I catch a glance of my half-naked body in the mirror. Fuck, I mouth to myself. I’m really going through with this. I wrap the tartan scarf around my boobs and try and convince myself that I look absolutely on-trend. That is, if I were a pop singer in the nineties. I’m a choker and two buns away from being worthy of the cover of Dolly magazine. The scarf barely skims my giant knockers.
The Viking turns around and he laughs. ‘Well hello, Sassenach.’
‘What?’ I ask.
‘You haven’t seen Outlander?’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘What’s that?’
He looks genuinely surprised. ‘Oh, just…’ he trails off. ‘It’s a book and a TV show—it’s a romance—a time-travel romance.’ I look at him, puzzled, and he continues. ‘The sex scenes are—’ he blushes just above his beard.
‘And?’ I ask, trying to not overreact at the word ‘sex’ coming out of his beautiful mouth.
‘And so there’s been this influx of women coming to Scotland to have the best sex of their lives.’ He grins at me.
I start laughing. ‘And he calls her Sassenach?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What does it mean?’ he asks.
‘An English person.’ He nods at my chest. ‘Is that yours?’
For a split second I think he means my boobs, before I realise he means the print on the scarf. ‘The tartan? Oh no. I bought it on the high street for three quid because it’s so fucking freezing here.’
‘Oh, are you cold? You hadn’t mentioned it.’ He laughs.
‘Good, mock the petrified, half-naked woman.’ I’m enjoying this.
He grins wide. ‘Orright, let’s try again.’ We fiddle with the stencil a few times until we’re both happy. I was happy the first time, but the Viking wasn’t. He put it on, washed it off, and put it on again another two times. He puts on gloves and sits back on his chair, fiddling with needles and filling tiny tubs with colour. I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling. The tattoo gun buzzes loudly.
‘Here we go.’ He starts with the smallest line. ‘You okay?’ He stops tattooing and looks at me.
‘This is entirely unpleasant,’ I say and he chuckles from his chest.
‘That is one way to put it. Yes.’
‘How long have you been doing this again?’ I ask, clenching my teeth.
‘About a month,’ he mutters and I look at him, startled.
‘I’m kidding. Nearly twenty years.’
‘You must love it.’
He nods, concentrating. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a teacher.’
‘What do you teach?’
‘English. But now I mostly work with the kids who get in trouble.’
‘Cool. Hence, the poem. It’s Mary Oliver, yeah?’ he asks and I’m shocked he knows.
‘You know the poem?’
‘“Starlings in Winter”—it’s a great poem.’ He nods and keeps working. He knows the fucking poem. Who is this guy? ‘So, you want wings, Noni?’
‘Yeah, I guess, and some other stuff. It’s a good reminder of how to be.’ We’re silent for a moment and he starts tattooing again. I wince from the pain.
‘Ooh, yeah, ow!’ He winces too. ‘Not that I can feel it—I just, for sympathy, yes?’
‘Thank you.’ He’s sweet—a player, clearly, no man who looks like that isn’t. But sweet.
‘So are there just a bunch of Scottish men going around calling foreign women Sassenach on the off chance they’ll have sex with them?’ I ask.
He smiles, coy. ‘I’m not Scottish.’ He keeps working.
‘Where are you from?’
‘I’m a Geordie.’
‘Like the TV show where they get pissed and vomit on each other?’
‘That’s it.’ He grins. ‘But my accent is a hybrid now, I’ve lived all over the world.’
‘Right,’ I smile. ‘So, has the Sassenach thing worked?’ He shrugs his shoulders and I laugh. ‘It has?’ He doesn’t say anything, but he definitely blushes. My mind wanders. He called me Sassenach. Does that mean he wants to have sex with me? No! Stop that. Pleasure is not a person, Noni.
We don’t talk for a while. I look at the ceiling, reminding myself to breathe and relax, happy for each minute that passes because it means we are a minute closer to being finished. The worst part is I can’t see where he’s up to, so I just have to imagine. This is excellent practice in not being in control. Which I hate.
‘What brings you here?’ he asks.
‘To Scotland, or to get tattooed?’
‘All of the above.’
‘Well, it’s a fucking tale, I’ll tell you that.’ Are you a pirate? Calm down, woman. I will never not be shocked at the way my brain quite genuinely implodes around people I’m attracted to.
‘Conveniently I’m not going anywhere.’ The Viking smiles.
‘I came here for a girl.’ I give him the simple, easy version.
He stops tattooing and looks me in the eye. ‘I see. And?’
‘And it did not go well.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He touches my hand and leaves it there for a second, squeezing it ever so lightly. It’s such a simple but genuine gesture that it obliterates the dam wall to my feelings.
‘It’s okay. She was just one thing on a list of—’ I search for the right word. ‘Misguided challenges.’
‘Challenges?’
‘Well, not challenges, tasks, no, dares, I guess. Dares I’d given myself. But, that’s changed now it’s—’ I stop, realising I’m rambling. ‘I think I’m having a bit of a quarter-life crisis, actually.’ He looks at me, smiling, and I peer down my body at him for a moment, but mostly I look at the ceiling.
‘Tell me more.’
‘I just got out of a long long-term relationship. Not like recently, it’s been two years, but it’s taken me longer than I thought to sort out some things. And I felt really boring, really beige. People think I’m beige. I mean I don’t really do—’ I stop because it hurts. ‘Ahh, fuck, ow.’
‘Ooh, sorry. Yeah. That’s a cartilagey bit. Sucks, yeah?’ I nod. ‘You don’t really do what?’
‘This. Get tattoos. Go overseas for girls. For sex. Not just sex. For pleasure. I’m on a pleasure quest.’ And with that confession, the wall comes slamming down again like one of those large steel doors in a dungeon. I feel exposed. Literally. I glance at my bare stomach and the scarf around my boobs and I just feel stupid. So stupid.
‘Really? That sounds fucking great.’
I laugh nervously. ‘Yeah?’ I pause. You’ve come this far, Noni, you may as well reveal it all. ‘I’ve made a list. A list of all of the things that will make me, I don’t know—’
‘Happy?’ he asks and I nod. ‘I really love that.’ He looks me in the eye and smiles wide. A real smile, all teeth and energy. The combination of his stunning green eyes, my adrenaline, the fact that I’m topless and in pain, create a cocktail of reckless abandon that shatters the negativity tape that’s been on a loop, if I’m honest, for my whole fucking life. And so we talk. Actually talk. No bullshit. No nerves. Just honesty. I tell him all about the pleasure quest, about Joan and about Molly. He’s an excellent listener.
‘I think what you’re doing is really brave.’
‘Shut up,’ I say.
‘I mean it. So many people are miserable, aren’t they? Just boxing up secret dreams and getting pissed every weekend because they think they can’t do the things that’ll actually make them happy. It’s scary. What you’re doing is fucking scary.’ He stops and looks at me, differently than he has before. This look is like he’s searching for something in my face. ‘It’s brilliant, Noni.’
I like the way my name sounds in his mouth, on his voice. ‘Wow,’ I say, feeling deeply touched. ‘Thank you for saying that.’
‘It’s true. I once tattooed this guy in South Africa. Cool dude. An Aussie. He had a serious job, kids, mortgage, the lot, yeah? In his fifties. But he said something happened when he turned forty. That
the end of his life looked closer than it ever had before and not because he had say, forty or fifty years left—that felt like a long time—but because he realised he only had forty or fifty summers left. And that felt like a really small number to him. So he made this list. This fifty summers list. And he showed me this battered list with scribbles and words crossed out. And it was simple shit, places he wanted to surf, stuff he wanted to show his kids, camping and that. Nothing crazy, but he was just ticking shit off every year.’
I breathe his words in. It’s the most he’s talked the whole time I’ve been in the shop. ‘What would be on your list?’ I ask.
He looks a little bewildered and his eyes widen. ‘I dunno. But I’m going to think about this conversation for a while, I know I am.’
We sit in silence and I feel the sting of vulnerability. I’ve bared too much, too quickly.
He squirts some liquid onto the tattoo and it drips down my side. He catches it with a piece of paper towel and he smiles at me. ‘And we’re done.’
‘Really?’
He holds out his hand and I grab it with one of mine, the other holding on to my tartan boob cover. I stand up slowly and walk over to the mirror and when I see my reflection I inhale quickly. It’s amazing. I can’t help it, I well up. But I’m smiling. They’re happy tears. I am the kind of woman who gets tattoos. Amazing tattoos. Important tattoos. A beautiful and permanent reminder of how I want to feel.
‘You good?’
‘Yeah. It’s really good. Thank you.’ I look at him. ‘I love it.’ I keep staring in the mirror, checking every angle. I’m in my own world.
‘No. Thank you, Noni. It’s been a fucking pleasure. You sat like a champ.’
‘I really, really love it. Thank you,’ I say again. Without thinking I walk over and hug him, forgetting about the scarf, which floats to the floor as my bare boobs smoosh directly into his chest. ‘Oh my god.’ I quickly grab the scarf off the ground and spin around, horrified.
The Viking laughs. ‘Like I said, it’s been a pleasure.’
‘I’m mortified.’
‘It’s fine, it’s fine. I have to wrap you up anyway,’ he says.
‘I’ll just put on my—’ I pick up my bra, willing my bright-red cheeks to calm down.
‘I wouldn’t wear that if I was you. Nothing that’ll rub.’
‘Of course.’ I put my singlet on and hold it up so he can do whatever he needs to do. ‘What’s the lady equivalent of free-balling?’ I ask, trying to keep it light, even though nothing about this, or me, is light.
‘Free-balling?’
‘When men don’t wear underwear.’
He laughs. ‘I dunno what the equivalent is. Free-boobing?’
‘Perfect.’ I smile as he wraps cling wrap around the tattoo, touching me ever so lightly as he tapes it in place.
He gives me instructions for looking after the tattoo and walks me out to the front of the shop, where the lovely Australian girl is sitting, tapping away on a computer.
‘All good?’
‘So good,’ I say, way too enthusiastically.
‘Well, all the best, Noni. With everything,’ says the Viking, and I smile at him. This bit feels weird. Like we’ve crossed some kind of intimacy boundary and now we’re just floating in an awkward in-between space.
‘Yeah, you too,’ I say.
He stretches out his arms for a hug. ‘Shall we try again?’
I pull my jacket on. ‘I think you’ll be safe this time.’ I gesture to my boobs and pull a weird face that I match with a loud throaty sound, and immediately wish I hadn’t. Pull it together, woman. We hug again. He smells like good aftershave, floral shampoo and man things. All smells I like. We pull back and he nods, turns on his heel and walks back up the corridor, leaving me with the Aussie girl.
‘Beau’s a peach, isn’t he?’
His name is Beau. A Viking named Beau. ‘Yes. Lovely. So nice. I was a hot mess but he was—is—he’s lovely.’ Oh, shut your face.
I leave the shop and am hit by the bitter cold, but I feel good. I feel different. I look up the street and like the fact that the people passing by don’t know what I’ve just done. That I’ve just altered my body forever. I throw my boob scarf around my neck and beam all over. This is a moment. A marker. A change. You can do whatever the fuck you want to do, my darling. And for the first time in my whole life that possibility doesn’t petrify me.
19
I’ve made two big decisions since getting my tattoo this morning:
1. Tonight I want to drink wine and dance.
2. I’m going to go back to the tattoo shop tomorrow to ask the Viking on a date.
Both decisions are equally petrifying and thrilling. I’ve never gone out drinking on my own, and I’ve never asked someone I’ve just met out on a date. But the list insists, and I insist on committing to it.
Even so, the idea of standing in a pub on my own makes me feel weird. What will people think? I catch the thought as it flashes in my mind. Fuck it. Pleasure must lead, remember? I figure I’ll walk to the pub on the corner, drink a pint or two, and dance my guts out and then tomorrow I’ll worry about the Viking.
While I’m in the shower, I drink the rest of the bottle of wine I bought earlier. Why is drinking in the shower so deeply satisfying? Within thirty minutes I’ve got a spot of red lipstick, a can-do attitude, and I’m out the door feeling pleasantly buzzed.
I walk into the dimly lit pub and it’s absolutely packed with people. A cover band has just started their set. Beer sloshes on to the floor as people sway from side to side, singing and bouncing along to the music. I head to the bar and order a glass of bubbles, because this is a celebration and I am a woman on a mission. I push my way as close to the front of the makeshift dance floor as I can and I let go. Like, dancing-in-the-dark let go. I dance because I want to feel the way that only dancing makes me feel—heart-racing, smiley, sweaty, like there’s forward momentum, movement—that I’m in control of being out of control. When dickheads try to dance with me I push them away, thrashing my head around and cheering wildly as each song ends. I can feel the music all through my body and I wonder if maybe this is what pleasure actually looks like for me, crammed in a pub in Edinburgh, shoes sticking to the floor, its musty scent stuffed up my nose. The band finish their set with a promise to be back soon. I am sweaty, happy and thirsty, moving through the thick crowd to the bar and ordering, but as I go to give the barman my card an arm appears over my shoulder, moving my hand out of the way, paying for my drink. I spin around to tell them to get fucked, but then I see that the arm belongs to the Viking. My smile is immediate and takes up my entire face. The perfect fusion of glee and shock. I don’t say anything, I just stare at him. He says something but I can’t hear, it’s too noisy and he’s too handsome.
‘What?’ I yell.
He leans down and speaks into my ear. ‘I said, nice dance moves.’ He pulls back and beams.
I blush. ‘Cheers.’ I’m grateful that it’s so loud and that we can’t really talk, because it means we have to stand close to even kind of make out what each other is saying. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ I say.
He smiles. ‘Why’s that?’
I laugh and shake my head in astonishment, placing my hand on his bicep to check for sure that he’s really real. ‘I was gonna ask you something.’ My stomach flips with my false confidence. Who is this woman? She can stay.
‘Oh, really?’
I nod. He looks at me curiously then shouts next to my ear, ‘You here with anyone?’ and I can feel his words in my vagina. I shake my head, happy with the feeling. He gestures towards the other side of the room, indicating for me to follow him. I start to move through the throngs of people and he puts his hand on my waist to help usher me through the crowd. I am very aware of the exact placement of his fingers on my body. He leads me to a large circular booth in the corner and introduces me to his friends. They all seem so cool; all tattooed and pierced, with asymmetrical haircuts and bold fash
ion sense. The women at this table certainly wouldn’t have made such a big deal about buying a pencil skirt, I can tell. I scooch in next to a guy named Adam who has a perfect black flat-top and is wearing a bright eighties tracksuit.
‘I like your jacket,’ I tell him as I slide across the bench seat. Beau squishes in next to me.
‘See!’ Adam yells loudly to the group and they all laugh boisterously. ‘These assholes were telling me I look like the nerd brother in the Fresh Prince.’
I laugh. ‘Clearly they’re jealous.’
‘I like you, Noni. Meanwhile, the rest of you can fuck off.’ He gives them the finger.
‘This is the woman I was telling you all about,’ Beau announces to the table, and they all look at me, nodding. He turns towards me. ‘I hope you don’t mind, I kind of told them about your quest.’
‘I love it, Noni!’ A girl with a thick Nordic accent and blue, blue eyes smiles at me. ‘What sort of things have you been doing?’ They all stare at me, waiting, and I don’t know what to say.
‘It’s only just started, really. I’m like, eating what I want and travelling. I cut off all my hair, and ummm I had sex with a magician, oh and my principal, but neither of those experiences worked out quite how I’d planned.’
Beau quickly interjects. ‘Noni’s a teacher.’
‘Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I’m not at school. It’s not illegal. No. Two consenting adults.’ We all laugh. ‘I’ve read books, stayed in bed, and I went to the movies on my own, ’cause I’d never done that. Too chicken shit. In fact I’ve been doing lots of things that I was, um—’ I correct myself. ‘Am scared to do, like getting a tattoo.’ I turn to Beau and smile at him, grabbing his forearm and squeezing it, before promptly freaking out about what to do with my hand next, and leaving it drooping on his arm for far too long. Move your hand, Noni. I do.
‘So, it’s about more joy, yeah?’ Adam asks.
‘Yeah, pleasure in everything,’ I say.
It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake Page 14
