Attainable

From the very first time Sandra walked through the front door at the firm, everyone took notice. She was tall, with long, lustrous, auburn hair. She had the face of a Persian princess and a long, slender body to match. She strode in the door wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit, a high starched collar on her dress shirt and wing-tipped, stiletto heels that were so glossy, they picked up blinding glints of sunlight as she walked. Her make-up was sultry but subtle and she wore no jewelry save for small, gold earrings and matching cufflinks.

Day in and day out, she was always at the height of glamour and fashion, though she always had a very masculine bent to the way she dressed, as if to say, "yes, I'm beautiful, but I'm also good, so pay attention." We worked well together, but I was beyond smitten. I never misbehaved or made any overtures, however, because I was always acutely aware that she was out of my league. Still, I delighted in every time I made her laugh or impressed her with an observation. We were both department heads, but I cared far more about impressing her than I did our bosses.

One day, however, things began to change. I had been out of town for a month, setting up a new office in Hong Kong. Upon my return, I knocked on her door to discuss the progress of her counterpart at that office. It was winter, and she was wearing gray, flannel trousers, a brown, cashmere v-neck with a starched, blue shirt that had white cuffs and collar. Under the collar, she had a red, silk tie in a double Windsor, and she completed the look with a wide-lapelled double-breasted jacket to match her trousers.

After exchanging pleasantries and a handshake, we sat at opposite sides of her desk and got down to business. It was then that I noticed a layer of pervasive, dark fuzz all over her face. It was more densely collected and longer on her cheeks and upper lip, but it caught the light rather dramatically on her chin. Then I noticed that in spite of the familiar length and volume of her hair, I could see through to her scalp. It was noticeably thinner at the top.

I put it out of my mind and continued the meeting, but that night, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Over the course of the next month, Sandra's hair got thinner and her face got furrier until one Monday morning when her face was suddenly bare, and her hair was conspicuously darker and far fuller.

Later that day, I rounded a corner in the hall and caught Sandra studying her chin and upper lip in her compact. Several days later, seated beside her at a meeting, late in the day, I noticed that she had five o'clock shadow. It was then that my suspicion was confirmed. She had been shaving her face.

At the end of the meeting, the others left while I decided it was time I took a shot. Suddenly, I felt she was not only attainable, but whether interested or not, she may appreciate the idea that someone would want her. I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Sandra."

"Yes?"

Suddenly, as her piercing eyes locked with mine, I lost my nerve.

"Oh, I... I just wanted to see if you had an opening tomorrow to discuss the quarterly numbers."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Yes. The scheduled appointment we already have at ten."

"Right. That's right."

It was then that she stood up but her hair didn't all go with her. In a flash, I picked it up, replacing it on top of her head before anyone else had seen. She looked at me, petrified. She said nothing and scrambled to collect her papers, disappearing without a word.

Realizing how upset she may have been, I followed her to her office. "Sandra?"

"Come in."

"Sandra, I..."

"I'm okay. Please, just..."

"No. Sandra. Of course you're alright. I didn't really want to ask you about tomorrow. I wanted to ask you out to dinner."

"Why would you tell me that now?"

"Because I'm asking you now."

"After what you just saw?"

"Sandra. We work in very close quarters. I already knew. So? Would you do me the honor?"

"Uh... Sure. I mean, yes, of course."

"How's Friday at eight?"

Her look of astonishment melted away and she curled her lips into a smile.

The rest of the week dragged on. We never mentioned our plans, but I did notice her responses to my jokes were a bit more boisterous and Sandra had taken up the practice of touching my elbow from time to time.

When Friday rolled around, Sandra was wearing a pair of brown, wool-cashmere trousers, a striped, green button-down with a silk ascot, and a dark green, tweed jacket. By five o'clock, her facial hair had begun to peek out and I caught her itching her hair piece.

"What kind of place are we going to? What should I wear?" she asked.

"Dark. Candle lit. Quiet, but laid back. I was kind of hoping you'd just come as you are."

"Oh. Well, sure."

"In fact, Sandra, I kind of figured that you look forward to taking that off at the end of every day."

She looked embarrassed.

"No. I mean, I picked a place I thought you would feel comfortable without your wig. You don't even have to shave. Not that it needs to be dark. I'll take you anywhere."

"What? How did you?" She seemed angry at first, then shifted, perplexed. "Do you mean that?"

"Absolutely, Sandra. I don't want to embarrass you, but you are an incredibly beautiful woman."

"Well, I was..." "You are."

It was seven fifty when I arrived at Sandra's building. I buzzed her unit and she called down. Minutes later, the door opened and I was floored. Suddenly it occurred to me that I didn't look at her head when the wig came off. Sandra's hair had been cut to an even length of a few inches all over. The sparse top was combed forward and her pink scalp showed through. As I had suggested, she spared her face another shaving, and she replaced her jacket with a soft sweater. She looked at me as if to ask for my approval.

"I'm not quite sure of all the rules of dating a coworker, but I think I can safely say that you look gorgeous tonight."

Her smile made my heart swell.

Dinner went well, but we were far too polite for a couple on a first date. During the meal, we only discussed business. But on the way back to her building, I decided to get honest. I put my jacket around her shoulders.

"So, what happened, darling?"

She looked me in the eyes, clearly gauging my sincerity. Then she looked down on the sidewalk as the cuffs of her pants danced around her wool socked ankles. She pulled my arm tighter with one hand and drew the other to her stubbly chin.

"They don't know, exactly. They thought it was hormonal, but all of my hormone levels are normal. The theory is that certain receptors in my body are simply hyper-sensitive to normal levels of hormones. Do you really want to know?"

"Absolutely. I want to know. Is this permanent?"

"The truth is, it will probably only get worse. I'll get hairier most places, and I'll just get balder and balder on my head."

"And you want to just keep wearing wigs and shaving?" "What choice do I have?"

I stopped and pulled her close, running my hands over her head and around to the velvety stubble along her jaw-line.

"You could embrace it. You could just be the uniquely extraordinary person you were born to be."

She was briefly pulled into me, about to allow me a kiss when she pushed away, leaving me to catch up.

"A freak show."

"No. A beautiful woman with qualities few other women possess."

She fell quiet, but permitted me to hold her head against my chest as we walked. Eventually, we came to a barbershop that was open late. She stopped and looked in the door. As suddenly as she stopped, she resumed a brisk pace.

"So you're telling me that if I showed up tomorrow with a beard and a bald spot, you not only wouldn't skip a step, you'd continue to take me out, romantically?"

I pulled her close again, and kissed her.

"Sandra, from the day I met you, I have dreamed of being this close. I would consider myself the luckiest man alive if you would continue to date me while you explore this situation."

After another kiss, I took her home and we shared another beautiful moment.

The next day, I got to work early, eagerly anticipating Sandra's arrival. Right on time, she strolled into the office, wearing her hair piece, a pair of wool, charcoal trousers, a plaid, silk, sport coat and a white shirt with a red and black stiped tie and a pair of tasseled loafers. What impressed me, though, was that she hadn't shaved. It clearly impressed the whole office as hushed chatter swept throughout.

For the first part of the day, Sandra seemed almost to forget the previous night. Then, around lunch time, she knocked on my door, opened her blazer, plunged her hands into her pants pockets and lifted her pants to her waist.

"Do you stand by everything you said last night?" "Of course."

"Alright. Follow me."

Twenty minutes later, after an almost silent walk, studying Sandra's growing beard in the sunlight, we stepped up to and into the barbershop from the previous night.

"What are you planning to do here?" I asked with a flirtatious grin. She responded in kind, saying only, "you'll see."

Almost as soon as she crossed the doormat, Sandra made a point of ignoring me, as though she were pretending we were strangers. As she passed the lone, female barber, they exchanged nods and we sat. When I sat beside her, Sandra stood up, ceremoniously removed her sport jacket and sat back down, several seats away, hanging the jacket over the back of the next seat. She picked up a magazine, and I followed suit.

As I pretended to peruse an old New Yorker, I looked up at the barber. She put the finishing touches on an older man's haircut. She was younger than us by a few years, maybe 26. She was hip, wearing tight black jeans and an old white t-shirt. Its collar had

been stretched out so that as she shifted her shoulders, it almost drifted off, and occasionally revealed much of her cleavage. Her hair was long and pulled into a ponytail, but a fringe of feathered hair wrapped from cheek to cheek.

When she finished the older gentleman, she had a short, bubbly, exchange with him as he handed her a twenty dollar bill. After accompanying him to the door, she turned to me.

"So, what can I do ya for, handsome?"

"Please. I believe she was ahead of me," I returned, trying to play along with Sandra's charade.

"Oh, please forgive me. Sandy, what do you say you hop right up here? What will we do today?"

Sandra slid her wig off and, strangely, onto the floor as she stood. Her hair laid flat to her scalp except where it poked awkwardly out over her ears and the back of her collar. As she stood before the barber's chair, she loosened her tie, opened her collar, and lifted her trousers to sit down. As she crossed her legs, I got a glimpse of long, dense fur above her black socks.

"Shorter on the sides. Long enough to part on top." "And the, uh..?"

Sandra leaned in to whisper into the barber's ear. Then she turned to me, smiled and winked as the barber walked over to me.

"I'm sorry, sir. You'll have to leave. You're making the lady uncomfortable. I felt cheated, but I understood. She set me up. Now she wants to build up anticipation and surprise me. On my way back to the office, I received a text message from Sandra that read:

"My place. 9 o'clock. Bring a tooth brush and a change of clothes."

When I got to her place, I was fresh out of the shower at the gym, dressed to go out, with my gym bag full of work clothes and toiletries. She buzzed me in.

Out of the elevator, I came to her door, which was cracked open. Inside, it was dark, but I could see a candle lit through a door at the end of the hall. I set my bag down and walked toward it.

"Sandra?"

Her voice returned from inside the door, "keep coming, darling. Take a seat at the foot of the bed."

I entered. In the light of the single candle, I found the end of the bed and sat. "What's with all the..."

"Shhh. Just be patient," she whispered from the shadows.

With her back to me, she stepped in front of the candle and it went out. The room went totally dark. Seconds later, she picked up my hands and placed them over her waist. She was fully clothed in the thick, soft fabric of one of her suits. I slid my hands down to her tight, round butt as she leaned in to kiss me. First, on my cheek, then my lips, then again on my lips only to part her own, softly biting my lower lip. With each kiss, I felt a soft, velvety mustache brush over and press against my skin. It felt different, though. It felt like it had all been trimmed neatly just over her lip.

She rubbed her cheek against mine, revealing that it was bare. It was so bare that I never would have known it had ever been bearded. I ran my right hand up, over the back of her suit to her neck. It was also bare, up to the base of her skull, where it tapered gracefully from tiny, sharp bristles to soft, crushed velvet. My thumb jumped over her ear to where she had a short bristly sideburn that came to her earlobe. It wasn't tapered or pointed like most women wear them. It was blunt. Before I could do any more exploring, she pulled away and flipped a switch, lifting the veil of darkness.

As she walked forward, I saw that her hair was parted on top in a very conservative, men's haircut. It was clippered short on the sides and in back. On top, due to the thinning, I could see her scalp receding to the back under the part, but the part did disguise the full extent of her hair loss more than her longer hair. The widow's peaks above her temples went dramatically far back, but it was still flattering combined with her beautiful features.

What I had not noticed until just then was that her hair was turning a silvery gray. The sides had become almost uniformly silver and the sparse top showed strands here and there. Her mustache, which was all that remained of her beard, was still very dark brown with red highlights here and there. It was thicker than I had remembered and trimmed to just over her lip in a precise line, extending from just past each corner of her mouth. It was strange, but somehow extraordinarily arousing.

She was suited from head to toe in a wooly tweed. She wore a broad tie beneath a high vest, wrapped within a wide-lapelled, double-breasted jacket tailored to wrap tightly over her breasts and around her tiny waist over pleated, cuffed, straight-legged trousers. She kicked off a pair of brown wingtips, revealing brown, red and tan argyle socks.

"Now, get to work. You take the rest off," she commanded.

I stood up and walked up to her. I removed my own clothes and pulled her close, kissing her as I opened her jacket. I then got on my knees.

I opened her belt and trousers. I slid her pants down. Her legs were carpeted all the way into her panties. I wrapped my hands around her ankles and ran them all the way back up, making the long, dark hairs stand up. I lowered her panties, which had bulged from the crotch. Once down, an eight inch beard clung, extending up over her stomach. I parted the beard to reveal her lips and pressed my own against them before standing.

I took her by the necktie, pulling it just an inch or so from the vest, and again, pressed my lips against hers. I plunged deep into her mouth with my tongue as I relished the sensation of her soft, fine, mustache. In one quick motion, I threw her toward the bed and bent her over the edge. I forced her legs apart and plunged my hand into her furry crotch. As she arched her head back, I could see the bare circle at the top of her head. Oddly, it only turned me on more, and I pulled her close as I plunged my penis inside her.

When I woke, she was sprawled out naked. I saw her in all her splendor for the first time, and I found that her chest and back were even hairier than mine. I ran my fingertips over the alien terrain, waking her up. We kissed and I lifted my fingers to her mustache, combing it against the grain. To my surprise, no stubble had emerged over the night where her beard had been.

"Why is your face still so smooth?" I asked.

She rubbed her cheek and jaw, and flattened her mustache back down.

"The barber did it with a straight razor. I don't know why, but it usually stays smooth for a couple days after that."

She kissed me again, and then took me by the hand into the bathroom.

"Speaking of which, I have a job for you." She handed me a safety razor and a can of shaving cream. "I need you to shave off my mustache."

"What? Why? I kind of like it."

"Honey, I'm a balding woman. That's unique enough. I don't need to be the bearded, bald woman."

So we hopped in the shower, and I did as she asked.

For several months, we alternated nights at each other's apartments. I tended to her beard, and she went to the barbershop once a month for a trim and a shave. Gradually, she lost more and more hair on her head. I found that she wasn't so much balding entirely as the hair that was growing in as thicker hairs fell out just wasn't maturing. It was thin, sparse, and translucent. The rest of her hair became progressively more silver, but so far as I

could tell, her beard was still dark, though I was tasked with shaving it morning and night.

Our six month anniversary came two days after I returned from a month long trip overseas. When I got to her apartment, no one was home. I made myself comfortable on the couch and set out to catch up on some shows on the DVR.

Somehow, Sandra snuck in without a sound, and she startled me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders from behind. I pulled her over the back of the couch and into my lap.

To my surprise, she had changed her hair and begun to grow her beard. I plunged my lips into hers for some time, and then I sat back to take her in. Her hair had been reduced on the sides and back to a bare shaved scalp. From there, her hair was precisely flush with the scalp and seemingly perfectly flat on top. At the very peak of her head, it was completely bare. Her hairline had retreated further up, but it only served to highlight her extraordinarily beautiful features. She had apparently colored her hair, restoring it to a reddish brown.

Her face was similarly precisely trimmed. Below her jaw-line, it was shaved smooth, and the border her jaw constituted was as flat as the top of her head. From there up her cheeks, chin and mustache were all one length, creating a lustrous, velvety texture.

"Do you like it?" she asked, with a spritely confidence. "I do."

Over the next several months, Sandra maintained her haircut and grew out her beard. With each week, her cheeks, chin and upper lip got fuller while she had her barber maintain a precise plane at her jaw-line and just over her upper lip. Every night and every morning, she brushed and combed it as though it were the long mane she once had on her head.

All the while, the hair on top of her head became less and less apparent. She still maintained the precise flattop with the insubstantial fuzz that lined her scalp, and she became even more determined to keep it dark.