Page 25 of Shameful Addictions

“I didn’t want anyone at my usual salon to see me,” Charlotte replied. The truth, though Wendy wouldn’t pick up on the severity of it. “I don’t think I’d have been able to get it done there. They’d have kept trying to convince me otherwise.”

Wendy chuckled, and rotated Charlotte a bit on the turning chair. She dabbed her brush in her paint, slathered Charlotte’s hair, and dabbed in again, swirling around the perimeter of the bowl. “Well, I also tried to convince you otherwise. A lot of stylists get told that certain things can’t be done. The truth is they usually can be, but it takes a lot of time and an experienced hand. I’ve been cutting hair for twenty years now. More than that, if you count childhood experiments on my toys using craft scissors.”

Charlotte smiled a little, despite the awful situation. She really did like Wendy on principal. The older woman had a completely natural body and hadn’t slapped a ton of makeup on her face, and she was dressed in comfortable and casual clothes. If not for the reason Charlotte was getting her hair dyed, she might have settled in and actually enjoyed herself.

The first round of bleach went on. Wendy gathered up Charlotte’s gooey hair under a plastic cap and put her aside to let the chemicals do their thing. Half an hour later, Wendy checked on her.

“Yep,” Wendy said, peeking under the cap. “Exactly what I thought.”

“Is it… orange?”

Wendy chuckled and shook her head. “No. But it’s hardly lightened at all. Unfortunately, I can’t just let you sit around with bleach on your head or things really will go badly.”

Charlotte swallowed hard. “So now what?”

Wendy led her back to the chair in the main salon. “Now we rinse it out and do it again. And again. And again. Until we get the right color. That’s what’s going to take so long, hon. Beauty takes time.”

Charlotte looked at herself, her thin face and looser shirt and her hair all piled up on top of her head. Was this beauty? She didn’t think even Mamba would agree.

Wendy leaned her back in the chair and turned the water on. She splashed a little bit on Charlotte’s head. “Too hot?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Do you want your eyebrows lightened, too? We can do that much quicker near the end.”

“Why not,” Charlotte said. She’d already sunk this far into depravity, she might as well keep going.

Wendy finished rinsing out Charlotte’s hair and then conditioned it. “To help it stay healthy,” she said.

With her hair washed, Wendy then set about to slowly and thoroughly drying it, both to minimize damage and because wet hair made the bleaching process unpredictable.

“Do you want to take a peek? See if you like this shade and want to stop?”

Charlotte laughed, without humor. “A last-ditch attempt to talk some sense into me?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t want to look until it’s done.”

“Don’t want to spoil the surprise?” Wendy smiled.

Charlotte studied her hands. “Something like that.”

If she looked, if she saw herself, she thought she might chicken out. She didn’t want to see herself transform. She just wanted it to be over with so she could take a picture and send it to Mamba.

Another round of bleach went onto her hair, and then she was sent off to a back room again, where she held a magazine in her hands and pretended to care about the lives of celebrities.

More rinsing, more drying, more bleaching.

Hours of monotony.

Hours of her life, precious hours being wasted in the pursuit of a beauty standard she would never be able to comprehend.

Evening had arrived by the time Wendy finally washed and dried her hair for the last time. “Go ahead and take a look,” she encouraged. “We’re done.”

Charlotte felt herself be turned to face the mirror. She opened her eyes, slowly, and looked at herself.

At the woman she was now.

---