Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(13)
The woman asked me to call her Mary and made herself right at home by getting bare-assed and showing me where she wanted the tattoo before I was able to toss her a modest gown. She wasn’t trying to be sexy about it, which was a relief. It wasn’t unusual for female clients to assume that because I worked on skin they ought to offer me some of theirs. The wedding ring on my left hand didn’t seem to bother them. But I’d become a master at slyly shoving women away and letting them know they didn’t stand a chance without being nasty about it. At least I knew Saylor wasn’t worried. She shouldn’t be, ever. There was no such thing as a woman who could tempt me to look away from my wife.
Mary was pleased with the sketch. Indeed, she wanted the skulls to be cheek to bony cheek right smack on her derriere.
“At least someone oughta be kissin’ my ass,” she howled, cackling, for a split second resembling a skull herself.
She didn’t explain the significance of the wings coming out of the skulls. It might have had some symbolic meaning, maybe Mary’s way of hoping to fly off and leave her crappy current life behind. Or it might have an expectation of early death.
I checked my watch before I started working. It wasn’t a small job but not a huge one either. I could get it done this afternoon and be finished before the boys showed up. A low rumble in my belly reminded me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast but I knew it would subside. When I was laying ink I went into a zone where the world receded. I wondered if Michelangelo had felt the same way when he worked, although I did have to admit that Mary’s ass was not exactly the Sistine Chapel.
As I got the area prepped, Mary relaxed, extracted her phone and a pair of ear buds from her purse and soon began singing along to Aerosmith. It didn’t bother me.
But I did wish I’d put in a call to Saylor before I sat down. No particular reason. I just loved hearing her voice. Saylor centered me. She was the sun in my formerly troubled universe, her and the girls. The hour was just after lunch, which meant Cami and Cassie would just be getting out of their preschool class, all full of giggles and energy and loaded down with pictures to hang on the fridge. Sometimes I gazed at my bright, vibrant little daughters and tried to remember if my brothers and I had ever been the same, if we were ever hopeful, carefree children. But those kinds of thoughts opened a door to the past and the years spent in the house of Benton Gentry were not a nice place to dwell on. My girls would never know that kind of terror. I would cut off my own hands before I would let any hint of my violent, deprived childhood get close enough to touch them.
A sense of longing tugged at me as I thought of my wife and daughters. I hoped I’d get home early enough tonight to see them before they fell asleep. Again I wished that I’d made a quick call to Say before stepping in here to tackle the job. But now that the task was underway I couldn’t very well leave Mary with her exposed ass in the air just so I could wander off and make kissy noises over the phone.
“You mind if I take a nap?” Mary asked, swiveling her skinny neck around and blinking at me.
“Be my guest,” I told her and even handed over a blanket for her to tuck beneath her head.
With Mary settled in, there was nothing to do but bend down and get to work. The woman’s skin was dotted with bruises, some fresh and angry, others faded and mottled. I hoped whoever had put them there was having a f*cked up day. No man had any excuse to hurt a woman. I was gentle as I cleaned the area and tucked the paper gown in to cover the places I didn’t need access to. Once I started, time was immaterial. There was just the art. And even though it was a tacky concept being forged on the backside of a lost and tired woman, it still deserved to be as good as I could make it.
By the time I came out of my creative fog, nearly four hours had passed. I stretched and winced at the way my muscles creaked from remaining concentrated in one spot for so long.
Vaguely I’d been aware that other things were happening in the shop while I was working. I’d heard Brick and his big biker client finish up the job and then engage in some kind of macho hallway discussion about crossbows and guns. Aspen ran in. Aspen ran out. Aspen talked and sang and joked with Brick. When I was finishing up and critically appraising my work both Aspen and Brick peered in the doorway.
“Damn,” said Brick in appreciation, only his Tennessee origins tweaked it slightly to sound more like ‘Dayum’.
“Spectacular,” agreed Aspen and offered a round of good-natured applause.
Mary was pleased with the finished product. She offered me a neatly rolled pack of bills, all singles and fives. I promptly unrolled it and handed half the stack back to her.
She didn’t question the favor, which was a good thing because I didn’t know how to explain it without sounding like an *. ‘Maybe if you take some of this back it’ll help you keep that shit out of your veins.’
Of course Aspen noticed and had to say something. At least she waited until the bell above the door stopped pinging after Mary’s departure.
“Some charity work, Mr. Gentry?” she laughed.
I threw her a look. “Something like that.”
Aspen crossed her arms and tried to look severe, a tall task for a five-foot-two blue-haired sprite. “Is it going to become a habit? I just want to get some idea about our revised pricing structure going forward, especially with the voice of reason out globetrotting.”
I snorted. “Deck’s the voice of reason?”