Chapter Three

“Lay back and relax, Madame.” Celine purred as she expertly twirled a large hair cape over Courtney’s front and secured it under her chin. It was pink. Because it just had to be pink. “This is a beauty salon, not an interrogation room. We pride ourselves on providing the most pleasurable experience possible.”

Both mother and daughter were reclined in the old-school styling chairs as the two assistants removed the neck rests and wheeled portable wash basins into place behind their heads.

Courtney tried to loosen her bunched muscles but the backwards angle of her body and the way the vinyl-padded chair positioned her with her throat exposed felt a lot like a visit to the dentist. Something she had never been very fond of growing up.

It was childish, she knew.

“Just chill and let the professionals work, Courts.” Violet chortled from under her own tablecloth-sized cape. Hers was a pale aureolin yellow. “It’s our girls' day out together, remember? Oh my… Adam, what big hands you have. That kind of tickles.”

“Thank you, Miss.” The dark-haired young man replied formally as he freed her shoulder length golden hair from the habitual ponytail and gathered it into the ergonomically shaped wash bowl. “Please let me know if the water temperature is not to your liking.”

“No fear there, I like it hot.”

Courtney rolled her eyes and slumped back into the squeaky cushioning as Celine let down her own caramel locks. The background music had progressed from solo violin to Peruvian pan pipes. Soft and soothing.

That was nice. The cloying hairspray scent in the air seemed less pervasive now too.

Monsieur Claude had retreated to the back office to ruminate or pray or some such nonsense, leaving them in the hands of his two underlings. Courtney didn’t much care for the man himself but had to admit his assistant's had a deft touch.

“Mmmmm, that’s nice.” She conceded as the modelesque Frenchwoman began to comb her lacquered nails through Courtney’s tangled tresses and massage her tingling scalp. “How long have you worked for Mister Bimbeau?”

“I sought out Monsieur Claude after a fashion show in Barcelona eleven years ago.” Celine hummed in her lyrically accented english. “I was blinded by the brilliance of his genius and he accepted me as a kindred spirit, sharing his vision of what beauty could be… rather than what it was at that time.”

“Eleven years?” Courtney moaned, as a warm stream of water was poured over her brow, down into her hairline from a stainless steel decanter. “You can’t have been more than a teenager that long ago.”

“I was twenty seven years of age. An underpaid cosmetologist. One amongst many. Monsieur Claude plucked me from obscurity and gave my empty life a new purpose.”

Courtney tried to do the math in her mind. That would mean the raven-haired stylist was almost forty, wouldn’t it? That couldn’t be true. She barely looked a day over twenty.

…But it was hard to be sure of her numbers with those incredibly skilled fingers working pure magic on her scalp and rubbing her tired temples. She let her heavy eyelids drift shut with bliss.

“Let us speak about you, Madame.” Celine said, her voice gentle as her firm touch worked out a knot of tension Courtney hadn’t realized she was carrying at the base of her skull. “What does your husband do for work?”

“Not married.” Courtney groaned in relief. Ignoring the fact that the first question about herself was related to someone else entirely. A masculine figure who didn’t exist in her life. “Never married. Single.”

“A single mother, how terrible. I am sorry.” The French miracle worker commiserated. “Maybe things will be different for you after today. I have often seen Monsieur Claude work life-changing wonders.”

It would normally have been Courtney’s knee-jerk reaction to snort at the presumption. Or Snap off a witty retort about women’s independence from the traditional… what was it called again?

Another cascade of luxuriously warm water down across her relaxed skull seemed to wash the objection away like the waves a receding tide.

“Mmmhmmm… life-changing is right.” Violet let out a throaty moan that bordered on sounding inappropriate in a public setting. “Oh, Adam, that feels amazing. Don’t ever stop.”

“Thank you, Miss.” His reply was deep and rumbly for one so young. It also lacked the continental accent of his co-worker.

“Not a man of many words, huh? That’s fine, just let those strong hands do all the talking.”

Courtney cracked an eye open in irritation at her daughter’s brazen flirtation, only to find Celine’s stunning countenance filling her vision with an expression of genuine concern.

“Certainly you desire a man. A husband, yes?” She asked, quiet but earnest. “Someone for you to love and care for. A protective figure to shelter you from hardship and provide for your family.”

What had begun as a question ended as a statement. A given. A fact.

Rolling the words around in her quibbling mind, Courtney couldn’t find anything wrong with them on a personal level. It would be nice to share the load for once, but to say she needed a man went against some long-held principles…

“We shall now proceed to shampoo and treat your hair.” Celine announced, interrupting her chain of thought with a meaningful nod to Adam. “Blend number fifteen will do nicely, I think.”

Violet felt like she was melting into the rubbery cushions of the hairdressing chair.

It was disappointing that Monsieur Claude wasn’t there, giving her his personal attention. She had even taken a free “french for beginners” class online last night in preparation of impressing him, though that turned out to be a total bust.

She should have known better. Parisians, was she right?

But she had found him! Taking the one in a million chance to discover if the rumors were true and track down the world famous–if mildly controversial–fashionista in her jerkwater home town.

That was unkind, she knew. Frederick was a perfectly fine place to grow up, but it was also as dead as the local rags obituary column. Violet wanted some pizzazz in her life. Some razzle dazzle. More than just a quiet place to live that geriatric upstate tourists visited to view the leaves changing color in the fall.

So finding Monsieur Claude here of all places, only to be greeted with barely restrained derision had been a mixed bag of emotions.

He was infamous for his changeable temperament. Viper-tongued and prone to fits of passion, as his peers would repeatedly report throughout interviews and news articles, but none regarding him as anything less than a visionary despite his personality flaws.

Though Violet hadn’t lied to her mom–to Courts–when she described Claude’s acidic words and toxic attitude as part of the theater. The true-to-life experience.

“How does that feel, Miss? Please let me know if you are in any discomfort.”

Then there was Adam. What a complete contrast to her hero in the flesh!

The few photos of Monsieur Claude had been carefully situated as to never reveal his smaller stature, always posed alone in front of blank, neutral toned backgrounds with no props or other people to lend perspective to his diminutive height.

Adam was tall, dark and handsome taken to a new ****. Broad shouldered, softly spoken, and polite to a fault. Perhaps a tad too formal–he hadn’t responded to any of her suggestive wordplay–but awfully attentive with an adroit touch that was reducing her young body to pliable putty.

Smelled good too. Musky, salty and manly. His natural aroma pierced through the salon’s pungent chemical funk without a hint of the offensive Axe body spray her undiscerning male classmates seemed to purchase in bulk.

“Feels… It feels good. A little hot around the roots though.”

Violet's dirty blonde locks were mounded in a wet lathered mess in the U-shaped wash basin surrounding her tipped-back skull. Out of the corner of her eye it appeared like far more than her shoulder length cut should account for but Adam just kept running his soapy fingers through her hair and.. tugging at base as though trying to yank something loose.

It hurt a little, but it also felt good. Like, really good. The jerking movements of her skull translated to a more heated reaction down below.

“A perfectly normal reaction, Miss–”

“Call me Vi. Oh gawd, Adam, please call me Vi.” She gasped as he wrenched her head back with a particularly rough pull which had her squeezing her thighs together.

“It’s a perfectly normal reaction, Miss Vi.” He said again, piling another looping handful of sudsy golden strands into the shiny chrome wash bowl before reaching for her head again. “Simply let me know if you wish me to stop.”

“Don’t stop… Mmmnff~! Never stop…”

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