Looking for Adventure

by Valentina Heart

“This is the man I told you about. He wants a tattoo, and I think he wants it done today.”

  He extended his hand before he spoke. “I’m Mike.”

  I shook his hand. “Jonathan.”

  “So what kind of a tattoo do you want?

  I leaned on the counter, looking for the words to explain my wishes. “A friend of mine has two ladybugs, a bit artistic, where one has a halo around its antenna, while the other has a red devil’s tail and little horns. Now, I suppose that’s a rather often requested motif, the angel and the devil side of whatever, but I want something similar. Two bees facing each other, one with a halo and those angel wings and the other with horns and demon wings. Also I don’t want anything realistic, more of a cartoon sort. Can you draw something like that?”

  He took a piece of paper and started sketching right there in front of me. I stared as the art began to take form, two little bees with a challenge written in their cartoon eyes. I loved it.

  “This is just a sketch. I’ll work on it some more. Anything you want to change in it?” he asked me.

  “No, that’s perfect. Will you be able to do it today?”

  What I got was another one of those assessing looks. “I could maybe push a few clients to make an opening. I usually don’t do one after the other. How about you come back in about an hour and a half?”

  “Thanks a lot. See you then.” I smiled again, pretty happy about getting what I wanted.

  As soon as I exited the shop, I dialed Mrs. Carney’s number. She answered after the third ring, and I immediately got to the point.

  “Mrs. Carney, this is Jonathan Morgan. I rented a house from you a couple of months ago.”

  “Yes, I know who you are. How can I help you? Is something wrong?” Her voice suddenly switched to that mothering mode.

  “Everything is perfectly fine. I’m calling because I fell in love with your house. That little piece of heaven is everything I’ve been looking for, and I’m thinking of making it my home. Are you interested in selling?” I pushed as much emotion into my voice as possible. People liked to know their life’s work was appreciated, and just by looking at that house, I knew they’d invested a lot in it through the years. Not to mention love.

  “Oh my… Well, we’ve never really thought about it.”

  “I will make it worth your while. I’m not looking for some cheap break. I really like the place, and in case you sell it, I will move there permanently.” It wasn’t really a lie, because I planned on moving there if Nino would want me there. And no matter how long I had left, it was still permanent.

  “This is quite sudden. I have to speak with my husband. Can I call you tomorrow?” she asked, sounding apologetic, like she was inconveniencing me.

  “Tomorrow will be fine,” I assured her. “You can contact me at the same number I left you in case of an emergency. Have a good evening.”

  “You too, dear boy,” she said before hanging up.

  I was planning on meeting her before my tattoo appointment, but instead I was left with an hour to kill and no one to call. That little thought caused my fingers to itch. I did have someone to call. Maybe he would answer the phone, or maybe he would tell me to go to hell.

  Standing there debating, I realized I had nothing to tell him except maybe that I loved him. There was no news about my results yet, and I had no idea when I would be coming back.

  I didn’t even realize I was walking until I found myself in front of a small bookstore. The lights were bright, and through the windows I could see people sitting around or walking among the shelves. Without having anything better to do, I walked inside.

  Nothing interested me specifically, so I ended up taking random books off the shelves and reading the back covers. Some were hilarious when it came to plots, some very interesting, but one cover did the trick for me. The two men kissing kind of explained the contents, so I flipped through the pages until a distinct title caught my eyes: “How To Pass the Oral Exam.”

  Heat crawled up my face, but it didn’t make me put the book down. No. What I did was read on with my face stuck between the pages. I’d tasted Nino before, curiosity always outweighing the embarrassment. But I’d never taken the length of him between my lips. It was partially fear of hurting him as well as doing it wrong, but the rest of it was pure embarrassment.

  So I took in the details, reading some paragraphs twice, already feeling the texture of his skin against my tongue. The pictures were almost clinical to me, but the memories they drew out forced me to leave the bookstore with a raging hard-on.

  Walking it off proved to be a bit of a challenge, as I’d gotten used to having regular sex, and it had been two days already. Getting closer to the tattoo shop made me first get creative, then brutal as I thought of dying alone and never seeing Nino again.

  All of my good mood dissipated, but it also drained the hot blood from the front of my body, and I entered the shop boner free, even if not any less sad.

  “Welcome back. Mike is free now, so you can just go in through there,” the tattooed lady told me, pointing toward the almost hidden door behind her.

  I saw a couple of giggling girls in the shop this time, looking at the pictures of intimate piercings, which I’d skillfully avoided just hours before. Just one glance at the metal that went through the glans made my blood run cold.

  The back of the shop showed two black chairs with flexible parts, lots of equipment, and more tattoo pictures. There were colorful dragons dancing on the walls and swords on the stands on the shelves. There was a lot of space, but with all the trinkets pinned to the walls and posed on the shelves, it gave the impression of a much smaller room.

  Mike smiled as he saw me, extending his hand and gripping mine between his fingers. “You ready for some pain?”

  I swear the smile he showed me was pure wickedness, and I visualized the horns my bee was supposed to have on the top of his bald head.

  “I think so.”

  He waved me off. “I’m only joking. It’s not so bad. Maybe the place is a little bit more sensitive than, say, a shoulder or your back would be, but I will start slow so you can get used to it.”

  I’m pretty sure it was his words that helped me sit down in the chair instead of bolting. “I should take off my pants, right?”

  “Just so far that the skin I will be tattooing is exposed. I’m guessing you shaved the area.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Good. I’ll give you something to cover up your clothes and those private regions.” He laughed, making it all a little less awkward.

  I tried pushing my pants lower, but then I wasn’t able to bend my knee and the skin that should have been exposed was covered. So in the end I took them off completely and pulled one leg hole of my boxer shorts all the way to the right, giving him just enough space for tattooing without actually getting naked. Of course, I was more than grateful for the fact that I’d remembered to wear a pair of boxers that were anything but skintight.

  He protected my clothes with some paper and got to work. The picture that he’d redrawn was amazing, much better than the first version, and I’d been pretty thrilled with that one too. He transferred the stencil from the paper to my skin, and for the first time, I grasped how my tattoo was actually going to look. The stencil seemed to take more space than Nino’s tattoo did, but it still shouldn’t be too big.

  “First I’m going to do a few small lines so you can get used to it,” he warned me as the buzzing filled the air.

  I can’t say that it didn’t hurt. I felt the lines as he did them, one by one, but it wasn’t overwhelming or too much. I could even see him working when I looked down. What I found comical in the whole situation was Mike. Every time he pressed the machine against my skin, he would bite his lower lip in deep concentration.

  The chitchat we exchanged was more for my sake, I think, as something to keep my mind off the pain, but mostly we stayed quiet and the time passed quickly. What hurt the most was the color filling. He did these circular motio
ns that felt like he was grinding an open wound, which he was in a way, but still it wasn’t unbearable.

  When he was done, he cleaned my skin, put some ointment on it, and tilted his head in consideration. “It looks pretty good. Come check it out in the mirror.”

  I got up as he moved to my side and walked over to the mirror, still holding my boxers in place. The devil bee popped out with the red, looking mean and evil, while the angel bee smiled, looking gentle in yellow.

  It was a memory as much as a sign of change. My skin spoke of the changed person as well as the change itself. From the devil to an angel, from Jonathan to Bee.

  “I love it; thank you very much.” I turned to Mike, showing him how much the ink meant to me with the tears that shone in my eyes.

  I needed Nino. It was as simple as that. I needed his touch and his words, his love. I really needed his love.

  * * *

  Two days had passed. My tattoo gave me only a dull ache now, reminding me it was still there. I was sitting in my doctor’s office, waiting impatiently for the doors to open and for her petite form to walk through.

  I’d had two days of barely sleeping, and I was itching with impatience. I didn’t much care for the results anymore. I mean, I did, but not so much as I cared about the time the next ferry for the island was leaving. In my mind I was already there, walking that familiar path to the house that now belonged to Nino.

  Mrs. Carney had called me the morning after I’d talked to her, and we settled on the purchase price the same day. I wanted the house, and she trusted me not to demolish it in order to build some other monstrosity at the same location. I assured her that I loved the place just the way it was, and that I wanted a sanctuary, not a cold mansion. The only thing I didn’t mention was that I might not live there, but I knew Nino enough to know he too liked the place just the way it was.

  The closing of the door snapped me from my thoughts, and I saw the stunned expression on the doctor’s face.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I just had to recheck the results again. I also consulted some of my colleagues. It’s just impossible.”

  “What is impossible?” I asked, already worrying.

  “The tumor is gone,” she said flatly.

  “What do you mean ‘gone’?” I was seriously considering changing my doctor in that moment.

  “I mean it’s gone. Look.” She pushed some scans my way.

  “See the date on this one? It’s the scan from three months ago. This white area here is the tumor,” she said, circling it with her closed pen. “Now look at the scan from a few days ago.” She moved her pen over to the one beside it. “The tumor is…gone,” she said as she allowed me to hold the scan image.

  “How is that possible?” I blurted out, not really understanding her words.

  The doctor sat back and blew out a breath. “There are a few cases recorded every year of spontaneous cancer regression, but it’s not well documented. It’s usually accompanied by a change of environment and psychic growth.” She shook her head. “I can’t tell you the real answer, as I’m a doctor and there is no plausible scientific explanation for this to happen. To tell you the truth, I feel ridiculous explaining something that actually can’t be explained.”

  I stared at her a few minutes, willing my mind to wrap around the idea that I was going to live. I wasn’t very successful, but somehow, I did find my voice. “But it’s gone? I’m healthy again?”

  She smiled brightly. “Yes. According to all the latest tests we took, you are in perfect health.”

  “Can you give me a moment?” I asked, as I wouldn’t have been able to get off that chair at that moment if my life depended on it. Which was ridiculous, to say the least.

  “Sure. Take your time. I have other patients waiting, so you can leave whenever you like. There’s no need to stay in this place any longer.” She stood up, came around the desk, and shook my hand. “I’m very happy for you, Jonathan. Use your second chance. Not many get one.” With that she left the room, leaving me scared as well as excited.

  For a moment, complete joy coursed through me. I was healthy, and suddenly I had a future with Nino. But then I remembered our last night together and realized things were never that simple. He was still angry with me. I’d lied to him, completely disregarding his feelings and wants. Instead of talking about it and begging for forgiveness, I’d just left. I left without a word and without a phone call since.

  I was an ass in my own mind, so God only knew what Nino thought of me. I could stay here, resume my life from where I’d left it months ago, but that was not something I wanted. If the doctor was right, it was the change and Nino that in the end had saved my life. Ignoring this chance and making all the same mistakes again would be completely idiotic.

  With a decision ready to go, I got up out of the chair and focused all my positive energy on making things better with Nino. It was time to see him again. Time couldn’t pass quickly enough.

  Chapter Ten

  The first two days after Jonathan left passed by me in a state of shock. My mind couldn’t grasp the fact that he’d just left. I expected him to be back, lifting my head at every sound of a car passing on the road, and there weren’t many of those, thank God. I didn’t sleep much.

  After those first two days without even a phone call from him, I started to get angry. I felt used and discarded, and it was not a pleasant feeling. I wanted to throw things and have bitchy tantrums around the house, but a realization hit me, almost like a lightning strike, that nothing in the house was mine. First, it all belonged to Mrs. Carney, but also, it was Jonathan who was renting it. I had nothing to my name but my last two paychecks and the bag I’d always traveled with. If Jonathan wasn’t coming back, it meant I was out of work and that I needed to find another place to stay.

  It was painful, thinking of him as just another employer, but realistically that was his title. When all our extracurricular activities stopped, I was nothing more than his cook.

  The third day brought resolution with it. If I were going to the island specifically to find work, I would have chosen a different place than the little settlement I found myself in at that time. It was too small to have many job opportunities, not to mention that it was the middle of the season and most of the jobs had already been taken.

  There were two hotels, one on each side of the bay, but both of them were small-capacity hotels that looked for employees only for the season when there was enough work to cover their expenses. It wasn’t bad, working in a hotel, but I was realistic enough to know what my chances were in obtaining a job there in the middle of the summer. So the first place I asked was at the store.

  They knew me there, from shopping almost every day in the last couple of months, but it was a family business, and they had it covered. Next I tried the bar.

  “Hey, Janet. Is the boss around? I’m looking for work,” I asked the waitress who was wiping the counter.

  “Hey, Nino. I thought you already had a job, with your hunk of a man?” She winked at me.

  Jonathan mostly kept to himself since we’d been here, but I always talked to people, and there weren’t many of the locals who I didn’t know at least by their name.

  “Nothing is permanent. I need something new. Besides, it’s not good to spend all of your time locked up in a house.” I feigned my typical cheerful tone, accompanying it with a smile.

  She inclined her head. “He’s in the back. Watch the bar for a minute until I go get him.” She walked around the booze bottles and disappeared behind the door to the side.

  I looked around, seeing only a few tourists who were up early, drinking their morning coffee. It wasn’t a bad place to work, especially when you knew most of the clientele.

  “Hey, Nino. You looking for work?” Tom asked as soon as he came out the door.

  “Yeah. I need something to hold me till the end of summer.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t need anyone full time. It’s me and Janet, and we got it covered most
of the time. The only thing I could use is a waiter for the nights. Let’s say three or four hours every night when we’re busiest, and on weekends it would be the afternoon shift up until closing time.”

  “That’s perfect. You interested in hiring me?” I smiled again. Charm was always half the interview.

  “Sure, you’re a good kid. How about you start tonight, and we’ll see how it goes?”

  “Yeah, thanks a lot, Tom. See you tonight,” I said, feigning only half of my enthusiasm this time.

  On the walk back, I kept thinking about a place I could stay for the rest of my time there. The beach was okay for a couple of nights, but not as a permanent solution. Also, the part-time waiter job was good when I had something on the side, but as I had nothing but work for the rest of my time there, I knew I had to find something else too.

  There was a little bakery on the corner, halfway between the bar and the house, and after I found a place to stay, it was next on my list of possible work opportunities.

  Working for Tom turned out to be just what I needed. Nights of different people making me laugh and keeping my thoughts away from a certain someone. It made me wish for a full-time job that would exhaust me enough to help me sleep when I was off work.

  Sleep had also become a luxury in the few days since Bee left. It was weird, having the whole bed to myself after so many nights of him holding me against his warm chest. If I managed to close my eyes for more than an hour with constant twisting and kicking, then I would dream ruthless dreams of fires and darkness swallowing the man I loved.

  With every passing day, the need to leave the house, the settlement even, was eating at me. My sanity would soon depend on it. I was aware of that fact. Nothing drove a man crazier than the sorrow of a broken heart, but the house was filled with memories, one better than the next, and despite all my reason screaming for me to leave, I just couldn’t. For the first time in my life, I was leaving too much behind.

  Almost a week had passed, and I was in dire need of groceries. I took my bike to the store, remembering at the last moment that I was now cooking just for one. The people were especially kind to me, everyone asking how I was, helping me put the groceries on my bike, calling me to lunches and to the beach. Their behavior felt strange, but with so many other things on my mind, I couldn’t put my finger on why.