“I’d like that,” I reached out brightly colored fingers and lightly touched his face. His eyes snapped up to mine and I leaned forward and brushed my lips across his. His eyes slipped shut and he kissed me back.
“I don’t know how to do this Aaron,” I said after we’d broken apart. I closed my eyes with shame and turned my head, swallowing hard.
“Tell me,” he said softly and settled back into the softness of his bed, his calloused fingertips trailed against my skin, his liquid brown eyes roving the images inked underneath, picking out different things from the myriad mash of colors. I closed my eyes again and relished the simple touch. I didn’t get touched very often and this… this was nice.
“Andy?” his voice broke me out of the comfortable silence, his fingertips withdrew and I opened my eyes.
“Don’t stop?” I pleaded, “I’m just trying to figure out where to start.”
He frowned slightly and nodded, his fingertips sliding down my arm, over my hip and back up, “I’ve never seen someone as tattooed as you,” he murmured.
“I knew I was different in about the fourth or fifth grade,” I whispered. “While most of the other boys were starting to notice Nikki Stratford’s budding tits, I was noticing how well Michael Donovan was filling out through the shoulders. It only got worse. I was into choir while the rest of the dudes were getting into sports. I liked drama and art class and the name calling started,” my voice hitched. These were not my favorite moments of history to relive. Like at all.
“I was fifteen when I came out to my parents and my dad first kicked my ass and then kicked my ass out.” Aaron made a sympathetic noise and I shook my head. “Don’t, don’t do that. I don’t want to be pitied,” I said and my voice came out harsher than I meant it to. Aaron cupped my face in his hands and forced me to look at him.
“Sympathize? Yes. Empathize? Yes. Pity you? What for?” he smiled and this tightness in my chest eased.
“What about you?” I asked, needing to get the topic of conversation off of me for a minute.
“About the same. I managed to hide it for the most part. I played baseball, took a girlfriend, went through the motions until I moved away from home. Got into college and everything is different in college,” he smiled like I should know and I shook my head. He looked surprised.
“Dad kicked my ass out when I was fifteen, remember?” I leveled Aaron with a steady gaze as I continued, “Disowned me, told my mother and my sister I was dead to them. I had this friend in high school, my only friend really, Sarah Warren. She and her mom took me in. Let me sleep on their couch for a while but Sarah’s mom was barely making ends meet. I tried to get out and find a job. Had to drop out of school… My art was what kept me going. I would draw as a way to escape.” I closed my eyes, this next bit was a bitch to talk about.
“When it got cold, I would beg for enough change… I needed a buck twenty-four. A buck twenty four was my ticket to paradise man. There was this shitty fucking diner and a buck twenty four would buy me a bottomless cup of coffee. Which not only warmed me up, but gave me a warm place to sit all day and helped when I got hungry. I learned pretty damned quick to lie my fucking ass off when somebody asked my age. I was fifteen fucking years old,” I scrubbed my face with my hands, breathed deep and breathed out.
I had done some shit, a lot of shit, that I am just plain not fucking proud of back then just to survive. You get fucking hungry enough or cold enough you’d do just about anything. I’d had to hustle, fucking steal, fight my way out of more situations… I’d done just about every drug known to man just to fucking forget where I was, who I was, what I was that had landed me in some of the shittiest fucking places. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t even fucking know why I was telling Aaron any of this… other than he was the first and only person I had ever, never lied to and I didn’t want to start now.
“You don’t have to tell me anymore right now,” he started when I’d been silent too long, “I just… I just want to know you Andy, you’re different than anyone else I’ve ever met. Truer, more honest somehow,” he looked at me, eyes bright and I scoffed. If only he knew how fucking far off the mark he was.
“I like you Aaron. Don’t know what it is about you but you’re fucking electric,” I told him and he smiled. We kissed and that charge thrilled through my lips and went straight to my cock.
“Make you breakfast?” he asked softly against my mouth.
“I’d like that,” I said and let him go.
“Stay there, I want you to be comfortable and after last night, I think you’ve earned breakfast in bed,” I laughed and couldn’t help my mind drifting back to his talented mouth on my cock which stirred some more beneath his covers.
I watched him move naked around his kitchen, which admittedly I couldn’t see much between the counter and the cupboards that hung from the ceiling, but it was enough. He fixed us some ham and cheese omelets and some toast and joined me back in the bed.
“Thanks,” I said appreciatively. I caught his eyes roaming over my ink again and I couldn’t blame him. I was a riot of color. My arms both had full sleeves to the point the backs of my hands were done too. It looked like I wore fingerless gloves of ink, the knuckles of my fists tattooed with elaborate letters right fist spelling ‘love’ and my dominant hand, the left, spelling ‘pain’. My back was completely done; so was my ass. Both legs were fully sleeved too, right down to the tops of my feet. I had tattoos painting my ribs all the way up. Both sides of my neck done too. Most of my ink was bastardized versions of children’s cartoons. I had a zombified little mermaid on the left side of my ribs, her tail half rotted away, and I had an image of Snow White ball gagged and pulling a train of the seven dwarves over my right hip, curving around onto my back.
I had an image of Cinderella on my thigh, black eye and fat lip with the caption ‘When did he stop treating you like a princess?’ underneath her in flowing script that was almost swallowed by the next image. My skin had become a patchwork of a broken childhood and just generally fucked up images meant to evoke feelings of discomfort. It‘s only part of what earned me the nickname Squick and I could see the question in Aaron’s eyes.
“Go ahead and ask,” I said softly.
“Your skin is beautiful, so many bright colors… but some of the images are so…”
“Vile? Fucked up? Squicky?” I supplied when he’d fallen quiet, trying to come up with a word that described them that wouldn’t be offensive.
“Yes. Those too but also thought provoking and beautiful in their own right and not all of them are… messed up. Just, I guess, why?” he continued to look, fingertips brushing a rose on my arm that curved around a white Phantom of the Opera mask with a French flag behind it. The image was small and sat on the rounded bone of my wrist. It had hurt like a bitch but it was Ashton’s tattoo and had been worth it when Zander had done it for me.
She had the same small image inked on the back of her right shoulder. Her first tattoo done by Trig and all her idea. She’d asked me to draw it for her though, and I’d been so honored. About a week after Trig had put it on her, (because let’s face it, if anyone was going to put ink under Ashton’s skin it was going to be him) I’d had Zander do the same image on me. Ashton had almost cried when I’d shown her. She was thrilled at having matching tattoos. Thank fuck. I was half afraid she’d be upset at not having an original to her piece, but nope. Not Sunshine. Generous to the last. That was her.
I thought about what Aaron was asking me and played with my lip ring, flicking it back and forth with the tip of my tongue as I contemplated the best way to answer him. Truth was it had started when I was sixteen with the Johnny the Homicidal Maniac tattoo. I related to the character. Nny was fucked up in the head but it was beyond his control. After my dad kicked my ass out, I pretty much felt like I was on the same wavelength. I felt like I was fucked up in the head for being gay but knew, beyond the shadow of any doubt that it was beyond my control.
“When I started getting ink done, I fe
lt like Nny. Fucked up in the head for being gay, but at the same time like it was beyond my control. You know? What I did have control over was what I put under my skin and I guess that just kind of came out. I just got this affinity for images that were fucked up. A twisting of something innocent so after getting all of the JTHM characters in one place or another I just kind of moved on to other cartoon characters,” I shrugged.
“Not going to lie Andy, I was really entertained by the dead Mickey Mouse in the rat trap on your ass. I thought it was pretty funny,” he admitted. I laughed and hugged Aaron to me.
“Of all of ‘em that’s your favorite huh?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that! I haven’t seen them all to decide on which one is my favorite. You’ll just have to come back tonight so I can look at them all,” he gave me a cheeky grin.
“Tonight huh?” I asked and rubbed a hand up and down the ink free skin down the middle of my chest and stomach.
“Yeah.”
“I work tonight,” I reminded him.
“Come by after,” his tone was eager and brooked no argument. I laughed.
“I don’t know,” I teased and sobered a bit, “Club business could come up,” I said.
“Well if it doesn’t,” he prompted.
“I’ll be here,” I said and the smile that graced his lips was worth it. He kissed me, and then he went to work with that talented mouth of his.
God he was phenomenal, but all too soon we had to shower and get dressed. He had to get to practice and I had to get back to my bike and ride home for a change of clothes before the shop opened for the day. As I left him at his bus stop I couldn’t help but feel so many things all at once. Excited, troubled, exhilarated, scared… to name a few. Anxiety gnawed at me. I sighed as I swung a leg over my bike.
It was probably best just to see where things would go. To not overthink it and to just enjoy what stolen moments I could have with Aaron because I had to face it; the club came first, before anything. I’d worked too hard to stop now and I wasn’t going to which meant that my time with Aaron was limited. One, I was afraid the guys would find out. Seeing the looks of disgust and disappointment like I’d seen on my family’s face? Well, I didn’t want to face that from the only other family I’d ever known since. Trig and Zander were good guys. They’d hired me knowing I was hooked on drugs, put up with me flaking and kept my clients safe when I was too high to hold a gun steady. They helped me, guided me; shaped me into a phenomenal tattooist, picking up where Rusty left off. God love that man.
I owed Trig and Zander as much as I owed Rusty for taking a chance on me in the first place. The old school and just plain old tattoo artist had seen my drawings in my sketchbook at the café I used to camp out in when the weather was shit. He started talking to me. Put me up in a room in the back of his shop. Started mentoring me. He knew damn well I wasn’t eighteen. He had me clean up the shop, got me a fake ID in case anyone came around asking, went to my folks place and strong armed the important papers I’d need to get around in life. You know, my birth certificate, my social security card… Those things. I still don’t know how he found out about my parents or where they were but my dad must have told him I was a fag or some shit.
Rusty had come into the shop with this manila file folder with my papers in it, he had told me point blank he didn’t care if I sucked dick or liked having my ass reamed, just not to do it around his shop. Then he just handed over my stuff and we never spoke on it again and I just sort of fell into the groove of don’t ask/don’t tell. Rusty died suddenly in his sleep a year or two later but not before teaching me how to drive, how to fix my own car, how to tattoo and most importantly how to survive. I mean I knew how to fight, I’d pretty much had to figure that shit out on my own as a matter of necessity but Rusty, he taught me how to do it better. He taught me how to fight dirtier and he taught me how to not to give a fuck about whoever it was I was facing off against.
In the year and a half or so with Rusty I learned more about life and survival than in all my years living under my parent’s roof. Rusty was like the father I always should have had. When he died the bank foreclosed on his shop and I was cast adrift again, only this time I had a car to live out of for the mean time and a fucking bank account with some cash in it. Not only that, I had a couple of marketable skills.
I found an ad in the paper that Open Road Ink was opening and needed a new school artist so I went in. Zander looked over my stuff, handed it off to Trig who took one look at me instead of my art and asked me what I was on. I didn’t try to bullshit him. I told him I was tweaking. They helped me get my shitty apartment by being references. Trig, who’s intimidating as fuck on a good day and wasn’t having many of ‘em back then, told me if I fucked him he’d fuck me back harder, and the rest is history.
I went into my apartment and threw some clothes into a backpack along with my good art pencils and sketch book and checked the time. Shit. Four missed calls from Zander. I hadn’t remembered putting my phone on silent. I called him back.
“What’s up?” I asked as soon as he answered.
“Nothin’ now, got it handled. Where the fuck were you?” he asked.
“Nowhere, sleeping didn’t realize I had my phone on silent,” I lied and he sighed.
“Yeah, bullshit. Your bike was outside the shop. False alarm last night, fucking system was on the fritz again and you live closer. Tried to get you to go out there and check on it. I ended up going,” he said.
“Oh.” I didn’t have a clever comeback for that one.
“So seriously where were you?” he asked, curiosity lacing his tone.
“Went out drinkin’ with a buddy of mine, racked out on his couch,” I said.
“Mmm,” he grunted, “Why didn’t you just say so kid?”
“I’m hung over and it ain’t yer business?” I tried, he laughed.
“You asking me or telling me, Squickie m’boy?” I hung my head and rubbed the back of my neck.
“I’m fucking telling you douchebag! Is that better?” The smile in my voice took a lot of any bite that would have been in it right out. Zander’s laugh boomed over the phone and I grinned.
“Alright man, you keep your secrets even though you don’t have to,” he wheezed out, and I grimaced, “I’ll see you in a few.”
“Yeah be right there,” I said and we hung up. If only he knew just how many and how much I needed to keep my secrets, I mean honestly.
I changed into clean clothes so I wasn’t wearing what I’d been in yesterday and took off. My car wasn’t running and it was getting cold for the bike but I didn’t exactly have time to fix the damned thing. Even less now, so the old Mazda got to just sit for now. The ride to the shop was brisk. I backed my bike into the parking stall next to Zander’s and shut it off. I went in, helmet in hand and nodded to the man himself behind the counter.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Another day another dollar,” he grunted. I nodded.
“Sorry about last night man,” I told him. I mean shit, friendship aside he was still my boss.
“No worries, you got a life too. Glad to see you gettin’ out,” he was counting out the till, getting it ready for the day. The green bills sliding through his thick fingers as he made the count when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I slipped it out of my jeans and smiled.
Aaron: Miss U already. Is that lame?
I smiled.
Me: I don’t think so. I’m thinking about you too. How’s the tat?
“Man, what’s got you smiling?” Zander asked, pausing through the five dollar bills, he raked me over with his gaze, a wicked grin quirking up one side of his mouth.
“Just someone I met last night. It’s nothing,” I shoved my phone in my pocket but he’d gotten that wicked gleam in his eye. The one that was pure Zander and like a dog who’d just found his new favorite bone.
“Seriously. Who?” he asked.
“Nobody!” I lied and rolled my eyes. He chuckled as I made my way across th
e black and white checkered linoleum, past the red and black painted walls, down the black hallway with the framed newspaper articles about the shop and into the riot of color that was my space.
I didn’t do framed photos. My art went right up on the walls. I had two walls with my special brand of new school art mural style on them. The third at the back, with my drafting table pushed up against it, was white. It fluttered with like a million drawings and stencils that had been taped haphazardly to it above and all around my desk. The fourth wall wasn’t even a wall. It was a half wall with a space cut into it to walk into my area. I put my helmet on the shelf under my drafting table and slid my back pack next to it.
I slipped my phone out of my pocket, dying to read the message that had come in on it while Zander was looking at me like I was his next challenge. The dude had to know everything but he was quiet about it. He’d watch and hunt and peck it out of you when you least expected the questions to come in. He was pretty decent at busting down walls, problem was he wasn’t always subtle about it or didn’t care to be. Zander had a temper too which wasn’t always fun to deal with. Still. All the way around he was a cool dude.
Aaron: Itchy
Me: That means it’s dry. Is it scaled looking?
I frowned. I’d given him a tube of Aquaphor that had been living in my jacket pocket. I always had the stuff laying around with as much and with as often as I had my shit touched up.
Aaron: A little.
I sighed and smiled a little to myself. It was his first tattoo. He didn’t know.
Me: You got the stuff I gave you?
Aaron: Yeah I put some on this morning.
Me: Put some more on.
Aaron: Already!?
Me: You’re past due.
Aaron: I thought it was a once or twice a day thing.
Me: Every time it gets dry. Trust me. I’m a professional.
Aaron: LOL Okay. Have a good day. I have to go in to practice now. See you tonight?
Me: Barring any club business, yes.
Aaron: :-*
Me: WTF is that?
Masked & Miserable: A Novella of the Sacred Hearts MC (Book 3.5) Page 3