My Mute Mate

Ch. 41

We enter into a grey room with a dark red accent wall, and I am immediately captured by the art that is splayed against the walls. Such bright colors moving into forms of women, animals, entire forests. One particularly catches my eye from across the room, and I walk over to see what it is. It's a very detailed portrait of a lioness. Somehow, the portrait captures her essence of grace and beauty, while still making her seem intimidating. She's the most breathtaking creature Ive ever seen.

"It's a cool painting, huh? Harry did it himself, that man is a magician I swear. I aspire to make something with this much passion and feeling behind it some day. It's like if the lioness were to come out of the wall right now, no one would be fazed. Shes already so present and she's not even real." Jaxon muses from beside me. I nod, studying every form and line to try and find an imperfection to tell me that its art and not just a photo.

"Ooh. Pretty picture. Ya'll ready?" Sym asks from behind us, causing me to jump. She laughs and puts a hand on my shoulder. "You good?"

"Yeah just got a little lost there for a second." I rub my forehead, smiling. I turn and see that Sym has lost her shirt and is now just wearing a thin paper mask like material to cover her breasts. "Oh."

"Yeah. Harry said that guys who come in here dont know how NOT to stare, and though I said it was fine, that I didnt mind, he was like 'Well I mind, and if someone doesnt know how to move on I end up swearing at them about how disrespectful theyre being and thats bad for business so I cover my ladies up for their privacy', and honestly, you know we stan that." She laughs. That's cool that he'd fight other men on behalf of the girls being harassed.

"Symali, are you ready?" A man asks, popping his head out of a back area. "I'm finished scanning the image through onto the stencil."

"Coming!" Sym perks up excitedly at his words before walking, or rather, skipping her way over. She seems really excited for this. I slowly make my way over, not wanting to get in the way but still wanting to see. I watch as the man, presumably Harry, slowly applies the stencil to Syms ribcage, smoothing it out to prevent any bubbles, and wetting it like it was one of those temporary tattoos that you can get from those little kid vending machines. He peels it off and a bright blue stencil of a D20 peels off on Symalis skin.

"Alright, so we just gotta give that a minute to dry, then we can get started. If you need me, Ill be out back having a smoke." Harry smiles kindly and Sym nods. As hes walking away I notice how big Harry is. He's probably about 6'3, and built like a pro wrestler. He has a long salt and pepper braid going down all the way to his lower back, and has a gray scruffle for facial hair. He wears wire rimmed glasses and looks like he could be about 50. I notice hes wearing a plain grey tee and some jeans with some nondescript black boots. He's a lot less... Tattooed than I thought he would be, considering he owns a parlor. He has one visible tattoo on his forearm of a really detailed moon, and thats it.

The parlor is relatively empty, save for a man getting a ship on stormy seas done on his chest. The man doing his tattoo looks a lot more of what I imagined a tattoo artist to look like. Cargo shorts, black tank and some converse, and he is tatted all over his body. Down his arms and his legs, and Im sure his back and chest are just as filled. He has a black buzzcut and huge filled gauges.

After a few minutes of us lounging about, Harry returns, drying his hands on a paper towel before tossing it in a no-touch trash can. He dons a pair of blue non-latex gloves and begins to disinfect everything, and I mean everything. He wipes down the table/seat Sym will be laying on, his working table, all of his handles on his equipment, before covering all of it in plastic wrap. I thought tattoo parlors were these grungy, smokey places with gruffled scary looking men and women, but I couldnt be more wrong. The place is bright and smells clean, vaguely of disinfectant, and Harry has a picture of him with his two kids for Goddesses sake. I see Harry then throw out the gloves he was just wearing to prep everything, put on a new set of gloves, and begin prepping his needle and ink before placing them on a fresh paper towel. Watching him methodically prep his station was weirdly fascinating. I guess I never realized how much work goes into someone getting a tattoo before ink was ever even thought of.