Page 83 of Exposed
My heart is pounding, hammering in my throat. Can I do this? My hands shake.
I click on the clippers, and the bathroom echoes with their humming buzz. My hand vibrates. I grab a fistful of my thick black hair, which when loose hangs to the middle of my spine. Pull it back and gaze at my reflection, try to imagine myself with no hair. I’m almost ten years older than in that photograph I saw on Caleb’s phone. It would be such a drastic change, and part of me rebels against the idea of sliding this device over my scalp, feeling my hair fall away, havingnohair at all.
But I need to change. I need to look different. I cannot resemble any longer the creature created by Caleb Indigo.
I fight my breath, blink away tears of I-know-not-what emotion. Bring the clippers closer and closer to my scalp. I feel the teeth whispering against the skin of my forehead.
And then, a mere eye blink away from contact with my hair, Logan’s hand encircles my wrist and pulls the clippers away. Tugs the device gently but firmly out of my hand.
“Isabel . . . baby . . . what the hell are you doing?”
I swallow. “I—I was—”
“You were about to shave your head?” He sounds almost panicked.
“Yes.”
He tosses the clippers onto the lid of the toilet tank. “Why? I mean... god, your hair is so fucking gorgeous, Is. Why would you shave it all off?”
How honest can I be with Logan? My mouth vomits the truth before I have a chance to really think it through. “I can’t behis creation any longer, Logan. Hemademe. Heinventedme. I had no choice in what I wore, how I looked. I was a persona; I was Madame X and she was always perfect. My clothing is all designer gowns, dresses, skirts, blouses. Sexy, but modest. And my underwear, even that was chosen by him,forhim. You’ve noticed this before. My hair... he had a woman come every few months to trim the ends of my hair, but I wasn’t allowed to cut it. I was given no say in this. She came, she trimmed the ends, and she left. I asked once if she could take a few inches off, and she just ignored me. I have no money of my own, so I cannot buy a new wardrobe. I don’t even have a home. But my hair? I can change that. I can take ownership of that.”
“But why cut it all off?” Logan threads his hands through my hair, the silky locks slipping like water through his fingers. “I would never tell you what to do with your life or your body or anything, but shaving it all off is just... it seems a little extreme.”
“In order to operate on me, the surgeons had to shave my hair off. Caleb showed me a picture of me with no hair. I don’t remember this. He says they operated on me and I seemed fine initially, I woke up, remembered myself. But then I started bleeding cranially, my brain started swelling, and they had to put me in a coma. When I woke up from that I’d lost my memory. But that picture? That was me, the last and only photo of me before I lost my identity. That was me as... as Isabel, as the Isabel I once was. The Isabel I used to be. And I want to—I don’t know. I want to be her again. I know I’ll never get that back. I’ve had a few minor memories return, but I’ll never get everything back. I know that. But I just... I guess I thought by cutting my hair off, I could... regain some of who I used to be.”
“I guess that makes sense. You want to identify with who you were. I totally get that. But what if—”
I cut in over him. “It’s not just that. It’s making myself different. Choosing how I look, for me. To be whoIwant to be. To look howIwant to look, not how Caleb made me. That’s what I want, more than anything, I think.”
“And I get that too. But... shaving it like that is so extreme. There’s an in-between. A way to change your look drastically without going to that extreme.” He sighs, frowns. “I’ve known a few women who have shaved their heads. And I just... I don’t know how to put this without sounding a little like an asshole. It tends to take away an element of... femininity. Not that you can’t be totally woman, all woman without long hair, but to totally shave it off like you were about to... I don’t know. I have a friend who owns a fancy, high-end women’s salon. I can take you in to see her and you can get a professional haircut. Go pixie short, even. I just feel like if you shaved it on a whim, you might regret it. And that’s not something you can undo.”
“I—” A million thoughts batter at the insides of my head, each clamoring for expression. “I want to do it myself.”
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
I swallow hard. Do I?
“Yes,” I say.
Logan seems to sag with relief after that single syllable. As if he knows how huge that is for me to admit. “Then let’s head out. I have a plan.”
“But my hair?”
He smiles at me. “Just trust me, Isabel. I’ll take care of you.”
Then, suddenly, we are both aware that I am standing in front of the mirror, a towel wrapped around my torso. The end is tucked in at my cleavage, and now I have to clutch the thick cotton to keep it from falling open. And a glance behind tells me that he is nearly naked as well, wearing only a pair of loose shorts that hang at his hips, showing his sharp hip bones and theV-shaped indent of muscle low on his abdomen, teasing me with an almost-glimpse of his privates.
Our gazes lock in the mirror. My heart thrums. My gut tenses. My thighs clench, and heat rushes through me. Digit by digit, my fingers loosen their grip on the towel. This is déjà vu: me in a towel, Logan shirtless. This time, however, I know what lies beneath his shorts, and how it feels.
I release the towel, an intentional gambit. Stand naked in front of him. My breasts ache, my nipples harden. My flesh pebbles, tingles.
“Jesus, Isabel.”
“What?”
He shakes his head. “Just you. You are, literally, perfect.” His hands rest on the upper swell of my hips. “I’m standing here, staring at you, and I find it hard to believe that I get to touch you. That I get to kiss you. Make love to you. That I get to even look at you.”
Palms skate lower to cup my bottom, graze over the backs of my thighs, circle around front. I cease breathing as his touch drifts upward then. Misses my core by millimeters, carves over my hip bones to my belly. Up, cresting my diaphragm, and then his hands are full of my breasts, lifting them, kneading their softness and hefting their weight, and I’m not breathing still because his thumbs brush almost idly over my nipples. I have to gasp then, because he tweaks and twiddles my nipples until I’m thrusting my chest into his hands, and lighting seems tied by a live wire from my erect nipples to my core, each touch sending blazes of heat and lust coruscating through me.