“Can I help—Oh, hey Trish. What can we do for you?” Obviously, Trish had been here before, which I knew had to be true.
“Hey Madeline. Um, I think I’m going to do my tragus. Is Magnus in?” A man poked his head from the open doorway right behind the desk.
“Did I hear my name?” He smiled when he saw Trish and she walked behind the desk and gave him a hug.
“And you brought a friend! You know you get ten percent off when you refer someone.” He wiggled his black eyebrows, one pierced twice. I couldn’t count the amount of other piercings that adorned his face, and his t-shirt showed sleeves of tattoos. He was quite a spectacle. I tried not to stare too much.
“Not this one, she’s a virgin.” Trish came back over and put her arm around me.
“Um, standing right here,” I said. Trish thought I was a virgin, based on the stories I’d told her, but that didn’t mean I wanted her telling anyone within hearing distance about my sexual history.
“I mean a body modification virgin. Single holes in your ears don’t really count.” I reached up and touched my earlobes. My mom had gotten them done when I was a baby, so I didn’t even have any memory of it. Still, that didn’t mean I wanted a needle going through my body just for the sake of adornment.
Magnus was still staring at me and then he cleared his throat.
“So, what can I do for you, Trish?”
“Tragus?” she said, pointing to her left ear. “I want to do both, but I don’t want to do them at once.” Magnus stepped around the table as conversation from the other side of the room and the buzz of a tattoo machine distracted me for a second.
Magnus inspected Trish’s ear and then led her into the back of the shop, where there was a room with what looked like a dentist’s chair in it, along with a case of various rings and bars for piercings. Some were so large they made me shudder.
Trish hopped into the chair and Magnus put on a set of gloves and pulled out a metal tray, covered it with a cloth and started getting out his tools.
“Don’t you just do it with a gun?” I asked. Magnus gave me a look as if I’d uttered a scandalous curse word.
“Hell no. Do you know those guns can shatter your ear cartilage? Not to mention those things are completely unsanitary.” I gave Trish a look as Magnus got out a bag with a little hoop in it and disinfected it.
Sorry I asked.
Magnus cleaned and then marked the spot on Trish’s ear before holding a mirror up to show her. She agreed on the placement and then held her hand out. I took it and she stared up at the ceiling. Magnus put a clamp on the spot and then picked up what looked like a large sewing needle. Dear God. Was he really going to use that?
“Okay, take a deep breath for me.” Trish did so. “And let it out,” he said as he pushed the needle through the spot.
“Fuck!” Trish said, clenching my hand and squeezing her eyes shut.
“And now I’m going to put the jewelry in. Another deep breath.” She winced when he put the hoop through her ear and then put a little ball in it and used pliers to close the hoop.
“And you’re done.” Trish’s pupils were a little dilated and her hand shook in my grip. I tried to get her to let go, but she wouldn’t.
“Trish?” I said, looking down at our joined hands. “Losing circulation.”
“Oh, sorry.” She unclamped her hand from mine and it was like springing a bear trap. I flexed my hand a few times.
“You okay?” Magnus said, staring into Trish’s eyes. “Sometimes she faints.” He directed that toward me.
“Then why do it?” I asked Magnus.
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘beauty is pain’? I think the opposite is true.” He smiled and patted Trish on the shoulder before giving her a mirror to check out her new piercing. It looked at home with all the other studs in her ear.
“So, how about it? Twenty percent off,” he said to me as Trish stood up on shaky feet.
“You could get second holes in your ears,” Trish said, tugging on my earlobe. I had thought about it before, but didn’t have the guts or the opportunity.
“Live a little, Aud,” Trish said, squeezing my shoulder and winking.
“O-Okay,” I said and before I knew it, I was sitting in the chair and he was cleaning my earlobes and making dots on them. He repeated the process that he’d used with Trish, and before I knew it, I had two new holes in my ears.
“Took it like a champ,” Trish said, as I let go of her hand. “And now that you’ve started, you won’t be able to stop. Trust me. It’s addicting.”
Magnus handed me the mirror and I checked out the delicate crystal studs that now sat right above the pearls I had in my original holes. I was definitely shaky when I got to my feet and Magnus gave me a sheet with instructions on how to care for my ears.
“I’ll help her. I know the drill,” Trish said. “Next stop, first tattoo.” Second holes in my lobes was one thing, but permanently inking my body was something else entirely. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for that.
Trish ended up paying for my ears, even though I told her not to. She hugged Magnus again and he told me to come back to him anytime.
My ears had started burning and they pulsed with pain.
“Ow,” I said, touching my ear gingerly.
“Don’t touch. That’s the first rule. And I’ll give you some of my cleaning stuff for them. How do you feel, Wild Woman?” I didn’t exactly feel like a wild woman.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m really hungry right now.”
“Then let’s get you something to eat.”
8
“Okay, Mr. Mopey-pants. You need sun. And a shower,” Simon said, yanking the blankets off my bed and pulling up the venetian blinds.
The sun was cruel. I closed my eyes against it and moaned.
Simon sat down on the edge of my bed.
“I know that you’re bound to be a little depressed right now. That’s only natural, but you’ve sunk a little too low for . . . well, you. You didn’t act like this with Kandy.”
“Audrey isn’t Kandy,” I mumbled. “Not even close.” Kandy had been a nice girl, and I had cared for her, but she wasn’t the girl. And all I could think about when I thought of her was all the things I didn’t like about her. Why the hell had I dated her anyway?
“Come on. It’s time to get up. You’ve missed enough classes and meals and it’s not healthy anymore. Come on, get up.” Simon’s voice was sharp, a tone I’d never heard before. It made me sit up in surprise.