by Stella Noir
“Sorry about that, Mrs. Fields. I’ll try to give you a bit more warning next time.”
My gaze left the perfect lips as my eyes moved down the length of her body and I slowly snapped back into reality.
Pink wool suit with big white buttons … stocking covered legs and feet … am I at home? Is this someone I brought to my home? I thought to myself in a state of confusion.
My eyes moved up to the wall that I was facing, but I only looked at myself in the lightbulb framed mirror for a second before quickly looking back down at the woman in the reclined beauticians chair in front of me.
No, I’m not at home ….
“Oh, don’t worry about that, sweetie. If you warned me about every hair you had to pluck out of my face I’d be in this chair all day. Not that I would mind,” she said as she looked up at me, her head upside down and tilted back towards me. “I absolutely adore coming to see you at the salon. You always make me feel like a queen.”
I was now officially back from wherever I had disappeared to … wherever it was that I went when I become lost in my … hobby, I guess you’d call it.
“Very few things give me more pleasure than what I do here, Mrs. Fields. And you are a queen, don’t ever forget that.”
“Oh, Colin!” she said as she blushed a little. A very becoming reaction for a woman her age.
“You’re are such a handsome young man, Colin. You must have a girlfriend.”
I ignored her question and elevated the back of the chair so that she was sitting upright and her feet were back down on the ground.
“Let me get you back to the hair washing sink, then we’ll talk about how you want me to set your hair today. I’m hoping you’ll let me try something new to emphasize that heart shaped face of yours.”
“Oh, Colin, you really are a naughty boy. You’ve never told me a single thing about yourself, and here I am yapping away about my life for hours on end.”
“What can I say? I love listening to you, Mrs. Fields. Now let’s get you over to that sink.”
As she stood up and transferred herself over to a wheeled chair that I used while I was washing hair I heard a voice from the doorway behind me.
“Colin, you’ve got a walk-in.”
I turned to the door and saw Jade, the salon receptionist, standing in the doorway with a young, beautiful girl. Jade turned and disappeared around the corner, leaving the girl standing there looking around like a lost puppy. She also looked incredibly nervous and I smiled as I watched her shift from one foot to the other.
“Hey there, what can I help you with?” I said, my focus zeroing in on the girl’s eyes, but more specifically, her eyelashes.
They’re perfect.
I looked away quickly as I continued to push Mrs. Fields through the doorway into the back room, but I knew exactly what was going to happen.
Later … tonight …
“Come on back, I’ve got another appointment this afternoon, but I can squeeze you in,” I said as I looked back and winked at her, relishing the red glow that spread across her face.
“Well … um … my friend sent me here. She said you could do my hair and that I should tell you that Marcy sent me. She said … well she said it wouldn’t cost a whole lot?”
There it was, that uptick at the end of the sentence. That was one of the things I looked for in the girls I took home. It wasn’t the only thing I kept an eye out for, but it was definitely something I had picked up on over the years. A pattern of speech that screamed insecure and easily abducted. She might as well have been raising her hand and saying “Take me!”
I smiled to myself at the thought of having someone to take back to my house today. I didn’t think today was going to be the day, but then again I never do. It always just happens out of the blue, like a gift from the universe, and I always just roll with it. But it had been so long since I’d had a girl come in and tell me that Marcy sent her that I was starting to think that that ship had finally sailed.
It doesn’t have to happen, you know. I don’t have to do it.
“Sure, no problem. You can wait back here until I’ve got her under the dryer and we’ll see what we can do for you,” I said as I gave her another little smile and wink.
“What’s your name?”
“Leah,” she said with a more relaxed expression. She was finally starting to loosen up some and even gave me a little bit of a smile.
That’s right, I thought as I turned the faucet on and ran the shower of warm water through Mrs. Fields hair. It was all part of the whole game for me. The first few steps thrilled me just about as much as the finale. Getting a girl from nervous to relaxed to giggling with just a smile and a few well crafted sentences made me feel like I was flying. Hell, even just getting the girls to come in to see me, I still couldn’t get over how easy it was. Even after all these years they still flocked to me like flies to honey. It was an incredibly powerful feeling to see the effect I had on her, especially since I knew just how nervous she really should be.
“I think I just need a trim. Nothing fancy,” I heard her say behind me as she slipped into the beautician’s chair.
“Ok, Leah, just wait here and I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said as I wrapped a towel around Mrs. Field’s head and looked back at the girl who was now somehow dwarfed by the beauticians chair.
Do you see how young she looks? Maybe she’s a runaway … even better….
“Maybe we can even give you a new style, no extra charge,” another lie punctuated by another sexy smile. No wink this time though. I didn’t want to overdo it.
As I wheeled Mrs. Fields into the front room my field of vision was almost completely obscured by the girl’s eyelashes. That’s exactly what I needed. Those eyelashes.
I don’t have to do this. I know I don’t have to.
Mrs. Fields got up and sat down in the stylist’s chair and I unwrapped her head slowly, removing the damp towel a little at a time as I scrunched it around the woman’s wet hair, completely unable to get the image of those lashes out of my head.
Yes, you don’t have to … but, those eyelashes. Didn’t you see those incredibly long eyelashes? And the way they curled up so perfectly?
I could feel them behind me, the lashes that surrounded those beautiful eyes. They were just waiting for me, through the doorway and just inside and to the right. If I took a couple steps back and turned my head just a little bit I would see them, but I forced myself to look down at Mrs. Fields, at her eyelids and her eyelashes. Nothing special there. Mrs. Fields had fabulous lips but her eyes were wrinkled and bloodshot. I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for perfection.
Besides, I would never take one of these older women home with me. It’s not that they weren’t beautiful. Some of them were gorgeous; still holding onto the stunning features that they believed had carried them throughout their lives. But they all had husbands and families that would notice right away if they went missing.
They made appointments and paid with checks and credit cards that could be traced, and there was no way I was going to risk that. But these girls, the young ones that came in without appointments, the walkins that told me “Marcy sent me,” they paid in cash. There was no evidence whatsoever that they had ever even set foot in here and this salon was always so busy that no one would remember a young girl that didn’t have an appointment.
I closed my eyes and focused on the hypnotic rhythm of the towel scrunching around Mrs. Fields wet hair and when I opened them up again I hoped against hope that my mind would be changed about the eyelashes on the girl in the chair, but it was too late. I already knew exactly what was going to happen to her.
Now I just needed a plan. I had two more appointments that afternoon and it was Saturday so the salon was extremely busy. No one usually bothered me down in my basement studio, except Jade when she was bringing me a walk-in, but since today was so crazy I couldn’t count on anything. I knew once I got Mrs. Fields under the hairdryer I would have time to at least get
Leah into the hair washing sink and, if I was lucky, maybe even out the back door. I just had to hope that my three o’clock wouldn’t show up early.
I quickly combed out Mrs. Fields hair and pulled out the curlers and setting lotion. I had just laid everything out on the counter when I felt a presence behind me and closed my eyes.
“You are just going to hate me, Colin, but I’m a half hour early for my appointment.”
It wasn’t my imagination. The voice came from behind me and I didn’t even have to turn around to know that my next appointment was standing in the doorway.
Bitch, you are not going to ruin my plans.
“My husband dropped me off on the way to a golf game, and you know how horrible he can be when he wants to play. I can wait out front if you’re too jammed up back here, dear.”
I took a deep breath and waited a few seconds for the blood to return to my head before I put on my sexiest smile and turned to the stylish, fifty-year-old woman in the doorway.
“That’s probably a good idea, Mrs. Anderson. I’m sure you’d be more comfortable in one of the chairs up front and I’ll come and get you the minute I have Mrs. Fields under the hairdryer. Ask Jade for a cup of coffee while you’re waiting,” I said to her with that god-awful fake smile still plastered to my face.
“Of course, Colin. I’ll get out of your hair,” she said with a little wave as she sashayed around the corner.
If I was going to do this, I had to do it soon. I couldn’t waste any more time.
I rolled Mrs. Fields hair up as quickly as possible while responding to her inane chatter with as mundane of words and phrases as possible just in case she was paying attention to my responses. I was usually able to keep the attentive stylists facade up very believably, but I was distracted. I couldn’t stop thinking about those eyelashes.
I went over and over the steps in my head, my thoughts racing and looping and my heart pounding, even though I’d done this exact routine dozens of times.
Hot towel, anesthesia, laundry bag, unlock back door, put body through door, make sure door is locked again … everything as quickly as possible … make sure no one is around … no one sees.
Over and over and over the words played in my head, almost to the rhythm of the rolling and pinning of the curlers.
I didn’t understand how this had all come together so perfectly, but maybe some part of me knew it would all along. Was that even possible? Was it possible that maybe even when I got up this morning that I somehow knew that a girl was going to come in and ask for a ten dollar haircut because her friend Marcy had sent her to me. Or rather, her friend that had told her to tell me Marcy sent her.
Marcy sent me ….
Marcy was long gone now, but somehow she was still working her ass off for me, sending me these young, poor girls who just needed a cheap haircut or some make-up for an audition. They probably weren’t all aspiring actors, but putting those ads in the trade papers like I did when I started out was genius. It helped build up my clientele over the years, but it also still ensured a steady stream of young, hapless but gorgeous girls who were trying to enhance their natural beauty for a good price. They slipped in and slipped out, virtually unnoticed and I happily squeezed them in, in between my higher paying clients.
Those old ads had somehow become word of mouth among young actresses and college students, and maybe even prostitutes as I sometimes suspected, that were just starting out. Somehow word of a cheap haircut at a high end salon traveled quickly, and to places I had never expected.
Of course, I didn’t use all of the girls that came my way through that system. In the beginning there were just too many, but over time the walk in traffic had slowed considerably. But honestly, I didn’t always find something I needed off of every single girl that walked into my studio. Besides, taking girls to my home and preparing their parts for use wasn’t something I always had the time or inclination for.
I wasn’t some unrelenting serial killer, carving my way through piles of bodies with a big smile on my face and a giant hard-on for dead girls. I just wanted everything to be perfect. My house, my life, myself…everything. And sometimes my hobby was the only way I knew how to get there.
Finally, the last curler was pinned into place on Mrs. Field’s head and I moved her over to one of the dryers, then lowered the giant dome over her head. She wouldn’t be able to see or hear a thing with it on, so I left her there and headed to the back room. On my way back there I wished I’d already heated up the towel. I knew that was going to be another couple of minutes and I was in a hurry.
“Thanks for waiting, Leah. Let me get you under the sink and we then can get started. You can tell me the style you were thinking of while I’m washing your hair.”
“Thanks so much for squeezing me in. I really appreciate it. My friend who told me to come here, her name isn’t really Marcy, it’s Jennifer, but that’s what she told me …”
“You don’t have to explain, I know. Word of mouth is what got me where I am today, and I’m more than happy to help anyone who’s just starting out themselves,” I said with a smile as I pushed her chair backwards and stared at those beautiful lashes. I smiled down at the girl, but unbeknownst to her, it wasn’t for any reason she could possibly fathom.
I quickly went to town on her hair, getting it wet and leaving her head hanging back over the edge of the sink as I put a wet towel in the microwave. I set it for forty seconds, then went over to the cabinet and pulled out a large, white laundry bag. I was starting to relax because everything was going smoothly and I could tell that it was all going to work out just fine.
I took the warm, wet towel from the microwave and quickly carried it back to the girl.
“Warm towel for your face. Just relax,” I said with a smile as I placed it over her mouth and nose. I reached under the sink and pulled out a bottle that I had marked with DANGER - ACID, so that anyone rifling around down there would leave it alone, then poured it over the towel. The minute I applied pressure to the towel the girl started squirming and bucking underneath my weight, but went limp in under a minute.
I quickly put her body, with the towel still over her mouth, in the bag, unlocked a door in the back of the room that led to the dark, abandoned tunnel just outside, closed the door, and locked it. The anesthesia I had poured on the towel would keep her out for at least two hours, and that was more than enough time to get Mrs. Fields and Mrs. Anderson the hell out of there, walk home, come back through the tunnel, pick up the girl in the laundry bag, and carry her back home.
Just as I walked back into the front room of my studio the dryer shut off and Mrs. Fields looked up from her magazine.
“Now just what do you do the whole time I’m under this infernal thing, Colin. You must be bored out of your mind.”
“Not in the slightest,” I said with a smile as I sat her back down in the stylist’s chair and started to remove the curlers.
2. Avery
“You’re really lucky, this is the only room left. Usually everything’s already taken this close to the beginning of the semester. So, it’s seven-hundred a month, including utilities, and you share the bathroom down the hall with three other people on this floor. You’ve got an awesome balcony that looks out on the street and extends across the house; you share it with the person in the room next door. Any questions?”
“No, this looks really fab. I really like these old buildings. The wood trim around the windows and doors is amazing, and the window seat,” I said as I walked over to the big bay window, “I love it.”
I sat down on the bench seat in the window and looked around the room.
“The green walls are fabulous, too.”
“Yeah, the paint job came with the last tenant. The landlord wasn’t too happy about it, but he’s too cheap to paint over it so I guess it’s good that you dig the colors,” she said with a smile. Barbara was the apartment manager and looked like she might have been a few years older than me. Not a lot older, but definitely out of col
lege.
“I do,” I said as I got up and walked over to the double French doors and looked out onto the street below.
“Yeah, most of the buildings in this neighborhood are old Victorians like this one. A few were demolished because they were left to deteriorate past the point of being fixed up but this one is still in decent shape. In fact, most of the houses on this street have been taken really good care of. It’s like the Victorian street of dreams. People tour through here all the time just to see them from the outside, but thank God this isn’t one of the houses that has walking tours. That would drive me nuts.”
I was already starting to like Barbara. She wasn’t overly cutesy like some of girls my age, and she seemed like she would be a cool person to hang out with. I hoped that maybe she would become my first friend in this town because I had never been very good at making new friends.
“I’m pretty sure that house next door over there has been in the same family for like a hundred years. So, did you just move here?”
“Yeah, I’m starting at the University next week.”
“Where from?”
“Well, I grew up on the coast in a pretty small town but I used to come into the city every once in a while with my family, so I know my way around … kinda,” I said with a sheepish smile.
“Cool. Well, let me know if you have any questions. I can tell you where to get all the cheapest food around here. Dollar slices of pizza and things like that, so you’re not just eating ramen for every meal. So, now that you officially live here and I know where to find you I have a huge favor to ask.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Well, I got called into work this afternoon, in fact, I gotta leave in about a half hour. And I have a dog, Joey, that needs to go out later. See, he’s still kind of a puppy and I’m worried that …”
“Sure! Of course, don’t worry about a thing. I love dogs.”
“Oh, fabulous! Ok, well if you don’t mind coming down in a half hour I’ll hand him over to you then. And you can drop off your first and last at the same time,” she said with a smile as she walked out the door. “And thanks again…uh…Ok, I feel like a total asshole, but I forgot your name. Sorry, it’s nothing personal. I forget everyone’s name the second they tell me.”