TIGERS DON'T CRY - Chapter Seventeen
In the harsh environment of a British pub kitchen, young Nate will have to come to terms with his growing attraction for one of his male colleagues.
TRIGGER WARNING - Strong and sexual language. Explicit sexual content.
For those curious to read from the start:
Jo looked at the rota on Saturday and smiled widely, turning to mock Ethan and me with his eyes.
‘You’re both off tomorrow, yeah? Have a good one, lads.’ He said it like he knew all about our dirty deeds, drying his fingers on his apron as if we’d spat on his hands. Funny thing was that when Ethan was around he didn't dare push it. When I was on shift, and especially when we were alone, his smirks became sneers of disgust and something else I couldn't name, all pairing up with the stupid shit he said.
Ethan's face was on fire, and for a moment I thought he was going to kick Jo’s ass there and then but our lead had been smart like that, keeping his words in check just enough to stay on the right side of history.
‘What a fuckin’ cock!’ Ethan gritted out as soon as we were out of the pub. There were a couple of people nearby – dining staff who’d gone out for a break. They all kinda jumped out of their shoes when they heard him bark the words.
‘Ignore him, mun.’
‘Yeah, well. My patience is growin’ fuckin’ thin, it is!’
‘Come on…’ I slipped my hand into his and, like it was magic, his expression softened.
By the time we were at his house, he was his usual calm self.
‘I’m going to teach you how to practice tattooing on fruit,’ he said. ‘Oh yeah, Oscar brought some pig skin for you as well to get your hands on...’ He looked at me and grinned when he saw the slight disgust on my face. ‘Oh babes, you don’t like the idea of working on real skin?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s weird, innit.’
We got inside and the first thing we saw was a fluff of bright pink hair in the midst of a tangled embrace of limbs on the sofa. Ethan went rigid and I grinned awkwardly at the wet sound of lips merging and slicking together. Legs on legs, hands gripping a butt and muddy shoes over the armrest. I now realised how awkward Ethan’s housemates must have felt every time they found the two of us eating each other’s faces in the lounge or by the dining table. It was kinda funny.
This time it was Manny and Connor going at it full force. I glanced at Ethan and his face was not how it should have been – a little surprised, embarrassed or whatever.
He was shocked, eyes big and lips tight, like he couldn’t believe it. Although, he said it himself that these two were fucking.
BF cleared his throat and said, ‘Alright guys?’
Manny shuffled about, disentwining from Connor’s hold with a little difficulty to look at us. ‘Hey babes… oh, hiya Nate!’
Oh, he was nice again now, was he? But I wasn’t going to let his mistakes pass that easy, oh no. I turned my nose up and ignored his greeting.
Manny laughed. ‘Ohh babes I’m so sorry if what I said the other day offended you!’
He was one of those happy people who managed to sneak their way back into your graces with no effort whatsoever. Now he was apologising, his smiling lips swollen from the makeout session and his pale hands, delicate like the ones of some fable prince, were patting my shoulders. A small part of me yielded and I mumbled, ‘Aghffine.’
Manny burst out laughing yet again, like some sound fountain. ‘You’re cute even when you’re grumpy.’
‘I see you guys have been busy.’ Ethan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
‘Yeah well,’ Connor shrugged. ‘Same as you two, innit?’ He smiled widely, teeth gleaming. ‘I heard all about the mad noise you two make under the covers.’
I was beyond getting embarrassed; I’d accepted that Ethan’s housemates and close social circle would inevitably come to know that I liked being fucked a fair lot.
Ethan didn’t look too cheery. ‘Nothing that concerns you, mind.’
Connor raised an eyebrow. ‘What, you’re the jealous type all of a sudden? I thought you were all up for sharing!’
BF was seething, cheeks red like when Jo was being a dick.
‘Alright guys, chill,’ Manny said with a soft smile. ‘Let’s not get all worked up.’
‘Sure thing, babe,’ Connor said smugly.
Ethan’s eyes thinned into slits. ‘Let’s go to my room, Nate.’
With that, he took my hand and led me upstairs.
✦
‘We’re going to practice tattooing here?
‘Yeah,’ Ethan said with a smile. ‘You don’t need to be in a sterilized room unless you’re working on people.’ He brought out the chair at his bedroom desk and, from a box underneath it, extracted all the parts to set up the tattoo machine.
‘Come on,’ he grinned, ‘show me how you put it together.’
I’d done this before, once. He was testing my knowledge and I exhaled a long breath because I didn’t know if I could do it right.
I adjusted the voltage on the power supply as well as checked the fuse and Ethan nodded approvingly. In the meantime, my mind pricked with curiosity to know what the little confrontation earlier was all about.
I latched the footswitch to the power supply and asked, ‘What’s up with you and Connor?’
I didn’t see his face when he scoffed and said bitterly, ‘What’s up, you ask. He stole my boyfriend.’
My heart fluttered with unease, though I wasn’t sure why. ‘Who, Manny?’
I looked up at him and Ethan nodded. ‘That was a year ago.’
I gaped. ‘And you didn’t punch him in the face?’
Ethan nodded with confidence. ‘Oh God, yeah. I made his pretty lips bleed.’
‘Damn…’
‘He punched back.’
I began putting together the tattoo gun itself, feeling worried for that same reason I couldn’t put into words. Ethan watched carefully as I assembled the small pieces. I stuck the tube into the grip and fastened it, same process with the tip, needle in. I fixed the grommet into place, to keep the needle straight while allowing it to move back and forth seamlessly.
He added quietly, ‘Maybe I was in the wrong because I did want an open relationship at the time. But one thing is having some fun on the side, to relax things a bit, one is to convince your boyfriend that their relationship is in shambles, driving them away from you before you even have the chance to do things differently. Better, like.’
The feeling that had been making my heart twinge painfully took shape. I cleared my throat. ‘Are you still into him then?’
‘We’re just friends.’ He said it with a firmness that made it sound like a lie.
My tattoo machine was ready, all connected and in place. Ethan double checked everything. ‘Good! You’ve nailed it, Nate! You didn’t make a single mistake. Definitely on your way to being a pro!’
I murmured, ‘Thank you babes.’
Ethan stood still for a moment and his expression grew tender. ‘Ohh you’re going to make me melt! Say it again.’
‘Nah mun…’
He nuzzled my ear and kissed me there, on the sensitive skin. ‘Please.’
I said it so very quiet. ‘Babes.’
Ethan swooped me into his arm and stamped my face with his lips lots of times. ‘You’re so sweet, my God… are you really mine? Can I keep you?’
I hugged his waist tight. ‘Please, keep me.’
Ethan made a groaning sound. ‘Let’s snuggle a bit before we get to work with the tattooing, yeah?’
I nodded. I needed his nearness more than usual. A fear had sneaked in, like that we were a brittle thing and I hadn’t noticed. The cwtches became full-on sex and I gave it my all, sucking his cock like there was nothing more important in life.
Only one and a half hours later we dragged ourselves out of bed – a great fuckin’ effort.
I’d held a tattoo gun for the first time the day Ethan taught me about the different velocities and had experienced drawing on his skin. Now, I was going to stain a surface for real, leave my mark on something. It was a glorious moment to remember, although my first client was nothing more than a pomelo or, as Ethan had called it, ‘a fat-ass grapefruit’.
My hand shook a tad as I gripped the buzzing gun, nitrile black gloves cladding my fingers.
Ethan touched my shoulder. ‘It’s all good. It’s not going to complain if you make a mistake.’
‘I know,’ I said.
There was the stencil of a woman’s profile on my pomelo. In her hair, grand surprise, a rose. Ethan didn’t choose this subject by chance – he wanted me to bring to life flowers on skin like it was my second nature.
I dipped my needle in the ink pot and, as Ethan had explained I should do, I waited for the reservoir inside to be filled with black before running the tip of the gun over one of the lines on the stencil.
‘That’s it, good pressure…’ Ethan encouraged me.
I poured all my concentration into delineating the profile of the woman and ink spilled, here and there, hiding my lines.
‘Wipe it, off babes.’
I grabbed the paper Ethan handed me and wiped the pomelo’s surface as he said. The result was a smear of black on the fruit’s light yellow skin.
‘It’s a mess,’ I said, scrubbing on the ink again.
‘It’s all good. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfectly clean, just enough so you can see what you’re doing.’
Slowly, and with my tongue sticking out as I focused, I created the linework. Ethan laughed and said I couldn’t keep that face when working on a client. After that we both stayed silent, Ethan watching and I carrying on with my meticulous task. Even though it was supposed to be a lining-shading exercise, I’d developed a piqued interest for dotwork, which allowed me to create interesting shading effects with the use of the liner alone. The picture took a long while to complete – maybe an hour. I created the values of gray by placing the dots further or closer apart, depending on what I was looking to achieve.
I was satisfied enough to believe that a shader wasn’t needed at all. The picture was complete as it was. I moved my foot off the plate and the buzzing stopped.
‘Done,’ I said, and carefully cleaned off the excess ink, doing a thorough job of it this time.
Ethan blinked, then shook his head and murmured, ‘Fuck me.’
I squeezed his thigh. ‘Anytime, mun.’
He chuckled but immediately returned to look astonished, ‘Nate, you’re so fucking precise. Jesus, it’s like… your first time doing this but you didn’t hesitate once.’ He took the pomelo and studied it. ‘You also have managed to avoid going too deep. It’s like you have tattooing in your blood. You’re a natural.’
My heart thrummed with joy, in a way it hadn’t done for a long time. I had been happy when Ethan and I had come together for real but this was about me, my future and all those dreams I’d nursed for so many years and thought could never come true. My art was being acknowledged, and with it my very soul.
Ethan stood up. ‘Hang on, I've gotta show this to the others.’
The pomelo was brought out for a tour through the house. Alice was the first to see my handiwork.
‘Woooow!’ Her big, brown eyes were huge with marvel. ‘This is awesome! Fuck, this dotwork is amazing! So cool. So like,’ she began counting on her fingers, ‘I specialise in coloured tattoos and nature stuff, Dai does his portraits, Oscar sticks with her classic style, Manny is the Asia guy, Ethan is just weird…’
‘Hey!’ Ethan protested.
‘...and you can be the dotwork artist! You have a fuckin’ knack for it, Nate!’
I took back my pomelo. ‘I do want to learn other things too, though. Practice shading and colouring. I like to draw animals a lot.’
She nodded. ‘Oh yeah, that’s fair.’
Dai, wearing comfy clothes and looking proper sleepy, was also amazed. He examined my work for ages. We found him lounging on the sofa, lost in thought.
‘This your first time practicing on fruit?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fuuck. This is crackin’, honestly! Look at all the tiny dots, such a precise hand you have!’
Even Manny and Connor had a look at the woman with the rose in her hair. Ethan himself called them to come and see my pomelo. When it came to tattoos, they seemed to be able to put their personal issues aside. Connor and Manny complimented me and Ethan seemed to be happy to show off my abilities, like the proud boyfriend he was. Then Connor asked why I was training with the coil machine if the rotary was possibly what I was going to use at the studio after all. He was quickly shut down by everyone, including Manny, who firmly believed that, no matter what, an apprentice should always start out with the coil machine.
‘It depends what you’re trying to achieve, anyway,’ Alice said firmly. ‘We have lots of tattoo guns Nate can choose from, both rotary and coil.’
Ethan had explained that, in time, I’d try different machines and techniques, finding what suited me best with practice.
A picture was sent to Oscar too, who raved on and on about my skills, making me blush remotely.
I was at the centre of everyone’s attention. Manny told me about Oscar’s collection of tattoo-gun parts, fancy armature bars and frames, and that surely she’d let me choose whatever I liked to assemble my personalised equipment. Dai asked me if I wanted to stick with black and white or experiment with colours too.
Never in my life I felt so much like I belonged. Like others and I spoke the same language, finding the smoothness of a line or the curved shape of a stroke as spellbinding as I did.
Manny smiled excitedly. ‘This is a moment worth celebrating! We must go out for a drink tonight, everyone! Come on!’ He made a face when Dai rolled his eyes, looking like he wasn’t up for lifting a single finger. ‘We’re all off tonight, what a rare opportunity! We’re free to roam, boys and girls! And we have a new pea in the pod!’ Manny gestured at me.
‘I’m up for going out,’ Connor said, putting an arm around Manny’s waist.
Ethan’s gaze went there, sharp and dark, capturing the slight movement and my heart did the sad fluttering thing again. His warm hand landed on my hip.
‘I could do with a gallon of vodka going down my throat,’ Alice said thoughtfully.
‘Ugh,’ Dai shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me to carry you home this time, gal.’
‘Or pay for your taxi,’ Manny said. He turned to me and Ethan. ‘You guys coming? Come on, it’s going to be fun!’
Part of me wanted to stay home with Ethan, tie him to the bed and force him to look at me and me alone, make him forget about the past with a rush of kisses. My insecurities were taking the shape of a thick armour I'd been so close to shedding.
I said yes, though. Because running away was what I always did when I was scared. Because this time I wanted to be that unbothered someone I never was.
Alice was smiling and Dai was making big plans.
‘How about the Vulcan?’
‘Na-ah, Full Moon, hands down.’ That was Alice.
Manny’s smile widened. ‘Awesome, it’s going to be a total blast!’
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