Part 33 – Feminine Possibilities

“So…” I said turning to Carrie. “Did Dr. Mansfield have anything interesting to tell you?”

I’d been debating on whether I should even bring it up since Carrie had left to talk to the doctor. Even after we met back up and made our way to her car, I was still undecided. I was dying of curiosity and that’s what had pushed me to ask.

I reached for the seatbelt heart pounding my ears as I awaited her answer. She started the engine and glanced over at me a smile touching the corner of her lips. “Nothing too Earth-shattering. She’s worried about you.”

I nodded glancing down at my hands, which were by then resting in my lap, and closed my eyes. “She wants me to get counseling.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Carrie replied.

“Yeah,” I said opening my eyes and turning to smile back at Carrie. “I suppose… she’s right.”

I clamped my lips shut and said no more on the subject. Carrie furrowed her brows, opened her mouth as if to speak and then shook her head as if reconsidering.

She put the car into gear and for several moments neither of us spoke. Carrie broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking, maybe you might enjoy a trip to the hair salon.”

My head jerked sideways, wondering perhaps I’d heard wrong, but she didn’t say a word. My hair was a little unruly, and could use a little trimming and more than a little taming. I hadn’t given any thought to getting it cut or even styled. All at once, a smile crept onto my face and I considered how sexy I might look if my hair were–

I shook my head and refused to finish the thought still a little creeped out that my mind had been twisted in such a manner. Still, I couldn’t resist the opportunity Carrie was giving me. She was testing the waters, seeing if I would be open to the possibility. After all, until recently I’d been a boy. While many men frequented hair salons, few saw it as an excuse to pamper themselves in the way so many women did. I know I hadn’t.

“That would be nice,” I answered after a moment of silence.

Carrie peered at me out of the corner of her eyes, and a smile touched her lips. She didn’t speak, instead she took the next right, cursed under her breath when the driver ahead of her slammed on his breaks, forcing her to do the same, and after following the road another three blocks pulled into a parking lot.

After she’d parked, and we’d vacated the car, I stopped in my tracks a pit forming in my stomach as I caught sight of a store with the words “Envy Us Beauty Parlor” emblazoned in bright pink script across its front. I emitted an audible groan at the pun, but followed Carrie inside.

I’d been in a hair salon or two, but as I peered about, I knew this was no garden-variety beauty parlor. The right and back wall were solid-black and the left wall was solid-pink. The right side housed a row of barber-chairs with bubble-gum-pink padding and each sat opposite a mirror and a small stand, the back wall was home to a row of sinks with matching padded arm-chairs and the left housed a single table about eighteen inches wide that spanned almost the entire length of the wall divided into five different stations by five three-tiered shelves, each station featured a matching set of black chairs, and light built into the tabletop.

Located front and center, just a few feet from the door and in front of us. A pink and black stand housing an old-fashioned register stood before us and a smiling young woman only a year or two older than me, with sky-blue hair and a forked tail that quivered about in the air behind her, nodded in greeting as we stepped through the double glass doors.

More than a dozen different people, all I assumed were women moved about the room or seated along one of the walls giving or receiving beauty treatments.

“Hi, welcome to Envy Us Beauty Parlor I’m Brandy, how can I help you?” The girl’s smile widened and her lips split open to reveal a pair of fangs.

Even a few weeks ago, her appearance would have surprised me, first by her tail and then for the teeth, but after undergoing my twist, transformed into a hyper-sexualized Smurf-demon and encountered a few others with twists as severe as or, in the case of Dr. Mansfield, worse than my own I didn’t even blink. Besides, she was cute and her smile appeared genuine.

“Hi, do you do walk-ins?” Carrie asked.

“Uh, not usually, but we’re having a bit of a slow day, so it shouldn’t be a problem unless you want a mani or a pedi.”

I arched an eyebrow, peering again at the denizens of the salon. She considered that a slow day?

“So, what’ll it be?” Brandy glanced back and forth between the two of us.

Carrie put her hands on her hips, grinned and glanced back at me. “Whaddya say Callie? Feeling adventurous?”

I froze surprised both by the new nickname and Carrie’s playful demeanor. Good God, what had I gotten myself into?

Swallowing hard, I nodded and bit my lip. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well let’s start with a wash and a haircut and see where the wind takes us.” Carrie’s reply again surprised me.

I hadn’t seen this side of her before and I was treading on uncertain ground. This time I didn’t say a word and when I thought of something to say, I was already getting my hair washed.

Brandy brought us up to a pair of women in their mid to late twenties. I was given into Alicia’s care, a tall slender girl with a pretty smile and shock of neon-pink hair that went down almost to the back of her knees and Carrie was assigned to Matty a flat-faced woman with scarlet streaks running through her short-cropped blonde hair. Whether their colored locks resulted from a twist or just a dye job, I couldn’t say and I didn’t ask. It didn’t seem important.

They guided Carrie and I to the back wall and seated with our backs to the sinks. When Alicia reclined my chair, I closed my eyes and let her get to work without comment. She talked as she worked asking my about myself, and about my twist. I suppose that at some point my mother must have washed my hair when I was little, but I didn’t remember it. The experience of letting another person wash my hair was new to me.

I wasn’t prepared for how relaxing the experience could be. It was an experience I wouldn’t mind going through again. I just hoped I had the chance.