Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad!

by Nicholson, Scott; Shirley, John; Jones, Adrienne; Mannetti, Lisa; Masterton, Graham; Laimo, Michael; Rosamilia, Armand; Colyott, Charles; Bailey, Michael

  The room was smaller than the previous but equally bright, with a single tattooing chair in the middle of the room and a wheeled cabinet holding his tools. The walls were bare, and no tattoo art covered the walls, no pictures, no stray pieces of dirt, no scraps of paper.

  I was shaking as I sat down in the chair.

  “One hundred dollars,” Carlo said.

  My heart nearly stopped. “I think I have eighty,” I stammered.

  He pointed at Elena. “One hundred dollars.”

  She fished through her small pocketbook and pulled out a thin wad of cash, counting out five twenties. She hesitated, holding her last twenty in her hand, before handing it to me.

  I smiled, gave him my money, and then tried not to pass out or shake myself to death while he gave me the tattoo on my left shoulder.

  While I stood in the corner afterwards, nursing my bruised and bleeding arm, Elena got hers in the same spot.

  “Will you be returning soon?” Carlo asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Why?”

  “Many of Angelika’s friends get multiple tattoos from me.” He dropped his smile. I was suddenly reminded of a wolf. “Only I can give this tattoo.”

  I ducked my landlord for the rest of the week, picked up as many shifts as I could at work, and pawned my radio, TV, and some of my clothes I would never wear again.

  Elena popped into work Friday morning sporting a new matching tattoo on the other shoulder.

  I was pissed. “You went without me?”

  “Nah, I got this one in Point Pleasant.”

  “That doesn’t count.”

  Elena laughed and ordered coffee.

  “It really doesn’t. Carlo was very specific about not getting one from anyone but him.”

  “I don’t remember signing an exclusive contract with him. Besides, he does so many of these. I’ll wait a couple of weeks and get another one then.”

  “How many are you going to get?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from pitching higher. I knew I was going tonight to get another one, thinking she’d stop at one. I remembered seeing people at the Limelight with six or seven of them.

  “As many as it takes. One chick had seventeen of them.”

  I was stunned. I also needed to get more money, and get it fast.

  “I’ll pick you up at six.”

  Three weeks and three more tattoos later, I was in serious danger of being homeless and eventually going to jail. I’d begun skimming a few dollars from the register at work, then not claiming a few customers each night and pocketing the money. Finally, I was thinking of staging a holdup so I could get a few hundred bucks in one shot and get four or five tattoos at once.

  I’d sold almost everything I owned except for the two outfits I alternated each Friday night. Elena, who had played it cool and not gone with me to see Carlo, finally decided that it was time to go back and get another tattoo. I’m sure she was quite envious of my four.

  I’d seen Angelika around the Limelight, but we’d never been able to connect. Several of her followers said “hi” to me, smiling when they saw my tattoos. I was now on the edge of their little clique, I could feel it. Almost all of them had more tattoos than I did, however, and I felt like I was running out of time. I knew I was running out of money.

  We stopped at Carlo’s and he greeted me with a smile, asking where I wanted the next tattoo. I now had both shoulders and both ankles done. I decided to be daring—and desperate—despite Elena in the room with me. “I want one just above my pussy. How does that sound?”

  Carlo nodded absently. “You should really get them where you can see them. How about on your neck? Or your shoulder blades?”

  “How about both?” I said, trying to be casual. I was no whore, but I knew what I was about to try and I was terrified. “Can you give me some discount on two at a time?”

  Carlo went to his tools. “No, one hundred dollars each. No discounts.”

  “What about if we strike some type of deal?” I said, licking my lips seductively when he turned back to me.

  “One hundred dollars per tattoo.”

  I glanced at Elena. “What if we both ...?”

  I noticed that Elena didn’t complain, just stared at Carlo.

  Carlo grinned and shook his head. “One hundred dollars per tattoo.”

  Without another word, he took my hundred dollars and immediately started to prep the left side of my neck. I was going to protest and tell him that I wanted it near my crotch, and that my boss might not take kindly to a bright red tattoo on my neck, but I said nothing. Once again.

  It hurt like a bitch, but I never made a sound.

  When it was Elena’s time she proudly announced that she wanted the same spot. Carlo shook his head and tapped her right shoulder. “Not my work.”

  “Sure it is.” She waved the hundred dollars in front of him.

  Carlo turned away. “It is time for you to leave.”

  Elena looked stunned. “You can’t be serious.”

  He turned to her and I thought he was going to attack her. “I am dead serious. You are no longer welcome here.”

  I never saw Elena again, but I didn’t care. In the weeks between that fifth tattoo and now I did some bad, bad things: I began playing loose, hitching up with losers in the bars of Belmar and Sea Bright and having sex with them for a place to crash for a day or so. Then, when I’d gained their trust, I’d simply rob them and sell all their stuff and move on to the next loser. I couldn’t go back to the job since I’d taken the deposit my first night back, and I was sure the cops were looking for me.

  Now I was back in NYC.

  Carlo was waiting for me at the door with a smile.

  I dropped $4,982 on the tattoo chair. “What can I get for this?”

  “Ever heard of scarification?”

  The Limelight had a line wrapped around the building, even at three in the morning. I didn’t know what band was playing, but I knew I was trapped here for the day since the last train back to Jersey would be long gone. I thought on that and smiled—although doing so made my mouth hurt, and my face, and my eyes—about never having to go back to Jersey again. There was nothing that I needed there. I stared at the church before me and knew I was home.

  The line was moving quickly, and as I got near the front I saw why. There were five people letting people in or rejecting them. Most of the line was being turned away, but I knew I wasn’t going to be.

  When I got to the front, two of the guys, whom I’d seen with Angelika before, smiled in awe and let me pass. Inside, everyone was openly staring at me as I made my way slowly to the main room and the stage area.

  There was no band tonight, the house lights were low, and there was a sea of candles on the stage and in the alcoves and catwalks above. Angelika, completely nude, stood on a raised platform on the stage, surveying the hundreds before her.

  Her body was covered in small anarchy symbols, of varying colors and sizes, but none bigger than six inches. They seemed to be taking over her other, older tattoos.

  When our eyes met she gasped with delight and had me escorted to the stage to stand with her.

  It took me nearly fifteen minutes to get through the crowd to the stage. I thought I was going to pass out, but I made it, my sweat mixed with all the blood.

  “Behold, the true believer!” Angelika exclaimed, quieting the crowd.

  I noticed Nikki and Cindy among several other familiar faces I hadn’t seen in years, all former friends from Odyssey.

  “I thank you for coming to the last night some have on this vile Earth. Former drug addicts, alcoholics, and the insane, rejoice! The outside world as we know it will soon be gone, and in its place a new civilization will emerge,” Angelika shouted. “There are those that believed enough to mark themselves and prove their worth in the coming apocalypse, and I thank you. There are those that went above and beyond and strove for a better place in the new world order.”

  Angelika turned to me. “There are those that went
so far beyond where I thought it would go that they have proven to me their love.”

  I held back the urge to pass out or puke. I could feel the bruises and blood pumping in time to my rapid heartbeat. I looked down at my arms, slit open and weeping, my skin sizzling from the scarification. Six brutal hours strapped in the chair while Carlo worked on every inch of my body. I’d passed out several times, especially when I first saw the jagged branding irons.

  My cheeks were branded, my forehead, both breasts, up and down my thighs, my stomach had several different-sized anarchy symbols branded, and my back was on fire with pain.

  I didn’t know what exactly was going on and whether I was going to die, but I could feel my life’s blood slowly draining away. Already, there was a puddle forming at my feet, a mixture of blood, mucus, and fried skin.

  There was a rumble like thunder out in the street and Angelika held her hands above her head. “It is coming. I need you to stand fast and true. Those that swear fealty to my cause will survive this night. We are the new messiahs, the new gods of a new age. Like Moses before us, who painted doors in lamb’s blood, so, too, we have painted our bodies with a mystic symbol so that Death will pass us.”

  When the green mist began leaking through the walls and doors, sweeping past the gathered, I smiled, even though it twisted my scarred flesh and my eyes fluttered from the pain.

  I was home.

  PARAPHILIA

  BY LISA MANNETTI

  “Geri? This is Felicia from What’s Your Fetish. You want to work tonight or what?”

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Two slap-happy drunks in town for a convention. They’re at the Helmsley New Yorker. They want a redhead with a stump.”

  “Yeah?” Geri lit a cigarette. It never hurt to pause a little, give herself some maneuvering room. The redhead part was easy. She could do a quick temporary dye job on her sandy brown hair or throw on a wig. The wigs were slightly riskier because some johns grabbed your tresses, but the dye job would take a couple of hours. “They give you a time?”

  “Midnight.”

  Geri looked at her watch. It was just going on ten now. “What else?”

  “They want the amputation just above the ankle—like the chick who married Paul McCartney—but they’ll settle for any part of a leg.”

  “What’s the pay out?”

  “Twelve hundred for two hours for both.”

  That meant Geri would collect four hundred if the johns came through. Geri’s left leg had been amputated just above the knee. “You tell ‘em I’m low-thigh and collect up front. Then we both get paid.”

  “Shit, Geri, I already got the Amex card.”

  “It checks out?”

  “It checks out.”

  Geri had been with What’s Your Fetish long enough to know it showed up on Amex, Visa, and other credit company statements as Taylor Steakhouse—a sort of courtesy to the stupider johns who hadn’t gone paperless and whose wives and bosses had access to snail mail. Felicia was just the receptionist; Maive Saunders owned the business and Maive was savvy. Smart enough to hire accountants who knew how to rig books, how to launder money. But credit card charges were easy to cancel. One phone call and presto, the debt was in contention. Maive was good about fronting some of the money to her girls, but if the jerks didn’t pay, Geri would be looking at less than a hundred.

  “They seem like tippers?” A tip on top of the fee would compensate if they didn’t come through on the payment to Maive.

  “They’re from Texas.”

  “Call me back when they okay the low-thigh cut.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  In her bedroom, Geri looked into the mirror and adjusted the auburn wig. It had taken Felicia a hell of a lot longer than ten minutes to call back with the okay from the johns. She had to nix the dye job; but, what the hell, she looked pretty good. Even with the wig and the cut just above her left knee they might give her a decent tip.

  More details had come in from Felicia. They didn’t want Geri showing up in a wheelchair or on crutches. They wanted her to come in with the prosthesis—but it had to be hidden by slacks or a coat.

  No biggie there. They wanted to fantasize that they didn’t know she wasn’t whole, strip her and find it. Then, as Geri knew, they’d “confess” they’d always had a “thing” for amputees. Whatever. It was a lot easier to handle guys who wanted to hump a stump than guys who wanted to be beaten, guys who wanted to watch girls take a shit on glass coffee tables while they lay on the carpet below, guys who wanted to dress up as women and pretend the two of you were having girl sex—until they whipped out cock.

  She checked her watch. 11:45 p.m. She shrugged into her black mink coat and headed down the elevator to the waiting taxi below.

  She was still in the cab heading downtown when her cell phone rang.

  “Geri. Hey. This is Felicia.”

  “On my way.”

  “Yeah.” Felicia inhaled sharply. Geri caught on to the anxiety before the receptionist explained. “There’s a slight wrinkle.”

  “What wrinkle?”

  “Ah, you know how these out-of-towners at cons are. The johns trade info and connections like insider stock tips. They got a number for What’s Your Pleasure and they hired a chick named Missy who’s got the cut just above the ankle.”

  Stupid. She should have known. Unless there was a Knicks or Rangers game in town the johns wanted to see, the jerks almost always insisted you show up at their hotel immediately—while they still had the nerve and weren’t completely drunk under the table—yet.

  “I know Missy,” Geri said evenly. Fucking Missy. She was a twenty-something blonde who had gotten her amputation as a badge—the way ten years ago straights hit a tattoo parlor. Geri thought back to the last time she heard about a john asking for a bad girl with tattoos—1995? Tattoos were not unique to bad girls; they were strictly middle class. Welcome to the suburbs, baby. “What’s the split?”

  “Technically we’re—you’re—up first. But Missy’s got the goods.”

  Geri wasn’t born yesterday. These guys figured she was the throwaway. They could cancel the charge in a minute and have Missy—she of the diminutive tapered calf that ended in a delicate curve. Maybe it would cost them a little more, because if they bailed, they’d still have to pay the booking fee—a couple hundred. But if Felicia could talk Geri into the gig, the agency would collect close to the entire fee. Fucking What’s Your Pleasure. And Missy wasn’t the only one-legged whore in town. There were dozens now. Geri said nothing and Felicia went on.

  “We get six, they get nine—that’s as high as the schmucks would go. That’s two-fifty for you, two-fifty for Missy. She’s cool with the halfsies.”

  Instead of four hundred with a tip, Geri was looking at a long hard night. Once both girls were there, everything could go south in a minute. The johns could bail on both services and suck up the booking fees. God only knew what shenanigans the johns would want—and hell, no matter how you added up the cash, with or without tips, she wasn’t getting paid nearly enough to fuck Missy.

  “Give it to the young lady.”

  “Geri—”

  “Not tonight, Felicia.”

  A few ticks past midnight, Geri was uptown, back in her apartment. Should she? She’d given up the money. So yeah, she needed to know. She picked up the coal-gray phone, punched in the speed-dial number 1, leaned over and took off her right high heel.

  “Fatima? It’s Geri.”

  “Oh, Missus, I am so glad you called tonight. Roberto—Robert is okay, but he had the little bit of fever. I gave him St. Joseph’s ... the baby aspirin. Now he is sleeping. But I was so worried. I was going to call you, but I thought, let’s wait and see if the aspirin works. Miss Geri doesn’t like me to phone at night unless it’s emergency.”

  “He’s all right?”

  “Yes, the fever has broken. A little cold, I think. He’s sleeping good. Do you want me to show on the videocam?”

  “Yeah.”r />
  Geri booted up her computer and waited patiently while Fatima got everything set on her end.

  There he was. Robert. He was lying on his stomach in the crib. He was wearing yellow footie pajamas. One arm was stretched out straight by his side. The other was crooked and his small pink fist lay near his mouth, which was slightly open.

  Every few seconds, there was a huffing sound—a plug-in vaporizer emitted a wisp of steam barely visible on Geri’s monitor.

  Fatima was there, it was all right.

  “I’ll stop by in the morning.” She stopped by almost every morning.

  “Of course.” Fatima petted Robert’s head, smoothing down his curls.

  Gerri cupped her hand to her mouth and blew a kiss.

  “Goodnight,” she said.

  “It used to be called apotemnophilia—what we now term body integrity identity disorder—BIID.”

  “Yeah, Doc, I know.” This was all stuff Geri—or anyone else who cared to—could look up on the Internet. Hell, there was even a shrink right here in the city, according to the Times, who treated people who craved amputations. That shrink—not this one—wanted to be carved up, too. This one, Doctor Williams, had come recommended by Robert’s pediatrician when Geri told her she was feeling low and needed to talk to someone.

  “It’s an erotic fantasy with two components, undergoing amputation of a limb, and subsequently overachieving despite a handicap,” Williams said.

  “Uh-huh,” Geri said. Had he consulted with the pediatrician or her ob-gyn? Did he know about the tricks? She knew how to dress like a straight, and now she tugged the hem of her navy skirt over her knees. Her intuition told her this guy wasn’t getting why she was here.

  “Some people feel they will be more beautiful, more desirable—sexier—with a missing limb,” he said. Williams leaned back in his chair; the top of his head grazed one of the hanging plants in the window behind him.