19
“Are you Shane?”
“That’s me,” replied the guy at the counter in the tattoo shop.
“I need a fix.”
“What kind?”
“I have a tat I don’t want anymore, and I wanted you to—”
“Laser it off? Black it out?”
“No. I want you to make it something different, beautiful.”
“Uh huh.” He shuffled a small pile of papers at the reception desk. “Why don’t you show it to me, and tell me what you’re thinking of?” He gestured to a lounger behind an elaborately painted screen with lightening bolts and flowers. I hopped up on the padded chair and stretched out, unzipped my jeans and lowered them.
Shane’s eyes followed my movements as I pulled down the top of my panty. He leaned over me, studying the design on my lower abs. A skeleton holding two smoking guns in his bony hands. No words, just the symbol. And even though Finger had cut his F over it that last night at the motel in South Dakota, that fucking ink remained.
Their brand. Med’s brand.
I wanted it changed forever. Now.
“Turo told me you do good work,” I said.
Translation: You keep quiet when you have to.
Shane’s eyes darted to mine and hung there. “Yeah, yeah I do.”
“Good.”
Turo was a mafia hitman. Turo’s girlfriend was Ciara, who shopped at my store regularly, always on the hunt for gently used vintage designer pieces. I would let her know when we’d get Prada and Chloe handbags on consignment, and she would be crazy grateful.
We’d fallen into an easy friendship since we’d first met, a couple of weeks into my job. We started going out frequently for drinks or food. The other day she took me shopping with her to the high end stores on Michigan Ave, Barneys New York, being her favorite. I put together outfits for her and the shoes to go with them, and she bought them all with a chunk of cash Turo had given her. Then with whatever money was left, we made a beeline to the store’s makeup department and did major damage together. Ciara had a couple of cute tattoos of hearts on her wrist and daisies around her ankle, so I’d asked her for a recommendation for a good, reliable tattoo artist. Someone who could be discreet if necessary. She’d sent me to Shane.
“Hey, Shane. You taking care of my girl?” came a high, sultry, female voice.
Ciara.
Shane’s head swung to the side of the divider, and I sat up.
Ciara leaned on the counter, her dark red fingernails flicking at her carefully highlighted golden hair which cascaded past her shoulders. She was stunningly beautiful, and worked hard at it every day.
“Ciara, hey,” he said. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, just checking out what I’ve got to work with.” He swallowed, his eyes going back to my tat.
“Hi,” I said, smiling at her as Shane bent over my lower body once more.
“Sorry I’m late, babe. Had a busy morning.” She winked at me.
“No problem. I just introduced myself to Shane here.”
“I can see that,” she replied.
Shane rose, his shoulders straightening. “So, you got any ideas for what you want?”
“Yes.” I pushed up on my elbows and pointed to what was left of the skeleton and his guns. “I want to hide the last traces of it with a mass of flowers. Roses, peonies. I want it to be elegant and beautiful.”
“Elegant and beautiful?” repeated Shane, eyebrows lifting.
My grandmother Eleonora had taught me about elegance and beauty. One day she’d taken a piece of lace and held it up over my skin under the sunlight.
“You see, Serena? You see the shapes?”
The shadows of the lace danced on my skin. “So pretty, Gran.”
“You can make pretty things, and you can make the things around you pretty, no matter what they are. All it takes is imagination and willpower to transform anything. Your imagination is very powerful and very special. Just like you. Never forget that. Come, I’ll show you how to make your own lace.”
I was going to make my own lace.
“That’s right, elegant and beautiful,” I said. “And pretty. Can you do that?”
Shane’s gaze darted at Ciara for a moment. “I can do whatever you want,” he replied. “How about a ribbon to go around your hips while we’re down there, tying the flowers around you?”
“I like that. But not a ribbon. A thorny vine.”
A tight grin appeared on Shane’s face. “You got it. That scar looks a little new though. I’ll work around it today, and you can come back in a couple weeks and I’ll finish over it.”
“Great,” I replied.
He grabbed a sketchpad and a pencil and began drawing.
Shane did a beautiful job on the flowers and the vine. I became a regular client of his, and Shane and I became great friends. I had him color my body with another thorny vine from the spray of flowers up around my torso and along my back. Whenever I could afford it, he’d add on new flowers and stars and moons, flying mermaids, soaring fairies, a dragon. A chain of tiny linked letter J’s up the back of my right leg for Justin, entwined with baby rosebuds. In between tattoos, I had him pierce my nose and my nipples, too.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Tania winced, sucking in a breath as I used the aftercare spray on my piercings.
“Because I’m the one doing it to my body. Me.” I carefully tugged on my sports bra.
“Didn’t it hurt? Shit.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and I let out a laugh.
“It stung for a second, but it was fine. Shane’s experienced at this.” I slid my favorite T-shirt over my head.
“Ugh, my boobs hurt now. You’re a whack.” Tania headed for the kitchen. “I need a drink.”
Tania let me style her outfits on big nights out.
Her eyes met mine in the full length mirror on her bedroom door. “I never would’ve thought to wear the long beaded necklace with this dress and the hanging sash belt.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I adjusted the belt on her hips. “Plus, it will take Whatshisface a long, slow time to get you naked.”
“I’m not sleeping with Brian, Serena.”
I stepped back and looked at her reflection. “Maybe tonight’s the night, Tan.”
She only shrugged. “I like him, but not that much.”
“You’re so picky. He’s cute, he’s funny, and he’s totally in to you. Take advantage and have some fun.” I flopped back on her bed.
“He’s an actor in my acting class, and super ambitious, so it could be a big mistake to take our flirting any further. Plus, he talks about himself and all his plans and auditions and agent contacts way too much. He’s all, me, me, me. The last thing I need is—”
“I didn’t say marry him or be his girlfriend. I said sleeeeeep with him. You haven’t been with anyone since that Lewis guy. No sex makes Tania cranky.”
“Cranky is part of my charm.” Tania dabbed gloss over her wine-colored lips. “I liked Lewis, too.”
“Kiss Brian tonight. Maybe he has a magic tongue that can make all your sex dreams come true.”
“Truth be told, I would be damn grateful if he knew how to use his tongue. Lewis didn’t, that’s for sure.”
“You should find out then. See, I’m offering practical advice. I’m learning from you.”
Tania fluffed her layered hair with her fingers. “Yeah, that’s me. Practical.”
“Not!” We both laughed.
She sat on the edge of the bed and slipped her high-heeled boots on. “I don’t even know if he’s coming by the gallery tonight. He said he would, but I’m not counting on it. You’re still meeting Finger tonight, right? It’s still on?”
“Yep.” That tight sensation gripped my insides, sprinting around every nerve ending. “He should be in town in about two hours.”
“I’ll bet you’ve been counting the minutes since you woke up this morning.”
“No, since yesterday morning.” I let out a laugh, stretching out on her bed. “It really sucked that he couldn’t make it the last time. I hope nothing else comes up at the last minute and he has to cancel.”
“I know.”
I took in a deep breath. I could practically smell him, feel him on me. “I can’t wait to see him.”
Tania stuck out her tongue and wagged it. “You can’t wait to have sex with him.”
I laughed. “I miss him.”
“I know you do. So things going okay? I mean, after what you went through.”
“It’s good. Very good. I still get a little anxious, but I’m more relaxed and Finger is amazing. He takes his time with me, he listens. He doesn’t push, even when I want him too. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have all this shit clouding my head, knotting my muscles, but it’s a process, and it’s my process.”
Tania grinned. “I love you, you know.”
“I know. I love you too.”
She got up from the bed, smoothing down her jersey knit dress. “Okay, I’m off. Give him a hug for me.” She didn’t see Finger whenever he came up. We’d all agreed it was safer that way.
“I will.”
Tania grabbed her small black handbag. “Have fun. Be careful. And I’ll see you when I see you. Could you call me, though, at some point, let me know you’re okay?” She hugged me. Tania was a mother type, and I kind of liked it.
“Will do. You, however, be not so careful tonight,” I said.
Tania only rolled her eyes at me as she walked out our front door, into the dark hallway of our third floor walkup.
“Have fun!” I shouted after her.
The telephone rang, and I quickly locked the door and picked up the phone.
“Baby?”
That deep tickle unfurled in my chest and bloomed in all my lady parts at the sound of his throaty voice.
“Hey!”
“You ready for me?”
“Yes, yes, oh yes.”
He chuckled, and I closed my eyes, taking in the hearty sound. Sexy as hell. Can’t wait.
“321 45 87. And fast, Sunshine.”
We had a secret code just in case anyone was listening. Even though he used a number of different pay phones, we never took chances. We’d even come up with a hand sign in case one of us needed to signal the other to back off because of danger lurking.
“I’ll be there.”
“I’m hard already just knowing I’m twenty minutes out from fucking you.”
My hand tightened over the phone handle. “I think I just came. A mini-pop.”
“Save them for me.” A low growl unfurled under his words. “Get moving.”
I hung up and grabbed my vintage carpetbag that I’d packed and stashed at the side of my futon for two days, and charged outside, a huge grin on my face.
The second we got to the room, Finger kicked the door shut, locking it. We yanked at each other’s clothes and humped on the floor like desperate animals in heat. We were desperate, desperate for each other, desperate for our closeness, for that joy that only being together brought us. The moment he’d first entered me, a flash of blue light had flared behind my lids. I was ecstatic, there was no getting enough of him.
We made it to the bed for the next round.
We slid back to the floor for the next.
“Holy shit, are those J’s?” His index finger traced a line down the back of my thigh to my calf.
“Hmm, a chain of Justins just for me.”
“Fuck.” He dove between my legs again.
A few hours later we forced ourselves to stand upright and shower and get dressed again. If we didn’t, we’d stay on that floor all night, which would be great, but we wanted to do things together. We wanted to do normal things like any other couple.
Life had taught us to make every moment count, to not take anything for granted, so we would make memories and have experiences we could wrap ourselves in and hold onto until the next time we’d be together. Whenever that would be. But we wouldn’t dwell on that shit now.
He had his colors covered in a hoodie, a baseball cap pulled down low, and the hood of his jacket over that and up around the sides of his face. The scars on his cheeks made recognizing him easy. I had a lot of heavy eyeliner on, brown contact lenses, fake glasses, and a short blonde wig.
We had a burrito dinner at a store front walk-in named Mi Ranchito, strolled around Navy Pier people gawking, then headed toward a big movie theater complex on Chestnut St. After the sci-fi movie finished, we walked up swanky Michigan Avenue joined at the hip, our arms wrapped around each other’s waists. Finger was patient with every stop I made to ooh and ahh at the designer clothes in the windows of fancy department stores.
We stopped in front of an Azzedine Alaia window at Barneys. “I was here last week with this woman I met at my store, Ciara. I helped her find a dress for this fancy dinner party she was going to with her boyfriend. She dropped a huge wad of his cash without blinking. He’s some mafia guy.”
Finger’s head snapped at me. “What? Who?”
“Turo DeMarco. He’s with the Guardino family,” I whispered.
“Baby—”
“I haven’t met him, and I would never tell Ciara anything about me, about us.”
His face was eerily pale under the bright disco type lighting from the Alaia window display. “I know, but—”
“I realize the Guns have connections to organized crime and gangs all over the Midwest. Med was always pissed off at somebody and used to tell me shit he didn’t trust to anyone else, a lot of stuff he probably shouldn’t have. I think he considered me a deaf mute most of the time.”
Finger leaned into me, his eyes hard. “Baby, you got to be real careful here. Real careful. If this Turo ever finds out who you are, you just don’t know how he’ll react or what his boss’s relationship is with Med—or was. Fuck, nobody knows that shit for sure.”
“I know. You’re right.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be such good pals with this…”
“Ciara.”
“Yeah, Ciara.”
“I’m careful.”
His lips pressed together, the scars on his face tightened. We left the dazzle of Barneys behind us and walked in a tense silence for several blocks, his hand squeezing mine.
We got ice cream cones at Ghirardelli’s new ice cream shop, and he swallowed his in four bites. I laughed, and in response, he took a bite of my fudge chocolate and coffee ice cream wrapped in a homemade cone. I took a bite after him, the ice cream smudging my cheek. He leaned over and swiped at my face with his tongue then kissed me. Sweet cream, cool chocolate. These were the flavors, the sensations of happiness, weren’t they? I kissed him back, wanting more, always more, and he bit my lips.
“Ah!” I pulled back, and he chomped on my vulnerable cone, devouring the last bit.
“Hey!”
“It’s so good.” Finger laughed, a hand wiping at his mouth.
I punched at his massive, solid shoulder. “The last bite is always the best.”
“I know,” he said, eyeing me. He brushed my cheek with his cold, wet lips. “I’ll make it up to you, baby. I promise I’ll lick you better than I did that ice cream cone.” He bit my earlobe. “And bite you.”
“Hmm.” I licked my fingers, my insides as gooey as the melted ice cream.
But I couldn’t wait.
I tugged on his hand, leading him around the corner. A narrow side street. A tower of fire escapes gleamed at us overhead. I stepped in a puddle as I pulled him against me, leaning against the slimy graffitied wall. We kissed hard, and I lifted a leg around his hips, pressing into his erection.
“Fuck me.”
He chuckled under his breath as I unsnapped the buttons on my bodysuit between my legs, under my skirt. He fumbled with his jeans and hoisted me up. I slid my hand over his smooth, hard length and guided it to where I needed it to be. I tightened my insides around him, holding onto his cock.
“Baby, shit.” He throbbed, his body stiffening against mine. “Jesus.”
The world moved around us in the shadowy dark as we took our bite of bright heaven.
We ended up at Dave & Busters, a new large arcade on North Clark Street and played pin ball and race car games. Finger played a shooting game, a huge plastic rifle in his hands, his shoulders rigid with focus. He landed every bullseye. He was good.
Of course he was good. This was a game played for tokens with imaginary digital targets, but out there on the street, on the road it was the life he lived. I’d lived it too.
We exited the arcade, and I spotted a photo booth at the entrance.
“Come here!” I tugged him inside and pushed him down on the stool. I sat in his lap, and he pulled me in close. Popping change in the slot, we posed making faces, crossing our eyes, another with our tongues sticking out and touching, the last with our faces pressed together, serious.
We waited, and finally, the strip landed in my eager hand. “Oh, look. I love them.”
He kissed the side of my face. “You’re going to have to get rid of it, though. Promise me. Tomorrow, rip it up, throw it away. Leave no clues behind.”
“I know,” I said, my fingers clinging to the edge of the damp strip of photos. “I know.”
We went by the art gallery where Tania worked on Wells Street in River North. Tonight they were having an opening for a new contemporary painter who had been getting lots of buzz. Finger studied the huge canvas of abstract purple and mustard strokes in the front window of the gallery.
“What the hell is that supposed to be?” he asked.
“Whatever you want it to be,” I replied.
Tania noticed us from inside the gallery. She only raised an eyebrow and shot us a grin. She knew how to keep things discreet at all times. I smiled back at her.
“You want to go in?” Finger tugged on my hand.
“No.”
“You sure?” His eyes creased. He hated keeping me from doing things or going places I wanted to go to because of us having to keep our anonymity.
“I’m very sure. I go to these all the time with Tania. Not being a painter or a sculptor or some kind of artist or gallery person, I’m not invested in having to go to all these parties and be seen, hang out, and make contacts and all that like she is. I enjoy them, but not all the time. And anyway, this is our time together.”
He kissed the side of my face, his arm circling my shoulders pulling me in close. “Yeah, it is.”
Two women exited the gallery, strutting down the sidewalk past us, and my eyes zeroed in on their Japanese-style asymmetrical coats and oversized scarves.
“You like clothes a lot don’t you?” he asked, tucking my hand inside his large gloved one.
“No, I LOVE clothes.” I laughed.
“All you girls do, don’t you?”
“My grandmother and I were really close. She pretty much raised me, and she had lots of hobbies she shared with me—knitting, crocheting, sewing. She’d taught me all those things by the time I was ten. I’d pick out patterns for a dress or a blouse, choose a great fabric, and then we’d rush home and pin the pattern on the material, cut it out, and then she’d sit at her sewing machine and bam—new dress, new blouse, new skirt. The whole process was very satisfying. Fashion for me is about how colors and textures and lines sing together and create a particular magic for each individual.
“Oh man—particular magic.”
“Yes. Unique possibilities. Fashion isn’t some static work of art that you stare at like those paintings on the wall at the gallery. It’s more.” My face heated. “For me, anyway. Sounds silly?”
“No, I like it. I get it. You got all excited there. Your eyes lit up.”
“Oh yeah?” I stood on my toes and pressed my lips against his warm ones. “I only light up for you.”
His eyes closed, his tongue swiping at my lips. He took in a deep breath. “We need to get back to the hotel because I’m dying here.”
“Do me here.”
“No fucking way. As much as I love your demanding side, this park is a wide open space. Any weirdo could come along and try to get in on our action. Then I’d have to kill him, then the police would come after us. Just a shitty idea all around.”
“Then I’ll make good use of this blondie getup and hail us a cab to get us to the hotel as quickly as possible.”
“Good call.”
I turned on the sidewalk and stepped to the edge, facing the steady stream of traffic as I raised my hand. A cab screeched to a halt before us within moments.
“Maybe you should consider the blonde thing permanently, baby,” Finger whispered as we slid into the backseat.
I gave the driver the address, and as soon as I got the street name past my lips, Finger’s hand went under my skirt, pushed past the elastic of my bodysuit, and slid down my pussy. His fingers stroked and dazzled me the whole ride, teasing me, keeping me just on the edge of coming. I clutched onto his leather jacket.
“Is this because of the blonde hair?”
He breathed heavily in my ear. “No, it’s because of your lush cunt.”
“Did you really just say lush?” I let out a laugh.
“That’s what it is.” His index finger thrust in my pussy and stroked against my inner wall, holding me prisoner. I let out a hiss.
“I can’t wait to suck on this lush. Eat it up, fuck it with my tongue. I want to make your sugar sweet bod wet over and over just for me.”
I groaned. “Then what?”
“Then my cock is going to pound it.” He stroked quicker, his finger churning. “And this pussy’s gonna come on my cock. Come so hard, you’re gonna be shouting.”
His thumb pressed over my clit roughly, and I stumbled on a breath.
“Don’t shout now though, Sunshine. You stay real quiet for me, and I’m gonna give it to you so fucking good the second we get through the door. Then that sweet ass will be crying out for me, won’t it?”
“Oh yeah,” I breathed against his throat, my lips nuzzling his damp skin for dear life.
I bit down hard on my lip refusing to moan and groan in front of the taxi driver. But that was proving to be really difficult as Finger spoke non-stop in hushed tones against my ear, my hips rocking against his hand more desperately with his every filthy remark. I glanced up at the rear view mirror. The driver shot us a curious glare.
Within moments the taxi braked at the corner. “Here you go.”
“You better pay, baby, ‘cause...” Finger broke out into a dark laugh. His fingers squeezed my clit one exquisitely painful last time, snapping at the elastic as they left me. He leaned back in the seat and sucked on his finger and thumb, shiny with my wet in the car light the driver had switched on.
I handed the driver a ten dollar bill as Finger adjusted his jeans. I got my change and pushed Finger out the door.
Holding hands, laughing, we raced up the creaky stairs of that grim hotel to our room. And in that room, we reveled in our own magnificent, beautiful world.