There’s no guarantee we went further. I cling to that like a storm-tossed life raft.
“Last night.” I rub at my bruised jaw, wincing. Something isthere,damn it, prodding at the back of my brain. Demanding attention. “We were in this… corner…”
Dark and hot and private. Pressed so close we blurred together. Can’t think about that right now.
“And there was, uh. There was a board. Loads of boards on the walls.” I screw one eye shut, trying to conjure the memory again. It’s like trying to cup smoke in my hands: hazy and insubstantial. “Boards with drawings on them.”
Effie wrinkles her nose at the ground. “Like comic book panels?”
“No. Like…” I swallow against my rising horror. “Like tattoos.”
Effie splutters, already checking her bare arms and legs. “Oh, shit. Wouldn’t we have noticed that already? Wouldn’t it hurt?”
“I don’t know. But we were definitely there.” I’m sure of it. Eighty percent certain, anyway. I press a fist against my forehead, sorting through the hazy mess, and a blurry logo rises up in my aching mind.
A pair of red lips, a cloud of dark bats flowing between them like smoke. And the words, in gothic script:Count Tattular.
* * *
The tattoo parlor is in the back room of an amusement arcade, past endless flashing lights and robotic jingles. All around us, people crank levers and rattle cups of coins, and the whole walk through to Count Tattular is a violent assault on my hungover senses.
The stale, smoky air.
The strobing lights and shrill laughter.
The musty carpet crunching underfoot.
“Oh, god.” Effie leans against my shoulder as we walk, her sunglasses firmly back on her nose. “If we got tattooed here, we should test for hepatitis.”
She hasn’t stopped checking her arms and legs. Pressing her palm to the back of her neck and her sides, looking for a patch of raw skin like an ant tickling under her clothes. I’d offer to peek under her dress, but lord knows that’s not a good idea.
“There. Down that corridor.” An open door at the back of the arcade leads to a shadowed hallway, a Count Tattular sign hanging lopsided above the frame. We step through, and as we pass endless tattoo designs on boards, I’m slammed with the memories over and over again.
Crowding Effie into a corner–that corner–her moan breathless in my ear.
Her hands tugging at my shirt, desperate and wild.
Her teeth, nipping at my earlobe.
“No.” The second we enter a shabby reception room, a man points at the exit over our shoulders. “Not you two fuckers again. Out.”
He’s burly and bald. More ink than bare skin, with an earring and a black leather vest that creaks when he moves. And as I blink at the tattoo artist I rub my jaw, the bruise throbbing worse than ever.
“Yeah.” He folds his arms, a sagging gold watch glinting on his wrist. “I’ll give you one on the other side, too. Don’t make trouble.”
Effie’s already tripping forward, bright and soothing and perfect, her palms raised in surrender. “We’re not here for trouble. We have some questions about last night.”
The man snorts, but he’s softened. Effie has that effect on people. “Forgot, did you? Yeah, that makes sense. You two were pretty trashed.”
It unfolds in one long grumble, Count Tattular staring at Effie the whole time like she’s some kind of magical pixie that wandered into his grubby den. He tells us she came in first last night, declaring she wanted a tattoo. That she brought her own design.
“I prepped her and everything,” the man mutters, pulling out a desk drawer and rummaging inside. “Did the trace. You owe me for that work, you know.”
I’m already pulling out my wallet. “Keep talking. Please.”
He coughs out a wheezing, phlegmy sound, and slaps a scrap of lined paper on the desk before continuing. “She wanted that on her hip. Said her husband would love it.”
We came hereafterthe wedding? Effie snags the paper, pushing her sunglasses onto her head again to stare at the drawing. Her mouth forms a perfect ‘o’.