FEELS LIKE THE FIRST TIME

by Scott Hildreth

  “So, what have you got in mind?” he asked.

  Not knowing whether the slight growth of facial hair was the result of having hurried out of his house in the morning, or something he had done intentionally didn’t really matter, it was the perfect complement to his strong jawline and made him even more attractive. He was the exact opposite of what I had expected.

  I reached over my shoulder and patted my upper right back with my left hand as I nervously cleared my throat.

  “‘She flies with her own wings’, but in Latin,” I said.

  He nodded his head and grinned.

  “What?” I asked, feeling as if he knew something I didn’t.

  He cocked an eyebrow slightly. “You sure?”

  “Uh huh,” I responded.

  He coughed a laugh and pointed upward. “Pull your shirt down over your shoulder and turn around.”

  “What?” I asked as I pulled the neck of my shirt past my shoulder.

  He shook his head lightly as he twirled his index finger in a circle. I turned away from him and glanced over my shoulder, still wondering what he found funny about my request.

  “What?” I asked again as he stepped closer.

  I continued to peer toward him as he raised his hand. With my eyes fixed on his tattooed knuckles, he reached for my shoulder.

  He traced along the skin of my upper back with the tip of his index finger.

  “Here? Is this where you want it?” he asked.

  Goosebumps rose along my arm. I closed my eyes and inhaled a choppy shallow breath. A simple trip to the tattoo parlor was quickly becoming a difficult walk down sensuality lane. I attempted to swallow, opened my mouth, and murmured a response.

  “Yeah.”

  I wasn’t necessarily prepared for him to touch me when he did so. I really don’t know what I could have done to prepare myself, but whatever it was, I hadn’t done it. He leaned forward, and although I suspected it was innocent, breathed into my right ear as he spoke.

  “What I do to you is going to last forever, you need to be sure this is what you want before we go any further,” he said.

  You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?

  His warm breath against my neck caused me to shudder. I opened my eyes, gazed out the window, and did my best to respond.

  “Ah-lees Vo-lat Proh-pee-us,” I said.

  And the brief sensual moment I believed we were sharing was instantly severed as he began to laugh out loud.

  Chapter 2

  BLAKE

  Everyone has their own set of problems, and for me to claim I was anything short of normal would be a damned lie. Although I may not admit the extent of my concerns or issues with attempting to live a normal life to everyone, being honest with myself wasn’t difficult.

  Not really

  I was an addict.

  Anything that made me feel good had the potential of being a problem, and even realizing how broad of a swath the anything paintbrush covered, it was an accurate statement. Admitting my deficiencies allowed me to look at life through realistic eyes, identify possible threats, potentially bite my respective lip, and turn away before I allowed myself to get into any more trouble.

  The last six months of my life had been difficult, but not impossible.

  One day at a time was my new motto, and although living it proved difficult at times, I did my best. My profession didn’t help matters, but I knew it would be impossible to find something I enjoyed more than owning my own tattoo shop. There was something about leaving a permanent mark on another person’s skin that being a cop, selling cars, or landscaping yards couldn’t compete with.

  Tall, well-proportioned, and cute in an odd “I don’t give a fuck what I look like” way, she stood facing away from me with the neck of her tee shirt pulled down over her upper arm. I glanced down at her ass. Prying my eyes away from it and attempting to keep from looking like a pervert wasn’t easy, but I was doing my best.

  Eventually I tore my eyes from her lower half.

  “Alis volat propriis.” It seemed I’d said the three words a thousand times in my short career of tattooing.

  “Proh-pee-us,” she said, mispronouncing the overused Latin phrase once again.

  I stepped around her and shook my head. “I’ve done a few of these. Ah-lis woh-lat proh-pree-is is the proper pronunciation. The ‘v’ is pronounced like a ‘w’, and there’s an ‘r’ in there. Believe me; it’s not proh-pee-us.”

  She scrunched her nose and stared. “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t mean to laugh, it’s just that I’ve done like a hundred of these fuckers, and I’m quite sure, but let’s have a look,” I said as I motioned toward the monitor.

  I reached for the keyboard and typed “She flies with her own wings in Latin” into Google’s search window. The entire page filled with responses to my search, all spelling the phrase properly, and including an “r” as I had indicated.

  “Well, there it is,” I said as I waved my hand toward the screen.

  She leaned over the counter, squinted, and stared at the screen. The crack of her ass and a very attractive torso exposed themselves as her shirt climbed up her waist. Guessing her age at mid-twenties, I was surprised she had waited as long as she did to get her first tattoo. It seemed most girls attempted to pop their tattoo cherry at roughly 16 years old, using their parent’s consent as confirmation of their need to have their skin marked with whatever their adolescent mind dreamed up as necessary.

  “Sorry, I didn’t bring my glasses in,” she said as she turned away from the monitor.

  Oh fuck.

  You wear glasses?

  I glanced at Tyler and grinned. He pointed toward the street and nodded his head eagerly.

  I shifted my eyes upward until my gaze met hers. “You wear glasses?”

  Girls who wore bold thick-framed black glasses had been a weakness of mine since eighth grade when I was introduced to Mrs. Reisling, my well-endowed and very nearsighted home room teacher. She didn’t wear low-cut tops as often as I wanted her to, but when she did, every boy in class tried to catch a glimpse of one of her three-pound gravity defying tits. In hindsight, I was sure they were fake, the product of a very talented plastic surgeon. At the time, however, I viewed her as defined perfection, her bold school girl glasses included.

  I stood, staring blankly at my new client, trying to imagine her wearing a bold black-framed Prada or maybe something from Cartier’s newest “fuck me senseless collection”. Three or four seconds later I was fighting with my subconscious self, trying to regain control over my rather eager - and always one step ahead of my brain - male anatomy.

  I gazed beyond her and at the monitor as I desperately tried to think of something else to occupy my mind. Standing in front of her during her first session with a full blown hard on wouldn’t be the welcome I expected she was prepared for.

  Maybe during her second or third session I could rock a stiff cock, but certainly not on the first.

  “I can’t see without them, but I hate to wear ‘em,” she said.

  Hearing her voice caused me to shift my focus away from the monitor. Standing there studying her, she seemed incomplete, half-dressed, and out of place. Something was clearly missing. She really needed to get those glasses.

  “In your car?” I asked, still trying not to focus on her face.

  She nodded her head as she brushed her dishwater blonde hair over her shoulder.

  I shrugged as I turned toward my work station. “You should probably get ‘em so you can see what I’m doing.”

  It was ten o’clock in the morning on a Wednesday, not typically a time of day when we were swamped with clients. I had owned the shop for two years, and even though business was slowly on the increase, we were far from steady with customers early in the morning on a Wednesday.

  “Yeah, go get your glasses. Grab a little plaid skirt and a fucking lollipop while you’re out there,” Tyler said sarcastically as he continued to mess with one of his tattoo machi
nes.

  Luckily, it appeared she didn’t hear him.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said as she tugged her shirt over the waist of her jeans.

  I watched her every step as she walked toward the door without seeming to care if I paid attention to her or not. As she pushed the door open, she glanced over her shoulder. I attempted unsuccessfully to seem uninterested.

  “Dude…” Tyler said as the door closed behind her.

  I turned toward him and grinned, well aware of where his comments were going to be directed.

  “Who is she again?” I asked as I sauntered toward my work station.

  “Friend of a friend.” He paused, turned his stool half way around, and continued to taunt me over his shoulder.

  “I wonder if she’s got the skirt and the lollipop in her car. That’s a bad little bitch, Blake. Be pretty tough to fight the urge to get in her pants, huh?” he said.

  “Stop it. Friend of a friend, huh? Be a little more specific?” I asked as I pulled the drawer of my box open.

  He shook his head. “Not really.”

  I looked up from the collection of tattoo machines and glanced over my left shoulder. Tyler was my first employee, and had quickly become the brother I never had growing up. He was in his late twenties, obtained half of an engineering degree at the local college, and dropped out primarily because he was bored. A few months later, he began serving an apprenticeship under another local tattoo artist, and became licensed immediately prior to me opening my shop. As soon as the lights were on and the door was open, he offered his services along with paying a healthy booth rent, stating the shop he was working for was a drama-filled distraction to his otherwise simple way of living life. In my shop, from what he shared with me, he was able to relax and enjoy being an artist.

  “What the…you’re seriously not going to tell me who she is or where she came from?”

  “Listen. It’s simple, but complicated. You know those deals where sometimes it’s best just to keep your mouth shut? Well, this is one of those deals. And, you’ll get her name when you make a copy of her ID. Don’t forget that, you simple minded fuck. And you’re trying to quit, anyway,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  He narrowed his gaze and stared. “You’re trying to quit fucking the customers, remember?”

  I glanced toward the door. “Tell me, but make it quick, she’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Not gonna happen, bro,” he said as he turned away.

  “Jesus, Tyler…”

  “You said you’re going to stop fucking the chicks that come in here. I’m just trying to help you out, bro,” he said flatly as he continued to fuck with the tattoo machine he held in his hand.

  “Listen, fucker. You need to tell me whatever you…”

  The sound of the buzzer from the front door caused me to look away and warned me to stop talking. All recollections of Mrs. Reisling soon faded as Riley whoever she was walked into the shop wearing the biggest, boldest, hottest pair of old school frames I had ever seen. I swallowed heavily and patted the cushion of the seat in front of me.

  “Grab a seat right here,” I said as I slapped the leather surface with the palm of my hand.

  She now looked five years older and ten times more attractive. I realized a good portion - if not all - of my attraction to women in glasses was a result of an unfulfilled childhood fantasy of boning my large-breasted glasses-donning school teacher, but it didn’t matter. At that moment Riley was causing me to all but forget my entire eighth grade year of middle school.

  “So, you said you’ve done quite a few like this?” she asked as she sat down.

  I nodded my head as I reached for my book of fonts. “Yeah, quite a few.”

  “How many?” she asked.

  “Two fucking hundred,” Tyler respond over his shoulder.

  “I don’t know an exact amount, but it’s probably over a hundred,” I said as I opened the book.

  Tyler glanced toward us and shook his head in apparent disgust.

  I glared at him and shook my head. The last thing I needed was him trying to talk her out of getting the tattoo and having her leave before I got a chance to know more about her. I shifted my eyes toward Riley, and as she studied the book of fonts, I studied her.

  Beautiful. If I had to describe her in one word, there wasn’t another word that would do her justice. I had always perceived using beautiful as a description to be lame and cheap, but to describe Riley as anything but beautiful wouldn’t give her credit where the credit was due. Sitting and gazing down at the pages of the book, she defined beauty in more ways than I could have sat and counted.

  Unconsciously, and almost as if she had no idea I was at her side, she reached for the hair which hung down beside her face - partially obstructing her view of me - and brushed it behind her ear. After turning another page, she tilted her head to the side, grinned, and shifted her eyes to the pages of the book again.

  “Every fucking high school girl up at East High has come in here for one of those as soon as she’s eighteen. Get something original, Jesus,” Tyler mumbled as he spun his stool around.

  I shook my head at his off-hand remarks, relieved that Riley was paying no attention to him.

  Tyler wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, and if anything, he was a little too eager to do so at times. Often his remarks toward women in the shop got me into trouble. It seemed he was always trying to push me beyond a limit I was comfortable with, coercing me to do something I would normally shy away from if he was away from the shop. Recently, after much pleading for him to do so, he had begun to act as my conscience, and was attempting to assist me in my recovery from screwing the patrons.

  I glanced at Riley, attempted to see beyond her glasses, and shrugged.

  “It seems like every high school girl up at East High has been in here to get one of those as soon as she’s eighteen. It’s almost like an epidemic,” I said.

  She inhaled a slow breath and breathed her response. “Are you serious?”

  I glanced beyond her and toward Tyler, who was behind her and well out of her field of vision. He widened his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and gave another snide remark.

  “Put some little black birds flying out of the last letter, and have ‘em flying up her back and onto her fucking neck, that’d be original. What a stupid bitch,” he mumbled.

  I glared at him until he turned around.

  “Yeah, it’s a pretty common piece,” I said.

  She shook her head, swept the loose hair over her shoulders, and shifted her eyes to meet mine. “I don’t want what everyone else has.”

  My gaze shifted slowly from her face to her feet, taking every inch of her in along the way. Her figure, no differently than her face, defined perfection.

  I shrugged my shoulders as I focused on her shoes. “Well? What do you want to do?”

  “Seriously, have you done a hundred of these? Like this exact phrase?” she asked.

  I shifted my eyes upward and nodded my head. “Yeah, probably.”

  She shook her head and handed me the book. “I don’t want it, then.”

  Tyler raised his hands over his head and began to clap. I tossed the book of fonts to the side and reached for the neck of her shirt, attempting the entire time not to stare at her glasses.

  “Get a jalapeno pepper wearing sunglasses. It’s the free tattoo of the week,” Tyler said over his shoulder.

  “We’re all about originality at my shop. It’s kind of what tattoos are about. You know, expressing yourself. Would you consider yourself to be a common person?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Don’t get something so common. Get something original,” I said.

  “Like?” she asked.

  “Go big or go bigger,” Tyler shouted.

  I shook my head, frustrated that he wouldn’t stop making snide remarks.

  Tyler stood and walked toward my work station. As he twisted a rubber band around the needle of his tatt
oo machine, he stood behind us and studied Riley. After a long moment, he turned to face me and shrugged.

  “What’s her story?” he whispered.

  I shrugged my shoulders and leaned toward Riley.

  “What’s your story?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” she responded.

  “Well…” I paused, not certain of how to proceed.

  Tyler stood behind her with his arms crossed, studying her. After a moment, he turned away and shook his head in frustration.

  “Simple question. What’s your fucking story? Everybody’s got one. You know, why you here? Why’d you decide all of a sudden to get a tattoo? Someone die? Have a kid? Break up with some dick? Meet someone and fall in love? Have a fucking epiphany last night at midnight? It’s got to be something,” Tyler mumbled as he walked away.

  I waved my hand in his direction, all but forcing him to go to the other side of the shop and hopefully be quiet.

  “You know, your story. What brought you here? Why’d you decide all of a sudden to get a tattoo? Did someone close to you die? Did you have a kid? Did you just end a shitty relationship, you know, break up with some dick? Did you meet someone and fall in love?” I asked.

  “The third one. Broke up with some dick,” she said.

  I really didn’t need the temptation. I almost wished she would have said she had met someone and fallen in love. It was difficult enough for me to fight my addictions of picking up a bottle of beer, having a drink, or smoking a joint with Tyler. Above all, my addiction to women was the worst, and Riley was easily the best looking specimen I had seen in a long, long time.

  Knowing she was single made matters much worse.

  “Talk her into getting a koi fish or a fucking snake. A koi depicts courage, and a snake represents rebirth, a transformation, and healing. Get a fucking snake and a koi,” Tyler said.

  “What do you think of a koi fish or a snake or something? They’re representations of courage, rebirth, healing…”