090 - tight shame

Alec looked in the mirror. It was covered in small water spots, as every bathroom mirror he had ever seen tended to be. He looked like garbage. There were several things that his face needed in order to be presentable. Among them first and foremost would be a shave and a haircut.

His barber was off this week, so he knew a haircut was not necessarily in the cards. However, a shave was totally possible all by himself, and Alec decided that today was the day.

He thought about how long it had been since he last shaved. The exact date eluded him, but it must have been at least a few weeks. The wiry hairs were uncomfortable, and as he scratched them idly, Alec realized that actually it would feel really good to shave them all off. Although he hadn't been planning to shave before looking himself in the mirror this morning, now he was actively looking forward to it.

But, there was a problem. As Alec looked at his toiletries arranged around the sink, he noticed that his razor was nowhere to be found. There weren't any of his extra cartridges, either.

"EVAN!" he suddenly yelled. One of the downsides of living with a kopiskleptomaniac, as he knew well, was how often any object with a blade on it had a tendency to "disappear."

"Evan! God-fucking-damnit are you here?!" he called out once again. It was possible that his roommate was actually out, most likely at work, since that was usually the only reason Evan left the house.

Alec walked out of the bathroom, and back to his bedroom. Going through his drawers, he tried to find anything he could use to help remove his facial hair. Disposable razors were at the top of his list, he had collected quite a few from stays in various hotels throughout the years. Nothing. He looked for anything at this point, even a knife or a sharp pair of scissors. Of these, he could find none.

A search of the rest of the common areas of their apartment also yielded no results. Eventually, Alec decided it was time to venture into his roommate's room. It was something he almost never did. Evan had once made Alec swear that he would not enter his room, which was a condition that Alec was quite eager to agree to, anyhow. The room had a strange odor and was a complete catastrophe of random odds and ends, most of them knife-related.

So, Alec hoped he might find his razor in there, or at least some sort of bladed implement that could assist in his quest to remove his beard and moustache. He opened Evan's door with some trepidation, but he was surprised to find that the room was actually rather immaculate. The odor, even, was nearly normal. There was no mess, nor catastrophe. Alec began to snoop around a bit, hoping to find a blade of some sort. Nothing.

"Where the hell does he hide all that stuff now?" Alec asked himself in astonishment, knowing well that his roommate's problems were far from cured and, if anything, more and more knives, shears, and other cutting devices should have accumulated in this room since his last visit.

Frustrated, Alec left the room. He looked around. His beard was really bothering him now. There had to be a way to get it off. He stepped out into the garage, thinking he might find some cutting tool there. He didn't, but a jug of gasoline they used for the lawnmower did catch his eye. "I wonder," he began, as he imagine dipping just his beard in the gasoline, and setting it alight.

Was it such a terrible idea? The hair was scratching his neck so, so much. He was about to find out.