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Aurnia
Nothing could have prepared me for that first pain. That first plunging of the needle into my skin. Into my body. That insertion. That violation. That bliss.
My whole body was held tense as Conor raised the tattoo gun, not looking at me as he arranged the cord, checked the flow of the ink, referred once more to his drawing beside him. Every muscle inside of me seemed ready to burst. All inside of me was strain, tightness. I was coiled like a snake about to strike. Frozen like a deer on an icy highway.
There was the hum of the gun. The flash of pink neon on the tip of the needle. Ink in my body. Forever. Forever.
My eyes were fixed on the ceiling as I gripped the edge of the chair with quivering fingers, but instead of more pain there was a hand. Callused, but warm. Not soft, but gentle.
“Aurnia,” Conor whispered in the quiet of the parlour, “you need to relax.”
I kept my chin high as I counted the tin squares on the high living room ceiling.
“I am relaxed,” I said through a clenched jaw.
Conor’s hand glided over the length of my thigh. My tensed muscle twitched under his touch.
I gritted my teeth and insisted, more like the child I wanted to put behind me than the adult I wanted to be, “I’m relaxed.”
“Okay…okay.”
Conor’s words stopped there as did the buzz of the gun, but his hand on my thigh did not. He brushed the tips of his fingers back and forth along the tensely held muscle.
“You can keep going,” I told him, pouting.
I was embarrassed that he had to baby me. I wanted to show him that I was strong. That pain did not scare me. That his pain did not scare me. Instead he had been forced to stop tattooing. Forced to tend to me like I had a scraped knee after falling from my bicycle. Forced to soothe and hush like I was crying and couldn’t stop. That alone was what made me want to cry.
Me, being a child. Conor, an adult.
“I’m just getting the image in my mind,” Conor said, a kindness which made me want to scream.
I fixed my attention on him. But like Conor said, he was not looking at me (although he was still brushing his fingers up, down, up, down), but instead looking at the drawing of the dragon and the lotus.
As usual, a few strands of hair had fallen from his bun. Ripped out by the wind while on his motorcycle, I guessed. While on his way to me. Or pulled free when he dragged his fingers through his hair just before stepping inside. Thinking of me. Deciding, debating, changing his mind, and changing it again about me. Or pushed from behind his ear by the pencil he rested there as he considered before a blank page what to draw for me, what to draw for my body. His whole focus on me.
“Good,” Conor suddenly whispered, his hand coming to rest on the place where my tattoo would soon be. “That’s it.”
Without realising it, my body had relaxed. The muscles in my thighs had released their tightness. I had sunk into the chair instead of straining out of it like I was held down by bindings around my ankles and wrists. My limbs felt heavy, my fingertips and toes warm and tingly. My hands came to lie flat beside me, palms facing upward like I was praying for blessings. My head came to rest against the chair. I melted against the leather. I exhaled unevenly just once and then it was like I could breathe again. In and out, in and out. My heart rate slowed. I was certain that Conor sensed all of this, felt all of this through the heat of his palm.
Without another word between us, the hum of the gun began once more and Conor bent back over my exposed thigh. This time I did not look back up at the ceiling. Instead I watched Conor.
The gun rattled against me and the needle darted in and out of me and there was a violence in it that frightened me, but Conor steadied me. His calmness became my calmness. I watched his lungs expand and constrict through the thinness of his shirt on his back and I matched my breathing with his.
Every few moments his face would turn to the drawing on the cart beside him and I would look, too. I would try to see what he was seeing: the curve of the dragon’s spine, the flick of the tongue, the delicate spindle of the lotus, its points finer than the needle he held in his hand.
Conor’s eyes would return to my body and mine would return to his. He was claiming me, with his needle, with his gun, with his art, but I was claiming him, too. I was drawing him on my heart. The width of his shoulders as he bent over me. The shadow that fell over his eyes from his brow. The scars along his fingers which dabbed at my skin with a cloth. I had nothing to draw with but my eyes. Nothing to put him down on but my memory. Nothing to make sure he remained, like the ink would remain, but the sensation in my body.
So I tried to hold onto it. That warmth. That pain. That glow that came from having someone so committed to you and you alone. Why couldn’t I ink that into my body? Why couldn’t I keep that forever? That pleasure. That flooding sensation. That heat. That fucking heat.
“Aurnia?”
I blinked into awareness, a haze disappearing from my eyes. I found Conor closer to me, his rolling stool moved farther up my leg. His hand was on my hip. As if to steady me. As if to keep me still. As if to ground me. Conor’s gun was off. He’d placed it atop the drawing on the cart beside him. The tattoo was halfway done, the part closest to my knee finished, the part closest to my heart not yet started. Conor’s eyes were fixed on me. They glowed amber in the pink neon light. There was concern. There was concern and there was something else. Something more.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, his voice soft.
I stared at him like I did not understand.
“Aurnia,” Conor pressed, even as his fingers pressed. I could feel his thumb below my hip bone. I could feel his fingertips at the swell of my ass. He was trying to get through to me. I shook my head because it was thick, cotton-stuffed, slow-moving as molasses.
