[18+] When Sienna's first major account at her dream PR job turns out to be a reformed metal band, she isn't thrilled, but she knows her boss is putting a lot of faith in her, and she wants to prove she can handle anything. But lead singer Devon, ta...
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Anyone who tells you that tattoos don't hurt is full of shit. They do. It's just that the outcome is generally always worth the pain. But in the moment when someone's jabbing needles into some of the most sensitive parts of your body, you definitely question your decision, and your god damn sanity.
"You look constipated," Evie said with a grin as she twirled around in one of the wheelie chairs in front of the table.
"I'm in pain," I groaned. "Gatorade me."
Evie rolled herself over to the bench where we'd thrown our bags and grabbed what was left of my glacier freeze Gatorade, holding it up to my mouth so I could take a sip through the straw.
I was stomach down on the table going on an hour of the shark I was getting tattooed around my knee ditch - jaws open so when I bent my knee, the mouth closed. I didn't plan out tattoos as thoroughly as I used to, and at this point I got them just to get them. Anyone that tells you all of your tattoos have to have meaning is also full of shit.
"How much longer?" I asked Frankie. It wasn't like I could rotate my head exorcist-style to check the progress, but I'd learned to go on feeling. Line needles were less painful, and coloring and shading was a bitch.
"Maybe another hour?" He had one of those gravelly Long Island accents - the kind that sounded like he should have been an extra on the Sopranos and not tattooing punks like me on the Lower East Side. He looked the part too, all beefy and thick-browed.
I'd been seeing Frankie since I was 19, and the industrial-style loft hadn't changed one bit in the last seven years, with paintings and doodles from all the artists that had worked for him over the years up and down what were once pristine white walls. Frankie mentored people and sent them on their way, and I was usually one of the dumb assholes who volunteered parts of my body to the apprentices for little things like dot work to fill in gaps on my arms, roses on my hips, and even the soot sprites from Spirited Away around my ankles. But Frankie did all the big stuff, and the painful stuff.
I groaned again and pressed my forehead down into my folded arms.
"Hey, you wanted color my man," Frankie continued. "Woulda been almost done otherwise."
"I know, I know," I muttered.
Evie wheeled herself away again as she took a sip from my Gatorade and grabbed her phone from her bag. "You know, most people handle stress by meditating, going for a run, or even shopping. You on the other hand get tattoos in extremely painful and unnecessary places."
"It's not unnecessary when I'm legitimately just running out of room," I told her flatly. "And I'm not stressed. I'm annoyed. There's a difference."
Evie flicked her wrist at me dismissively. "Okay, well regardless of whatever you want to call it, I don't understand it."
I winced as Frankie hit an ultra-sensitive part of my knee. "I had this argument with Raf already. Like, what the fuck does Polly Pocket think she's gonna do for us that I can't do better?"
