Chapter Ten
Olivia
The next morning Dax knocked on door of the room around nine AM.
“Good morning,” he said, looking me up and down. Sometimes when he looked at me I could literally feel the heat from his eyes on my body.
“Good morning,” I said. “I’m ready.”
We rode into town and I was surprised when we passed the only shop I knew of. We ended up at a house on the wrong side of town. I climbed off the bike first and he followed. He could tell what I was thinking by the look on my face.
“It’s cool, he does them out of the garage, but the place is sterile, I promise.”
I wasn’t convinced by the looks of the front yard and the rusty cars in the driveway but I followed him up to a door on the side of the house.
He knocked and someone yelled, “Yeah!”
“It’s Dax!”
A tiny little girl with pink hair pulled the door open. She looked like a pixie with her short pink hair, loud eye make-up and tiny little body that seemed to be covered in tattoos.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey Liz,” Dax said. “This is Olivia.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” the Pixie responded. I wondered if she could say anything else. Then she proved she could by saying, “Greg’s over there.”
I looked around and could see that Dax was right, the garage was sparkling clean. The floor was laminate and looked like you could eat off of it. There was a sterilizer machine and something that looked like a dishwasher. There was even a certificate on the wall from the health department from a Haz Mat training. Greg was behind a curtain and I could hear the whirr of the tattoo gun.
We waited and a few minutes later Greg walked out. I saw his belly coming first and a few seconds later the rest of his body joined him. He was about six-foot tall and he had to be pushing four-hundred pounds. On top of that, every visible part of his body except his face was covered with a tattoo.
“Dax! Hey you old Son of a Bitch, how are you?”
“I’m great, Greg, how are you?”
“The same, man, the same,” he said. “Who is this doll?” he asked, referring to me.
“This is my friend, Olivia,” Dax said. It was the first time I heard him refer to me as his friend without the girl in front.
“Glad to meet you, Olivia,” Greg said, extending a freakishly small hand in my direction. I shook it and wondered if he and the pixie was a couple. I’ll bet their quiet time was quite a sight to behold.
“Sorry to just stop by,” Dax told him. “I’m not having the best night. I got a bug up my ass about getting a tattoo making me feel better.”
“Hey, no problem. You can stop by any time. Hayley!” Another pixie, this one with purple hair came out. If they’d had the same color hair, the two of them would have looked identical. “This is Hayley, Liz’s sister.”
Dax and I said hello and then Greg told her, “You don’t mind if we finish yours later, do you?”
“Oh no, you can go ahead, I’ll come back another time,” Dax said.
“It’s okay,” Hayley said with a little pixie smile. “I could use a break.”
“Come on back, Dax. You gettin’ one too doll?” he asked me.
“Not tonight,” I told him.
“Hey, you could let your boyfriend do it. I trust Dax with my stuff. The first year he was in he did some great work on me. Look he did this one.” Greg pulled up his shirt and showed me a beautiful lotus flower, almost buried by a roll of fat.
“It’s pretty,” I said. The flower was, anyways.
I took the seat he offered me behind the curtain and Dax sat on the starch white, clean gurney. Greg made sure that Dax saw him change out the needle and the gun for a sterile one in a package and he changed out the ink.
“What are you getting buddy?” Greg asked him.
“I just want the Harley penned in on my tank,” Dax said, pointing at the tattoo of a hog he had on his right bicep.
“I can do that, you want me to put some flames on there too?”
“Yeah, sure,” Dax said.
I watched and they talked, mostly about guys they knew in prison. It was kind of surreal listening to Dax talk about being in prison. I knew he was there, but he never talked about what it was like. He and Greg mostly shared funny stories or things that I guess would be funny if you were in prison. Greg got out after Dax had only been in for a year, but I guess they stayed in touch. I wondered what Greg had done and then I decided I’d rather not know. The pink haired pixie brought a soda out for me about halfway through and just about the time Greg was finishing up, Dax started in on me again about getting one.
“Come on, Liv, just a little one. I’ll be gentle.”
“What are you going to do? I don’t want a Harley or a skull.”
He laughed and said, “I’ll do whatever you want. No Harley’s and no skulls, I promise.”
“What about my job hunting? A lot of employers don’t want to hire people with tats.”
Dax and Greg both laughed. Greg said, “Look who you’re talking to doll. We sort of figured that out as soon as we got out of the joint.”
“I’ll make it so tiny you’ll need a magnifying glass to see it. Come on, live a little,” Dax said. He grinned at me and I could feel my resolve slipping away. Damn him and those sexy green eyes.
“Okay, but a small one. Nothing obscene and on my upper arm where I can cover it up.” It wasn’t that I’d never considered getting one, but I’d just never had the nerve to take that plunge. I knew Dax wouldn’t hurt me though.
“Man, she’s a tough customer,” Greg said with a laugh. “I’m glad she’s yours.”
“Okay to all of the above,” Dax told me. I sat up on the table and watched as they opened new packages and Greg gave Dax a few instructions about the gun. Dax said, “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“It will hurt less if you don’t watch, trust me, okay?”
I must have really trusted him. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I felt his hand on my arm and against my will, I shivered from his touch. He pushed my sleeve up gently and lightly brushed his fingers across my skin.
He said, “Okay, take a deep breath and hold really still.” Then I felt it, the touch of the needle on my skin. It didn’t really hurt, not like I thought it would. It was like being scratched with a safety pin. He was going slowly. I could tell he was trying to be gentle. It couldn’t have even been ten minutes later when he said, “Okay, all done.”
I opened my eyes, “Really? That was so quick.”
“I promised you small,” he said. “Look.” He handed me a little mirror. It was a tiny little red heart right at the top of my arm. It was cute.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you. That was my first professional tattoo.”
“You’re ready for business then,” I told him. “Because this one is perfect.”
He was standing close and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me.
“Awesome, man!” Greg shouted and was suddenly as close to me as Dax. The moment had passed.