Snakes and earrings.
‚‚ Do you know what a split tongue is ? ''
‚‚ That splits in two ? ''
‚‚ Yeah, like the tongue in a snake or a lizard. But sometimes ... its not like in a snake, and not like in a lizard. ''
He took the cicarette out of him, and stuck the tongue out between his lips. The tip on it was obviously split in two, just like a snake. Then I watched mezmorized how he rolled up the right half of the tip, and catched the cicarette with the tongue.
‚‚ Woah ... ''
That was the first time I saw a split tongue.
‚‚ You should try doing that. '' he said and I nodded with out knowing.
It´s usually just crazy people who split their tongues and call it ‚‚ body modification ''. But as the time flew I listened with great intrest in him telling how to do it. You start by piercing you tongue. Next you make it bigger little by little by putting bigger pins. Then when the hole is big enough, you put a yarn or dental flosh trough it and tie it few times over the tip. Finally you cut the part of the tongue tip that is still whole, either with a cutting knife or razor blade. Some have not even bothered to pierce and tie – they just cut it in half with a knife.
‚‚ But is it safe ? I mean, doesn´t people usally die if they bite the tongue out ? '' I asked.
‚‚ It´s safe. You burn the wound to stop the bleeding. I started by getting a tongue pin. It takes time, but its all worth it so the cut will be even.''
When I imagined the burning iron, pressing against the bloody tongue i got chills. Now I have two 0v rings in my right ear and in my left ear I have 0v, 2v and 4v rings counted from below. Diameter of most body jewelry is measured in width; the lower the number, the bigger is the hole. Beginners earrings are mostly 16v or 14v, which is around 1,5 in diameter. After 0v comes 00v, which is around 9,5 in diameter. All that is more than a centimeter in diameter os measured in fragments of width. But in full honesty you have to say, when you go above 00v you look like someone who belongs to a tribe and then it doesn´t matter anymore to look good or not. As you can imagine, it was painful enough to stretch the holes in my ears; I couldn´t think how painful it would be if the same was done to my tongue.
I usually had 16v rings in my ears until I met a girl, which is two years older than me, named Eri, in a club one night and fell in love with her 00v earrings that she had in her ears. When I told her how cool they looked, she gave me a lot of her old ones, which were from 12v to 0v, and said ,, When you get this far, the you can´t use the smaller ones.'' To go from 16 to 6 is easy, but going from 4 to 2 then from 2 in 0 was really expanding. Blood leaked from the holes and the earlobes swelled up and became red. The continuing pain lasts for 2 or 3 days. I also did the sam thing as Eri to not use a expander, so it took me three months to get down to 0v. I was thinking about to go down to 00v the night I met the guy with the split tongue. I was so addicted to stretch and pull my skin and I think that it turned on my interest by his talking about split tongues. I noticed that he seemed to get the most pleasure from this.
Few days later I went with the snakeguy Ama to Desire- some kind of punk shop in a basement right next to the shopping and entertainment disrict. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a closeup of a woman with pierced vagina, and the walls were covered with photos of pierced penises and tattoos. Further in the store was a lot of traditional body jewelries and all kinds of accesories for show. Mostly it was a store for perverts.
Ama called and behind the counter a guy popped out. He was around 24 or 25 years old and had a crouched dragon tattooed on the back of his shaved head.
„ Hi, Ama. Long time no seen. ''
„ Lui, this is Shiba-san. This is his store. Shiba-san, this is my girlfriend.''
Truthfully I didn´t think about myself as Ama´s girlfriend, but I didn´t say anything and bowed a little.
„ Ahh, I see. You got a cute one. ''
I was a little nervous.
„ We came to pierce her tongue. ''
„ Is that true ? So even Barbie-girls want to pierce their tongue, huh ? '' said Shiba-san and looked curiously at me.
„ I´m not a Barbie-girl. ''
„ She also want to split her tongue. '' said Ama and laughed teasingly, like he hadn´t heard what I said.
I remembered that I´ve been told in a jewelry store that next after piercing your genitalia the tongue was the most painful one. I was starting to wonder if it was a good idea to let a guy like this do it.
„ Come over here and let me see it. '' said Shiba-san.
I went to the counter and stuck out my tongue. Shiba-san leaned slightly forward and said : „ Well, it´s seem to be rather thin, so it shouldn´t hurt to much.''
I was a little relieved.
„ But when you buy a grilled beef, isn´t the tongue toughest next after the stomach ? '' I asked. I had wondered if it was really safe to make a hole in a such tough part of the body.
„ Good question, '' said Shiba san. „ Well, this is more painful then when you pierce your ears. I mean, you´re piercing your tongue. That´s gotta hurt. ''
„ Don´t scare her, Shiba-san. Since I could do it, Lui, then I dont understand why shouldn´t be able too.''
„ Not to mention you fainted. Enough about that, bring your tongue over here.''
Shiba-san pointed me to come behind the counter and smiled to me and I noticed that he had a creepy smile. He had piercings in his eyelids, eyebrows, lips, nose and cheeks. The jewelry were so many that his expression were never seen so it was almost impossible to figure out what he was thinking. I also noticed that the back of his hands were covered in strange, bumby scars. First I thought he had been is some kind of accident. But when I looked at them better I saw that each of them was shaped as a circle- similar size as a cicarette, if you know what I mean. Basicly this guy was perfectly crazy. Ama was the first one of that kind I met. And now it was this Shiba-san, which didn´t have a split tongue, but had a face so covered in jewelries that it was scary.
To be continued.