JENNIE
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Lisa's answering smile dissolved any final reservations, like I'd done her some great service by agreeing to look through a bunch of relics with her. Spending time alone with her was probably a bad idea on my part, but I couldn't resist the temptation. And I didn't want to. Over the past several weeks I'd tried to avoid her, but it had become too difficult. After so many months of self-imposed exile, I craved a connection with someone. Her hard exterior made her safe–she seemed just as guarded as me. She tugged on my wrist and I relented, taking her to the pile of boxes with her name scrawled on them in the corner of the basement.
"I don't know how much you'll want to keep, but this is the stuff that was set aside."
"You organized all of this?" She took two chairs from a dining set and offered me one. For someone so menacing, she had manners, aside from having no concept of personal space. I dropped onto the velvet cushioned seat as she did the same.
The week after I moved into the apartment upstairs from Serendipity I asked Cassie if she knew of anyone in need of some part-time help. The issue wasn't money but too much free time. I'd relocated to Chicago in mid-August, more than a month before the fall semester began. While I was content to research my thesis and pre-read for my coming courses, it didn't keep me as occupied as I wanted. I could only do so much until I met with my professor and that wouldn't happen for another week or two. Cassie showed me the basement and gave me a job, solving her problem and mine.
"You should have seen this place before I started," I told her as she opened the closest box. "I almost couldn't get down the stairs, there was so much stuff."
"I've been down here before; it's like an anxiety attack of clutter. It looks a lot better now, though." She rolled her shoulders, dusting off a Victorian-era candelabra. She made a face and looked for a place to wipe her hand. "You got a cloth or something around here?"
"Why? Afraid of a little dirt?" I joked.
"I don't have a problem getting dirty," she said with a sly grin. "I just can't afford to go back to work looking like I rolled around on a basement floor."
Her velvet tone made it difficult not to read innuendo into the comment. Before the mental picture developed further, I stood up and crossed to the other side of the room. The dusting cloths were in the cabinet with the cleaning supplies. Tossing a couple to Lisa, I kept one for myself and sat back down beside her.
She was organized and methodical as she inspected each treasure, wiping them down with gentle hands. The care she took as she handled delicate pieces, even the things she didn't want, gave me insight into the kind of artist she was. I imagined she worked on her clients with the same vigilant precision.
"You want to tell me what really happened to your hand?"
I peeked up at her, thankful my hair created a barrier through which to view her and still shield my face. I didn't know why the question surprised me. It shouldn't have. "Nope."
She chuckled and remained quiet for some time, sifting through the boxes. She handed me the things she didn't want, and I put them into an empty box. Each time she did, I surreptitiously inspected the artwork on her arms.
"Rosé tells me you have an idea for some ink." Lisa stopped sorting to focus on me.
I nodded. I had already entertained showing her the design, thanks to Rosé. Since being near Lisa made me feel like I was having heart palpitations, I couldn't help but be wary. There was intimacy in committing art to skin. I already found Lisa unnervingly enticing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which had to do with her severe brand of beauty. Being around her more wouldn't lessen that, and the piece I had in mind was no small thing.
"I'd be happy to check it out if you want to stop by the shop later."
"I'll think about it." After a protracted silence I finally asked, "How long have you been a tattoo artist?"
"Close to six years. I started as a piercer when I was eighteen, but it wasn't for me."
"Why not?"
Lisa wiped her hands on a fresh cloth and tucked my hair behind my ear, tracing the shell as she did so. The ladder of helix rings clicked dully against each other. "You'd look good with an industrial," she said softly. I shivered even though I suddenly felt hot.
She motioned to her face and poked at the viper bites with her tongue. "If they were all this kind of thing, it wouldn't have been an issue."
"What was the issue?"
"I'm afraid I'm not much of a sadist, and it takes a certain type of person to be able to stick a needle through a dick."
Fortunately, I wasn't holding anything breakable. "Okay. Right. I didn't think about that."
She laughed at my reaction. "I pierced for a few months before I started apprenticing to be a tattooist. For about a year and a half I had to do both. After a few years I built up a solid client base and a decent reputation in the business, and Jackson and Eunwoo convinced me we should go out on our own."
"So you opened Inked Armor?"
"We did. I was only twenty-one at the time, but it's been four years and we're still doing well."
"You were so young." I couldn't imagine taking on that kind of responsibility at this point in my life.
She shrugged. "I've been on my own since I was eighteen, and it seemed like a smart thing to do. Anyway, I haven't put a hole in anybody's junk since we opened our shop."
"So you're not a fan of piercings from the neck down?" Heat climbed my chest toward my cheeks. I shouldn't have asked that question, because all sorts of inappropriate images popped into my head.
"I didn't say that."
I opened my mouth, searching for words. None came.
"The ones from here down aren't just decorative." She ran her hand over her chest, down to her belt buckle.
"You're not one for holding back, are you?"
She grinned. "It's not really my style."
I changed the subject. "So you like it? Being a tattoo artist?"
My curiosity was genuine, as was my long-standing interest in body art and art in general. It had played a significant role in my decision to pursue a master's in sociology. It gave me a valid reason to focus on what most considered social deviance. After the crash I turned toward what I really loved—art and modification, delving deeper into subcultures and extreme factions. My advisor, whose school of thought was rather antiquated, seemed to have a difference of opinion on the direction my thesis proposal should take.
"I get to be an artist and not starve, so that's a bonus. Some of the tattoos can be boring, standard shit, but the pieces I get to design? Those are the ones that make the job worth doing. I don't think there's anything quite as gratifying as creating art out of someone's experiences. Well, some things are more gratifying." She looked me over, her perusal blatant. "Are you hiding any ink under those clothes?"
"No," I lied. I rooted around in a box to conceal my face lest she press for more information.
"I think you'd look good with my art on your body." Judging from the rapacious gleam in her eye, her phrasing was purposeful. "Anyway, the offer stands. You should come by again when you have a chance, maybe stay longer than two minutes. I can show you my albums, and you can show me your idea for ink. Maybe I could work on you."
"Okay, maybe." I didn't miss the dig at my boomerang visits, or that she'd noticed them in the first place.
"I'll take maybe over no."
I'd been working on a sketch for a long time; even before the crash I'd had several ideas for tattoos. Originally the piece had just been art, but it had changed in the past several months into a symbol of my loss. It would be rather revealing to hand something so personal over to Lisa.
"Did you design any of your own tattoos?"
"Most of them." Lisa shoved the sleeve of her shirt up above her elbow and held her arm out toward me, the inside facing up.
There was an anatomically correct heart wrapped in thorny vines set close to the crease in her elbow. Blood ran down the vines in rivulets, dripping from the thorns. Budding flowers juxtaposed the darkness of the piece, tempering it. As the flowers moved away from the heart, the tiny blossoms became more vibrant and open. Lisa rotated her forearm, and on the other side, the same vines traveled from her wrist to her elbow, but they were thicker. The ones at her wrist were dry and cracking, the flowers dying, petals falling off, but as they closed in on her elbow the flowers exploded into life, pulled into a wave of water. The head of an orange-and-white fish peeked out from her sleeve, the rest of the design obscured.
I reached out to touch a length of vine on her forearm and hesitated, seeking permission. "May I?"
"You asking to feel me up?"
"Um—"
"Sorry, you're easy to rile, it's hard to resist. Be my guest."
She rested her arm on her knee, palm up, hand relaxed and open. She didn't look all that sorry with the way she was smiling, but I was too curious, and she was willing. The muscles in her arm flexed when I traced the vines leading to the heart. The inside of her forearm seemed a sensitive place to tattoo. Wherever there was color, the skin was slightly raised, not by much, but enough that I could feel the dimension of the design.
"This must have taken a long time. Did it hurt a lot?"
"Pain is relative, isn't it?"
I gave her a quizzical look.
"These—" She skimmed my ear. "They hurt, right?"
"Sure, but not much." Disappointment followed when she dropped her hand.
"But there's still gratification in the pain, yeah?"
I nodded, even if I couldn't be sure how much I agreed with that statement. Lisa must have picked up on my uncertainty.
"Any kind of modification, whether it's to alter physical features, like cosmetic surgery, or to decorate, like piercings and tattoos, cause some degree of discomfort. But that's the point, isn't it? It's cathartic because it's the promise of change in some form or another. My tattoos give the memory related to the art a place to exist outside of my head, on my body. At least that's my interpretation, but not everyone feels the same way I do."
Expelling pain by giving in to it held quite the allure. The reasons I wanted to put my own art on my skin were difficult to reconcile. I swiped at an inked droplet of blood, almost expecting to feel the wetness against my fingertip.
"It looks so real."
"Eunwoo's an amazing artist."
"Rosé's boyfriend?"
Lisa nodded.
On the occasions I'd dropped by Inked Armor she'd always been with a client, but I'd seen her and Rosé leave together many times.
"So he did this?" I asked.
"Most of my tattoos were done by either Eunwoo or Jackson."
"You designed them and they put them on you?"
"Yeah. Or we collaborated. The only one I didn't design was this one." She pulled up the sleeve on her other arm. It was covered in a black pattern I couldn't decipher.
"How far does it go?"
"All the way up my arm and over half my torso."
"What is it?"
"If you come to the shop, maybe I'll show you."
The idea of Lisa shirtless was like a shot of fire through my veins. I didn't hesitate this time. "Okay."
"That's better than a maybe."
She was openly flirting. As apprehensive as she made me, part of me enjoyed the nervous anticipation and the warmth under my skin. The heavy strains of a rock anthem came from Lisa's pants, and she dug in her pocket. She looked annoyed as she checked her phone. Instead of answering the call, she silenced it.
A minute later Cassie appeared at the top of the stairs. The call she avoided had been Rosé; Lisa's client had arrived and she was still waiting for her latte.
"Duty calls." Lisa hefted the box filled with keepables under her arm. "I'll go through the rest another time. You'll stop by the shop?"
"Sure." I wasn't sure at all. Talking to Lisa had only served to ratchet up my infatuation with her; indulging in her presence wasn't likely to make that dissipate.
She gave me a look but dropped it. "Thanks for keeping me company."
"No problem."
In an unexpectedly tender gesture, she leaned down and kissed my cheek, those steel rings piercing her bottom lip treacherously close to the corner of my mouth.
I stood there long after she left, my fingers pressed to the spot where her lips had been. Warmth radiated out with the echo of sensation, moving down until it settled low in my stomach. I felt suddenly vulnerable as the vortex of emotion that followed threatened to lift me up and take me away. I hadn't expected her to do that. At all.
If I'd been stronger, I would have left her to sort through things on her own. But I didn't, and now I had this memory of her lips on my skin. As innocent as it might have been, it brought with it unexpected feelings. I hadn't felt anything close to lust in almost a year. That one simple gesture of affection had awoken the dormant desire I'd been fighting since the first time she came into Serendipity.
Lisa was the opposite of everything I'd ever known. She defied convention at every turn, and it made her that much more of a weakness. She was not only inordinately gorgeous but intelligent and passionate as well. Beyond the hard exterior, the brash comments and flirtation, a sensitive side lurked. But, like me, she was closed off; her tattoos formed her walls. I knew all about walls. I had built my own. With her I wanted to let them down, if only just a little. It was a dangerous thing to contemplate because in doing so they could very well crumble completely.
Until now I'd thought I had been managing well enough, that I was making progress and moving on. But even after all these months, I was still so broken. This girl could very well be my undoing.
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