O’Melissokomos
The Bee Keeper

Fant-C Hair: (H)imported Muscle

by Mango Deville

Let me start by telling you that I’ve always hated what I look like. Especially my hair (but more than that too). For example, I was curly haired when straight was all the rage; had the “wrong curls” when curls were finally fashionable... was brown-haired when blond was “in” then grey (and thinning) when brown was again fine! People wondered why I constantly changed hair styles and treated it with disdain (died, straightened, sometimes both at once). Even had it cut off completely one time nominally for charity (might as well do something useful with the idiotic stuff). Sometimes I even thought that that was what had made me gay, I’d look at guys with hair I envied and that would lead on to admiring their faces and bodies and so forth..

And then there’s my body shape. When I was young I was pot-bellied but skinny when I really wanted to be either trim or stocky (and started lifting weights to try to head in that direction). But somehow stocky, when finally achieved from gradually bulking up as much through middle age spread than regular gym work, was no longer anywhere lean enough! And there was always my wide waist, not really pot-bellied anymore (well, most of the time) but it never curved inwards either at the sides! Tried a few of these modern low-carb diets to try and shift the weight off my middle (I’m immune to them it seems).

Yes, the gym work and especially aerobic exercise helped improve my shape and tone but it’s hard to keep up the required pace at my age - nearly 50! If I was a muscle bear, as I wouldn’t have minded, the bear was still winning over the muscle, albeit only a moderately haired bear, at least. I told myself dressing carefully and with my just over 6 foot height at least those helped hide the blob I felt I really was.

Speaking of gym that where I’d been seeing “him”, for a while now. Well, being in the same room as “him”. “He” was what I so wished I could look like. Nice face, classic high cheekbones but masculine too, string chin. And though clean shaven (so many guys even his probably decade-younger-than-me’s age have a mo’, a goatee or even a full beard at the moment) it was nice to know if “he” ever did grow facial hair it wouldn’t be to hide any imperfections.

“His” wavy mid-brown hair probably lightened under the sun’s influence in summer just enough to glisten? Smooth skin that I suspected also tanned to a nice pleasant colour, never looking faked, and also still looking healthy in its mid-winter paleness. And with minimal body hair in just the right places..

Unlike me “He” was built like a proper (unsteroided) athletic, lean and toned and slim waisted in just the right combination to show through “his” clothing (though me being gay, a bit more muscle could never be a bad thing, as long as it wasn’t into Muscle Morph freakishness... then again...?).

And in fact I had seen him chugging down muscle growth protein drinks at the end of his workout a few times – despite them being good stuff (I used them too) he never seemed to get any bigger. But that was still okay by me.
“He” wasn’t gay, I’m about 95% sure of it. There’s a certain something about a gay guy that others pick up - they used to call it using their “gaydar” before that became a cliché (and possibly a registered trademark!). And that wasn’t going off, as much as I couldn’t keep my eyes off “him” (discreetly).

Also his clothing never seemed tight enough or out there enough for “him” to be gay (but that’s a stereotype, I suppose). Even on the day in question “he” wore just a simple maroon T-shirt and dark blue shorts and plain trainers, all of which were suitable for purpose but not at all stylish.

But “he” also wasn’t oozing testosterone out of every pore (and so none of the associated hairy sweatiness) but was most definitely male. A real man. A gentle man and quite obviously a gentleman too, in fact. Not needing to use many words yet strong inside, as much as “his” athletic musculature also bespoke reasonable physical strength.

Actually “he” also reminded me of a guy I know, Don (“Donald only to my mother” he used to say), both physically and in attitude. Don lives overseas and after finding each other online in a non-sexual shared hobby (muscle cars of our respective countries) sort of way we’d discovered we were both gay - I came out to him first! And when he broke up with his long-time partner (his first) in all the confusing emotions he once proposed that maybe we were destined to be together. To my later regret I put him off, I’d never even seen a picture of him (he seen a few of me but wanted to remain a mystery) let alone been in the same country at the same time; how could we make a life together even if he said he would consider moving here?

Anyway, when I did go and visit and he met me off the plane (somehow I recognised him immediately) I never actually felt that he could ever have found me attractive enough to “propose” to. He was very slightly younger then me, less than 6 months; yeah I knew that already, but I didn’t expect the rest of it. He turned out to be tall, with thick dirty blond hair (and wavy like “his”), and with impressive gym honed muscles (unpretentiously maintained, I discovered, that is, not for anyone’s benefits but his own health and comfort). Oh, and golden tanned, in Fall still!

He liked me in person too, fortunately. But it was certainly not a case of love at first sight (nor lust, no surprise there to me) but boy there were times since that I wished it had been. I would certainly have returned it. But I’d done my dash, I guess, and he’d moved on. Plus I could never get over how beautiful he was, and thus how un-beautiful I felt in comparison.
Being friends would have to do. Solid ones though, even if an ocean apart. Sometimes it felt like we were more brothers than my real brothers and me. Especially the time Don came to visit me, in part to indulge in our shared hobby, but also I think just a little to check me out in my home environment.

However, I used to imagine what it might have been like if I had looked differently back then when we first met - might he have been more of a mind to drop the (unsatisfactory though I didn’t know it at the time) guy he was having his next relationship with by then and our story might have been different. What if I had looked like “him” at the gym? The more I thought about it the more they looked alike; cousins or yes, perhaps even, brothers, my friend the elder but not by the decade as it really was (his four to five times a week gym routine, easily twice my recent efforts, must certainly have something to do with his more youthful appearance compared to me). I really shouldn’t think about it. It’s depressing.

* * *

On that day I didn’t see it on the way in - you’d think I would have, smack there off to the quiet side of the hotel lobby near the entrance to the gym that I (we, if you include “him”?) go to. “Fanta-C Hair” the big bright orange sign writing said. Obviously only just opened; maybe I should have come in to the gym in the last week instead of letting the couch potato inside me win out; maybe then I would have seen them setting up before that day. Anyway I noticed it on the way out. Well, with hair intentionally freshly washed and ready for the usual “attack of the crazed hairdressers” (my normal salon is only half a block away) I decided to sneak a look inside and saw a fairly standard looking barber’s shop, with the main feature being large mirrors on the two long walls facing each other with the workspace in the middle. But more importantly, one of the two barber’s chairs was already occupied. Occupied by “him”.

“Come in, come in! You won’t have to wait long! In fact I’m quite adept at cutting two at once”. Since I normally have to wait at least a short while at the other place (I should book!), I tumbled in and took up residence in the empty chair, nodding to “him” in the other; our first ever communication! Okay, so “him” being there clinched the deal somewhat, I admit it. “And I need you, anyway!” the barber continued. But I didn’t concentrate on him very long to wonder what he meant. Probably if anything I thought he meant he needed some customers, being newly opened after all.

He stopped combing out “His” hair, which of course was always a fair bit longer then mine, and sprayed it with something out of a pump bottle. “Just let that sink in a bit and I’ll be back with our special face cream in a jiffy”, the barber said to “him”. He came back towards me and seemingly from thin air produced a see-thru barber’s protective sheet and deftly placed it over my clothes and secured it gently in place around my neck. He then grabbed the pump bottle and before I could protest that my hair was already wet, he’s sprayed my whole head of hair, saying “This is a special treatment; don’t worry you’ll really like what your hair looks like afterwards”, seemingly understanding that I was about to say that wetting my hair was unneeded. “All included in the price”, he added. I couldn’t help wondering what the cost of all this was going to be, but for some reason I dismissed the thought almost as soon as I’d had it.

He turned back to “him” and produced out of his apron a small pot of what I assume must have been the face cream he had mentioned before. Taking a healthy amount he smeared it on “his” face and when “he” closed “his” eyes I notice him gently covering them thinly with it too. “That’s unusual!” I thought.

The barber then turned back to me too and presented a similar amount of cream on his hands towards me. “I don’t know about that..” I said.

“It’s completely safe and you will love what this does to your face!”

Again, somehow I knew straightaway that what he was saying was true, any doubts immediately vanished.

“He spread the soft cool cream evenly over my face, even into my grey moustache and goatee. I watched as the barber reached over to “him” and take a bit of excess cream off his forehead. Strangely not worrying at all about the hygiene aspects of it I didn’t feel the least concerned when he spread it over my forehead and rubbed it gently in. Well, it was taken from “him” after all. Then as the barber reached up to my eyes I instinctively closed them for him to rub it gently onto the lids, as I had just seen happen with “him”.

I heard the barber move back to “Him” and now it sounded as if he was combing the hair treatment through “his” hair. Sure enough, a minute or so later he was doing the same to mine. But strangely as he was doing so instead of short strokes as I’d expect each stroke seemed to take just that bit longer and feel easier to get thru. Maybe that was part of the effect, making it silkier and easier to comb (always a problem with mine).

Soon he’d finished and left me to sit for a while and I heard the snipping of the scissors located over where the other chair was. It seemed no time at all and he was back to me and doing the same. I was surprised since my hair was fairly short to start with (many straight friends were now used to when I complained it was too long and then subsequently emerged with it much shorter) that the barber hadn’t started with the clippers. He seemed somehow to know what I was thinking and spoke to reassure me, “I don’t think clippers do hair any good – I like to cut with these special scissors”.
Soon he was gone again. Although he’d been cutting so for a few minutes I wondered how he could have cut anywhere near enough for my desired length (which admittedly I realised he hadn’t asked about) but when I tried to open my eyes I found it too hard; it was almost as though they were glued shut by the cream, though he’d been careful to avoid the eye openings themselves.

“Hold on there, Champ”, he called, seemingly knowing what I was trying to do from a few feet away. “You’ve got a moment longer before I wash your face off and you can look”.
Unbeknownst to me he had started wiping what remained of the cream off “him” and then when I felt him next to me I realised he’d came to do the same to me. A warm damp cloth with a slightly rough surface was wiped around my face and then gently placed over my eyes.

I felt him stand back but at the same time he grabbed the centre of the cloth protecting my clothes and with a flourish he removed it (apparently he was standing between us and duplicating the movements for both of us) and I found I could open my eyes, blinking slightly from the light and a bit blurry but with no other discomfort.

My eyes cleared and then they nearly shot out of my head – looking back at me in the mirror was not the image of myself I was expecting.. it was that of “him”, but still wearing my checked business shirt and suit pants! I moved my head and opened my mouth and the image of “him” mimicked my movements.

Suddenly I thought to myself “But if I’m “him” what about “him” “himself”? Are we twins now or something?” I turned my head to look at “him”.

But instead of “him” I saw my friend Don (“What the?!”), however he was acting much the same way as I was – looking at himself in the mirror with incredulity? But as he turned his head to look at me, I saw he saw what I now looked like and he started to grin.

“Oh, WOWl!” he shouted.

“Don!” I responded.

“Dom! Silly boy, Do-o-M-MM!” he scolded me softly and with a wide grin “You know.. Dom-in-ic, though only to my mother” (and suddenly I knew that). “And YOU know, Dom by name, Dom by nature” his smirk lighting up his face.

“Yeah sure” I responded while smirking just as much, knowing full well we were very much equal partners in bed and in life! Maybe it’s because we’re the same age, well, he’s slightly older then me, less than 6 months, we’ve never quite known. And at the same time I wondered how I knew all that, none of that was the case just a short while ago (and weren’t we not far off 50, not smack in the middle of our 40s as suddenly I knew we were?). But those thoughts receded to the back of my mind as quickly as they had come to the front of it barely a moment before.

He jumped out of the chair and I did too and we embraced; for me it was both like the first time we’d ever done so but also like we’d been doing it for ever. Our mouths met and our tongues entwined like they were meant to, the same as always from the day we’d actually first been physically in the same room together (which was, oh yeah, that first day in the airport when I went to see him. The day that began our new lives as finally completed soul-mates. The day from which we’d never really been separated physically or emotionally since. Wow, why is this suddenly both new to me but also just established fact both at the same time?).

“Hold on, guys” the Barber said, “You’re not quite there yet”. With that we separated enough and he took the opportunity to spray us each and together with the contents of another pump bottle. Suddenly, I felt weak and he guided me back to my chair, and then did the same for Dom.

My eyes were glued to our images in the mirror for some reason, but as I watched my body felt tingly and I could see my skin puffing out but at the same time darkening, just a little, like I was acquiring a gentle suntan. Dom’s was doing the same. My hair was lightening, ever so slightly and starting to glisten. His, which was of course already dark blond, was soon a lot lighter too, and shining in the bright lights of the shop. But our muscles were growing, not slowly like a pump in the gym but quickly. As I watched I guessed they must have pumped up 10 percent or no, maybe 20 and then suddenly they were perhaps 50 per cent more than what they’d started at. I was incredibly buff by the time they’d stopped changing but Dom who was already way in front of me in the big muscle department was a veritable bodybuilding text book case! At the same time my clothes started to get uncomfortably tight, especially in the crotch of my pants, and I noticed Dom wriggling a bit in his chair too.

I glanced over to him and saw his maroon T-shirt stretch and darken and it reformed into a shiny black rubberised Tank and I saw that the straps narrowed at the back to emphasise the immense width of his shoulders, in case they needed such accentuation! His slightly baggy shorts changed, losing all semblance of blue dye and becoming a sexy grey-white stone-washed denim colour, stretching in the legs till they were just below his knees, and tapering slightly, filled with his now incredibly thick thighs, and golden hairs just visible on his golden brown meaty calves. A bubble butt – something I suddenly realised my friend Don had never had (his one and only flaw, to me) – was now filling the seat of his new jean shorts in an incredibly sexy way. On his feet the non-descript trainers he’d been wearing grew and moulded themselves until they were pair of 12 hole Doc Martins’ boot, all shiny and black and tightly fitted to his now size 14 feet.

Then I could feel changes happening to my clothes; the short sleeved shirt I was wearing suddenly reshaped itself, the sleeves pulling back into the body and the check pattern disappearing, the breast pocket shrinking and becoming just a logo in the same position (which was now stretched tightly across my now shapely pecs). The collar receded and changed texture into a knitted one with a small black band; essentially it had become a tight white sleeveless polo! My nearly mountainous shoulders stood proud of the bodice in a very becoming way! However, the pants had simultaneously shrunk too; they had formed themselves into a pair of black leather cargo pants, just loose enough for my now thick muscular thighs to move in comfortably. But definitely tight enough to show off my assets, both my front and rear ones! Meanwhile my oxford brogue shoes had morphed into black trainers (size 12, I’d guess), with my grey socks bleaching out to white except for a black band at the top and shrinking down to match the cut lines on the sporty shoes.

“There you go, guys, you’re both done!” the barber said, interrupting both of our reveries.

“Oh, Wow!” Dom repeated. And then suddenly more business-like turned to the barber and asked “How much do we owe you?”

“Well, actually, guys, if you want to do me a favour and promote my business this one can be on me” he replied with a smile. He reached over and grabbed some business cards and thrust them into my hand and I clasped them tightly.

“Now I’ve called for them to bring your car around, so you can go and make some happy” he continued with a wink, adding “Just don’t forget to spread the word around”.
We took it turns shaking his hand with great relish, both grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat!

Dom pulled me by the shoulder close to him and put his arm around my waist and we left the barber’s shop and made our way to the front of the hotel lobby. Just as we got there I couldn’t help but take a glance back in the direction we’d both just come. But for some reason I couldn’t see the big sign proclaiming “Fanta-C Hair”; I even twisted around a bit away from Dom to try to see it – it was like it had vanished.

I then remembered the business cards in my hand; I looked at the top one and saw it only had no address or phone details, only a large “Fanta-C Hair” in orange, followed by “We come to you and make your dreams come true!”. They were all the same!

“C’mon, Him.. er Jim!” he said, smirking widely again as he reminded us both of the way my name was sometimes pronounced by “the natives” on our Mexican honeymoon way back in ‘02! “Never mind that now”.

I smiled back at him and we kissed, while people around us looked on enviously – why not, we’d always made such an impressive couple, I suddenly thought – and intertwined hands as we exited the building and walked over to his car, his classic black coupe, the “imported muscle car” (as I’d christened it) that he’d brought over with him when he moved over after the honeymoon (and to go with “my imported muscle man” as I’d christened him!).

Oh I love him so much – and I love being me (the new “me”) – even though I still remember the old me enough to tell you my story!

END

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