Skinhead and yuppie
Part 2
by Cager
I was a romantic despite the cynicism I projected in my job. This tough skinhead yob had abused me - he had shaved me, pissed on me, humiliated me and yet for the next week what I remembered most was the kiss. Sure, the abuse had touched something in me but until I had met him it was unacknowledged - something hidden deep in the dark places of my psyche where I was unwilling to go rummaging. He had brought them out to the light but I wasn't ready to confront them yet, to see what place they might have in my life. Kissing was different - that I could relate to, that I felt was something I wanted more of. Especially with him, with my working class thug and seducer.
I felt that the chemistry between us had been terrific, something exceptional. My head was way up in the clouds for days, dreaming of him, of being kissed again by him. After our impromptu session in the warehouse I just felt that of course he'd want to see me again and soon. I even imagined he'd come with me for a drink - somewhere far from where I lived because I couldn't let my neighbours and the locals see me with someone so evidently rough and uncouth.
So I was waiting for him to make the invitation as I got dressed; but it didn't come; he just looked at me insolently - almost with something like a sneer or with contempt. And I still hadn't finished dressing when he turned on his heel and moved off. I called out after him, 'Hey, just a minute!' and he turned and looked at me, still with something that was halfway between amusement and scorn. I didn't know what to say. He made me feel silly and kind of less of a man than he, and I was flustered. I was struck dumb and all I could do was pull out my wallet and give him my business card. He took it and looked at it as if it was something he had never seen before - maybe he hadn't - turning it this way and that between his fingers as if he had no idea what this slender piece of card might be or what use it could possibly serve. For an awful moment I thought he was going to throw it away but he did finally slip it into his pocket and without a word walked off. Only then did I realise that I didn't even know his name.
Then - nothing. Silence. No phone calls. Part of me was relieved that this didn't happen - what would I have said to my secretary when she fielded the call? She knew everything about me - or seemed to. She knew exactly what role every caller played in my life whether professionally or socially. But I would have thought of something, would have invented some excuse about a plumber or builder doing work on my fancy flat. But I had no need to invent because there was no call. I got angry - I was absurdly discomfited by having gone through something I saw as deeply intimate and deeply personal and deeply life-changing and that all of this seemed to mean nothing to this bastard. So he pisses on good-looking guys every day of the week? Beats them? Shaves them? Fucks them? Yes, all that and begins and ends with kisses? Deep male kisses, tongues exploring, flavours in mouths kisses? Anger was useless and got me nowhere. He still didn't call and it didn't help me forget about him. So I had to do something about this. I wasn't just going to sit around and mope and feel sorry for myself; because the more I thought about it the more important it seemed - it wasn't just about the kisses. It was something deeper. I had to explore it more. I just had to.
But what to do? I had stopped my run. I was afraid to do it, afraid of the catcalls and jeers that I had received before. Of course it was obvious what I had to do but pride held me back so it took a few weeks of stupid selfish egoism before I was prepared to accept that that approach was going to lead nowhere and that whether I lost face over this or not, if he told me to fuck off or worse ignored me, I had to go for what I needed, I had to make the run again. Changing into my running gear in the office I felt sick. I felt like abandoning the attempt and settling back to my old life. Three weeks had passed; my hair, initially the subject of some stupid jokes - my excuse was that I had been forced into having it cropped at a charity event, and anyway as I pointed, out hair is a renewable resource - had grown back somewhat. So mixed in with the fear of rejection was the fear that he would despise me for having changed the way I had looked. Maybe he would see it as having abandoned the changes he had wrought in me. But despite the length of my hair surely he would know - just by the fact that I was resuming my old route home - that I needed him, that he had made an impact on me. But still the bigger fear was that I had made no impact on him at all.
So all of this was running crazily through my mind as I started my run home. Now, when I think back over all of this, I wonder at my arrogance - thinking that this guy should hang on after his mates had gone home, night after night, hoping for a glimpse of me. Why should he do this? Because I was such a stud was what I supposed, because I was a catch for him, someone he could never hope to meet otherwise. All that sort of rubbish was perhaps my answer - but you know I never really asked myself this or thought for a moment that he would not be there. Again it comes down to the significance of the initial meeting for me - it just had to be the same for him. It just had to be. So I rounded the corner, my heart in my mouth - and he was there, just as I had seen him on THAT evening, sitting on a low wall, smoking a cigarette, and, best of all, smiling broadly. I suddenly became shy as I slowed to a walk but held out a hand in greeting as I approached. He ignored it, chucked his cigarette away, stood up and entered the building. I followed him.
He didn't look round but went to the same place as before. Now shut off from the outside world he turned to face me, still smiling. I moved towards him, ready for the embrace, ready to kiss that smoky mouth, to get my tongue inside it, to put my hands around his cropped head and rub my cheek against it. He slapped me, hard, across my face and before I could even cry out, backhanded me another. Then, taking advantage of my complete bewilderment, he punched me hard in the stomach. I doubled over and a hand chop to my neck brought me to my knees. That's when he started kicking me with his Doc Marten's. I cried out, as much in astonishment as in pain. I begged him to stop. I wanted to appeal to his better nature but not knowing his name I resorted to the only thing I had ever called him, 'Sir'. And as soon as I did so, he stopped.
'At last,' he said, very calmly. His self-possession surprised me - for someone who seconds before had been kicking the shit out of me and giving every indication of being a vicious lout, he was suddenly very much in control of himself.
'You really are a fucking useless piece of slave shit, aren't you? And look at you - so your haircut was a one-off? Something you put up with until it had grown back? You think I should be bothered with a fucking fashion victim like you?'
I didn't dare look at him. I just stared at his boots, worried that he'd start in on me with them again. I was curled up into a foetal ball. I could have straightened up but I was afraid to - not because it would have made my body vulnerable again but to conceal the enormous hard-on I was sporting through my track suit bottoms. In fact I was hardly listening to him. I was so taken by surprise both by the unexpectedness of the attack but even more so by the undeniable fact that I was turned on. This guy treating me like shit turned me on.
'Well?' he continued. 'Why should I be bothered with a cunt like you who keeps me hanging around for weeks?'
'But Sir,' I protested feebly, 'you have my work telephone number, you could have phoned me. I don't even know your name, Sir.'
'So I am supposed to go running after you? Who is the slave around here, you or me?'
'I didn't know I was a slave, Sir,' I replied.
'Fucking hell', he said and laughed. 'Last time I saw you there was no fucking doubt about it then. Couldn't get enough abuse, couldn't get low enough, wanted to worship me, wanted to be changed, wanted to be a skin like me. That right?'
'Yes, Sir.'
'OK, fucker, one last chance. You want to be my slave then you come back here, same time, exactly one week from now. Understand?'
'Yes, Sir.'
He kicked me one last time, on the backside, and left me lying there.
When I looked up, he had gone.
I was disappointed. I had gone through such a build-up in my mind, all that tossing and turning as to what I should do, how I could meet him again, what would happen when we did meet. Look, you have to understand that at that time I was used to getting my own way, having things on my terms.
After a few days I began to recognise that, far from being a disappointment, that second meeting had sharpened my appetite. I actually liked not having control, liked being told what to do. Also the lack of anything that up till now I would have called sex - fucking, kissing, sucking, whatever - brought me face to face with what I had been avoiding. And that was, quite simply, that I also liked being treated like shit, I liked being abused and kicked and slapped around. This was hard for me to come to terms with, you know. It had been there through all my teen years and into my twenties but I wouldn't confront it, wouldn't look at it or acknowledge it. Now I had to. The truth was that I was beginning to identify with being a slave to a skinhead both from the physical and the mental points of view. And also I knew for certain that I longed to be a skinhead myself, to escape from the boring, mundane, respectable life I was leading. I wanted to say, 'Fuck you' to the straight world I lived in. I had conformed too long. This tough, little skinhead was offering me a way out and I was determined to go for it, no matter what I had to go through.
So the week that followed my second meeting was interminable; but it was useful too because it gave me a chance to come to terms with those things about myself that I had always run away from. And it led to a kind of recklessness to the extent that I was determined to show this cocky bastard that I was taking it seriously, that I did want to be a skinhead.
I bought a set of hair clippers. Just buying them gave me a tingle of excitement and later, when I took them out of their box, arranged the different sized blades beside them and plugged them in, my cock was at full stretch and my hands were shaking. I wanted the experience to be as drawn out as possible so I selected a No. 4 and slipped it over the blades of the clippers. I switched it on and heard that hum which plugged directly into my memories of that first encounter. I raised my hand and tentatively swept the machine across the crown of my head. Nothing! Not a hair dropped on the newspaper I was kneeling on. It pleased me in a way - showed that I was still something of a skinhead. I switched to a no. 3 - and a few bits and pieces dropped in front of me. A deep breath and I removed the no.3 and in a moment of total recklessness decided to go for a zero. This time the hair fell liberally... I stepped in front of the mirror - transformed! In fact even shorter than when my skin Master had taken off my golden mop. Somehow I felt empowered. Samson in the Biblical story may have lost his strength with his hair but the reverse seemed true of me. I felt reborn - tough, hard, powerful. No longer did I feel I needed to excuse myself to my work colleagues - fuck them; it was my life, my body, my hair and no one but no one was going to dictate to me how I looked.
Except for my Master, of course...
So, on the appointed day and at the appointed time, I set off jauntily, confident, happy. A bit apprehensive because I knew that this cocky skinhead would have something up his sleeve that I couldn't imagine but somehow I trusted him. Despite the fact that he had kicked me to bruising the last time I saw him I felt I was ready for him, ready and equal for whatever he might throw at me in the way of surprises. Well I was right - he did have a surprise up his sleeve. He was in his usual place, as usual smoking a cigarette, dressed as usual in his Fred Perry shirt, bleachers with white braces, tall DMs with white laces. I thought he would compliment me on my zero crop, maybe joke with me about it, say something about it but he said not a word, appeared not to notice. Again he just flicked the cigarette away, stood up and moved inside, with me following lamely behind him.
We got to our usual place, the door was slightly ajar when, instead of pushing through, he suddenly stepped aside and said with mock courtesy, 'After you'. In I went, like a lamb to the slaughter, he following me, so close behind me I could feel his breath on the nape of my neck. As I passed through the door his hands shot up and covered my eyes and mouth, other hands came from nowhere and grabbed me. Of course anyone's first instinct is to struggle and struggle I did but it was useless - I was pinioned by the arms, the shoulders, the thighs, and the calves. I was immobile. Then the voice came to my ear.
'Now this can be easy for you or it can be difficult. What is going to happen to you is going to happen to you one way or another. Make no mistake about that. Whether it is a struggle for you is up to you, cunt. Take it as it comes and it'll go much more quickly and easily. Do you understand that?' I nodded.
'Now I am going to remove my hands from your eyes and mouth and I don't expect a sound from you. Got that?' Again I nodded. All the hands that held me were withdrawn, and finally the hand over my eyes drew back and I could see what was going on. I saw six skinheads. Young, tough, hard, trying to look serious but I could see that laughter lay just behind the eyes - they were enjoying this. The one I thought of as my Master moved round to stand directly in front of me.
'OK,' he said softly, 'you decided to come back. That's good. But it's the last decision you'll be making for a while. Got that?'
'Yes, Sir.'
'Louder.'
'Yes, SIR!'
'Now you want to be a skinhead, don't you, boy?'
'Yes, SIR!'
'And you want to be a slave, don't you, boy?'
'Yes, SIR!'
'Well this evening your dreams come true. OK lads, let's get started - there's a lot to do.'
There was that bag again, the one that contained God knows what. First out of it was a pair of scissors. One of the skins - a tall, lean guy with a ferret-like face, no looker that's for sure but sexy for all that - pulled out a large pair of scissors. I almost shouted out, 'but there's no hair for you to cut!' but hair wasn't what he had in mind. He caught hold of my expensive designer sweatshirt and cut it from top to bottom. Any tendency on my part to protest was instantly quelled by the look on my Master's face. I kept my mouth shut as off it came, and the T-shirt beneath it and the sweat pants in their turn. Trainers were pulled off and the laces ritualistically cut. Socks too were chopped and rendered useless - and I was standing naked with a telltale erection.
A chair was pulled out and I was pushed down onto it. My zero crop was the next thing to go. I couldn't believe it - shaving foam, hot water from a thermos, a bowl, a razor were produced and another skin took over as Master Barber.
'You haven't earned the right to any hair,' said my Master, as the razor passed over my scalp. 'This will remind you that you are the lowest among us, a slave.' I just nodded, almost in a daze, yet dying to see what I would look like as a bonehead. Hair from the rest of my body was removed just as deftly and diligently.
'Don't worry, we'll leave you your eyebrows and lashes. More for my benefit than yours - I don't want you to look too reptilian.'
I was naive enough to think that this removal of my hair constituted the whole of my transformation but worse was to come. The sight of a needle was enough to bring out a spirit of rebellion in me and I confess I did make a dash for the door - only to be dragged back to the chair kicking and screaming. But as my Master had said, resistance was indeed useless and I saw that I really was powerless in this situation as I was firmly held while both nipples were pierced and rings inserted. Of course I cried out when the needle went through the nipple and I watched the blood trickle down my hairless chest and stomach.
Still, you'd think by now that I would have stopped fighting but when I suddenly understood that I was going to have a ring through my septum, a nose ring like a pig or animal, I couldn't take it. I screamed and screamed and writhed and twisted and they just let me get on with that until I had exhausted myself and then proceeded quite calmly to ring me. I was broken by now. I accepted it. It's funny - there comes a point when you do accept that you really can do nothing to change events; everyone has a different breaking point I guess and the nose ring was mine. And then there's a kind of peace - even the pain seemed to recede, things became dreamlike and drifting and all problems, thoughts of the future, even memories of the past, of what I had so recently been - all, just melted away.
After this, having the word 'slave' tattooed on my upper right shoulder was the least of my worries or problems. It was like an out of body experience. I saw the needle, I heard the buzz and hum, I watched blood and ink mingle with a kind of bemused detachment, as if it were happening to someone else, not to me at all. So there I was, naked, shaved, pierced, tattooed. And to tell the truth, in a state of shock. It was all too much, too quick. I felt bewildered and not sure whether I should be laughing or crying - the emotions were all too complex for me. Yes, I was exhilarated because I had come round in my mind to accepting the need for change - I guess I had started on this path because deep down I hated the way I had been living my life. It had been so false. I had lived by other people's rules, by the rules of the straight world I mixed in; there's were the values I had subscribed to. A change was due.
But this change was so sudden and so drastic. I mean, I had yet to see myself in a mirror but I could easily imagine that the transformation was of such an order and to such an extent that my mother would have had to look twice - or three times - to recognise me. So when these guys had finished with me, when they stood back to admire their handiwork and I rose to my feet uncertainly, I could see that they were not sure how I would react, how I would behave. Up till now they had been so cocky, so assured and the whole thing had moved like clockwork as if they had rehearsed it. Now that it was done, they were suddenly quiet, almost abashed. I wouldn't say ashamed - they were too confident in themselves and their identity for that. These cocky lads were looking at me to see how I would react.
I saw this, I noticed it, saw their uncertainty and I knew that I wanted to be one of them, wanted to be part of them, relate to them, accept their values, become one with them. So despite the pain all over my body and in spite of my whirling mind, I smiled. I had to rise above the pain and even then I knew that pain would become so much a part of my life that I would really have to work on processing it.
Part of me resisted pain - that's a human instinct after all; but part of me embraced it because it was intense, it proved I was feeling and reacting and alive. That I learned - keep hold of that thought and it'll see you through, and that's what I mean by processing pain. So the smile wasn't false for all that I had to start it through an effort of will. And they started to laugh. And suddenly I was in the middle of them, being pushed around, roughed up in a way; but I was beyond feeling the minor pain that came from boots and fists. Now I knew that I was re-born, a new me emerging from all this pain and degradation and humiliation. I had a new identity. And just as a Christian is reborn with baptism so my skin peers baptised me in showers of piss. They formed a circle around me, opened the flies of their jeans and hosed me down and I put out my arms to it and welcomed it, bathed in it. Then clothes were produced for me and, still wet with their piss, I put on my uniform of sports shirt, braces, bleachers and boots.
This is how I would look, this is how I would dress from now on. Then and only then did I get the deep kiss I had dreamed of from my Master as he welcomed me to a new life. As to my job, my flat, my former friends, how did I deal with that? Well that, my friend, is another story...