Not As I Do 3
by Flashpoint
No Flash Tattoo had changed considerably since Woodward had been here last, which, now that he’d thought about it, had been when Matchen brought Mack here last, for the tribal design that now encompassed Mack’s entire muscular right arm from shoulder blade to fingertips. That had been, what, about a week after Match decided to stay 'Daddified?' Somehow, Woodward had suspected at the time that more was going on between them than just fucking. Call it intuition.
The place had gone through a complete overhaul in recent months thanks to a healthy buyout Bruce had gotten for one of his other properties, allowing him to update and upgrade, revamp and renew. And conform to certain health and safety regulations as well. The place was now so clean you could almost eat off the floor.
It was also dark. “I thought you said Bruce was in the shop,” Matchen said, trying to peer through impenetrable shutters.
“He said he was,” Woodward said, frowning at the top of the door. At over seven feet tall, the top edge was near eye level. Even after all these weeks, it was still strange to be seeing things from such a high vantage point. Matchen took it in stride, but Matchen’s revised history or not, either way they’d been partners for a very long time. However, like Miguel and Pete and unlike the rest of the world, he remembered what Steve Woodward had been like before four months ago. You saw it, didn’t you? The world after April? He pushed the thought away.
When he’d asked for his changes to be permanent, like Paul, Pete’s power sent out a ripple that affected everyone else. It shouldn’t have worked that way. Not every change Pete did had this retroactive-memory effect. In fact, very few did unless he was trying. But then, when you’re changing reality, who’s to say what 'the rules' are?
And yet, despite being Steve over seven feet tall, it hadn’t made any difference.
It wasn’t the level that bothered him; it was the dark shop hidden behind the blinds. Just as he noticed this, however, one of them was pried apart from behind, jerked slightly, and then opened wider as a pair of eyes wandered up to Woodward’s. A moment later they were released and the lock on the door gave a solid chunk as it was unlocked. It did not, however, open, so Woodward jerked it forward. “Bruce...!” he said, ducking his head and leading Matchen into the darkened room... and stopped, stunned.
“Hi, Steve,” a tall, lean kid in the darkness said, a cross between angry and frustrated. He was wearing a t-shirt he was almost swimming in and holding up jeans for a much thicker man. It was too dark to see much detail, but...
“Bruce?!” Matchen said, nonplussed. “What the hell hap...pened?” He ended awkwardly; Bruce’s look was palpable even in the dimness. It was obvious what had happened. Bruce had never been a small man in the time Woodward had known him, which was lengthy; he’d certainly never weighed less than 300 pounds, most of it belly, that he’d proudly showed off in t-shirts showing every curve. He was still 6’2”, but by estimates, he’d lost over 170 pounds. And almost twenty years. The muttonchops and thick dark hair were kind of new too.
“You...!” Bruce grimaced in pain and grabbed his crotch. “Aaaah! Goddamit!” He glared down the front of his jeans, now several sizes too big,. “Where the hell are they coming from?!” Woodward didn’t even want to ask. “You tell me! I’ve got a freaked out customer back there and I’m not any better!” He opened his mouth again and a yelp of pain came out. He let out another invective – Woodard was impressed with his ingenuity – and said, “I’ve got more ink and metal in the shop right now than I’ve ever had!”
Woodward and Matchen exchanged another look at this seeming non sequitur. “Nice to hear business is good,” he said slowly, not sure how this squared and not sure what to say. This wasn’t going to be pretty, he could tell. Even if Bruce really was a lot prettier than he had been, what little he could make out in the dark. For some reason, Bruce didn't want them to see him full-on.
Young Bruce rolled his eyes and hitched his jeans up again. “Brilliant, Sherlock. You’re just not gonna get it until I show you.” He locked the door behind them and hiking up his jeans led them back to his studio.
It was eerily quiet. Usually music was cranked, neon was blazing, and there was a near-constant low buzzing almost subliminally permeating the building. Flash art, contradicting the logo outside the front door, usually made eye-wrenching floor-to-ceiling wallpaper. And the shop was habitually hopping with clients, all three artists backed up for hours. There was an odd feeling of emptiness to the shop, like a vacated house or a blank slate. Instead of being full of life and art it was dim and foreboding. Woodward’s sense of foreboding, however, had nothing to do with invisible ghosts. “Where are Jiffy and Tim? Are they okay?” Woodward asked, trying to delay the moment they had to deal with reality. If Pete had changed the other two and a customer, there would be no way to handle the ripples. One of Pete’s gifts back to Bruce had been the addition of two more artists to the shop – who had somehow felt compelled to work there one day for no reason – increasing Bruce’s business dramatically. They were not, however, privy to Pete’s ability.
“Jiffy’s in Kansas City with his girlfriend and their new baby now,” Bruce said, sounding disgruntled. He’d been married twice, both controlling bitches, before he realized he was wired differently. They’d both colored his view of women in general. “And Tim quit to work at Tiger Skin. They offered him insurance.” His disgruntlement went deeper; he viewed someone jumping ship as a major betrayal, and he’d lost three other artists over only two years to what they saw as better offers. “And they took about 90% of my clients when they went.” Unfortunately, Pete had no idea that many tattoo artists are transient by nature.
“Oh,” Woodward said, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. Matchen gave him a look that clearly said shut up but it was unnecessary, as they had reached the back of the shop. Before he could look at Bruce in the light – aside from the obvious, there was something odd about his face even in the darkness – both Woodward and Matchen gaped.
“Make it stop!” the kid sitting in Bruce’s barber chair said. He was bare to the waist and most of his exposed skin was being covered in tattooing. While they watched. It was as though an invisible needle was drawing on him, filling in every bare inch of skin with designs of every conceivable kind. “Please make it stop! I just wanted an armband!”
The designs were intricate, detailed, and ornate. His left arm was a mélange of various small designs; everything from kanji and sacred hearts to flowers and flaming skulls, the scant space between filled with various flowing tribal images of varying kinds from modern to traditional Maori. His chest had a large Sailor Jerry eagle holding a blank banner in its claws. His abdominals sported an Egyptian Eye of Horus flanked by what looked like priests of the same. His right shoulder was covered in a strange abstract organic design, his left a celestial sun and moon. And his right arm was slowly becoming covered in traditional Japanese designs, from koi and dragons to katakana and what looked like the top of a demon’s head. On his bare scalp – Woodward blinked; he was sure he saw hair retreating into the kid’s scalp as though the growth was reversing – was a mixture of African and Indian designs, from top down to what he could see of the kid’s back. And every bit of leftover space was filling in with various designs; from his inner ear to his eyelids, the corners of his mouth to under his armpits. Even his lips. Literally, every single bit of his skin, everywhere, was being covered with designs. Improbably, they noted, even under his fingernails.
Woodward opened his mouth but nothing came out.
Their attention was drawn away from the kid when Bruce gave a yelp and let go of his jeans, which promptly fell to the floor. Through gritted teeth, sounding pained, he said to the two stunned cops, “And he’s not the only one.” He pulled off the billowing t-shirt, giving an unobstructed view of his newly lean body. If they’d been gaping before, they were gawking now. Woodward and Matchen weren’t sure what to look at first.
Bruce was not an aficionado of piercing, which was why he’d held off on having a piercer in his shop even though it would add revenue and a wider customer base. Simply put, for such a big man – as he used to be – he didn’t like needles. But now that there was adequate light, they could see there were numerous pieces of metal in his body gleaming in the harsh fluorescent lights of his office. Each nipple was pierced not only across but also top to bottom with flat barbells. Across the top of his nose was a rather hefty bridge. He had a line of rings marching along the edge of his ear cartilage from top to lobe, one through each tragus, three rings on each of his eyebrows, three spiked labrets in a neat row on his chin, and a ring through his left nostril. Not to mention a rather large ring going through his septum. What caught their real attention, though, was what was going on lower on his body.
His almost ripped midsection (!) now sported a nice navel piercing with a hanging red jewel that Woodward thought was a garnet, but he barely noticed that enough to wonder. He’d never seen Bruce naked before – never wanted to, really – so he had nothing to compare to what he saw now, but it still arrested his attention. Bruce’s genitalia – above average, he noted – was a mass of metal. He had a prince albert, a rather impressive gauge, and one going side to side across the head. Below that, on the underside of the shaft, a line of spaced rings marched down to his scrotum. What was making Bruce’s yelps was happening right in front of them. His scrotum was a mass of rings piercing into the skin, at least a dozen that he could see, and as he watched, Bruce would tense slightly – and sometimes stifle a yelp – as a hole would appear in a new spot and a ring would literally grow outward from it. No wonder he was in pain. “Please help,” Bruce said. His eyes were watering and he was trying very hard not to show his pain.
Woodward looked down at Matchen, who gaped back up at him. A moment later, though, Matchen’s training took hold and he took control. “Wood, you and Bruce go talk up front. I’ll calm the kid down.” This was an added effect of Matchen’s transformation into the Daddy of Mack’s dreams; with the added maturity and weight of age and experience in his body and mind, Paul had become a much more authoritative figure, without the arrogant authoritarian attitude he’d had as a rookie. Their roles had reversed. It had been a bit of shock the first time he’d wielded this in Woodward’s presence; not because he’d insisted on obedience but because Steve had found himself obeying without question. The child had well and truly become a man.
Woodward nodded, taking the naked Bruce by the shoulders and guiding him to the front of the shop, away from the horrified kid in the chair. It was a measure of Bruce’s mood that he had no issue with parading around naked in front of them in his own shop. Woodward could feel just in that light contact that Bruce was like a board in his hands, he was so stiff with fury. Woodward had the vague image of Bruce walking right through a brick wall and leaving a hole behind. He rolled his eyes. This wasn’t going to be easy, fast, or fun.
The moment they disappeared around the corner, Matchen turned back to the kid, who seemed to have finally stopped freaking out. At least he didn’t seem as panicky. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Randal. Randal Johnson... sir.” He was still watching with morbid fascination as the designs kept creeping into existence on his body.
Matchen himself found the sight fascinating. Randal’s body was changing while he was examining his new artwork, though he didn’t seem to be aware of it. Matchen could see what body hair the kid had withdraw, pulling inward until it disappeared from view. He knew he hadn’t imagined the kid’s scalp hair disappearing from view, even though that space was now covered with artwork. And it was hard to tell under the ink, but his body seemed to become more defined, more striated, with every passing moment, putting the artwork onto a rippling canvas. His abdominals were particularly defined, and his traps were getting bulky. He wouldn’t win any bodybuilding competitions, but he was a pretty good version of a gymnast. But this was hardly the time. “Call me Paul, Randy. Nice to meet you.” Adjusting his mammoth package, he sat opposite him in Bruce’s chair. “Um... how you doing?” It had to be the least important thing he could ask and the only thing that came to mind.
Randal stopped examining his body. “I... I dunno. I mean, when it first started, it really freaked me out, but... I’m getting to like it.” Matchen kept That was quick to himself. He’d been at the receiving end of Pete’s changes himself, after all. “I never thought I was the ink type.” He went back to examining the various images.
Matchen watched a tattoo of an artist’s needle with the legend Forever Inked come into existence while he debated his response. And yes, now that things had calmed, he was sure; the kid’s hair had quietly disappeared over his entire body except for his eyelashes. It certainly made for an unobstructed view of the images. What, exactly, was he supposed to say here? Full disclosure? That would answer questions and cause problems. Hide the truth? No answers and more questions and problems when he brought attention to himself and Bruce over this. Playing for time, he asked, “Randy, why’d you want to get a tattoo in the first place?”
Randal stopped looking at his creeping ink and looked at the floor. “I just broke up my b... girlfriend,” he said hurriedly. He was talking to a cop, after all, and an old one. This guy was old enough to be his father. “I... just wanted to do something different.” He looked embarrassed.
Matchen grinned a little, still trying to be serious. “Randy, I have a, um, boyfriend too.” Randal blinked and gulped, relieved. His arm was very nearly done. Matchen wondered whether the ink was continuing under his jeans but he suspected it was. “And I got him a tattoo when we, uh, got together.” He shook that off; this wasn’t the time. “I’m sorry.”
Randal snorted. “Not as sorry as me. I really loved him.” He stopped.
“What happened?”
Randal didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then said, “Why is it that the thing that attracts you to them is the thing that drives you crazy later on?” Paul had several things to say about that, all of them involving Mack, but he just gave a sort of agreeing nod. “He’s a second string football jock at my school. We, uh, met at a club one night.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I even care about embarrassing him any more. Fuck him. I was out at The Mine and I saw him dancing.” He looked Paul directly in the eye. “On a box.” Paul’s eyebrows went up but he managed to keep his grin under control. Mostly. “And he said I’m too gay. Gawd. He needed the extra cash for his steroids. You know, at the time I didn’t know why he went home with me. Not till later, anyway. His roommate told me everything later on. Prick. Not the roommate. I liked him."
“Then...” He seemed to lose energy. “I’m an art major. I guess it wasn’t ‘butch’ enough for him. He told me to... let me get this right... ‘screw off that shit and get a real major.’ It was ‘too gay’ for him. Asshole. All the time we were seeing each other and had to be the man in the relationship, I found out he was taking it up the ass from the running backs and the assistant coach. Dickhead.” Paul was trying to look sympathetic, but for some reason he found the whole story extremely funny. “Well, I walked into his dorm room with him on all fours taking it at both ends. Assistant coach has a pretty big dick too, I found out.” Paul was trying to listen and think of tragic, horrible things like dead kittens, rotting pumpkins, George W. Bush naked, anything to say serious. It was really testing him. “He screamed at me to get out, I screamed that he was a pussy, one of the guys shot right in his eye,” Paul gave a little snort, “and I got the hell out of there. Not before I took a picture on my cell cam though.” Paul was thinking Forgive me Father for I have sinned over and over and it was doing no good. He was going to bust up any second. “I thought the football team would come after me after I posted the pic but turns out he’s none too popular. One of them sent me a keg of beer later on.”
That was it. Matchen finally cracked up and started laughing wildly, nearly falling off the chair. He laughed and laughed and laughed until his belly hurt and his eyes were tearing up, and he needed to get the gun belt off so that he could breathe. Randal, taken aback, stared at him for a long moment before he too started to crack up. Together, they laughed and laughed for almost five full minutes, occasionally starting to slow down, whereupon one of them would say “Right in his eye!” or “They sent a keg!” and they would start right up again.
When they finally slowed down, both of them struggling to breathe, Paul said, “You know, I didn’t realize how much I needed that.”
Randal, laying back and staring at the ceiling, just nodded. He didn’t look as upset as he had. “So did I.” Which was obvious. He didn’t say anything for a while, and Paul let him sit silently. Maybe it’s time to move on, Randal thought. Then he rubbed his now ink-riddled hairless scalp and thought Gonna have to anyway. He couldn’t go back to school like this. With the asshole still there, he didn’t want to anyway. But where else was he supposed to go? Stay there?
Something clicked in his head. It wasn’t the worst idea.
He sat blinking for a while, mulling it over in his head, not saying anything, not revealing his thoughts. Then, he looked at Matchen and asked, very simply, “How did this happen to me?” He asked almost in the manner of someone asking where his car keys were.
Matchen blew out a breath. This was the hardest part. “Randy, what happened right before this happened? Think. It’s important.”
Randal looked at Matchen seriously, thinking. Even the look in his eyes seemed different; more confident and self-possessed. There was something of Bruce in his eyes now, or like Bruce had been before today. Could the ink have done this to him? It didn’t seem likely. “Nothing. I came in and started talking to... Bruce? Bruce, about getting an armband. You know, like a tribal one. That was it. Some guy came in right then, and he and Bruce...” He blinked as though he just realized something. “Wait a second. He was a big guy before. And old.”
Matchen kept back a stinging retort; he was older than Bruce by five years. Now, anyway. Matchen suppressed a groan. He didn’t need the rest to know what had happened. “Some guy came in?” he prompted. "What exactly did he say when he came in?" Since meeting Pete, he must have asked 5,000 people What were his exact words? It felt like it.
Randal thought for a moment then frowned. “I don’t know. I was looking through that book,” he indicated a thick book of flash art sitting on the counter next to them, “I didn’t pay attention.” Somehow Matchen had known. It just figured. “This guy said hi to me, something else I didn't catch, then he left and I showed Bruce the one I liked, and he copied it. We were about to start when he asked me if I’d get any more ink after this, something like that, and he pointed at that picture,” he indicated a portrait of a Maori warrior with full coverage, “and said I could go that far. He was joking. I said,” he scratched a small pyramid on his forearm, “something like, I’d get that much ink when he got that much metal, something like that, and I knew he wouldn’t ‘cause he told me doesn’t like needles.” Paul rolled his eyes. That’s Bruce all right. “And then he started yelling and...” he gestured to himself. “And this.” He seemed to be taking it entirely in stride now.
Matchen counted to ten before he let out a breath. Crap, he thought. I’ll kill him. He didn’t mean Bruce. But what was he supposed to say here? If he gave full disclosure, it might cause more problems than they could handle. If he said nothing or lied, the kid would raise a lot of unwanted attention to himself and Bruce, and the smoking gun would be pointed right at himself, Woodward, and Pete. There would no longer be a question of secrecy in regards to Pete’s power. Or maybe there would. “Okay,” he started, “this is gonna be hard to explain...”
Fifty feet away, through several layers of wall, Woodward was trying very hard to keep Bruce from becoming a force of destruction. “I’ll kill him!” He was still walking around wearing just socks, but he seemed ready to stalk right out of the shop and commit violence. The amount of metal he was now sporting rattled with his every movement. Strangely, he didn’t seem upset by it now that it had stopped erupting into existence; it was Pete that was the bane of his existence. His scrotum had so much metal in it that there was barely any skin visible. There was no pierceable spot on his body left that didn’t already have one or more rings or bars through it, including a few spots that Woodward didn’t even know people pierced. The back of the neck? In front of the armpit? The hand? “I’ll fucking kill him!”
Woodward put his hands on Bruce’s bare shoulders. He had to reach down to do it. “Bruce, slow down and tell me what happened! You know Pete wouldn’t cause this kind of thing deliberately.”
He knew it was an idiotic thing to say the moment Bruce opened his mouth. “That doesn’t make it better! I knew it was a mistake to give him that tattoo!” Woodward gave him a look and Bruce’s metal-infused face colored. That was a direct lie and they both knew it. He’d gotten his share of fun out of Pete’s power over the past four months. He went on in a quieter, if not calmer, tone. “I was just starting on the kid when Pete dragged his sorry ass in. Miguel sent something over; I don’t even remember what it was now. And Pete said...” he frowned. “Something about me getting something or... I don’t know. I had my mind on the ink.”
Great, Woodward thought. Not only had Pete caused this accidentally, Bruce had no idea exactly what Pete had done to him. Just that it was there. “On the plus side, it looks good on you,” he said lightly, earning him a very dark look in return. The thing was it really did, and Woodward wasn’t even into piercings. But then, Bruce wasn’t either. Or hadn’t been.
“Steve,” he said very slowly and carefully, “I-am-FORTY-YEARS-OLD! Look at me!” He grimaced at his own image in a mirror hanging above the front desk. “I look like I’m twenty-one again! I’m the same age as that kid out there! I look like some frigging club kid!” Except most club kids didn’t have that much metal. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?!” He frowned, looking down in front of him, looking very unhappy. Strangely, he seemed most upset over his lean, almost ripped midsection, which struck Woodward as odd; most guys he knew would kill to lose the beer belly. Except Paul of course, but he had a reason. Bruce acted like his best friend had died.
It wasn’t the only thing that was odd however; with every passing minute, Bruce was less and less upset about the changes, even the age difference. He seemed more irritated that it had happened outside his control than that it had happened at all. Even the look in his eyes was different now. He hadn’t lost the maturity he’d spent years earning, but there was something very like that kid in his eyes now. Rejuvenated. Younger in spirit. Could the metal have done this to him? It didn’t seem likely. “Well,” Woodward said carefully, “I can think of one thing.” Bruce gave him a questioning look, one that turned to surprise and alarm before he was done talking. It wasn’t the ideal solution but he had the distinct impression it might just be the only solution to a lot of their problems. Maybe to one of Woodward’s. In any event it couldn’t hurt.
By the time Woodward left two hours later, however, his left forearm wrapped in plastic and rather uncomfortably in his uniform sleeve, he changed that opinion. It actually hurt a great deal.
Bruce watched through the shutters as the squad car pulled away from the shop, Matchen driving. Paul knew what a tattoo felt like – Bruce knew all about the teddy bear on his butt – but apparently Steve hadn’t fully grasped that it was a needle going into skin and hitting nerve endings. Bruce had long since refrained from knocking out his clients, after that ugly incident with the kid who’d turned out to be the son of a rich alderman, but he’d wished he still did when Steve nearly hit the ceiling the second the needle touched him. Bruce just wasn’t sure how this was going to solve anything. They’d tried immediately and nothing had happened.
It would have been funny under other circumstances, Steve threatening to bash Bruce’s head in if he came at him again but at the same time asking him to continue. Paul was trying to calm Steve down seriously and obviously holding in laughter at the same time. Randal was standing around not saying anything and wondering if he should leave but not sure what to do when he did. He couldn’t give advice on how a tattoo felt; Bruce hadn’t actually started on him when the art had spontaneously appeared on him, and unlike Bruce’s own experience it hadn’t hurt. If anything, he said, it felt like someone was stretching plastic wrap over his skin as it happened, sort of. He couldn’t describe it. In any event, he didn’t feel comfortable watching a cop getting a tattoo and wanting to back out of it.
That was why it took two hours to get Steve out of the shop; when Pete had been unconscious the whole job had been relatively quick. Unfortunately, Steve had required extra time due to his grimaces and jerking back and forth. He’d easily been the most difficult client Bruce had worked with, and there had been many.
He let the shutter slip back into place, letting a breath out. He’d asked it before and he’d ask it again, what the fuck was he going to do now? The Bruce Cielo that had existed six hours ago was gone. Dead. He snorted. He knew guys that would kill to be 21 again. He just wasn’t one of them. Well, not much anyway. He’d always wished he’d finished his degree in art, but when his dad kicked him out of the house he’d had to start working. He’d been good with his art it turned out... he actually made a few bucks doing graphic illustrations for a couple of ad agencies and even got a piece submitted to Wage magazine. If his roommate hadn’t gone for that tattoo that day, he wondered if he’d ever gone into tattooing. Probably not... it hadn’t been a childhood career goal. But they got to talking, he’d shown his portfolio and fifteen years later here he was, going broke. Woo hoo. Career of the year.
Oh, he had no regrets, he loved tattooing, always had, but he missed doing art for art’s sake. He liked doing illustrations and painting, and had even gotten pretty good with his charcoals. He missed that. But there hadn’t been much reason for him to continue. He had a business to run, he told himself. He didn’t have time for art, he told himself. Not for the first time, he wished he had a business partner with similar interests. Or was it another type of partner he was wishing for?
“Hey.” Bruce turned to Randal, who’d silently watched the whole Steve tattoo fiasco. Bruce had to admit, of all of them, Randal had turned out the winner in all this. Bruce had seen a lot of full-coverage guys in his time, including many guys with facial ink, and none of them had turned out as well as Randal had. It was unbelievable; it was like the flash art had come off the wall and infused it onto his skin. Then he noticed something beyond Randal’s shoulder. A plastic-encased blank sheet of paper tacked to the wall. Hadn’t there been art on it earlier? Were those other sheets next to it blank too? “You okay?”
Bruce looked at him in disbelief. “Fuck no I’m not okay. Everything I’ve spent building over the last fifteen years is gone. How am I going to explain that I’m Bruce Cielo? Tell them I had a facelift and liposuction?”
Randal seemed unperturbed by it. “Tell them you’re Bruce’s son.” At the look on Bruce’s face, he added, “Why not? You’ve got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Look at this as a chance to start over.”
“This from a man who looks like a freak show.” He wished the words back the second they came out. He actually thought Randal was kind of hot. Hmm... interesting. Before they’d both changed he hadn’t even really noticed him, but now... “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yeah you did. Don’t lather. I am a freak. I like it.” He said it completely matter of fact.
Bruce stared for a second and then said, “You mean that exactly, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I was kind of, well, freaked at first, but... yeah. I like being a freak. You?”
Bruce opened his mouth to ask him what he meant by that, but realized that with all the metal in his body that he was one too now. “Good point. Question is, what are we going to do now? I can go on tattooing, but you...” He gestured vaguely.
Randal made a show of thinking about it, patently false, and said, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. Why don’t I just stay here?”
Bruce glared at him. “Now wait just a second...!” he began.
“Oh, screw you. You need somebody around here. You don’t have any artists but yourself and I know you could use someone to answer the phones and handle the customers. I sure as hell can’t go back to art school like this.” He spread his arms.
Bruce felt his heart skip a beat. “Did you say art school?” It couldn’t possibly be. This was way too convenient.
Randal tensed, expecting a confrontation. “Yeah, art school! I’m a damn good artist! I’d put my paintings and sketches against your ink any fucking day!”
Far from Randal's snap making him angry, Bruce started doing math in his head. It didn’t seem that bad of an idea. The kid was a living canvas. Nobody but the two of them had to know that Bruce hadn’t done the work. He could use another hand around here. And there really was nowhere else the kid could work now. “Randal... have you ever considered becoming an apprentice?”
Randal, caught off guard, blinked and said, “An apprentice what?”
“Tattoo artist, gimlet. I was an art major too.”
“Oh,” Randal replied, caught off guard. Tattoo artist. He liked that. I could stay here. He found the thought of being around Bruce agreeable. No reason why, it was just there. He actually was kind of hot. Too skinny, but hot. His asshole ex-boyfriend had had a solid football player’s build with a burgeoning roid gut that he’d found extremely sexy. He’d noticed Bruce’s belly earlier but things had happened too fast for him to really pay attention to it. Now it was gone and Bruce looked, well, flat. It wasn’t as attractive. “Do you still sketch?”
“Some. Not like I used to. I really miss that. And my painting.” He thought for a second about his old portfolio. It might be a good time to dust it off. “Oh, by the way, I’ll need to see your portfolio. I need an idea of your style and talent.”
Randal kept a completely straight face. He’d been published in two art magazines already. Small ones with no readership and certainly no money to pay him, but they were ‘prestigious’ periodicals. In other words, the ones that sat on people’s coffee tables and never got looked at. A very funny thought occurred to him and he just couldn’t resist. “All right,” he said, trying not to smile. “Would you like to come back to my place and see my etchings?”
Bruce laughed out loud. “Don’t tell me they still use that line!” Randal laughed too. “Okay, fine, Randal. I’d love to take a look at your etchings. And anything else you’ve got.” The words slipped out before he even knew they were there. “Maybe we can get dinner later.” There was just a hint of a question, just a touch of uncertainty. Oh, Christ, he thought, did I really say that? He sounded like some...! Like some inexperienced 21-year-old, he reflected ruefully. This was funny. Not ha-ha funny, not yet, but funny.
Randal grinned, picturing a large meal between the two of them, and not necessarily just food. Coming up very close to Bruce, he smiled a very self-assured ink-clad smile and said, no uncertainty in his voice at all, “Call me Randy. I think we better make that breakfast.”