Page 59 of Sparks of Insanity
I rolled back over and rested a hand on it. What the fuck. It felt wrong. My skin doesn’t feel like that. I stared down at my stomach, and blinked slowly, confusion freezing me in place, while I tried to figure out what the actual fuck was happening to me.
Why the hell was there an image tattooed on my fucking stomach? When the hell did I get a tattoo? How? How was I fucking tattooed? I licked a finger and rubbed it over one edge, and yeah, that ink wasn’t going anywhere, but the edge of the design was a little raised, and it burned again when I rubbed it.
“EMBER!” I lunged up from the bed and stormed to her room, to find her sleepily staring at me from her bed, pushing her dark hair back.
“Huh?”
“You fucking little bitch. You did this to me!”
Of course she did, because we were locked in together, but also I recognised her fucking art, didn’t I? It wasn’t elaborate, because I guess that takes time, but it was a fairly detailed line drawing of her, naked, legs open, and spread out across my stomach, mostly on the right side.
“How the fuck did you do this?”
She smiled widely as she sat up, making a big deal of stretching her arms and yawning.
“I’m talented, that’s how. Do you like it?”
“Do I like it? Do I fucking like it?! How the hell did this not wake me up? What did you do to me?”
She giggled, throwing back the covers and approaching me, like I wasn’t about to wring her fucking neck for this.
“It’s looking good this morning, the red’s settling down now.”
“FUCK that! HOW, Ember?”
“Guess you drank more than you thought, Mr E. What lesson were you teaching me by drinking all the alcohol you could find? I’m curious.”
“This is fucking assault; do you hear me? You don’t just… you don’t just fucking tattoo a person against their will! Nobody does this crazy shit, do you understand?”
She reached out to touch it and I slapped her hand away, fury rising in me at her ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude. She fucking permanently scarred me without my consent.
“How dare you? How dare you mark me like this without… without-”
“Consent? Yeah, see that word means nothing in this world, don’t you realise that? I learned it the hard way, and you reinforced that lesson recently, didn’t you?”
WHAT? “That wasn’t… that isn’t… dammit, Em! This is insanity. I’m calling your dads, right fucking now. I want out of here, and I’m done. Do you hear me? I’m done.”
I turned to storm out of the room, and I heard her running up behind me. I wasn’t going to let her unnerve me, because she couldn’t overpower me, could she? She only managed this because I was deeply asleep. I had to have been.
I’d just reached my room when something stabbed the back of my arm, and I turned to slap her away. There was a syringe in her hand. An empty one.
“What the fuck did you just… what the hell…” A wave of dizziness made me stagger, and I took several unsteady steps to the bed, dropping onto it on my side as heaviness started to overtake me. Darkness started pressing in.
“You… bitch…”
33
Ember
Wow, he was waymore pissed off than I’d imagined, but I guess he had good reason to be. I had permanently tattooed my naked body onto his skin, hadn’t I?
That stuff my dad had stashed away works fast. It hadn’t been so obvious when he’d already been asleep, but whoa, he dropped like a tree. I leaned over him, noticing he’d landed face down, so I rolled him over, checking he was still breathing, and that his heart was beating fine. It was dangerous, I knew it, because if he had a bad reaction to it, other than yelling at me, I couldn’t exactly call for help, could I?
“I’m sorry, Ethan. You forced me to do this. I wanted you to be with me, but you keep pushing me away. I just want you to love me back.” I ran to get my kit, and gloved up, to carry on with the tattoo, being watchful for any signs of him moving. Maybe I should have tied him again. I should have, but I was too eager to get on with adding shadows and highlights to my design.
He should be grateful really, because thanks to me, he didn’t have to experience the burning pain as I tattooed his skin. I mean, many of us, we find that pleasant, like it becomes addictive in itself. Most people who get a tattoo, are desperately planning their next within twenty-four hours, and that urge remains, even if it dulls a bit over time. Getting inked is just intoxicating.
Maybe I should be tattooing Ethan’s name on my own skin, so that he could see I’d permanently scarred myself for him too. Next time. It was too important to get the shading right while he wasn’t moving.
