"scratcher"

I looked up at her, uncomprehending. She tossed the envelope into my lap, and I picked it up and opened it.

Hundred dollar bills.

“Go on, count it,” she said, smiling.

A hundred of them. Ten thousand dollars. I was actually holding it.

“See,” she said, flopping down next to me on the couch, “I told you I had that kind of money. I had a little trouble convincing the bank I really wanted to draw this much cash, but . . . ” She laughed and ran a hand up my arm and rested it on my shoulder. “Here it is. And it's all yours. If you just make up your mind to do it.”

“Oh, I already have made up my mind.” My throat felt dry. I burned it into submission with a long swallow of coffee.

She looked at me disapprovingly. “Nicky . . . . ”

I waved her objections away. “No, you don't get it,” I said. “I've made up my mind . . . to do it.”

Her eyes lit up, and she leaned closer to me. She'd been drinking again; I could smell it on her. “Can we start right now?”

I glanced at the clock. “Don't you want dinner first?”

She shrugged. “I'm not hungry.” She stood up. “Where should we do it?”

“Look, I don't know if we should do this right now,” I said.

She glared at me — the first time I'd realized she was capable of real anger. “Why the hell not?”

“Well, for one thing, you've been drinking.”

She made no response.

“Haven't you?” I prodded.

“What does that have to do with it?” she demanded.

“That has everything to do with it,” I said flatly. “Alcohol thins your blood. You bleed too much during the inking.”

“I don't care.” She leaned over me with a strange glitter in her eyes. “Do you understand? I just don't care. I'll take good care of it, real good care of it, you'll see, it'll heal okay.” She reached out a hand to help me up. “I just want to hurry up and go through with this — ” Her voice softened. “ — before you change your mind.”

I looked at her for a moment, and downed the rest of the coffee. “Hell, you've got a point,” I mumbled. “Let's go. My stuff's up in the bedroom.”

She hurried upstairs, looking over her shoulder now and again to be sure I was following her.

I walked into the bedroom behind her and picked my bag up off the nightstand. I opened it and started to lay out the materials I needed. I heard the sound of a zipper behind me, and I turned to look.

She slid easily out of her pants and underwear and dropped them to the floor where she stood. She stepped out of them and ignored them, like shedding a skin. She walked unselfconsciously around the bed and sat down on it, leaning back into the pillows. She quietly watched me work for a minute.

“You think of a design?” I said, uncomfortable with the silence.

“No, not really,” she laughed. “Whatever you feel like doing.”

I glanced up at her. “Look, this is going on your body forever, you know.”

“I know.”

“So . . . don't you want some say in the design?”

She shrugged. “I trust you.” She looked up at the ceiling. “What kinds of designs do you like to do?”

I shrugged back. “Roses are nice. Cats. These are nice designs.” I brushed my hand against her breast, thinking of the tattoo that was hidden under the fabric of her T-shirt. “Something alive. I see too many skulls and knives and guns, too many people want me to put things like that on their bodies.” I grimaced just thinking about it. “Tattoos just seem . . . I dunno, too much a celebration of life to me, of our bodies, to want to have all this death.”

She looked at me, eyes wide and trusting. “You really care about your art.”

I frowned slightly. I rigged the new set of needles together. “I guess,” I said. “I hate to call it art. That sounds so fucking pretentious. But I guess I do care about it.”

“I knew you did,” she said softly. “I can tell from your interviews.”

I looked away from her. “Yeah.” I started to fill a couple of disposable wells with different colors of ink. “Look,” I said, changing the subject, “If you don't know what design you want, do you at least know what colors you want?”

“Hmmm.” She lay back and thought about it. “I like red. That's probably my favorite color. Red and yellow and orange. Fire colors.”

“Hmmm,” I echoed. I put down the inks and grabbed my sketchbook, flipping through its pages. “How about something like this?”

I pointed to a picture of a sunset that I'd done in colored pencils. The sun was setting over water, a ball of flame reflected, distorted by ripples and waves.

It was one I'd really been wanting to do. It would be a challenge to shade right; the pencils hadn't done justice to the picture I had in my head. And I wanted the challenge of making that picture real. Any scratcher can do some half-assed, all-black, simply-outlined tribal pattern. But this . . . well, if I did it right, I guessed it would be art.

“That's really pretty,” she breathed. “You want to do this one? On me?” She sounded flattered.

“Well, if it's what you want,” I said.

“Sure,” she said, handing the sketchbook back to me.

I shook my head, a faint, bewildered smile on my lips. “Okay. I wish all my customers had been this easy to please.”

She laughed. I pulled a naked razor blade out of my bag. I moved it to her hip, and she flinched away from it.

“This is just to remove the hair from the area,” I said.

“I know,” she said apologetically. “I've just always had people use safety razors before, is all.”

“This'll do a better job.”

“I know.” She looked unconvinced.

“You just said you trusted me.” I smiled gently. “Wanna change your mind?”

“No.” It was barely a whisper.

I lowered the razor to touch her skin. Gingerly, carefully. Almost a caress. Sharp metal instead of soft fingertips.

Soon, the area on her hip I intended to work on was as bare and smooth as it was the day she was born. I took a pen in hand and began sketching the outlines of what I had in mind.

She relaxed noticeably under the touch of the pen.

After a while, I handed her a hand mirror.

“What do you think?” I asked. “How's the placement? The size?”

She looked at it for a moment, then got off the bed and walked over to the full length mirror. She turned back and forth, admiring the sketch, admiring herself. “Looks good,” she said.

“Okay.” I picked up the tattoo gun. “Last chance to back out.” I grinned.

She laughed. “Yours, too,” she said.

Neither of us moved. “Okay, then,” I said. She headed back toward the bed. I stopped her.

“Actually,” I said, “my bed isn't anywhere near firm enough to work on.”

She put a hand on the bed and pressed down on it, feeling the springs. “You're probably right,” she said. “What do we do?”

“The floor?” I suggested. She nodded, and helped me pick up some of our dirty clothes and put them in the empty laundry hamper.

I pushed the bed against the wall, and grabbed a blanket off of it. I spread it down on the floor as a work area. She lay down on it, and grabbed a couple of pillows to prop up her head.

I spread a thin layer of petroleum jelly over the sketch on her skin as a lubricant for the needle. I snapped on the tattoo gun, and its buzzing filled the room.

We didn't speak as I started to work.

I can remember how it started, vaguely. Bits and pieces.

Her soft gasps as the needles vibrated back and forth, penetrating her skin, until she got used to the pain.

My hands moving smoothly and precisely, steadier than they ever are when I direct them to other tasks.

Watching her T-shirt cling to her with her perspiration as I worked on her in the confined room.

Beginning the outlining. Changing the needles, changing the inks. Subtle variations in color.

Then I remember . . . .

My heartbeat sounding in my ears, blood rushing to my head. Each breath coming faster than the one before.

The tick of the clock increasing its tempo, until I couldn't distinguish individual ticks. It came as a slow buzz, underscoring the whine of the gun in my hand.

My hands moving faster and faster, the needles no longer moving in slow, elegant scratches along her skin. Blood flowing from her, just as I had warned her. Each stroke like the slash of a razor. Art made violence.

Then after that . . . .

After that . . . .

I don't know what happened after that.