Locks & Stocks

[Author's Note: This is a male haircut fetish story and revolves around three guys getting their hair cut in a public setting. If you find yourself reading on, don't be disappointed by the lack of explicit content. It's a pretty vanilla story which was a lot of fun to write but it's totally SFW, sort of...

'Locks & Stocks' is set in present-day Los Angeles. Bamboo Lane exists but alas there is no Blue Dragon theater and, even worse, no show called 'Locks & Stocks'! The two main characters, the unnamed narrator and his friend and colleague, Devin, will reappear in another story chronicling their time on the infamous TV show, 'Dare Your Hair?', which is referenced in passing. Thanks for reading, should you choose to do so! - HF]

I - At the Blue Dragon Theater

We'd had a relatively quiet week at the studios when Devin walked into the apartment excitedly waving a small piece of colored paper.

"Oh man, check this out!" he exclaimed as he handed me the sheet. It was a flyer advertising a new show at the Blue Dragon Chinese Theater in Bamboo Lane over in Chinatown. And this is what it said:

"Locks & Stocks - The Live Haircut Spectacle!

Step back in time and witness the ultimate test of courage.

Join us in our dungeon for a thrilling game of trivia where volunteers risk losing it all to the merciless Gaoler. Will they emerge unscathed or will they fall victim to the shears?

Experience the suspense, humor, and sheer excitement of live theater in a unique medieval setting!

Don't miss your chance to be part of the action at 'Locks & Stocks' and win a Big Cash Prize!

Reserve your seat now for an unforgettable evening where history meets haircuts.

Two complimentary drinks with each ticket sold!

Every Saturday evening at 21:30hrs - The Blue Dragon, Bamboo Lane."

As specialists in the removal of men's hair, the sound of this new show instantly aroused our curiosity. Devin got two tickets and the following Saturday we headed over to Chinatown.

It was dark by the time we arrived in Bamboo Lane. The front of the theater was elaborately carved to resemble a giant blue dragon's head, framed by gold pillars, its eyes illuminated with lamps behind green glass. The dragon's gaping mouth formed the theater's entrance, either side of which hung dozens of glowing, red paper lanterns which swung gently in the warm breeze.

As Devin and I shuffled inside along with the other ticket holders, we couldn't help but wonder what exactly this 'live haircut spectacle' would involve.

The crowd seemed to be made up of people about our own age, late 20s, early 30s, some younger and a few who were a little older. The majority seemed to be groups of men but there were couples too and even a few groups of women on a night-out.

We mingled for several minutes in the foyer, contributing to the babble of excitable voices, before heading over to the bar to guzzle our complimentary drinks. We then filtered past some big pots filled with leafy bamboo and on into the main auditorium.

The Blue Dragon wasn't a large theater, its 500 seats constructed in tiers to form the shape of a horseshoe around a small stage. The stage itself was only elevated about twelve inches off the floor, giving everyone a perfect view of the action.

The main set lived up to the promise of the flyer. It really did look like a medieval dungeon. The rough-stone walls seemed to drip with moisture and were dotted with half-a-dozen flickering torches, the 'flames' being red and orange silk that fluttered upwards using a system of compressed air.

Flagstones stained with mildew covered the floor. To the left was a wooden podium that looked like a medieval church pulpit. A pointed archway on the right was filled by an oak door studded with iron rivets.

But what made me and Devin look at each other with barely suppressed excitement, eyebrows raised, was the huge medieval pillory that was anchored to the center of the stage. Constructed of solid oak with heavy iron fittings, the pillory dominated the entire set.

Devin thought it was stocks, but it wasn't. Stocks were designed to secure a person's feet and ankles. The pillory was different and was intended to hold a guy fast using just his head and his hands. It was one of my favorite inventions of the Middle Ages. I guessed 'Locks & Pillory' didn't have quite the same ring to it.

My heart started to beat a little faster as the implications of what we were seeing began to sink in. I quietly thanked Devin for booking us front row seats. We weren't going to miss a single thing.

The lights of the auditorium dimmed as everyone settled into their seats. The studded oak door to the right slowly creaked open and a figure solemnly walked through dressed head to toe in black robes. His face was almost entirely obscured by a monk's cowl pulled up over his head with only his mouth and bearded chin left visible.

The figure processed across the stage to the pulpit on the opposite side, and then stood there in silence, head bowed, hands clasped in front of him, as if in prayer. The audience murmured with curiosity.

Suddenly the door opened again and a second figure appeared. I guessed this was the Gaoler. And this guy was huge. He must've been 6ft 7, at least. I wondered if he had a background in wrestling or even body-building as it was that kind of physique, but toned, not a trace of flab.

He looked about 35, maybe a little older, his black hair tightly shorn down into a clipper-shaved buzzcut. His face was extremely handsome, in an aggressive, threatening kind of way, a hint of black stubble around his square jawline. His huge chest was covered in a curling carpet of black fur that stretched from his hairy armpits and down towards the crotch of his dark leather pants. Running across his huge pecs, under his pits and back around the shoulders was a thick leather harness.

The harness honestly made him look like some sort of farmyard animal that had been prepared to draw a plough: a bull or a cart horse. Something bestial and massive.

Around his waist was strapped a leather utility belt that held combs, rechargeable hair clippers, and a couple of gigantic shears. And these weren't scissors. No, these were definitely shears. Huge steel shears with blades that were twelve inches long. Finally, on one of his bulging biceps, was a large colorful tattoo of an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail in an eternal cycle of destruction and rebirth.

You would not want to get on the wrong side of this dude. He just emanated an aura of intense, almost pungent masculinity. When I looked at him just one word came into my mind: 'domination'. Within the small confines of the Blue Dragon theater, his physical presence was overwhelming.

Having made his entrance, the Gaoler went to stand next to the pillory in the center of the stage from where he glowered at the audience from beneath his thick, black eyebrows, arms folded.

The Monk, I'm guessing he was our host, reached beneath the pulpit and drew something out. Holding it up in the air, it looked like a wad of paper, less than an inch thick and bound together with a paper collar.

He riffled through it casually with the ball of his thumb.

"One thousand dollars!" he declared, in a surprisingly deep voice. "One thousand dollars in new five dollar bills!"

The Monk was looking for a volunteer, from the audience, and the thousand bucks was the bait.

II - When Ethan Volunteered

The audience stirred, the scent of cash permeating through the studio. It was like blood in the water.

"One thousand dollars!" the Monk repeated.

He then began to chant:

"In the pillory, one shall stand, To test wit and skill, hand in hand. Three riddles, a test of mental might, Answer two true, claim fortune's light!"

Devin looked at me blankly.

"I think he wants a volunteer," I whispered, "from the audience, to go and get locked into the pillory. Then he'll ask three riddles, and if he gets two right, the guy wins the thousand bucks."

"Ohhh," said Devin, turning back to the stage.

The Monk continued, his mellifluous voice echoing around the auditorium, the silk flames billowing in the background:

"But falter twice, and face the fate, Of the Gaoler's shears, a dire state. With locks laid bare, a costly plight, In the Gaoler's grip, all hair takes flight!"

Devin turned to me, expectantly.

"He means that if the guy in the pillory gives two wrong answers then the Gaoler gets to work and it's lights-out for the poor dude's hair."

"Oooh," said Devin, looking pleased.

The Monk finished his recitation:

"So step forth boldly, and take the chance, In Locks & Stocks, and join fate's dance. With gold and glory in sight to see, Will it be sweet victory or your utter misery?"

The auditorium was filled with chatter as the Monk stood behind the pulpit, slowly waving the wad of five dollar bills back and forth over his head.

I leaned towards Devin.

"Are you tempted?" I asked, jokingly. I knew he wouldn't want to risk his own greased hair.

"Not a chance," he said. "You?"

I hesitated. Devin and I had matching classic side-part haircuts, slicked back with copious dollops of Orsini's special creamy white pomade. Think 'Valentino' and it would be pretty accurate.

Our haircuts were a requirement of our roles on 'Dare Your Hair?' so they couldn't be changed by the terms of our contract, but even so, the thought of standing up to volunteer, on an impulse, of being led to the pillory, to gamble my handsome oiled haircut and risk its possible destruction at the hands of this brute of a man standing in front of us, as this audience of strangers looked on and watched...

The prospect was undeniably intriguing not mention more than a little arousing. I adjusted my shorts.

"No," I said to Devin. "Not tonight anyway".

He laughed.

There was an increase in the babble coming from the far side of the auditorium. I glanced across to see the cause and was amazed to see that someone had stood up, his hand still raised in the air.

We had our first volunteer of the night.

I couldn't really see much as the lights over the seating were dimmed, but no sooner had the guy stood up than the Gaoler headed straight for him.

The Gaoler pushed his way down the row towards the volunteer, grabbed him by the bicep and literally dragged him back to the stage.

Once he was under the spotlights we got our first look at the guy. He was mid-twenties, I guessed. Certainly no older than thirty. Slim, about 6ft-tall, dressed in bootcut jeans and a purple T-shirt, with red sneakers on his feet.

His hair was parted in the center and flowed down either side of his face forming two dark curtains that reached to his lips. The hair was only a couple of inches long at the back and was casually pushed back behind his ears at the sides.

The hair looked thick, vital and healthy, and it was a stunning shade of medium-dark brown. Obviously the guy spent time and money maintaining it but it didn't look overly-groomed. Maybe he was just lucky. He was a handsome dude in a regular Joe kind of way and no small part of his attractiveness was derived from the beautiful locks growing on his head.

I heard some jeering and looked back towards where the guy had been sat. It seems he'd come to the show with some of his buddies who were now calling out to him as he stood on the stage.

The Monk raised his hand and there was silence.

He then nodded towards the Gaoler, who led the willing volunteer around the back of the pillory and opened it up.

The pillory was constructed from two thick, vertical oak posts jutting up from the floor of the stage, about four feet apart and around four feet in height.

Spanning the gap between the two posts was an oak plank about twelve inches wide that had been split along its center and hinged at one end leaving it free to open, like a movie clapperboard. In the middle of the plank was a large hole with two smaller holes either side.

With the plank open, the gaoler grabbed hold of the back of the volunteer's head and bent him forwards so his neck and wrists were resting on the lower part of the plank, in the three semi-circular groves cut into the wood.

The Gaoler then lowered the upper part of the plank back down, trapping the volunteer's hands and head on the side of the plank facing the audience. A large iron padlock then locked the two parts together with a loud, metallic *click*.

I heard the volunteer grunt in surprise. Although he was still stood up, he was now stooped over, his head only being about 4ft or so off the ground.

The volunteer looked completely immobile to me. I could see him flexing against the wood, trying to pull his hands back through the holes, just to see if he could.

He couldn't.

Whoever had made this pillory knew exactly what they were doing. It was a real work of art.

"Name!" demanded the Monk.

"Uh... Ethan," said Ethan.

Ethan craned his head up, looking out into the audience, shaking the long bangs out of his eyes as he did so.

"Ethan... What can you hold in your right hand but not in your left?"

I saw Ethan's mouth open a little in surprise.

"You have two minutes to answer," confirmed the Monk.

"Uh...".

Maybe Ethan was expecting more of an introduction, more friendly chit-chat, but the sudden commencement of the riddles seemed to take him by surprise.

"But not in my left...," I heard him repeat to himself.

God, the dude looked so wretched stood there like that. Hunched over, his hands and brown-haired head poking through the thick oak plank, sometimes frowning out towards the audience and sometimes staring at the mildewed flagstones on the floor.

He obviously had no idea what the answer was.

The end of the two minutes was announced with the sound of a bell.

"The correct answer was 'my left hand', Ethan," said the Monk.

I was close enough that I could hear Ethan mutter 'fuck' under his breath and the audience laughed.

One riddle down, potentially two more to go. Either way, Ethan had to get the next riddle correct or his pretty hair was about to have a close encounter with the Gaoler's shears.

"Ethan... The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?"

Now I saw a wave of panic cross Ethan's face.

"Uh... fuck... The more you take..."

Devin leaned over and whispered in my ear. "You really think that Gaoler dude is gonna give this poor sap a haircut?"

I looked over at the Gaoler, his hands flexing, the shears hanging from his belt. I had no doubt that if Ethan didn't get this riddle right then his luscious long locks were going to hit the floor faster than you could say "bad hair day at the zoo".

You could feel the tension rising in the auditorium. As Ethan wriggled in the pillory, the two curtains of hair that were hanging over his face swung seductively from side the side, sleek in the theater's subdued lighting, his center parting a white line that bisected his scalp exactly into two equal parts.

God, I thought, his hair really was stunning, and the prospect of seeing it getting trashed made my stomach curl into a knot even as part of me couldn't wait to see the spectacle unfold.

Suddenly the bell rang. The two minutes were over and Ethan had failed the riddle challenge.

Without even hesitating, the Gaoler strode over to the volunteer, removed a pair of the gigantic shears from his leather utility belt and grabbed hold of a huge handful of hair on the front of Ethan's head, scooping up almost all of the eight-inch long bangs that obscured the captive man's face.

"Nnnnngggggggghh..." grunted Ethan. He felt his hair tugging on its roots as the Gaoler pulled it up vertically from his head.

The Gaoler brandished the shears for the audience to see and then pushed them deep into the hair clutched in his fist, the blades flat against Ethan's scalp.

There was dramatic pause and then the Gaoler snapped the blades shut. I honestly thought the crunch of the shears parting the thick strands of hair was audible in the theater.

Even the seats at the back of the auditorium would've heard the gasp of shock that Ethan let out as he felt the shears depriving him of a significant hank of his hair.

The Gaoler lifted his fist up into the air and we all saw that he was now holding a big bunch of Ethan's severed sleek locks. He brandished them for a few seconds and then opened his hand, letting them fall down onto the stage to rest at Ethan's feet.

Before Ethan even had time to react further, the Gaoler had hacked off another fistful of his hair followed by another, throwing the cut locks high into the air so they floated down and landed on the floor.

Almost out of instinct, Ethan tried backing out of the pillory by pulling his head and hands free. But he wasn't going anywhere.

"Oh fuck...," he mumbled again as he realized his last-ditch attempt to save what was left of his hair had failed.

The Gaoler hacked off Ethan's long bangs and then started on the hair at the sides of Ethan's head that was bunched behind his ears.

The audience, still under the influence of the complimentary drinks that had been issued before the show started, applauded as Ethan's makeover continued. Loudest of all were the dude's friends who were now hooting with derision as their unfortunate buddy was deprived of what was probably his most attractive physical attribute.

The guy's hair was being completely decimated! Soon the mildewed flagstones in front of the pillory were covered in a thick blanket of Ethan's locks. Huge clumps of it continued to rain down as the Gaoler worked his way around Ethan's head with the shears.

Devin and I had done some pretty radical male grooming on 'Dare Your Hair?' but nothing that approached this level of extreme deforestation. It really was the most amazing spectacle, to witness someone's self-image being transformed in such a jaw-droppingly unorthodox way.

It was undeniably exhilarating. I always appreciated the slow and meticulous nature of haircutting but what we saw that night at the Blue Dragon opened up a whole new world of tonsorial possibilities. This was a manic level of barbering that I didn't think was even possible.

I thought of the phrase 'years to grow, seconds to mow', and never had it seemed more apt. I don't know how long this Ethan dude had been cultivating his hair for. Given its innate beauty and length, I guessed it was quite some time. After all, what guy wouldn't want hair like that. It was gorgeous. But it was going to be nearly a year before those soft bangs were touching his lips again.

Throughout the whirlwind of devastation, the Gaoler had a grin plastered all across his face. I'd rarely seen anyone look like they enjoyed their work more than the Gaoler did as he set about Ethan's head with those giant shears.

Within just a few minutes Ethan's long silky hair had been transformed into a wasteland of dark uneven stubble interspersed with flashes of white untanned scalp.

And then the Gaoler was done. He unlocked the top part of the pillory and raised it up allowing Ethan to stand. Ethan looked dazed, almost bewildered, one hand shakily rising to his head as he slowly, hestatingly, felt the ruined remains of his former glory.

Oh my god, I thought. The Gaoler's not even going to tidy it up with the clippers. He's just going to leave it like that.

Ethan shook his head, like a wet dog, sending a bunch of loose dark strands drifting down to the floor.

"Thank you for volunteering, Ethan," said the Monk. He ferreted around in his robes and withdrew a single dollar bill which he handed to the shell-shocked volunteer as a consolation prize.

"You may return to your seat."

Ethan left the stage, clutching the dollar bill, and dejectedly made his way back to where his laughing buddies took turns rubbing their hands over his nubby head.

The Gaoler went to stand next to the pillory, his arms folded, staring out at the audience, a silent challenge.

The Monk raised the same wad of five dollar bills into the air and waved them back and forth.

"One thousand dollars!" he declared again. "One thousand dollars in new five dollar bills!"

III - Noli Me Tangere

The atmosphere in the theater was electric following Ethan's shearing. No-one present had ever seen anything like it.

A noisy clamor swelled in the auditorium as people discussed the dramatic haircut they'd just witnessed. 'Haircut'... hardly. Ethan's handsome hair had been stripped off without even the slightest semblance of mercy!

I turned to Devin.

"Well that's the end of our fun," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you see anyone else wanting to volunteer after that??" I asked, gesturing towards the stage where Ethan's long, brown locks still littered the floor.

"Uh... maybe not...," he admitted.

But I was wrong. Not five minutes later an increase in the noise level indicated that we had another volunteer.

Admittedly, this second guy only had hair that was a couple of inches long but it was fun seeing him in the pillory anyway, the Gaoler looming over him, ominously running a big-knuckled hand over the dude's soft, furry head as he attempted to solve the riddles.

But the shears never came out. The volunteer answered two of the Monk's three riddles correctly and left the pillory one thousand bucks richer. He went back to his seat punching the air in delight.

The man's success seemed to motivate the audience.

The Monk waved another wad of five dollar bills in the air:

"One thousand dollars!... One thousand dollars in new five dollar bills!"

And almost immediately another volunteer stood up.

I looked over my shoulder. The guy was only a few rows away so I got a fairly decent look at him.

He looked about twenty five years old, a similar height to Ethan but a little more muscular. He wore a red sleeveless tank top with a big number '6' on it and faded blue jeans.

What was most striking though was the woman trying to pull the man back down into his seat by tugging on his arm. She must've been a similar age and I guessed she was his girl.

"Hux! Please, don't...," she said, in a whisper that was so loud half the audience heard.

"Let him go!" shouted a voice from the back of the theater, to much hilarity. But the girl kept yanking on the guy's arm, pleading with him to reconsider.

By now the Gaoler was edging his way in between rows, determined to snag the new volunteer before he could change his mind, or have it changed for him. Just as it looked as though the dude was going to sit back down, the Gaoler seized the man's arm and started hauling him towards the stage.

Almost the entire theater was by now applauding and cheering.

Just for a moment there was a brief tug-of-war between the thickset Gaoler and the diminutive blonde who was trying to save her boyfriend from a potentially catastrophic makeover, but it was no competition.

The girl let out a strangled squawk as she lost her grip on her boyfriend's arm and could only watch in dismay as he was escorted to the pillory.

Once he was directly under the studio lights, I came understand why the dude's girl was so desperate for him to change his mind.

He was very handsome, yes, incredibly so, but he also had some of the most beautiful shoulder-length hair I'd ever seen on a man.

It really was the color of dark chocolate. Any darker and it would've been almost black. God only knows what he used on it but each hair seemed to reflect the spotlights like the softest of silk. I could only imagine how it would've felt between my thumb and fingers. Like warm water maybe. And the weight of it...

He wore it parted in the center of his head from where the heavy locks fell in the slightest of waves to rest gently upon his broad, muscular shoulders, the very long bangs framing his attractive face, his upper lip and chin peppered with the dark stubble of his beard.

His hair radiated a halo of pure perfection that should've made any attempt to tamper with it a criminal offence. Noli me tangere, indeed. It was just beautiful, a genetic gift from the gods, and he must've been nurturing it for years. It was like being in the presence of some rare and exotic animal. Everyone in the auditorium knew it was something special.

I glanced across at the Gaoler, at his utility belt full of shears and clippers... Jesus, surely he wouldn't dare...

Things were about to get interesting.

The Gaoler half-pushed the guy behind the waiting pillory and padlocked him into it. A feeling of finality swept over the auditorium as the heavy lock clicked into place.

Well that's that, I thought. Either two riddles were answered correctly or someone was going to receive the most astonishing makeover of his life.

You know that moment at the fairground, when you're queuing up for the rollercoaster, shuffling forward in a line, and you can see the cars on the tracks, the safety bars raised, waiting; and then you clamber inside and the bars come down, pinning you into the seat, and your stomach let's you know that this is *not* a good idea but you have no choice, and anyway, it's too late to back out now.

That's what it felt like.

"Name!" demanded the Monk.

"Uh... Hux," said Hux.

The Gaoler silently walked back around to the front of the pillory and pulled Hux's hair out from where it had become trapped between his neck and the oak planking as the mechanism was closed.

Hux looked almost straight down at the floor, his hair hanging freely from his head in two glossy, dark-brown sheets. It really was astonishing. Some of the individual strands must've been ten inches long, at least.

Secured at the neck, with his head bowed and his hands immobile, Hux's hair looked incredibly vulnerable. It swayed slightly as he struggled to get into a more comfortable position.

With his wrists up by his head and wearing the red tank top, I had flashes of his hairy pits sprouting dark fur that shared the same coloring with the hair on his head. And then, like a true pervert, my mind went to his pubes and I wondered if they too shared that same intense dark brown color.

"David's father has three sons: Snap, Crackle, and?"

Oh man. The contest had started and Hux had two minutes to answer.

An expectant hush descended on the theater. The stakes couldn't be higher. If Hux got two riddles correct he'd be $1000 richer and we'd all breathe again. If he didn't... well we could all be witnesses to something truly memorable.

Hux angled his head up and looked out into the audience.

I could see from his expression that he was over-thinking this one. It was easy! Any child knew the answer.

What felt like just seconds later, the tolling bell announced the end of the two minutes.

"Uh... Pop?" answered Hux, without the least confidence.

Someone in the audience actually laughed out loud.

"No, Hux," said the Monk in a withering tone. "The answer is David."

Hux groaned softly to himself and closed his eyes. God, he was beautiful.

The Monk recited the second riddle:

"I start with the letter E. I end with the letter E. I contain only one letter. Yet I am not the letter E. What am I?"

If Hux didn't get this one right then I felt sure the Gaoler was going to take the greatest pleasure in utterly obliterating every trace of those handsome locks.

"I know this one," whispered Devin next to me.

"So do I," I replied. "But does Hux?"

About thirty seconds later, even before the two-minute bell had sounded, Hux offered up an answer.

"Envelope?"

"Correct!" confirmed the Monk.

Hux sighed deeply. One riddle left. Everything was riding on him getting it right.

The Monk recited the last riddle:

"I drive men mad, for love of me. Easily beaten, never free."

I could see Hux's handsome dark eyebrows knit together as he frowned with concentration.

You could've cut the atmosphere inside the Blue Dragon with a knife as everyone held their breath to see if Hux would answer correctly.

"Uh...," said Hux, shuffling from one foot to another.

I knew the eyes of every person in the theater were fixed intently on Hux's glorious mane of silky dark hair.

"Um...," said Hux, staring down to look his feet.

We were all acutely aware that time was running out. My heart was in my mouth.

"Oh my god," whispered Devin. "He doesn't know the answer."

It was true. He didn't know.

The seconds ticked by.

"A mermaid!" shouted Hux, out of pure desperation as the bell signaled that the two minutes were up.

The silence that followed Hux's answer seemed to stretch on forever.

"The correct answer was 'gold', Hux," intoned the Monk.

Poor Hux had lost. Now his handsome hair would pay the price.

IV - The Quality of Mercy

Hux's head dropped as the full enormity of what he'd done started to sink in.

The Gaoler went and stood directly behind Hux at the back of the pillory. The muscle-bound giant seemed to be standing so close that the two guys must've been almost touching.

Given his height advantage, it was easy for the Gaoler to bend forwards, over Hux's back. and place both of his huge hands on top of Hux's pretty head, palms flat against the other man's skull,

Hux let out an audible groan as the Gaoler dove his fingers deep into the other man's thick hair. The Gaoler then raised his hands, dragging two fistfuls of Hux's hair up and away from his scalp before he released it, letting the soft strands fall gently back into place.

The Gaoler repeated the move again and again, rhythmically, almost like he was kneading dough as Hux's increasingly loud moaning and groaning filled the theater.

In any other circumstances it would've felt relaxing, sensual, erotic even, but I could only guess what was running through Hux's mind as he experienced his spectacular head of hair being so intimately played with for the last time.

And then you could've heard a pin drop as the Gaoler gathered up a single fistful of Hux's ten-inch-long bangs with one hand while reaching down to his utility belt with the other to retrieve a pair of the gigantic shears.

"Oh my god," whispered an awe-struck Devin, "he's actually going to do it."

The entire auditorium was spellbound. The Gaoler tugged roughly on Hux's forelock until Hux lifted his head and looked straight ahead in the audience.

Devin and I were practically staring the guy in the face he was so close. I could've almost reached out and touched his hair myself!

The Gaoler brandished the shears in the air and then, in an electrifying moment of theater, he inserted the thick forelock grasped in his fist between the two sharp blades and slid the shears all the way down the hair shafts until they were pressed firmly against Hux's scalp.

And there they waited.

Hux's prized hair was now literally one squeeze of the hand away from being irreversibly ruined!

No-one moved. No-one even breathed!

The Gaoler looked around the room and then he flexed his hand and...

"Mercy!"

A shrill, timid voice broke the silence.

Everyone craned their necks to see who had spoken.

The cry came again!

"Mercy!!"

It was Hux's girl! She was now stood up, looking imploringly at the Gaoler even as he had a fat hank of her boyfriend's hair securely wrapped around his gigantic paw.

"Please!" she said, for a third time. "Mercy!"

Then suddenly another voice called out: "Mercy!", and then another and another, until soon the auditorium was filled with loud calls for clemency.

"Mercy!"

The people wanted to see Hux's radiant, magnificent hair spared the same terrible fate that had befallen Ethan's.

"Mercy!"

Devin and I were obviously more than happy to see Hux's extreme transformation carried out to the maximum extent. Yes, it would be a shame to see something so beautiful get completely wrecked but it would be an unforgettable ride, and it would grow back, eventually. However we seemed to be in the minority.

"Mercy!! Mercy!!"

More cries of mercy emanated from almost every throat!

"Mercy!!!"

Time stood still as we waited for the Gaoler to respond. And then his huge arm slowly relaxed a little and his grip on Hux's hair appeared to loosen.

I felt the auditorium collectively exhale in relief.

So, we would have mercy after all.

And then all hell broke loose.

I think even up to that last moment many of us in the theater still expected the Gaoler to show some leniency and at least spare Hux's glorious hair the worst of the mauling. Maybe he could've just received the lightest trim to remove any split ends. Even taking off several inches would've left the bulk of it intact.

But we were very, very wrong.

With an almost lascivious grin, and while looking directly at Hux's girl, the Gaoler slowly squeezed the sharp blades of the shears together.

There was a very audible gasp of shock as the blades sliced through the dense strands, repeatedly, opening and closing, severing Hux's gorgeous, fat, long, dark brown forelock almost at the roots, and then, once it had been separated from Hux's scalp the Gaoler held it up, high above his head, like a spoil of war!

And suddenly the audience was very angry.

Some of them were screaming so loudly you'd think their own hair had just been chopped. I guessed one of them was Hux's girl.

"You bastard!" I heard someone squeal from near the back of the theater. "Oh, you absolute bastard!"

The Gaoler roared in response and hurled the huge handful of Hux's cut fringe into the audience. It all separated in mid-flight and rained down upon everyone sat in the middle of the first few rows.

There were shrieks of shock and outrage. The audience had expected leniency, they'd demanded it, and now they were literally getting Hux's stunning hair thrown back in their faces!

Some of the more vocal audience members were actually stood up, shouting, gesticulating wildly at the Gaoler who responded by hacking off another huge wad of Hux's priceless hair and hurling it out with a loud snarl of contempt.

And then it was utter pandemonium as the auditorium descended into chaos. More and more of Hux's luxurious hair came flying through the air, more people cried out in anger and Hux just stood in the pillory, head bowed, as his once-magnificent locks were trashed without mercy.

Even now some people were calling out "Oh, mercy! For pity's sake, mercy!!"

I had no idea why they were bothering. The first cut of the scissors had already put Hux's immaculate locks far beyond salvation. Once that forelock was gone there would be no other option but to take the rest of it off, down to the skin. Hux was going fully bald whether he liked it or not.

Throughout the carnage the Monk just stood behind the pulpit, head down, hands clasped together, not saying a single word.

I glanced over at Devin. He was covered in dozens of ten-inch long strands of Hux's dark chocolate-colored hair, much of it sticking to the greasy pomade we both used to style our own haircuts. I guessed my own head must've been similarly sprinkled with it, as were all the spectators sat in our vicinity. It was on our shoulders, in our laps, on the floor. We were covered in him.

I looked back at the stage. By now the top of Hux's head had been almost completely denuded, the long locks replaced with the shortest, hacked stubble. There wasn't even the slightest trace left of that lovely center parting. The Gaoler had placed the shears flat to Hux's scalp and simply obliterated it.

With an almost crazed single-mindedness, the Gaoler then started on the shoulder-length hair hanging off the sides of Hux's head, grabbing hold of great hanks of the stuff and chopping it through at the roots.

Oh god, and then he was crossing over to the very edge of the stage and bellowing, actually bellowing at the top of his lungs, as huge clumps of Hux's remarkable hair were propelled across the auditorium.

It really was the most astonishing spectacle that Devin and I had ever seen.

Within what seemed like seconds, Hux's ears were exposed to view for what was probably almost the first time in his life. Head down, eyes squeezed shut, Hux's groans of humiliation were audible even over the shrieks of rage coming from the audience.

As large sections of the crowd continued to howl in fury, the Gaoler slapped Hux hard on the backside with one of his meaty paws and walked around to the front of the stage.

Jesus, I thought, it's not even over.

The gaoler put the shears back into the utility belt and withdrew a pair of the hair clippers which he held high in the air before clicking them on. I recognized them as balding clippers and they were going to cut the hair very, very short.

"Mercy!" someone valiantly cried out.

Hux strained to look up at the source of the loud buzzing, his forehead furrowed, his thick brows forming two dark, raised arches above his wide eyes.

The Gaoler then grabbed the long hair that was still attached to the back of Hux's head and casually mowed it off with the clippers, the sharp, chattering teeth severing the silky strands like a hot knife passing through butter.

Another fistful of hair just peeled away from the poor guy's scalp and the Gaoler catapulted it into the crowd, except this time he wasn't roaring or bellowing, he was laughing!

In a final act of violation, the Gaoler drove the balding clippers up the back of Hux's head and straight over the crown and through the remnants of his hairline as the audience looked on with dismay.

Hux was indeed practically bald, although *actually* bald might've been preferable. His beautiful shoulder-length mane looked as though it had been gnawed off by a deranged goat.

Hux's head was now a ball of the shortest dark brown stubble interspersed with stripes of white skin where the blades of the shears had been pressed flat against his head. Bisecting his scalp into two even halves, a clownish, ridiculous version of his old center parting, was that solitary path of clipper-shaved baldness.

And then it happened.

I don't know who threw it, maybe it was Hux's girl, but out from the crowd sailed a plastic cup that someone had brought into the auditorium from the bar.

It wasn't a large cup and it didn't have anything in it, but it struck the Gaoler on the top of his buzzed head and bounced off towards the back of the stage.

Silence gradually descended on the theater as the Gaoler glared out into the gloom.

Nobody spoke and nobody moved.

Then the Gaoler slowly turned, reached down and grabbed Hux's chin, squishing the guy's mouth together with his fingers, puckering up his lips.

Lifting Hux's head up a little, the Gaoler looked back at the audience and flicked on the clippers.

And then I knew. I clutched Devin's arm.

"Oh fuck," I muttered in disbelief, "he's actually going to shave the dude's eyebrows off."

There was an audible inhalation of disbelief from the audience as the Gaoler placed the balding clippers next to Hux's handsome right eyebrow. He paused for a few seconds and then, slowly, he buzzed it off, a shower of the finest black hairs spraying up into the air before delicately floating to the floor.

Hux emitted a deep groan as he felt his eyebrow getting stripped away. Now matter how degrading the public ruination of his hair had been, it was nothing compared with the wave of embarrassment that swept over him now as he stood there in the pillory as another man eradicated his eyebrows.

The second thick eyebrow went the same way as the first, and the Gaoler roughly brushed his thick fingers over Hux's face to remove any of the severed hairs. He then stood back to admire his work.

Both Devin and I had undertaken some extreme transformations on 'Dare Your Hair?', and we'd both removed a number of guys' eyebrows, whether razored, waxed or zapped with an electrolysis machine, but even so, the transformation in Hux's appearance was truly remarkable. With his shoulder-length locks and dark eyebrows reduced to stubble, he was truly unrecognizable.

Not only did he no longer look like the same person as before, he barely even looked like the same species. His hair, such a prominent part of his former attractiveness, had been decimated. And the loss of those prominent eyebrows had given his face an almost feminine quality which, combined with his masculine features, made he look not quite human.

The effect was both unsettling and emasculating. He looked bizarre, and everyone in the theater knew it. The fact he had been so astonishingly handsome before just made the transformation even more remarkable.

The Gaoler unlocked the pillory and Hux was finally free. As he shuffled, dazed, back to his seat, clutching a one dollar bill, he brought both hands up to his head where they roved over his ravaged scalp.

The lights then came on above the audience to signal the start of the interval.

"Well," I said, turning to Devin. "I enjoyed that."

V - Handlebar

While Devin went to order some more drinks, I headed across to the men's room. When I got there I noticed Hux's girl waiting outside, her face like thunder.

Pushing through the doors, I found Hux himself standing at one of the sinks, his hands resting on the sides of the basin, his broad shoulders hunched around his newly-exposed ears as he stared at his bizarre new appearance in the mirror.

In the harsh light of the men's room, the change in his handsome good looks seemed even more striking than it had in the auditorium; and as I gazed at him, trying to be discreet but sort of transfixed, I was acutely aware of the fact that I still had some of his beautiful long hair stuck to my head and resting on my shoulders.

I'd seen enough men without their eyebrows to know that it rarely improved their appearance. It usually made even the hottest guy look strange and freakish, but even so, the effect their absence had on Hux's face was memorable, to say the least, especially when combined with the stubbly remains of his once-gorgeous mane of hair.

He really did look terrible. I thought about the merciless roasting he was going to get from his friends and colleagues when they saw his new look the next day.

Oh well, I thought. It would all grow back, eventually.

After doing the necessary, I washed my hands in the neighboring sink and serruptiously picked the traces of Hux's mane off my own oil-soaked hair and brushed it off my shoulders. I then left Hux standing there, contemplating his disastrous transformation, and headed back to the auditorium.

I was surprised to discover that most of the audience, including Ethan, had returned to their seats and not fled the Blue Dragon in disgust. The spectators seemed even rowdier than before and I wondered exactly how much alcohol had been imbibed during the interval.

As I sipped my drink and chatted with Devin, I noticed that the mildewed flagstones around the pillory were still littered with great piles of Ethan and Hux's hair.

Neither Hux or his girlfriend were anywhere to be seen. I guessed that they'd slunk away under the cover of darkness, and who could blame them. An innocent night-out had ended in Hux's total humiliation and the premature demise of his handsome, hairy good looks.

I wondered how his girl would feel, running her fingers over that stubbled scalp, making out with a dude who looked like more like the Roswell alien then the long-haired hipster she was used to, feeling the prickly remnants of his former glory under her fingers as he...

Anyway, there was a round of applause as the lights dimmed and the Monk and the Gaoler made their entrance back onto the stage.

The second half of the show was uneventful, initially anyway. Three guys volunteered in quick succession. None of them had particularly spectacular hair to sacrifice but they all passed the Monk's riddle-based challenge anyway and returned to their seats a thousand dollars richer.

Getting the fourth volunteer into the pillory provided to be difficult however. The Monk waved his wad of five dollar bills in the air but there were no takers. He then increased it by another thousand.

"Two thousand dollars!" he declared. "Two thousand dollars in new five dollar bills!"

I didn't think this was going to spark any interest either until a round of applause and some cheering alerted me to a guy standing up in the back row.

"Yo!" he bellowed, gesturing towards the Gaoler. "Hey, yeah. You! Yeah, you! Baldy! Over here!"

The audience laughed.

Baldy?? Wow, I thought. Way to make an impression...

The Gaoler lumbered up between the rows and quickly hooked the new volunteer out of his seat. When they arrived back on stage I could see the Gaoler was actually gripping the guy by the collar of his red-checked shirt.

I prayed for his sake that he got two of the Monk's riddles right or that 'Baldy' comment might come back to bite his ass, hard.

I put the man's age at about thirty or thirty one. He was attractive, obviously. His red shirt and blue jeans, with leather boots, gave him a sort of outdoors-y look that made an odd contrast with the medieval dungeon setting of the show.

He must've been around 6ft tall, his wide shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist around which was buckled a worn leather belt.

He had absolutely gorgeous thick, chestnut brown hair, parted on the right, and swept across the top of his head, pushed behind his ears on the sides and extending a couple of inches past his collar at the back. It had the slightest of natural waves in it, the long bangs casually pushed to one side so they didn't obscure his vision.

It looked like he used some sort of product in it too, to tame it a little, like a light wax or a clay. It looked sleek anyway.

Two well-groomed, wide sideburns emerged from his hairline by his ears and arched down either side of his face before ending at his jawline. But the icing on the proverbial cake was the magnificent handlebar mustache that sprouted in all its glory across the entirety of the guy's thick upper lip.

It was hard to imagine a more impressive symbol of unabashed masculinity. Prominently sited in the center of his face, it announced his virility, fertility and vanity to the entire world!

The mustache was obviously an object of enormous pride that he'd cultivated and trained, like a grapevine, over a long period of time. Whether it was the source of his bravado or merely a symptom of it, the handlebar mustache seemed to encapsulate his entire male identity.

It was undeniably spectacular, the follicles growing so close together, and in such abundance, that the mustache seemed to be one solid mass rather than an object made up of hundreds of individual hairs.

Like the hair on his head, it was the most beautiful color too: a rich, honey brown, like the seed of a horse chestnut tree in autumn. The entire mustache was coated in pomade, the tips waxed up into sharp points that extended well over an inch beyond the corners of his slightly cocky mouth.

Whether it was the hair on his head, his luxuriant mustache, his brows or those thick sideburns, the dude was really leaning into the whole man-fur vibe. It worked on him too. The way the mustache moved, as if alive, with every flex of his mouth, was indescribably alluring and provocative.

I guessed the guy had a lot of other hair in all the right places. His tanned forearms were covered in it, and there was more than a hint of dark fur bubbling up at the open neck of his shirt.

And there he stood, held in the Gaoler's vice-like grip, like a kitten being carried by a cat.

He was obviously more than a little drunk, the alcohol having reduced his natural inhibitions and amplified his natural cockiness. I wondered whether he would've even volunteered at all had he not spent the interval propping up the bar.

Looking at him now, in all his beautiful hirsute glory, he really did have an awful lot to lose.

I could hear his friends laughing and jeering from the back of theater as their buddy was hauled around the back and locked down into the pillory.

"Name!" demanded the Monk as the padlock clicked shut.

"Nathan, or Nate. All my frien-" said Nate.

"Nate," interrupted the Monk. "I am full of holes, but strong as steel. What am I?"

"Full of holes...?" repeated Nate, laughing.

"Time's running out, Nate," the Monk reminded him.

Nate stopped grinning and frowned as he tried to focus his slightly befuddled thoughts, his hands dangling either side of his head.

"Uh... hard old cheese," he offered up as the bell rang out.

The audience laughed derisively.

"The answer was 'a chain'," said the Monk.

"Uh... Ok-ay... I was actua-", began Nate.

"Turn me on my side and I am everything. Cut me in half and I am nothing. What am I?" recited the Monk.

"Turn me... Uh...," Nate glanced up and aimed a slightly nervous, lop-sided grin at the Gaoler who was standing over him.

I wondered how far Nate's obvious good looks and charismatic swagger had carried him in life, and the extent to which he'd come to use them as a sort of social currency to get what he wanted. Maybe, I thought, he'd be paying up with a different currency by the end of the evening...

He obviously derived a lot of his confidence from his handsome hairy attributes. I tried to imagine how he'd manage without them. I had a strong feeling that all the bravado in the world wasn't going to save him if he didn't answer this riddle correctly.

Baldy..., I reflected. What on earth had he been thinking??

The Gaoler suddenly reached down and firmly tugged one of the thick waxed spikes of hair at the end of Nate's mustache. Nate grimaced in discomfort as the mustache pulled the fleshy side of his lip up, exposing some of his white teeth.

A sheen of sweat had broken out across Nate's forehead as the seconds ticked by.

"C'mon, help me out, guys!" he shouted towards his group of buddies in the back row who only laughed in return.

The Gaoler lifted up some of the silky brown locks that cascaded over the front of Nate's forehead. He then ran a giant finger up and down one of the soft wide sideburns and stroked Nate's thick eyebrows with the ball of his thumb.

He's teasing him, I thought. He's playing with him! Toying with him! I guessed Nate had around thirty seconds left to avoid the punishment haircut of a lifetime and the Gaoler wanted to remind the man exactly what was at stake.

As we all watched, Nate started to try and squirm his way out of the pillory, attempting to wriggle his hands and head back through the holes that were holding him fast. The pillory rocked a little, the oak creaking, but as strong as Nate was, the oak construction was much stronger.

Nate was laughing even as he was struggling to be released. I still don't think the seriousness of his current predicament had quite filtered through to his alcohol-addled mind.

I couldn't help but wonder if his obvious confidence in his good looks hadn't led him to overestimate his riddle-solving abilities. And Nate was certainly a beautiful man. I doubted he could even imagine what receiving a humiliating haircut would be like, especially one that deliberately targeted some of the manly physical attributes he probably valued the most.

Maybe he was accustomed to receiving favorable treatment based on his looks and charm. Oh man, this dude might be in for a hell of a shock.

"I don't know the damn answer!" he said, directing his comment back towards the Monk. "You can let me out! I don't want to play anymore!"

As the bell tolled, the audience burst into spontaneous applause and hoots of laughter, led by Nate's own group of friends.

Whether it was the alcohol consumed at the interval or Nate's naturally cocky demeanor, or a combination of the two, there seemed to be a real appetite in the auditorium to see poor Nate get taken down a peg or two.

Who knows. Maybe the sight of that waxed handlebar mustache, encapsulating as it did a particular sort of cocky manhood, just really riled people up. I thought it was spectacular but I appreciated that others might feel differently.

Maybe if he'd had a pretty blond girl to stand up and beg for 'mercy' the audience would've gotten on his side, but he didn't. He just had some buddies who seemed more than happy to be witnesses to his seemingly imminent humiliation.

As the sound of the final bell faded away it was clear that Nate had lost, and was about to lose a whole lot more.

"The correct answer was 'eight'," the Monk announced, solemnly.

"Ate??" squawked Nate in disbelief. "Fuck, I don't even get it!"

The audience laughed raucously and started a slow handclap as the Gaoler took his shears out of the utility belt and held them aloft, opening and closing the blades for dramatic effect.

VI - The Show Must Go On?

Nate's attempts to free himself from the pillory became ever more frantic as he stared up at the blades snapping open and shut above him.

You know, looking back, I'm not sure Nate really expected to lose his hair, even then, even as he squirmed and wriggled in the pillory like a worm on a hook. He simply had too much confidence in his appearance and a belief that his own good looks would carry him through. It had worked before, many times. Why wouldn't it work now?

Throughout the whole riddle challenge, I doubt he considered for a moment that his hairy masculinity was in any actual jeopardy. It was too much a part of himself, or so he might've thought.

Maybe he didn't even consider it as the Gaoler reached down and scooped up every single one of the thick brown locks that hung over his forehead. And he might not have considered it as the Gaoler pulled the fistful of hair taut, so that Nate could feel the roots of his own beloved hair tugging at his head.

By now the audience was clapping as one, louder and louder, faster and faster. And I think maybe that's when Nate realized he'd made a very serious blunder, as the Gaoler brought the shears down to rest against Nate's skull and buried the blades into the thick mass of hair that was clutched in his huge hand.

And then, for the first time that evening, the Gaoler actually spoke.

Just one word, victoriously bellowed out across the auditorium for everyone to hear. It was so loud I thought the whole of downtown LA must've heard.

And the one word was "BALDY!"

And as the word echoed off the walls, the Gaoler closed the shears and severed a huge wad of Nate's hair off at the scalp.

God, it was so theatrical that the entire audience spontaneously stood up and applauded.

The Gaoler dumped the handful of hair down at Nate's feet and laughed while grabbing another fistful.

"BALDY!" he shouted again, as the shears detached a huge wad of long locks from the top of Nate's head.

"BALDY!".

And this time the audience joined in.

With each cry more and more hair cascaded to the floor to pool at Nate's feet.

"BALDY!".

Everyone - me, Devin, sheared Ethan, all of Nate's buddies. Everyone. The entire auditorium was shouting out a single word:

"BALDY!"

as fistfuls of Nate's beautiful chestnut-brown hair were mercilessly culled and dumped in front of his disbelieving eyes. There was no-one to stop it, and no-one who wanted to stop it. The flyer had promised a 'live haircut spectacle' and that's exactly what we were getting, and we loved every second of it.

The Gaoler set about the top of Nathan's handsome head like a thing possessed, the blades snipping the hair off down to the smallest stubble as Nate groaned, a deep animalistic moan that combined an overwhelming sense of disbelief with the purest feeling of humiliation.

"BALDY!"

Once the entirety of Nate's lush crown had been denuded, the Gaoler roughly hacked off all the long hair that hung around the sides and back of Nate's head, leaving it almost level with the bottom of his ears. He then got the hair clippers out of his utility belt and flicked them on.

"BALDY! BALDY! BALDY!" roared the audience as the Goaler drove the bare clippers through the decimated remnant of Nate's thick hairline and over the top of his head.

Working with surprising delicacy and efficiency, the Gaoler mowed the top of Nate's head down with the clippers, leaving a pretty good imitation of very advanced bald-pattern baldness: a clipper-shaved dome with a hideously botched fringe of longer hair around the sides.

It truly was a forfeit haircut for the ages.

Nate's newly-exposed scalp looked white against his tanned face in the bright overhead lights. His head remained bowed throughout, his eyes squeezed tight, his jaw clenched in a grimace of shock and shame.

The Gaoler put the clippers at the base of one of Nate's handsome sideburns and then, as the audience clapped and cheered, he pushed the chattering teeth up through the thick, wiry column of dark hair and eradicated it.

The second sideburn followed swiftly afterward, leaving the sides of Nate's face free of hair for the first time since he was a teenager.

"BALDY!" shouted the Gaoler in exultation.

And then finally the denouement, the climax of Nate's makeover, the moment everyone in the audience had been expecting, anticipating, even hoping for: that marvelous, oustanding handlebar mustache, the fruit of countless months of laborious growth and hours of dedicated grooming.

Even more than his once-lush hair and sideburns, Nate's mustache was emblematic of his entire sense of self, both as a man and as an individual. But not for much longer.

The Gaoler swapped the hair clippers for the shears and pinched one waxed end of Nate's glorious mustache between his thumb and index finger. He then placed the waxed tip carefully between the open blades of the shears.

Nate looked out into the audience. Shorn of his sideburns, his hair reduced to the most ridiculous imitation of male-pattern baldness, he already looked like a totally different person.

Baldy, I thought to myself.

Nate could feel the hair of his mustache being pulled away from his face, could feel the cold steel of the shears pressing against his cheek. He was on the verge of begging to keep his own facial hair, the word 'please' literally forming on his lips, when the Gaoler squeezed the shears shut and snipped off over an inch of Nate's mustache.

The Gaoler held up the fragment of wax-hardened hair. It looked tiny in his huge fingers, but to Nate it meant everything.

Throwing the waxed tip onto the floor, the Gaoler forced Nate's face up by holding his chin and then proceeded to cut the rest of the prized mustache to pieces.

Clumps of waxed facial fur tumbled past Nate's lips and joined his hair and sideburns, and his dignity, in a huge pile at his feet. He'd cultivated and nurtured the mustache for many months, and within seconds it was replaced with very short, uneven stubble.

"Baldy," said the Gaoler definitively as he slapped Nate's clipper-shaved head, released the padlock and let the subdued and now sober man out of the pillory.

I guess at least Nate got to keep his eyebrows but as far as makeovers went, it was spectacularly bad. All Nate's cocky bravado seemed to have vanished with his hair. Nate walked back to his group of friends, one hand ruefully rubbing his stubbly, pale dome, the other holding a dollar bill, as the audience gave him an appreciative round of applause for being such a good sport.

"Thank you, Nate, for your sacrifice," said the Monk.

"His mane, like a lion's, once flowed with grace. His mustache, a marvel, adorned his face. But fate must also play its part, Taking away what was close to poor Nate's heart."

And with that, 'Locks & Stocks' was over.

The Monk and the Gaoler bowed once and left the stage leaving behind on the floor a mass of cut hair, sheared from the heads of three separate men.

The lights came up and me and Devin filed out with the rest of the spectators.

As we emerged through the mouth of the Blue Dragon, into the fresh night air and onto Bamboo Lane, we eagerly discussed getting tickets for next week's show.

Postscript -

A few days later Devin came back to the apartment, disappointed and empty-handed. He'd been downtown to buy tickets for the next performance of 'Locks & Stocks' only to discover that the show had been canceled with immediate effect.

The good things never last, do they.