1961
About three weeks had passed since the note from Shelley. To improve my skills at cutting hair, I decided to attend a weekend training class at the local barber school in Los Angeles. The training was scheduled to begin at 4:00pm on Saturday. The participants were booked into the adjacent Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge since the classes went until 10:00pm and began again at 7:00am on Sunday. This schedule allowed the shops to send their employees without much down time.
I arrived at the school 30 minutes early and saw some old friends of David. One mentioned he'd just read that President Kennedy had established something called the Peace Corps. I thought I might have to join if my business didn't improve soon. At least it might be safer than the Korean War I remembered all too well.
As we stood talking, two women walked up. We soon realized that they were also planning to attend the classes. This was very unusual, as women normally became hairdressers for beauty shops, not barbers for men in those days.
Their names were Jamie and Linda. Jamie was cute with dark brown hair, about 5'5" or so. She had a beautiful tan. Linda was a blonde, probably not a real one, about the same size as Jamie but with shorter hair. While not as cute as Jamie, she packed a big pair. Each woman was, in fact, a ladies' hairdresser, but they were planning to open a shop that would be for both men and women. I didn't think that would ever work. I found out years later I was wrong.
The class began on time and the first session covered the changing styles that were happening around the country. They were rapidly evolving. There was a new group formed recently in Liverpool and the mop top haircuts they had were starting to come to LA. Elvis and the new rock and roll performers were transitioning away from the 1950's styles of flattops, buzz cuts and crew cuts of the Buddy Holly days. The trend was moving to longer, more free form hairstyles. Our customer's frequency of haircuts would surely be dropping.
The following session was a hands-on training class from the school instructors. I learned how to correct a few mistakes I seem to make too often.
At 7:00, we broke for dinner and went next door to the HoJo restaurant. Jamie and Linda decided to sit with me and three other guys at a large table. After the usual small talk, the conversation took a strange turn. Much to the guys' surprise, Linda brought up the subject of women's genital hair removal and how best to do it for those who wanted a barer look. I thought she was just playing with our minds by asking such an outrageous question.
The three men hooted and joked about various methods of torture to remove hair. Linda and Jamie were not amused.
After a few minutes of one-sided fun, I casually mentioned, "I was asked by a lady a couple of weeks ago to shave her private areas. It turned out well. She paid me a lot of money."
There was total silence. In about five seconds one of the guys said, "You mean to tell me that a women took her clothes off in your shop and had you shave her petute?"
"Well, we did the job after closing hours. It was behind a curtain in the back of the shop where no one could see us. But yes, that's what happened."
Again, total silence. I could almost hear the gears turning in their heads as they wondered if I was telling the truth or not.
Linda asked, "Did she need a doctor to stitch her up?"
There was more laughter.
"I didn't cut her even once, and she was very pleased. She even wrote a nice thank-you note. I've been hoping some other ladies like her would come."
One of the guys said, "I'd love to see you try to make a business out of that. It'll never happen."
I glanced around the table and noticed a very strange look on Jamie's face. When her eyes touched mine, she looked quickly down at her plate. She didn't say anything.
As dinner was winding down, I excused myself to go to the men's room. After taking a leak, I started back to the table. Jamie was waiting outside the door.
"Mark, can we talk in my room at 10:30? I want to ask you some questions about what you were saying."
"Sure Jamie. I'll call you before I come over." She told me her room number.
The other class that night dealt with customer outreach and marketing. With the new trends towards longer hair, most of us were concerned about how to make frequent haircuts more popular. It seemed to me from all the discussion that we barbers were in for a rough ride over the coming years.
My thoughts were more along the line of how to get women to demand the best in their own personal grooming. I decided to not bring up that subject for discussion.
As promised, I called Jamie at 10:30 and she invited me over.
I saw when she opened the door that she'd changed into a casual sweat suit top and pants. Unexpectedly, Linda wasn't there. I later learned that she had gone to a bar with a couple of the other participants.
"Hey Mark, thanks from coming over. Please come in." I walked by her and to the chair near the TV, which was showing a re-run of I Love Lucy. She turned it off as I spoke.
"Jamie, are you OK? You seemed kind of quiet and more withdrawn than you were earlier in the day."
"I'm fine. I've been thinking about some of the things you said at dinner. Let me explain. My husband went to a bachelor party for one of his friends a few weeks ago. As men do at those, the host had some of the latest porn films. These films hadn't yet been released. He borrowed them from a buddy who works at one of the porn production companies. Seems like they weren't yet cleared by the lawyers due to probable community standards violations. The big problem is that all the women were shaved, and their pussies looked too much like those of young girls."
"Wow, all of them?"
"Yes, all of them. My husband came home and told me about how he was turned on by that. We had wonderful sex for an hour, much longer than usual. He's asked me now three times to shave my pussy like those women did. I can trim my hair like a bikini cut but I can't shave it down to the skin without cutting the shit out of myself. I have a couple of moles down there. I told him I couldn't do it. I certainly wasn't going to let him do it. He's a longshoreman and has about as much finesse as a bull."
"Jamie, I understand. With the delicate skin and all the sensitive nerves in your genitals, a bull with a razor is the last thing you want."
Jamie took a deep breath and her words exploded like a burst of machine gun fire from her mouth, "So Mark, I want you to shave me like you did that other woman and the quicker we can do it, the less time I'll have to come to my senses and back out. Will you do it?"
