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The first thing I noticed when I got in the cold dark car was how shaky my hands were. My arm was smarting and my heart pounding. What just happened I thought, what just happened? My breath coming faster, making a small circle in the foggy window. Then, Drive, just drive, quickly.
As I made my way down the avenue so many emotions flooded me. Shame, anger, confusion, hurt. How had I misread this situation so badly? How could I be such an idiot? So naive. Did I bring it on myself? My cheeks burned with heat, my eyes burned with tears. I felt responsible, taken advantage of, victimized.
I had been getting tattoos from this man for years. I had recommended him to friends and strangers. Just a month before, on the anniversary of my mother's death, I sat with him as he tattooed a beautiful portrait of my mother on my arm as my dad and brother watched from the dark burgundy sofa in his waiting area.
Getting tattoos was never something I took lightly. Ever since I was a child I'd secretly wanted a tattoo. I thought they were beautiful and interesting, like wearing a story on your skin. But I knew that people had negative associations with tattoos. I waited until I was out of college to get my first ink. One day I hopped into my tiny white Toyota and drove down to Venice Beach. After rollerblading along the oceanfront, past street performers, drummers and wildly colored murals, I stopped at a tiny tattoo shop and had a dime sized sun tattooed on my ankle.
It wasn't until years later and two cross-country moves that I decided I wanted another tattoo. I thought long and hard about what would be most meaningful to me, I discussed it with my husband, I researched tattoo artists and their different styles. Finally, after hearing M's name mentioned several times I stopped by the shop where he was working at the time. As I climbed the long flight of stairs up to the attic where he tattooed, I could hear thumping music and the buzz of the tattoo machines.
M is a tall, broad man who usually wears black jeans and a black t-shirt. He has long black, wavy hair that is lightly streaked with silver strands. He has a broad face and light eyes. What I've learned about him over the years: we are the same age, born in the same month just days apart. He was a minority where he grew up and thus suffered a great deal of prejudice and, at times, violence. M was raised by his birth mother and stepfather. He learned to lie, and lie well, as a child to protect himself. He didn't meet his real father until he was an adult and it was a disappointing experience. He is married and claims to be in love with his wife.
Every time I have sat for a tattoo with M, we've spent the time talking about his life, my life, and what it's like to be a tattoo artist. I've always been fascinated by the tattoo culture. The last two times I saw M he told me about his more wild clients and about some of his married female clients who wanted to show him their breasts and offered to go down on him. That these things actually happened blew me away. I asked a lot of questions. How did these women justify this behavior? And, How do you go home to your wife after having some other woman go down on you?
M had all of the answers worked out. He claimed that these women just wanted to spice up their sex lives by having a safe extra-marital encounter. Would you feel guilty for getting a massage? he asked me as he outlined a flower on my forearm. What your husband doesn't know won't hurt him, he justified. I don't tell my wife because I love her and it would ruin our marriage.
All of these conversations had always occurred during the day, while the shop was filled with people coming in and out requesting appointments, pouring over photos of his work. It felt safe. I thought we were simply discussing fantasies, and yes, I did share a couple of fantasies of my own, but always told him that they were just that--something I thought about in my imagination, something that made me want my husband all the more. Nothing I would ever actually do.
So when I went to M's new shop in northeast Portland to have the finishing touches done on
