EXCERPT

He waited for her with all the women waiting to get their ombres and bangs, in the forefront of a high-end salon halfway into Berkeley on College Avenue. He was the only man in the place. The glass storefront so clear one was likely to crash into it, were it not for the Helvetica script lettered across it. And he felt out of place but he didn't care. She was lying back in the barber's chair with half her head dipped in a basin, and as the stylist massaged the soap out her hair into the rinse, she shut her eyes. They had traveled together in the early morning chill promising a warm summer day, to get here. He rode his skateboard, she pushed pedals on her ten-speed. Witness the weaving in and out, threading one another's tracks coming together, then apart. Talking. Laughing. Cheerful and melodic bursts into cool and receptive air. They were to meet his friend for coffee next door. Soon. She felt her head dissolve into a warm glow around her. The scattered voices of women like birds, had vanished as the water rose above the ear canals. And though she was not smiling, it was only because her smile peeled off her and sank, rocking then spinning slowly down to the granite floor of the basin, and while she was not looking, one of her eyes popped out from under the lid, and floated across the surface like a buoy marker, and nested in some soap suds. And as her mind marveled over the fresh instance of love tingling all over her body, her boyfriend uncomfortably shifted on the charcoal seat cushions not ten yards away, a Madameoiselle magazine in his hands with the image of a gorgeous Parisian cover model unimpressive to him now. His eyes moved hawkishly about the room to get a glimpse; raising him up with them to see down the middle aisle of stylists at work, past the smoke and mirrors and chirping, to the hollow toward the back of the same room where she was.  Her brain matter unraveled into a labrynthine interpretative submersive dance. Seemed like half of eternity, lost. Then swept away she was to thoughtless clarity, by the sudden opening of the drain, the lifting of her head, the watery fingers of her locks gripping the back of her neck, the half-smile pinioned to her lips, the eyeball slipping back under the lashes and lid. The sound of birds chirping. Only the thoughts had flushed on down the drain, for what use are thoughts in love's possession? The stylist was telling her something, and blowing it away. Posits and remarks, littering the floor. Her body still tingling, the glow had not left her. Just cooling in air along with the hair. She could not now help her eyes from lifting her up, in the chair as they circled around, and found him in there. Waiting for her. She found in him in there -- again, life was a blur.

-- Excerpt. Daughter of Darkness. Book #2