Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place Read Free Page A

there and he doesn’t speak to me again until he
wants paying.
    ‘Good
luck,’ he says as he drives off, leaving me all alone on a street with nothing
but garages, a pub and a tattoo parlour. At least I’m in the right place.
    I
push my way through the door bum first, reluctant to touch the door handle.
I’ve never actually been in a tattoo parlour before, but it’s everything I
imagined. The walls are covered in pictures of tattoo designs and photos of
satisfied customers showing off their freshly-inked body parts. Two men are
sitting behind a table, and a third man with a skinhead is hovering by the chair
where I imagine his victims sit, doing something with his torture tools – I
don’t know what that something is, but I’m fairly sure it isn’t cleaning them.
    The
three men share a laugh at my presence here.
    ‘Looks
like another lost city slicker,’ one of the guys behind the table says. ‘Must
be our lucky day, two city slickers gracing us with their custom.’
    I
have two choices. I can be sweet little Nicole and possibly get walked all
over, or I can put on a badass front and possibly get my head kicked in.
    ‘I’ll
do this one,’ the guy other guy behind the table calls out, but it’s the guy
with the skinhead and the tattoo gun who walks over to greet me, tool in hand.
    ‘Don’t
worry, I’ll give her what she wants,’ he says, stroking my cheek with the
handle of the tattoo gun.
    ‘The
only thing you’ll give me is hepatitis, get that the fuck away from me,’ I snap
– so I’ve decided to go for badass Nicole then.
    ‘Watch
your mouth, little girl,’ he warns me, as the other two men stand up and join
him in crowding round me.
    ‘I
just –‘I start speaking, but I don’t know what to say. So much for my badass
routine.
    ‘What’s
going on here?’ I hear a gruff female voice call out.
    ‘This
city chick said I was going to give her herpes,’ skinhead replies.
    I
didn’t say herpes, I said hepatitis – although herpes seems just as likely. I
don’t say this out loud.
    A
gothic-looking girl appears in front of us. She’s dressed head to toe in black
leather with various chains attached. She has at least fourteen piercings –
that I can see – and she has more skin occupied by ink than she does without a
mark on it or a hole in it.
    ‘I
like your look,’ she tells me. ‘Those are some nice shorts, you cut them
yourself?’
    ‘Yes,’
I lie.
    ‘I
like that. Too many folk selling their souls for designer togs these days.
Those shoes and that bag look expensive though.’
    ‘Their
fakes,’ I tell her, thinking fast. ‘I wear them sarcastically.’
    Goth
girl smiles. ‘I like that, you know. I like that. Let her go boys, she’s ok by
me. You here for a tattoo?’
    ‘Actually,
I’m just looking for my friend. Dylan King, he was coming here for a tattoo.’
    ‘404,’
skinhead chimes in. ‘He wanted me to ink over a number on his hand, said he
needed to remember it no matter what.’
    ‘That’s
Dylan, where did he go?’
    ‘He
was quite taken with my friend Misty,’ goth girl tells me. ‘They went off
together.’
    Another
girl, Dylan is on top form this evening. If Misty is anything like her friend,
she certainly isn’t Dylan’s usual type – then again, as long as they’re female
Dylan doesn’t usually discriminate.
    ‘Do
you know where they went?’
    ‘They
shared a taxi to The Williamson Hotel, she’s staying there too. She was hot for
his city boy look so they were going to have a drink together,’ goth girl
informs me. This doesn’t surprise me at all.
    ‘You
sure you don’t want a tattoo while you’re here?’ skinhead asks. ‘On us.’
    I
am clearly in with these people because of my nonconformist short-shorts. I
take a courteous glance around the room, looking briefly at the designs on the
wall.
    ‘I’ll
pass. Thank you, though,’ I say as I hurriedly make my way towards the door.
I’m still not convinced I won’t catch something by just