HeartDeNijs
Philip "Punk" Brooks was finishing his last client of the day and for that he was glad. He loved being a tattoo artist, but the constant hunched sitting over an eight hour day was taxing to his body. His neck and shoulders had been throbbing in pain for the last hour as he finished the last bit of shading on his client's tattoo.
"Okay, I'm all done. Go ahead and take a look at it in the mirror." Punk straightened his back and placed his equipment back on the counter beside him. He tiredly watched as his topless female client admired her new tattoo in the mirror. He was proud of the job he had done on it and he loved the reason why his client was getting the tattoo done. She was a 27 year old who had just lost her high school sweetheart husband. He had been a musician and he wrote a song just for her. The tattoo she had wanted was a piece of sheet music with his song on it all the way down her back.
Punk watched as Sarah, his client, start to cry. Worried that she didn't like the tattoo, Punk asked, "Is something wrong? Do you not like it?"
"Oh, no! I love it so much! Thank you so much. This doesn't bring Kevin back into my arms, but it gives me a connection to him." Punk was shocked when Sarah quickly crossed the room and enveloped him in a hug. Punk felt very awkward about Sarah hugging him while she was topless, but he didn't want to push her away when she was so upset.
Sarah pulled away and grabbed her shirt. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, but I'm so full of emotion right now, I feel like I'm going to burst. I'm just going to go. I'll see you." With that she walked out of Punk's tattooing area.
"Come back if you want more done." Punk yelled after her and sighed when he heard the shop's front door close. He could only imagine what she was going through because he had never been in love. Punk had always known that he was gay and he had dated in the past but none of the relationships turned serious. He would be lying if he said he wasn't lonely.
His life was just a routine that he completed every day. He got up, came to the shop to open up, then worked on drawing out tattoos for clients until noon and then clients would start coming in for tattoos or piercings. He would work until six or later if he was working on a large tattoo and then he would go home, have dinner and then start the whole thing over the next day.
Punk was hoping that something would change soon. He was looking for a new apartment in Chicago, but hadn't found anything that he loved just yet.
Punk heard the phone ringing at the front of the shop and he reluctantly got up to go answer it. His bones creaked in his neck and he rolled his shoulders to crack them.
He reached the phone by the fourth ring. "Chicago Made Tattoo."
"Hi, is Mr. Brooks there?"
"You're specking with him and it's Punk not Mr. Brooks," Punk rolled his eyes. The person hadn't even identified themselves yet, but he knew it was his uptight realtor
"Uh, well yes. This is Kathy Swanson; I was just calling to ask you if you had time tonight to look at another apartment. The price has just been lowered and I'm afraid that someone will snatch it up if we don't look at it tonight,"
Punk groaned in his mind. He was so tired and just wanted to home and take a hot shower, but he knew how cut throat the apartment market was in Chicago. He sighed. "Okay, give me the address and I'll head over."
"Thank you, Mr. Punk. I just know that you will love this one!" She quickly rattled off the information for the apartment and Punk hung up.
Punk flung back his head and sighed heavily again. He hoped against hope that this would be the apartment that he would be able to call his own. He was tired of renting and he had been searching for an apartment that he liked for months. The ones that he had liked had about a million contracts already on them and he didn't even try throw his in the mix.
Punk quickly closed the shop and walked down the street while throwing on his leather jacket over his plain V-neck black t-shirt. When he reached his car, he put his stuff in the car and drove off toward the apartment.
Kathy was waiting for him anxiously as he pulled up to the curb. Punk got out of his car and walked over to her.
"We'll have to wait a few minutes. There's a couple looking at the apartment now, but they'll be out in a few minutes," Kathy hardly had time to finish her sentence as the mentioned couple came bolting down the stairs like the hounds of hell were after them. The woman shot right past Punk, but the man stopped just long enough to say, "Man, don't go in there! There's some crazy shit going on in that apartment!" and then he ran after his girlfriend/fiancé/wife.
"Well Kathy, it sounds right up my alley already!" Punk joked as he walked up the stairs. He didn't notice that Kathy had not followed him until he was standing at the apartment building's front door. "Ah, come on! They didn't scare you did they? It's an old building. They probably heard the building settle and got spooked like a pair of pussies." Punk beckoned for Kathy to join him on the top of the stairs. She reluctantly did so.
The apartment was on the second floor, so Punk and Kathy had to climb another flight of stairs after entering the apartment building but Punk didn't mind. The door to the apartment was ordinary and there was another door directly across from it.
"This building only has two apartments per floor, so you'll only have one neighbor." Kathy told Punk anticipating his question. She took out the key to the apartment and then proceeded to open the door.
For Punk, the first sight of the apartment was love. The door opened into a large living area. The wall opposite the door was made entirely of red brick and it had a large fireplace in the middle of it. Punk was already envisioning his large flat screen hanging above it. It was a large living room and it had a half bathroom off of it.
The kitchen was off the living area. They were separated by a bar complete with black bar chairs. The kitchen had black cabinets, stainless steel appliances and white granite counter tops that had veins of black running through the white. It was nicely sized with an island.
A black door between the kitchen and the living area opened to reveal the apartment's only bedroom. It was large, painted white and had black doors that opened to reveal a large walk-in closet and the master bathroom. The bathroom carried the kitchen's theme with black cabinetry and the white and black granite countertops and flooring. It had his and her sinks, a steam shower, and a large Jacuzzi bathtub.
Punk walked back into the living room, looking at the beautiful black stained wood floors as he went. He loved this apartment. It screamed his style and it also felt like a home to him. It was like being in this apartment was filling some of the void that he had been feeling for a long time. He didn't understand it, but he didn't really want to.
Looking up to see a nervous looking Kathy, Punk smiled and said, "I want it. How soon can I put an offer on it?"
Kathy looked flabbergasted. "You don't even want to know the price?" She proceeded to tell how much it was and Punk's eyes widened in surprise.
"Why is it so cheap? This is an awesome apartment?"
"From what I have heard, they can't keep people in the apartment long enough for them to see the whole thing. Something always happens that makes the potential buyers run out the door like they've seen a ghost."
"Oh well, their loss, my gain. Can you write up my offer tonight and give it to the owner by tomorrow. I want to move into this place as soon as possible." Punk grinned as he took one last look around the apartment. Kathy pushed him out the door and shut it firmly behind her.
"Yes, I can do that. I'll call you tomorrow after I give them your offer."
"Thank you. I'll talk to you tomorrow then." With that Punk walked back to his car and got in.
Life was finally looking up for Punk. A new apartment would change everything. Who knows, maybe his neighbor will be a super-hot gay guy who has a thing for tattoos. Punk went home and relaxed, but he didn't sleep much that night because he could only think about how great his new apartment was going to be.
The entire next day, Punk was jittery with anticipation for Kathy's call. He wanted to be the first person to put a contract on the house and Kathy would tell him how his odds were for getting the apartment.
He was working on tattooing a pin-up girl onto a guy's bicep when his phone rang. Usually he let calls go to voicemail when he was working with a client, but he thought that it could be Kathy.
"Chicago Made Tattoo." He answered the phone hopefully.
"Mr. Punk, you are not going to believe this! They accepted your offer and they want to close tomorrow. They don't even want a down payment! Can you do noon tomorrow?"
Punk's mouth hung open and he was speechless for the first night in his life. "Uh, yea! I can do noon. I'll just close the shop for an hour or so."
"Great! I'll see you at my office at noon then. Bye!"
Punk hung up the phone and stared in shock. "Did that really just happen?" Punk smiled to himself in happiness as he walked back to his tattoo area. "Unbelievable!"
The next day, Punk was counting the minutes until he could close on his new apartment. He had called his friend, Colt Cabana, to ask him to help him move in this weekend. He had whined a little, but eventually gave in when Punk reminded him how many times he had helped Cabana move in the past.
By the end of the day, Punk had the keys to his new apartment in hand and he went home to pack. He didn't have much left to pack because he had thrown away everything he didn't want to move to his new apartment when he first started looking at apartments.
Colt came over to Punk's early Saturday morning with a rented moving truck. Between the two of them, they had Punk's stuff on the truck in two hours and then drove to Punk's new apartment.
The stairs made it hard to get Punk's couch into the apartment, but they managed. Nothing else gave them that much trouble and by mid-afternoon, all Punk's belonging were in his new apartment and Colt left. Unpacking was a whole other story and Punk had to do it by himself.
Punk was in the kitchen putting away his dishes, when he heard a knock on the front door. He wondered who it could be. When he opened the door, his visitor was revealed to be a curvy, young woman.
"Hi! I'm Erin, your neighbor from across the hallway. I thought I would stop by and drop off some cookies and introduce myself." Erin stuck her hand out for Punk to shake.
Punk was a little disappointed that his neighbor wasn't the hot, gay man who had a thing for tattoos that he was hoping for, but Erin seemed nice. "It's nice to meet you! It's Phil, by the way, but I prefer Punk." Punk shook her hand. "Come on in and I'll show you around. Don't mind the mess. I'm in the process of unpacking everything." Punk moved aside so Erin could enter.
"Would you like some help unpacking? I swear unpacking takes longer than moving does." Erin said as she sat the plate of cookies she had brought with her on the counter.
"I would appreciate that very much if it's no trouble." Punk usually would have rolled his eyes and shoved her out the door, but there was something about her that intrigued him.
"No trouble at all! Just show me where to start." Erin smiled brightly.
Punk and Erin worked hard into the evening and Punk learned that he was right in liking Erin at first. She had a similar sense of humor to his and she was sarcastic, but at the same time, she was a very nice and genuine person.
She was young, only 22 and just out of college. She worked at Genesis Clinical Laboratory as in the Hematology department. She hadn't been working there long, but she loved it already. Punk was amazed at how much she talked. He studied her as they moved his couch into a better position in the living room. She was a little on the short side and was shaped like an hour glass. Her hair was long, down to her waist in loose brown curls, and she kept it out of her way by occasionally dragging her hand through the hair on the top of her head to move it.
She wore jean capris and a plain bright pink scope neck t-shirt. What he loved the best about her outfit were her shoes. She had pink low top Chuck Taylors on. Punk mentally shook his head. He knew she wasn't from around Chicago if she was wearing Chucks. For some reason unknown to him, the gang members of Chicago switched their shoe of choice to Chucks a few years ago. Punk had no doubt in his mind that Erin was not gang member.
He thought about telling her about the reputation of Chucks in Chicago, but decided that she should learn on her own. Part of him wanted to hear about the learning experience later.
After they finished unpacking most of Punk's stuff, he made coffee and he and Erin sat down on his couch to talk more.
"So, were you here when the previous owner was here?" Punk was curious who would give up this awesome apartment.
Erin, who had been blowing on her coffee to cool it, stopped to laugh. "Which one? I've been here for about 4 mouths and two other people have lived here. I hope you stay longer because I like you. Those other people were… uptight I'll say. Or maybe stressed would be a better word. I don't understand why they didn't stay. These apartments are great, but I've heard some rumors"
"What are the rumors?" Punk asked before taking another sip of his coffee.
"Well, I've only caught bits and pieces, but I guess a few years ago, a whovguy lived here by himself pissed off some mob boss or something. The mob boss got the voodoo witch doctor that was on his payroll to curse the guy. A week later, the gym he worked at reported him missing. Nobody has seen him since. People think the apartment is haunted, but I've never heard anything to support that theory."
Living in a potentially haunted apartment didn't bother Punk very much. He had grown up in a haunted house, but it never really scared him. Sure, it pissed him off when his comics went missing and then would turn up hours later, but he was never afraid. He honestly didn't believe his apartment was haunted. It didn't have the vibe of being haunted. "So, what was the guy's name? Do you know?"
"Umm, I think his last name was Cena, but I'm not for sure. Oh my Gosh! Is it really ten? I told my sister I'd call her a half an hour ago. I gotta go. It was nice meeting you! Feel free to stop by anytime." Erin was off the couch and out of the apartment before Punk could blink.
He shook his head and laughed to himself. Erin reminded him of one of his sisters, but she was more fun to be around than his sister.
Punk decided he was tired and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. While he was brushing his teeth, he caught an unfamiliar scent. It smelled masculine like cologne mixed with the scent of …man? Punk couldn't really describe it, but he liked the scent a lot. Punk rinsed his mouth and inhaled deeply.
He tried to find the source but it was like the source was moving and as soon as he thought he was getting close to it, the scent would weaken.
Deciding he was being silly, Punk went back into his bedroom and turned off the light. He climbed into his bed which was covered with a deep red bedspread and black satin sheets. He turned on his bed side lamp and started reading one of his comic books.
He read until he couldn't keep his eyes open and then he closed his comic book and turned off the light. He snuggled into his pillow and feel into a deep sleep.
That's when things he couldn't explain began to happen.
Ain't I a stinker? Obviously, this is going to be a chapter story and I'm a little nervous about it. I'm afraid I'll get in the middle of it and then the muse in my head will move on to other things before I can finish this. I want to finish this! This story has been floating around in my head since I wrote Candy Canes, but I was having trouble finding my balls in my Vera Bradley tote, but at last, I found them. Please review because they make me so freaking happy and inspire me to write more!
HeartDeNijs