At the hair salon tonight, a new girl washed my hair. She went through the usual rou­tine, but before she fin­ished, she placed her fin­gers along the front of my hair­line, and with con­stant pres­sure, slowly worked her way back.

The water was warm, my hair was wet, and I felt the ten­sion going down my scalp. It was com­pletely sub­lime.

The edges of my lips started curl­ing, but I couldn’t tell if I was help­lessly smil­ing, or it was the stretch­ing of my skin upwards.

In the shower tonight, when wash­ing out the stray hairs, I tried doing it on myself. It didn’t feel the same, of course.

It was like that scene in Secretary, where Lee Holloway (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) tries to spank her­self with a hair­brush when explor­ing her sub­mis­sive ten­den­cies. I love the expres­sion of intent, and ulti­mately let­down, on her face.

The prob­lem with man­ual stim­u­la­tion is that it never feels as good as when some­one else does it for you.