Workman: Chapter Five - Part Eleven

Was this really what I wanted? To have short hair like a man? Or was it the magic still working on my brain?

And did that matter? This was what I wanted right now and I could always grow it back if I didn’t like it. If I wasn’t going to become a man again then the least I wanted was to get closer to that while I remained a woman.

It was five years since I’d last seen my mum put them in there but they were still there... the clippers. They were in their original box, the photo on the front horrifically dated with what looked like a family out of the nineteen eighties settling down for a lovely afternoon of hair cutting. I took the entire box out and carried it upstairs. I needed better light if I was going to do this properly.

I didn’t question myself as I proceeded up the staircase. My mind was fixed on what I intended to do and the momentum of that carried me forward.

I went into the bedroom and emptied the box onto the bedspread. There was the electric shaver and a series of comb attachments for achieving shorter or longer cuts, each one numbered by grade.

A tiny voice inside my head insisted that this was a terrible idea but I ignored it. I was angry about what I’d said to Sangeeta and frustrated that I wasn’t in my far more comfortable form as a man; pissed off that I was being strict with myself when all I wanted was to turn into Geoff and go and find Sangeeta, wherever she was. All I wanted was to take her in my arms and possess her as I’d done the night before. I was angry with myself for being so wet and undisciplined as a woman and determined to make some kind of stand at least. And I was also powerfully excited at the idea of doing something so drastic and, at least temporarily, irreversible.

I plugged the electric clippers in then selected the longest comb: a number four. In front of the free-standing mirror I looked at myself, still jarred by the frail feminine form looking back at me. Cutting my ponytail hadn’t been enough. If anything, the new bobbed style looked more feminine. It was a style a man never would have had.

I flicked the switch on the clippers and a strong electrical whine issued out of it.

My heart rate jumped.

I looked at the clippers, then my hair; back to the clippers.

This was a mistake. I knew I would regret it. But part of me wanted to do it before I regretted it – to take that step while I wanted to and beggar the consequences.

I lifted one side of my hair at the front and ran the clippers up into its roots off my forehead. The clump came free in my fingers immediately and then slipped free as I rippled them.

There. That was it now. I had to go through with it. I couldn’t have just one short clump on one side. I looked at myself – at the oddly asymmetrical shape of it, then set to work, lifting sections and scraping the clippers through as it chuntered, devouring the hair that was there. I worked back from my forehead then up the sides above my ears. Finally I slid it onto the back of my head from the nape vertically.

When I was done I realised what a terrible mistake I’d made.

What had possessed me? With all my hair the same length I didn’t look normal at all. It looked like gorilla fur. I ran my fingers through it, used to my short hair as Geoff and despite the near horror of doing this to myself, I actually felt better now that it was done. It felt nice to have short hair. It felt right.

But it wasn’t finished. Not yet. It looked awful. I had to go on.

I took up the number three comb and switched them over, then I moved the full-length mirror round so that I could reflect what it showed in the dressing table mirror to see the back of my head. Feeling nervous but increasingly determined, I started to work again, leaving the top of my head longer but working up from the bottom to give it a graded look.

It was difficult to get right but I concentrated as hard as I could to do a good job. Soon it was starting to look even. I didn’t stop there. I put in the number two comb and slid up from my neck again to get a smoothly graded finish.

Finally it was done and I put the clippers back in their box then stood staring at myself in the glass.

I looked completely different. With “Geoff’s” tracksuit bottoms and baggy shirt as well, there wasn’t a trace of the flouncy over-feminine woman I used to be. I had no makeup on and the overall effect was to make me look boyish – like a teenager, not quite old enough to shave. I stared for a long time and then gave myself a little corners turned up smile.

I felt better like this. It just felt more natural to me to have short hair and this was nothing if not a man’s cut.

I stroked my chin, wishing I still had my goatee. It was much better being dressed in normal clothes and having a proper haircut rather than looking like some primped-up woman, but I still missed my muscles and my broad chest and shoulders. I looked like a shrimp, swamped as I was in what I was wearing.

I ran my fingers through my hair and down the back of my neck, liking the feel of it. I was glad I’d done it. It was like what I’d been thinking about barriers, only the other way round. By sending Sangeeta away I’d put a barrier up against becoming Geoff again. Equally, by cutting my hair short and throwing my women’s clothes away, I’d forced myself to readjust my normal style to find a middle ground.

That was what I wanted now. Rather than becoming Geoff regularly to get the better character traits he had I wanted to amalgamate both characters into one. If I was going to make myself stay like this – and I still wasn’t convinced that was the best route – then I sure as hell intended to retain the best parts of being a man.

I ran my hand down the front of my crotch, missing my cock still. It just didn’t feel right having nothing there.

I thought about Sangeeta again, regretting the words I’d said and wanting to put the ring back on so I could go to her. I took it out of my pocket, resisting as much as I could.

The least I could do was change just for a bit and have another quick wank. I felt charged still from cutting my hair and seeing her again. I needed that release.

Just put it on for half an hour – that was all. Nobody need know. I wouldn’t sleep like that. I’d take it off again straight afterwards.

I fiddled with it in my fingertips, then lowered it over the end of the index finger on my other hand, immediately feeling the first tingle.

I pushed it down to the first joint. Then I pulled it off again and dropped it onto the dressing table.

“No,” I said. “Not tonight.”

I got ready for bed instead, taking off my shirt and bottoms and staring disconsolately at my breasts; my smooth arms and legs, my narrow torso and wide hips. It still just felt wrong and I got another urge to put the ring back on, just to sleep like that; nothing more.

I didn’t.

I went through, put a man’s T-short on that swamped me and then climbed into bed. I stroked my hand through my man’s haircut one last time, smiled to myself and then fell asleep.