Barbershop
I know I’m due for a haircut when the gender dysphoria and the bedhead start to get bad. I’ve been putting off my next haircut, too, because I got “she/her”d all the way through my last one. I finally try putting in a request at the local LGBT salon for Jen, but I’ve never been and my hopes are low.
I find free parking—a blessing on LA streets—and walk up to Folklore, where I push open a glass door with a rainbow flag hanging inside. There’s a low couch and chair with a coffee table, a row of barber chairs and mirrors, and some merch and hair products for sale. I’m greeted by an alternative queer with a mullet, stretched ears, and tattooed arms.
“Hi. I’m Dakota,” I say. “I have a 7:00 with Jen?” I hate how it comes out as a question, but whatever.
“She’s in the back. She’ll be right with you.”
“Thanks.”
I take a closer look at the merch while I wait, and I see they’re selling Tom of Finland buttons and Daddy socks. Tempting.
“Dakota?” I hear. I turn around and lock my gaze with the hottest silver fox I’ve ever laid eyes on. She’s probably in her forties, broad shouldered, wearing a tight black T-shirt, cuffed dark blue Levi 511s, redwing boots, and a barber’s apron. In the second that I stare at her, I explode into a thousand stars and I’m swallowed by an enormous hole in the floor.
I gulp. “That’s me.”
“Jen. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” I manage to say, putting one word in front of the other successfully. I feel like I’m doing a sobriety test on the side of the road and I just passed the walking portion.
I sit in the chair and she drapes the apron over me, wrapping one of those little pieces of paper around my neck and fastening the apron. “Comfortable?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“You can breathe? I don’t want you fainting on me.” I wonder if that’s happened before, or if she just senses how fucking nervous I am.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I say, offering a small smile.
“So what are we doing today, Dakota?” she asks me as she rests her hands on my shoulders, looking at me in the mirror.
My thoughts stutter and stop and fall out of my head. I have nothing to say.
“Um… ah…” I stammer. Fuck. “I, uh, want a fade from a 1 to a 3 on the sides, all the way up the part, but no hard part. And a trim of like half an inch off the top?”
God dammit. Another question instead of a sentence. I hate it. I’m trying to work on it.
She runs her hands through the top of my hair and I almost shiver. “Sounds good, my man. Let’s get started.”
And God bless her, she doesn’t make small talk with me. I’m bad at small talk in the best of circumstances, and being nervous and stammering because my hairdresser is the hottest butch I’ve seen since moving to Los Angeles would not help. She focuses on the haircut.
I focus on her.
Every brush of her skin against my neck.
Her handsome face in the mirror as I pretend to watch the haircut.
Her muscular arms and shoulders in her tight black tee as she’s turned away to collect her next clipper guard.
Her hand holding me still while she runs the buzzing clippers up and down the sides of my head.
The way she bends down in front of me to measure the symmetry of her fade on each side of my face. I’m shocked by her blue grey eyes that dart back and forth. She licks her lips in concentration, and my eyes catch it. Then her eyes meet mine and she winks at me—she winks at me—and my heart is hammering in my chest like I’m having a heart attack. Or is it a panic attack?
She returns to working on my fade for a couple more minutes. My heartbeat slowly returns to normal-anxiety levels. I lose myself in the sensation and sound of the buzzing of the hair clippers.
She tugs down the apron at my neck to get the last little hairs at the bottom, and my eyes flutter closed. It’s my favorite part of a haircut. I let out a sigh. She pulls the clippers away from my neck, and I raise my head back up and meet her striking blue eyes.
“How do you like your sideburns?” Jen asks. “Squared or faded?”
“Um. Faded,” I say.
She quickly buzzes each side of my face and bends down again to check if my sideburns are symmetrical, putting her hands on my shoulders to steady me. I can barely breathe. I try to figure out where to look, and my eyes dart around and land on the banded tattoo peeking out of her sleeve. I wonder what the rest of it looks like.
Oh my God. I’m imagining her shirtless. I really am going to faint.
She seems satisfied with my sideburns and stands back up, smiling at me and saying words, words which I need to be listening to…
“—shampoo your hair,” she finishes. Thank God. Okay. We’re getting up and going to the sink now. I stand up carefully and follow her, sitting down and lying back in the black leather chair, resting my head in the small sink. The water hisses when she turns it on, and she tests the water until she finds a medium temperature for me. I try to focus on the sounds of the water instead of the anxious tightness in my chest.
Jen rinses my hair and reaches for a pump of shampoo, rubbing it into my hair. It smells like mint and cucumber. I close my eyes and lose myself in the pleasure of having my hair washed by a butch’s strong, gentle hands. She rubs in circles all around my head. I feel my whole body relax. Her hands start to stroke up and down the base of my skull where I’m tense and tight, and a moan slips out of my mouth before I can stop it.
She doesn’t stop rubbing my neck, but she bends down to my ear and says, “I heard that.”
Oh my God.
“In fact,” she murmurs, “I saw you checking me out earlier.” Her fingers dig into the tight muscles of my neck, and I whimper, trying not to wriggle in my seat from pain and pleasure.
She returns to rubbing gentle circles around the sides and back of my head, whispering in my ear: “If you want to stay late, you’re my last client of the day.”
My eyes are still closed, but my mouth drops open. Jen casually continues with the shampoo, running her hands through my hair and rinsing the suds off slowly and gently. My heart pounds, my palms sweat, and my breath is shallow.
I want this more than anything. More than I wanted to move to Los Angeles from my shitty small town. More than I wanted top surgery, and these scars that still itch underneath my shirt. I need to speak up, and I need to do it now. I open my eyes.
“I’d, uh… like that. Staying late.” I swallow.
She smirks, grabbing a towel and drying off my hair. “Good,” she says. “Let’s go cut the top.”
I get up and walk back to the barber chair with Jen, feeling like a wet dog with my floppy long hair as I look at myself in the mirror.
“Hey, Jackie, I have a client requesting a color consult. You can head home now. I’ll close up when we’re done.”
Jackie, the tattooed mulleted queer, seems happy enough with that. They shrug and collect their things, heading out while Jen continues snipping my hair.
My heart is racing in my chest and throbbing in my jeans. It’s all I can do to control my breathing and hold still while she snips away at my brown hair. She’s slow and careful, and I’m both aching and anxious. I clench my jaw and swallow hard.
If she notices, she doesn’t say anything. She completes my haircut like a professional, like we said nothing two minutes ago at the sink. I watch her bend down to reach for something and check out her ass.
The “something” was a blow dryer for my hair, which she’s now holding while she smirks at me. “See something you like, Dakota?” she says with a wink.
Without waiting for an answer, she turns the blow dryer on high and starts styling my hair. Her fingers rustle through the top, tugging on the hair a little in a way that kind of turns me on.
She reaches for a pomade and tells me that it’s queer-owned before she shapes my hair with it. It smells nice, like lavender and tea tree oil. She wipes her hands on a towel and unclips my apron, tossing the little piece of paper around my neck in the garbage.
“How much?” I ask, pulling out my wallet.
“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” She punctuates sweetheart with another wink, and my heart swoons in my chest. “Just grab a seat back at the sink again.”
At the sink? Why? Another hair rinse? But she just put product in it…
I don’t ask, just nod and obey. I sit down in the chair and lean back, trying to relax while my heart pounds and my palms sweat. Jen pops a squat in front of the chair and slides her hands up my thighs. Her hands are warm, and heat tingles across my skin where she touches.
“So Dakota. I have a question for you. How do you take care of your hair?”
At first I’m confused, but then she glances down to my crotch and raises her eyebrows.
Oh.
A swallow grips my throat. “I, uh…”
I don’t do anything ‘down there.’ I struggle for words, but Jen interrupts my thoughts.
“Got it.” She nods. “That’s good, actually. I like to trim my partners, if you’re into that. A nice taper fade and all.” She winks again, and I melt. “Would you like that, Dakota?”
The way she says my name has all of me buzzing. “Um… Y-yeah. Yeah.” She could have asked me to travel with her to Antarctica by kayak and I would have said the same thing.
“Good,” she says, and then drops her voice an octave: “Take off your pants.”
Oh my God. My heart stops. My lungs clench. I stare at her cold blue eyes for a beat too long, frozen. Then I scramble to obey, tugging at the button of my jeans and the zipper, shimmying them down my thighs while she watches with a smirk. I kick off my shoes to get the pants off my ankles, and Jen gazes at my bare thighs. I’m wearing grey boxer briefs and a Queen t-shirt, the soft one that I wear as pajamas too often.
My heart hammers in my chest as if I just sprinted around the block. I watch Jen carefully, her hands traveling up my thighs and reaching the edge of my briefs, playing with the fabric.
“May I?” she asks, glancing up at me with her heartstopping eyes.
I nod, unable to speak.
“You’re cute,” Jen says, tugging my underwear down as I lift my hips off the chair for her.
“Thanks.”
“You’re also hot.”
“Thanks. Um, so are you.”
She grins at this. “Thank you.”
She walks back over to her barber chair and retrieves the clippers. I’m half-naked now, my bush exposed. I think about it and make an impulsive decision, pulling my t-shirt over my head while Jen’s back is turned.
She returns with the clippers and raises her eyebrows at me and my bare, flat chest, my fresh scars. She clears her throat. “Like I said. You’re hot.”
I blush and smile. “Thank you, Jen.”
“You can call me Sir,” she says.
Oh my fucking god. My heart drops through my stomach and throbs in my clit.
“Thank you, Sir,” I say, my mouth dry.
“And what do you like to be called, Dakota?”
“Gender-neutral terms are good,” I answer. “Toy, slut, baby, pet, kitten, sub…”
“Whore?” Jen asks.
God. God yes.
“Y-yeah,” I stammer, blushing.
“Oh, you like that,” she observes. I hold back a whimper. “Good to know.” Jen squats down between my legs again and lifts up the clippers. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” I say, a little more firmly this time.
She guides the clippers over my pubic hair, gentle and precise, executing an expert fade for the second time tonight. The buzzing feels funny, foreign – not the sensation I’m used to when there’s vibrations in this area. I look down to a groomed vulva where there’s usually a wild bush. It feels strange but sexy, removing my hair in this butch way, so different from the times I used to remove it for patriarchal reasons.
“What do you think?” Jen asks, tilting her head.
“I like it,” I answer, confident.
She stands up and gently brushes her fingers along the short hairs, sucking the last of the air from my lungs.
“I like it too,” she murmurs in my ear. She pulls back and lifts my chin with her fingers, her face so close to mine that I think she might kiss me, and says, “Go wait in the back for me, babe. I’ll be there in a sec. Gotta clean and lock up.”
I nod, naked and nervous. I push through the swinging door to the back room and look around. There’s a row of lockers and a small table with chairs, a leather couch pressed up against the wall. A bulletin board announces the staff’s shifts and a local burlesque night. Shelves of hair products and towels sit next to a mini fridge and microwave.
I’m starting to wish I had my phone—I left it in my pants—when the door flips open and Jen walks in, looking sexy as hell. God, I’m weak for butches.
“Hey,” she says with a smirk.
I rack my brain for something to say in reply. I waffle and land on, “Hey yourself, handsome.” Good enough.
“Grab a seat,” she says to me, motioning to the black leather loveseat. She makes a beeline to a locker, putting in a combination on a lock while I sit down gingerly on the cold, smooth leather. I’m very aware of how naked and wet I already am.
“I have to admit something, hottie,” she says to me as she opens the locker door and digs through a black bag. “You’re not the first eager slut to sit in my chair… So I started keeping a spare at work.”
Being called ‘hottie’ in her deep voice is doing things to my insides—hot, electric things. A spare what? I wonder.
She closes the locker door and she’s holding a simple black silicone dildo, a harness, and a bottle of KY.
“Oh,” I say, equal parts eager and nervous at the sight of Jen in her muscles and tattoo and tight black t-shirt, strap-on in hand, smirk on her face.
“Would you like that, my little toy? Sluts like you always like butch cock.”
I blush hard at that, ears and cheeks burning red. I lick my dry lips and swallow.
“Yes, Sir. I’d, uh, I’d like that.”
“Good toy,” she says with delight in her voice. I watch her set the lube on the table and shuffle into the harness. “I hope you don’t mind me leaving my clothes on during sex. Stone, and all.”
Stone. I had a hookup once who was stone. Left their binder and boxers on during the hookup—and then fucked me to the end of the universe and back.
“That’s cool,” I say. “It’s, uh… kind of hot, actually.” My voice tightens around the words, and I wince internally at my nerves.
Jen glances back up at me and a smile tugs at the edge of her lips. “Yeah?”
I nod, gripping the leather cushions of the loveseat. “Yeah. Y-yes, Sir.”
“Mmm,” she hums to herself, slipping the black strap-on into her harness. “You like that? Calling me Sir?”
My blush spreads down my neck to my chest. I want her hands on me so badly. It’s all I can do to sit still and breathe. “Yes, Sir. I do.”
She licks her lips. “Good.”
Just the sight of her in her tight black tee, Levis, redwings, and strap-on sets my skin on fire. I’m blushing from head to toe now, still gripping the couch. She strokes the strap-on casually, looking at me with heavy eyes, and my jaw drops.
“What, handsome thing? See something you like?” she says.
“Yes, Sir. Uh. Can I, um, can I… suck your cock, Sir?” My cunt clenches at the thought, and I squeeze my thighs together.
“Oh ho ho. Yes, my sweet little slut, you may. Get on your knees and take my cock in that slutty, eager mouth of yours.”
I crouch to the floor, obediently following her order.
“That’s it, that's a good toy,” she praises me. Her warm hands reach for my short, freshly buzzed hair, tugging me forward to her cock. I look up at her, at her perfectly coiffed salt-and-pepper hair, her firm jawline, her cold eyes. She looks back at me with a languid smile, encouraging me with a gentle thumb stroking my temple.
I reach for the strap, licking the tip and watching her reaction. She swallows, jaw working. I smile to myself and take the tip in my mouth, sucking. Bit by bit, I take the rest of the black strap into my mouth until I can’t anymore, moaning at how full I feel.
“Oh, you like that, toy? You like my cock in your mouth?”
I moan affirmatively, feeling eager, sliding her cock in and out of my wet, drooling mouth.
“God, such a good little mouthslut. Naked and on your knees for me, taking what I give you. Good toy.”
Unexpectedly, she pulls me off her strap and motions for me to stand. I scramble to obey. Between our height difference, the redwings, and my bare feet, I stand a full three inches shorter than Jen. I look up at her, waiting for guidance.
“Well? Where are your manners, toy?”
“Oh, um, ah—thank you, Sir,” I rush to say.
A smirk quirks up her lip. “Good toy. Sit down.”
I sit delicately on the leather loveseat, very aware of how wet I am.
“Spread your legs.”
The demand hits me in the gut, making me clench and tighten all over. My knees are glued together, thighs trembling.
“Spread. Your. Legs,” she orders, voice firm and commanding.
I slowly open my legs, my breath shaky.
“There we go. That’s it. Do as your Sir says.”
Jen squats in front of me, stroking her hands up my trembling thighs, pushing them farther apart. She looks me up and down, her lust plain on her face. “You’re hot, Dakota,” she says matter-of-factly.
I gulp. My heart is beating out of my chest. I struggle to find my voice.
“Th-thank you, Sir.”
“I’d like to eat you out. Would you like that, Dakota?”
The way she’s using my name is hotter than anything else she could call me.
“Um, yeah, Sir. I’d, uh, really like that. And, um—” God, can I say um some more? “I like the way you… say my name.”
She grins at me ferociously, like a wolf coming upon its prey. “Yeah, Dakota, you like that?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Good.”
She firmly holds my legs apart, and her forceful grip sends heat through my whole body. She starts to kiss my thigh, starting at my knee and making her way closer and closer to my waiting, aching cunt. I try not to squirm.
I’m panting a little by the time I feel her hot breath on my now-shaved pussy. She pauses.
“I’d like to hear you beg for it, Dakota.”
Oh my God. “Oh,” I squeak, feeling nervous and wildly turned on. “Um…”
Oh God. I have to get it together. What do I say? Please? Okay, yeah, that’s a start.
“Please. Sir. Please eat my pussy.”
She chuckles lowly. “Now, Dakota,” she says, passing over my cunt and beginning to kiss up my inner thigh to my other knee. “You can do better than that.”
My mouth goes dry. “Oh, God. Please, Sir. Please. Please eat me out and I’ll make the prettiest, sluttiest noises for you. I’m so wet. Fuck…”
The corner of her lip turns up in an arrogant smirk. “That’s better, Dakota.”
She returns to kissing up my thigh, until I feel her warmth breath again.
“Now you’d better give me those pretty, slutty noises, Dakota. Be a good whore for me.”
I nod, breathless, stunned.
Her soft, warm tongue presses against my clit, and I moan desperately. I have no idea where to put my hands, so I finally settle on reaching for her salt-and-pepper hair. This spurs her on, and she licks up my wet slit and moans at the taste of me. She closes her eyes in concentration and swirls delicate, intricate patterns with her tongue, alternating from light to firm.
“Fuck, Sir. Fuck! Oh, that’s so good. That’s so good. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Sir. Fuck me. God. Keep licking my pussy like that. Fuck yes.”
When she finally goes back and forth with firm pressure—my favorite kind of stimulation—I lose it.
“Oh, fuck yes! Yes! Fuck me just like that. Just like that, baby.”
Oops. I just called her ‘baby’. I did not have permission to do that.
“Sorry—Sir! Sir. Just like that, Sir. Please keep eating my pussy like that, it feels so fucking good.”
Thank God, she does. She commits to it, shaking her head back and forth and moaning into my pussy. The vibrations shoot through me like a lightning bolt, setting me on fire.
“Oh, please Sir, please—keep—doing—that…” I pant. “Please, I’m so close, please let me cum, Sir. Please let me cum in your mouth. Oh God. Oh God. Please. Please. Please!”
My hands are gripping her hair hard, and she groans into me. My thighs tremble and shake, tightening around Jen’s head. I’m whimpering, wordless, in the way I do when I’m going to cum. My eyes flutter closed, my mouth falls open, and the release explodes inside me like fireworks: hot and bright and beautiful. I scream out for her, loud, and I wonder if anyone’s around to hear it.
She licks up my cum eagerly and pulls away to catch her breath. “Fucking hell, Dakota. That was really something.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“And you know, the ‘baby’ was kind of cute.”
I blush from my cheeks to my ears to my chest. She laughs, in a generous and kind way.
“Now bend over the table for Sir. I’m going to fuck you with my butch cock.”
The word “butch” affirms for me how real and good and right this is—how I’ve stepped into my masculinity and learned to love it in others too.
“Please, Sir. Please fuck this butch pussy.”
Photo by Matheus Wladeka