Chapter 5

After the shower, I get dressed, grab a granola bar, and head out to the Barber. The Barber is only a fifteen-minute drive away, a little over five minutes to leave town and about ten minutes into the neighboring city. I currently live in a small town called Shorewick, just south of Valmere City, Texas. Shorewick is technically a city but it is only five or so square miles compared to Valmere which is nearly two-hundred square miles. As I leave my neighborhood, I turn onto the main road that passes through town, it is similar to those old western towns where there is one main road bordered on both sides by the businesses, just a bit more modernized. Instead of one main road, there are two, one slightly shorter than the other, making a sort of plus sign smack in the middle of the town, surrounded by businesses and neighborhoods in all four quadrants. I’m heading East on Grand, the main-main road, and I turn left onto Main St, ironically enough not the main road through town, which is a mostly straight path to Valmere. As I leave town I take the bridge over a small river, technically a floodway, connected to a much larger river several miles further North-West. The Barber is just ten minutes into Valmere on Main St, which turns into Tyler Rd after you leave town. There are a few places in town I could get my haircut at but the last time I cut my hair at one of them I had to clean up quite a bit of missed hair myself. It wasn’t a huge deal but it didn’t instill confidence so I decided to go to a bit of a higher end barber this time.

The Barbershop sits in a little shopping mall with a hair salon on one side and a tattoo shop on the other. Entering the place the first thing I notice is a very beautiful girl, probably my age give or take a few years, working at one of the chairs, cutting another guys hair. I stand in the doorway staring for several seconds. She has fairly short hair coming down just below her jawline, layered with purple and silverish accents. I look her up and down quickly, she looks to be average height, at maybe five-feet-four-inches, and in shape. She faces away for a second and I can see she has a slim waist, well-toned legs, and a nice ass. From the side, I can tell she has smaller breasts maybe a B-cup. She is wearing a black apron over a darker purple short sleeve t-shirt and tight denim pants. Turning to look at me she flashes a smile, inciting an instinctive smile back from me, her bluish-purple eyes, I’m guessing contacts, and sensing a theme, sparkling as one of her trim eyebrows raises inquisitively.

“I was hoping you guys accept walk-ins,” I say with a questioning tone.

“Yea, my next appointment isn’t for…” she looks at the clock “about an hour, and I am almost finished with Mr. Miles here. It should be, about, five minutes.”

She goes back to working on Mr. Miles as I say, “that should be fine, thank you.”

As I find a seat I notice the other people in the shop. There are three other Barbers all with their own customers all in different stages of their hair cuts. One must have gotten in just a bit before me as he is still telling an older gentleman exactly what it is he wants to be done to his hair. I quickly lose interest in the rest of the room and continue to check out the young woman who will soon be cutting my hair. You might say she is more cute than beautiful, that's not to say she isn’t beautiful, it’s just that the softness of her features makes cute the more accurate description. Although the description could easily change given different circumstances. If she were dressed differently, or even if she was just looking you in the eye. The confidence in her eyes when she first looked at me gave a more sexy twist to her soft features. Perhaps if she had shier eyes, and hid behind her hair, I would say she looked adorable. My wait is quickly up and I head over to her station as she finishes sweeping up the hair.

She smiles at me again, and indicates the chair as she says, “so how are you wanting your haircut today?”

I smile back as I sit down and describe what I want, “I’d like about an inch off the top, and I’d like the sides and back clipped short getting shorter the further from the top you go. I’m happy to go shorter on the top if you think it would look better but I’d still like to be able to comb it to either side or comb it back. Whatever you think would give me the most options, as far as styling it goes. Uh, I could probably also use a shave around my neck and have my beard cleaned up and evened out a bit.” I’ve never had someone else shave or style my beard before, I’m a little uncomfortable with it but it’s why I chose a Barber. It would be nice to have a professional do it then I could just maintain it myself to keep it looking good. It has always ended up a bit scraggly when I try to do it.

Another smile shines at me through the mirror as she says, “that should be fairly simple, I’ll start with the sides and back and fade down. You basically want a fade but with a long top. So I’ll find the natural parting lines, where the sides naturally fall and I’ll tie up the top,” she goes on to explain what shes gonna do before getting started, to be sure she understands how I want it. “So what do you do,” she asks as she gets into the actual haircut.

“Uh, right now I’d consider myself a professional gambler,” I say, with an amused smile. The only professional gamblers I’d heard of before I did my research were the ones you saw on TV during poker tournaments so I can’t help but wonder what she’ll think of that.

“Really? What do you play, Texas Hold’em, Blackjack,” she asks.

“I actually mostly play the slots right now, I’m thinking about getting more into poker here soon. After I’ve made a bit of a nest egg I’m thinking I might dip my toes into the stock market.” I was hesitant to play poker at first because I didn’t like the idea of using my ability to make money off of other people there, but I’ve realized recently that I’m not actually making money off the casino with the slots either, the casino is making just as much as it normally would be even with me making so much off the machines. The money I’m making just cuts off how much those machines will pay out later since they are all set to pay out a certain percentage of what is put in them.

“I didn’t realize people actually made money on slot machines, I mean obviously some people win big on occasion, but to be a professional surely you have to win a lot more often than you lose.

“True, but in the last week, I’ve made more than ten thousand dollars on slots alone,” I lied. I already feel like I’m bragging here. I don’t want anyone to know how much I’ve actually made, but, for some reason, I don’t want her to think I’m not making anything either.

“Really, how do you do it? Got any advice for me,” she asks shooting me another smile through the mirror.

“Ehh, it's mostly about picking the right machine and knowing when to leave.” I end up rattling off some of the advice from the websites I’ve checked out. It’s not wrong it just doesn’t exactly apply because of my skill. We mostly have idle chit-chat after that, how our day is going so far, plans for the rest of the day. As she’s cutting my hair I occasionally feel one of her breasts brushing against my shoulder. It’s incidental but it is still something I’m consciously aware of every time it happens. Having her fingers occasionally running through my hair feels incredible, I don’t know what it is but having someone, especially a girl (I think it’s because of the nails), play with your hair always feels amazing. The haircut itself only takes about fifteen minutes.

She leans me back so she can start working on my beard and asks, “what exactly do you want to be done with your beard, do you want it trimmed short or just groomed and shaped a bit.”

“Groomed and shaped a bit, and I’d like to have my neck shaved.”

“Alright.” She starts with the beard combing it out and, using the clippers, evens out my beard fading into my cheeks. She combs my mustache to each side and clips it a bit shorter before combing it down, removing the guard, and trimming the hair that goes over my lips. My beard and mustache finished, she soaps up my neck and uses a straight razor to remove my slight neck-beard and cleans up where my beard meets my cheeks. Everything appearing done she has me get up and leads me to another chair that leans back into a sink. The position is a bit uncomfortable for my neck but as she starts washing the excess hair out I stop caring. Her running her fingers through my hair during the haircut was nothing compared to her washing it. Her fingernails gently scratching at my scalp is one of the best feelings in the world. I honestly have to fight not to get aroused and apparently I didn’t hide my pleasure well because she has an amused smile on her face as she sits me back up. I blush slightly, which brightens her smile further, “it’s alright everyone likes having their hair washed like that,” she whispers. Plopping a towel on my head she gives a cute laugh, takes my hand and leads me back to her station. She quickly dries my hair and running her fingers through it asks, “how do you usually style it?”

“I usually part it to the right or comb it back, I don’t really like to use hair gel though I don’t like how it hardens and makes my hair feel solid.”

“Alright, if you’d like we can use a pomade, it should be better for your hairstyle than gel and doesn’t harden over time so you can re-shape it later if you want. It will add a bit of a shine to your hair as well.” I agree and she quickly adds a bit to my hair and trying a few different styles to see what I prefer. We eventually settle on combing it back and slightly to the right.

“OK, how much do I owe you? Oh, and could I get a thing of that pomade as well?”

“The haircut, the shave, and the pomade come out to fifty-two dollars.”

I reach into my back pocket and pull out my wallet, I give her two fifty dollar bills, “keep the change and thank you, that was one of the best experiences I’ve had at a barber.” I give her a shy smile and walk out the door. Part of me really wanted to ask for her number but despite my recent physical changes I’m still fairly shy and I’m sure she has customers asking her out all the time, I don’t want to be like everyone else.

I hear footsteps coming from behind me and turn back around as I hear her say, “wait,” I catch the door before it closes on her, she reaches out and hands me something, “my card…” she blushes the slightest bit, without my increased perception I might not have even noticed, “call me to set up your next haircut.” She flashes me one last smile, this one with a surprisingly shy look to it as she looks up at me through her short hair. Definitely adorable as well. Turning around she walks back to her station looking back over her should once before turning to one of her co-workers. I’m probably reading way to much into this but I could swear that she’s at least half as attracted to me as I am to her. I stand there staring a second or two before heading back to my dads truck, remote starting it and hopping in. I’m just about to pull out when I see a notification blinking in my peripheral vision. I mentally click the little notification icon to open it.

Appearance updated!

Would you like to save this as your new default appearance

Accept

Decline

Huh, I wonder what that means. If I accept, does that mean I will look like this until I change it or can I just find “Appearance” in one of my menu options and revert to this at any time?

Accepting this will limit natural physical alterations to your body, such as muscle definition, fat distribution, and hair growth

It can be turned off at any point

If turned off your body will continue to change at its natural rate

You can revert to one of five saved Appearances at any time

Switching between appearances can be very uncomfortable, especially if said appearances are drastically different

That would be hard to explain to… shit, I sat there for nearly half an hour and didn’t even get her name or introduce myself. I reach into my pocket for her card, Amanda her names Amanda. It would be a bit hard to explain to Amanda why my hair didn’t grow in the last month and I didn’t need another haircut. Oh, well I’ll think of something, I already over-thought how I would explain this kind of stuff to my dad. The lack of physical changes likely wouldn’t even come up and I am quite happy with my body at the moment so I accept the prompt. Maybe I’ll let my hair start growing again in a week or so and have her cut it again after it grows back out, it’s not like I need to be overly worried about money right now.

The haircut finished, I suppose it is time to go shopping. I look at the time, it’s only a quarter after nine, and the mall doesn’t open till ten, I planned for more of a wait at the barber. I go to check my phone to see if there is anything open nearby so I can at least look around while I wait for the mall to open. As my phone unlocks I notice an email notification, checking it I find an email from the realtor about the rental house. They had a client cancel on them and want to know if I’d be available around eleven to go look at the house. I think about it for a minute and email back saying I could be there around eleven-thirty. It is about a forty-minute drive plus I’d still like to pick up some clothes so that would give me about thirty minutes at the mall and assuming I can find some stuff around here that’s another forty minutes of shopping before the mall opens. With a quick search, I find a thrift store half a mile up the road. A quick drive later I find myself pulling into another little parking lot similar to the barber’s, though the thrift store takes up the entire storefront. I’ve never really checked out a thrift store aside from Goodwill, though I’ve heard they often have pretty good quality clothes for fairly cheap. I look around for a bit and find they have a pretty good selection. I never really cared for skinny jeans or holey jeans so I skip over most of those and look for the slightly faded bootcut and relaxed fit jeans. I grab several pairs of jeans and a handful of shirts to try on. I tend to prefer plain monochromatic over, overly done artwork on a shirt. After trying those on and putting away the ones that didn’t fit I look around a bit longer finding a bit more clothes I like. All told I leave the store with three pairs of jeans, two pairs of Khakis, a pair of nice basketball shorts, three t-shirts, and two surprisingly nice Polo’s and about three hundred dollars shorter. The mall opens in just over five minutes and it’s about a ten-minute drive so I quickly head that way. I don’t need much after the thrift store but I didn’t feel comfortable buying used shoes and maybe some more clothes to work out in. I have a bit less time than I thought because I was measuring time by how far away the rental house is from home, not the mall so I stop quickly by a Champs sports and try on a few different shoes. I end up getting a pair of everyday shoes and a pair of running shoes to work out in. I also got several pairs of athletic shirts and shorts. I ended up spending another five hundred dollars, mostly because the shoes are so damn expensive, but I got out of their fairly fast, only visiting the one store, so I should have time to stop by the house and drop it all off before I head to the rental house.

It’s about a twenty-minute drive home, I take my new clothes in, grab the address and put it in my phones GPS before heading back out. I arrive at the rental house fifteen minutes early so I drive around a bit more trying to check out the neighboring houses. I’m surprised to find that the neighbors are significantly further away than I thought. I don’t know the exact measurements obviously but I’d guess the nearest house is just under half a mile away. I guess I didn’t really take the size of their land into consideration, but, if anything, that is kind of a bonus for me. I get back to the house with five minutes to spare and find the realtor getting out of her car in the driveway.