Charlie’s house.
Mood: a little more jovial.
Charlie lived in a quiet neighborhood on the opposite side of downtown from Sandy’s house. It was lined with palm trees, and since in Tucson grass was mostly for people like the Super Gays, his front yard was white rocks and thorny bushes.
The house itself was small. It had two bedrooms and a single bathroom. The kitchen was bright and airy, multiple windows streaming in sunlight. The floors were all tile, as they mostly were in the Southwest. It’d been a little unnerving to see wood floors almost everywhere I went when I’d gone to school back East.
Charlie was back in his bedroom with Paul, while the rest of us were sitting in the living room, waiting to see what would happen. Paul seemed almost as nervous as I was, and that made me sad.
While I was closer to Sandy than Paul, I thought I understood Paul a little bit better. He had struggled with his appearance for most of his life. He’d been a big kid who’d grown up into a big adult. It’d taken him a long time to accept how he looked, and there were days I knew he still had issues with it. But that was a human thing, not just a Paul or Corey/Kori thing. He’d told me once that when he and Vince first started hanging out (“Mostly against my will,” he said with a fond smile), he wondered often if he needed to change how he looked.
I could see what he meant, much as I hated it. Paul had extra pounds. Vince was fit as fuck. His biceps had biceps. And his brother, the Homo Jock King, was even more jacked. It had to be a combination of genetics, luck, and steroids.
But Vince didn’t care about shit like that, as Paul soon found out. I wished I could have been here for those days just to see Vince following Paul around like a lovesick puppy. It was sickeningly sweet. And Paul needed to give himself more credit. He really was attractive. I didn’t think he had anything to worry about. But that still didn’t stop him (or me) from being nervous as Charlie led him to the bedroom to get him ready.
“I bet he’s going to look so fucking hot,” Vince growled aggressively. “I can’t promise I won’t do something about it either.”
I scooted as far away from Vince as I could. Sandy and Paul had once gone to a Gallagher show, the comic who smashed fruit with a sledgehammer. They said it was sticky and gross and that the plastic coverings they’d gotten for sitting in the second row hadn’t helped much.
I figured it was going to be something like that. I didn’t want V
ince to smash Paul’s watermelon where some of it could get in my mouth.