Claimed

by Pratt, Lulu

  Bills was intimidating. The whole place gave off a ‘cooler than you’ vibe. The external art belonged in the MoMA, and there were a few errant pieces of graffiti on the sidewalk outside. I couldn’t see the interior — it appeared to be hidden by blackout curtains, probably for privacy reasons. I rubbed my right ass cheek, thinking about how I must have been here pretty recently, and seen the inside, though I couldn’t remember a single thing about it. Guess the curtains weren’t the only thing that blacked out.

  Okay, it was time to stop dwelling on the past. Focus on the phone, my inner voice suggested. Then deal with your own humiliation.

  That seemed doable. With shaky hands, I yanked open the front door and walked inside. My first thought was I’ve been here before. The second was and it’s super, super hip. Just like at the concert last night, I felt instantly out of my league. Line drawings of tattoos papered the walls. Even with only a fleeting glance, and knowing absolutely nothing about tats, I could surmise that the general unifying theme was ‘modernized vintage.’ There were flapper girls with Cupid’s bow lips and art deco butterflies, alongside smooth little one-shot pistols and abstract, feathery designs.

  My attention was pulled from the drawings to the people, a man and a woman, who sat behind the counter. They were bikers of the authentic variety. Tatted head to toe, black leather, bandanas, the works. To their credit, if they were surprised to see my hippy ass in Bills, they didn’t give it away.

  “Hey there, buttercup,” the woman said from a toothy grin. “How’s tricks?”

  I faltered. “Uh, good… I think.”

  She stood up, and her enormous bosom seemed to dominate the counter. I averted my gaze, but she winked, indicating that she’d already seen my eyes wander to her breasts.

  “They’re real,” she snickered. “Well, real silicon, anyways. What can I do for you today? In for a tattoo? We’re starting a new special—”

  “No,” I replied quickly, shaking my head.

  The man, who was half hidden behind the counter and behind the woman’s breasts, said gruffly, “Then watcha lookin’ for? A piercing? A snack?”

  I wondered if this was drug lingo for a moment, but decided in a split second that he was just making a strange joke. The silence dragged on for too long.

  “Buttercup,” the woman repeated, still mildly amused by my spacey-ness. “How can I be of service?”

  Overwhelmed by the shop, these people, and all the other compounding issues, I gave up trying to be polite.

  I said, “I’m looking for this guy,” and with that, I turned around, pulled down my pants and revealed to these two total strangers my ass tattoo.

  They guffawed. Like, properly screamed with laughter. My face turned red, more with annoyance than anything else. What was so damn funny?

  The woman wiped her eye, slicking off a big tear and the man blew his nose into a Kleenex with a resounding honk.

  “So?” I said huffily. “Can you help me or not?”

  She nodded and through ill-contained laughter, replied, “Sure can.” She turned around, and over her shoulder, yelled, “Cash, get out here!”

  My chest tightened. So I’d been right. I guess I’d known already, from the moment I’d turned on the phone tracker, and then fifty other times after that, but some part of me hadn’t wanted to believe that he, of all people, had my phone. Stupid optimism, etc.

  “What is it?” a familiar voice shouted from some back room.

  “You might wanna get out here,” the man replied. “You got a visitor.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  And then Cash emerged from behind a curtain.

  Chapter 13

  Cash

  WE LOCKED eyes, and the shop melted around me into a non-existent pile, a kind of gray matter. I wasn’t in the parlor, or even in this dimension. I was in a liminal plane, an alternate reality where all that existed was Cybil and me, in this eternal gaze, nothing between us but history and sex. Her eyes sparked with rage and… something else. Had she, perhaps, forgiven me?

  My mother cleared her throat, and I spoke first.

  “Cybil,” I murmured, unable to muster anything more eloquent.

  “Cash.”

  “You’re here.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What gave me away?”

  My mother, always the nosy one, watched as I strode up to Cybil and asked me, “How do you two know one another?”

  Hm, let’s see. I picked her up at a club, tattooed my name on her ass, took her to a rock concert, gave her an orgasm, then watched from the middle of a street as she left me in the dust. And now I have her phone, and she’s here, in my shop. Simple enough explanation, right?

  Obviously I decided to forego this backstory with my parents. It’s not that they wouldn’t understand — like I’ve said before, they’ve gotten up to plenty of shit in their time — but I doubted Cybil would appreciate the monologuing.

  “Mom, Dad,” I directed to my parents, never taking my eyes off Cybil’s. “Can you both take a walk?”

  My father chortled. “Gotta talk romance?”

  From the corner of my eye, I could see my mom elbow him in the ribs. To me, “Of course, Cash. Call us back whenever.”

  With that, my dad reluctantly stood up from the desk, his old bones cracking in the process. My mom grabbed his hand and dragged him out the front door, only briefly pausing to turn over her shoulder and give me a wink.

  “Make good choices!” she called mid-exit. “Or don’t, we don’t give a fuck!”

  The little bell tinkled overhead as the door slammed shut. I was alone with Cybil, locked in a staring game.

  She broke first. “You work for your parents?”

  Not the question I’d expected, but fine. “Yeah, technically I work with them,” I replied. “We own it as a family shop. My mom, like me, inks, and my dad runs the books. We’ve had it for a few years now. It’s doing… not great. Could use a stronger cash flow.”

  I was rambling, and we both knew it. I swallowed back the rest of my words, the rest of my urge to tell her every little thing about my life until she knew me like she was inside my own skin, running her fingers over the molecular structures and testing the tautness of veins.

  The silence overwhelmed us once more. Her gorgeous, peach-pink lips parted and closed a few times as though she was carefully selecting her words. Her collarbones shifted as she fidgeted nervously, and shadows played in their hollows. I wanted to be kissing those bones again, to be leaving marks, the non-permanent kind, all over her neck and near the curve of her ear.

  She interrupted my train of thought, saying curtly, “Can I please have my phone back?” I could see the restraint in her phrasing, the carefulness to say just the right thing.

  I thought about the duality of Cybil, the calm self-possession and the unearthed wildness, the clean, straightforward yoga instructor and the messy rocker, the hate and the immense attraction, the anger and the love.

  And I knew I had to fight for her.

  “I’ll give you the phone,” I began. “But only if you hear me out first.”

  She bit her bottom lip, either in consternation or fear, and hesitated. I was nervous she’d refuse — in which case, I’d immediately hand over the phone, because contrary to some belief, I’m not a dick — but instead, she replied, “Fine.”

  Okay, not a lot to work with, but I’d take it.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Let’s go to the backroom. It’s a little more comfortable.”

  She raised a brow, suspicious. “We don’t need to get comfortable.”

  Yikes. “I meant, like, chairs.”

  Cybil seemed to question this, but ultimately ceded the point. “All right.”

  I nodded and guided her past the tattoo stations, carefully showing her how to weave through the maze of moving tables with equipment, over cords and around various detritus. We reached the curtain, a cool number covered in an Egon Schiele print. I flung it to the side and led Cybil into the back room.

&
nbsp; Good to my word, the back room was far more comfortable than the relative sterility of the front. In fact, if I’m being honest, I’m a bit proud of the space. I’m not sure what it was originally designed for, but it’s the size of a small coffee shop. Originally, we’d thought about doing other work back there, but we’d decided that there was no point. Anything we wanted to do, we could do in the front.

  So instead, we’d transformed it into basically our living room — which was a nice family space. There’s large windows on three sides that let in plenty of light, old lamps salvaged from Goodwill and from a couple of curbs, any number of overstuffed armchairs and throw rugs that covered all but a few square feet of the wooden floor. Vintage movie posters, postcards from the ‘40s and old fabric swatches decked the walls.

  It stood in stark contrast to the relative tough guy image of the front room. It had the throwback feel of our tattoos, but resembled little else in the shop. The truth of the matter is that even my biker family likes a good doily and a place to let their Mohawks down. It was more Pinterest than Harley Davidson.

  I pivoted to catch the look on Cybil’s face and, as anticipated, it was mute surprise.

  “Nice,” she said with a glint of admiration. “Cool space.”

  I puffed up my chest, prouder than I’d like to admit of her approval. “Thanks, it’s my favorite part of the shop.”

  She ran her hand over one of the postcards, playing with the frayed edges. Her touch was gentle but inquisitive. She looked like she was in her own world, peaceful and removed, until she caught sight of me watching her, and immediately stopped examining the room.

  “All right,” she said, plopping down on a nearby couch done up in a taupey fabric. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  I took a breath, and crossed the room to grab a wicker chair, which I then set down a few feet from Cybil’s resting place on the couch. I spun the chair around so I straddled it, my arms hanging comfortably over the back.

  Where to begin? I’d known there was a chance she’d come around — though frankly, it had seemed unlikely. Why hadn’t I prepared something to say? Argh, words were proving frustratingly hard to grasp.

  So I gave up on poeticism, and settled for starting at the beginning.

  Cautiously, I said, “Do you remember that night?”

  She didn’t have to ask which night I was referring to. Her lip pulled into a small scowl as she said, “No.”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize at the time that you were blackout drunk.”

  “Hmph,” she sniffed. “I find that hard to believe.”

  I bristled at that. “You think I would’ve tattooed you, had I known? Cybil, this is my living. And more importantly, it’s my art. And it’s you. I would never have touched you with the needle.”

  She sat back into the folds of the couch and crossed her arms, looking away. It was impossible to tell if my plea had impacted her. Her eyes were too far in the distance to give any clues.

  “Would you like to know what I remember?”

  Cybil turned her face slightly closer to mine, showing me her profile in three quarters — a minor improvement. I took it as reluctant interest.

  “Well,” I said. “Here’s how it began.”

  I walked her through the beginning of the night — our meeting in the hall, her begging for my assistance in an escape, our jaunt to the tattoo parlor. She listened with evident distrust, but also interest. She’d probably been craving this story for a long time.

  Having arrived at the tattoo shop portion of the narrative, I cleared my throat.

  “We talked for ages,” I said. “As if we’d known each other before, maybe in another life. It was so… easy. And wonderful.”

  She interrupted for the first time to ask, “What did we talk about?”

  I shrugged. “Everything. Nothing. I couldn’t even say.” My gaze involuntarily shifted to the floor as I added, “I don’t remember that well, because… well, because I was too busy getting lost in your eyes.”

  Cybil’s lips morphed into a thin line. “That sounds like bullshit.”

  But I noticed that, over the course of the tale, she’d pivoted more and more and that now she was facing me full-on. Whatever her mouth might be saying, her body was telling a different story altogether.

  “It’s not bullshit,” I replied simply. “I’ve got no reason to lie.”

  Her brows furrowed, but I could see that there were cracks in her resistance.

  I continued, “After ages — I’m not sure how long, but quite some time — we were… how should I put this. Well, I suppose we were in love.”

  At this, she guffawed, a sound of shock mixed with embarrassment — but no anger or hurt.

  “‘In love’?” she repeated. “What makes you think that?”

  It was my turn to blush. “We, um, declared our love for one another. Right in the front room.”

  “What did I say?” she demanded. “What did you say?”

  I was growing hot under the collar of my T-shirt. I’d never expected to declare my love in the first place, but now being asked to repeat the promises, and to someone who didn’t necessarily want to hear them… it was fairly demoralizing. And humiliating.

  “I said that I didn’t understand it, and didn’t really know you, but that I wanted to follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  She gulped. “And what did I say?”

  “You said that you felt the same, only you wanted to follow me past the ends of the earth, and into the universe.”

  The memory nearly choked me. It had been hard to not repeat this to her the minute I realized she had no recollection of who I was. I’d wanted her to know, and when she didn’t, I’d wanted to insist that things go back to exactly as they were that night, that even if she couldn’t remember, she ought to be told what had transpired. But I’d held back because I didn’t want to pressure her into feeling what she might’ve felt while drunk.

  Her eyes went misty and she seemed at a loss for words. She fidgeted in her seat. Was she uncomfortable with this revelation? Or scared at how serious it felt?

  In the midst of the silence, she prodded me. “Keep going.”

  Well, it was all easy after telling that last bit. I said, “So… the tattoos.”

  Those misty eyes widened. “Plural?”

  I nodded. “First, you asked for the tattoo, because you said you wanted to start living more adventurously. Like, you wanted to stop questioning everything, and just ‘do.’”

  She sighed with exasperation, “That sounds like me. Stupid.”

  “I don’t think it’s stupid,” I offered. “I think it’s fun. Free-spirited.”

  “I’m a yoga teacher, how much more free-spirited can I get?”

  Point taken. “I don’t know — having come from the military, I’m impressed by anyone, at any point in their life, deciding to live exactly as they’d like. That takes major balls.”

  She shifted, and the couch squeaked. “Maybe.” Beat. “But why did you tattoo your name? There’s no way I asked for that.”

  “You said I could do whatever I want, as long as I made it something personal.”

  Cybil groaned. “So you took that so literally you just did your name? Come on, Cash, where’s the imagination?”

  My pride was a little hurt, but she was also right, so I took it on the chin. “Fair enough. But it looks nice, yeah? You like it? You did then, when I showed it to you in the mirror. You said it would be a good reminder of our… our promise.”

  “I mean, I don’t love the ‘waking up with a mysterious tattoo of a guy’s name’ part.” She paused. “But the lettering’s nice, I’ll give you that.”

  I chuckled. “Okay, my dignity can rest easy.”

  “Plural,” she reminded me. “What do you mean ‘tattoos’?” Panic tinged her voice. “Does that mean I have another one I don’t know about?”

  My head shook back and forth as quickly as possible. “No, no. After I gave you the tatto
o, you said I ought to get one of my own.”

  Her brows knit together, and she said, “How’s that possible? There wasn’t anyone to give you a tattoo.”

  This time, I fully guffawed. “Maybe we didn’t cover this, but I am in fact a licensed tattoo artist with some considerable skills.”

  She gasped. “So you gave yourself one?”

  “Yup.” I thrust out my chest, happy to have seemingly impressed her.

  “Where? Of what?”

  I grinned. “I’ll show you, but it’ll require me getting a bit… less dressed.”

  A pulse at the base of her throat fluttered, and a pulse in my cock matched the rhythm. Finger fucking Cybil at the concert had been unreal. I’d never been so aroused in my life, so delighted to be in the service of another person’s pleasure. I would’ve committed, then and there, to be Cybil’s personal sex toy for as long as she should live, whether or not I got any literal satisfaction in return. Seeing her lips pop into an ‘O’ had been reward enough.

  She nodded at last. “Go ahead,” she murmured, her voice dropping an octave, perhaps to keep it from sounding strangled with sexual desire.

  I stood up from the wicker chair, kicking it to the side and taking a step to Cybil so that I was looming over her. Her eyes were at the exact level of my cock, and I could see that she was trying very hard to not focus on my sizable bulge. I followed her gaze, and realizing that I was onto her, Cybil blushed and affixed her eyes firmly to my own.

  That little pas de deux over, I announced, “Now presenting… the tattoo.”

  I unzipped my jeans slowly, inch by inch pulling them down to reveal the top of my black briefs. She crossed her legs one over another. Perhaps she was getting as wet as she’d been the other night. Was that even possible? Next, I dragged the jeans down further, exposing my ‘package’ to Cybil. The beginnings of a boner were stirring in my underwear, but I was too turned on to try to tamp it down. She needed to see what she did to me, how just being in her presence got me so hot and bothered.