A Taste of Ink Read online

  “You grew it out for him, huh?” he asked softly. His breath was close enough to touch Trinket’s skin.

  Trinket didn’t answer.

  “Well, I guess it paid off, didn’t it?” mused Mini, not really seeking an answer. “Two years. All right, hold still.”

  The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as Trinket had expected.

  But it still fucking hurt.

  It was impossible to hide the clenching of his stomach muscles from the man touching them, the tensing of his thighs or the curling, white-knuckled fists Trinket left on either side of his legs.

  The pain didn’t throb — it danced, it hesitated in one area only to dig in sharply in another.

  “Relax,” soothed Mini, and this time, his voice really was soothing. “We’re only doing the linework now. By the time a spot really hurts, I’ll be past it. See here?”

  Trinket looked down, but his eyes passed the needle on his skin, landing instead on Mini’s face. Trinket noticed the muscles of his shoulders underneath the lines of his shirt, and the strange intimacy of their position. A position he was used to... but not like this.

  Usually he was the one on his knees.

  He had to look away immediately, without daring to make eye contact.

  “Relax,” said Mini again. “You’ll be used to it in a second. Wait ‘til the endorphins kick in, you’ll practically fall asleep. Here — talk about something. Tell me about that boyfriend of yours. The hair thing, what, he have a weird fetish? Is it a crossdressing thing?”

  His words were meant to distract Trinket from the pain, and it worked. “No,” said Trinket defensively. “It’s not a crossdressing thing.”

  “Maybe it could be, you surprise him in a pair of heels,” suggested Mini, but laughing. “Okay, so it’s not crossdressing. Let me guess — he likes to pull on it?”

  “Fuck off,” said Trinket, surprising both of them with his own words, honestly shocking himself. Mini actually had to stop working, he was laughing so hard.

  “I’m sorry, that wasn’t professional,” said Mini, not apologetic at all. “But hey, did you notice? We just went over that bit of rib. Hurt at all?”

  Trinket blinked. He looked down again, this time actually looking at his own skin, surprised to see how neatly and quickly the lines were filling in. “No,” he said. “Not really.”

  “Endorphins,” said Mini, wiping away a drop of raised blood with a gloved thumb. “And distractions. That’s what the music is for, by the way. For reference, for your next tattoo, play something loud.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll get another.”

  “Of course you will,” dismissed Mini. “There’s a saying: it takes five years to plan your first tattoo, five minutes to plan your second. You’ll have the next one in mind before you even walk out of here.”

  “I didn’t really plan this one,” Trinket admitted. “It was spur of the moment. For a special occasion.”

  “What’s the occasion?” asked Mini.

  “It’s our anniversary,” said Trinket. “Tomorrow night.”

  Mini paused. There was a break in the buzzing sound of the needle. He brushed Trinket’s stomach again, thumbig carefully over the fresh, raw line. “Two years?” he double-checked. When Trinket nodded, he reflected, “You must be serious about this guy. Think he’s the one?”

  Trinket said readily, “I know he is.”

  Mini looked up. They met eyes, and Mini’s lips curled into a smile. “He’d better be,” he said mildly. “This is all for him, isn’t it?” He stroked the near-completed linework down Trinket’s stomach, murmured, “‘To brush away snow.’ What’s that about?”

  “‘It’s from a poem. One we both like.”

  “That’s cute,” said Mini. His fingers kept running down — fell below the linework, touched the skin right above Trinket’s waistband, then rested there. He hooked just the tip of one finger in Trinket’s belt. “You’re going to have to pull these down,” he said. “Just a bit.”

  “Oh,” said Trinket, blood fluttering in his cheeks again. “Okay.”

  “Don’t be so shy,” said Mini again. Laughed again. “You should have seen the piece I did last week — full chest piece, two tits in my face for half the fucking day. After you do tattoos long enough, you barely notice that kind of thing. It’s all just skin.”

  “Okay,” said Trinket again. He reached for his belt, and hesitated — the instinct that should have sent him out the door an hour ago came to him again, sounding a warning in his gut.

  “Here, I’ll help,” said Mini breezily. He started unbuckling Trinket’s belt. Trinket could only sit, could only breathe, fighting the heat in his stomach as his belt clinked, as Mini pulled his pants open and down a half inch.

  Mini paused there — they both paused for a second. Trinket felt color climb from the base of his neck to his hairline.

  “It’s all right,” said Mini. “I take it as a compliment.”

  He rested his arm alongside Trinket’s erection and went back to work.

  Trinket sat, face burning hot, mouth shut tight. He couldn’t say a word to defend himself or to protest — whichever he ought to have been doing. He tried to focus on the buzzing sound of the machine, the dancing pain of the needle, but the more he tried not to think of Mini’s arm pressed up against his cock, the harder he felt himself getting, harder still when Mini whispered out a soft “Relax,” in a breath that touched his stomach.

  Could Mini hear how hard his heart was beating? Trinket could feel it in his ears.

  “There.” The buzzing stopped. Mini leaned back. “Linework done. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He looked up at Trinket, traced the raised lines gently with the tip of one finger, then ran his fingers back down to trace his waistband, an inch away from his very obvious erection. “It’s a different needle to fill in,” he said. “Take a minute while I swap these out. Breathe a bit. Do you need some water?”

  “No,” said Trinket, as Mini’s hands drifted to rest on his knees.

  “All right.” Mini’s hands ran once up and down his thighs, so quickly and lightly Trinket didn’t have time to react, then he scooted his chair away, back to his workstation.

  Behind him, Trinket heard the snap of gloves being discarded, the trashcan opening and clanking shut.

  Between the heavy buzz of endorphins and the blood rushing to his groin, Trinket had no idea what the right thing to do was in this situation. Surely not just sit? Or should he? Just sit and endure it? Was this really normal? Was Mini really used to it?

  He thought of making an excuse, of saying ‘I have to call my boyfriend, say I’ll be late,’ of reminding them both of the existence of a boyfriend, of just excusing himself to the bathroom and... taking care of it.

  He thought of taking care of it, he thought of returning to Mini’s curtained room with the knowledge of what he’d done.

  It was too humiliating.

  What if he just cut his losses now, and walked out the front door?

  Some sense of obligation — the exchange of cash, the signing of forms — some sense of politeness, some something kept him trapped in that chair, frozen in indecision.

  And then Mini was back.

  “All right,” said Mini. Like any craftsman, he reinspected the quality of his work. He seemed indifferent to Trinket’s erection, even as he settled his arm back on top of it... directly on top of it. “We’re just filling in gaps. This part hurts more, but the endorphins should have kicked in by now. How do you feel?”

  His arm pressed down on top of Trinket through the cloth — pressed down and pushed slightly up, unmistakably.

  “Fine,” said Trinket automatically.

  “Good. Just relax.”

  Trinket barely felt the needle touch his skin.

  The vibration of the machine and the buzzing sound seemed to become one complete sensation, something numbing and warm. The pain startled him occasionally — came in sharp, small shocks. It made him jerk under his skin. Every time, Mini soothed him, saying, “Relax, you’re doing great,” and his forearm pressed against Trinket’s erection again, pressed firmly, hard enough that he shuddered, to which Mini said again, “Relax,” leaning in, his breath brushing hot against Trinket’s stomach, on the skin right above his waistband.

  “Tell me about that boyfriend of yours again,” said Mini. “Don’t lie. He likes to pull your hair, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s private,” said Trinket, but in such small words. They were no resistance at all.

  “Do you like it?” asked Mini. “Having your hair pulled?”

  Trinket didn’t say a word.

  “If you were mine,” said Mini. “I’d never be able to keep my fingers out of it. The minute you came home from work, I’d grab it and bend you over something.”

  Trinket didn’t speak; he watched the needle run back and forth over the same sore spot, filling it in with black. As it worked, Mini’s other hand ran down, gripped and squeezed his erection through his briefs, held it firm, fingers running exploratively over the tip. Mini rubbed it just long enough to be sure of it.

  “Does he know you grew your hair out just for him?” asked Mini.

  Silently Trinket shook his head.

  “You’re so shy about some things,” said Mini. “You won’t tell him that, but you’ll let someone shove ink under your skin for an hour? God, I bet you let him fuck you hard.”

  Mini’s fingers hooked over his waistband and pulled it down a little, out a little. Trinket knew if he had looked down he would have seen his own bare cock revealed, arcing out against the cloth, knew that Mini was looking at it. He didn’t look down.

  “I bet you let him fuck you hard with no foreplay,” said Mini. He let the elastic snap back against his stomach. “I bet he comes home, stres
sed from work, and you’ve already got your back arched waiting for him.”

  How Mini managed to keep working, needle roving precisely, Trinket couldn’t imagine, because he could barely hold still. Any moment he was going to jump, he was going to ruin the tattoo.

  Mini leaned forward, still groping his cock through the cloth, to examine his work up close and breathe the words inches from Trinket’s raised, hurting skin. “He fucks you raw, doesn’t he?” asked Mini. “There’s a lot of trust there. I bet he does. You seem like someone who really likes to get cummed in.”

  Trinket’s lips betrayed him. The needle zinged over an especially raw, painful spot and he blurted out, “Yes.”

  “I thought so,” said Mini, as neutrally as if they were discussing the weather. “Does he make you come hard? Like, really hard? Does he know you like your hair pulled? Does he fuck you right, does he do you rough? Does he know you want it like that?”

  He asked like a concerned friend, looking out for Trinket’s best interests.

  “I don’t like it rough,” said Trinket, with little breath.

  “You do.” Mini disagreed. “You’re this hard from a needle. You want it rough, you like a little pain. You can take it.”

  Mini let go of his erection, slid his hand all the way up Trinket’s side to his hard nipple.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, playing with it.

  “No,” Trinket almost whimpered.

  Mini rose up and put his mouth on it.

  He enveloped Trinket’s nipple in his lips and gave it a single, hard suck.

  Trinket might have moaned if he’d had more breath in his lungs, but he couldn’t. He only whimpered, bit down on his lip, and grabbed Mini by the arm.

  Mini gave his nipple a single long lick, and Trinket discovered with a jolt to the gut that Mini had a piercing hidden there, a hard bump of metal on his soft, hot tongue.

  Mini’s hand finally groped under Trinket’s waistband onto his bare skin, and enclosed the shaft of his cock in his gloved fingers.

  Trinket didn’t protest, didn’t say a word, just held on with breath hitching in his throat while Mini’s lips skipped over to enclose and suck on his other nipple, hand stroking methodically between his legs.

  Mini took his mouth off, leaving a string of spit between his lips and Trinket’s nipple. He quickly licked, sucked it away, and leaned back to look at Trinket’s torrid chest, then down at his bare cock. He paused as if to admire it, manipulating it this way and that in his black gloved hand.

  “I’ll get you ready for him,” suggested Mini. “When he comes home and you surprise him with that tattoo, he’ll want to fuck you right away. You need to relax. I’ll get you so relaxed, so worked over, you won’t need any foreplay.”

  Trinket looked down, looked at how embarrassingly red and hard he was. Mini released him for a second, and his erection still stood straight up against his stomach, nearly brushing the bottom lines of the tattoo. Mini took it in hand again and pulled gently, pulling it down, pulling it away from him, hand running back and forth. Trinket tried not to moan.

  “I’m almost finished,” said Mini. “Then we’ll finish this off, all right?”

  His lips glanced over Trinket’s — his tongue slipped in so quickly, so softly, that Trinket only registered the soft metal ting of the barbell as it glanced off his teeth.

  “Okay,” he breathed.

  Mini finished the tattoo.

  Bit by bit he filled out the patterns of snowfall, the lacework of frost, periodically stopping to kiss, to bite Trinket’s nipples until they were almost redder than his cock. He kept groping, pulling his cock away, holding it down, pressing it back, running his fingers over the tip. Trinket felt more and more numb in the rest of his body, from his thighs to his toes, felt sensation leave his fingertips from gripping the table. His head filled with white buzzing, with hot fog, with the stupid oblivion of endorphins and physical need.

  When Mini said, “Finished,” and put down the needle, Trinket could have fallen off the table.

  But Mini was only finished with the tattoo.

  Mini immediately pulled Trinket forward by the hips to the edge of his seat, dropping to his knees in front of him. He dragged Trinket’s pants the rest of the way off and threw them somewhere; there was a clatter as they knocked some probably important instruments off a counter.

  Mini ran his tongue once up the bottom of the shaft, barbell bumping, and then swallowed Trinket’s whole cock down his throat.

  Trinket grabbed him involuntarily by the hair and with no thoughts in his head said, incoherently, “Please.”

  When Mini said he would get Trinket ‘worked over’, he meant it. He barely let the cock out of the back of his throat, let alone out of his mouth. He didn’t bother to use his hands. He didn’t have to — the variation between the sucking, the swallowing, and the sliding of the hard barbell, had Trinket coming before his brain could switch gears between being tattooed and being sucked.

  Every cell in his body seemed to moan, scream, and then switch off like a light.

  It took him several minutes to reboot and come back to himself.

  He lay on the table; if he had tried to stand up, his trembling legs would have dropped him.

  Mini let him recover. He moved on; snapping off his nitrile gloves, he stomped the trash can pedal and threw them away, and began to clean up his counterspace, take apart the components of the tattoo machine to put away. He looked at Trinket only when he managed to sit up.

  “Careful,” advised Mini. He picked up Trinket’s pants and put them beside him. “Let me wrap that for you.”

  Trinket sat wholly dazed while Mini ripped off sections of saran wrap to tape over the poetry, the snowflakes and the frost patterns. The fresh tattoo immediately began to weep against the wrap. A tiny amount of blood pooled at the bottom.

  “Leave this on for a few hours,” said Mini, clearly reciting from a familiar manual, back to business as if he hadn’t just swallowed Trinket’s cum. “Wash it with regular soap and water. Apply only unscented lotion periodically, try not to let it dry out. Don’t pick at the scabs or you could end up pulling the ink out. I’m sure they gave you the pamphlet. Any questions, call. Or just google it. Tattoo aftercare isn’t rocket science. Just don’t be stupid and get it infected.”

  “All right,” said Trinket automatically. He tested his feet before getting off the table, and quickly began to dress, feeling shock and shame settle over him the more layers he had on. He headed for the door, pushing past the curtain.

  “Hang on,” called Mini. “I’ve got the keys.”

  Together they walked to the front, turning off lights as they went. The display cases and walls of flash disappeared behind them. Their shadows led them to the door, and Mini pushed it open. The bell jangled one last time overhead. Trinket passed outside, into the cool night air, and exhaled hard in relief. In escape.

  “Hey,” said Mini. “Trinculo.”

  Trinket glanced back.

  Mini stood behind, finishing locking up the front doors. He smiled back over his shoulder. “Happy anniversary,” he said.

  Trinket couldn’t think of a single thing to say back.

  “Remember what I said?” asked Mini. He finished with the locks and turned. “‘It takes five years to plan your first tattoo, five minutes to plan your second?’”

  Trinket remembered. He could only nod.

  “You have that second one in mind yet?” asked Mini.

  Trinket didn’t respond, but his cheeks colored. Mini’s smile only grew under the neon light of the empty street. He smiled widely enough that Trinket could see the flash of the barbell behind his teeth.

  “When you’re ready for that second piece,” said Mini. “You let me know.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Trinket sat in his parked car in front of the house and stared at his hands, frozen on the wheel.

  The lights were on inside already; Zee worked late, but Trinket had been out later.

  He’s probably wondering where I am.

  His frozen eyes finally slid to the dashboard display.

  It was nearly midnight.

  He hadn’t realized how much time he had spent driving around in the dark, avoiding home, passing slowly through empty neighborhoods, glancing at the lights going out.

  The tattoo throbbed faintly on his stomach. It didn’t hurt much more than a bad sunburn, but it was big enough, and on a sensitive enough area that he couldn’t forget about it.