For a long time, my hair grows. Then, one Saturday morning, I wake up with it strangling me. My hair is thick, black, and wiry as pubic hair, and when I let it grow long it tangles and swarms about my head. So I decide to ask Marcel to cut it. He squeezes me in and cuts it so close to my skull it’s like an animal pelt, smooth and black and shining against my bony head.
I spend Sunday at home, reading. Every once in a while I reach up to stroke myself. It’s like a new pet, this haircut; it soothes my palm.
Monday morning, I’m at work before the boss. When he comes in, I’m at the filing cabinet, my back to the door. I’m wearing my highest heels. I hear the door but before I can even turn around, he’s said it. “What did you do to your hair?” he says. He comes straight at me, hand extended. He runs his palm over my crown, turns me, and runs his palm down the nape of my neck. “My god,” he says. “What a neck.”
In my heels I’m as tall as he is. I slip out from under his palm, go to my desk. He follows me. I sit down, and he stands behind me, his hands hovering over my head. Like a priest, he touches me, light at first, then firm. He holds my head in his hands. His hands are warm, and a little rough; he gardens on weekends. He presses himself into the back of my chair. “My god,” he says. His hands slide down my neck, back up again, ruffle my hair, wrap around my bare ears. My hair warms under his hands.
It is a week before he gets used to it, a week before we can settle down, get back to work. And even then, for months his eyes linger on me first thing in the morning, his eyes caress my bare head. I get a raise. I go back to Marcel time and again. I like it, and I can afford it now. Besides, it’s job security.
-Elizabeth Inness-Brown
