I still my hands, place one on his knee to steady it. His flesh feels burning hot. Just touching him is making my heartbeat quicken.
His smell, just faint, reaches my senses. I try to ignore it.
Carefully, I trace the inside line of the jellyfish’s main outline with the machine. I’m holding it about an inch above his skin, but getting a feel for the device, how long the needle extends, the weight in my hands, the balance. There are a great many models of tattoo machines, and little standardization because of the industry’s taboo nature. Understanding the weight and balance is crucial.
It’s a good machine, well-made, and light-weight. It pulls a little up – the back is heavier than the front – but that’s the way you want it to be. Better for the machine to fall out of your hands backwards away from the client’s skin, rather than forward into it.
“Okay,” I say, and look at Tina. “Where’s the reference design.”
She nods her head at the corkboard behind Pierce, and I notice it for the first time. There’s a cocktail napkin pinned to it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say to Pierce. “You designed this on a napkin?”
“And only during my date’s bathroom trips,” he says.
“What jellyfish is that?”
“Portuguese Man of War.” He smiles at me. “Tentacles go back dozens of feet, like the net cast off by a trawler. The fin-like thing you see? At distance, if you see it, it just looks like the fin of a dead fish. Difficult to notice if you’re in the water with it.”
“You go on a Discovery Channel binge, or something?”
I notice that Tina stiffens, but still she says nothing.
“Best guy I ever fought got tangled up in one while surfing.”
I suck in a breath of air, and feel instantly embarrassed and terrible. “I’m sorry.”
“He didn’t die. But he’ll never fight again. Too much nerve and muscle damage.”
Behind me I hear Tina sigh.
“Why are you getting this tattoo?”
“Because I haven’t fought a guy who challenged me as much. I miss it.” The tone of his voice has changed. He’s become less… well, posturing.
“Alright. Tina, what are we doing first?”
She traces the outline of the fin that sits on top of the jellyfish’s body, and then tells me that the fin actually undulates – like a seashell. I know exactly what she means, and take another look at the drawing on the napkin, and figure out what Pierce was trying to do. He got the angles of the shadowing wrong. The guy can’t draw for the life of him.
“Alright,” I say. I look at him one last time, and when I meet his snowy eyes, it’s like I’ve been injected with adrenaline. I’ve suddenly got a buzz. I’m bordering on shaking.
I never expected this kind of exhilaration when giving a tattoo. I hope it never fades.
“Are you sure about this? You want me to try?”
“Getting cold feet?”
“No. But I’m not so full of myself that I can’t admit I might make a mistake… unlike you.”
“What can I say? I’m a risk taker.”
I sigh. “Fine. But seriously, this will hurt.”
“Nah. It won’t.”
A moment later I press it into his skin. He doesn’t even flinch, and despite knowing I shouldn’t, I press it in a little harder.
“Woah, Pen, take it easy!”
“Relax,” I say. “It’s not your first time.”
“But it is yours… among other things.”
“Not so hard,” Tina interjects. She puts her hands on mine, guides me. “Just like this. The skin here is very delicate, very easy to mark. Not like a hand or top of the arm.”
“I understand, Tina.”
I begin shadowing on the fin, and to my great satisfaction, I feel his body temperature begin to rise through my palm steadying his knee.
“Sure it doesn’t hurt?” I say, sneering, but not breaking concentration. “Your body temperature is increasing; this is typically a sign of physical distress, or pain.” I say it in as smug a voice I can.
“Nah,” he says. I know he’s grinning. I can hear it in his voice. “I just think you look really hot like this, head down in my lap.”
Appalled, I turn my eyes to him, and that’s when I notice that his penis is starting to get hard.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I cry, slapping the tattoo machine down on the metal tray and pushing my chair back. I get up, and walk away, and stand at the window, shaking my head. “You’re such an asshole, Pierce.”
“Hey!” he says, voice all don’t-blame-me. “It’s you. You do it to me.”