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“You better take me someplace good,” I say. “I don’t want hepatitis from some rusty Russian needle.”
“Don’t worry,” Andrei assures me. “Bitterroot has the highest standards. They lick the needle clean between every client.”
Despite Andrei’s best efforts to wind me up, the tattoo parlor is perfectly welcoming. It’s located in a neat brick building on Main Street, a large skylight flooding the room with sunshine, and cheerful orange tiles on the floor.
I relax a little more when I meet the artist Jaromira, who has shiny black hair down to her waist and sleeves of beautiful black roses on both arms. She shows me examples of her work, all fine lines and delicate shading.
“All right,” I sigh, situating myself on her chair. “I’m ready.”
The Wolfpack has come along to watch me take my licks. They rib me and offer sips of vodka from Vlad’s flask.
“Try not to cry,” Hakim says.
“I never cry,” I say, scornfully.
“Never,” Adrik agrees, giving me a sideways smile.
My cheeks get hot, but I smile back at him, not really minding that he saw me in my lowest and most desperate moment. It was his, too. We were both drowning, and we both pulled each other out.
I can’t watch when Jaromira sets her buzzing needle against my arm. I thought it would feel like punctures, being stabbed again and again, but really it’s more like someone drawing on you with a sharp pen.
After a while, the endorphins kick in. It’s almost pleasant. The sunshine is warm, the buzzing soothing.
I lay my head against the rest on the chair, listening to Jaromira’s excellent selection of Russian chansons.
Much like the Mexican ballads that detail the exploits of drug cartels, chansons are songs about the underworld.
The more vodka Vlad drinks, the more he wants to sing along. His voice is low and gruff, but not unpleasant.
“Go ahead,” Jaromira encourages him. “It keeps me entertained.”
Chief peppers Jaromira with questions about the internal mechanisms of the tattoo gun.
“I didn’t build it,” she laughs. “I just use it.”
“How you holding up?” Adrik asks me. He’s sitting directly across from me, backwards on his chair with his arms folded over the seat rest. His hair is dark and shaggy around his face, his blue eyes bright under the skylight. Now that summer is coming, his tan is deepening again.
“I can barely feel it,” I say, though in truth it’s starting to sting now that Jaromira has finished the line work and moved on to the shading. Each pass of the needle bites a little deeper.
I haven’t looked at her work. I already know what the tattoo will look like. It’s staring at me from six muscular arms all around me—a black wolf, its mouth half-open in a snarl. I could probably draw it in my sleep from all the times I’ve traced Adrik’s tattoo with my finger.
When Jaromira finally finishes, the Wolfpack crowds around to see.
“It’s official,” Jasper grins.
I try to feel excitement as Jaromira positions me in front of the mirror, wiping the soap off my arm with a soft cloth.
As the rag swipes down, it reveals not a black wolf, but an orange tiger. The tiger prowls up my arm, long and sleek and graceful. Like the wolf, its teeth are bared in a furious snarl.
The Wolfpack laughs at the look on my face, Adrik more than anyone.
“Do you like it?” he says.
“I … I love it.”
I really do.
Adrik tilts my chin up and kisses me.
