Vandal (Ashes & Embers 2)

Tabi

Grinning, I close the journal. Her snarky comments always make me laugh.

I methodically lay my equipment out on the table as she watches with a slightly horrified look on her face.

“Um, what are we doing, exactly?” she asks.

“I’m going to tattoo you.”

Her eyes go wide and she looks from me, to the gun, to the inkwells and back to me again.

“What? You can’t just tattoo a person. I could get an infection or something. And you need to know how to draw, don’t you? You can’t just start jabbing with that … thing.” She gestures at the gun and looks up at me as if I’ve completely lost my mind.

“Tabi, I’m a tattoo artist. I have been for about ten years. My brother and I own a shop. I can show you the website if you want, and you can see my portfolio. And all this stuff is brand new, totally clean and sterile. I know what I’m doing.”

“Are you serious? You’re a tattoo artist?”

“Yes. A fucking good one, too. People wait months to have me do their ink. You should feel very privileged.”

She’s still staring at all the equipment. “I don’t know. Is it safe to do here?”

“Yes.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No,” I lie. She narrows her eyes at me. “Okay, a little,” I add. “It feels kinda like a bunch of fuckin’ bee stings. Me? I like it. I think it’s therapeutic. Like acupuncture. I like pain.”

“Bee stings?” she repeats. “That sounds painful. And you’re weird.”

“I think you’ll be okay. I’ll be nice and gentle.”

“You really want to do this to me?”

“Yes. But only if you want me to. If you’re really against it, I won’t do it. It’s going to be on you forever, so I want you to want it.”

She studies the tattoos on my arms for a few moments.

“Did you do these?” she asks.

“I did some on my left arm. I did the dragon. Lukas did my right arm.”

She lightly touches my skin, tracing the designs. “Well … what did you have in mind for me?”

“Angel wings on your back. I was staring at your back this morning while you were sleeping and I just thought how fucking gorgeous you would look with angel wings. Your skin is so pale and perfect. It’ll be beautiful on you.”

She contemplates this, chewing her lip. “I kinda always wanted a tattoo but Nick wouldn’t let me.” Her gaze shifts to the floor.

I scoff. “Let you? What the fuck? You needed permission?”

“You are really in no position to be making judgments about what other men do or what kind of control they try to inflict on their wives. He thought tattoos were like, for strippers and whores. He didn’t want me to look trashy.”

“Is that how you feel, too?”

“No, I always thought body art was beautiful. I used to photograph a friend of mine who’s a model, and she had a lot of them. They were really sexy on her. They were tasteful, though. Not stupid things that meant nothing.”

“Is there some kind of design you’d prefer? I’ll do whatever you want. You don’t have to go with what I want.”

She flashes me an adorably wicked grin and touches my hand, leaning over to kiss my lips. “I forgot to kiss you this morning. And thank you for the ramming,” she says.

“You’re not doing so great with that rule.”

“I know.”

I lean back in the chair and wait for her. “So, what’s it gonna be, darlin’?”

Nodding slowly, her smile comes back. “Yes. I think I’m gonna go for it. But only if you go slow. Will you stop when I ask you to?”

“Of course. I’ll give you a lot of breaks, but once we start the design, we have to finish it. Even if we work on it every day for two weeks. I’m not going to let you walk around with a half a design on you.”

“Ew. Deal.”

“Have you decided what you want?”

“I want you to do what you picked. That will mean the most to me.”

Nodding, I try not to let her see how happy that makes me. “Do you think you can straddle the chair backwards so I can get to your back? You can get up and stretch whenever you need to.”

“Sure.”

I get the rest of my gear ready while she turns the chair and moves it closer to me. “Should I take my shirt off?” she asks.

“Yeah, and your bra too, if you’re okay with that.”

She peers back at me. “Isn’t that unprofessional?”

“Immensely.”

It’s hard to concentrate once she’s sitting there topless, even with her back to me. I try to compose myself.

“I tattoo freehand,” I tell her, gathering her hair and laying it over her shoulder. “Keep your hair in front.”

“I have no idea what freehand means.”

I open a sterile rubbing alcohol pack and wipe her back with it. “It means I don’t draw a sketch first and then trace it onto your back to fill in. I just tat straight on.”

“Oh. How big is this going to be?”

I sit back and stare at her blank skin, trying to envision it in my mind. She’s so tiny. I picture it taking up almost her

entire back, if she has the patience for it.

“I was thinking two huge angel wings, taking up pretty much your whole back. It would look incredible, but it would take some time to do, depending on how much you can handle at once. Or if you just want small wings, I can do that too. It’s your body, so you tell me.”

She grabs her cell phone and starts fiddling with it, then turns and thrusts it at me. It’s a web image of a tattoo similar to what I described. The art isn’t as good as mine, but it’s not bad. “Like this?” she asks.

“Yeah but my detail and shading will be much more realistic than that. But yeah, that size.”

“Yes! That’s what I want. I will love that.”

“Let’s get started then. Try to keep still, and let me know if you need me to stop.”

I snap my black gloves on and get to work. She yowls two seconds after I start. I pull back.

“Ouch! That does hurt. Shit!”

I stifle a laugh. I’ve seen girls react this way at least a hundred times. “You kinda get numb to it after a while. Do you want me to stop? There’s just a tiny black line.”

“No!” she wails. “I’m doing this. I will not wuss out.”

“Good girl.”

“Just talk a lot to distract me.”

We talk casually as I work on her. She tells me some funny stories about when she was a little girl, and I tell her a few of my tamer childhood stories. I want to tell her about the band, and more about my music but I’m afraid that could lead to too many possible connections for her to connect the dots and figure out who I am. Shit. For the first time in my life, all my lies are making me sick.