Page 106 of Dirty Ink

Rachel

Then…

I hadn’t even noticed the bandage till my director freaked the fuck out.

“So let me get this straight,” he’d shouted while pacing back and forth in the tight space of my dressing room while I popped another Advil. “Our audience tonight is going to get sparkler pasties in the front—hot, Little Miss America with her perfect tits—and in the back they’re going to get burn victim? Little Miss Domestic Violence? Little Miss Skin Cancer Screening? What’s hot about that, Rachel? Tell me! What is hot about melanoma?!”

I stretched my arm around to prod at the rather sore area under the bandage.

“I don’t think it’s a burn,” I told him, craning my neck this way and that to try to catch a glimpse in the mirror. The sparkler pasties swayed about as I squirmed in the chair.

“What in the hell did you do last night?” my director asked.

“I have no clue.”

My director sighed dramatically and stared up to the ceiling. “Lord, please give me strength to deal with these sluts I, for some reason, love so much.”

I ignored him as I peeled back a corner, wincing. I squinted at the red, raised skin in the mirror.

“I think it’s a tattoo…”

We dressed up the bandage as best we could. My makeup artist painted over the bandage and concealed it under this giant-ass eagle.

“I don’t know,” she said, stepping away from it and shrugging, makeup brush between her teeth. “America, you know?”

I didn’t really care all that much. I was eager to see what it was. Eager to get back to Mason. Eager to try to piece together the night before with one another over sushi…or wings…or both… Yes, both, I thought as I threw my arms over my head, smiled, and shook my sparkling tits to a standing ovation.

I told the makeup artist not to bother washing it off. Mason could handle that in the shower. On the bus ride down the strip, I leaned my cheek against the hot glass as the bright lights slipped by and imagined it was the hot glass of my shower. It was quiet in the back of the bus. Dark. There was no one to see my fingers slip between my thighs as I imagined Mason pressing me harder against the water-streaked glass. Imagined the fear of breaking that hot, steam-covered glass as he fucked me from behind. Imagined my knees collapsing because it felt so damn good and Mason having to hold me as he finished, hold me there against that hot glass.

I laughed as I took the elevator up to my floor. I laughed because I was happy. Because I had someone waiting for me who I’d been waiting for. I laughed because I just couldn’t believe it. That life could be so kind. That I’d be given something when all I knew in life was that good things were for being taken away. That I could actually be happy. I laughed because I was happy, which was funny. Really fucking funny.

I fidgeted with the corners of the bandage beneath my t-shirt as I unlocked the door. All the lights were on and I threw my stuff down in the entryway. I had better things to do than stay tidy.

“Mason,” I called into the apartment. “Hey, so do you remember anything about tattoos last night? Honestly, I can’t remember a fucking thing. But I kind of think we might have gotten tattoos. Do you have, like, a bandage on you anywhere?”

In the kitchen beer bottles were still spread out everywhere. Mason wasn’t exactly tidy either. I grabbed one from the fridge. Laughed as I popped the top.

“I kind of hope you have one,” I called out toward the living room. “’Cause maybe it is a burn. God, did I try to twirl firesticks? For some reason I always get that urge when I’m drunk and, like, why can’t I want to, I don’t know, cuddle with stuffed animals after drinking a big glass of water when I’m drunk, you know?”

I kicked off my shoes as I walked toward the living room.

“Mason?”

I was surprised to find the couch empty. The TV on, but no one there to watch it. I checked the balcony overlooking the strip. A cigarette still burned in the ashtray, but Mason was not out there either.

“Mason?”

I went toward the bedroom. If he felt anywhere near as bad as I did during my performance, a nap might have been a very smart thing. The sheets were a mess. Just the way we’d left them. A mess and empty.

The bathroom, too. A mess of vodka bottles, travel-size shampoos and my dildo. But empty of the one thing I was looking for.

“Hmm,” I said and walked back out to the kitchen.

I said “Hmm” because it sounded like something someone who wasn’t worried would say. “Hmm.” It had an ambivalence I wished a felt. A carefreeness I longed for even as my heartrate quickened. “Hmm” seemed to say to the emptiness around me, “Everything is fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

“Hmm” was everything I wanted to be. “Hmm” was everything I was not.

Seated on the edge of the kitchen counter, I sipped my beer and kicked my feet about and tried to imagine what takeout Mason was picking up for us to eat at a quarter past two in the morning. I sipped my beer and kicked my feet about and tried to pretend that was what I was imagining. Plastic containers. Grease-stained receipts. Crumpled brown paper bags.

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