Can one gay man defeat Alaska’s hairpocalypse and win the sexy lumberjack?
M/M Gay Romance: 20735 words: The logging town of Sithole, Alaska, hasn’t had a decent hairdresser in two years. The men look like shaggy yaks and the women…well, let’s not get too personal…they’re in desperate need of a makeover. The mayor has sent out a mayday call requesting a female hairdresser but when the new hair stylist arrives it’s the outrageous rainbow tornado, Frankie Burfitt, escaping a cheating boyfriend. Neither side knows what they are getting into but, after some initial reluctance, the women of the town pack his salon, the timber men need a bit more persuasion, especially one particular swarthy lumberjack, Bud Guyder, who’s caught Frankie’s eye. Is the shy logger a little gay curious or just a tease?
They say first impressions count. If that’s the case, this spot obviously didn’t care.
Welcome to Shithole, Alaska.
Of course the sign didn’t say any such thing. It probably should have. We weren’t exactly off to a good start. In fact, there was no sign, just an old tin shed with a weathered sign that spelled AI P T. No name of the town, no nothing. As for a Duty Free shop, well, at least they’d made an effort and there was an empty Coke machine, beside it a machine that had once dispensed comfort food, the remnants of which was a forlorn tube of Pringles wedged between the glass and the metal apparatus that used to hold the container of crisps in place. I noticed the Pringles had an expiry date that had come and gone five years before.
Also missing from the AI P T With No Name, was my name. On a card. Attached to a welcoming committee of at least one who would transport me to my accommodation. On the backs of a team of donkeys if the first appearances were anything to go by.
Not that I had a lot of baggage. At least not the kind that contains underwear and skin moisturizer. Did they even have a store where the essentials for modern life were readily available? I’m not so pampered I can’t rough it for, say, an hour or two – three at the max – but there are some things that someone of my constitution cannot, and will not, live without. My heart sank as I looked about me. I’d been told everything would be supplied but I was beginning to have serious doubts.
As to the other type of baggage – the psychological – there was no escaping that. I had that tucked up in my memory and, not to be too dramatic, my heart had been shattered into a million tiny shards that still pierced my ventricles. I’d now been single for sixteen days twelve hours and a handful of minutes.
A mini-van awaited our disembarkation, the driver greeting the other three passengers while I hung back, stupidly expecting some sort of welcoming committee.
The driver was something else. Sure, he had the shaggy look like all the others but he wore it well. It couldn’t disguise the fact that beneath that fur he was as handsome a man as I’d seen in many a year. When I made no effort to board his vehicle he came over and in a voice so deep you could probably mine gold, said, “You waiting for something, mate?”
“A proposal of marriage. A reporter. A photographer. Perhaps a welcoming committee,” I said with an air of superiority.
He turned to his passengers laughing and then repeated what I’d just said. The guffaws from the van echoed his.
“You sure you’re in the right town. No offense, but you sorta look outa place round here.”
“If this is Shithole, Alaska, then I’m in the right place. Oops,” I said sarcastically, “No offence.”
He laughed, not offended at all. “You’re not the first to call it that. Won’t be the last neither.” Then an idea seemed to strike him and his face lit up. “Your name’s not Francis, is it?”
“That’s what it says in my passport.”
“Holy shit! You’re the new hairdresser. And you’re not a woman.”
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