![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzie"He's doing really well," I tell her.
"I haven't passed out yet." He turns his head so he can grin at Maya, who grins back.
"Usually if someone's going to pass out," she says, "it's going to be a guy."
"It's true," I add. "Women have a higher pain tolerance."
I can practically hear the client shrug. Men don't tend to think they can't handle pain like women can, but in my experience, they can't. I've had women feel faint while they were being tattooed, and I've had to stop so they could recover, but in all the years I've been doing this, and I started my apprenticeship the summer I was twenty, I've only had one woman faint, and it turned out that she was so nervous about being tattooed that she hadn't eaten all day.
But I can count the men who've passed out in my chair on two hands.
Maya drifts back to her station, then into the kitchen. I continue inking. The client tells me about Japan and teaching English and what tattoos his boyfriend has, and that he thinks he'll get more after this one is finished.
"That's usually the way," I say. "They're like potato chips. You can't have just one." I try to keep the self-satisfaction out of my voice, but the truth is, that addiction is what keeps me in business. I wonder if it isn't time for me to get more ink, too. Something for Diego, maybe. Or something pretty that doesn't have any deeper meaning other than I think it looks nice. I have two great artists working with me, so at least I know where to go. Kona did a beautiful garter belt type tattoo on my thigh, all lines and dots and arcs, so I'll probably talk to May about my next one.
My arms aren't completely sleeved, but I do have ink from my shoulders to my wrists, abstract watercolor birds and realistic flowers and foxes and rabbits that look like Japanese brushwork, like the landscape I'm currently tattooing on my client's back. I have a delicate black and white chest piece inspired by victorian lace. I have Art Nouveau lilies on one calf and a diagram of a tattoo machine on the other. I have sailboats and seagulls and an albatross and an octopus on my back, purple orchids on my hip, a string of charms across my ribs, a protection symbol over my heart, delicate watercolor koi around my left wrist and lines and circles meant to encourage art on my right wrist. (I'm right-handed.) There's a gray goose wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and laying a golden egg on the inside of my left ankle, Grandpa Harb's initials and a tiny cartoony orchid behind my left ear, an old school swallow on the back of each hand. On the arch of my right foot is a pink star, which hurt and itched and has been there so long it's bled enough that you can't really see the points any more. My feet aren't tattooed, aside from the star, but I don't know what I'd get there.
I'll think about it. I'll talk to Maya. Maybe she has some ideas.
I can only spend about three hours on the Japanese landscape, and I can't finish it today, but the client doesn't seem to mind. He'll come back as many times as he has to, he says. He makes an appointment for the next session and just as he's walking out of the studio, someone I know walks in.
"Melvin!" I cry, running up to him and giving him a hug. Mel worked in Jonatha's studio when I was an apprentice and after I got her approval to start taking my own clients as an actual tattoo artist. He's tall and broad and built like a football player, and he used to like to grab me around the waist from behind and swing me around, because he's taller than I am and he could. He's covered in black tattoos, geometric patterns and arcane symbols and mandalas and designs that resemble moko, although to the best of my knowledge he doesn't have any aboriginal New Zealand blood in him anywhere. Because he's black and looks like a football player, people assume he played sports in school, but he's the least sports-inclined man I know. He watches soccer, and plays in an amateur league - or at least he did - but he couldn't care less about football, college or pro. College football is king around here, although it wasn't such a big deal in Savannah, where I went to art school and worked for Jonatha.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, after he's had a chance to swing me around a little bit for old time's sake. "Why didn't you call me?"
"I'm just passing through," he says. "Bodie's got a thing in New Orleans so I thought I'd drive out and surprise him. A friend of mine asked if I wanted to do a residency at his tattoo studio there, and I can check it out at the same time."
"How's Bodie doing?" He and Mel started dating about when I started my apprenticeship, and for a few months Jonatha's studio was full of tattoo artists placing bets and speculating about how long they'd last. Bodie is a technomancer, and the prevailing wisdom at the time was that only another person with magic would want to get involved with him. Mel has no magic, as far as anyone could tell, so the prevailing wisdom was clearly wrong.
"He's good. Busy all the time. He's thinking about freelancing, so if I do like the place in New Orleans, we could move without a problem." He glances around the studio. Maya is working on a client and Kona is sitting in his chair, sketching. "Look, you're probably busy. Let me take you out for dinner. We'll catch up. When are you done for the night?"
I slide behind the counter and look at the appointment book. "I've blocked off my time until eight, but I don't think it will take that long." My last client of the day is getting what I think will be a fairly simple tattoo, just a small daisy on the inside of her wrist. She doesn't even want the stem, just the flower and a couple of leaves. "I'll have to clean up and close out afterwards, though. Do you want to come by at eight? Hopefully I'll be done, or almost."
"Sure. I'll take you somewhere nice."
I look down at myself, at my faded jeans and sandals and Mexican peasant top, and snicker. But this is a college town, and sometimes you can get away with dressing like a student in places where slightly more formal attire is expected.
"I'll think of somewhere you can take me," I say. Mel kisses me on the cheek and goes.
"Who was that?" Kona asks from his chair.
"An old friend from my apprenticing days," I tell him. "His name's Mel. Do you have a client soon?"
"Yep. Still working on the design."
"Is your station clean?"
"As clean as I can get it."
I assume that's antiseptically clean. "Good."
The last client of the evening, the girl with the daisy, is finished sooner than planned, as I told Mel she would be, which means I have enough time to clean up and straighten up and close out the register by the time Mel comes by. I give him a quick tour of the studio - he asks - and then suggest he drive us both to dinner, because it's easier for me to give him directions from the passenger seat than it would be for him to follow me.
"But that means I'll have to bring you back here to get your car," he says.
"Yes it does." I grin at him. "You can try to follow me."
"How hard can that be?"
Harder than he thought, considering I turn at a light and he doesn't see me do so, and thus continues down the street for another few minutes. I realize he's not behind me and stop, and he finally turns around and comes back to look for me. Fortunately that's the only mishap, and we reach the restaurant in good time.
I've picked a Mexican place, because I want an enchilada with a lot of cheese, and I can make an exception to my vegetarianism for a good chicken enchilada. The place also has tasty fish tacos, if I decide to be a pescatarian for the night. They also have good margaritas, but Mel and I both opt for a beer. Dos Equis, because that's what they have.
"When was the last time we spoke?" Mel asks, not entirely rhetorically, after the waitress has brought us a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa.
"Months?" I offer. "A long time."
"Tell me everything."
"Everything in the last few months? I got a cat. My neighbor across the street took him in, but one of her cats kept tormenting him, so she gave him to me. His name's Diego Rivera and he's the softest thing you've ever petted in your life."
"How do you know what I've been petting?" Mel's eyebrows jump up and down suggestively. I laugh.
"I've met Bodie. He's not what you'd call silky smooth." Bodie is in fact pretty hairy.
Mel scoops a chip through the salsa and stuffs it in his mouth. "How's, oh, what's her name, Nila?"
"We broke up. I didn't tell you that?" Mel shakes his head, looking shocked, hopefully over the fact that I broke up with my girlfriend and not over the fact that I apparently never told him. "We haven't talked in a long time. It's been a year!"
"That can't be. Did I not ask about her?"
"I guess not."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I guess I didn't do that either."
"Well!" he huffs, pretending offense. "Now you really do have to tell me everything."
I don't really want to talk about Nila, so all I say is that we weren't as compatible as we thought we were - she wanted kids, for one thing, and I didn't - we broke up, she found someone else, they moved in together, and she still sometimes calls me to say hi or to ask me to come over.
"I think she wants to break up with Lora - that's her girlfriend - and she wants me to be her excuse." I shake my head. "I'm not getting back together with her. I told her that, exactly that." I sip my beer. "One of the other tattoo artists at the studio set me up with a nice girl. We've only been out once, but we're going out again. She's cute, too."
"Do tell." He leans forward.
"Her name's Maggie, she's a redhead, she works for a little PR firm, and she kickboxes for fun. She has no ink."
"A blank canvas! Are you excited about getting your hands on her?"
I am not about to let the double entendre pass. "We've had one date, Mel. We kissed on the cheek."
"Well, there's always the second date." He grins at me over his beer.
"Enough about me and my lack of love life." I resist the urge to flick a chip at him. "How are you? Who's this guy who's going to give you a residency in New Orleans?"
So he tells me about his work and his potential time in another studio, and he tells me about Bodie's work, and he tells me about Jonatha and her studio and the tattoo artists I know and the new people I don't. In exchange I tell him about Maya and Kona and that Rachael left so she could travel, and I tell him about Liliana and Kelly's visit, and that makes me remember the guy who turned into a hedgehog at the coffeeshop, so I tell Mel about him.
words: 1982
total words: 25,077
"I haven't passed out yet." He turns his head so he can grin at Maya, who grins back.
"Usually if someone's going to pass out," she says, "it's going to be a guy."
"It's true," I add. "Women have a higher pain tolerance."
I can practically hear the client shrug. Men don't tend to think they can't handle pain like women can, but in my experience, they can't. I've had women feel faint while they were being tattooed, and I've had to stop so they could recover, but in all the years I've been doing this, and I started my apprenticeship the summer I was twenty, I've only had one woman faint, and it turned out that she was so nervous about being tattooed that she hadn't eaten all day.
But I can count the men who've passed out in my chair on two hands.
Maya drifts back to her station, then into the kitchen. I continue inking. The client tells me about Japan and teaching English and what tattoos his boyfriend has, and that he thinks he'll get more after this one is finished.
"That's usually the way," I say. "They're like potato chips. You can't have just one." I try to keep the self-satisfaction out of my voice, but the truth is, that addiction is what keeps me in business. I wonder if it isn't time for me to get more ink, too. Something for Diego, maybe. Or something pretty that doesn't have any deeper meaning other than I think it looks nice. I have two great artists working with me, so at least I know where to go. Kona did a beautiful garter belt type tattoo on my thigh, all lines and dots and arcs, so I'll probably talk to May about my next one.
My arms aren't completely sleeved, but I do have ink from my shoulders to my wrists, abstract watercolor birds and realistic flowers and foxes and rabbits that look like Japanese brushwork, like the landscape I'm currently tattooing on my client's back. I have a delicate black and white chest piece inspired by victorian lace. I have Art Nouveau lilies on one calf and a diagram of a tattoo machine on the other. I have sailboats and seagulls and an albatross and an octopus on my back, purple orchids on my hip, a string of charms across my ribs, a protection symbol over my heart, delicate watercolor koi around my left wrist and lines and circles meant to encourage art on my right wrist. (I'm right-handed.) There's a gray goose wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and laying a golden egg on the inside of my left ankle, Grandpa Harb's initials and a tiny cartoony orchid behind my left ear, an old school swallow on the back of each hand. On the arch of my right foot is a pink star, which hurt and itched and has been there so long it's bled enough that you can't really see the points any more. My feet aren't tattooed, aside from the star, but I don't know what I'd get there.
I'll think about it. I'll talk to Maya. Maybe she has some ideas.
I can only spend about three hours on the Japanese landscape, and I can't finish it today, but the client doesn't seem to mind. He'll come back as many times as he has to, he says. He makes an appointment for the next session and just as he's walking out of the studio, someone I know walks in.
"Melvin!" I cry, running up to him and giving him a hug. Mel worked in Jonatha's studio when I was an apprentice and after I got her approval to start taking my own clients as an actual tattoo artist. He's tall and broad and built like a football player, and he used to like to grab me around the waist from behind and swing me around, because he's taller than I am and he could. He's covered in black tattoos, geometric patterns and arcane symbols and mandalas and designs that resemble moko, although to the best of my knowledge he doesn't have any aboriginal New Zealand blood in him anywhere. Because he's black and looks like a football player, people assume he played sports in school, but he's the least sports-inclined man I know. He watches soccer, and plays in an amateur league - or at least he did - but he couldn't care less about football, college or pro. College football is king around here, although it wasn't such a big deal in Savannah, where I went to art school and worked for Jonatha.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, after he's had a chance to swing me around a little bit for old time's sake. "Why didn't you call me?"
"I'm just passing through," he says. "Bodie's got a thing in New Orleans so I thought I'd drive out and surprise him. A friend of mine asked if I wanted to do a residency at his tattoo studio there, and I can check it out at the same time."
"How's Bodie doing?" He and Mel started dating about when I started my apprenticeship, and for a few months Jonatha's studio was full of tattoo artists placing bets and speculating about how long they'd last. Bodie is a technomancer, and the prevailing wisdom at the time was that only another person with magic would want to get involved with him. Mel has no magic, as far as anyone could tell, so the prevailing wisdom was clearly wrong.
"He's good. Busy all the time. He's thinking about freelancing, so if I do like the place in New Orleans, we could move without a problem." He glances around the studio. Maya is working on a client and Kona is sitting in his chair, sketching. "Look, you're probably busy. Let me take you out for dinner. We'll catch up. When are you done for the night?"
I slide behind the counter and look at the appointment book. "I've blocked off my time until eight, but I don't think it will take that long." My last client of the day is getting what I think will be a fairly simple tattoo, just a small daisy on the inside of her wrist. She doesn't even want the stem, just the flower and a couple of leaves. "I'll have to clean up and close out afterwards, though. Do you want to come by at eight? Hopefully I'll be done, or almost."
"Sure. I'll take you somewhere nice."
I look down at myself, at my faded jeans and sandals and Mexican peasant top, and snicker. But this is a college town, and sometimes you can get away with dressing like a student in places where slightly more formal attire is expected.
"I'll think of somewhere you can take me," I say. Mel kisses me on the cheek and goes.
"Who was that?" Kona asks from his chair.
"An old friend from my apprenticing days," I tell him. "His name's Mel. Do you have a client soon?"
"Yep. Still working on the design."
"Is your station clean?"
"As clean as I can get it."
I assume that's antiseptically clean. "Good."
The last client of the evening, the girl with the daisy, is finished sooner than planned, as I told Mel she would be, which means I have enough time to clean up and straighten up and close out the register by the time Mel comes by. I give him a quick tour of the studio - he asks - and then suggest he drive us both to dinner, because it's easier for me to give him directions from the passenger seat than it would be for him to follow me.
"But that means I'll have to bring you back here to get your car," he says.
"Yes it does." I grin at him. "You can try to follow me."
"How hard can that be?"
Harder than he thought, considering I turn at a light and he doesn't see me do so, and thus continues down the street for another few minutes. I realize he's not behind me and stop, and he finally turns around and comes back to look for me. Fortunately that's the only mishap, and we reach the restaurant in good time.
I've picked a Mexican place, because I want an enchilada with a lot of cheese, and I can make an exception to my vegetarianism for a good chicken enchilada. The place also has tasty fish tacos, if I decide to be a pescatarian for the night. They also have good margaritas, but Mel and I both opt for a beer. Dos Equis, because that's what they have.
"When was the last time we spoke?" Mel asks, not entirely rhetorically, after the waitress has brought us a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa.
"Months?" I offer. "A long time."
"Tell me everything."
"Everything in the last few months? I got a cat. My neighbor across the street took him in, but one of her cats kept tormenting him, so she gave him to me. His name's Diego Rivera and he's the softest thing you've ever petted in your life."
"How do you know what I've been petting?" Mel's eyebrows jump up and down suggestively. I laugh.
"I've met Bodie. He's not what you'd call silky smooth." Bodie is in fact pretty hairy.
Mel scoops a chip through the salsa and stuffs it in his mouth. "How's, oh, what's her name, Nila?"
"We broke up. I didn't tell you that?" Mel shakes his head, looking shocked, hopefully over the fact that I broke up with my girlfriend and not over the fact that I apparently never told him. "We haven't talked in a long time. It's been a year!"
"That can't be. Did I not ask about her?"
"I guess not."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I guess I didn't do that either."
"Well!" he huffs, pretending offense. "Now you really do have to tell me everything."
I don't really want to talk about Nila, so all I say is that we weren't as compatible as we thought we were - she wanted kids, for one thing, and I didn't - we broke up, she found someone else, they moved in together, and she still sometimes calls me to say hi or to ask me to come over.
"I think she wants to break up with Lora - that's her girlfriend - and she wants me to be her excuse." I shake my head. "I'm not getting back together with her. I told her that, exactly that." I sip my beer. "One of the other tattoo artists at the studio set me up with a nice girl. We've only been out once, but we're going out again. She's cute, too."
"Do tell." He leans forward.
"Her name's Maggie, she's a redhead, she works for a little PR firm, and she kickboxes for fun. She has no ink."
"A blank canvas! Are you excited about getting your hands on her?"
I am not about to let the double entendre pass. "We've had one date, Mel. We kissed on the cheek."
"Well, there's always the second date." He grins at me over his beer.
"Enough about me and my lack of love life." I resist the urge to flick a chip at him. "How are you? Who's this guy who's going to give you a residency in New Orleans?"
So he tells me about his work and his potential time in another studio, and he tells me about Bodie's work, and he tells me about Jonatha and her studio and the tattoo artists I know and the new people I don't. In exchange I tell him about Maya and Kona and that Rachael left so she could travel, and I tell him about Liliana and Kelly's visit, and that makes me remember the guy who turned into a hedgehog at the coffeeshop, so I tell Mel about him.
words: 1982
total words: 25,077
