#chapter Thirty-One
The shadow of pain brings with it a certain satisfaction. I breathe through this pain now, the burning sting of the needle as it presses the ink into my flesh. Focusing on this pain distracts me from any other.
My husband does not like tattoos. He told me he thought only sluts and addicts get themselves inked, and he was totally serious when he said it. This from a man who met me when I already had two small tattoos — the shooting star on my left hip and the celtic knotwork around it. Together they made one design, though I’d had the work at two separate times.
“I never knew you felt like that,” I had said to him this morning in our kitchen, where I drank coffee that had been brewed to bitterness and watched him eat toast over the counter without use of a plate. He would walk away and leave the crumbs, and I would have to decide if I were going to refuse to clean them.
He’d shrugged. “I don’t see the point in them.”
“Guess you’d better never get one, then.” I hate the coffee. I hate the crumbs. I hate his face.
He’d shrugged again. “I’m just saying.”
I had put the mug in the dishwasher and said without looking at him, “I’m getting another one.”
“You’re going to do whatever you want to anyway,” he’d said then, and left for work without kissing me goodbye.
I had waited until he was gone before I cleaned the counters. And the sink. The table. I even made time to clean out the fridge, tossing containers of leftover Chinese food and hard, crusted slabs of cheese with mold growing on them. I was almost late to work because of all the cleaning, and none of it made me feel any better.
Now I lay face down on the chair, my face pillowed on my left hand. The other rests at my side, because I need to keep the skin on my right shoulder smooth. That’s where the tattoo is going.
I’ve chosen a Victorian octopus, ornately detailed, inked in shades of red, orange and gold. I couldn’t tell you why an octopus, other than I’ve always loved them. They’re smart and adaptable, and lots of people fear them needlessly. The other thing about octopuses that most people don’t know is that they mate only once and die shortly afterwards.
I don’t think this is romantic. It’s biology. Yet there is something appealing about the idea that there is only one person for you out there, the one worth spending your life on. I don’t believe it. I think we are programmed for monogamy because it’s easier in today’s society. It’s more romantic to hold onto this notion that somehow when you find that special person you love enough to shackle yourself to financially and emotionally, every other love you’ve ever had is somehow supposed to fade in comparison, or to no longer matter as much. I don’t believe that, and yet something about octopuses appeal to me enough that I want one permanently embedded in my skin.
I haven’t made the choice lightly. I’ve thought a lot about the design and colors, the location. It will be more visible than the others, which is something to think about. Outing myself to the world as someone with art indelibly inscribed on my skin. How many people will think I am a slut or an addict, I wonder as the woman leaning over my lifts the needle to give me a rest for a second. The swipe of the cloth she uses to wipe away the stencil is briefly soothing.
“Ready to go again?” She murmurs.
“I’m fine.”
The sting begins again. Getting deeper this time. I breathe with and not against it — sort of the way Shelly told me she had to do during childbirth, though at this point in my life I have to accept I will probably never know that sort of pain. Just when I think I won’t be able to take it any more, the artist gives me another pause.
“You doing okay?”
“I’m good.” My voice is thick. Not muffled, but a little slurred. Endorphins, maybe.
“Your skin just soaks up the ink,” she says. “Fucking awesome. This is going to look amazing.”
I laugh. I sound drunk. “Good. Good.”
More pain. It doesn’t really cease, even when she lifts the needle, because my skin is on fire. Every so often the burning gets a little stronger, but I don’t wince or pull away. I let the pain caress and cover me. I give up to it. I float in the haze of growing agony that builds and builds the longer she works. Eventually the pauses become a different sort of pain, the few seconds of relief worse in a way than the constant pressure of the needle biting into me.
It hurts worse when the pain stops.