A. Homes - Music for Torching

"What's your favorite color?" she asks "Green? Blue? Black?"

"Blue," he says, signaling for the check. "Where are you taking me-what kind of a place?"

"The kind that gives you pins and needles." She laughs.

"Can't wait." He is thinking that she'll take him to her apartment, there will be another girl, maybe her roommate. It will be the three of them, two against one. He imagines the date on top, riding him, while the roommate squats over his face. His is a pathetically standard fantasy, and yet his groin pulses with the possibility.

"How's Henry?" she asks. "I haven't heard from him in a few days."

"He's away, traveling for work."

"I keep trying his cell phone. First I got some woman, and now it's turned off."

"Oh," Paul says, thinking of Elaine at home with the cell phone. "He'll be back soon."

He pays. She leads him down the street. He's nervous. The neighborhood, if you can call it that, is like a bombed-out war zone. Paul can't imagine that anyone normal lives there. "Who is the appointment with?" he asks.

"Gary," she says.

He begins to sweat. "Who's Gary?"

They're buzzed in. The building smells like gas and cats. They go up an endless staircase, climbing higher and higher, ascending into darkness.

"What's this about?" he says. "What are we doing?"

"I want to get you marked."

"What does that mean?"

"Tattooed."

Paul is reeling. He's thinking she's insane. He's feeling how conventional he really is. With Elaine he is the madman, with the date he's terrified.

"Did Henry do this?" he asks.

"Henry's pathetic," she says.

"I don't think I'll get one, but if you want one, I'll watch."

"I have two already," she says.

He can picture one, a butterfly just above her breast. "Where's the second?"

"Ass crack," she says, "I have a rose coming out of my ass."

"Oh," he says. "Well, get some more. Get a whole bouquet. My treat."

"No. I want to watch you," she says.

A thin, reedy guy answers the door. The apartment is a long, narrow hall, with rooms branching off to the right and left.

"Gary's in the back," the guy says.

"Who's Gary?"

"Nick's boyfriend. That was Nick at the door, he's a painter."

Gary is big. He looks like a Hell's Angel. His hair is pulled back in a high ponytail. He is bearded and his beard is gathered into a second ponytail, in front, held with a ponytail holder, the kind with the two plastic balls, just beneath his chin.

"Hi," the date says.

"You're late," Gary says.

"Sorry, he had to eat." She points to Paul.

Gary grunts. "So, what'll it be?" he asks. "Squirming mermaid, mother's maiden name, anchors aweigh?"

The date asks, "Can he look through the catalog?"

"Sure." Gary gestures at a pile of tattoo books. "You're not a whiner, are you?" he asks Paul.

Paul doesn't speak. Gary shrugs and leaves the room.

"This just isn't a good idea," Paul whispers to the girl.

"Sure it is," she says, pulling at his jacket, unbuttoning his shirt. "Just a little something right about here." She puts her mouth on his heart. "I can feel your pulse with my tongue."

"Does it really mean a lot to you?" Paul asks her.

"I like my men to be marked so I can tell they're mine." She pulls at his nipples with her teeth.

Gary returns. "I could pierce those for you if you like." He lifts up his shirt, flashing a multicolored dragon-covered belly and tits punctuated with silver rings.

From Paul's point of view, he looks like a circus act. "I'll pass," Paul says.

"Why don't you hop up here," Gary says, patting what looks like an old examination table from a doctor's office.

Paul sort of wants to get out of it, he wants to say something like-my health insurance doesn't cover tattoos, my mother won't let me, or my wife won't like it. But, on the other hand, he's into the idea of redefining the body, especially as it is changing, as it is beginning to escape him. He is thinking that if he does do it, he'll get something small, something simple, something like an ancient symbol-a hidden source of power. He'll tell himself that it's part of his training-to be a warrior.

"I'm assuming you just want one color," Gary says.

She is pulling at his zipper. "This is where I want it," she says. "Down here, a vine coming up."

Paul shakes his head. "I was thinking on the arm."

"You shave?" Gary asks.

Paul's chest is clean. And as the date pulls down his pants, no fertile forest appears.

"Straight people don't shave. It's kinky," Gary says.

"Swimming," Paul lies.

"I'm getting so excited," the date says, pulling at his pants. Paul is resisting. "Oh, come on. Don't get weird. Gary's not going to hurt you too much," she says. "Just enough."

"You use a clean needle, right?" Paul asks Gary.

"Disposable and sterile. A fresh set for each person." Gary shows him his tools.

And then Paul is lying on the table, wondering how they got to this point, how they got from shoulder, chest, or back to groin. He is nude. Gary has draped a paper towel, a sheet of Bounty, over his cock and balls-a motion toward modesty.

The stencil is applied.

Gary holds a mirror above it so Paul can look. Paul sees a curl of ivy, a leafy vein rising up from below; he sees something about six inches long.

"The right spot?" Gary asks.

"Yes," the date says. "Yes." Her breath blows the paper towel up, tickling Paul's testicles.

"If you decide to let your hair grow back, it'll just about cover it," Gary says, putting on goggles, a mask, and latex gloves.

Paul pops a sweat. His skin goes clammy.

"This is so erotic," the date says.

"So you say," Paul says.

The sensation is one of vibration, of burning, of a thousand pinpricks all at once, of a fiery match being touched to tender skin. It is pleasure and it is pain-more pain than pleasure.

"Oh," the date says. "Oh, it's amazing. Oh. It's so incredible, watching you, watching the little needle drilling. And you're hardly bleeding, just sort of beading up. Oh. Ohhh."

When they are done, Gary lathers the tattoo with antibiotic ointment, tapes a nonstick bandage over everything, and gives Paul instructions.

"Keep it clean-that's the main thing. The bandage stays on for about eight hours, then lots of ointment for ten days. Keep the scab lubricated, otherwise it'll heal peculiar. Questions?"

Paul sits up. The hankie over his cock falls off.

"How much do I owe you?" the date asks.

Paul is light-headed. He wonders why they don't offer him a little cup of orange juice the way they do when you give blood. He looks down at the bandage and thinks of outpatient sur- gery-vasectomy. He wonders if he should put ice on it. He eases himself off the table and gently slips into his boxers, his shirt, his pants, his jacket.