Jealous of the Curls

I keep staring at the mirror because I cannot bring myself to look anywhere else. The black cape covers me from neck to ankles. The words emblazoned across my chest feel impossible to ignore, DUMB CUNT. Every time I try to focus on something else, my eyes drift back to them.

Around me, the seven women continue chatting as casually as though they are preparing a customer for a routine trim instead of dismantling my life. Valeria glides behind the chair and gathers a handful of my curls. "Now this," she says, lifting the dark ringlets for the others to admire, "is genuinely unfair." Several of the women nod.

"I've always been jealous of the curls," Marina admits.

"They never frizz," Nessa says.

"They frame her face perfectly," Reina adds.

I try to jerk my head away. "Stop touching me."

Valeria simply smiles. "You really are a dumb cunt, Bells, and now you're going to pay the price." The room laughs. My stomach knots. There is no anger in her voice, no malice, only the certainty of someone who knows she has already won. The scissors appear in her hand.

My defeated eyes register nothing. Valeria keeps her hand fisted in my hair to prevent any escape attempts on my part. Not that it really matters. I am utterly defeated and the thought of escape no longer exists in her mind. Instead, I sit there, dull eyed and complaint.

"You're... you're really gonna do it?" Reina excitedly inquires as Valeria raises the scissors.

"Yes," answers the smiling Vampiress. She bends close and stares into my eyes. I continue to stare dumbly at the mirror as Valeria quickly opens and closes the scissors several times. "Huh," she shrugs, "it would seem that Bells has left the building! Oh well, guess she wont get to enjoy the show... but, we will!"

In fact, I am anything but unaware of what is happening to my once beautiful appearance. I am acutely aware of every sound, every sight, from the snicking sound of the scissors to the metallic taste of fear on my tongue. Each and every sensation is being burned indelibly onto the record of my mind.

The Vampiress reaches out, grabbing me by the hair and pulling my head sharply back. Staring directly into my defeated eyes she asks, "You ready to get bare, bitch? Totally bare?" Her other hand fondles my long dark curls.

I immediately tense. "Valeria." The first metallic snip cuts through the room. A thick lock of hair tumbles into my lap. My breath catches. "No." Another snip and another curl falls. The women watch with open fascination. When the first snipping of scissors funds my ears, I finally realize that all is lost. Slowly at first, Valeria begins hacking away at my pride and joy.

As the rough cutting accelerates in pace, my head is jerked roughly from side to side. I find new depths of despair in which to wallow. Valeria is stealing the thing that had set me apart, that had given me an edge in the grand competition among the fairer sex. Without my beautiful, dark curls, I am just another face in the crowd.

Drusilla leans forward slightly. "Such beautiful hair."

"Was beautiful hair," Callista corrects.

I stare at the dark curls scattered across the cape. They were part of me. Now they are nothing more than debris. Valeria works methodically. She takes her time. The others offer commentary like judges at a beauty competition. Before long, handfuls of dark curls cover my lap.

Valeria continues to hack away at my curls, and soon the entire group is laughing hysterically at the damaged little being in the mirror, who had been a beautiful woman only a short time ago. "Oh my god!" cries the Kitsune as she gasps for breath, "That is the ugliest hair cut I have ever seen!"

As Valeria continues to chop at my ragged locks, the Empusa comments "She looks like an escaped mental patient!" As my eyes travel about the room full of tormentors, only one person isn't laughing is Marins, the Siren. Her mouth open, eyes wide, her hand surreptitiously strokes her pussy beneath her dress.

My reflection begins looking wrong in a way that is difficult to describe. Every falling curl strips away a little more of the woman I am accustomed to seeing in the mirror. The balance of my face changes. The familiar shape of my silhouette disappears piece by piece.

What remains looks uneven, damaged, and unfinished, like a portrait someone abandoned halfway through painting. Each new lock that lands in my lap makes the feeling worse. I keep telling myself it is only hair, that it will grow back, but the reassurance rings hollow.

The women laugh again. I hate them. I hate every one of them. Yet all I can do is sit there. Eventually Valeria steps aside. The woman staring back at me already feels less like Jezebel James and more like someone wearing a rough mask. My once beautiful hair has been reduced to a ragged, uneven mess. I barely recognize the woman staring back at me.