Ashley's Wedding (6 page)

“Apparently … by your own admission.”

“That bothers me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t let it. Resist the urge to over-analyze what’s happening to you. I just want you to be happy – maybe go with the flow for the first time, and see where it takes you.”

“And you like the direction so far, don’t you.” She smiled knowingly.

“You Betcha! Besides, I’m totally secure in my love for you and yours for me. I want to live, grow and evolve with you. So far so good. No – MUCH better than that!”

“You’re so
together
that it’s almost superhuman.”

“Ah … keep the compliments coming.”

“I guess I will if you will.”

“No problem there. That’s easy. You’re more attractive to me than ever before. My stock in you never stops going up.”

“I hope it never does.”

“I don’t think there’s a chance of that ever happening. …”

* * * * *

The fact that Jack was enamored with Susan's new look wasn't lost on Ashley, who’d taken note to use it to her advantage. The day after Jack left, she announced to the bridesmaids over lunch that she was planning a new look for all of them.

"Craig's family is coming to town on Thursday so we're going to entertain them with dinners all weekend and a dance Friday night and another pool party on Saturday. So this afternoon ..."

They were at the hairdresser, although a different one than Susan had used before. Ashley had announced, "You first Suzi," and led her to the chair. She handed the hairdresser a picture that Susan wasn't able to see. "Cut and color just like that," she said to the woman and then, to Susan, "Time to get rid of all those dark curls, Cuz. Don't worry, I actually told Jack what I had in mind and he thought it would be great. It seems that I may have done you a big favor in boosting your hubby's interest to even greater heights!"

Susan bit her lip and closed her eyes. She didn't know what was going to come, but she knew she was both physically and emotionally incapable of stopping it. The best she could hope for was that Ashley was telling the truth about Jack. Regardless, Ashley had control of Susan appearance now and would for as long as it was important to her.

Susan could hear the hairdresser snapping something and shuffling some items on her counter. Seeing Susan's eyes tightly shut and her lip between her teeth, she mumbled something about relaxing and sitting still just before Susan heard a buzzing from behind her. She felt the cold steel of a clipper guide against the back of her neck, not realizing at first what it was. Then the hard, cold clipper slid slowly up the back of her head to the top. The buzzing right between her ears drowned out any other sound. The hairdresser stroked again to the right and continued until she approached Susan's ear. Susan knew what was happening but couldn't open her eyes. She felt her short curls fall to her shoulder.

The stylist continued until the area behind Susan's ears was done, then walked around and continued from the front. Susan felt the clippers glide over her entire scalp. The hairdresser touched up a few spots here and there and then announced, "There, that wasn't so bad was it?"

Susan opened her eyes. The curls which she'd only just gotten used to were gone, replaced with a 3/8-inch buzz-cut all over. Because Susan's hair had grown out about that much, essentially all traces of the perm were gone with the curls. Her head looked spiny, its pretty oval shape exposed for all to see.

The hairdresser escorted Susan to another chair where a second stylist applied a strong-smelling solution to her buzzed hair and her pencil-line-thin eyebrows, without saying a word. She covered her sticky-wet, prickly hair with a plastic bag and sat Susan under a hairdryer for about twenty minutes. Moving Susan to another chair, she then tipped her back to a sink, rinsed her hair and applied another solution to hair and brows, leaving her in the same chair for another thirty minutes, before rinsing again.

Susan's close-cropped hair was towel-dried - that's all that was required - and the hairdresser turned her toward the mirror. A carrot-red, buzzed girl stared back at her, her own shock accentuated by her perpetually-surprised-looking, now carrot-red brows.

Ashley was right there. "Don't you just love it Suzi?! You guys are gonna be a big hit this weekend!"

Susan was too shocked to answer at all. As she sat there waiting for the others to get the same treatment, she realized that she had no remaining will to resist. In fact, partly because of Jack's enthusiasm, she made a decision right there to handle anything Ashley threw at her without getting any more distressed. If it changed her permanently, so be it; she would survive somehow, especially knowing that Jack had been genuinely excited by the changes forced on her.

Elsa was waiting for them back at Ashley's house. Elsa found a few stray eyebrows on Susan that had managed to survive or grow after the first treatment and touched them up before she left. She spent a little longer doing a clean-up in her pubic area. "That should do it for those, Suzi. You won't have to worry about stray brows anymore. Or messy pubes either. I’ll check every week or so for a while to make sure, until all the hairs are permanently gone. Now, we have to fix your eyes. Those brown eyes of yours don’t go with your new color at all.”

“What do think you’re gonna do to my eyes?” Susan asked, almost ready to yell in protest and rush from the room.

“Not to worry, Cuz,” Ashley interjected quickly. “We’re just fitting you with a pair of green-tinted contacts.”

To Susan, that wasn’t much better. “I have no intention of messing with contacts every day, Ashley.”

“Not a problem. These are 30-day lenses. We’ll pop them in now - you won’t even notice them after a minute or two – and then help you change them in 30 days – or sooner if we try something else. Meanwhile, they’ll safely stay in, day and night. Now tilt you head back, Suzi.”

Elsa held her eyelid open and popped the first contact in. Then she repeated on the other side. Susan felt some discomfort which caused her eyes to water. She closed her eyes and waited a few minutes, then opened them. The irritation was gone and she thought the lenses had washed out. Then she looked in the mirror, into the lovely green eyes that stared back at her. Hmm … she thought. They do look better with this hair color – which I don’t much care for. But I can deal with this easily enough.

“Like em?” Ashley asked.

“I can live with green eyes for a while.”

“That’s the spirit!”

* * * * *

Ashley tried to insure that Susan had a good time during the weekend. She was intent on completing her cousin's resocialization. She introduced her as "my pretty little cousin, Suzi. Don't you just love the style my bridesmaids have? And Suzi is the cutest of all of them!"

Craig’s mother had turned to her husband and grumbled, “I can’t tell them apart anyway. They’re like four clones.”

Ashley laughed along with most of the girls. Susan stared blankly. Craig’s mother couldn’t tell if Susan were surprised by her comment or just always looked surprised in general.

A week later, the soreness in her ears, nose, and pubic area was mostly gone, Susan stood in the bathroom before the full-length mirror on the shower door. The red-head with the surprised look and green eyes no longer seemed strange to her. "I look like a little kid," she thought, touching her soft, smooth, permanently-naked private area. Without thinking, her fingers strayed to her clit, which she feathered lightly with her fingertips. That was one advantage of short nails that she’d come to know on the late, lonely nights without Jack.

She tried to conjure up the stunning brunette who’d been there only a few weeks before. She could barely picture her. Those green eyes that gazed back at her from the mirror seemed to belong below the thin, carrot-red brows. The redhead pelt of her very short hairstyle completely erased any sign of the flowing, richly-brunette locks that had been there all her life. The style was so different that it made it almost impossible to remember clearly what she’d looked like with long, dark brown hair. It was hard to recall the cool feel of her freely hanging hair on her neck and shoulders, and the sensuous pleasure she’d gotten from brushing that long mane. It wasn’t so hard to forget the chore of having to wash it and waiting forever for it to dry.

Ashley told me I was like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly, she thought. I am certainly changing. I think I look pretty in spite of this strange hairstyle. I do have nice ears and the rings really set them off. The jewel in my nose doesn't look so odd now, although I don't like it - yet. My expression seems to make people like me, even if they don't take me seriously. And maybe that's OK. It certainly means I don't have to work so hard to hold up my end of the conversation. They laugh at anything I say. I guess I have a happy face, not a serious one. She tentatively smiled at herself. The reflection returned the surprised smile of a carefree, younger woman. She laughed at herself.

She was getting used to clearly seeing the shape of her head, barely concealed by the remaining hair. She ran her hand over the rude stubble. In rippled like fur and tickled her palm. There is no Susan anymore, she realized. There is just a cute little Suzi who’s still evolving into somebody else. Not unhappy, she climbed into bed. Ashley was getting her a rose tattoo on her left hip tomorrow and a butterfly on her right shoulder. That would be nice, she thought, drifting off to sleep.

Suzi and the other bridesmaids were teasing Craig about his coming wedding night. In spite of her discomfort with her own cousin, Suzi felt an increasing admiration for her cousin's beau. Craig clearly recognized Ashley's need to control others, took it lightheartedly, and refused to let Ashley get her way with him. This both infuriated Ashley and caused her to swoon over him even more. Without a doubt Craig, and probably only Craig, had the upper hand with the determined young woman. If fact, during the summer, Ashley had become even more attentive to Craig, and more solicitous to his needs. Teri had told Suzi that was because Ashley had had a fling with another guy after she'd become engaged to Craig. Ashley regretted the whole thing, which Craig never knew about, and had tried to make up for her [secret] transgression.

Craig was fascinated with how Ashley had been able to get the bridesmaids to radically change their looks for her - even though she had given bribes to some of them, but, surprisingly, apparently not to Suzi. He didn't understand it, but had to admit that his was the most interesting group of pre-nuptial events of which he'd ever heard. Craig was doubtless in love with Ashley, but nevertheless fascinated by the bridesmaids. He had become particularly fond of Suzi, the shapely little nymph whom he referred to as "my kitten-cousin." He would rub her pelt-like hairdo and tickle her until she screamed and fell, giggling, to the floor.

"You know," he said, "the changes in you girls are pretty sexy. You should talk Ashley into trying something like getting a diamond stud in her nose." Craig particularly liked the piercings, and frequently tried to persuade Ashley to try more than her single-pierced ears. Ever seeking the upper hand, she would rapidly change the subject, flashing her strikingly blue eyes - made more prominent by the dark brows that framed them - at him with such smoothness that Craig's mind seemed to skip ahead and not even remember what he’d been trying to get her to do.

Ashley, who’d been watching the impromptu get-together with detachment, perked up at Craig's comment about the stud.

"The girls look really cute with their nose diamonds," she stated, coldly, "but the true bride must be forever the sophisticated beauty, her simple, uncomplicated looks speaking for themselves.” She continued on, trying not to give anyone time for a retort.

"Actually people, I'm tired and I think we should break up this little party," a hint of jealously tainted her voice as Craig had just collapsed backwards, a bridesmaid in each arm, heaving a big sigh of "Oh God, I've heard this ‘sophisticated bride’ bullshit before!"

With the fun interrupted, everyone left, including Craig. Ashley walked up the long, curving staircase with Suzi. They paused at the top to give each other the for-cousins-only, mandatory hug and air kiss before heading off to their respective rooms. Ashley, however, paused to look Suzi over.

"You know, Cuz, you really are very pretty. I'll admit that I wasn’t sure you could pull this look off, but you have with healthy acceptance and panache. You’re even more erotically attractive like this than you were months ago when you had that mess of walnut-brown hair and that mysterious, sophisticated, no-ornamentation, no-nonsense look. Although I'd like to take full credit for improving on you, I think your own demeanor contributes a lot to how fetching you've become. You can always remember this summer as the time I set you on the path to radical change, and the time you finally blossomed into what you really are: a sexy, erotic, nymph. Your true self is now exposed to the whole world - and you wear your mood and your feelings clearly on your face, with nothing to hide behind. You don’t have the bushy hair and heavy brows to conceal you anymore. There’s no mystery there now."

Suzi didn't know how to respond. Ashley sounded sincere and seemed to mean what she’d said as a compliment. Suzi, as the receiver, wasn’t sure she agreed, although she could no longer bring herself to object to what had been or would yet be done to her.

Finally, Suzi mumbled "Thanks, Ashley. I hope what you say is true – I think. I've mostly adjusted to the changes  - and Jack certainly seems to like them. I guess, before, I was just moving in a direction that I’d set a long time ago, without giving it much thought. I certainly wasn’t evaluating what I was maturing into. I suppose I was at risk of becoming someone from an older generation without knowing it. At least you've forced me to step back and look at myself, although I never would have guessed that you’d somehow get me to change what I saw so dramatically."

With a kiss on the cheek and a, "Good-night, Cuz," they parted.

* * * * *

It was now only eight days until the wedding. Suzi was in the huge media room watching nothing in particular on the giant-screen TV. The other girls would arrive soon. After lunch, they were to make a final trip to the hairdresser for their wedding styling. Ashley hadn't told anyone what she had in mind, but Suzi wasn't particularly interested. Jack had visited again and loved her carrot-red buzz at least as much and maybe more than the short curls she’d sported on his earlier visit. He was, in Ashley's words, "fully erect" all the time he was visiting Suzi, and Suzi knew it. She was confident that he'd still be totally, erotically attracted to her, no matter what Ashley had in mind.

Her ears and nose were no longer sore at all. The piercings were completely healed, although she still took special care of them daily. The rose and butterfly tattoos had been sore and then itchy for a few days, but were also healed now. She ran her fingers over the rose on her hip. It felt just like ordinary skin, she thought. It looks like it should feel different, but it doesn't. It's just there, a very deep a part of me. Jack thought the tattoos were cute. Suzi was considering an ankle bracelet design she’d seen the last time she’d been in the tattoo parlor.

Her eyes still had the surprised look, but they now had a smoky dimension to them, brought about by the medium-thick line of permanent eyeliner that had been tattooed onto Suzi's upper and lower lids. Her lips had been done at the same time, and were a deep red. She thought they clashed with her carrot-red hair, but most people loved them. Seeing her face "made-up" in the morning when she first got out of bed, or when she just emerged from the shower, had been hard to get used to. Deep down, her mind kept trying to tell her that she must’ve forgotten to remove her make-up when she’d returned from going out the night before, but then she’d remember that what she saw would never wipe off.

Suzi stood up and gazed at her reflection in the mirror above the mantle. The young woman - no, more of a carefree girl than a woman - she saw there hadn't existed nine weeks earlier. With little effort, she could divorce herself from the reflection and study it as though it were someone else entirely. The girl was pretty in an unusual way. Her short, red, frosting of hair revealed a beautifully-shaped head, and her small ears were nicely set off by the three rings in each. Her straight, classic nose took on a more informal look because of the small diamond on its left side.

The most striking features of the face were the large green eyes, made larger by the eyeliner and the high, curved, pencil-thin brows. The permanently astonished look that the brows forced on her had been offset only a little by the deep, red, sensuous lips. The tattooing of her lips had been more painful than anything else that had been done to her. They had been swollen and sore for more than a week. And now they would be forever deep, full, and arousing regardless of how she felt, because their look was engraved on her. That was going to be tough to adjust to.

As she reached up to ripple her hair, the detachment dissolved and she reconnected with the image. She was a very different woman now than she had been at the beginning of the summer. Her appearance was radically different, and her feelings about herself had changed as well. She was no longer the classically lovely, typical (and boring, she admitted) wife and homemaker. She was exotic and erotic. She was aroused more easily, by Jack and by men in general. She loved to be touched. She even liked Craig's playful antics with her hair. She spent more time on her makeup each day than she had in a whole week before. Her appearance was more important to her than it’d ever been during the time before, when she knew she’d been more beautiful than she was now.

She thought of her life in two phases, before and now. Whoever she’d been before, she was no longer that woman. Ashley had seen to it that the beauty of that other woman was just a quickly fading memory, replaced by the evident and very real appearance of the erotic creature she'd become. As her appearance had changed, the way others treated her changed, and the two together had inevitably forced a change in how she regarded herself.

Her reverie ended as the doorbell rang. Her fellow bridesmaid, Miki, burst into the room in her usual, hyper-active fashion. She put her arm around Suzi and spun her around playfully.

Miki and Suzi had become close friends over the summer. They'd shared a lot of experiences and some anxiety as a part of Ashley's entourage. They were virtually the same height and weight. With the cosmetic changes, they looked almost identical, except for Miki's slightly fuller face. Suzi chuckled at that thought; before the changes, Miki had been a pale blond with thick but light-colored brows, blue eyes and pale lips – in other words, she’d basically looked exactly the opposite of Suzi. Miki’s state-of-mind had been less affected by the changes than Suzi’s. She was simply not much concerned about her looks. By her own admission, she didn’t have a self-image in that way. That was probably why she'd accepted Ashley's bridesmaid proposal - $20,000 to let Ashley have her way. As family, Suzi had refused the money, although she suspected that her aunt would eventually figure out a way to get her to take it.

The two friends sat down to chat while awaiting the others.

"What is she going to do to us today?" Suzi wondered out loud.

"I don't think there's much she can change at this point," Miki offered. "I guess we'll know in a little while.

"You know, Suzi, I've been thinking. Perhaps we ought to consider getting Ashley a wedding present from all of the bridesmaids together. She and Craig are staying at a local hotel on their wedding night, and heading to Europe for their honeymoon the next night. Maybe we could surprise her with a gift the morning after the wedding. We could distract Craig for a while ..."

Suzi began to realize where she was heading.

* * * * *

They were at the hairdresser’s again and, as before, Suzi was the first one up. She sat in the chair facing the other bridesmaids, not the mirror, while Betty, the hairdresser, put a cape around her. Suzi was anxious to get it done, but not nervous like she’d been on other visits. This would be the last trip here on Ashley. After the wedding, she’d once again do what she wanted with her hair. Surprising to her, she didn't know what that would be just yet. It would certainly take too long to try to grow it out like it had been before she came to visit Ashley – probably three to four years or more. Besides, her heavy, sexy brows were gone for good and the long hair would probably not look at all right without them. Perhaps, with the pencil brows and deep red lips, she could be a blond - maybe a champagne color. Or maybe she'd keep her hair very short and its natural dark brown, or even dye it black. There would be plenty of time to decide. Maybe Jack would have a preference. If so, that’s almost certainly what she’d do. Suzi was surprised at how little she cared, one way or another.

Her mostly shorn head felt quite natural at the moment. There was a slight breeze from a fan that was trying to improve the circulation of the air-conditioning. It felt cool and tickling as it rippled her short bristles. Her scalp seemed much more alive that it had when her hair was long. At least, she was much more aware of it.

Betty was running her fingers through Suzi's 5/8-inch-long buzz. It had been almost two weeks since it had been touched up and the bristles were now long enough to muss slightly as Betty massaged her scalp. The touches relaxed Suzi and she closed her eyes, relishing Betty's caresses. Betty then asked her to sit still as she reached for the clippers on her shelf.

Suzi kept her eyes closed, anticipating the cool steel on her head. Betty gently pushed her head forward. Suzi heard the "click-buzz" and once again she felt the familiar, friendly metallic touch in the back. The clippers glided slowly up her neck and the back of her head. They caressed her scalp at the same time they freed her from whatever hair Ashley had decided to take from her this time. They paused at her crown, dropped to her neck again, and began to rise up in another strip to the left. Betty touched her scalp where she had just clipped and Suzi realized that the remaining hairs were little more than just whiskers. The realization made her wet between her legs. She resisted the urge to reach below her short skirt and touch herself secretly, even though she was covered by the smock she wore.