Tattoo ➸ l.h.

one | tattoo

one | tattoo

I pulled the thin sweater I was wearing tighter against my body, the spring winds being colder than I had expected them to be. My dirty, black boots made their way down the street, coming closer to their destination.

After thirty minutes of walking, I finally made it to where I had been wanting to go for the past three years of my life, the tattoo parlour.

I pulled on the door, opening it. I shivered as a cool breeze from inside hit my tan skin. I walked up to the front desk, and waited for someone to tend to me. While I was waiting, I looked around the small parlour. The walls were covered in drawings of all shapes and sizes. I noticed a man farther back in the room, someone working on his muscular arm with a needle that was loaded with ink.

Looking at the tattoo machine made me shiver. Although I was excited about getting a tattoo for the first time, I was afraid about how much it would hurt.

"May I help you?" A voice cut my thoughts off, and my head snapped back to look at the front desk. A man who must be in his early twenties was standing there, his arms completely draped with colorful artwork.

"Yeah, I'm not sure how this works, but, I'm here to get a tattoo?" I said nervously, and the man smiled, he had a warm smile.

"You seem nervous, don't be nervous! It's nothing scary, I promise." He laughed, and I joined him.

"Well, I'm going to be having a needle on my skin soon, so I think I'm allowed to be nervous!" I said good-naturedly.

"If you don't like needles, I suggest you don't do this." The man warned, and I shook my head.

"I'm not afraid of needles, just afraid of how much this is gonna hurt."

"It won't hurt much, take my word on it." He said, and I nodded. No matter what he said though, I would still be slightly terrified about doing this, but the thrill of getting a tattoo was overpowering the fear, therefore the reason why I was doing this.

"Okay." I said simply.

"So, what are you thinking about getting? I need to know whether you'll pay now, or after the tattoo is done."

"I'm just getting something small, I'm kinda experimenting. And by small, I mean, really small, like, I'm getting it on the side of my finger." I motioned to the side of my index finger, where I planned to put the permanent ink.

"Oh, okay, that'll be easy. You can just pay now." The man said, looking at the front desk. He grabbed a paper, then gave it to me with a pen, "This is just something that tells us about any medical conditions you might have, you know, the basics."

I nodded, filled out the paper, then payed for my tattoo.

"Okay, come sit in this chair." The man lead me to a red leather chair, patting his hand on it, "We only have three tattoo artists here, Zayla is out sick, and Dean is working on one of our regulars over there," He motioned towards the guy next to us working on the burly man's arm, "So you'll have to wait a couple minutes for our third tattoo artist, Luke."

"Okay." I said, sitting down in the chair. I hoped this Luke guy was nice, I didn't want a dick to give me my first tattoo.

My fingers played with each other in my lap, I had nothing else to do. I heard someone cough from above me, and my head snapped up, and I saw a boy who I assumed was Luke.

"Hi babe," He said. I was surprised that he had called me babe, but brushed it off, he probably called every girl "babe."

His arms were completely covered in tattoos, and from what I could see from his black, low v-neck t-shirt, his chest was covered in tattoos too. He had an eyebrow piercing above his left eye, and a black ring sat upon his bottom lip. The jeans Luke had on were by far the skinniest jeans I had ever seen on a boy.