Badd Business

by Jasinda Wilder

  Was he right, though?

  Maybe a little bit. I did have a tiny bit of insecurity about my figure. About my weight, and the size on the tags of my dresses, blouses, and skirts. But, like Ink, I do know my value, and I know I’m a good person no matter what I look like. I also know a lot of men like the way I’m shaped, and they like my curves and my softness; not everyone likes skinny women.

  So, really, if I’m being honest with myself, the insecurity thing is a front. And… it’s complicated.

  The silence was broken only by the buzzing of the tattoo gun, and the low music from the speakers, and after about an hour and a half he wiped the excess ink away, and turned off the gun and set it aside. He dabbed and wiped around the tattoo until my skin was clean and dry, and then he spun the chair around and handed me a wide mirror with a long handle.

  “There. I think that piece is done.”

  I examined the tattoo in the mirror. It was brightly colored, almost photorealistic, and absolutely beautiful. The cubs follow their mother across the plane of my back and shoulder, and the mama bear’s muzzle angles down over my shoulder and onto the upper portion of my arm. The cubs are spread from just under the base of my neck to just behind my underarm. Warm brown fur, white and brown eyes, black claws on their paws, pink tongues, all against the dark olive-brown of my skin.

  “Ink…god, I love it.”

  He touched the cub nearer the base of my neck. “This one’s me. Because I got your back.”

  I teared up. “I know you do.”

  He made a gruff huffing sound in his throat and turned away to strip off his gloves; he’s always had a soft spot for me. “My turn. I want some dots and triangles on my hip, and maybe some of those half-circle cross things.”

  I nodded, knowing what he meant. “I’ll sketch out a design while you clean the gun.”

  I found his sketch pad and a charcoal pencil, and went to work designing his tattoo, thinking about what I know of our tribe’s history of ritual tattoos, what he already has, and what will look best with the ink around it.

  I left my shirt on backward, but I buttoned the bottom couple of buttons, just so it would stay in place. I also kept my bra unhooked, letting the straps dangle, just so the angry skin around my tattoo could breathe.

  I showed Ink my design, and he gave it an approving nod. “Looks great.” He eyed me with sarcastic amusement. “You gonna barf when I pull my shorts down?”

  “Do you have underwear on?” I asked as I finished copying the design onto tracing paper.

  He tugged the waistband of his shorts away, glancing down. “Nope. Forgot them.”

  “Then yes, probably.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Like you never saw a johnson before.”

  I faked a gag as I slipped on the tattooing gloves. “Of course I have. But you’re my cousin and I don’t want to see yours.” I glared at him. “And it’s more about your butt than your ding-dong.”

  He snorted in laughter. “Did you really just call it that?” After adjusting the angle of the chair, Ink worked his shorts down around his left hip and lay against the reclined chair, partially on his side. “And who even cares about butts? A butt is a butt is a butt. No big deal.”

  I laid the tracing paper with the design on it against his hip, finding the perfect placement for it before I began tracing the design onto his skin with a tattoo marker.

  For the next twenty minutes or so, I let myself get utterly lost in the process of tracing the design on his skin, making sure each line and circle and dot was absolutely perfect. Then, finally, I picked up the gun and placed the ink he’d chosen on the tray, turned the gun on, and dipped it into the ink. The gun hummed reassuringly in my hand, and I began permanently inking the tattoo onto my cousin’s skin.

  Halfway through the first series of dots and triangles, the bell over the door jangled.

  “Be with you in a while,” Ink yelled. “Sorta busy at the moment.”

  My shirt was on backward, held against my body with two little buttons, my bra was undone and hanging from my shoulders, leaving my entire back bare.

  My bare back…with the fresh tattoo of the mama Kodiak and her cubs, around them the salmon in vivid pink leaping out of a raging river in churning blues and whites. My left shoulder depicted a narrow fjord angling diagonally away from my shoulder with the towering pines reflected in the mirror-still waters, a setting sun in violent oranges and pinks and reds on the round of my shoulder, and the stylized wolf tracks in deep dark black ink trailing from high on my left ribcage down around my lower back where they disappeared under the hem of my skirt, merging with the tribal circles, dots, triangles, V- and Y- shapes on my right hip.

  Each tattoo had a very specific story and meaning, and they were deeply and intensely personal to me. I only allowed myself to be vulnerable here in Ink’s shop because it was so far out of the way from anywhere my family or friends might go that there’s no chance they’d ever see me here. Because he worked by appointment only—due to the insane and ever-growing demand for his skills—walk-ins were rare.

  “Juneau?” a familiar bass voice rumbled. “That you?”

  Something inside me lurched. A prickling of the fine hairs on my skin, a tightening in my belly, a heating further south, a shortness of breath. I froze.

  No way.

  NO.

  Gingerly, carefully, I pulled the gun away from Ink’s skin and turned it off. I tried to close the edges of my shirt together—which was impossible and futile. He’d already seen my tattoos…

  I turned around. “Remington…hi.”

  5

  Remington

  I stared, standing in mute, stunned silence, my jaw on the floor.

  Juneau was the last person I expected to see when I walked in the front door of Ketchikan’s most famous tattoo parlor.

  She had tattoos.

  A lot of them.

  Big, elaborate, full-color pieces done by someone with an obvious love for and dedication to the art. They were done by someone with incredible talent.

  Her back was thrilling to look at; alluring, sexy, and spiritual all at the same time.

  The curve of it, the hint of breast on one side, plus all that incredible, beautiful ink…I was in serious danger of springing a hard-on right here, just from a quick glimpse of her back.

  But now she was staring at me as if terrified, mortified, and angry all at the same time. It seemed she was mad that I was here, that I’d dared…I don’t quite know how to pinpoint it—that I’d dared see her in this environment.

  “Juneau,” I said, only barely managing to stammer out her name. “What are you…you’re…what are—”

  So much for not stammering like a quibbling fuckhead.

  “She’s in the middle of a tattoo, my man,” the massive man in the chair said. “Take a seat and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “Remington, I…” Her mouth worked, but nothing else came out.

  “June-bug.” His voice was hard, and full of meaning she clearly understood. “Finish the tat.”

  “Ink. He—I—”

  “No place for drama in the tattoo chair, June-bug. You know the rules.”

  “If the gun’s on, the drama’s off. The ink is sacred.” She repeated the well-known phrases, her tone and expression fully imparting their ritual importance.

  “Go sit, Remington. There’s a rack of design books by the coffee maker. Help yourself.” Her voice was cold and distant and professional.

  I didn’t do well with being told what to do, and her words were an order, no mistaking that.

  Instead of heading for the waiting area like I was told, I wandered over to where Juneau was leaning over the giant man in the tattoo chair. She’d dismissed me, and had expected me to listen, or she was doing a good job of ignoring me as I stood a few feet away, examining the tattoo in progress with intense interest.

  She flicked the gun back on after a moment, let out a short, sharp breath, and then bent over the man, whose name, if
she was to be believed, was Ink. She dragged the gun with exaggerated care over the design drawn on his skin in black marker, following the lines and circles and dots across the plane of his hip. She was very good, I could tell that much. I could also tell, from the style of the other tattoos on the man’s thigh and across his back that she’d done quite a lot of his work, if not most of it.

  “You’re distracting me,” Juneau said, not looking up. “I told you to go sit.”

  “I don’t do orders, babe. I’m just watching.” I inched a little closer. “You do good work.”

  “Hey, my man.” Ink’s voice was low and threatening, and I felt even my stomach flip a little at the prospect of making this mammoth bruiser of a man angry. “Come here.”

  I circled wide around Juneau and stopped where I could see his face. “What’s up?”

  “Hold on a sec, June-bug,” he said, and the buzzing stopped immediately. Then, he extended his hand to me; I took it, shook, and was careful to not give away the pain of his crushing grip. “I’m Ink. I own this place. And she’s my cousin. So if you won’t take orders from her, you’ll take orders from me.” He looked me over. “You’re plenty big, but I’m guessin’ I can still toss you out on your ass if you want to make this a thing.”

  I backed up, holding my hands up. “I’m just curious. Call it…professional curiosity.”

  His eyebrow shot up. “You do ink?” he glanced at me, catching the hints of tattoos peeking out from the sleeves of my T-shirt.

  I bobbled my head side to side. “Sort of.”

  Juneau frowned. “According to Kitty, you and your brothers were wildfire fighters. And now you own a bar. Since when do you do tattoos?”

  “It’s a long story and not one I’m telling now,” I said. “You want to be precise, call my curiosity quasi-professional, or…hopefully professional.”

  “Well, it’s my ass that’s hanging out of my shorts, so unless you got a damn good and specific reason you’re sniffing around after my cousin, you can go fuck off till this tat is done. Got me?”

  “I’m not sniffing around after anyone. I came to look at getting a tattoo.” I glanced at Juneau, taking in her backward shirt and the way she was desperately trying to pretend she wasn’t aware of me. “I didn’t know she was here. Honestly, this is the last place on earth I’d expect to find her.”

  “Yeah, you and everyone else, and that’s how she likes it.” Ink jutted his chin at the waiting area. “Go sit, or no tattoo.”

  Unwilling to piss off the owner of this kick-ass tattoo studio, I complied and took a seat, but I made sure to position myself in such a way that I could steal glances at Juneau’s back.

  I wanted to see those tats up close and personal. I wanted to flick open those two stupid little buttons near the small of her back and push aside those straps and bare the rest of her skin, and take my time perusing the ink I now knew she had been hiding under those conservative clothes.

  After a while, Juneau’s voice broke the relative silence. “Quit staring at me, Remington.”

  “I’m not. I’m just looking.” I stood up to pour myself a cup of coffee. “Your ink is beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was small and hesitant. “Ink did it.”

  “Is that really your name?” I asked.

  “Yep. Or so it says on my birth certificate.”

  “You did all those tattoos on her back?” I asked, unable to help myself from taking my Styrofoam cup of coffee across the shop to stand close enough that I could see her ink more closely.

  “Yep.”

  “Damn, dude. You’re really good.” I laughed. “I guess that’s why you’re named Ink, huh?”

  He rumbled a laugh. “Got it backward, actually. I was named Ink because my dad thought it was a cool name. I took to tattoos because of my name rather than the other way around.”

  I was close enough now, having been inching back over, that I could see the tattoos on her back in full detail. I only barely restrained myself from running my fingers over the brilliant colors and vivid images on her soft, perfect skin.

  She pulled the gun away from Ink and twisted on the stool to glare up at me, holding on to her shirt with her free hand, keeping the ink-smeared glove away. “You’re making me nervous, standing there staring at my back.”

  “I’m sorry, I just…I love tattoos, and yours are beautiful.”

  “Thank you, but you need to go sit. You’re making me nervous, and if I’m nervous, I’m liable to mess up, and that would be—”

  “That would be your ass on a silver platter, my friend,” Ink rumbled.

  “All right, all right,” I said, holding up both hands.

  I headed back to the waiting area and snagged a design book from the rack. It was a three-ring binder with sketches of tattoo design ideas enclosed in plastic sleeves. Along with the usual stuff—cursive lettering, birds, trees, flowers, and clocks—there were examples of more elaborate landscapes, and animals-in-action scenes, both of which were featured in dramatic fashion on Juneau’s back.

  Ink was clearly a master of those styles, because there were several pages of photographs, each one beautifully and lovingly illustrated on human flesh. A few things were noticeably absent from his portfolio of designs: the fake so-called “tribal” stuff, Asian calligraphy, and impersonal, ubiquitous crap like barbed wire and hearts with arrows. He also had a whole book dedicated to Inuit tattoos, but at the front of this book, he had a disclaimer done in pencil-and-ink lettering: These designs are samples only, as each tattoo must be designed specifically for each person, based on meaning and personal history. I will not do these tattoos on someone who is not Native Alaskan or from some other Inuit tribe, so don’t ask. If you don’t know what these mean, you don’t get them. No exceptions. I can do poke tattoos and I can use needle and thread, but I use tattoo ink, for health inspection reasons.

  “All right, Ink. I think you’re done.” I heard Juneau’s voice break the silence after another hour or so, during which I perused the native designs book, just out of curiosity.

  “Damn girl, that looks better than I’d hoped,” I heard Ink tell Juneau.

  She laughed. “You thought I’d let him mess me up?”

  “No, but it’s been more than a month since you been back here,” he said. “Figured you may be out of practice.”

  “I’ll come back sooner next time, I promise.”

  “Wouldn’t have to be a next time if you’d just—”

  “Ink.” Her voice was sharp as she cut him off. “Don’t.”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “We’ve already talked this to death. Enough.”

  “Chicken.”

  She laughed. “Shut up, you big dumb bear.”

  I glanced over to see her putting a wrap on Ink’s hip.

  “I’m going to the market,” he said, after she finished. “You want anything?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever is fine. I’m hungry, so I’ll eat anything.”

  Ink glanced at me, and then at Juneau. “You good here for a few minutes?”

  She understood what he was getting at, and then simply nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re uncomfortable with him around, June-bug. I can see it.”

  She shook her head, smiling reassuringly. “It’s fine, I promise.”

  “You gonna tattoo him?”

  Her eyes widened at the suggestion. “No, I am not. You know me better than that.”

  Ink jutted his chin at me. “I’ll be back soon, and we can go over your design.”

  I waved a hand. “No rush.” I glanced at Juneau. “I’m good here with her.”

  Ink’s expression hardened. “Yeah, well…you better be good, know what I mean, pretty boy?”

  I laughed. “Crystal clear.”

  Barefoot, shirtless, with his shorts still tugged low under his left hip to bare his new tattoo—and a fair chunk of his left buttock—he lumbered on deceptively light feet out the door, his long black
ponytail swaying, his thick, chest-length beard fluttering in the wind.

  And then I was alone in the tattoo shop with Juneau.

  She was capping the tattoo ink bottles, sanitizing the gun, and wiping down the chair. Facing away from me, she studiously ignored me.

  I approached her quietly, and I don’t think she noticed me at first.

  I was standing behind her and I itched to touch those tattoos, itched to feel that satin-soft skin.

  Finally, I knew she felt my presence—she stiffened, but didn’t turn around. “What are you doing, Remington?” she asked, pausing in the act of stripping off her gloves.

  “Just looking at your tattoos.”

  “Ink is really talented, isn’t he?” she said, her head ducked down, her braid over one shoulder. She twisted her head to one side, glancing at me with a sidelong glance over her shoulder. “Why are you here? Did you know I’d be here?”

  I felt my hands drifting up, and I knew she saw their movement—already stiff, she tensed further as my hands fluttered like birds alighting on a thin branch. “Scout’s honor, Juneau. I had no idea you’d be here. I came to look at tattoos, and his place had the best rating on Google.”

  “You were a Boy Scout?”

  I snorted. “Hell, yes, I was. Eagle Scout, babe. All three of us were. It was one of the few things that wasn’t military school or sports we could do that would keep us out of trouble.”

  “You weren’t into sports? I’d have thought you and your brothers were three letter varsity sort of guys.”

  I laughed again. “Think again. We don’t play well with others, Juneau. We tried flag football in third grade, but we got kicked off because we kept tackling the other kids. We tried out in high school, but during the tryouts Ram tackled the star quarterback wrong and broke his collarbone, and that was that. We grew up in Fuck-Everything-Ville, Oklahoma, where there wasn’t shit to do except sports, Boy Scouts, and D-F-F-ing.”