For A Good Time, Call... (14 page)

“You're
a tattoo artist?” she asked, sounding surprised and pleased at
the same time. I had seen one tattoo on her: the one on her thigh.
The tree with the ax and quote. It had been well done. She had
obviously done her research and picked a good artist.

“Yep,”
I said, holding out my arms. “I obviously have an appreciation
for ink.”

“I
noticed,” she said, her eyes looking down to inspect the
pictures. “How long have you been doing it?”

“I
started when I was eighteen, but I didn't start doing it as a career
until maybe eight years ago. And even then, very part time. I had
other work to do.”

“Are
you working at a place here, or just... like... going to people's
houses?”

“I
have a place I work at part time. I'll occasionally do private
sessions. Parties even but not as often.”

“Can
I see some of your work?” she asked, looking down at the gun
with a look I recognized. The look of someone who wanted another
tattoo.

I
nodded, going back to the closet and dragging out my black portfolio
and handing it to her. She pulled out a chair and sat down, opening
the book and looking down at the pages. “You do a lot of
color,” she said, running her hand over a picture of flowers:
daisies and lilacs.

“I
do black and gray too. But the color really pops. Sometimes black and
gray can look really muddy. Especially over time.”

“Did
you go to art school?” she asked, not looking up.

I
smiled, rocking back on my heels. “Do I look like someone who
went to art school?” I asked and she laughed.

“I
guess not. But you're really good at drawing.”

“Just
something I was always good at I guess.” I totally didn't spend
hours pouring over drawing manuals when I was a kid. I didn't go
through a sketchpad a week trying to perfect the same images over and
over.

“Alright,
stick it in me,” she said, a sly smile on her face.

I
felt my mouth fall open slightly. “What?” I asked.

“Get
your mind out of the gutter, Fourteen,” she teased, pointing to
the tattoo gun.

“Oh,”
I said, shaking my head. Of course she meant the needle. “Hey,
with a mouth like yours, you cant blame me for thinking you meant
something more...”

“Lascivious?”
she supplied.

“Exactly.
So... where am I sticking it?” I asked, my voice low and
sexual.

She
giggled. Actually giggled. The hardass chick who lived next door and
ran a phone sex business actually giggled. “I was thinking the
back of my neck,” she said, shrugging.

“Okay,”
I said, walking up behind her and lifting her hair out of the way.
“What do you want to get?”

“Surprise
me,” she said.

I dropped her hair, moving to squat down next to her. “Don't
you know better than to give a tattoo artist free reign? You could
end up with my name tattooed across your face.”

She
gave me a small smile. “I trust you,” she said and the
certainty in her voice nearly made me fall on my ass. She trusted me.
If only she knew how stupid that was. “I don't know... give me
something that you think... fits me.”

“You're
sure?” I asked, already knowing what I wanted to know. Knowing
it was her to a T, but worried slightly that she might find it
offensive.

“Positive,”
she said, grabbing her hair and tying it up higher on her head.

“I
can do color?”

“I'm
sorry,” she said, leaning forward and resting her head on her
hands on the tabletop. “I am a canvas. I don't talk.”

I
got up to my feet, smiling as I pulled out my guns and inks. I shaved
the back of her neck then grabbed a felt tip maker, drawing an
outline on her skin. “How do you sit?” I asked, hoping
she wasn't a squirmer.

“Like
a rock,” she said, sounding almost sleepy. “I have a
pretty high pain tolerance.”

No
shit. With the marks she carved into herself, I doubted a few needle
pricks would bother her. An image of last night flashed into my mind
and a I squinted about it. I was trying not to think about it.

About
those god-awful, painful screams that woke me out of a dead sleep and
had me running before I was even awake, had me slamming through her
front door and through her apartment. Only to find her in a puddle of
blood on her bathroom floor. There was a razor blade on the ground
next to her next to her antiseptic supplies.

And
she was asleep. She wasn't screaming about the pain she carved into
herself. She was screaming about some other pain... pain that was
likely the reason she cut into herself in the first place. To forget.
To cope.

She
had barely flinched when I had cleaned her up. She would sit pretty
for me. “Alright,” I said, stepping back and setting up a
spread next to her on the table. “Ready?” I asked,
turning the machine on and feeling the comforting buzzing in my hand.

“Ready,”
she agree, shifting slightly to give me the best access, her forehead
on her hands.

I
worked with painstaking precision. I wanted it to be absolutely
perfect.

In
the end, I stepped back, wiping away the extra dye and blood and
surveyed the finished result.

It
was a heart locket tattoo. Special. Like her. I made the heart
fucking beautiful. Pink. Feminine. With intricate black and gray
filigree around the edges and the antique key hole in the center.
Then I wrapped the whole thing with a chain. And put a pretty bow
sitting on the top of the heart to the left.

To
me, that was Fiona. She was beautiful. Perfect really. With locks,
and walls, and chain link fences. To keep anyone from finding out how
amazing she was.

“Don't
hate me,” I said, reaching into my box for a spare mirror.

She
sat up slowly, rolling the tension out of her shoulders. “I'm
sure it's great,” she said again with certainty. “Come
on, I want to see.” She reached out and tugged at the hem of my
shirt as she turned to walk down to the bathroom.

I
followed her, turning on the light. “Alright,” I said,
“turn around.” She did and I handed her the mirror.
“Check it out.”

She
lifted the mirror, backing up against the bathroom counter to get as
close to the big mirror as possible. “Oh,” she said, her
eyes going wide, her mouth falling open slightly. That was it though.
Just... oh. And I couldn't make out if it was a good “oh”
or a bad “oh” and she was just standing there staring at
it.

I
shuffled my feet. “Fee,” I said, needing an answer.
Needing her to end the torment.

“This
is what you think of when you see me?” she asked, her voice
low, her eyes still on the mirror.

“Yeah,”
I said. Because it was true.

Her
head turned suddenly, her eyes finding mine. “You see right
through me,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “I love it.”

I
couldn't keep the smile off my face. The big, goofy, high school
cheerleader smile. “I'm glad you like it.”

Her
smile matched mine for a second, before it slipped slowly away.
Something else rose up on her face, making her emerald eyes look
glassy and bright. “Hey Hunter...”

“Yeah?”
I asked, sure that she was just going to thank me. But then...

“Take
me to bed.”

Fifteen

As
soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wished I could suck them
back in. Hit rewind, slap myself really hard across the face, and say
something... anything other than that. It wasn't that I didn't want
him to take me to bed. Of course I did. It was all I had been
thinking about while he was working on me.

And
then seeing what he had done... well... that just pushed me over the
edge. Not just because it was good. Every woman was turned on by
talent and he was very talented. Every line was clean, the saturation
was perfect. But it wasn't the skill. It was what he had chosen to
do.

I
swore those light eyes of his saw right down into my soul and the
tattoo was proof that he did. Because he saw past the bitch persona.
Saw past the seemingly extroverted phone sex operator. He saw what it
all really was: fear. Someone who was afraid to let herself feel
anything so she kept it all under lock.

The
only problem was, I lost the key.

I
looked back at Hunter who looked as stunned as I felt. How hard would
it be to take it back? Tell him I was joking. Tell him I misspoke.
That I was just riding a high from all the endorphins that stabbing
me repeatedly with a needle had caused to flood my system.

The
only problem was... I didn't want to take it back. I didn't want to
lie. I didn't have to have to keep denying myself the first thing I
had really wanted in a long, long time.

“Hunter...”
I started.

“It's
alright,” he said, shrugging a shoulder.

“What's
alright?” I asked, confused.

“If
you want to take that back.” He shook his head at me. “Fee
you looked freaked the fuck out when you said that. So if you need to
take it back...”

“I
don't,” I said, looking down at my feet. “I don't want to
take it back. I want you. Like...” I said, looking up at him.
“really want you.”

“I
really want you too, baby,” he said, making my belly feel all
fluttery again. How was he able to do that so easily? “But I
want you to be ready.” He paused for a second, looking pained.
“If something has happened to you that has made sex...
difficult...” he trailed off.

“What
do you think happened to me?” I asked, not sure where his mind
was going. Feeling a tightness in my chest at the idea that he might
have had a clue.

He
ran a hand over his eyes. “Did someone... rape you, Fee?”

I
felt the word fall heavy against me. Rape. It was one of those words
that made every woman tense. Even women who hadn't lived through it,
even women who had never been anywhere close to it. You felt it.
Somewhere deep in you stomach, right behind your bellybutton. Like a
hole had opened up and was sucking energy in. Strong and strange, but
somehow familiar.

I
felt sick at thinking it, but I almost felt like that would be
easier. That would be so much easier to explain.

But
that wasn't it and I couldn't let him think that.

“No,”
I said, shaking my head, taking a deep breath. “No.”

“Okay,”
he said, reaching out toward me, taking my hand and holding it.
“Well, whatever it is, Fee, you can tell me.”

“I
know,” I said. I could. I knew I could. He wouldn't judge. He
wouldn't think less of me. It was just hard to find those words. What
words could ever explain it?

They
couldn't.

I
squeezed his hand once before letting it drop, reaching for the
bottom of my shirt and pulling it up.

“What
are you doing?” he asked, moving back a step, eyeing me like I
had lost my mind.

“I
need to show you... something,” I said, praying he didn't ask.
Because I was already a mass of panic. I just needed to get it over
with.

“Okay,”
he said, leaning back against the doorjamb.

I
reached behind my back and unclasped my bra, pulling the material off
in one quick motion and tossing it to the floor. I saw him look for a
second, not seeing. Then his eyes squinted, looking closer and his
face went to mine. And there was a question there.

“I
didn't do it,” I told him. “to myself. I didn't do this.”

“Okay,”
he said, nodding.

I
swallowed hard past the tightness in my throat and reached for my
pants. I slipped my thumbs underneath the band of my tights and
panties and pulled downward.

“Fee...”

“Please
just... please,” I said, shaking my head.

“Alright,”
he said, sounding tense.

But
not one one-millionth as tense as I felt. This was the first time.
The first time I had ever actually taken all my clothes off in front
of someone. In the past... the two times I had tried to be intimate
with someone, I had kept my skirt on. It had been easier that way.
And they hadn't even stopped to wonder why we weren't getting naked.
But they still found out.

Christ,
how they reacted.

I
remembered the first one. I was on his futon in his room, his mother
asleep two rooms away. Eighteen. Brand new to the city. Curious. And
such, such an innocent. I barely understood the concept of sex, let
alone the feelings involved. He had quickly ripped my panties down,
and shoved his bright blue condom-wrapped penis inside me without any
pretense. I remember the pain like it was yesterday, sharp and
burning at the same time. Then his hand had pushed up my skirt so he
could watch and he sprang back like I had stabbed him.

“What
the fuck?” he had exploded, looking at my sore and scarred
vagina like it was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. I had been so
humiliated that I got up and ran out without explaining, without
grabbing my panties.