Life In Rollers free porn video

Life in Rollers 1. As early as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is going to the beauty parlor every week with my mother and waiting for her to get her hair done. This was in the 60's when roller sets were common, particularly among mothers and wearing curlers in public was acceptable. On Saturday afternoon it was especially common for women, including my mother, to go out in public with their hair up in curlers. At age 8, I remember one damp Spring Saturday when we were on our way to the grocery store, my mother stopped at a neighbor's place to drop off a cake pan. I didn't care for our neighbor Mrs. Kent because she was gossipy and bossy, but I loved her hair. She had huge hair, and I often remember seeing her hair in curlers. Wire brush, foam rubber, spiky curlers with plastic locks. And she always had a chiffon kerchief or a colorful silk scarf covering her curlers, tied in back with a big bow. When I saw her I would look at her carefully to see what kind of curlers she was wearing. The curlers in her bangs would always peak out from under her kerchief and give the answer. On the day we dropped off the cake pan, I remember Mrs. Kent wearing huge purple rollers under a blue chiffon kerchief. She invited us into her house and soon my mother and she were gossiping about everything at the kitchen table. I sat down quietly eating a cookie when I heard giggling in a back bedroom followed by two flashes of light running across the hallway. It had to be Valerie Kent and her brother Bruce. Valerie was a grade older than me, cute, but snooty. Bruce was a grade younger than me and was, well, slightly girlish. I heard the giggling again and this time I saw Valerie and Bruce ran back across the hall. This time I saw them, but I thought I saw them with their heads in kerchiefs. Mrs. Kent said, "Those sillies." The two started giggling again. Mrs. Kent said, "Why don't you two come out here?" And so they did, both Valerie and Bruce came into the kitchen with hair in curlers and kerchiefs. Valerie with longer hair had larger black wire brush curlers, and Bruce with shorter hair wore pink foam rubber curlers. "These two wanted their hair done," Mrs. Kent said. My mother smiled and politely nodded. Bruce walked around to his mother and leaned on her. Mrs. Kent instinctively untied his pale green kerchief, felt the curlers to see if his hair was dry, adjusted the kerchief so that it covered his curlers just right, and tied it behind his head. "Mother, when will our hair be done?" Valerie whined. Mrs. Kent touched Valerie's hair on a curler in back. "Another hour." "Let's go play," Valerie demanded and the two ran off. In the car, on our way to the grocery store, Mother said, "Bruce seems like a sissy." I agreed. At school I didn't get picked on for playing with the girls or for wearing my sister's second hand shorts and shirts, but my hair was less than an inch long and Bruce's hair was up in curlers. He was one of the luckiest people I knew. I have to admit that I always wanted to be a hairdresser. There I said it, I have always wanted to be a beautician. I loved seeing women's hair made beautiful. I loved the beauty parlor that my mother went to and I loved it because it was a place to be pampered and it was a great escape as well. I remember telling my mother that I wanted to be a hairdresser at age 6. My mother was discouraging, "Boys don't become hairdressers." My mother never tried to turn me into a daughter, but she also was inconsistent in her message about my behavior. Like: After saying that "boys don't become hairdressers," a couple years later she noted at some length that a lot men like the White House hairdresser Kenneth who did Jackie Kennedy/Onassis' hair became celebrities. Like: After being appalled about seeing a man carrying a large purse- like bag, a few months later saying that men should probably carry purses. Like: After saying that she was thankful that guys don't wear dresses, a year later she put a box of her old clothes in the extra room and said it would be fine if I wanted to play dress up. I think I picked up this inconsistency from my mother. When I was about 9, two of my girl cousins kept insisting that I play dress up with them when we visited. I rejected them a couple times saying "Guys don't wear dresses." But then one winter afternoon I immediately gave in to their request. I was stuck at their place, saw nothing else to do, and agreed with them that no one would find out. At first I insisted on only wear a blouse and slacks, but when they started trying on their Easter dresses, I really gave in. They found me some white tights for me and put me in a ruffly petticoat and a crinkly white dress with a pretty lace hem, puffy short sleeves with ruffles, and lacy bodice. It was like a wedding dress for 9 year olds. They showed me to their mother, my aunt who only said, "Oh my..." This made me slightly embarrassed, but nonetheless my cousins and I played all afternoon in dresses and had more fun than we ever had. By that evening, I changed before my father picked me up, and my cousins and I never talked about this again. No one has ever tried to change me into a girl, at least not with any great insistence or any length of time, but I have had a number of momentary trips into female life, particularly in my early teens and twenties. I was short for my age and smaller for a boy. At age 14, my mother who was an occasional seamstress lamented that she needed a model to try on a lime green bridesmaid dress to get the hem right. I finally offered to be kind, but she said, "No, that wouldn't be right." I was relieved. A few months later, she had the same problem with another bridesmaid dress. She asked if I would put it on for a couple minutes so she could do the hem. Having thought about the possibility of wearing the lime green dress a few months earlier, I agreed. She handed me a peach taffeta dress with enormous sleeves and a scooped neck with a pretty lace inlay. I went into another room and did my best to put on the dress. When I came out, Mother looked at me smiling, and without a word straightened out the sleeves and skirt and pinned up the hem. I was in and out of the dress in less than five minutes. We talked for a couple hours while she sewed. My mother and I bonded that afternoon By that time, I had already been growing my hair out. I had dark straight hair that I wished was curly. Perms were coming into fashion and I kept thinking about getting my hair done. I grew my hair longer in case I could find the courage to get it done. One day my mother came home from the beauty parlor and told me, "I couldn't believe what I saw. A man was getting a perm! He sat next me under the dryer. His hair was set up in perm rods and he had a plastic shower cap on like a woman! I can't imagine why a man would want to get their hair done." I could, but didn't say anything. At age 15, when my parents went out with some friends one night, I raided my mother's curler bag filled plastic curlers with spikes and wire brush rollers. Her hair and mine were the same length so I knew my hair was long enough to set on her rollers. That first time I tried to set my hair, I remember taking a quick shower as soon as my parents left, going to my mother's closet, and pulling out the curler bag. My heart was racing, and I felt like I was stealing something. I sat down at my mother's vanity. I put the Dippity Do into my hair and combed it through like I had seen my mother do many times. I tried setting the first wire brush roller on the top of my head. I struggled with a few more and a few more until I had about 20 rollers in my hair. I wrapped my head in her blue flowered silk scarf and tied a bow under my chin. I looked at myself in the mirror. The set was sloppy, but I was happy. Unfortunately I didn't have time to dry my hair so after ten minutes, took the wire brush rollers out of my hair and carefully returned them to the curler bag. I showered and my parents came home and nothing was said. About this time I started secretly reading women's magazines at my aunt's place to get tips on how to fix hair, and I practiced setting my hair every chance I could. One day in June, my parents had to make a long trip to a wedding. They would leave at 6 am and be back at midnight. I was ecstatic at the thought of being able to set my hair as well as dry it so that I could see how I looked in curlers. My parents left, I showered, got the curler bag, put the Dippity Do into my hair, and began setting my hair with green plastic curlers with spikes according to a setting pattern I had seen in a magazine. I amazed myself with how careful I was and how well the curlers went on. I could feel the spikes poking my head and I knew I was doing well. Setting the curlers in back of my head was still difficult, but I was happy as I set almost 40 curlers in about an hour. When I was done, I pressed the curlers down onto my head with my hands like I had seen my mother do. I thought about using her soft bonnet hair dryer, but decided instead to let my set air dry. I wrapped my mother's dark blue silk scarf over my curlered head. I tried to tie an knot behind my head, but the scarf was too small. I went back into the coat closet and started looking through drawers and on shelves for my mother's big pink chiffon kerchief. She hadn't worn it for awhile, and I was afraid she had discarded it. Finally, after a few frantic minutes, I found what I was looking for. The kerchief was hiding in the sleeve of her tan Spring coat. I always loved that kerchief because it looked so cool and had so much room for my mother's largest rollers. As I stood looking at myself in the mirror, I floated the pink kerchief over my curlers, adjusted it so that it laid perfectly on my head, and then tied a knot in back. I looked at myself and felt transformed. I played with the knot a few times, and then tied a huge bow in back. All of a sudden I realized that I had been doing all of this with the curtains open so I closed them. If I had been caught, I did not know what I would do. I had to be careful. Eventually I sat down to watch TV and felt my curlers. My hair was damp. The two tails of my kerchief dangled behind my head and I pulled them over my shoulder and mindlessly played with them. After a half hour of Saturday morning cartoons, I considered going further. I went into my mother's vanity and sat down. I opened her makeup drawer and took out her mascara and did something I had never done before. I held the wand up to my eyelashes and carefully put on some mascara. It went on thick and clumped, but I took a tissue like I had seen my mother do, wiped off the excess, and tried again. Getting bolder, I found her eyeliner, and put that on. Then eyeshadow and then lipstick. I looked at myself, my made up face and curlered head under the pink kerchief and felt happy. But I knew what I needed. I went to the box of dresses my mother had left me few years earlier and pulled out the light blue mini skirt with white ruffles at the sleeve and white ruffles down the front. I had never tried it on before because I was too scared that I may never want to take it off. I tried to pull the skirt on over my head, but my rollers got in the way. I unbuttoned the miniskirt, pulled it carefully over my head, and rebuttoned it, and I felt perfect. For the next several hours I watched TV, read, vacuumed and I even tried napping with some success. After feeling my crunchy dry hair on the curlers, I decided it was time to see my curls. I nervously unrolled the first curler that rolled my bangs. The curler came out and my hair sprang back into a perfect curl. Each curler was unrolled, and each curl sprang back into place. I had never been happier. For the next half hour, I sat at my mother's vanity and played with my hair, fluffing it, scrunching it, flipping it. I tried on some Final Net hairspray and loved the stiffness it gave. I loved what the curls did for me. By four in the afternoon, I decided to shower, wash out my curls and wash off my makeup. Removing the eyeliner and mascara took some time, but with some soap, the black circles went away. Everything had to be put away. Curlers back into the curler bag, mini skirt back into the box, make up back into the drawer. Within an hour I was done. I went outside and rode bike for some time until I suddenly remembered the kerchief. I had put it on a shelf in the closet. I raced home, found the kerchief and did my best to put it back into the sleeve of the coat. My parents came home late that night from the wedding, not knowing about my busy day, I thought. A few days later while watching TV and for no reason, my mother started telling me that guys are getting their hair done all the time, which was not really true, and that she thought it was good for guys to try different things, and then she asked me if she could set my hair in curlers. I was shocked and assumed she found a curler on the floor or something. I turned her down as if I would never want my hair done. A few days later she said that she should set my hair some time to see how my hair looked curled. I agreed to it as long as my father wasn't around. Mother agreed and said that he was taking a trip in two weeks and we could do it on Monday. Time went unbearably slow and I kept wondering if my mother knew that I had been using her curlers and make up. She never said anything, but occasionally reminded me that Monday was the big day. My father went on his business trip on Sunday evening and Monday morning, my mother and I were ready. After I had showered and washed my hair, my mother directed me to a kitchen chair. She towel dried my hair and gave me a stack of Puff's tissues to rip into thirds to make end wraps. While I tore the tissues, my mother went to her bedroom to get her curler bag. She also brought out her bottle of Jet Set, sprayed it in my hair, and combed it through. She told me she liked Jet Set better than Dippity Do because it made a more manageable curl. She partitioned my hair into a Mohawk pattern similar to the way she did her own hair, pulled out a wire brush roller from the curler bag, asked me for a tissue end wrap, rolled up the first curler on top of my head, and poked the plastic stick through the curler that held it tight to my head. My mother looked at me and smiled, "Can you imagine sleeping on these? Men are so lucky." We laughed. She worked methodically around my head, taking a tissue end wrap from me and rolling up the next curler. Section by section she rolled my hair. My mother had done a lot of sets in the previous 20 years including her own hair as well as sets for her mother, cousins, and neighbors. On top of this, neighbors and relatives had her give them perms because her perm rods were always rolled tightly and neatly. After my mother was half done with my set, she handed me a mirror without a word and continued setting my hair. After about 30 curlers, she was done. "You have a lot of hair. Your hair took more curlers than mine." She then took both of her hands and pressed down hard on my set. "That will keep them in place." I could feel every curler poking my head. Mother looked at my set to see that everything was right, smiled and went to the coat closet. She pulled out her dark blue silk scarf and came back, scarf in hand. "I didn't want to get a scarf that's too girlish. I hope this is big enough," she said as she laid the scarf on my set, pulled down the tails and tried to tie them behind my head. "Rats." She went back to the closet. "Where is that... Do you know where my...? I remember." She came out of the closet with the pink chiffon kerchief proudly in hand. "I know this isn't too manly, but it will fit over all these curlers." my mother said. "I won't tell anyone," I said. Mother laughed and she floated the kerchief on my head, carefully placed it over my curlers, and tied a huge bow behind my head. She fluffed out each loop of the bow with a flourish. Mother laughed, walked off to her bedroom, and brought back her Sunbeam soft bonnet dryer. "This will help dry your hair faster. Go to the bathroom now if you need to. You'll be sitting here for awhile." I went the bathroom and she pulled the dryer out of the box, set it on the kitchen table, and plugged it in. I looked at myself in the mirror. My mother really knew how to set hair, I thought. I came back to the kitchen and sat down. Mother held open the elastic on the plastic bonnet with her hands, and then carefully guided the large bonnet over my head. She turned on the hair dryer and bonnet inflated. I could see a reflection of myself in the glass oven and was surprised how big the bonnet got. I asked very loudly for something to read, and Mother laughed at me for being so loud, gave me a Readers Digest, and walked off to do housework. I sat peacefully under the dryer for about 15 minutes, and then the dryer started making a odd loud noise and then shut down. Mother came over to me, carefully took the bonnet off my head, and said, "I think we will have to air dry your hair today." When I got up, I turned and to my surprise, our neighbor Mrs. Widders was sitting at the dining room. I liked Mrs. Widders, but having someone looking at my hair up in curlers and in a kerchief was disturbing. "Hi," Mrs. Widders said. "Getting your hair curled?" she added. I finally managed "Yes." Mrs. Widders offered, "I think your hair will be adorable." I almost wanted to crawl into a hole, but Mrs. Widders was so nice, I didn't take it so badly. "Why don't we have coffee?" Mother said and I tried to make an excuse about wanting to go read. Mrs. Widders instead seemed to try to engage me and asked me if I had set my hair before, and said that so many girls are getting their hair permed, and that her nephew is a hairdresser. Eventually we sat down and my mother and Mrs. Widders chatted. I felt obliged to sit there, but in time forgot about doing anything else and forgot about my hair being in curlers. After an hour of chatting, I got up to go to the bathroom, thought about going to my room, but instead came back for more chatting. At one point in gabbing, Mrs. Widders asked me "How does it feel to be one of the girls?" Something made me want to say, "I love it!" I said instead, "It's ok" trying to hide my femininity and my desire to put on a dress. I felt like a sissy and I wanted to be a sissy. Sometime later, my mother got up and felt my hair under my kerchief. I felt it too. "Time to unroll you," my mother said. "I hope you don't mind if I stay to see how you turn out," Mrs. Widders said. Mother carefully unrolled the curlers, handed them to me so that I could take the tissue end wraps out of the curler and toss the curlers and sticks in to the curler bag. When she was done, she said, "I'm going to loosen up the curl just a little," and scrunched my hair with her fingers. She picked out my hair with a hair pick and did a little backcombing. "I don't want you to look too effeminate," she said. Then she handed me the mirror and went to her bedroom. Mrs. Widders said, "You look adorable!" Mother brought back a can of Final Net and sprayed my set with several coats of hair spray. My hair was much curlier and much poufier than when I had set it days earlier. I absolutely loved it. As I looked in the mirror, I wanted to say, "I wish my hair was always like this!" But when my mother asked me how I liked it, I said only, "I like it." My mother said, "When I give you a perm, it won't be quite like this, but I thought you should try your hair curled for a little while first." "Thanks Mother." She gave me a hug. 2. My first perm. I don't remember everything and had to fabricate the dialogue, but here goes anyway. I hope you like it. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to wear my hair curled. As a child, I guess I always had the chance of getting a home permanent since my mother often gave perms to our neighbors and relatives. Still it was more than two years after she had given me a roller set, when I was 17, which I had the courage to ask for my first perm. In high school I must have noticed everyone who had gotten their hair permed and imagined what my hair would be like in similar styles. At first I wanted a poodle perm like the ones that many girls were getting because I thought they looked so cute. But as my hair was getting to be four and then five inches long, I started considering longer styles. Eventually, as my mother considered perming acceptable for men, she began to occasionally dropped hints that she could give me a perm any time I liked. My response was usually, "Some time." A girl friend of mine would tell me that I would look cute in a perm and that I definitely should get one. I would say, "I will if you will." I knew she never would. She had her hair straight all her life and never seemed the type to do anything so exotic. However, in our senior year, she surprised me once by coming to a dance with her hair curled tight from a perm rod set, "The prerogative of being a girl," she said. I told her that night that she was gorgeous and we both regretted that we were going with other people. I was always attracted to her, but her hair made her particularly stunning to me in a way that concerned me. Still, we slow danced and I was enthralled by her and she knew it. After graduation in May, I worked in the city library. My friends joked that I was a "librarian", although I had the manly duty of moving books from the old part of the library to the new part and if time remained, I would re-catalogue the entire library, whatever that meant. The job would last all summer, pay slightly above minimum wage, and immerse me into the world of women. The city library was mostly a woman's domain, at least among the people who worked there. Other than the part-time janitor, I was the only male there. The women there were either young pre-child housewives or old post-child housewives. The two older housewives had beautiful big hairstyles that I suspected needed two roller sets or more a week to maintain. The two younger housewives both used blow dryers extensively, but were seriously wondering if they should get their hair permed. During the one time of the day that I sat down with at least some of them, the 2:30 break, conversations frequently circled around family, children, vacation, food, and hair. For me, the hair conversations were most interesting. So many women were getting their hair permed that every couple days a new perm sighting was reported. Finally, one day one of the younger women said at break that she was taking the plunge and had made an appointment in a few weeks. Someone noticed my interest and asked me what I thought. I tried to act disinterested, but they seemed to know better and one of them said that I should get my hair permed. An older woman said, "He's not the type." "Why?" A younger woman said, "His girlfriend wouldn't approve." And the other young woman, "Or his boyfriend." They laughed. Three weeks of working in the library made them comfortable with teasing me. "I think a perm with his hair would be perfect." "You really should do it." At best, all I could softly say was, "Do you think I should?" They told me that when I get my hair permed to go to a beauty salon, not a unisex shop. Why, I don't recall. They gave me names of their beauty salons and hairstylists to offer inspiration. The only thing I remember is "Don't go to Jennine, she doesn't think men should get perms." They all seemed to agree. A few days later my girl friend came into the library, her black hair magnificently permed. I looked at her, mouth probably agape. She smiled, walked up to me, and said something like, "Your turn." I took a break from book moving as she told me about the two hour process of shampooing, conditioning, trimming, rolling the perm rods, the perm solutions, the rinsing and neutralizing. I asked her if they set her hair on curlers after the perm and she look at me like I was crazy. I asked her if she wanted to go out that night, but unfortunately she was still dating a jerk from another town. I went home that night and while watching television with my mother meekly asked, "Could you curl my hair?" "Would you like me to set your hair in curlers again?" I paused to gather up courage "No, I was thinking about getting a permanent." "Let's see," my mother got up and looked at the calendar. "Your father leaves for a trip, not Saturday, but the following Saturday. Your father can't stand the smell of perms. I have to wait to give perms in this house." She laughed. "I'm giving Mrs. Widders a perm Saturday. I could give you a perm Sunday after church." "Ok," I said quietly. My mother made a note on the calendar, then sat down and we watched television. I couldn't think about what we were watching. However, I remember that a commercial for Toni perms coincidently came on: Curls are back and Toni's got them. I felt embarrassed and don't know why. "I like Lilt perms better," mother offered. The next day I came home from work and saw a Lilt perm box on the counter in the bathroom. I was going to get my first perm and could barely think of anything else. I secretly began looking in my mother's magazines in the living room for a hair style that I liked. I quickly decided to look only at women's hair since they had the best, fullest styles. I liked Redbook and Ladies Home Journal. My mother walked in and saw me looking at the magazines and asked what I was doing. "Nothing." I said and tried to hide the Woman's Day I was reading under the table. "Looking for a hairstyle? Here." She handed me an older Redbook that featured perm styles. "There are some good styles in here." My mother knew me and was often sympathetic. I always wondered if she knew that I had been trying on her pantyhose, ruffled white blouse, and black skirt. Once for no reason, she offered to lend me her new black turtleneck with huge puffy sleeves, which I secretly adored. Maybe she also knew I wanted a woman's hair style as well. That night I had a disturbing dream that I have never told anyone. In my dream I was sitting in a car on the passenger's side. In the driver's seat was Bruce, a neighborhood boy who was a junior, in the grade below than me. He was the most effeminate boy I knew, more feminine in nature than most girls. It seemed that everything he did had a girlish flair. He had a lilt in his voice and always made expressive hand motions and facial expressions and his hips seemed to wiggle when he walked. As I remember, he usually wore guy's clothes, but he made everything he wore seem to have an effeminate flourish. He wore pinks and pastels and he wore necklaces and bracelets. He even held his books in front of his chest like a girl. And near the end of the school year in my senior year, he had gotten a perm. He wasn't the first guy to get his hair permed, but when he finally did, his hair was more poufy and feminine than any girl's hair in our high school. On the day he came to school with his new perm, I remember seeing a number of girls gathering around his locker and I got close enough to hear them compliment his beautiful hairdo and quiz him how he got his soft rolls and curls and lift. I suppose most of them knew without asking. His hair had been set in curlers after the perm and his set had been teased in the comb out. Bruce obviously loved the attention as he talked to the girls about hair and I wished I was him. In my dream, I was sitting next to him in the front seat of a car. Bruce had on a burgundy satin dress with ribbon straps, shoulders showing, simple and elegant. I sat there nervously straightening the skirt on my pink taffeta dress. The petticoat I was wearing was making the skirt puff up high. I looked down as I flattened my skirt, my ruffles were in place. I was so nervous and so happy. We were holding hands. We must have been at prom and now we were parking. He then gently put his soft right arm around my neck and I leaned into his body. He put his left hand in my lap and I took his hand. I smiled and looked at our hands, his nails were burgundy, mine were pink. With his right hand he began stroking my ponytail. I had my six inches of hair pulled back high and held tight with a pink ribbon. He slowly stroked my hair and said, "Would you like to get your hair done?" I said something like, "Do you think I should?" "Uh huh, you should try it." "I want to get it permed some time," I said. I was so happy that he approved and was so glad to submit to this effeminate boy. I felt demure next to him and wanted to please him and I was happy. I recall that the dream woke me from my sleep. I must have thought about it for a few minutes and then fell back to sleep. The next morning I woke up and remembered the dream clearly. I kept wondering what it meant. It was confusing. Was I man with a man or a woman with a woman or a man dressed as a woman? Anyway, at breakfast I was going to tell my mother that I didn't want my hair done after all and that she could take the perm back. As we ate breakfast, I mentioned that I saw the Lilt perm in the bathroom. My mother said something like, "Oh, that's for Mrs. Widders. I need to get yours this week. Thanks for reminding me." For some reason I became too embarrassed to cancel my perm. Maybe I wanted to become more effeminate, whatever that meant. I thought about my dream on and off for some time. What concerned me most maybe was that I felt so comfortable wearing a dress and submitting to someone so easily. At the library that day, I moved books and chatted with the other librarians and let it slip that I was getting my hair permed. They were very interested and talked about a few other guys that had gotten their hair done and one of the younger librarians wondered whether I was going to get my hair cut or not. I had a lot of hair to perm. I hadn't even considered getting my hair cut, only how big my hair could be, how I would have it done, how it might turn me into a girl, how I would take care of it. Nonetheless the librarians were supportive of my decision and the younger librarian who was getting her hair permed wanted me to tell her on Monday all about my experience. The Saturday before my perm finally came. I anticipated this event to a point of distraction. My father went on his trip and Mrs. Widders came over on Saturday for her perm. I sat around for most of her perm, helping my mother get towels and other small tasks. Mostly I wanted to watch and, something I didn't want to admit at the time, take part in girl talk. I liked Mrs. Widders. She was a junior high school music teacher, very kind and open. I assumed she knew that deep down I was effeminate and that I might be willing to show my femininity. She was so accepting. I found I could be more effusive around her, hand gesturing, frothy, and expressive. I think she had always sensed a feminine side in me and engaged me in conversations on fashion and music and drama and such things that most guys don't care about. She was the assistant drama teacher and shortly after she had seen me with my hair in rollers a few years earlier, asked if I would try out for a part in the school play. It turned out to be a part of a slightly sissy boyfriend. I felt it too silly, but in later years wished I had tried out for it. Mrs. Widders was so nice and made being effeminate acceptable in a closed world of women only. We loved chatting and she and I did so happily while my mother busily set her hair in multitude of perm rods. I suppose one of us could have been embarrassed by something, but we weren't and we sat and talked while my mother worked. I think my mother appreciated my keeping Mrs. Widders entertained so she could focus her attention on the perm. I remember at one point wishing that I was wearing a dress, but that in some way would have been redundant. Mrs. Widders and my mother seemed to accept me as I was without other identity and I tried not to think much of it. My mother finished the perming process, the solutions, the rinsing, and the unrolling of the perm rods and she set Mrs. Widders' hair in small wire brush rollers. Then Mrs. Widders put on her scarf over her set, thanked my mother, said goodbye, and left. I helped my mother clean up and the entire house reeked of Lilt perm. The next day we went to church, came home, and had lunch. My mother had me take a shower to wash my hair. When I got to the kitchen, a Lilt perm box was prominently on the table, so it seemed. I wore my tan slacks and light pink shirt, my most feminine outfit, I thought, although I wondered if my mother would think I was overdoing it. She didn't say anything, but pulled a chair out from the table for me to sit on in the middle of the kitchen floor. She put a towel around my neck and combed through my damp hair and said something like, "Gosh, you have a lot of hair. I hope I have enough perm rods." She sectioned my hair, handed me the stack of pink Lilt gripper sponge end wraps, and began rolling my hair in teeny tiny blue Toni spin curlers. She started in the middle, rolling my hair on top, and worked forward to my forehead. She was doing something different on my hair than she did for Mrs. Widders. She was using more rods because my hair was so long and she was setting the rods almost overlapping each other. By the time she got to my forehead, she had wrapped almost thirty rods. She looked at the pile of little blue rods and said, "We're not going to have enough." She went to the phone and made a call. I got up and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was so excited that I was finally getting a perm. I went back to the kitchen, sat down, and my mother went back to work. "I called Mrs. Kent to have her bring over her perm rods. I don't think we have enough here. You have so much hair." She rolled a few more rods. "I want to make sure I am not putting too much hair on each rod. Bruce will bring them over." Mrs. Kent's son Bruce was my dream prom date. I didn't know if I should run, or accept that he will see me getting permed. "He got his hair permed recently, didn't he?" she asked. "Yes, a few months ago." I said and handed my mother an end wrap. "Well, you two can be perm pals." This was actually said, my mother obviously not knowing of my dream and apparent desire to be his girlfriend. I had no idea what she meant by "perm pals," but all I could think of was us holding hands. I thought about backing out on the perm, but my mother had done such a good job and deep down, I wanted badly to have my hair curled. My mother kept rolling and I slowly calmed down and decided to accept whatever happened. I honestly don't think my mother knew anything about what I was thinking. When my mother finished wrapping perm rods to the back of my neck, there was a knock on our front door. I knew it was Bruce, even his knock was soft. I wondered what he'd think when he saw me, me with my hair half up in perm rods. I hoped he would drop the extra perm rods off at the front door, but my mother invited him in. He had a gentle demeanor and was nice enough. He came into the kitchen and at first I was too shy to look at him, this effeminate boy looking at me getting my hair done. I glanced up at him for only an instant. His hair too was permed and big, but not as obviously teased as usual. My mother said, "Your mother told me she had given you a perm. I think it looks nice." "Thank you." "How do you like it?" "I like it a lot." "Would you like to stay a minute?" my mother offered. It was almost scripted like trying to extend my embarrassment. "No, that's ok." I glanced up at him staring at me, smiling like he knew something. It was sort of unbearable, maybe we were perm pals. Still better him looking at me than most of my friends. He politely said goodbye and wished me a good perm and he sort of giggled. "Tell your mother we will bring the perm rods back tonight or tomorrow some time." "Ok." Bruce left and my mother and I were left in peace and quiet as she continued to roll my hair. The entire wrapping process took about an hour and a half well over 120 rods, more than she had ever used. When she got done with me, she dramatically said, "Whew!" My mother had a way of clamping down the perm rods hard on my head so that could feel everything. She had to, she said, to make sure they stayed in place. She applied the perming solution, the odor still lingering from Mrs. Widders perm. She said she barely had enough perm solution considering all the rods in my hair. She put on the timer and she poured us some sweetened tea. The timer went off and she checked a test curl. She set the timer for ten more minutes. We talked a bit and the timer went off again. She checked a test curl and then another to make sure. "Five more minutes." She set the timer, we waited and the timer went off. She checked the curls in several places around my head. "Am I curly?" "Yes, it's too late now." She had me go to the sink and she rinsed my hair under the faucet for an eternity. She blotted my hair dry, rinsed it again, and blotted it again. She wanted to make sure she had all the perm solution out which was a challenge with all those perm rods. Then she sat me down on the chair, poured the neutralizer into a bowl, and dabbed the solution all over my perm rods with a cotton ball. She set the timer for five minutes and we waited. I asked if before she took the perm rods out if I could see all the rods in my hair. She said "Sure, after we rinse the neutralizer out of your hair." She seemed happy that I wanted to see all her work. The timer went off and she thoroughly rinsed the neutralizer out of my hair. She took a few rods out and then said, "Oh that's right," and put them back in. "You wanted to see your hair up in perm rods." My mother could be very accommodating. I went to the bathroom with a hand held mirror to admire her work. She really had used a lot of rods, rolled so close together, neatly lined up, overlapping ends to allow more rods to be used. My hair was going to be curly and I was excited. I went back in the kitchen and sat down. My mother began taking out all the perm rods, fairly careful to unroll my hair so that it wouldn't get caught in the rods, particularly in the clasping arm. She worked her way around my head and after a few minutes, she pronounced that she was done. She stepped back, looked at me, and said, "Wow! You are curly." I was looking at myself in the hand held mirror. She was right. I had tight curls falling all over my head. I looked at my hair for awhile while my mother put away a few things. "What do you think?" "I love it," I said softly and asked, "Do you like it?" My mother said, "I think it looks fine. But I think we should set it tonight. A roller set always makes a perm better." This must have been in the magazines in the 1950's or 60's. To this day, I never knew a young woman who got her hair set after a perm. But for me, the offer of a set in the late 70's was perfect. "I can set you and your hair will be dry before bedtime." So my mother went to her bedroom and got her curler bag and the spikey plastic curlers and began setting me. She use a little bit of JetSet, but told me that a perm really helps make setting hair a lot easier. While she was setting my hair, she warned me that my hair might look a little effeminate tomorrow, but it would look more natural after that. She set my hair fairly quickly, wrapped my hair in a purple chiffon kerchief, which she apologized for, and we watched television. I always loved doing something girlish with my mother in a place that no man would bother us. Every so often I played with my kerchief just for fun. About 9 o'clock, my mother brought a chair into the living room for me to sit on so that we could continue watching television while unrolled the curlers. She let me look in the mirror, but told me not to worry, that the curls would loosen while I slept. I looked in the mirror and now instead of having jillions of super tight curls, I had dozens of stiffer, bigger curls. "I love this," I said as I played and fluffed my hair. "Well, we'll try to preserve it," my mother said. She put a little hair spray on my set and said, "I would lend you my sleep bonnet," which was a pink, ruffly style that I bought many years later, "but I think it will smush the top too much. How about if we wrap your hair in toilet paper?" I thought at first that she was fooling, but when she appeared from the closet with a fresh roll, I knew she wasn't. I had never seen her hair in toilet paper, but she said she use to do it all the time, wrapping her head like a turban with the top open. It really works. She began doing this for me and I felt more silly than I had all day. I looked at myself in the mirror again and said, "Ok, mother, I guess this is fine." I went to bed and woke up the next morning. I could still feel the perm rods pulling my hair and the curlers poking my head and I definitely could smell the perm solution. I looked into the mirror. Some of the toilet paper was unraveling, but my mother had used enough pin curl clips to hold most of it in place. I went to the kitchen where she was making coffee and asked her if she could do my hair before I went to work. I really hadn't seen my hair dry and finished and I was excited to see how it turned out. My mother took out the pin curl clips and unwrapped the toilet paper. She went to get her hair pick and teasing comb. She came back and fluffed my hair out, carefully picking out the curls with her fingers and arranging them into place. I loved my big hair. I thanked my mother and went to work. I don't think I had ever been nervous like this before, me worrying about what the women in the library would say. They really were nice, but still I didn't know what to expect. My hair was so big that they had to comment. I tried to sneak in and go about my job reshelving books, but one of the young women, the one who was getting her hair permed in a week, saw me from the circulation area and exclaimed, "Well!" She got up and rushed over to me, smiling. "Did you have your hair done in curlers?" She grabbed both of my hands. "Yes, I did!" I reflected her excitement. "You have a lot of guts," she said. "I don't know any guys who would get their hair set in curlers." One of the older women came over and said, "So you really went through with it." This made me curious and I found the courage to ask her, "How do you like my hair?" "You look really nice, I like it." she said. The younger woman said, "I told him that he had a lot of guts to get his hair set in curlers." The older woman said, "So your mom set your hair after the perm?" "Yes," I said. She said "Well, I like it. I wish I could get my hair like yours. My old grey thinning hair just doesn't do the same thing." The other women came out from the back to find out what was going on. "Wow, your hair is so big!" said the other young woman. "He got it set." "Really? Wow. Do you like it?" "Yes," I confessed. One of them said "I think it looks cute." "Yes, I love your hair." This all lasted about a minute or so and then I was accepted. Later that morning, the young woman who was going to get her hair permed talked to me about my hair. At first she wanted to talk only about my roller set. She looked at my hair and recalled that during the 60's she set her hair all the time while she was going to junior high school, but she hadn't had her hair curled in a long time. "How did you like getting your hair done?" she asked. "Honestly, I loved it. It was fun." I admitted in a moment of candor. I wondered how she would respond. "Do you know how to set your own hair?" "Not well," I confessed. She changed the subject, "I'd gotten my hair permed a few times when I was little. The last time it was really frizzy so I'm a little scared how my hair is going to turn out this Saturday." "I'm sure it will be ok," I tried to reassure her. She unconsciously reached out and touched my elbow and said, "I love your hair. You really are brave, but it looks good on you." "Thanks." She was married, but I think I fell in love with her. Mrs. Widders came in later that day and said she had to see how my hair turned out. She actually was there to pick up some summer school material, but maybe she really came to see my hair, I thought, me feeling like an attraction. She said I looked cute and I reciprocated saying her newly permed hair was pretty.. We laughed and she asked me if I had gotten use to the smell. I hadn't. She off-handedly mentioned said one of the nice things about a perm is that it really helped hold a set, which I had noticed as my curls weren't drooping by mid- afternoon. The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. I thought a few people were looking at me, but realized I might have been self conscious. I looked in the mirror in the restroom and couldn't help but fluff up the back. I drove home, my mother asked about my day, and I told her about the response to my hair. "Oh, that reminds me, could you take those perm rods over to the Kent's. I don't want to forget." I felt reluctant because my dream boyfriend Bruce was there and I was feeling vulnerable in my poufy hair. I couldn't help it and couldn't really get the dream out of my mind. Still I agreed and drove the box of Toni spin curlers two blocks away to the Kent's. I was still leery of being seen in public. I knocked on Kent door and walked in hoping that I could just drop the box off on the counter. Mrs. Kent was there and said "Hello. Oh my, you did get your hair done. Your mother gave you a wonderful perm!" "Thank you." "So much hair. Bruce isn't here, would you like a Pepsi?" "No thanks," I said and backed out the door and went home. Bruce came into the library the next day and I could see him peeking over a book in the quiet reading section, I assume trying to get a glimpse of me. I played coy and ignored him, but finally came by only to say hello. I couldn't let myself think that he was in control, although my hello seemed meek. Would I be less meek if I wore a dress? Who knows. He smiled at me and I didn't see him much again for the rest of the summer. I was getting use to my hair by Wednesday and I was ready to wash it for the first time since my perm. I stood in the shower and noticed how even when it was wet, how tight the curl was. I thought about letting it naturally dry, but considered instead to have it set again, once more before my father returned. He wouldn't care for me being in curlers, I knew. I asked my mother to set my hair and she seemed surprised, but was obliged nonetheless. She brought out her curler bag and pulled a chair out into the living room floor. She combed the JetSet through my hair and set the spikey curlers while we watched television. This was the last time she did my hair. My mother finished rolling my hair about 8 pm and said that my hair wouldn't dry in time for bed. She tied her purple kerchief around my head and behind my neck in a bow again and had me use a hand held drier on my hair to get it dry quicker. I remember that it was boring holding the hair drier above my head and told her that I would gladly sleep with the curlers in my hair instead. My mother thought that was funny and wished that she had gotten her bonnet drier fixed, but said it would only take a little while longer. When I finished, we let my hair cool as we sat and watched television awhile. Around 10 pm she began unrolling my hair and putting my curls into place. She told me to get a roll of toilet paper while she got the pin curl clips and she ceremoniously wrapped my curled hair in toilet paper. I liked almost every aspect about getting my hair done and only did what I could to encourage my mother to engage me in whatever process she liked to make my hairstyle complete. As I sat there with my mother carefully clipping a toilet paper turban around my set, I remember thinking that it was much easier and more fun to go along with everything. No normal guy would along with this and I didn't care. I said good night and went to bed. The next morning, my mother unwrapped my hair and fixed it again, combing it out this time a little bigger than a few days earlier. I looked in my hand held mirror. My hair was poufy and I loved it. I never told my mother, but my hair made me feel effeminate and connected to her and I really loved it. Several years earlier, she might not have done my hair or for that matter have me model dresses so that she could fix the hem. I suspected or reasoned at some point in the mid-70's that she must have read something in a magazine that suggested it was fine for boys to be effeminate. Also I know that having my father travel more helped us both relax. With less male influence and being able to ignore outsiders helped and somehow being girlish was fine and brought us closer. Maybe she realized that I would be leaving for school soon and this was like a last family project. Just as she was getting done with my hair, my mother gave me a shot of hair spray, but I don't think I needed it. At work, the young woman who was going to get her hair permed on Saturday again noticed my hair as soon as I walked through the door. She came up to me and said that she had to ask if I had gotten my hair done up it curlers again. "Yes, I had my hair up last night!" I effused. I loved being expressive around her. "Did you really? Did you set your own hair?" "No, my mother did my hair again." "You must be really get into this." Something came over me and I reached out and touched her hand gently "I really do! It's so much fun getting my hair done." And I asked "Do you like it?" She looked at me and said, "I do, it's just so weird that a guy would be getting his hair done all the time. But it looks good on you." We were standing very close and something made me ask "Are you excited about your perm?" She understood me and said "I really am, but I don't know if my husband is." "Don't worry, you'll be a knockout." She liked this and said, "Thanks." We eventually started our library work for the day, but not until I told her that my hair my mother had put my hair in a kerchief the night before. "Really? You are so brave." There was something that was very noticeable to me about her. She needed a friend and she wanted to talk, probably about a lot of things. She definitely needed something from me. Looking back on it, this was one of the more confusing relationships I have been in. You have to give me some writer's liberty to fill in the details because this happened nearly 30 years. I was letting my feminine side come out, mostly for fun, something for serious, getting my hair done as womanly as I could, trying on a more effete personality at the library at least where I didn't think it would have any long term effect. This librarian, this young woman, was the one person who cared about my hair as much as I did. The other librarians didn't care. My friends, I found out a couple days, later didn't really care. They, like my dad and most men, didn't want to talk about hair, which was fine with me. I know that getting my hair permed brought my mother and me closer for awhile and we did more things together that summer if only because I was leaving for school. Some of my relatives kidded me at a family reunion about having "librarian hair," but even that faded after a few minutes. My girl friend liked my hair "a lot," she said, and that comment along with a thousand other things made me want to get intimate with her, but she was still dating a guy who would soon dump her. Even a gay man at the library, who peeked through the stacks for a week in pursuit of me after my perm transformation eventually disappeared. But this librarian seemed to be tracking my movements and style, my hair, my comments, and many subtle things, looking for something. In retrospect, I think I was an unpredictable, unknown person to her young established life. Her husband, the strong and erect statue, never bending, golf playing, insurance selling fellow. She was pretty, 26 or so. A Baptist or Republican or something that should have made her cringe just thinking about me. I remember speculating that if she and I were in the same high school class and I was acting as I was, she would have ridiculed me both behind and in front of my back. But here she was, stuck as a librarian with co-workers who were nice, but not what she needed, and my guess was her neighbors weren't any better and her husband mute and her friends long gone possibly living in Tallahassee or Rockford. Maybe she needed kids to occupy her mind, but she didn't have any and so a femme young man with poufy hair like myself seemed extremely interesting. I had most of this story figured out that first week and everything else seemed to fall into place in time. The only confusing part was why I enjoyed being or playing the role of this fop with her. On Friday, the day before her perm, we talked again the first thing in the morning and we clearly enjoyed seeing one another. It gave us a chance to talk about what we had done the night before. Me: Watched some television, read some. Her: Prepared supper for her husband and herself and watched some television. We talked about her upcoming perm again, me reassuring her it would be great and me saying that I would go with her and I would hold her hand through the whole experience, which was a joke, but maybe we both wished I would. I also noticed that she was wearing a new, or at least different pair of earrings, silver hoop earrings, that I said they were really "lovely," a word I never used seriously before. She truly responded to this compliment saying, "Thank you for noticing, I just got them. You are so sweet." And she touched my hand, a now daily event. My guess is that her husband didn't notice them or complained about their cost or some foolish thing. By the way, it took me nearly three more years to figure out that many women really like to be complimented particularly about their clothes, hair, and accessories and that a few sincere well-placed compliments are completely priceless in terms of progressing a relationship. I found it easier to compliment a woman's clothes or hair if I could imagine myself in her place. She came by a few more times that Friday and I noticed her clinginess, her coming to talk to me on flimsy pretenses like: Did I know where some book was (how would I know, I was just a reshelver). So we would walk around the library together for ten minutes looking for a book. We said goodbye after work and I actually thought about her on my way home. I did like her. I knew what coveting and adultery meant, at least in some perspectives. I wasn't too disturbed, but wondered from her conservative religious viewpoint, maybe her being with me was just fine, me being the unreachable effeminate male, gay male, eunuch or some other type that could be written off without moral consequence. That is still my speculation. She came in Monday and I had to see her and her hair. Her perm turned out wonderfully well. It was definitely not a tight oodles of poodle perm curls, but a loose natural curl, something that was not that common in the late 70's. She looked gorgeous and I told her. She asked me if I really thought so, and I told she was gorgeous in three different ways and finally said she was a knockout which seemed to stick. She was wearing the earrings again and I told her how much I liked them again. She was dressing for me, so I told her that I liked her new dark blue dress. The dress was simple, but it was very pretty and made her look very feminine. She told me all about her perm because that's what girls do and I was effectively her girlfriend, which I liked being. She came by later for no reason and we started talking about earrings. I wondered for her whether I should get my ears pierced and she said, "You should. You'd be adorable. Would you like to go shopping with me this week?" "When?" "How about Thursday after work? I need to get a dress for a wedding and I wanted you to help." So it was set. On Thursday, she wore the dark blue dress and earrings I liked, I had intentionally poufed my hair up at home extra big, waiting first for my father to leave, and we were ready for our date later that day. I really looked forward to it. I really wanted to go on a date with her. After work, we drove to the mall in her car and we walked into the mall, me instinctively putting my arm around her back. I was nervous and really didn't know what I was supposed to be, but decided to let things happen. We shopped in a number of women's stores and dress shops in the mall. I gave an occasional comment, trying not to be overbearing, saying what was cute and what was grody, a word a girl cousin used about bad looking clothes. She liked when I said something was "grody" because it usually was. I sensed that some of the store clerks knew I was gay, so I thought or I hoped. I wasn't sure what I wanted, me going around with this pretty young married woman. Often we touched each other very casually, softly on the arm or shoulder or back. It seemed natural and truly affectionate. Other times she would hand me something like a scarf and I would wonder if she thought it would look good on me. I felt so very fluid. After a couple hours, we found a very pretty pastel blue dress with short sleeves for her that made her irresistible. We drove to a family sit-down restaurant. I sat in the chair next to hers at the table. We were talking and then came to a point of no conversation and then the words hit my brain, "I want you." I didn't say them, but my brain was consumed by them and if body language really existed, this was the moment for full unspoken communication. She was so beautiful and she had accepted me as I was, but maybe not as I was, but I didn't care because she was so beautiful. And she noticed something changed in my expression and felt it. I had one pure thought in my mind and that was to be very intimate with her and I knew we had to stop. The evening sort of ended there like a light had turn off. We had a light dinner, she took me to my car, and we went home. We didn't talk much the next day or the next week. I went camping for a few days with my friends and came back to work the next Monday, unshaven with my hair absolutely wild. My girl friend coincidentally came into the library early Monday morning, saw me and my wildness and threw her arms around me, this in full view of the young librarian. In retrospect, that seemed to end that. My girl friend had broken up with her boyfriend and she was probably suffering a form of separation anxiety and fear of the future in college. She was probably in an unstable state of mind and needed someone she knew and I loved to be with her. So we started dating. And then we broke up before we went off to college, just as my hair was growing out of my first perm. 3. My first visit to cosmetology school. For the first two and a half years of college, I mostly ignored my hair. By about midway through my freshman year, I had cut out most of my first perm and had begun going to an indifferent barber. I largely paid attention to school and work and social studies instead of my hair. One day in about January of my junior year, I saw that a girl from a nearby apartment had gotten a perm. Before her hair was dirty blonde five inches long with highlight streaks and straight and limp. But here she had gone home for Christmas and gotten her hair done by a serious hairdresser who made her streaked blonde hair curled in perfect quarter sized curls all over her head. The sight of her awakened me and I wished I was her for unexplained reasons. As we walked out of the apartment that morning, I paid an inordinate amount of attention to her, so much that she noticed and asked me what I was looking at. "Nothing, your hair. You look amazing." "Thanks." I tried to date her, but she was busy with school, work, and two other guys. Nonetheless I started to think about hair again. A few months later, I was in downtown on a Saturday morning, there mostly out of boredom, mostly to see something different. Downtown was cruddy and winter made it seem particularly filthy. I walked around looking for something to look at when I found quite by accident the Universal School of Cosmetology. I looked through the huge storefront window and saw something I hadn't imagined: 20 or so women were getting their hair done in curlers or perm rods or were having highlights or shampoos or haircuts. There were at three rows of dryers, two rows back to back, one row along the wall with at least 10 dryers in each row. A half dozen or so of the dryers were occupied. There were 4 groups of hair dressing stations with 5 stations arranged in a circle in each group and the groups were scattered about the huge floor as if they islands. And there were hairdressers everywhere, all in protective black shirts with mid length sleeves that were worn over white button down blouses, pressed black slacks, and low heeled black pumps. Nearly all of them, as far as I could see at first, appeared to be women. This may seem really naive, but this scene seemed so unreal to me. Three times that morning, I went past the beauty school window in each direction trying to get as long of glimpse as I could, hoping to take in everything of this surreal scene. I knew I was making a scene of myself, but I didn't care and did not figure it made any difference to anyone. Eventually I did stop snooping and made the rest of the morning doing other things, but the Universal School of Cosmetology was the most entertaining thing I had seen. Ever, perhaps. All week I thought about going back and when the weekend came around, I again went downtown and again watched the show of something I knew most people wouldn't care about. I knew I had a strange obsession, but I didn't mind. I knew I was wired to this and felt like I was a menace only to myself. I missed going to view the beauty school on the third week, but on the fourth week I was back and this time with a plan to go in and see whether I could get my hair done. I had been letting my hair grow and didn't want to talk about getting a haircut. Instead I thought about just asking for a perm, that's all. I went in and felt extremely nervous, unlike any normal nervousness. I wasn't going to get a perm, that took a serious commitment, but instead I wanted to find out how much a perm would cost or something. I had very little to talk about, but after slow two passes in front of the beauty school, I went in. I waited at the front desk for a minute or so. They did not have the reception desk well staffed. I had time to look around. The beauty school seemed exceptionally busy. I watched all sorts of stories of hairdressers developing. Some of the students didn't seem to have a clue of what to do. Some seemed to wish they weren't there. Others seemed to have everything under control. Finally, a very young woman with very black hair named Clarise came. "Good morning, may I help you?" "I am thinking about getting my hair permed and wanted to know how much you charged." "Perms are $8 for a junior student and $12 for a senior." Then nothing. I only had my first line prepared, I delivered it, and then was empty. Clarise asked, "Did you want a perm?" I was stumped. I made some non-words at first that seemed to confuse Clarise, but then finally I came up with an answer, "I wanted to see if I was thinking that I would like to see what my hair looked like hair permed?" That almost made sense. "You want to see what a perm would look like in your hair?" "Yes." "Like I don't know, but I don't know if we can do that. We have some wigs you could try on..." Fortunately, Heather came by. Clarise consulted with Heather, "He wants to see what a perm looks like," Clarise was talking as if I wasn't there. Heather with a ready answer said, "Set his hair in perm rods." Heather was 19 years-old and very sure of herself. Clarise, continually nervous asked, "Can we do that?" Heather, "Sure. I use to set my boyfriends hair in p