Ariel

Beauty is more than skin deep…

 

 

 

“Rainey! Emory! Hurry your asses up! It’s been a long day and I want to close up the shop and get home to let Sassy girl out, stop playing around and let’s go!” I yell out at my sisters. It’s been a long fucking day and I’m ready to end it. My sisters, however, have a different plan and are playing around in the breakroom. The three of us own Diva’s Ink House, we are all tattoo artists and piercers. Some even say we are very good at what we do. My uncle and dad were tattooists and started training us at an early age. We spent endless summers, weekends and holidays with them, watching them and learning the trade. When they passed away, my sisters and I joined forces and completely revamped the shop. We changed the name and redecorated the place to fit us and our individual personalities. Don’t get me wrong, the shop isn’t overly feminine, we didn’t go all out and coat it in Pepto pink. It’s all done in light blues and different shades of grey—but it does have a woman’s touch and is still masculine enough for our male patrons.

“Jeez, Ariel, we’re coming,” Emory yells out at me and I know, even though I can’t see her from down the hallway, that she’s rolling her eyes at me. I know my sisters better than I know myself, and I can anticipate their words and actions, even if they’re not in the same vicinity as me.

“Hold your damn horses, Ariel,” Rainey yells out to me as she comes into the front of the shop joining me. “Emory was telling me about a client she had today that wanted her to ink his dick. What he wants is pretty fucking hilarious and we lost track of time talking about it.”

“What? One of our clients wants their dick inked?” I ask, dumbfounded. What kind of moron wants their dick permanently marked? is the question that is rolling around in my mind. I roll my eyes and think to myself that I’ve seen and heard of some crazy shit while working in this industry. “Do I even want to know what the idiot wants?” We don’t ink genitalia here, we don’t ink men’s junk…period. We do pierce one on the occasion, but never lay down ink, it’s impossible to get a good design down since it hurts too much, and the client is constantly moving due to the pain. The three of us all voted once and decided unanimously that we didn’t want to put ink…down there.

“He wants the Oscar Meyer wiener emblem tattooed on his cock,” Emory informs me.

“He what? Was he high or drunk when he made this request?” I ask Em.

“Nah, apparently he lost a bet with his buddies and has a certain amount of time to pay up,” she says with mischief in her eyes.

“Did you tell his ass we aren’t in the business of touching our client’s dicks unless it’s for piercings?” I need to know what she told him.

“Nope, told him I’d do it for a grand and as long as he brought me a medical evaluation clearing him of any STD’s.”

“You’re fucking joking with me?”

“Sis, you should’ve seen him, he isn’t going to go through with this one. I explained how painful it would be and that he couldn’t show up having consumed any alcohol or having taken medication of any type—told him he’d have to do it all natural. You should’ve seen how wide his eyes got, I think the fucker was thinking he’d get himself nice and drunk before coming in to have it done.”

Here at Diva’s Ink we have a strict policy that hangs over the register, stating that if we have a feeling that the client is high or drunk, we have the right to refuse service. We don’t need any proof either, just an inclination and you’re out the door. Not only does it thin the blood out and make the client bleed like a stuffed pig, but narcotics and alcohol can cause a number of medical issues all on their own. If you add in needles and ink, it’s a catastrophe in the making. “So I take it he didn’t schedule an appointment for the ink?” I ask Em needing to know if I should keep an open eye on the books to make sure I’m working on the day this dufus appears.

“Nope, he said he’d get back to me at a later date. He took off out of here so fast I swear his feet caught fire during his escape.” We all start laughing at that visual.

Walking out of the shop, I lock up and set the alarm, we all head toward the back-parking lot behind the shop where we park to get into our individual cars. We wait on each other until we are all settled in our own vehicles, have them started and then proceed to follow each other out and onto the main street that will lead us out of town. The entire time I’m driving towards my house, I can’t stop thinking of what we should do if the guy does happen to show back up. I won’t allow my baby sisters to ink this jackasses dick, that’s for sure. Another task I’ll put on myself. I love and am very protective of my younger siblings. We are closer than most sisters since we are what my dad called stepladder children. There’s only a two-year gap between each one of us. I’m twenty-seven, Emory is twenty-five and our baby sister Rainey is twenty-three. My birthday is in April, Emory’s is in March and Rainey’s is May. Our parents were constantly dishing out presents between holidays and birthdays. I miss my dad so much, celebrating birthdays and holidays hasn’t been the same since he left us. Our love and devotion to him is what has kept us going, we don’t want to let him down, so we keep celebrating.

As I pull up in my driveway, my thoughts go to what I want for dinner. It’s been a long exhausting day and I can’t muster up the thought of cooking for just myself. I love to cook, but when it’s for a party of one, it’s more of a hassle than anything else. As I make my way out of my car and up to my door, I can hear my Rottweiler Sassy girl barking in excitement. She always knows when her momma is home and that means it’s her feeding time. I walk in and she runs up to me in excitement, “What is it Sassy girl, are you hungry?” I ask her as I scratch her behind her ears. I drop down to my knees and give her some proper loving, she loves to have her belly scratched and as she rolls on her back, I know that’s what she’s silently begging for. I can’t help but to give in to her demands, she’s my baby and I love her more than life itself.

I stand up and begin walking towards the back door, she gets up and follows me like she does every night. We have a routine and she knows it well. I open the door and let her outside to take care of her business, I leave the door open, so she can come in once she’s done. I remove my shoes and walk to the kitchen pantry and grab her food. I fill her bowl to the brim knowing she hasn’t eaten since this morning and must be starving seeing as it’s nearly one a.m. We don’t normally close the shop until around two, but we were tired and had no clients come in. That time of the morning it’s normally walk-ins who are drunk and are more of a hassle than anything else, but occasionally we get the night owl that comes in for actual work.

That’s the one thing about my business—it thrives at nighttime. Which works out for me, seeing as I am not a morning person, it allows me to sleep in until noon or so. We don’t even open the shop up until two p.m. anyways. I set her food and water dishes down in the kitchen and make my way to the refrigerator. Moving things around nothing is catching my eye, I notice I have just enough milk to make a bowl of cereal. Deciding that’s good enough I grab my cereal bowl, box of Captain Crunch, and I add some milk and grab a spoon from the drawer. Sassy walks in so as I grab my bowl, I walk over and shut and lock the door. I sit down at the kitchen table and dig into my scrumptious dinner—yummy.

Once I finish eating, I rinse out my bowl and spoon then stick them in the dishwasher. I go to the front door to make sure I locked it when I came in earlier. I don’t have an alarm system since there is very little crime in our small town, we have a local MC that keeps us safe and protected—nobody around here wants to get on their bad side. It takes me an hour or two to unwind after a day as busy as the one I had, so I hop in the shower quickly, dry off and get into my night clothes. Deciding I want to be lazy tonight, I grab the remote to the television, click on the app for Netflix and settle in for some sexy Jax time. Sassy girl hops up on the bed to join me for the night, I snuggle into her and get ready for some eye candy and action-packed bad boys for my evening choice of delights.

 

 

I must have fallen asleep, I wake up and turn over looking at the window and notice it’s still dark outside. I turn off the television, which I’m assuming is what woke me up and look over at Sassy, she is sprawled out on her back with all four paws up in the air. I chuckle at her position and try to snuggle back down for more sleep when I hear pounding on the front door and can hear my cell phone going off in the kitchen. I must’ve left it in there earlier when I ate my dinner and fed Sassy. Groaning I get myself up from the bed and look over at Sassy who is still sound asleep on the bed.

“Some damn guard dog you are,” I mutter at her. She opens one eye and looks at me, I swear she’s cussing me out while begging me to make the racket stop so she can get back to her slumber.

“Fucking bitch, you’re supposed to be protecting me, not the other way around.” She moans at me and rolls over facing the other direction. ‘Maybe I need to send her to obedience school’, I think to myself. The pounding on the door increases, grating on my last nerve, “I’m fucking coming, hang on a damn second, some of us are sleeping at,” I look at my clock to see what time it is, “four motherfucking a.m. I swear someone better be dead or dying!” I notice the missed calls are from Rainey and suddenly I’m very anxious to make it to the door to find out if my sister is alright. I grab my robe, throw it on and run out of my bedroom. I swing the door open and see Rainey and Emory standing on my front porch.

Rainey has her phone held up to her ear as if she was making a call, probably to me…again, “Bout damn time you answered your door!” she screams out at me. They both have sullen looks on their faces letting me know the news they are about to share isn’t good, but I can’t help myself and the bitchiness that comes out of my mouth.

“Forget about that! Why don’t you two tell me what you’re doing blowing my phone up and banging on my door at four o’clock in the damn morning? I just went to sleep for crying out loud!”

“It’s Mom, her house caught fire and she’s been taken to the emergency room. Her house is a total loss and we need to get there…now.”

“Well why the hell are you both here, one of you should be there with her!” I shout out at them—do I have to do all the thinking for the three of us? I run back to my room to throw on my bra, some sweats and a t-shirt. I don’t bother with socks, but I grab my chucks and throw them on. “Why aren’t one of y’all there with her?”

“Neither one of us could get a hold of you and we both showed up here at the same time to try and wake your ass up. Now stop asking questions and let’s get a move on already,” Em growls out at me. She actually growled at me, looks like baby sister needs a lesson in manners once I know what’s going on with our mom. I glare at her and she glares back, a part of me wants to rip her a new asshole and another part of me is proud of her for standing her ground. She’s more passive than Rainey and I are, so when she stands up for herself I want to give her a high-five and pull out my awesome dance moves…there’s no time for that now however. I run out and jump in my car after locking up the house. They each jump in their own and off we go, following each other for a second time tonight.

As I drive to the hospital my mind drifts to the day we lost our uncle and dad to a car accident. They were traveling home from a tattoo exhibit they were featured guests at and it was raining—hard. Dad lost control of the car and they skidded off the road and into an embankment hitting a tree dead on and killing both of them upon impact. It’s a day I’ll never forget and hope that this day isn’t going to be a repeat of that one. It’s only been seven years since we lost them, I’m not ready emotionally to lose the only remaining parent I have left, I know the day will come that it will happen, I just pray today is not that day. There is so much life left to live, and she needs to be around to meet her future grandchildren and sons-in-laws that haven’t made an appearance it any of our lives—yet. I thought I had met that guy at one time, but he turned out to be a douchebag and was a constant cheater. The day when I finally caught him in the act, I kicked him to the curb faster than you could blink. He groveled for months afterwards trying to get back together, but once a cheater always a cheater and I don’t have time or the patience to have that in my life. I made myself abundantly clear that we would never be together again, and I haven’t heard from him since. It probably helped that Rainey saw him on the street and let’s just say her knee made contact with a certain appendage—accidentally according to her. How his dick accidentally made contact with her knee I have yet to figure out, but I laughed when she told me and let it go.

Pulling into the lot at the Emergency Room, I say a silent prayer that Mom made it out without a scratch. As soon as the car is parked we meet at the entrance doors and haul ass into the lobby and ask the nurse at the front desk for our mom. “We’re looking for Glory Masters,” I say to her.

“Let me check the system and see what’s going on,” she tells us. She has a very sweet disposition and I realize immediately that I could possibly like her. I don’t have the mentality to deal with rudeness right now—or ever. “May I ask how you’re related to the patient please,” she says looking up from her computer. I can tell she’s on edge and must deal with people being tacky to her. Deciding to cut her a break I answer honestly, “We’re her daughters.”

“I should’ve known just looking at the three of you, you look just like your mother—all of you. I went to school with your mom, she’s a lovely woman.”

“Thank you,” Rainey says proudly on our mom’s behalf.

“It seems the doctor is in with her right now, if you wouldn’t mind having a seat in the waiting area, I’ll call back and let them know you’re out here. It shouldn’t take long before someone comes out for you. If it takes longer than thirty-minutes, I’ll personally escort you three back to where she’s being treated.” I look at her badge to get her name, so I can thank her properly.

“Thank you, Stephanie, we appreciate your kindness.” As we take a seat, I’m overwhelmed with my emotions. I can feel tears stinging the back of my eyes, and I’m having a hard time keeping them at bay. I look over to my sisters who are seated next to me and see they’re having the same problem as I am. Openly crying isn’t something you’ll usually see from us, unless it’s intense and has the ability to change our future drastically, usually in a bad way.

What seems like hours later, we’re being called back into the treatment area. We follow the nurse back to our mother’s room and when I see her hooked up to an oxygen mask and see gauze wrapped around her arm, wrist and ankle I lose my battle and the tears flow steadily down my face. I wipe my cheeks to get rid of the evidence from my self-perceived weakness. Mom is sleeping peacefully, so I grab the chair next to her bed and hold her good hand in my own.

“Please be okay,” I whisper out. Each one of my sisters are on my sides, and they both simultaneously place their hands on my shoulders showing me silent support, as they struggle with their own feelings.

“She’s doing very well,” the nurse that led us back tells us. I forgot that she was even in the room with us as I was wrapped up in looking at Mom and her bandages.

“Can you tell us anything about her condition?” I ask her.

“We’re still waiting on some labs to come back, but so far, we know that she has second degree burns, and as you can see, we treated and wrapped those. She also has some smoke inhalation, but other than that, she seems to be in good condition for what she went through.” I can tell she’s holding something back, but I’m not sure if I want my sisters to know what that is just yet. I want us to sit here and pretend that everything is normal, and Mom will be waking up shortly.

“Thank you,” Em tells her as she stands vigil at my side.

“The doctor will be in with you shortly,” she tells us. “He’s waiting on lab results to come back. Your mother is sleeping, and right now that is the best medicine for her. I have a few other patients I need to check on, but I’ll be back as soon as I can to check your mother’s vitals,” she says as she exits the room.