Part Two. Draft One.

I probably should ease up on the cooked breakfasts. At my age they don’t do my waistline any favours and don’t start me on my heart. I still didn’t feel the least bit guilty as I slathered my last sausage in brown sauce, and nibbled on the end. The paper was uplifting as ever; a pile up on the motorway, a cabinet member resigned, a local parent taking on the County Council over a school failing to tackle bullying head on. I swigged back my coffee, checked the time and headed to the bathroom. Ablutions over, I started to make up my face. I’ve always worn heavy make up… kinda goes with my shaven headed, tattooed and pierced exterior. I look just alternative enough to make some folks think I’ve got a screw loose. Maybe I do. It’s my armour. It doesn’t take much Keromask to cover my scar, well, at least make it less noticeable. I don’t mind it really, but it does tug at my lower lip making it asymmetrical. Silly, I know, but that bothers me.

I’m one of those people fortunate to do a job I love. I work with a great bunch of folks and don’t really think of it as work, I simply provide a service. Calling it a job conjures images of it taking effort. I get paid to draw for a living; it’s hardly life at the coal face.

People get tattooed for countless reasons, to be part of a peer group, or set themselves apart. They mark for themselves, for others, or just because it seems the thing to do. Not the best of reasons, the last.

Clients often bail out at the last minute. I’m all in favour of that, (as long as they call to cancel.) It just so happened, I had an hour to kill that day on account of it. My assistant said there had been a walk-in, and asked was I up for doing it? A red devil… how imaginative. Not! Still, wasn’t my place to pass judgement, whatever they chose for me to indelibly etch on their hides was up to them. I fetched my usual selection of sterile packed needles; liners, shaders, and a big fuck-off Magnum for packing in the pigment. I set up my ink tray and arranged my cables for maximum reach.

Clients come up to me in the street, thinking I’ll remember them, but I don’t. Open their mouths though, and I’d recognise them in a heartbeat. They forget I spend all of my time staring at an inky patch of skin — I assume they’d rather I didn’t tattoo while staring them right in the eye. They love a good conversation though, takes their mind off the pain.

I hadn’t recognised him at first, his signature on the release form alerting me to who he was.

Neil Thomas! Fancy you turning up in my chair.

He sat completely oblivious. I picked up my lucky Queen and kissed her superglued, ebony crown as I always do, before picking up my spray bottle, telling him to sit astride, and cleaning the back of his shoulder. Utterly at my mercy, he was. Red devil? No problem. My mind flooded with explicit images, red devils with rampant hard-ons, hog tied and helpless. What a back piece that would be. I chuckled.

“Sorry, what?”

Or maybe, one, big penis with wings, running the length of his back, wearing a condom stating: I’m a Big, Bad, Bully. I laughed again, hit my pedal, and my gun screeched to life. Ok, so I’d turned the dial up for maximum roar and it sounded more like an angle-grinder on iron than the hypnotic buzz it should have been. I think he nearly wet himself, much to my delight. The novelty wore off quickly though. I wasn’t a vengeful person really, and he’d just been a child.

“You don’t remember me do you?”

“Should I?”