Nok
The door to my shop opened and he walked in, looking to get his haircut. Or at least I assumed he wanted his hair cut. I ran a salon that provided various beauty-related services, but men usually only came in if they needed a haircut. I paused to look at him, feeling my practically-extinct lovemaking mechanism now showing signs of life. He had light skin, brown hair, blue eyes, a well-toned body, and he appeared to be in his early 20s.
I’m old enough to be his mom...technically…
I surmised that he was a tourist on vacation, and he wanted to get a haircut to deal with the relentlessly hot Thai sun. I felt a bit like a schoolgirl once again, as I wondered if he liked me, like that. I soon scolded myself for thinking that way, as I was sure that he already had some foreign/farang girlfriend who was beautiful and young…
“Hi, I...need...hair cut…Or, umm, tad pom?” he politely informed me, making scissor motions with his hands.
I knew he wasn’t trying to be an ass, but instead he was trying to make do with not speaking conversational amounts of Thai.
He wasn’t the first non-Thai to walk through my door, so I wasn’t caught off guard.
“Fine, fine. Haircut is 100 baht,” I replied, giving him a neutral smile.
“Okay,” he replied, giving me a thumbs-up hand gesture as he walked to the barber’s chair.
Standing behind him, I first put on the paper neck band, right before I went to grab the barber’s cape. But, before doing this, I allowed myself a little bit of time to look at his ivory-toned pecs that were now on display through his tank top that had the logo for a Thai beer company.
A bit cliched, but still cute, I thought as I looked at his outfit.
Sliding the cape on, I watched it cover his body, covering him up as I secured it together with the velcro at the top of the cape.
“Haircut normal?” I inquired.
“Yes, that is okay,” he slowly informed me, right before he put his thumb up again and said, “Dee mak.”
I barely refrained from rolling my eyes as I prepared to begin the haircut on the handsome westerner/farang.
Trying to seem uninterested, I began the haircut, a stoic expression on my face while my scissors began to clip at his hair.
“My name is Nok. Your name?” I asked.
“Hi, Nok. My name is Luke,” he politely replied, and for whatever reason, just the sound of his name caused butterflies in my chest.