She moved to the back again and worked her way round to the front without further comment. As she turned the clippers off I could at last turn my head to see what she had just done. My eyes followed the contour from my lip, along the line of my hair until I came to the back. The back of my head was bare. Bald. Visible to the world. The part that I thought would be my little secret was now on full public view. It was dramatic, it was shocking.
"We're not finished yet" she said and held up an aerosol can that had been sitting on the shelf just to one side of us. My stomach jumped slightly.
"You're not..?"
"It finishes it off nicely. If I don't it just doesn't feel the same" she replied.
I sat there, resigned to my fate as she sprayed some foam into the palm of her hand and then smeared it over the back of my head. She shaved it gently with a razor, gliding through the whiteness to reveal my skin once more. Once the back was done, she moved to the side, holding up my hair with one hand while the other wielded the razor.
"There" she said, with a note of satisfaction, catching my eye in the mirror.
"You can touch it, if you want" she said.
