Page 64 of Dirty Ink

Then her eyes. Her eyes. I remembered her eyes. Her eyes finding mine when we realised we hadn’t been alone. The horror. The disgust. The pain.

I rocked back and forth on the floor there in the parlour of Dublin Ink. Gripping my head. Clenching my eyes shut.

“I signed, goddammit,” I muttered in that hot, humid cave. “I fucking signed, so go! Leave me alone!”

But she was there. Rachel was there. In my head. Imprinted into my soul. Her pussy around my cock. Her warmth like a balm. Everything I’d missed for all those years just right fucking there.

I tore through the shelves in the supply closet for a stamp. I was out of my mind. Out of my goddamn mind, panting like a rabid dog as I made an absolute mess. Ink bottles falling. Shattering. Paint smearing beneath my boots. Her accusatory eyes would leave me alone once the papers were in the mail. Once they were out of my control. Her pained eyes would fade once I found those fucking stamps. Her hurt as she looked at me, me would be erased from my memory once I gave her what she wanted. A divorce. A separation from me, from me. An end. A fucking end.

“Go away!” I shouted as I yanked boxes of stencil papers from the shelves.

But Rachel and those piercing eyes were harder to get rid of than my Miss Last Nights. I couldn’t scare those eyes away with my roaring voice. They didn’t shrink from my imposing height. From my tensed muscles. I couldn’t threaten those eyes.

We were out of stamps. Or I’d made such a mess that they were now impossible to find. I swore and pounded my fists against the metal shelving.

I needed a bar. I needed a drink. I needed a crowd. I needed to get lost amongst noise. Amongst people. Amongst faces I didn’t know. I needed a Miss Last Night.

It was a solid enough plan:

Go to The Jar.

Get plastered.

Fuck some woman for the twenty minutes of peace that carnal act could give.

Hope for a rainy morning the next day to prolong unconsciousness.

Find stamps.

The rain hadn’t let up. So by the time I got to The Jar I was soaked. The place was crammed. People stuffed all the way up to the foggy windows. I’d forgotten it was Talent Night.

It was the first good thing that had happened to me all day really. To pick up a chick, it didn’t get much easier than swearing that she sounded just like, no really, just like Whitney Houston. Easy fucking pickings. Perfect for my foul mood.

In fact, a potential candidate was just finishing up a screeching ballad as I pushed and shoved my way to the bar. Noah and Aubrey were working double time to keep up with the drink orders. I caught Noah’s eye after a little while and he nodded. He came a few seconds later with a beer.

“You’re just in time,” he shouted over the noise.

I frowned.

“Just in time for what?” I shouted back.

Noah jerked his chin over toward the stage at the back of the bar. It seemed impossible that in that exact moment I could have seen her. There must have been a hundred people between her and me. But I turned my head and the goddamn sea seemed to part for me. For us. There she was. On stage. The woman I thought was gone. The woman I thought I’d never see again.

Rachel.

And she was going to dance just for me.

Mason

Then…

“You guys do know they have strip clubs here?” I grumbled as we made our way to our seats. “You know, places where girls dance on you? Not just for you?”

After bumping into a dozen knees in that crammed little aisle, I collapsed moodily into the plush chair.

“There’s leg room at strips, you know?” I complained as I squirmed like an impatient child. “They don’t pack you in like cattle at strip clubs.”

“You know, Conor,” Rian leaned across me to say, “I think Mason would rather be at a strip club right now.”

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