This one has been sitting part-finished for a long time. With endless thanks to EmilyMiller for providing the requisite kick up the bum to get it finished.
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She shifted behind me, and her soft, warm, tee-shirt-sheathed breasts brushed against my shoulders once again.
It was as excruciating as ever.
I squirmed on the faux leather of the chair, trying to ignore the usual dull, almost unpleasant ache in my lower belly.
"You okay?" she asked in her lovely little voice.
"Hmm? Oh, yes, I'm okay, thanks... just... restless..."
"I know what you mean. I always get so bored waiting for the colour to take," she confessed.
I shivered as she ran her gloved fingertips over my scalp, working the dye into one or two spots she wasn't convinced had been properly addressed.
"You're wise to stay so close to your natural shade - the big changes are murder. Some of our other clients fall asleep while waiting. Yours is far... simpler."
"It's... nice here. I can see why they'd nod off. That couch is terrible; I could curl up on that and never move again. And these chairs are... sublime..."
"Oh, it's a complete trap," she agreed. "Maggie designed it that way, you know. She's very devious."
She grinned at me in the mirror - an artless little pixie smile as it always was - a pixie smile on a lovely, sculpted little face that Father Time hadn't yet noticed.
She hummed softly to herself over the background of soft nineties Pop.
She fitted this space. She didn't own it, but it was utterly and completely hers.
I mouthed her name again when she wasn't looking. I tasted it, tried it on for size.
Julie.
I'd been coming to Maggie's salon for several years, now. A little slice of olden-day's charm and a haven from my frequent storms - leather and wood rather than steel and neon, tucked between a Bengali takeaway and a moth-eaten Newsagent, it was far nicer inside than its location would imply to a casual observer.
I liked it here.
I liked the old, worn hard cover books on the shelves. I liked the antique brass lamps in the corner that were only turned on in winter. I liked Maggie's rickety old tabby cat who was always "purrched" on his equally-ancient pink towel in the window, placidly watching the outside world go by with only the slightest of tail flicks giving him away.
I liked the simplicity. I liked the timelessness.
And I really, really liked Julie.
She'd arrived some months before, and Maggie had quickly handed me off into her care. I'd been uneasy at first, not enjoying the change. I didn't suit change well...
But oh how well this change had ended up suiting me.
I loved the sense of... warmth that always stole over me when she wrapped the towel around my neck and washed my hair for me with the water that was always at the perfect temperature - as if hand-chosen to soothe my tatterdemalion soul.
I loved that she was completely happy to talk about her day or mine or anything else under the sun.
I loved that she could read me and knew how to be quiet - she had her own busy world behind her warm hazel eyes and on my worst days I'd attempt to divine it by watching the small flickers of expression that flitted over her face.
I loved her one slightly-crooked tooth and her blonde hair and freckles and the little almost-but-not-quite-wicked smile that she seemed to keep for me.
I loved her voice and the way it always made me happy, no matter how black and shitty everything else might be.
There was something that I loved most of all about her, though.
Her touch.
Especially when she brushed herself so, so innocently up against me.
It was so stupid.
Here I was, just gone twenty-seven, supposedly an adult woman - and the highlight of my fortnight was my lunchtime dalliance in Maggie's Salon. Aching for a few seconds of tenderness and physical contact from this pretty young thing who was so casual with her personal space.
And with mine.
And I'd recline against sink or chair and go into this strange fugue state where she was the puppet-master and I her little dancing marionette - lift your head, look up, tilt it that way, hold still, close your eyes... and I'd do it mutely for her, heart quietly aching with longing.
And she'd smile and pamper me and preen me and trim my fringe and natter away with me about wherever our often inane conversation went, completely comfortable and normal.
Half an hour or more of carefree happiness.
Half an hour or more of mattering to someone - however ephemeral that mattering might be.
Half an hour where I was demonstrably alive.
And then I'd be forced to shatter the illusion as I concluded our time together with a sordid financial transaction.
And I'd walk out into the wind or sun or, sometimes, rain - feeling like I'd just visited some strange Bordello where they knew my face but not... me.
And I'd mope.
And then I'd try to be strong.
But I'd dream about Julie most nights.
And want her almost every waking hour of every day.
.:.
"I found another grey hair," I lamented.
"You're dark; it's a peril," she sympathised. "But on the plus side, your hair is so thick and lovely. And with your cheeks you'll look great with grey when you get eventually there."
"Not... for a couple of years yet, I hope," I said. "I'm barely out of my teens. I'm not ready to be an adult."
She laughed.
"So... same as always?"
"I... don't know," I admitted. "I probably should. But... I feel... dull."
I met her gaze in the mirror for a moment.
"I've got a suggestion," she said, "if you trust me."
"Um... okay?"
"I think you would look absolutely stunning with some red undertones - still this frankly sublime walnut of yours, but you'll have more colour in the sun."
"Hmm."
I stared at her in the mirror, pondering. She waited placidly, lips curving delicately upwards...
She was very, very good at what she did.
I decided to trust her skill.
After all, it could always be undone later if I wanted.
"Okay... can you show me?"
"Of course I can," she trilled.
She opened a drawer and lifted out a book. She opened it to a page and removed the bookmark that had marked it.
"You've been plotting," I said, levelly, as I noted the clear signs of preparation.
She glanced up at me. "Yes. You got me. I... I've been waiting for a long time to suggest this. But it's not my place unless you're willing to try. Here."
She pointed at a colour chart. "Look. This is what we usually use for you. And this one here is what I'd like to try."
"It's... almost the same."
"Yes. A very slight change. Extremely subtle. But it will be very noticeable in the right conditions. So... are you feeling brave, Catherine?"
Her eyebrow arched up as she issued her challenge.
I couldn't back down.
"Yes," I decided. "Yes, I am. Fix me."
She smiled. "It's not fixing, it's... making even better. I promise you that you won't regret it."
And she was right, of course. I didn't in the slightest.
Red suited me, I decided, as I caught sight of myself in a window as I stepped over a sunny patch of pavement.
Julie's red.
It was perfect.
Just like her.