Skin%

Introduction

"God damn it!" Doc bellowed, throwing the offending calendar across the shop, as his sole remaining employee came through the door.

"Hey, easy Doc," Wrecks grinned, dumping his scarred motorcycle helmet on one of the aluminum poles that stood on either side of the doors, supporting weary purple velvet ropes. "You're gonna rupture something. What's the matter, you miss me this weekend?"

Doc glared at the younger man. Wrecks didn't seem to mind, and tossed his crackling, multi-color hair out of his eyes. Doc willed him to burst into flame, but Wrecks just hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his tattered and chain-festooned jeans and rocked back and forth on the heels of his tank boots, waiting for an answer.

It wasn't that Doc hated Wrecks, specifically, or at least no more than he felt Wrecks deserved.

Doc hated anyone younger than him, fitter, more successful, or happier. He hated men who wouldn't have sex with him, but not as much as he hated those that did. He hated those that were bullied by him, and those that weren't.

Doc hated everybody. The fact that Wrecks was half his age and in great shape had little to do with it. It didn't matter that Wrecks had stuck it out at the shop for three years, when Doc usually managed to chase off most piercers with six months (half that if they were sleeping with him). Most tattooists Doc lured into the shop lasted a week, or until they sobered up.

Doc was an angry, frustrated man, and looked it. His muddy gray beard looked like it was trying to escape; the hair on his scalp had succeeded long ago. Even his muscles seemed to be afraid of him, they had melted to flab and hung off his arms, chest, and legs. His gut wasn't going anywhere, but it was routinely drugged into insensibility by four o'clock in the afternoon, with booze and anything else Doc could get his hands on.

Doc had managed to hang onto the shop for over twelve years, through numerous boyfriends, lovers, fuck-buds and other unwitting dupes. Many thought it was a miracle. Other shop owners on the Row felt it was a curse, an assumption Doc was more than willing to reinforce as frequently as possible.

"It's Fetish Week," Doc snarled. "And I promised those old bastards I'd do a booth again. I don't know why, every fucking year I say never again. But they catch me drunk and ask me and I agree. Fuck! Do me a fuckin' favor and stick a knife in me, give me a god damned excuse to get out of this shit!"

Doc's flung-out beefy arm seemed to take in not just the event he was dreading, but also Wrecks, the shop, and possibly the entire town.

"I'll do it," Wrecks shrugged easily. "Who knows, maybe I'll get to do some piercings while some hot guys work on my cock and balls."

Wrecks's cocky smirk was something else that Doc hated. Wrecks looked at almost everything as a joke. Also, his well-built body, decorated with tatts on his arms, chest, and shoulders, had many men eager to receive any bit of perverted recreation Wrecks might have on his mind. And the wide-open shirt and ripped jeans usually gave some indication of what that might be.

"We've got a fucking hour," Doc snapped. "There's no way to get everything together and ready to go."

"I still got my travel kit strapped to my bike," Wrecks told him, grinning. "All I need to do is drop off the sharps, exchange out for some fresh needles, and grab some fresh soap and alcohol." He reached into his back pocket and tossed a fat manila envelope onto the counter in front of Doc. "Here's the receipts."

Wrecks darted out the door, and was back quickly carrying a case half the size of a steamer trunk. Doc wondered how he managed to drive the motorcycle with that heavy weight on the back of it. Then again, Wrecks came by his name honestly.

No matter how many times the younger man spun out, skidded, flew over his handle bars, or got caught at the bottom of a pile-up, he always came out without a scratch on his body. The same could not be of his clothes (or any one of his derelict motorcycles). While most people wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between his usual style and the results of one of his accidents, Doc knew better. On one occasion, a wall of police officers had been required to shield Wrecks from the gaze of soon-to-be-scandalized gawkers. Another time, Wrecks had arrived back at the shop wearing an EMT's overalls.

In fact, the overalls were stapled to the wall of the room in back where they sometimes spent slow nights, getting drunk and listening to the hell-spawned psychotic crap Wrecks's friends wasted time recording.

Doc gazed at him, speechless, gesturing at the pile of bills that had spilled out of the envelope onto the counter in front of him.

"How the fuck did you make this much money out of those spoiled, strung-out little brats?" Doc demanded.

Wrecks grinned. "Oh, ran out of change about half-way through, but they didn't care. By the time the bands finished, I had to do piercings with a 10 gauge needle instead, but they were so stoned they didn't notice. But they all had to have them. Lucky I had extra jewelry with me in the right size. They kept dancing for, like, two hours before security finally started shoveling them out. I gave one of the security dudes a PA for keeping an eye on my bike all night."

Doc just glowered at him, his fingers curling convulsively.

"Anyway, autoclave's set up and going, I got the stuff I need," Wrecks informed Doc. "I'll go ahead and head out. Consent forms are all on your desk, though some of them aren't very legible. See ya tomorrow."

As Wrecks sauntered out the door, the heavy case on one thickly-muscled shoulder.

"That boy's going to drive me to an early grave," Doc whimpered, dropping his face into both hands.