Chapter Four: Get inked or die trying

I can’t help but look at my hideous outfit in the mirror as I go down in the lift. It’s just way too tomboy-chic for me to pull off, but I didn’t bring a change of clothes with me because I knew I’d only be stopping over one night and it would only be more for me to carry around/potentially lose. I guess I’m stuck with it.

I’ve never been a big fan of T-shirts, band-branded or otherwise, and the shorts are so short that the pockets poke out of the leg holes. As I try to tuck them back up, I feel something in one of the pockets – it’s a green iPod Nano. I press a button on the front, causing it to spring to life. It opens up on the video camera, and curiosity gets the better of me so I press the play button. Who should pop up on the screen but Dylan King himself, the fan must have filmed him as he chatted to them.

I listen carefully for clues – where the hell was he going?

‘I’m always forgetting things,’ I hear him say. He sounds so bloody drunk, who is still giving this man alcohol? ‘I need to remember my room number, but I’ll forget. I wrote it on my hand.’

‘What if it washes off?’ one of the fans asks him.

‘Ah, well I have that problem sorted,’ he slurs. ‘I’m going to get it tattooed on. I haven’t washed my hands in hours.’

‘Eww,’ the girls all say, totally in sync, before bursting into fits of giggles.

I know he’s drunk, but he wouldn’t really go and get his room number tattooed on his hand, would he? This is Dylan, of course he would.

‘Oi,’ I call out to the fan-girl once I’m back outside again. ‘You left your iPod in the pocket.’

‘Give me that back,’ she insists.

‘I’ll swap you it for the dress.’

I thought this would be a reasonable offer, but she just laughs at me.

‘I could sell this thing and probably buy another three iPods.’

More like five, bitch.

‘Are you local?’ I ask her, noticing her accent.

‘Yeah, why?’

‘If I wanted to get a tattoo, where would I go?’

I hold the iPod out in front of her, but pull it back as she reaches for it.

‘We only have one tattoo parlour, but it’s rough as hell. It’s on West Street.’

I hand her back her iPod and take one last look at my beautiful dress before hopping in one of the empty taxis waiting outside the hotel. Dylan will be getting my bill for today, don’t you worry about it.

‘West Street, please,’ I tell the driver.

He looks at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘Pretty young thing like you don’t want to be going down West Street alone.’

‘Thanks, I’ll be fine. West Street,’ I tell him bluntly – a little too bluntly perhaps, because he drives me straight there and doesn’t speak to me again until he wants paying.

‘Good luck,’ he says as he drives off, leaving me all alone on a street with nothing but garages, a pub and a tattoo parlour. At least I’m in the right place.

I push my way through the door bum first, reluctant to touch the door handle. I’ve never actually been in a tattoo parlour before, but it’s everything I imagined. The walls are covered in pictures of tattoo designs and photos of satisfied customers showing off their freshly inked body parts. Two men are sitting behind a table, and a third man with a skinhead is hovering by the chair where I imagine his victims sit, doing something with his torture tools – I don’t know what that something is, but I’m fairly sure it isn’t cleaning them.

The three men share a laugh at my presence here.

‘Looks like another lost city slicker,’ one of the guys behind the table says. ‘Must be our lucky day, two city slickers gracing us with their custom.’

I have two choices. I can be sweet little Nicole and possibly get walked all over, or I can put on a badass front and possibly get my head kicked in.

‘I’ll do this one,’ the other guy behind the table calls out, but it’s the guy with the skinhead and the tattoo gun who walks over to greet me, tool in hand.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll give her what she wants,’ he says, stroking my cheek with the handle of the tattoo gun.

‘The only thing you’ll give me is hepatitis, get that the fuck away from me,’ I snap – so I’ve decided to go for badass Nicole then.

‘Watch your mouth, little girl,’ he warns me, as the other two men stand up and join him in crowding round me.

‘I just–’ I start speaking, but I don’t know what to say. So much for my badass routine.

‘What’s going on here?’ I hear a gruff female voice call out.

‘This city chick said I was going to give her herpes,’ skinhead replies.

I didn’t say herpes, I said hepatitis – although herpes seems just as likely.

A goth-looking girl appears in front of us. She’s dressed head to toe in black leather with various chains attached. She has at least fourteen piercings – that I can see – and she has more skin occupied by ink than she does without a mark on it or a hole in it.

‘I like your look,’ she tells me. ‘Those are some nice shorts, you cut them yourself?’

‘Yes,’ I lie.

‘I like that. Too many folk selling their souls for designer togs these days. Those shoes and that bag look expensive though.’

‘They’re fakes,’ I tell her, thinking fast. ‘I’m sticking it to the man.’

Goth Girl smiles. ‘I like that, you know. I like that. Let her go, boys, she’s OK by me. You here for a tattoo?’

‘Actually, I’m just looking for my friend, Dylan King, he was coming here for a tattoo.’

‘404,’ skinhead chimes in. ‘He wanted me to ink that number on his hand, said he needed to remember it no matter what.’

‘That’s Dylan, where did he go?’

‘He took a liking to my friend Misty,’ Goth Girl tells me. ‘They went off together.’

Another girl, Dylan is on top form this evening. If Misty is anything like her friend, she certainly isn’t Dylan’s usual type – then again, as long as they’re female, Dylan doesn’t usually discriminate.

‘Do you know where they went?’

‘They shared a taxi to the Williamson Hotel, she’s staying there too. She was hot for his city-boy look, so they were going to have a drink together,’ Goth Girl informs me. This doesn’t surprise me at all.

‘You sure you don’t want a tattoo while you’re here?’ skinhead asks. ‘On us.’

I am clearly in with these people because of my nonconformist short-shorts. I take a courteous glance around the room, looking briefly at the designs on the wall.

‘I’ll pass. Thank you, though,’ I say as I hurriedly make my way towards the door. I’m still not convinced I won’t catch something just by standing in the same room as that yucky-looking needle.