The Leaves 03 (Nico) (3 page)

I’ll give you my card, day or night. You can 38/510

say whatever you need to say and know that it will never leave this room. I can download this, make a stencil, and get it ready so we can start today.”

She let me hold her, probably the first affection from a man, from anyone, she had felt in a while.

“If you want to go get something to eat and come back, there’s a great little Mexican place just a block away. You can look at the ocean and have the best fish tacos in town.” She wiped her face again and moved out of my hold. “I heard about you,” she said. “I didn’t intend to come in here for this. I was happy to pay because I thought, you know, you would understand.”

I didn’t understand, and I never would.

What made a woman stay when the abuse got out of hand? I was pretty sure when her boys were old enough, they would have preferred her to be away from the abuse, no matter what they missed out on. My mom 39/510

had explained it to me, and I understood the concept of loving someone so much, you would do anything for them. Then there was the psychological aspect of the abuse itself, and also, over time, the abused fell into that pattern, thinking they somehow deserved it.

I was all for a little S and M, but to leave an actual scar on the flesh of someone you apparently loved? I would give this woman a scar she could wear and not be ashamed of.

She began to move to the other side of the studio. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Deanna.”

“Deanna, when we start, it’s important he avoids the skin while it’s healing-”

“I know. I already thought of that. He never goes above my shoulders. I thought, if we started on the neck, then the other scars can heal by the time we get that low. I know all about how the scars have to mature and how deep they can be and all that.” 40/510

A moment of silence passed between us. I hesitated at first then thought, ‘Fuck it,’ and said, as gently as I could, “And last, I need your word you’ll contact me if it gets too bad.

You know what I’m saying? That’s all I re-quire from you… your word. I can get you and your boys a safe place to go.”

“You have my word, Nicolas Grant,” she assured. “I’ll see you in an hour, and we can get started.”

I watched her walk up the street toward Pepito’s, and it hit me that she knew my full name. No one called me Nicolas except for my parents. I was Nico to the rest of the world. I turned on the laptop and searched the image, enlarged it, and printed it onto transfer paper. Then I began to get everything else ready.

Photo realism and nature tattoos were my strong suit. Zack and I could do just about anything, but we both had our strengths.

Zack had great skill with traditional tattoos, 41/510

abstract and dedication, but was also really good at 3D, which were becoming more and more trendy.

I had always loved to draw and sketch, and, as I got older, my mom and pop started to buy me those books on how to draw a cat, then a parrot, and within a few years, the books changed to more advanced subjects of faces, hands, bodies, and nature in general.

Having a good eye was essential for me and for the job. I fixed so many fucked-up tattoos of “artists” that were afraid to tell a client what they wanted was beyond their skill level. If a client asked me for a tattoo of their beloved Harley with flames and a skull, Zack would be better suited; I would ask the client to consider him instead. They were going to have that body art for the rest of their lives, so there was no room for ego. And Zack, knowing I was better at faces, flowers, and animals, would, in turn, do the same.

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Zack had the day off, and I was fine on my own. Monday night meant two things: early close and a drink at Roscoe Room. By nine, I’d had a few people come in to look through photo albums bursting with designs. We didn’t have a lot of flash on the walls. Instead, Zack and I had our own artwork framed. We left the designs and photos of previous tattoos in the albums.

I kept myself busy with the daily detox of the studio—that’s what I called it. I was incredibly pedantic about cleanliness. From every inch of the walls, windows, floors, chairs, equipment… even the fucking cup that held pens on the counter. I made sure you wouldn’t hesitate to eat off any surface of the studio. I even wiped down the green couch. Some clients, the ones who had done all the Internet research available, would ask questions about the autoclave, ask to see our stock, made sure we used disposable ink caps and needles. It was tempting to tell them 43/510

that this was Laguna Beach, not the back of your Uncle Jessup’s garage, but that would have been bad business.

Quarter after nine, and I was ready to close. Everything I had prepared for the Giger tattoo had been put away. I stood up, trying to think of what I had in the fridge at home to eat, when the bell above the door rang. I thought it would have been Deanna, but it wasn’t.

Angelica stood, shaking before me.

“Hi, Nico,” she said, her eyes about to spill over with tears.

“Come here.” I held my arms out as she ran into them and cried into my chest.

“Can you… can you make me a heart?” she stuttered.

“Of course I can.”

She sniffled into my chest, the poor girl. I wasn’t sure if she had anyone she could really turn to. Angelica looked just like her 44/510

name: white blonde hair and fair skin, bright blue eyes and the face of a cherub.

Her rosy cheeks and small but full lips trembled as she spoke. “I’m just having a hard time. It would have been her birthday.” Angelica first came to me about six months after she turned eighteen. Her parents were very conservative, active in their community, and so was their perfect daughter. She had the highest grade-point-average in her school and a scholarship to Stanford.

That was, until she came home and announced she was in love and engaged to her Marine boyfriend. She also told them she was pregnant.

She explained that her boyfriend, even though he was older, had insisted they wait until she was eighteen to be intimate. He’d told her, “We have the rest of our lives; what’s a few more months?” The unfortunate part of her story was the absence of her fiancé. He had been deployed 45/510

a week before she announced her big news, but he was happy and had bought her a very nice ring that she wore with pride.

After her parents went crazy about her throwing her life away for some jarhead, they relaxed and took her to get a proper check-up. The doctor told her to come back for a twenty-week scan and gave her some general information about how to take care of herself. She said that first kick was amazing. Her fiancé, Rich, called her and Skyped whenever he could and was anxious for that scan, to know what they were having. She went to the long awaited appointment with her mom, who had warmed to the idea of being a grandmother. After a few quiet minutes, the technician left the room and returned with a doctor. He asked her to get dressed and come into his office where they informed her the baby had died.

Something I didn’t know, but learned through her experience, was at that late stage 46/510

of pregnancy, you still had to give birth. They do not put you to sleep and wake you up when it was all over. She was given a drug to start labor and delivered her stillborn baby girl, her mom and dad never leaving her side.

It was fucking terrible to hear it the first time, and even though I didn’t have kids, I could feel it, the heartache. And every goddamn heart I had put on her skin since, it took me days to shake the melancholy that seeped into me. Her fiancé was still coming back to marry her when he got leave, and I hoped to meet him. I respected the fact he hadn’t just proposed because she was pregnant. For every day she carried that child, she got a small pink heart. I did the math, which was roughly one hundred and forty hearts I would eventually put on her body.

My phone buzzed just as I locked the doors. I looked down and read the message,
Nicolas,

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We’ll have to wait a few weeks. I’m fine,
please don’t worry.

Deanna

“Motherfucker,” I breathed and started up the steps to my house. In the door less than five minutes, I was in the shower. I usually came home and listened to classic rock. The Eagles, The Beatles, The Stones… I listened to that music because it reminded me of growing up with my parents, how they sometimes danced in the middle of the living room together like I wasn’t even there. I remembered thinking how happy they were and that was the soundtrack of my childhood, their happiness and that music. But now, not even that memory was making a dent in my foul mood.

Out of the shower, dressed in tighter jeans than I usually wore, black suede ankle boots, a button-down black shirt, and black wife-beater underneath; I was almost ready. I grabbed my wallet, made sure I had plenty of 48/510

cash and some condoms, grabbed my keys, locked the door, and walked down to the highway to catch a cab downtown.

***

Marcus worked the door at Roscoe Room six days a week. Zack had done most of his tattoos, and, because of that, and because I was a local, I not only didn’t have to pay the cover, I didn’t have to wait in line. Marcus, who preferred the company of men, had informed me I was good for business. “Hot guys like you bring ‘em in, Nico.” Well, this supposed “hot guy” was ready to take ‘em home, or the back room, or the parking lot; I didn’t care. I just wanted to pound my dick into something. I needed to forget about my fucked-up reality and the reality of thirty-three other women for as long as some random chick would let me.

Five minutes at the bar, a woman I recognized from the video store decided to strike 49/510

up a conversation with me, “How are you, Nico?” she asked. She was cute, her black pixie hairstyle slicked back like a man.

“Yeah.” I didn’t elaborate. “You?” I asked, taking a swig from my beer and thinking I would move onto whiskey next.

“That good, huh? The shop was so busy today, which is so weird because most people don’t rent movies anymore, mostly PS3

games and stuff like that, but it was like an eighties night marathon for everyone and their brother. Seriously, we were busy from like five all the way ‘till ten. I didn’t stop. I didn’t even have a dinner break.” Yeah. Gina talked my fuckin’ ear off every time I went in that place.

“So, are you here with anyone?” she asked, a mixture of hope and desperation in her voice.

I held up my hand with a twenty in a uni-versal gesture of, ‘give me more booze’ and 50/510

the bartender was in front of me. “Another Bud?” he asked.

“Yeah. Another Bud and a shot of whisky; I don’t care what kind, just make it a double and whatever she’s having
—
”

“Gina,” she interjected.

“Yeah. Gina.” I smiled.

“What kind of Breezer’s do you have?” Great. She was drinking candy. I’d be out of here and in her, thirty… forty minutes tops.

Twenty minutes later, we were on the dance floor. I was grinding against Gina, and her arms were wrapped around my neck like I was rescuing her from drowning.

“I always wanted to ask you out,” she shouted. “I didn’t think you’d go for my type.”

“What’s my type?” I shouted back, my fingers gripping her hip.

“Blonde. Blue eyes. Surfer chick,” she stated.

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I grabbed her chin in my fingers and got close to her ear. “Do you have a pussy?” I asked.

“What?” she said, voice barely audible.

“Do you have a nice warm pussy I can stick my dick in and fuck?” I breathed against her ear and waited for her answer while I worked my arrogant get-laid-magic.

“Y… yes,” she answered.

“Here’s the deal, Gina. I’ll give you a great ride for one night, but when it’s over, it’s over. Understand? It’s up to you, but I know how wet you must be right now from me just breathing on your neck. The choice is yours.” She stopped dancing altogether and leaned back to look me in the face. “A chance for one night with you?”

“One,” I said.

“I have to go tell my friends I’m leaving.

Can you give me fifteen, twenty minutes?” She looked scared, actually terrified I was going to change my mind.

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“Of course. I’ll be right here.” I smiled.

She walked away, albeit reluctantly, when I felt a hand wrap around my thigh and work its way up. “Hey, stranger.” Fuck. Georgia. What timing. Georgia was a hell of a fuck. Her real specialty was giving head, but I already had a plan for the night. I thought about my option for all of two seconds.

I rolled up my sleeves, exposing the thick black inked sleeves of my arms and grinned.

“I have fifteen minutes and a condom in my pocket. Where can I rock your world, sweetness?”

Less than a minute later, I had Georgia in a handicap bathroom stall, holding onto a rail with her skirt up around her waist and no panties; she didn’t wear ‘em. This girl was a slut. Just out looking for some guy to buy her a drink and give her a fuck. I held onto her tits while she rubbed her clit and came.

Two more thrusts, her heels lifting off the 53/510

tiled floor, I came, too. I gave her ass a slap and adjusted myself, throwing the condom in the trash and waiting a minute for my dick to go down before I returned to the bar. I spot-ted Gina with who I assumed was one of her friends and couldn’t miss the dirty look the friend gave me. I walked around a few tables and stood back where I’d left her a few minutes before.

“There you are? I thought you’d left.” Gina searched through her purse for something.

“See ya, Nico. Thanks for the ride,” Georgia said as she sashayed her slut-ass by.

“Did you drive her here?” asked Gina.

“No,” I said and took her hand, leading her out of the bar to find a cab. She was quiet the entire time. I was sure she’d figured it out, seeing as how Georgia had used the exact words I had said to Gina earlier.

“You want something to drink?” I asked her. I took her purse and set it on my kitchen counter then grabbed a beer from the fridge.

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“No, thanks. I think I’ve had all the alcohol I should consume tonight.” She nervously looked around my place. “This is nice.”