The Skin Gallery
by
Leslie R. Lee
Copyright 2009
He stared at the rain splashing against the sign in his window. Tattoos the sign said. Tattoos by Mike, another sign said. Mike scratched his stubble.
He hated the rain.
Rain meant stay home.
Rain meant wait until tomorrow when the sun will shine again.
Rain meant no customers.
He sighed and dug into an armpit.
Who was he fooling anyway? Staying late on a Wednesday. How many customers had there been all fucking day?
It was time to go. Get home, open a cold one, kick back, and watch some news. Maybe take tomorrow off. Go get a new Harley. Ride off into the sunset and never come back. Ever.
He heaved up his great bulk and slouched towards the glass door.
He reached for the lock.
The door swung open.
Someone stood there.
It wore a black hat.
It wore a black trench coat buttoned all the way up to the neck.
She.
She wore black high-heeled shoes.
She also wore sunglasses.
Only in LA. Sunglasses at night. In the rain.
What he couldn’t see were her hands. They were stuffed deep into the pockets of her coat.
And those hands could be holding just about anything. Anything from her favorite birth control device to a snub nosed thirty-eight.
A revolver like the one hiding underneath his register. The register that was only ten feet away but might as well be ten miles away.
But here he was, with nothing but the sweat seeping from his skin, staring at someone who could be holding a tactical nuclear weapon underneath her coat.
He shook his sudden fear away from him.
“We’re closed,” he grunted, drawing up his full six feet four inch frame.
“We?” she asked.
He didn’t like that, not one little bit.
“I’m closed,” he snarled, as sarcastically as he could.
She looked at his door.
“Says that you should still be open.”
“I changed my mind.”
She nodded and stepped inside.
“Hey!” he barked.
She closed the door and turned the “Yes, We’re Open” sign, which he hated, around to, “Sorry We Missed You”, which he hated worse.
She locked the door.
He measured how quickly he could get around the counter to his gun.
“Now you’re closed.” She gave him a sweet smile.
It tried to turn his bowels to water.
The last time he had seen that kind of smile, Jon Jon was doing his thing. He gave that sweet smile while slitting some poor fool’s throat from ear to ear. It wasn’t hateful, or gleeful, or sinister. The smile just said that Jon Jon liked the work he did and did it well. He wondered if Jon Jon was still smiling up in his death row prison cell.
“Alright,” he said. “I can always do with the money. What do you want?”
He eased over where illustrations covered the wall close to the register.
“A flower? A cat? Name of your boyfriend?”
“No,” she said.
He was pretty close to the register now. He felt as if the gun had suddenly grown a huge neon sign that blared out, “Gun Here, Gun Here”.
She closed the venetian blinds on the window and the door.
She took off her hat, letting blonde hair rain down. Then stepped out of her shoes.
She couldn’t have been more than five-two.
She unknotted the belt of her coat, unbuttoned the buttons, then shrugged the coat off and let it fall to the floor.
She was naked.
But that wasn’t what snatched the breath out of Mike’s body.
Yeah, beautiful alright. But he’d blown by that gas station years ago where beauty was reason enough to beat his chest and swing through the trees to true love. No, he was satisfied with women who wanted him, or could be paid to want him, or didn’t give a crap about one damned thing or another. Didn’t matter what they looked like anymore.
She had the body of an athlete. Small breasts. Muscles rippled under the skin. But not buffed out like a body builder. Pale skin without the tell tale gradation of tanning.
A really airtight beauty.
But the tattoos that covered her body eclipsed that beauty.
Her body illustrated an art that almost brought tears to his eyes.
She walked by him acknowledging his stunned gaze. She turned and let him drink in each intricate design.
They leaped off her skin, moved with her, danced.
She held her arms out and let him see the vines of flowers growing down to her wrists. A dragon caressed her left breast. A tiger stalked across her right. A rainbow adorned one of her buttocks. Fire burned up around her bare pussy. An abstract design twisted itself around one of her ankles. She had a long way to go before she got a body suit. Each tattoo was separated by skin. It was almost as if she wasn’t there. Just a collection of tattoos animating themselves in three dimensions.
He finally found his voice.
“Lady,” he gasped out. “Lady, if you want me to put a tattoo on you, I’m going to have to say no.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“It would be like letting a kid paint on the Mona Lisa. My stuff is good. Real good. But it’s just not good enough.”
She just stared, almost smiling, not bothering to dress. The tattoos were clothes enough.
“Who did these?” he asked.
“Different people.”
He knotted his thick eyebrows together. “Let me see.”
She strolled languidly to his table. She stretched out onto her back. Her hands reached up above her head. Her feet pulled down towards the end of the table.
He put on his magnifying glasses and turned on the bright light.
He examined the dragon first.
He almost wimped out and asked if he could touch. Hell, she had shucked her clothes. She had better expect to be touched. He roughly poked at the breast. Rougher than he needed to, but he was afraid. Like maybe the finger would find the hard surface of a marble statue instead of the warm forgiving flesh that he found.
The dragon was really good. Really, really good.
“Tiger done by somebody different?” he asked gruffly.
“Oh yes,” she smiled.
He examined the tiger. He touched the tattoo, almost expecting to find fur instead of smooth skin. His finger strayed over the nipple. It became instantly erect and hard.
He suddenly realized what he was doing and jerked back.
“Well?” she asked.
“Well what?”
“Are they different?”
“Yeah, they’re different. Not by much though. Take a real expert to tell that they’re done different.”
“I want you to put another tattoo on me.”
“Lady, I’m real flattered. I’d be honored to put something on you. But I wouldn’t want you disappointed.”
She chuckled. “I’m glad you’re concerned about me.”
“I just don’t want you to point one out and say that one there was done by a real amateur.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”
“Why don’t you go back to where you got these?”
“That’s no longer possible.”
“Who did them anyway? I swear that the dragon was done by Chin. But he’s in Hong Kong.”
“It was indeed done by Mr. Chin. You have a good eye.”
“He’s dead isn’t he.”
“Quite recently, I hear.”
“This here vine. I’ve seen it in pictures from Japan. Looks like work done by Tozaki. But he died before WWII.”
She smiled.
It shriveled him up.
“What kind of tattoo do you want anyway?”
“Something very simple.”
He waited until his impatience flared up. All of about two seconds.
“Okay, simple like what?”
“Your choice.”
He sighed. “Alright then, I choose. How about a half-naked nun banging a gorilla while riding a Harley?”
“If you wish,” she said, her calmness infuriating him.
“Where do you want the tattoo?” he growled, already knowing the answer.
“Anywhere you want.”
He nodded. “Okay, a half naked nun banging a gorilla while riding a Harley and you don’t mind it being right in the middle of your forehead.”
“Not in the least.”
He grunted. “You’re lucky. I don’t do faces.”
“I do have one guideline though.”
Oh, oh. “Like what?”
“Make it the best you can do.”
“Lady, I always do the best I can do. Everyone knows that my stuff’s the best around. There may be better in other cities. And those cities would be in other countries. But in this here town, in this here country, I do the best. And that’s for everybody.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know. That’s why I’m here. I just wanted you to understand that this should be the best of the best. It will be keeping good company.”
“Alright.”
“Something special. Something of you.”
“Something special then. I got special prices for special things. Ten grand. Ten thousand bucks up front. No refund, no return.”
“Done,” she said simply.
She floated down from the table and dressed smoothly.
“I’ll be back.”
“Your name Arnold by any chance?”
She opened the door. “No.”
She was gone before he realized that he didn’t know her name at all.
At home, he opened a cold one and swung into bed.
“Okay,” he grunted to himself. “Something special.”
He grabbed a pad off his desk and a pencil.
“Something of me, the lady says.”
He glared at the blank sheet. The blank sheet ignored him. He fell asleep to the TV droning on and on about death and mayhem all over LA and all over the country and all over the world.
In his dream, there was a nun. Then there was a nun and a Harley. A very loud, very big Harley. And the nun wasn’t dressed. Just the veil flowing behind her. And she was going very fast. And she was chasing something. No, it was someone. And he couldn’t quite make out who it was. And the noise from behind him was getting louder. And it sounded a lot like the deep throated roar of a really big Harley at full throttle.
“Jeez, you look like Hell.”
He almost jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t even heard the door of the store open.
For just a moment, he had thought the voice came from the mysterious lady. But it was just Weird Eve. Weird Eve liked to get tattoos.
She had no money though. Spent most of what she made to get stuff to inject into her arms. Her self inflicted tattoos spoke only of horror.
“Bad night. And no customers today.”
“You feeling horny?” she said sidling up to him. “You look like you need a little something.”
She grabbed his crotch.
He disengaged her little hand. How old was she? Twelve, twenty, two hundred?
“Thanks anyway.”
“I’ll trade you a little something for another bunny.”
He guffawed. “Another bunny? Jeez, how many bunnies do you want?”
“Bunnies for my buns. Until their totally covered.”
“Business is slow. Get up here. I’ll give you one for free.”
She giggled and quickly jumped up onto the table. She could have been two.
She wriggled her pants down.
Her behind was covered with Beatrix Potter bunnies.
When he’d first met her, she wanted a dagger tattooed between her breasts. He had refused. Not just because she had no money. But because it wasn’t right for her. Too many of his customers came in wanting the wrong stuff. Stuff that didn’t fit. He’d try to guide them into something else. The yuppies were the worst. Always coming in with some damn stupid thing. Useless trying to change their little minds. He’d take their money and slap something on them that in two weeks, they’d hate. If they came back all bent out of shape, he’d tell them with some patience that it was their choice. If they were smart, they’d let him change it if he could. Usually, they’d be satisfied. Sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes tempers were lost. Sometimes, they learned, it was better to just like what you got.
“Daggers, knives, swords” she used to say. “I want a really sharp stabber right here on my chest.”
Then one day, she came in with an old beat up copy of Peter Rabbit, but still asking for sharp pointed instruments. But the rabbits were it. He told her that if she let him put a bunny on her, he’d put the dagger between her breasts. For free.
She had agreed by bouncing off the walls and ceilings for twenty minutes.
Now there were miniature bunnies cavorting all over her little behind.
“You sure you don’t want something like a dog or cat?”
“Hell no,” she snorted. “They’d just chase the others all around.”
He roared.
“How about that dagger you wanted?”
“Bun-NEE! Bun-NEE! Bun-NEE!” she chanted.
“Alright, already.”
“I’ll give you a blow job afterwards.”
“Nah. You almost killed me last time. Took me a week to grow new skin.”
She snickered.
“Got a letter from Jon Jon.”
He credited himself for not jerking and ruining the tattoo.
“He wants you to stop returning his letters unopened.”
He said nothing.
“He says that he still loves you and what you did was right.”
There was just the buzz of the needle.
“That’s what brothers do, you know,” she said wistfully. “They forgive.”
She reached out and stopped him for a moment.
“You did right. You saved a lot of lives and a lot of heart ache. Jon Jon was real sick. I mean real, real sick. ”
“Yeah. Now their gonna write him a real nice prescription to make him get better. Let’s see. A little electro-shock therapy? Say a million or so volts?”
She smiled sweetly at him. “They use lethal injection.”
He swore under his breath and continued on.
“What’s the matter with you anyway?” she asked.
The bunny took form under his hands. He didn’t work from the book anymore. He could see the pictures on the girl’s emaciated behind. He wondered whether Beatrix Potter would have minded. Didn’t really matter anyway. Weird Eve would be dead soon. Drugs, crazy johns, or AIDS. And all the art would simply perish from the universe. Tattoos had their own little self-destruct mechanism. Tattoos had a life span measured too easily in human terms.
“Nothing’s the matter with me.”
“You’re not worrying about Jon Jon getting out are you?”
“No.”
“He said that he was going to climb right out of Hell and get you.”
“I remember.”
“He’s forgiven you though. He said so in his letters.”
He decided that he’d been staring too long. His eyes were stinging.
“Well, it’s okay,” she said simply. “He knows that you’ve forgiven him. The execution is real soon, isn’t it?”
If anybody else had tried to inflict such pain on him, he’d have to kill them.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he finished. “All done, Weird Eve.”
She looked at the new bunny that had joined her other friends.
“You do such good work,” she said admiringly. “Sure you don’t want me to do something for you. Might take your mind off things, you know.”
“Thanks. Maybe next time.”
She shrugged. Then reluctantly pulled up her pants.
“You know, I can see the bunnies in the reflection of the water in the toilet” she said earnestly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Whenever I take a dump, I think of you.”
There was a small Chinaman. He was waving his hands in the air. Wherever he waved his hands, green scales appeared. The scales were huge and shiny. They glistened in the morning sun. The mist caressed the magnificent hide leaving sparkling drops of diamonds that ran together into rivulets of glowing gems.
The small Chinaman gestured and a huge head appeared.
It was the dragon that adorned the left breast of the woman.
With a final flourish, the Chinaman finished, putting giant slanted pupils on the golden eyes. It stood gigantic and proud against the sky. It suddenly lifted it’s head, opened a mouth full of perfect, glittering fangs, and roared. The mountains shook and the earth trembled.
The dragon then bent down and snapped up the little man as if he was just one of those tiny dim sums that come around at lunch.
Then with a grace that belied its size, it started running after Mike. Roaring, it thundered towards him. He turned and ran. Behind him, the dragon sounded like a Harley screaming down the road right behind him.
He woke to his own screaming.
She came the next morning. A bright morning filled with sunshine. She was dressed in a plain blue suit and the sunglasses. She could have been a conservative business woman coming to get the latest stock quotations tattooed onto her wrists.
It scared him.
It was like somebody had gotten hold of one of those sissy circus costumes that those damn little poodles always showed up in and put it on a pit bull. And when you looked at that pit bull, it looked right back at you. And that look said that when it got out of that stupid costume, it was going to make you pay for that little insult in the worst possible way.
“Didn’t think you were coming back,” he said unconvincingly.
She smiled those perfect, glittering teeth at him. “I thought that maybe you needed a little time.”
She placed a pile of very crisp currency on the counter.
“Yeah. Well, I’ve been thinking,” he said, trying not to let his fidgeting fingers play anymore with the butt of his gun. At least he was armed this time.
“What have you been thinking?”
“I don’t want your money.”
She giggled. It made his bones want to jump out of his body and run down the street leaving behind just a heap of quivering flesh.