Hairy

1

The Scientist, a tall woman, crisp white lab coat, hair pulled tightly back, adjusted her thin spectacles and clinked the screen with her fingernail. 

Charles listened attentively.

'This, here, is the gene that gave you hair on top of your head, yes? Screwed up by your testosterone. Why you ended up with male-pattern baldness. Just look at it! What a mess. Even from here.' 

Charles gawped at the VDU. All he could see were flickering lines of stripes, like a drone shot of black and white zebras streaming across the African plains.

The Scientist was pointing to a particular zebra, unaware that it had been stabbed by a bright orange marker. 

'So, we replace that useless, head-hair gene with a fully functioning one. Then, voila! Back to when you were a teen. Full head of gorgeous hair.'

She breathed a delicious sigh and turned to Charles. 

'What do you think?'

Charles gently touched the computer screen. His failed zebra didn't move. 'Let me get this right. You whip out the old gene, the one that's defunct, and replace it with another, hair-growing one?'

He paused and rubbed his well-manicured fingers under the edge of his toupee.' And I get a full head of hair again. Baldness, gone. That simple.'

'Well, not quite that simple of course,' said the Scientist. 'And not cheap. Look at all this equipment. State of the Art when it comes to genetic engineering. Astronomically expensive. But it's accelerated my research. Amazingly quickly, actually.'

Charles looked around the lab. There was no natural light. The room was filled with an aura of fluorescent unreality. Shiny chrome (who-knew-what?) 'equipment' nestled among impressive banks of white metal, glass screens, computers, and snakes of wires. The whole room gave off a casually reassuring hum.

'Awesome,' said Charles.

The Scientist shrugged nonchalantly. 'Also, we don't actually take out the old gene. Call it Baldy—' She made rabbit ear fingers. '—OK? Baldy's just not working. An ex-gene so to speak, but not actually a problem. So we leave it alone. What we geneticists call—' She smirked. '—in situ in the genome. All we do is insert a new gene right, right beside Baldy. Let's call the new one, Hairy.' More rabbit fingers. 'And off it goes, ignoring Baldy and sending out its piliferous joy like a firework!' 

The Scientist tittered condescendingly, smoothed her hair and practically pirouetted to another machine.

Pleased with herself no doubt, thought Charles, but, hey, why wouldn't she be? All this State of the Art humming for heaven's sake. And she was there, wan't she? Right on the cutting edge of this astonishing new bio-techno-engineering. 

Charles caught up with the Scientist. 'And you've tried it?'

'Yes, of course. Come and have a look at this little fellow.'

The Scientist lead him like a disciple into an adjacent room. 

The humming receded into the background, replaced by the smell of damp sawdust (and urine?). Banks of cages ran like tall filing cabinets along one wall. Inside most of them, mice looked pensive or ran squeakily around spindly wheels.

Charles followed the Scientist to a cage at the end of one row. 

She pointed. 'See that one. It's a naked mouse.'

Charles' gaze fell on a solitary ball of fluff groping slowly among the sawdust. 'But not so naked,' he said. 'Right?'

The Scientist simpered. 'And, of course, not a mouse. It's a mole-rat, Heterocephalus glaber. But we scientists mostly call it a mouse.' 

She took a pen from her lab coat pocket and gave the little thing a poke. 'And it was,' she continued. 'Naked. A naked mole-rat from the Horn of Africa that lives underground. No need of hair. Thing is, we found the mole rat's Hairy gene is only turned off, not defunct like yours.'

She fetched a phone from the pocket of her lab coat and called up a picture. 'Here,' she said. 'Have a look at the original version.'

She watched, amused, as Charles recoiled. The ugly little animal was entirely devoid of hair. More a shiny, pink larva than mammal. Scrawny legs with big feet kept its wrinkled body off the ground. However, rather than look vulnerable, the thing had a quietly brutal look: erupting from its face below two black beady eyes were a pair of needle incisors.

'Jesus,' breathed Charles.

'Perhaps,' said the Scientist, 'But perfectly adapted to it's life style. I can't go into how we did it of course, but we've managed to turn its Hairy gene back on.'

Charles flip-flopped between phone and sawdust, speechless. 

'Quite successful don't you think?' said the Scientist. 

Charles peered closely into the cage. 

'Extraordinary, isn't she,' trilled the Scientist. 'The fur grew back rapidly. Quite permanent. That's Hairy in action and that's what we'll use to replace your old Baldy head gene. You'll have your lovely hair back in no time. Could get going in weeks.'

Charles looked again at the bubble of fur and unconsciously stroked his toupee.

The Scientist laughed. 'Of course you'd have to see a hairdresser regularly. And as I just said, it's not a cheap process but, given all our results here in the lab, I've full confidence that it'll work.'

Charles looked at her, and back at the hairy mole-rat. 

The Scientist was good-looking in a pristine, white-coated-Scientist sort of way, but nothing like as attractive as the glorious creature in the cage. 

Charles had lost his hair early, far too early and far too quickly. A tragic embarrassment that began rapidly in high school, where the continual taunting he'd suffered was followed by years of distress and rejection as an adult - especially when, in the midst of sexual relations, his hairpiece had been inevitably and scornfully discovered.

For Charles, baldness had been the incontrovertible blight of his life.

But, perhaps, not any more.

'How much?' he said. 

Charles was rich, young and entrepreneurial. Compensatory, psychological dynamics meant he easily could, and mostly had to, pay for everything. Sex included.

 The Scientist cooed. 'It's still a little experimental as you know. But sooo promising. That's why we need human studies. You'd be first in the trial!'

'How much?' said Charles.

'There are no guarantees that it will work of course. And you'd need to sign a waiver. And a non-disclosure.'

Charles reached into his wallet and pulled out a card. 

'How much?'

2

Charles had ended that first visit by handing over both card and some (rather) personal samples to the Scientist. She'd smiled a lot. She might even have winked at him.

A week later found Charles lying on a table in a small side room off the lab. 

He'd spent the intervening days pacing tensely around his lavish apartment, muttering to himself. When the call arrived, he couldn't get to the lab quickly enough. 

He'd lain nervously on the table. 'You said the gene work would be done quickly but I didn't expect it so soon.' 

The Scientist had seemed a little more informal than previously, jiggling a pair of expensive earrings. 'We gave you top priority, Charles. All hands on deck. State of the Art and so on.' 

She'd efficiently filled a syringe from a glass phial of clear liquid, waving the syringe in the air like a magic wand. 'Doesn't seem much, does it, but we're talking a genetic miracle just waiting to happen.'

The Scientist had swabbed Charles's arm and lined up the needle. 'Just a little prick,' she'd tittered. 'Sorry. Perk of the job. There you go. All done. I'll want to see how you're doing so please make some appointments at the desk.'

With that, Charles had rolled down his sleeve, swung on his expensive jacket and, half dazed, half skipping, left the lab. 

Trepidation arrived as soon as he left the building. (Surely he'd been foolish?). In its wake, a lifetime's worth of desperation. Finally had come Stoic acceptance. 'Done is done,' he'd muttered, rubbing his arm and stepping into the cab. 

'Alea jacta est, and all that.'

3

A month later found Charles in front of a mirror stroking the top of his head, toupee in hand. He could feel delicious fuzzy growth under his fingers. 

'Well, look at you,' he chuckled to himself. 

Charles had checked his scalp impatiently every day since he'd left the lab. (Actually, more like every other minute.) 

The first change came quite soon. Charles woke up to find his scalp feeling more like fine sandpaper than its normal eggshell.

Unconvinced at first (No way!) day by day he'd felt a little more certain. In the mirror he watched hair sprouting over his bald pate with growing awe. What once had been a car park was now a fine, brown meadow.

Charles' plan was to keep a very low profile while events unfolded. Luckily he could work from the computers banked up in his rich apartment's office, shuffling the on-screen numbers that ran his business and made his money. 

As his hair grew, he found his secret toupee no longer sat comfortably, lifting up like a loose manhole cover.

Online, face-to-face meetings became tricky and he began to wear a baseball cap, forcing his toupee back down. Charles' excited heart began to replace his customary sour affect. His expensive jacket coupled with the baseball cap and lighter demeanour gave him a modern look (Film director!).

And so he began to be noticed.

Especially by Samantha, the director of a rival firm. She with the fabulous head of thick, red hair. A glamorous woman over whom Charles had drooled - but always supposed would be a scorn pourer.

One morning, as he stroked and oiled his new-grown hair, the idea popped into Charles' head that one day (Soon!) he might actually ask Samantha on a date. 

That single thought had been as much a shock as feeling the first growth of hair under his probing fingertips and doubled the smile on his face.

Two months after leaving the lab found the toupee ousted; thrown in the bin. 

'Good riddance,' said Charles. 

It was a time for a celebration, which Charles held alone in his apartment. (Whom could he invite anyway? He'd have to tell.)

Appointments with that Scientist?

Forget it!' he exclaimed, clinking the mirror with his champagne flute. Just a few days before, the Scientist had phoned to cancel all their meetings and to say she'd have to stop the trial. Some regulation or other. Or was it perhaps a problem with the equipment? Charles didn't quite catch any of it but, whatever, she'd done her job. All was boding well.

End of conversation. 

'So what,' said Charles to himself. 'We're done. And if I'm meeting anyone, it's not going to be Ms Lab Coat. It'll be Samantha.'

Charles turned from the mirror and gazed out of his apartment window, swelling like Mr Toad. 

'And soon!'

Three months from the syringe event and Charles was sitting in an expensive restaurant with an intrigued Samantha, her rich, red locks falling over the costly shoulders of her suit.

She sipped her cocktail and fondled the gemstones around her neck. 'Great hair, Charles. So modern too. Love the beard.'

Charles twisted his Rolex to stop his obsessive hands stroking his hair. (What was he, a newbie to this stuff? He had a high-class barber!) Still, he couldn't help preening. The pleasure of hearing those words was so, preen-worthy.

Samantha preened back.

Six months out found Charles and Samantha the talk of financial circles. Engaged. Considering merging their businesses. The tabloid newspapers rolled in: Hermit Sourpuss Boss Snared by Fiery Rival, and so on.

Charles had never been happier. He could hardly remember the old days when his reclusive mind worried continuously about ridicule.

A slight concern for Charles was the number of times he needed to visit his surprised but financially gratified high-class barber for a hair and beard trim.

When Charles had popped the inevitable question, what he didn't tell Samantha was that, a couple of days before, he'd had another appointment. For a body wax. 

Charles knew his head hair was spreading and thickening across his body but Samantha's appreciation so far - that it was all down to his sheer animal masculinity - had reassured him. 

Standing yet again in front of the mirror, he was glad he did get waxed, however unpleasant the experience, for now his naked body showed off his beautiful locks to full effect.

'Looking good,' he muttered.

Twelve months on, Charles was an even more frequent visitor to the high-class barber. And a regular at the waxing clinic, which prevented his expensive suits from feeling tight and hair sneaking beyond his shirt cuffs and under his Rolex.

Charles had also learned the confusing but ultimately humiliating meaning of the expression, 'Back, Crack and Sack.'

Uncomfortable and a little worried, he'd been delaying his wedding, which caused Samantha to shake her own abundant hair and frown.

Charles was running out of excuses.

4

In her office, the Scientist murmured softly to herself, bling-covered fingers tapping away at the keyboard. She lifted her eyes and looked around her silent lab. With a sigh, she leaned back in her chair. Hardly a hum. And not a single bio-student in sight.

The phone interrupted her reverie.

'Reception, here. Someone in the lobby. I know we're closed but he's insisting on seeing you.'

'Who is it,' asked the Scientist.

'Hard to say. Can't quite understand him. Just a moment. He's writing something down. Charles something or other. Bit of a scribble. Could be... Urgent?'

'Yes, I know who he is. Send him up please.'

The Scientist was curious. She's not heard from Charles since they'd unfortunately had to stop the trial. Her trial, she thought with some chagrin. One that had been a wild success: Charles had been so obviously happy with the results and not worried about discontinuing appointments. He'd even said, 'Keep the change' in a somewhat flippant way. 

She stood up, straightened her white lab coat and adjusted the rather nice ring on her finger.

Charles entered, impressive in his usual expensive suit and well-quaffed hair. 

The Scientist looked him over. 'Hello. You look good. How is everything? Come to thank me properly?'

Charles mumbled something, his face quite red.

'Say again?'

The Scientist couldn't quite make out what Charles was saying. He was wearing a mask, like the old Covid days. 

Charles lowered it, sharply.

Two long, vicious incisors pointed down from his upper lip.