The mirror to my Sonny was Dex, who’d been in and out of the shop for days. Half the time, something was eating his butt cheek and he’d go into the shop and head directly into the office, leaving me to have to sneak in randomly to get my work done. On the occasion that he was in a good mood, he’d smiled at me exactly three times—and God, it was a smile—and once he touched my hand when he walked by.
Not that I was counting or anything.
My days off were spent driving around Austin. I visited the Capitol, walked down Sixth Street during the day, which completely turned me off almost immediately when some douche bag started following me around. Sonny took me to a swimming hole one Sunday. We visited Trip's apartment another day. We went to the movies together a few times. After my second paycheck, I signed up for the closest YMCA to the house—because I’d seen quite a bit of apartments close to Sonny for when I moved in the hopefully near future—and started spending a quarter of each day swimming and exercising there.
It was good. I was happy with my quiet, little life.
Including when I found myself back at Pins, with Slim asking me how long I’d been working with him.
“A month.”
He sounded out the words slowly. “I think you’ve been here long enough.”
This was suspicious. “For what?”
Slim grinned. “To break in that canvas, Iris.”
I'd thought about getting a tattoo nearly every day but I still hadn't talked myself into it. "But I don’t want to get one unless I’m sure I like what I’m getting.”
“Then get a piercing on the house. Me or Blue can do it.”
“Iris, you getting a tattoo?” Blake called out from his spot at his station, hunched over a customer's bare back.
I shot Slim a funny look. “No, but Slim’s trying to talk me into getting a piercing.”
“Do it,” he egged on.
A piercing. A piercing? Hmm. I could live with a piercing. It wasn’t permanent, and after seeing how many women and men came in to get various parts of their body pierced, it couldn’t have been that bad. Plus I couldn’t say I hadn’t gotten a little envious when I’d seen someone walk out feeling like a million bucks after spending time in the torture chamber. What was the worst that could happen? I'd take it out if I hated it?
Plus, needles and I were old friends. Not necessarily best friends, but I wasn't afraid of getting poked and prodded.
My facial expression must have given away my thoughts because the redhead started nodding. “C'mon,” Slim pressured.
“But where?” I looked down at my hands like there would be some magical map leading me to the best spot on my body to get violated with by a needle.
“Nose!” Blake called out. How the hell he still clearly heard our conversation from all the way over at his station with Mastodon playing was beyond me.
I shook my head, imagining myself with a nose piercing. While there was nothing wrong with it—there was nothing special or messed up with my nose—I couldn’t see myself with one. “Nah.”
“Your eyebrow?” Slim suggested.
I thought about it. “No. I’m not cool enough to pull it off. Or tough.” Just yesterday, I screamed when a flying roach made its way into the parlor.
The two guys, and possibly even the customer, laughed.
“Get your tongue pierced,” Blake threw out.
No. Hell no.
When I was seventeen, my best friend at the time snuck off and got his tongue pierced behind his parents’ backs. A week later, he had a knot the size of a golf ball in his mouth, and ended up unable to eat solid food for months. That thing was traumatizing, and I liked food too much to risk it.
“No. I like to eat, and that’ll make guys think I like to give hugs with my mouth, you know what I mean?” I stated, matter-of-factly.
“What the fuck?” someone asked from behind me. That someone specifically being Dex.
Kill me. Kill me now.
My face flamed up like a tomato when I turned around to see him smirking, holding a bottle of chocolate Nesquik in his hand. “Uhh… I meant—“
Dex burst out laughing. His head was tipped back and he was laughing his ass off, this deep, throaty sound that made me smile even though I felt like an idiot for what I’d said.
“I’m gonna have to use that one day,” Slim grinned, shaking his head. “Hey girl, wanna give me a hug with that sweet mouth?”
I groaned through my smirk. “Please don’t.”
Dex, who couldn't contain his laughter, focused in on me. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
Slim hooked a thumb in my direction. “We’re trying to talk Iris into getting a piercing as her rite of passage to Pins.”
Well shit. Before there was medical insurance, there was a piercing.
Dex looked over, sized me from the waist up since I was sitting down, and hummed.
“What about your—,” Blake started before Dex shot him a pointed look.
“Not happenin', bro.”
Whatever he was going to say I had a feeling wouldn’t be something I really wanted to know about, so I didn’t bother asking him to finish his sentence.
Dex focused in on me again, blue eyes bright against the tan skin of his face. “Belly button, babe.”
My belly button.
It wasn’t on my face. No one would see it unless I showed it to them, and if I took it out, the scarring would be so small no one would notice it.
But still. “Does it hurt?”
Dex seriously bit his lip but it was pointless. His mouth started curling upward in amusement. “I don’t think any of us would know from personal experience.”
I made a face. Smart ass again. “I’d hope not.”
“Every girl I’ve ever pierced hasn’t complained too much, Iris. I think your cartilage was more painful,” Slim explained. “Now if you were getting your nipple,” he bugged his eyes out, “Or something like your hood pierced, then I’d probably tell you not to do it until you did something easier first.”
“Uhh...where exactly does a hood piercing go?” I asked slowly, feeling naïve as I clenched my thighs together in perceived fear. I’d seen pictures of some non-traditional piercings and read things in novels that made me debate whether to grin or blush, but… I thought that was pretty rare.
His lazy grin was my answer. “Let's look it up,” he suggested.
I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have been curious enough to look, but I did. Slim leaned over the computer, quickly typing in a search that brought up page after page of different types of piercings.
The first few pictures were pretty PG. A single eyebrow, double eyebrow like Blake's, nose, tongue, labret, snake bites, the septum, nose bridge! The more Slim clicked through, the more I started to wonder whether I should be looking or running. There were nipple piercings on men and women, and then I saw the vagina.
A hood piercing. A vertical one, horizontal one, a deep one...I shuddered and like an idiot, put my finger over Slim’s to go to the next page.
Penis!
A dick popped out at me from the screen. A hard dick with a piercing that curled from the urethra through the head.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, looking at the damn picture longer than I should have, crossing the line between appreciation and staring.
But it wasn’t over. I glanced at the picture right below it and saw rows of penises.
I gulped.
A long, incredibly thick one with a piercing straight through the head. Top to bottom. In print on the lower half it had “Apadravya” labeling it. One penis after another popped up on the screen. Pictures with words like frenum, dydoe, lorum, and pubic slapped me in the face—visually, not physically. Unfortunately, I would say since they were all impressive...could an erection be pretty?
Not that I had much experience to go off of but whatever.
My thighs clenched together, and I’m sure my eyes were nearly the size of the sun. I started huffing, a sign that I was go
ing to regret the nervous words that were going to spill out of me. Words that cemented I was lonely in not just an emotional sense. “Do those help the man or the woman?"
“What do you think?” Dex asked a little too quickly.
I stuttered, entranced with the image on the screen. I should have been grateful I didn't reach up to stroke the screen, that would have been horrible. Not that staring was any better.
“Dex has one,” Slim spit out in a laugh.
My gaze stayed forward. “Pardon?” I coughed.
Slim shook his head, grinning wide. “Dex? Am I lying?”
My focus slid over to the man in question. The man in question who had his eyes locked on me, bleeding me out with the focus of his gaze. And it was with that same confidence, that complete concentration that he shook his head slow, slow, slowly. Grinning just like a man with no shame at all. “You ain’t lyin’.”
A volcano erupted on my face with his answer. I opened my mouth, unable to say anything. Whaaaat? So I did the only thing that could remotely save my honor.
I face-planted the desk.
And then started mumbling, “Way too much information.” They might have been laughing but I was too humiliated by the fact that I’d been ogling a stranger’s penis—and requesting one just like it from Santa—when the man behind me had what I was sitting there admiring. And the man behind me being Dex. If it would have been Blake, I might have grimaced but…
“C’mon, Iris, it’s cool,” Slim chuckled, gesturing toward the screen. “You'd be surprised how many guys get them."
He was full of shit and I knew it.
I didn’t bother looking up and settled for closing my eyes, but all I could do then was imagine that big, pierced cock on Dex’s body. Holy moly.
“I can't—I mean—that looks really painful.” I mumbled against the table in a strained whisper that sounded almost like a whine.
No one denied the fact that getting your genitals pierced was painful. Screw that.
"I hope they're worth it."
“You wanna find out?” Dex teased.
What in the hell?
Everything below my neck flushed at his question, but I steered away from it. There was no denying the hint of flirtation in his tone. Then again, I hadn't seen him with any other women since that morning at the auto shop. Though I doubted he was suffering from deprivation, you never know. Maybe he was.
But probably not.
“Babe, go choose a belly button ring,” Dex murmured at the same time fingertips brushed across the back of my neck.
Glancing back at the screen, my belly fluttered.
Friggin' hell, those pictures were going to be burned into the back of my eyelids forever. If I ever got desperate for Spank Bank material, penis piercings were the thing to search for.
“Come on, I hid some of the cool rings we got in the last shipment,” Slim urged.
I sighed, focusing on the gangly redhead instead of the beast on the computer screen. The picture with the monstrous thing. Gah! I needed to pull it together.
~ * ~ *
“If my belly button gets infected or the piercing is crooked, I'm going to give all your appointments to Blue from now on,” I failed epically at joking from the chair in one of the private rooms.
Slim had showed me some of the new navel rings they’d gotten right before I was hired. I settled on a white gold piece—my ears swelled up if I put anything in them that wasn’t gold or hypoallergenic—with a pretty, round, green crystal. To be honest, I was pretty excited to do it since I loved the jewelry.
“You’ll be fine,” he assured me, pulling out the sterilized equipment he’d need from the autoclave. A particularly large and thicker than normal needle made its way into his grip. Slim caught my eyes and grinned. "Needles freak you out?"
I snorted. Yeah right. "Not at all."
"Good."
He had already talked me through the procedure and all he needed to do by that point was wipe some orange stuff followed by marking two places where the needle needed to go through.
“Let's just get it over with. I'm getting anxious,” I groaned, leaning back so that I was face-up on the chair, rolling my head to the side where the door was to find Dex standing just outside of it, looking in.
“I’ll do it, Slim,” he said, taking a step forward.
Slim shrugged without bothering to turn around and look at our boss. “Go for it. Everything’s ready.”
I thought it was weird that Dex offered to do it for me because I hadn’t seen him do any piercings in the time I’d been there. "I don't mean to be rude, but do you know what you're doing?"
He turned to look at me over his shoulder and simply scowled. Slim snickered.
All right then.
There was the snapping and popping of gloves being put on, and the next thing I knew, Dex was rolling my shirt up over my chest. The fingers on one of his hands rested directly over my navel for a second before he swiped me with a cool towelette that stained my skin a dark orange.
He worked silently, making thoughtful faces as he leaned over with a marker in his hand dotting two spots. One directly on my belly and one out of view. He pulled a mirror off the counter to show me what he’d marked.
“Symmetrical, yeah?” he asked me like I could really tell if it was even or not when his big body loomed over mine with the apadravya piercing still so fresh in my mind.
My nod was slow. “Yeah.”
He flashed me a little grin, another rarity, before murmuring as he used surgical-type clamps to pinch together the skin, “I’m gonna to tell you when to hold your breath, and when to let it out, all right? It’s just a pinch.”
The transfer from needle to jewelry was so quick, if it wasn’t for the awkward burning sensation that happened after he pushed the needle through me and transferred the jewelry, I wouldn’t have winced or anything.
Dex took a step back, admiring his work with a watchful eye. “Perfect.”
I sat up on my elbows and looked down at my new piercing. It was pretty awesome. “Nice,” I whispered, sitting up completely. I touched the top of it gingerly with my index finger before pulling my shirt down and over it with a grin. “Thanks, guys.”
Slim nodded, his eyes focused in on Dex. "Dude, when was the last time you did a piercing? I can't remember."
~ * ~ *
“I need a drink.” Dex announced, setting the alarm at Pins. It wasn't even midnight but the shop was dead and we all agreed it was pointless to stay open. “I’m buyin'.”
Blake let out a howl of approval that was a perfect companion for Slim’s whistle.
The loud beeping drowned out the slight murmur of whatever Blue said but based on the nod she was sharing, I figured she was excited about free drinks too. It wasn’t until we were outside and I was trying to inch my way toward my car when Dex turned to look at me.
“You comin’?”
I hesitated.
“You’re comin’,” he said it as a statement instead of a question that time.
I blinked at him standing there with his arms at his sides. “I don’t really drink.” The same way I didn't eat fried foods, white bread, or meat. Plenty of people didn’t like alcohol. But plenty of people also liked to tease me about being a goody two shoes when that wasn’t the case at all.
"You don’t really drink?” He repeated it just like I had when he'd asked me about my visit to the library.
I shook my head.
“No beer?”
“I drank half of one a few weeks ago," I offered.
“Cute girly drink?”
I smiled but shook my head. “Hardly ever.”
Dex’s lips quirked up at the corners again. “Straight vodka, babe?”
I snorted. “The day you get your belly button pierced.”
And I waited. I waited for one of them to say some sort of smartass comment like the majority of people did when I told them. Most people made it seem like there was something wrong with me for not liking the
taste of alcohol or beer and especially disliking the one and only time I got drunk. Going into an explanation why I didn't drink was unnecessary.
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