A Beginner’s Guide to Tattooing

Shayne thinks I have a stalker.

“Think about it,” he tells me on our lunch break. The two of us are sitting at the edge of the pool that our crew has been digging out for the past week. “You said you’ve seen this car, what, three times now?” He counts off on mustard-coated fingers. “Outside your house twice, and behind you today while you were driving. Stalker. 100%”

“Celebrities have stalkers,” I say, wiping off my mouth with the back of my hand. “Hot girls have stalkers. Twenty-four-year-old construction workers don't have stalkers.”

Shayne shakes his head. “It's your funeral. But if I were you, I’d call the police. Or at least buy a gun.”

I scoff. The car is concerning, yes, but there could be a normal explanation for it. Someone visiting the neighbors and parking a little too close to my own property, for example. “Even if it was a stalker,” I say, getting to my feet and crumpling my sandwich wrapper into a ball. There's a woods bordering the yard, and I toss the wrapper into a leafy bush. “I think I could take them.”

“My man,” Shayne says, grinning.

The car is there again as I pull into my driveway. The windows are tinted, and it’s far enough away that I can't make out any sign of movement inside. Despite my earlier words to Shayne, I feel a sense of foreboding. It's accompanied by a prickling on the back of my neck, like someone is watching me, and I hurry to get inside and lock the door behind me.

No sooner do I kick off my shoes and hang my jacket on the hook by the door when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Expecting a text from work or a missed call from my mom — the woman has a love of her own voice and tries to share every mundane detail of her day with me — I nearly drop the phone when I read the text.  

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

My first thought, inanely, is that this is the most cliche threatening message that I could have received. My second is that maybe there’s a reason for that. Already, I feel my heart rate speeding up, and Shayne’s stalker theory has just gained a lot more credence.

For a split second, I consider calling the police. Then my better judgment wins out. I’m a strong, capable guy. I work construction — that alone has given me a body most people would envy. Whoever this creep is, I can handle them.

I warm my dinner in the microwave and crack open a cold beer. As always, when I drink, I think of Miriam. She hated my drinking, whether because of her own religious scruples or her father’s tendency to drink a little too much. She used to nag me whenever she saw me doing it, and I had to hide the alcohol if I wanted any peace. One good thing about our breakup; I can stock the fridge with as much beer as I want, now.

I take my dinner over to the living room and click on the television. As I watch a football game between two incompetent teams, I nearly forget about the car and the threatening message. Until a footstep creaks on the floorboard behind me, and I spring off the couch, turning in the direction of the noise.

Auburn hair gleams a purplish-blue in the TV light. Dark eyes, eyes that I once knew well, stare into my soul. And two pale hands support a Winchester rifle, the barrel of which is leveled at my chest.

I’ve seen her handle a gun before, when I went duck hunting with her family last year. I know she’s a good shot.

“Kennedy,” I say, unsettled but unafraid. It's not everyday a girl holds a gun on me, but Kennedy is so small that it’s hard to take her seriously as a threat, even with the lethal weapon in her hands. If anything, I find it kind of hot.

“Jim,” she says, her face expressionless. I get the feeling she’s mocking me. “Do you know what day it is?”

“You're in my house.” The insanity of the situation is slowly sinking in. I’m annoyed, but I also have to swallow a laugh. What does she think she’s doing?

Kennedy doesn't flinch. “What day is it?”

“Put the gun down.” I edge toward her. “Is this about Miriam? Because—”

The gunshot is deafening. My foot stings from the splinters that went flying when the bullet destroyed the floorboard an inch in front of me. I stop.

My ears are ringing, and I more read her lips than hear her when she says, “Put these on.” She takes one hand off the gun to toss a pair of handcuffs at me.

I'm still half-convinced this is all a joke. Kennedy’s been in love with me for as long as I’ve known her, whether she’ll admit it or not. There's no way she’d hurt me. Blowing out an exaggerated sigh, I close one of the cuffs around my wrist.

“Behind your back,” Kennedy says before I can put on the other.

That's harder. I have to contort my arms uncomfortably before the other handcuff clicks shut. “Happy?”

“Now sit on the floor.”

Rolling my eyes, I obey.

She sits as well, on the couch that I vacated. Ignoring the TV still playing in the background, she says, “What day is it, Jim?”

“This again?” I groan. “I don't know. It’s Tuesday.”

“October third,” she says. “Do you remember what happened a year ago?”

I do now. “No.”

“Let's review, then.” She leans closer, eyes smoldering. “A year ago today, you nearly killed my sister.”

Miriam and I had dated for two years.

She was alright, as far as girlfriends went. She made an amazing chicken soup, with biscuits on the side that would melt in your mouth. She was pretty, too, even if her smile was a little too wide for her face, and her skin a bit too freckly. Her worst flaw was probably that she was a religious nut. Nothing annoys me more than being preached at, and every time she’d open her mouth and start lecturing, I’d want to dump her. I might have done it, too, if not for Kennedy.

 Kennedy was younger than Miriam by a year, but protective enough that she could have been the older sibling. She was strikingly beautiful, with huge brown eyes, a slender figure, and waist-length hair that shone in the sun. I’d wanted her from the moment I’d first seen her, and I thought she’d wanted me too. 

“Jealous?” I ask. “You had your chance, Kenny. It's too late now.”

“I got along with you for my sister’s sake,” she says, knuckles whitening as she grips the rifle harder. “But secretly, I always thought you were a pompous jerk.”

I goad her, “Then why did you come on to me?”

Her shoulders draw back in obvious affront. “Are you kidding me? You kissed me. At my sister’s birthday party, you complete scumbag.”

“You wanted me to.” She did. I could tell. 

She shakes her head. “And the pushing you off of me and slapping you — that was, what, me playing hard to get?”

One thing about Kennedy; she always has to be right about everything. There's no way to win this argument with her, and it’s all ancient history, anyway. “What does any of this matter?”

“A year ago today,” she says through gritted teeth, “you cheated on my sister. Not with me, although you certainly gave it your best shot. She caught you, and ever since that moment, she’s been a shell of her old self. You broke her, Jim. And you left me to put her back together.”

 I can't resist a chuckle. “That's dramatic, isn't it? I never realized you were such a poet.”

Surprisingly, Kennedy smiles. “You think that’s dramatic? Wait until you see what I have in store for you.” She walks into my kitchen, but before I can entertain thoughts of escape, she returns. The shotgun is propped up on her shoulder, now, and in her free hand is my best kitchen knife.

“Kennedy,” I say slowly. “Doesn't that Bible Miriam’s always got her nose in talk about stuff like, like, forgiveness and mercy?”

Kennedy places the tip of the knife under my chin and forces me onto my back on the floor. She sits on my stomach, and I can’t even enjoy her closeness, not with the cold metal cutting into my neck. “Miriam’s the believer. I guess you should have tried harder to learn the difference between the two of us.”

She sets the rifle aside. It’s still within her reach, the gaping black mouth of the barrel aimed at my head. She pulls something out of her pocket.

“What's that?” I whisper, trying to stay as still as possible for fear that she’ll cut my throat.

“Ink,” she says, rolling the bottle around in her hand. “Tattoo ink, actually. And it was expensive. Three hundred dollars for this little thing, can you believe that?”

I eye it warily. “What are you going to do with that?”

Kennedy uses the knife to cut away my shirt. “I thought I’d teach myself a new skill. I’ve always enjoyed drawing, and tattooing can’t be too different, can it?”

“You’re joking.” My chest is bare now. It’s not cold, but I shiver anyway. 

“I’ve decided on the word CHEATER. Not very creative, but it will tell any other girl who gets involved with you exactly what you are. I know professional tattoo artists use a needle, but if I carve the word into your skin and pour ink into the cuts, it should have a similar effect.” She smiles brightly. “DIY, right?”

Only the blade against my skin keeps me from bucking her off. I'm no longer smiling, no longer so sure that this is all just a joke, or silly feminine hysterics. “That's illegal.”

Kennedy’s laugh is hoarse and deep, too similar to a man’s. That was always the most unattractive thing about her, her laugh. “You don't say.”

“You’ll go to jail. This is assault.”

In answer, she takes out her phone and snaps a picture of the two of us; me, helpless and bound, and her straddling me. “You do that, and I’ll post this photo online. And then everyone will know you were too weak to beat a single little girl.” Her smile is sharper than the blade. “And I think we both know that you would rather die than let that happen.”

She starts cutting, and I scream, but I know she’s right. No one can ever know about this.