"But it is yours... among other things."
"Not so hard," Tina interjects. She puts her hands on mine, guides me. "Just like this. The skin here is very delicate, very easy to mark. Not like a hand or top of the arm."
"I understand, Tina."
I begin shadowing on the fin, and to my great satisfaction, I feel his body temperature begin to rise through my palm steadying his knee.
"Sure it doesn"t hurt?" I say, sneering, but not breaking concentration. "Your body temperature is increasing; this is typically a sign of physical distress, or pain." I say it in as smug a voice I can.
"Nah," he says. I know he"s grinning. I can hear it in his voice. "I just think you look really hot like this, head down in my lap."
Appalled, I turn my eyes to him, and that"s when I notice that his p.e.n.i.s is starting to get hard.
"Oh, for f.u.c.k"s sake," I cry, slapping the tattoo machine down on the metal tray and pus.h.i.+ng my chair back. I get up, and walk away, and stand at the window, shaking my head. "You"re such an a.s.shole, Pierce."
"Hey!" he says, voice all don"t-blame-me. "It"s you. You do it to me."
"This session is over now, Pierce," I hear Tina say. Her voice is calm, but there"s venom in it. "Please leave and come back tomorrow when you can control yourself. If you can"t control yourself, you"ll never be welcome here again."
I watch as she sticks a plastic covering over his tattoo, adhesive on all sides to cover it.
"Don"t get this wet," she says.
"I know the drill, Tina."
"Really?" she says, eyes flas.h.i.+ng anger. "Because just now it seemed you didn"t."
"Hey," he says. "I can"t f.u.c.king control my body. Your apprentice is hot. I like her."
Despite myself, I feel a tightening in my belly. I don"t know exactly if it"s because I like hearing that, or because I hate him for saying that, for using that.
At this point, it doesn"t really matter.
"See you tomorrow," he says, swaggering out of the shop.
I turn to Tina, and she just sighs, eyeing me.
"This going to be a problem?" she asks. "Because if it is, take a day tomorrow."
I balk. "That wasn"t my fault!"
"Penelope." She"s shorter than me, way smaller in frame than I am, and yet somehow I"m terrified of her. I shrink completely.
"In our line of work, we sometimes encounter troublesome clients. Perhaps, some might say, more often than in other lines of work."
I nod.
"You have no idea how many men I"ve tattooed who became tumescent during the process."
"Any who were naked?" I counter.
"Yes," she says, nodding. "Very many. I"ve also tattooed women on their inner thighs, pubic region, even l.a.b.i.a, who became very obviously aroused, too. This is an awkward setting for everybody involved. You can"t react the way you did, no matter how uncomfortable you find it. Now, I know it"s not the case with Pierce, but if you make a client uncomfortable for an involuntary reaction, then we may lose them as a customer. There is a certain level of trust and intimacy between artist and client, Penelope. You need to make them feel free from judgment."
"He was doing it on purpose!"
"No," she says, "He wasn"t. All that joking was just a cover for a reaction he couldn"t control. And that"s not the point. Look, I"m not trying to get you in trouble or lecture you, but you really can"t freak out like that. When nurses do prostate exams, men can get erections, even e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. Some women are aroused when they see their gynecologist, and even achieve o.r.g.a.s.m. Most of it is just a result of physical stimulation, paired with an intensely awkward situation. The brain processes things in strange ways, and stress can often be displaced into arousal."
I bunch my brow. "How do you know this?"
"I read a book by a psychologist who became a tattoo artist. Plus, twenty years of industry experience. Anyway, if those doctors or nurses were to freak out in those situations-"
"I didn"t freak out."
"You did," she says. "You totally did. You shattered the ink vial."
I look toward the metal tray, and there I see the tattoo machine sitting in a puddle of black ink.
"I"m sorry," I say. "I"ll pay for that."
"It"s fine," Tina says, putting up a hand. "Listen, you and him got a history?"
"No!"
She eyes me hard, and I wilt.
"We kissed last night. I don"t know. I don"t like him at all. He"s just so... irritating."
"Look, if he"s too close-"
"For a tattoo?" I blurt.
"For this tattoo, Penelope."
I swallow. "If he can control himself tomorrow, I can do it."
"Fine, but you"re not doing the shadowing. That was a mistake on my part."
"Tina," I say, holding my voice steady. "I can do the shadowing. I have the skills. You"ve seen the tattoos I administered to myself."
"No. Tomorrow you"ll just be watching me. I"m sorry, but I can"t ethically allow you to do even a portion of the tattoo. That was wrong of me."
"Tina-"
"He had us both going in there, Penelope. Played you like a fiddle, goaded you into doing the tattoo, and me into letting you. No, you can just watch."
"Okay," I say.
She pauses for a moment. It seems like she"s hesitating to say something. A moment later I find out what it is.
"Do you like him?"
I take my time. I wonder if I should react with false indignation. I decide to just be honest with her.
"I don"t know. I know that I dislike him."
"Sometimes the two are hard to separate."
At first I think that she may be patronizing me, but from her expression, I know that she"s not.
"He likes you," she says.
"No he doesn"t."
"Judging from what just happened, I"d say he definitely does."
"His erection?" I say, shaking my head. "No, he"s just a dog."
"Not his erection," she says. "His eyes. He couldn"t take them off you."
Chapter Thirteen.
My phone rattles against the gla.s.s coffee table, and both Rose and I look down at it. I"m curled up on the sofa trying my best not to think about how disastrous my first day apprenticing was.
"Who even has your number?" she asks.
I shrug. "I gave it to Tina."
"Why would she be texting you at half-twelve?"
My eyes flick to the clock on the wall above the television, and she"s right. It is way too late, and I somewhat doubt it"s an emergency. Playing on the television is a nature doc.u.mentary about jellyfishes...
I squirm out from under the blanket and reach for the phone, unlocking it.
"Unknown number," I say, and then I read the text. My eyes go wide.
"What is it?" Rose asks, concerned.
"You won"t believe this," I say, shaking my head. "How the h.e.l.l did he get my number?"
"What is it?" Rose asks again, reaching over and grabbing the phone from me. She reads the text.
Drinks and dinner, tomorrow after my tattoo.
"Who is this?"
I look at Rose. "Guess."
She shakes her head. "I have no idea. Someone from the tattoo shop?"
"Yeah. Someone you know."
"Someone I know?" she says, pondering with a finger to her lip. "I can"t think of anybody."
"It"s Pierce."
She balks. "Pierce Fletcher? He gets his tattoos from your boss?"
I nod, and I rub my forehead. I"m trying to hide it as best as I can, this heady concoction of mixed emotions I feel. On the one hand, there"s annoyance, irritation, even anger. How could he just be asking me out like this?
On the other, excitement, antic.i.p.ation, a physical response. Personally, I think Rose sees right through it, judging by her smile, but she"s holding back from saying anything.
Which is totally unlike her.
"You going to go?" she asks.
"Probably not," I say.
She just shrugs and makes a "huh" noise.
"I"m not!" I say. "He really is an a.s.shole, Rose. You should have seen him today at the shop. Plus, like I told you before, my dad is dating his mom. No way!"
That"s when she starts laughing. "Well, d.a.m.n, Penny, it"s not like they"re getting married! It"s not like he"s your stepbrother or anything! You should go. See what he wants."
"I know what he wants."
"You obviously made an impression on him the other night, not to mention the fact that you saw him this morning in the tattoo parlor."
"So what? He was a d.i.c.k. I don"t want to go. Plus, we don"t like to call them "parlors"."
Rose peers at me, and then grins. "Did something happen today?"
"No."
"Yes it did!" she says, wagging a finger at me. "What haven"t you told me, Penelope?"
"He"s in the middle of getting a tattoo."
"Oh? And it just so happens that Tina is his tattoo artist, right? Now that"s a coincidence."
"Yeah." I bury my face in my hands. "What are the chances?"