Chapter Two – Jack
Chapter Two
Jack
Too bad tonight it’d be wasted on Mark, her boyfriend, who I’d met precisely twice.
Judging from his BMW and attitude, he had a casino job, a good one.
Which was all the more reason for me to keep my damage to myself.
Angela had a good thing going with him—if she was smart, she’d lock him down.
People like us knew that second chances didn’t knock twice.
One of the girls checking out the flash separated from the herd to come over and give me a megawatt smile. “Hey, you work here, right?”
I turned, focusing my full attention on her. She was maybe twenty-three, curvy, hair that fell in blonde ringlets down her back. She smiled genuinely at me, in an earnest Midwestern way, and I leaned forward on the counter like a cat spotting a mouse.
Just because I wouldn’t be spending the night with Angela didn’t mean I’d have to be alone.
“I do indeed. How can I help?” I said, making sure to turn on the southern twang of my childhood as I rose back up.
In the end there were just two girls out of five—the blonde, and a brave brunette—who wanted to commemorate their first trip to Vegas on their skin, permanently.
The rest of their friends wanted to go back to the strip and hook-up with some guys they’d met last night.
The leaving girls whispered lewd suggestions that I had no problem hearing—and kept sending text messages from the parking lot outside until their Uber picked them up, leaving the three of us behind.
“So what do y’all want?” I asked, smiling at both of them, trying my best to seem harmless. I hadn’t fed in two days. I could not only smell their blood, but taste the way that sweat pricked their skin in fear—of the needles, not me.
Not yet.
“Just her,” the brunette ratted out her friend.
“Yeah?” I focused on the blonde. “Let me see which one you picked.”
I walked through the saloon doors over to the panel of flash she’d decided on. A retro-version of the Las Vegas sign. It was Angela’s original art, but I’d done it a thousand times, and no one picking flash off the wall thought they were getting a one-of-a-kind.
“I like it,” I told her. “If you keep it that size, it’ll be a hundred bucks.” Neither one of them flinched, good. “Where?” I asked, looking down at the tattoo retracing the lines in my mind.
“Somewhere my parents won’t see it.”
I glanced up. “I’m gonna need to see some ID.”
Blonde was indeed twenty-three, and I had her sign all the normal paperwork, affirming that she wasn’t drunk or high, and that she realized letting someone pierce you with needles—with anything, really—always involved some measure of risk.
She signed everything, tentatively at first, then more boldly as she committed to her course of action, and I felt a little like Mephistopheles on a cold German night.
“All right then,” I announced the second she was done. “You figure out a place?”
She nodded, sending her curls bouncing. “Here,” she said, placing her palm on her hip.
“Excellent location,” I said, and held a saloon door open.
Both girls went to my station without me telling them which one it was.
Did it look like me? Perhaps. There were pictures of my art all on the walls.
These were my one of a kinds, and once I’d tattooed any of these on someone, I’d destroy the original, or give it to the client to keep.
I could do anything anyone wanted me to, being halfway dead had given me the steadiest of hands: American traditional, Japanese, neo-traditional, new school bullshit—but what I loved doing most was photorealism.
There was something about photorealistic art that channeled my memories of the sun.
“So—I—” the blonde said, tugging at the waistband of her skirt.
“Yes, please,” I said, and handed her some of the paper-clothing that they gave you in doctor’s offices, which stayed on exactly no one nowhere.
She pretended to be modest for a moment which I enjoyed, as modesty was a rare thing in Vegas after sundown, then slid her skirt to the floor, kicking out of it, hitching her underwear in and up.
I patted the chair and she hopped up onto it.
I listened to the leather sigh and sympathized, as I lowered the back of the chair down and the legs up.
I leaned over her. “Okay. First I’m going to shave things, clean things, put the stencil on, and then make art.
” She’d signed a document saying as much three minutes ago, but people always needed reminding.
Something about the adrenaline of knowing what was coming up, and that it would likely hurt, rendered otherwise intelligent minds empty.
The brunette leaned over to whisper a joke about wasn’t she glad she shaved elsewhere, earlier, in the blonde’s ear, and I hid a wicked smile, before returning with gloved hands and razor.
“Here?” I said, drawing a circle where the sign would be, and blonde nodded. “All right.” I drew the razor gently backwards, against the grain of her fine hair. She was holding her breath, and I hadn’t even started yet.
“Breathe,” I reminded her, and she did, looking flush.
Her skin was so pale, the part of her hip she’d chosen nearly translucent, hidden by a bathing suit from her likely numerous summer tans.
I could see a trace work of veins in there, more delicate than any art I’d mark her with, and sense her blood pulsing through all of them.
Her pulse increased, and the smell of her sweat was sharp and sweet.
“All right,” I said again, like I was calming a horse, rubbing one gloved hand over the shaved spot to make sure I’d caught everything.
Then I set the stencil in place and sprayed water on the back of it.
“A little cold,” I warned, too late.
“Feels good,” she said with a brave smile. Then I pulled the stencil off and it was needle-time.
I made a show of inspecting my needles with a magnifying lens because I had to, in case any were defective and because if she was going to faint, I wanted her to do it now, before I’d started.
She didn’t, so I wheeled my work stool closer, looped an elbow in between her legs to brace against the inside of her thigh, pulled up ink onto my needles and pressed the pedal down.
I brought my gun hand down and she started whining, “Oh, oh, oh!” at volume.
I released the pedal—the needles hadn’t even touched her skin.
I looked up at her, “It’s not too late. You can still change your mind.”
And behind me, the door rang as a new client walked in.