“You know this is going to hurt, right?”
Excuse me? I looked up from the legal consent forms I was signing. Kat met my eyes and smiled one of her patented smirks. She could be kidding or dead serious. Only she and her Higher Power ever knew.
Pammy didn’t have a clue, which was why she took my hand. “Uh-huh okay, but is it going to hurt a lot?” she asked in sweet ignorance.
Kat, who could never suffer a fool on her best days, shot my partner a cold stone glance. “Rule of thumb when you get a piercing is, the more sensitive the body part you’re getting pierced, the more pain involved,” she explained, eating away at her lunch. “So getting a hole in your earlobe isn’t going to hurt nearly as much as getting your nipples done, like your girlfriend here, or your clit, which I also do...”
“…or your heart,” I spitefully added.
“Ha,” Kat said between bites. “Those I do for free.”
She laughed and Pammy joined in, although it was pretty obvious my girlfriend had no idea why she was chuckling. It was right around then that I started to think that coming into The Drop Stitch maybe wasn’t such a good idea after all. But the day had been warm, the boardwalk bustling, my wallet fat with twenties. There was nothing on the sign or in the storefront window that would have led me to believe the place was run by my ex.
Now she wiped her mouth with a napkin, took a long slug from her water bottle, and picked up the clipboard to give my signatures the once-over. “Let’s see…no known allergies, no aversions to needles, you promise not to sue me if your nipples turn green and your tits fall off.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Pammy asked.
“Depends,” Kat replied. “You a lawyer? Just kidding.” Now she turned her baby blues on me. “Now you understand this’ll mean no titty sex for at least three months.”
My girlfriend’s jaw hit the floor. “You serious?”
Kat shrugged. “Hey, if that’s a problem or anything, now’s the time to back out.”
"No one’s backing out of anything,” I declared.
“Cool,” Kat replied, which if memory served could mean anything and often did. “Why don’t you shake yours buns over to this counter here and show me what you want, rings or bars?”
I wandered over to the display case she indicated, Pammy stuck to the end of my hand. On the other side of the glass were three removable shelves, each one weighed down with dozens if not hundreds of nipples rings and bars of various dimensions and colors.
“Which one would you suggest?” Pammy asked, as if we were buying a car.
Kat shrugged. “That’s up to blondie here. It’s got to be personal, something she’s going to love seeing herself wear every day.” She caught my eye. “Although, if I had to guess, I’d bet she’s a pink lady.”
If I had to guess? Over the three years we went out she bought me enough bubble-gum colored bra and panties to open my own lingerie store. “That one over there,” I said firmly.
She squatted down to see which one I was pointing to. “A ring, cool. But not that thin.”
“I want something…”
“…delicate, uh-huh, I figured,” she said, nodding. “But if it’s too thin it’ll actually start tearing through. I’d recommend something thicker, like a 14-gauge. Especially if your nipples tend to be larger.”
Again, sounding as if her mouth hadn’t covered every inch of my tits during the late hours of many nights.
“Fine,” I said, mouth twisting into a lemon-soaked smirk. “That one.” Pointing to a red 14-gauge.
“That’s risqué,” Kat simmered. “Sure you don’t want something else, blondie? I have a nice yellow one over here…”
“Red,” I said, tapping the glass.
“Okay then.” She pulled out the tray and plucked the ring up. “Follow me,” she said, leaving the register to an assistant as she came out from behind the counter.
“Is it okay if I come, too?” Pammy asked
Kat skipped a beat, “Sure, c’mon. Blondie here looks like she’ll need all the support she can get.”
I scowled. Half of me wanted to kick her hard in the shins, the other half wanting to kiss her hard on the mouth. My nipples had gone hard, indicating trouble ahead.
Kat led us down a narrow hall to the last door on the left. On the other side was a room that reminded me of my gyno’s – long examining table, a glass cabinet filled with vials on the wall, sterilizer on the counter, drawers filled with shiny instruments that made my skin goose pimple.
My ex took out a spray bottle from the cabinet and gave the table a few antiseptic squirts. “Pop your twat horizontal,” she said after wiping it off. Pammy’s eyes popped a little at that but I was used to it. Kat was never going to have “Great Bedside Manner” carved onto her tombstone, and she was okay with that.
“Gotta take your shirt off, and bra off, too,” she said.
“Is that really necessary?” Pammy asked, sounding a note of embarrassment.
“It’s not like I haven’t seen ‘em before,” Kat tossed back.
Jesus! I quickly glanced over at Pammy to see if she had caught on. The current girlfriend just smiled at me without any comprehension whatsoever. I had to wonder if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
My stomach felt as though a hundred thousand butterflies had been set free in there. My fingers trembling slight, I unbuttoned my blouse, let it fall away. When was the last time I got this naked in front of Kat? My brain couldn’t remember; my body couldn’t forget. It took three tries to unhook my damn bra strap.
Could my ex read my thoughts? Wouldn’t have surprised me, but as usual, Kat’s smile gave away nothing. Fixing up a tray of instruments and latex gloves, she rolled a stool over. “Okay, blondie, why don’t you lie back and enjoy the ride.”
I slowly lied down, remembering how that old line kicked off a thousand sweaty Saturday nights.
Pammy stepped forward. “Do I have to leave the room?”
Yes, please!
“Nope,” Kat said. “Just don’t freak on us, okay? Hold blondie’s hand here and keep telling her everything’s going to be all right. Some people need to hear that over and over again, ya know?”
Without any preface she examined my right breast, stretching it out by the nipple. A black felt marker appeared in her hand, which she uncapped with her teeth. “So,” she said, making an "x" on either side of the nipple, “you never did say why you wanted your nipples pierced anyway.”
I raised my head off the table to see what she was doing. “I, I don’t know…”
“Sure you do,” Kat prompted, releasing my right tit for the left one. “You look like the kind of woman who never does anything without a mission statement and a committee.”
“Yep, that’s my honey,” Pammy said, patting my hand.
I squeezed her hand until she yelped, as I met Kat’s eyes dead-on. “Maybe that’s why I’m here now. To do something spontaneous.”
“Will wonders never cease,” my ex said. The marker squeaked over my flesh. “Okay, last chance to abort.”
In front of Kat? With Pammy standing there like a goddamn cheerleader? I don’t think so. “Let’s do it.”
“I love it when you talk butch.” Another one of her under-the-sheets catchphrases. “Okay, so now I need you to loosen up. Might be hard, in your case, you look like a Type-A personality. The one thing I don’t need is you all tensed up like a spring. Just breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Go ahead, give it a try. You’ve got to be totally relaxed.”
As if I had ever been around her. “I’m working on it,” I said, blowing shallow drafts through my mouth.
“You sound like a frigging workhorse,” she said, sparing my current partner a look. “Does she sound like this when you go down on her? Wait, don’t answer, I bet I know.”
Pammy blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Never mind, just thinking aloud,” Kat replied, all smiles. She picked up the clamps, warming them in her hand.
I puffed furiously beneath her. Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!
“Okay, this time for real,” Kat said and I knew by her tone she was ready to get down to business. She gently attached the forceps to my right tit. In her free hand appeared a stainless steel needle that looked a yard long and an inch thick. “Don’t look at this,” she said, wagging it about. “Just keep breathing for me. That’s good. Okay now, on the count of three…”
“Wait,” Pammy said. “Do you mean on three, or like one-two-three, and then you do it?”
My ex shot her a look that could have peeled paint off of steel. “You’re cute. Anyway, here we go.”
Breathe deep, breath deep, breath deep!
“One, two,” she said, now leaning over me, “…three.”
A sharp searing tore across the nipple, my chest lifting off the table with that white-hot kiss. Lightning cut across my brain, a hot geyser of blood and sugar erupting from below.
Kat (who no doubt knew exactly what I was going through) didn’t linger. As soon as she broke though she threaded the ring in, screwed the small pink dollop on and closed the circle with a smaller pair of pliers. “Breathe deep, baby,” she said from a million miles away. “Halfway done. I’m going to switch to the other side now.”
Pammy face’s floated over me. “Honey, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
I’m not coming out of surgery, I thought, irritated. It was Kat who answered. “Don’t worry, blondie here looks like a toughie. Bet she’s taken a lot of shit in her day.”
You’d know, wouldn’t you. But when I caught Kat’s eye it was to see a deeper apology there than I’d have ever expected.
She gave me a quick look-see to gauge where I was and wheeled the stool around to the other side of the table. My eyes followed her, heart tripping over itself.
“You don’t have to do this,” Pammy advised from a million miles away. “One looks pretty!”
“Your call,” Kat said, “although it’ll look more balanced with another one.
“No, I’m good, I’m good,” I wheezed, sweat on my lips.
“So I’m told,” Kat laughed. Out came the clamps again. “Oh, fuck.”
I didn’t need to look to know why my ex was cursing. My body had responded to the first piercing by, amongst other reactions, breaking out in a wash of sweat. Now the clamp couldn’t get a firm grip on my left tit, its metal lips slipping right off the slicked skin.
“Does this mean we stop?” Pammy asked. She looked even whiter than normal, if that was possible.
“No,” Kat said, clearly aggravated now. “It means we do it the old fashion way.” She caught my eye. “You trust me, blondie?”
I ran my tongue over my sandpaper lips. “Yeah. Just do me a favor?”
“Shoot.”
“…stop calling me…’blondie’…”
Her grin stretched out. “I’ll take it under consideration. Now keep breathing.”
I did, remembering enough of my meditation practices from yoga class to fill up my lungs by expanding my belly. Kat paused for a single heartbeat, and then took my left tit in hand. Her touch always surprised me – for a biker chick who could change your oil while downing a six of beer before kicking your ass on the pool table, her fingers were incredibly smooth, leaving little warm eddies wherever they landed. Like right now. Her fingers started at the soft swell of my breast and rose upwards to meet at the nipple, pulling it up. Kat did not meet my eyes. I wondered what kind of resistance you needed to stay that cool. You still like me, I thought, but didn’t dare say.
As if she heard my thoughts – which wouldn’t have all surprised me – Kat’s grin grew even more. “There we go. Think we got it now.” With her free hand she picked up the needle “Ok, blondie, on three. One, two…”
Three never came. I felt the needle pierce me, going through skin and flesh with a magnesium burn. The pain was a slow-motion whiplash dragging across my body, setting fire to every synapse. I imagined myself arching up off the table, rising up to meet my ex.
Then she came through the other side, repeating the same process as before. I felt my body come tumbling down from a hundred miles up, free-falling through the ether to crash land back on the padded examining table.
Someone was calling my name. Pammy’s voice reached down, tickling my ears. Yet when I opened my eyes it was Kat’s face I saw, hovering over me like an angel. Well, a skullcap-wearing-sailor-cursing-angel that rode a Harley with a tongue that never stopped.
“You okay, blondie?” she asked, with just a hint of concern in her voice.
“…you…promised,” I croaked.
“I lied,” she said, smiling.
“Yeah,” I said, “so what else is new?”
Kat leaned over, her lips touching the curve of my right ear. “Welcome to the club, honey,” she breathed, kissing my earlobe.
Originally published January, 2008