Signs & Wonders

“You have steady hands.”

“You’re just noticing this now?” Claire’s laughter is a honeyed tremor; Matt’s sitting in a chair on her kitchen floor, wearing one of her tee shirts. It hadn’t been exactly shapeless on her, and the way it fit him would have been mildly distracting to both of them if not for the infinitely more distracting matter at hand.

One of her hands is on the back of his neck, her thumb playing at his nape like she’s testing the length of the hairs there – they prickle against her skin, and Matt has to suppress a shiver. The minuteness of the feeling doesn’t preclude it being mind-blowing – he has to focus on the soles of his feet, the way his socks feel inside his shoes or on the way his thumb presses into the side of his wrist, or he’ll get lost chasing that kind of sensation.

Maybe he’s always liked having his hair played with, he’s not sure. He never really had those kinds of friendships before, certainly not that kind of family life. Claire has elevated it to a beautiful gesture: messing his hair up worse when he’s a beat-up mess but not messy enough not to find it funny; stroking the crown of his head when they’re in bed together, while her own silk-spiraling hair pours down her shoulder like water, tickling against his throat. Rubbing her thumb against the gentle hollow at the back of his head. It’s different. It’s nice.

Her hands on his face, steadying his temple while the shears neaten up on the other side. Matt’s eyelashes are fluttering from the effort to stay perfectly, perfectly still while she works.

Claire takes a step back, spread-out newspaper crunching beneath her feet – she might be making a gesture, and he must look like he’s about to ask because she fills him in, “I’m just getting a look at you. Don’t worry, I haven’t done anything catastrophic.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.” Some day he might want a buzz cut, but that is not today. Still, he trusts Claire – to know what he should look like when he’s put together correctly.

“Shorter on the sides, or no? I didn’t touch your sideburns, just trimmed them up a little; you’ll want to keep those, I’m guessing.” She passes two fingers lightly down his temple, giving him an approximate impression of length but a very definite impression of her deftness – Matt must be breathing funny by now, because Claire is struggling not to laugh.

Matt lowers his chin. “Thank you for this.”

Claire leans in from behind and scruffs his chin; he can feel the warmth of her body settling against his back, the swell of her breasts grazing his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s fun for me too, you know.” Her lips brush his ear, raising a prickle of blush across Matt’s face. “Are electric shears all right with you?”

“Yeah, they should be.”

“I’m just going to bring things up a little in the back.” She laces her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, tugging lightly by way of demonstration.

“Why did you own an electric razor in the first place?”

“I told you, friends of mine used to let me do this all the time back in school. I got kind of good.”

“Did those friends of yours pay you?” They better have paid her – Claire is good at what she does, in every arena, and deserving of compensation that’s better than Matt’s. He’ll have to make up for this somehow later – maybe not in kind. Probably in the shower together.

Claire unwraps the cord, spooling it out in her hands, and plugs the razor in. “I only did it for the really good ones.”

The buzz of the razor cuts through the air like a siren, and even before it touches his skin a shiver racks him – Claire strokes the back of his neck comfortingly, a long stroke that ends somewhere between his shoulder blades, and Matt hunches up against the weird thrill of anticipation that just that sound lends. That’s the part that makes going to the barber a little difficult, even though he’s been seeing the same guy for three-plus years before the whole man-in-mask thing started – just that sound makes his toes curl inside his shoes, his hands grip tighter.

“Still good?” Claire asks.

“Yes.”

The coolness of the guard against his skin is the first thing that really registers clearly, and not a blurry confrontation of motion and sound – it carves a chilly stripe, and her first gentle upward strokes with the razor send a frisson directly to the pit of his stomach. On second thought, a little lower. He could lose himself like this – Claire’s steady touch turning a hellstorm of sensation into something steadier and calmer, like a caress. It still pours through him, like electricity – and it’s all he can do not to squirm.

In lieu of bringing the blade too close to the skin, she just sort of draws it up, little by little in small strokes to bevel out the length – this is easier on the senses, but still leaves Matt halfway breathless. So close to his skin, the vibration skirts just this side of numbing – Matt parts his lips, drawing in a dry little breath. Claire’s voice directing him to lift his chin, or to stay as he is, the intimate proximity of her, has him faintly stunned somehow – the tug and pull without pain, scalp tingling and mouth dry with serene pleasure.

When the clear buzz stops, Matt has to catch his breath – Claire wipes at the back of his neck with a damp washcloth, and it’s almost too much. For a moment she pauses, setting aside her razor and brushing off the blade; this is enough for the pleasurable ache to dissipate a little. It gives him a moment to center himself. Claire’s pretty circumspect about cleaning her instruments.

She rakes through his hair with her fingers to fluff out the cuttings, before giving him a few cursory passes with a comb – Matt’s chin lifts almost involuntarily, presenting himself for it. Claire presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“You can touch now.”

Matt puts up his hands to feel – his newly-cut hair is smooth under his hands, lying close against his skull and it leaves his palms tingling. He’d used Claire’s soap beforehand, and now everything smells like tea tree oil and peppermint and whatever’s in the water here, the odd indescribable smell of apartment buildings with old plumbing in them. It’s not a bad combination; it smells like her.

The finished result feels right. He reaches out to take her arm, smiling – a little loopily, probably, given that his whole face still kind of tingles.

“So how do I look?”

“You look great, if I do say so myself. Do you feel good about it?”

Her work is every bit as neat as the stitches crossing his abdomen, and considerably less taxing for the both of them. Matt leans back, drawing a long beatific breath.

“I feel good.”