Long, Beautiful Hair

Long, Beautiful Hair

by Michael Shimek

It started with a single hair.

Well, actually, Ashley Valley’s problems started before she noticed the ten-inch long hair that grew out of her, but she would never know the true moment of when her fate had first been sealed—that moment was, in fact, two days before she noticed the hair.

She looked at the spindly piece of hair under the bright light of the bathroom. Matted to her skin from the shower she had just taken, it extended from elbow to wrist on her right arm: a blonde snake among the jungle of beads of water. It was ugly and had no right to exist. Ashley wrapped the hair around her index finger, and using the forefinger and her thumb as a pair of tweezers, she pinched the hair between the two digits and plucked it from her body. Quickly, but painfully, it snapped free.

“Ouch!” she said, rubbing the affected area. She cursed the hair as she threw it into the trash.

A rogue hair that had grown that long under the radar was not acceptable, especially not in her profession. Imagine what would have happened if another model had found it first. Her career would have been over. Finished. Caput. She couldn’t live through an embarrassment like that, not in a world as fickle and superficial as the fashion world. It was also odd for Ashley to not notice something like that; her gorgeous physical features were the most important thing in her life.

At six feet and two inches, Ashley was a leggy bombshell. Her golden locks brushed down to the middle of her slender back. Her skin was a smooth, milky white. With the face of a goddess and curves in all of the right places, she was the perfect specimen for a fashion designer to dress at will.

Of course, if she couldn’t keep her body trim and neat, her looks would never be able to support her modeling career.

She spent an extra hour that morning getting ready for her day at the photo shoot. When she was done tidying up, she left home satisfied with her features. The rest of the day would have been a piece of cake, but there were always people jealous of Ashley’s good looks.

Her second troubles sprang up later that day when she brushed by her foe for the week—it seemed like every job she worked at, someone always resented her beauty. This one, Lucy, a short, lumpy, and bald Mexican woman with a bad wig, had almost spilled coffee all over Ashley the first day of the shoot. Granted, only the tiniest drop had splashed onto her skin, but the thought of having that hot liquid spill all over her was enough to cause her to fret. After cursing and going off on the woman, she ended the tirade with a quip about the woman’s crooked wig. The woman—obviously an assistant to someone around the studio—stuttered something under her breath and scurried away from Ashley. She hadn’t seen the assistant for a full two days, probably hiding out after such a lashing, until now.

“Watch it, troll,” she said to the woman who almost tripped her, making sure the other models around heard her remark. With her wardrobe and makeup in perfect order, Ashley didn’t want to go through the tedious process of putting everything back into place.

The woman kept her head down and ignored them, walking past as if nothing happened.

“Some people have no respect,” Bailey, one of the other models, said.

“I know,” Ashley said. “It’s like, if you’re not going to be nice to the better looking, the least you could do is put on a little makeup. And she still hasn’t fixed her wig!”

The group of models laughed and continued to the photo shoot.

Ashley tried to shrug the two incidents off, but she couldn’t. For the rest of the day she felt uneasy, unclean. She constantly rubbed the spot on her arm where the hair had sprung forth. After turning red from all of the attention, a makeup artist was forced to apply some camouflage to hide the area. By the time she arrived back home, the goop had crusted off from her constant scratching and rubbing. She put a bandage on it, dolled herself up for an evening out with the girls, and attempted to have a night of fun.

#

Ashley gaped in horror at her arms and legs. She brushed her hair from her face, hoping she was just seeing things. When the ten-inch hairs spurting from various spots on her body did not disappear, she screamed, leapt from her bed, and ran to the bathroom. She almost fainted when she turned on the light.

Long, blonde lines streaked across her limbs. Shaking as she undressed from her t-shirt and Victoria’s Secret panties, she saw more of the same over the rest of her body. And when she looked in the mirror, she could see the hairs sprouting from her face and back. It looked like she was leaking from tiny, pinprick-sized holes.

“Oh, no-no-no-no-no," she said in hysterics.

One by one, she plucked each hair from her skin. She counted six on her left leg, eight on her right leg, four on her left arm, six on her right arm, ten on her stomach and chest, and three on her face. The five on her back were the hardest to reach, but through bending and stretching she managed to extract each hair. When she was done, she threw the forty-two hairs into the toilet. The twisted and tangled clump of hair flushed down the drain and out of her life forever.

But that wasn’t enough. She felt tainted and unhygienic. She had to make sure there wasn’t a single rogue hair left.

Turning on the shower to near scalding, Ashley gently slid under the hot stream and began scrubbing with her sponge and brush. She then took her razor and scraped every inch of her body. After that, she did the same thing except with her sponge and brush. By the time she was done, about an hour later, her skin was the color of a cooked lobster.

The rest of the morning was filled with fretting and panicking over what to do. She couldn’t tell anyone about her predicament, for fear of losing her reputation in the industry. It had to be handled in secret. She would make plans to visit a doctor out of the area, find someone she didn’t know and who didn’t know her—although, that could prove to be hard with her pictures having been plastered on billboards and magazine covers. That was her plan, and she would need to get it taken care of as soon as possible.

Ashley just hoped her skin wouldn’t blossom during the fourth day of the photo shoot.

The day went by fairly smoothly. Of course, the whole day was filled with nervousness, and the other models definitely noticed. She ignored them and went about looking fabulous for the camera. It wasn’t until the end of the day, after spending an extra hour at the studio because the photographer couldn’t find the “perfect lighting,” when Ashley’s hairy problem budded.

With the day wearing on and on, Ashley noticed herself getting drowsy. She found an unoccupied chair in the crowded area and decided to take a quick, little rest. She didn’t see any harm in taking a short nap; if they needed her, she would still be there. Her eyes closed for only a minute, maybe two.

“Ashley!” a voice said from somewhere. “We need you!”

Her eyes jolted open. She looked down at her skin and saw it littered with freshly grown hairs.

“Eee!” she screamed and ran to the nearest room.

She passed surprised and shocked faces as she struggled to sprint in her high heels. When she reached the room, she slammed the door shut and locked it—thankfully, it was an empty dressing room. Looking down at her bare arms and legs, Ashley began an uncontrollable sob of hysterics.

“Please, God, no,” she said through whimpering gasps.

Ashley looked like a shedding dog. It couldn’t be possible. Blonde hairs had grown all over her. She had only fallen asleep for at most two minutes, and in that time, she had become a Chia Pet. Patches spotted her skin, while stragglers took up the spaces in-between. No logical explanation could come to mind. There were too many to count this time, and they were all over her body.

Someone pounded on the door. “Ashley?” It was Bailey

Clothing, makeup kits, and other beauty accessories flew around the room as she hunted for a razor. Ashley was in a frenzy. She would hang herself before leaving the room looking like a diseased monkey with blonde hair.

Finally, she found a razor and a pair of scissors under some model’s Louis Vuitton bag. She stole them and desperately set to work on hacking away at her new golden locks.

The hairs that had grown were not as long as before; the new ones were about three to four inches compared to the ten-inch hairs from earlier in the day. The length didn’t matter; what did matter was removing the unwanted—and unexplainable—mane. Undressing, she started cutting and shaving her hairy feet. Then she cut and shaved her hairy legs. Her hairy waist, hairy stomach, and hairy chest were next. She had to use the mirror to clean up her hairy face. But, when it was time to shave her hairy back, she ran into a problem.

She couldn’t reach her back. Spots that looked like golden fur dotted her back. After several failed attempts and cutting herself a couple of times, she wracked her brain with what to do.

“Ashley!” The door pounded again. It was a male’s voice this time, and the pounding was harder. “Ashley! What’s wrong with you? We need to finish this; there’s no time for drama!”

She had to get home. There was no way she would finish the shoot; she couldn’t, not in her condition. She had to escape without drawing horrified gazes to her back.

“Ashley!” More pounding started on the door. “We’ll break this door down if we have to!”

Ashley Valley stole a baggy outfit hanging from a nearby rack of clothes. Making sure she was completely covered up, she opened the dressing room door and ran out.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said, rushing past the crowd of people and grabbing her purse on the way out. “I’m going home. Fire me, whatever.”

She was able to ignore mostly everyone, mostly. There was one person who stood in her way, blocking the exit out of the studio. It was the woman, the dowdy assistant who had been getting on Ashley’s bad side during the week.

She stared at Ashley with wide, excited eyes—and, even though the woman looked crazy, Ashley couldn’t help but think that her wig was still crooked. “What’s the matter?” the assistant asked. “Looks got you down?”

She ignored the woman, pushing her to the side, and ran past.

“If you value your beauty, don’t fall asleep!” she called from behind.

Ashley continued to ignore the woman’s words. She ran out of the building, down the several blocks to her apartment, and locked herself inside her home. Only when she was in her bathroom and desperately trying to remove the hair on her back did she remember the assistant’s words.

Don’t fall asleep?

It was after waking up from a night of sleep when she had first noticed the single, long hair growing from her arm. After a second night of sleep she had sprouted even more hair. And after taking the shortest of naps, she had turned into a molting Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.

Her cellphone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She wasn’t going to answer it, but she saw that it was her friend, Bailey.

“I can’t talk right now,” she told Bailey. “I’m not feeling well.”

“Ashley, what the hell? It doesn’t matter if your sick, you should have stayed. Mr. Buggotti wants me to inform you that you are no longer welcome in his studio.”

“Tell him to suck it,” Ashley said, not caring about the job. There were other jobs lined up, and she could line up even more if need be. That is, of course, if she could solve her hair problem. “I’m sorry, Bailey, I really have to go.”

Ashley ended the call before Bailey had a chance to respond. She didn’t have time to start drama with her friend.

Back to the situation at hand, she had to get rid of the hair that still occupied her back. Rigging together a razor on the end of one of her brushes with some tape, she ever so carefully removed the spots her arms could not reach. Only after close examination to make sure her skin was clear of any hair did she stop her bodyscaping.

Now raw from the constant scraping of a metal blade, her new priority was to stay awake. It made sense—as much sense as something like this could make—that falling asleep again would cause more hair to grow; it seemed to be the continuing trend, and that woman had hinted at it, too.

That woman. That goddamn assistant. It was her fault. Somehow, she had done this to her. With her anger rising, Ashley vowed revenge on that witch.

First, she needed to make sure to stay awake. All of the hysteria was wearing her down, and she knew that in no time her lightweight body would soon become tired.

Ashley walked into her bedroom and removed the little, balled-up baggie she kept hidden under her mattress. Opening the sack, she dipped her pinky inside and pulled out a little of the white powder out on her fingernail. She brought the drug up to her nose and inhaled a quick and deep breath through her left nostril. Immediately, her head swirled with a rush. Repeating the process, she switched nostrils so the other side wouldn’t get jealous. Another instant high hit her. She rubbed the powdery residue on her finger against her gums. She set the baggie down on her bed and paced the room, her mind racing a mile a minute.

The rest of the afternoon and night consisted of Ashley snorting as much cocaine as she dared and plotting revenge against that shrew of a woman who did this to her. She fell asleep with an empty baggie in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.

#

Air. Ashley needed air. She couldn’t breathe. Her mouth was open, but something clogged it, choking her. Her nose was also clogged. There was no opening that would allow the precious air that she needed to survive.

Her body went into emergency mode.

Sight failed her as her eyes refused to open. She reached her hands up to try and get rid of the blockage around her mouth and nose. Her arms felt heavy, like each one was wrapped in a thick blanket. She wiggled her fingers and felt a soft, silky texture. Finding it almost impossible to use her hands, Ashley tried to bat at whatever was killing her. Her body flailed about on her bed. The heavy coat that draped over her weighed her down, and she came crashing to the floor.

Ashley’s last thoughts before suffocating: This tastes kind of like hair…

#

Lucy Hendez knocked again on the apartment door. When there was no answer, she looked around to make sure no one else occupied the hallway before producing a key—a key she had secretly copied—to unlock the door. She slipped inside unnoticed.

An ultra-modern home enveloped Lucy. Everything was white, black, or grey. Sharp edges and corners lined the surfaces. The couches looked like uncomfortable boxes, the lighting was an obnoxious neon white, and the framed artwork resembled gobs of snot on canvas.

She brushed off the expensive interior and made her way through the apartment, looking for her treasure. Lucy found it on the floor in the bedroom, crumpled into a golden heap. Taking out a pair of clippers from the large duffel bag around her shoulder, she began her work.

A tune escaped her lips as she performed her deed. “Give me a head with hair, long, beautiful hair.” She continued the Cowsills’ version of “Hair” that she loved so much in whistle form.

Clumps of blonde hair fell to the ground. The large, hairy mass grew smaller and smaller with each run-by of the shears. The smooth surface revealed a screaming mouth with closed eyes. The pile of shaved hair went right into the bag—now she had enough for her and her fellow cancer patients suffering through chemotherapy. With a smile on her face and all of the hair in her possession, Lucy left the body on the floor and exited the apartment of Ashley Valley.

END