Oh My God, They Were Roommates

12 | Venus As A Boy

Charlie pulled a joint from between his lips and, as white smoke drifted from between his teeth, he said, "Hold still. I'm still studying my canvas."

"I'll punch your teeth in. I swear to God I'll do it," Sora seethed, squirmy under Charlie's stare. "Just—Just do it. I don't give a fuck if it looks bad. It's just for tonight."

"Excuse you—it's for at least two weeks unless you plan on exfoliating your stomach off every damn day," Charlie said, setting the joint on the dish next to an assortment of semi-permanent tattoo pens. Charlie held the picture up as he crawled forward on the bench until he had to drop his feet on the ground and straddle the bench, effectively straddling Sora as well.

Sora put his eyes to the locker room ceiling and swallowed hard.

"Hold still, baby," Charlie teased with a little purr that made someone laugh at the locker room doorway. Sora didn't recognize the guy, but considering he was holding an amp, Sora assumed he was part of the band.

"Fuck off! Don't you have a job to do?" Sora seethed.

"Ooh, kitten's got claws," the band member quipped, licking his teeth. One of his buddies pushed him along as Sora cussed him out and went back to lying on the bench, covering his hands over his nipples.

"Just hurry up, God," Sora huffed.

"Give me a second. I'm relaxing so I'm not shaky," Charlie said, taking deep, meditative breaths as Sora laid there on the locker room bench in nothing but his sweatpants and underwear. As if he couldn't be any more pissed at Charlie, the idiot started humming under his breath as he dragged his hands up and down with each inhale and exhale.

As Charlie uncapped the pen and placed the reference photo on Sora's chest, he sang a little under his breath. As he started to punctuate dots along Sora's would-be happy trail, he sang, "'Oh, she's sweet but a psycho, a little bit psy-ycho, and she's singing oh mamai-mama-mai...'"

"I don't think those are the lyrics..." Sora sang.

Charlie matched Sora's sing-songy tone with, "And you better shut the fuck up or else I'll scribble the shit out of your stomach..."

It was a simple, minimal tattoo with delicate, fine lines and dots that accumulated into an abstract arrow pointing directly down to Sora's dick with curved points that Charlie said looked like, "a pair of ovaries", which Sora punched him for.

As they were finishing it up, some performers for that night were already gathering in the locker room. A few of them complimented Sora's tattoo, which always prompted a snarky, unnecessary response from Charlie along the lines of, "Yeah, you better like it, bitch. That shit's gonna save our boy's life tonight." Try as he might, Sora couldn't shut the guy up.

Among the performers, David waltzed in, unannounced and unfazed by the dirty looks the dancers gave him. "I heard y'all were doing belly shots off of Sora's abs," he said, hands on his hips.

Sora rolled his eyes, hands fanning his stomach to dry the ink. "Right, and I'm guessing you came to get in on that action, huh?"

David gave him a fake smile and said, "Don't flatter yourself. Actually came to deliver some goods for all you beautiful bitches. Dig in."

From the basket he set on the bench, he pulled out two massive bottles of vodka. The dancers all whooped in excitement, and Sora thought to himself, Thank God someone came in clutch tonight. As he got up—albeit carefully to avoid smearing the ink—he saw the rest of the basket's contents.

"Masks?" one of the dancers said.

"Holy shit—Ambrose said it was okay?" Sora said, eyes wide.