Monthly Story

Sharp by H D Whitehead

Talia’s got the blonde spikey hair and the silver stud through her tongue. And she knows Denny likes the feel of that on his dick. It was a game really. Looking up at Johnny Depp on the poster on the wall while she sucked or Denny flicked and licked and missed, and she moaned and made a rhythm for him. But he was always too low. What? An inch or so too low – right where that little dome of skin must have made his tongue feel like it had hit the proper spot.

Denny was all right with his Lambretta scooter and his cute smile, but he didn’t know what to do. And she knew if she put her hand down there on herself he’d get all offended and slow and his dick would shrink and it’d all get unspeaking and things.

            She wanted his teeth on her clit. Really sharp and hard on her clit. She looked up at Johnny and thought about his white teeth and the hair on his chin tickling at her at the same time. The stud in her tongue: she’d give him that.

Denny looked up for a moment at her, his chin all wet, and she noticed and moaned and wriggled a bit for him.

In the parlour where’d she’d had the stud put in, they’d sprayed something on her tongue and she hadn’t properly felt it – just like something happening a thousand miles away. She was sorry about that. Now it made her wriggle for a moment for real, there with Denny, thinking of if she’d had the sharp pain of the stud going in. What would that have been? More than this.

Next door, her brother’s girlfriend barked out all daft like a dog. They were at it too. She lost the feel of the whole thing then.

‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘Denny, God, God!’ She pulled him up and felt him fumble about putting his condom on. She’d have to roll over and let him see it all and then he’d try not to be too loud cos he was embarrassed about her mum hearing. Whatever.

It didn’t last long. She thought about Johnny looking at her and stroking her. Maybe biting down on her.

‘That was amazing, Tals,’ said Denny, panting. ‘You’re really gorgeous.’ He was kind of sweet, the way he said stuff like that. She cuddled up to him. She knew it was all just bits and pieces. But he really was nice. He stroked her hair, still sharp and spiky with gel.

That was it. Sharp! She wanted it sharp. Not like nice, blunt Denny. Okay, like Denny. But she couldn’t, well, just tell him. He’d get all defensive and she wouldn’t know what to say anyway.

Sharp though. Make it sharp. She rolled the word round her tongue stud as she lay in Denny’s arms and played her finger nail across the red of the dragon tat on his chest. Sharrrp.

4pm. School’s over and Short Shel is with her. Talia’s got the hundred quid from her summer job savings out of the bank at the supermarket hole in the wall down the road. The tattoo shop – it’s open and people are in there. Talia and her mate stand outside.

            ‘Yer gonna do it, Tals?’ says Shel, ‘Mean, really like?’

            Talia hears the tattoo drill and looks in at the older people. What was it going to be like: them seeing? Well embarrassing, right? She feels herself wet. Not so embarrassing when she thinks about Denny and his wrong inch.

            ‘Yeah, I’m gonna do it.’ She walks in.

Jimmy the Beard put the stud in her tongue. He’s sitting over a girl with her legs wide open and a grey thong pulled sideways up her thigh. He’s skating over the last touches and there’s flames pushing out from her shaven pussy, and Talia likes that. It’s horny. Not that she’s a lezza or anything.

An older bloke – what, thirty? – sits in a corner smoking a tab, his blond hair tied back and a black spike tat curling out of the top of his tee shirt and up his neck. He’s the girl’s fella for sure. He’s watching all possessive.

‘Fuckin hell!’ Shel giggles and the girl with her legs open looks up through the mirror on the far wall and sneers at them.

‘Shut up, Shel!’ Talia whispers. Jimmy the Beard notices them then.

‘What can I do for you girls?’ he says.

‘Doncha remember me?’ Talia says and slides her tongue out slowly, all provocative for the girl’s boyfriend. She wiggles her tongue. ‘ You did that for me.’

The whirr of the tattoo machine turns off for a moment. ‘Yeah,’ the Beard smiles, friendly, ‘so what?’

Shel giggles again. Talia turns on her.

‘Shut up, alright?’ she whispers. The Beard is watching. They’re all watching. Talia looks back at them all but doesn’t say anything.

‘Just sit down for a bit. I’m nearly finished,’ says the Beard and the whirring starts up again. Talia reckons he’s got an idea what’s she’s after. He’s about forty but all strong and stuff, works out, and he hasn’t got a gut like all the other tat freaks his age round town.

The two girls sit down on the opposite side from the boyfriend. It’s dark and smoky and there are pics all over the walls and ceilings of the tattoos and spikes the Beard’s done down the years – noses and lips, and mouths, tats of all sorts. There’s a picture by the mirror near the girl with her legs open. It shows a real close up of a Brazilianed vag with a stud right through the clit. For a moment, Talia thinks she’s going to cry. She doesn’t know why.

Shel’s all quiet now. She looks a bit freaked by it all. She hasn’t done any of this stuff. Talia had a little butterfly on her arse from some other tattoo bloke in Kilburn. She was turning sixteen and dad had bought it for her birthday. It’d been a bit weird, but he’d just given her the money – hadn’t come with her to the parlour or anything. Not like she ever saw much of him anyway, now he was shagging that bird from Kensal Rise with all her own kids. Talia had sat in the tattoo parlour all on her own and the sharp pain on her bum had really hurt then. She’d cried and everything. But it was dad’s present.

At home it got easier when dad had gone off, blasting away on his Triumph, all cool, with mum bawling her eyes out. There was less fighting afterwards. But she missed him now he never came back any more.

The Beard finishes off. The girl with the thong has a pink plastic miniskirt on. Stupid. They pay up, the boyfriend plonks on some Raybans, and Talia is on her own with Shel and the Beard.

‘’What’s it to be then?’ he says.

Talia feels all of a sudden confident. ‘I want my clit pierced.’ She looks at him, defiant.

The Beard looks serious. ‘How old are you, then?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Well, you have to sign a form before you can do it. It’s gotta be clinical.’ He looks over at Shel, still sitting there looking weirded out. ‘And a witness . . .? How old’s yer mate?’

‘Same.’

Beard stands there for a bit. Talia can see he’s thinking. ‘It’s sixty quid. You got that much?’ he asks in the end.

‘Yep,’ she says.

‘Alright,’ says the Beard, ‘hang on a minute.’ He disappears through a door beside the mirror.

He comes back with some bits of paper. ‘Right, sign here . . . and yer mate here. It says you agree and you’re in a fit state to make that agreement.’ He looks at Talia then. ‘Are you?’

‘I’m totally sober.’ They sign the papers, Shel all quiet and mouselike.

‘Do yer want yer mate back here with you or not?’ He points through the door.

‘You stay here,’ Talia says, a bit embarrassed at the thought of having her in there. It’s all a bit horny really. She couldn’t let her mate see that. Shel looks disappointed and even betrayed, but she doesn’t say anything.

She follows the Beard back into the room behind the mirror with the clinical stuff she remembers from the last time she was in here. He unrolls some paper across the bed thing.

‘So lie down there on your back and lift up your skirt.’ He’s like before – really professional when he’s doing this. He’s got brown eyes and long, black hair and the beard is sort of biker-like and sexy – but not in a scraggly way. Sort of tight round his face. Like dad’s.

Talia lies down. She shimmies up her skirt. She’s in the sixth form so she’s not in school uniform. Her breath comes out short now. It was the sharp thing. She wanted the sharp thing. How could she tell him, though? And how could she be cool about it?

‘You should take your knickers right off, before I do this,’ says the Beard. ‘I’ll be putting on some antiseptic cream and giving you a tube of it to apply yourself. And you have to avoid wearing underwear until it heals, because it rubs and can cause infection . . . You okay about this?’ He’s really cool, she thinks. Calm. She lifts her bum and pulls them off, placing them under the small pillow behind her head. She doesn’t feel wet now. But it’s horny anyway.

‘Right, now I’m gonna spray this spray first,’ he holds up a can. ‘It’ll feel cold. Its antiseptic and its an anaesthetic as well. It’ll stop her hurting. But you have to know it is gonna sting for a while and you’ve gotta keep putting the cream on for at least a couple of weeks to keep her clean until she heals. You understand?’

Talia nods. She likes it that he calls her thing a “she”. It gets her courage up. She knows the Beard from the last time. He’s alright. ‘Look. Um. I wanna feel it going in, Jimmy.’ She flushes. ‘It’s not dirty or nothing. I just want to  . . .’ She doesn’t know what to say. In the end she just says . . . ‘Sharp.’

The Beard stands for a moment. Talia wants to die then. God, what does he think of her? Her mum used to shout ‘pervert!’ at dad when he’d be always zooming off. Was she a pervert?

‘Well, I’ve got the antiseptic cream I could use,’ he says. ‘But it really will hurt.’

There are tears in Talia’s eyes now. She can hardly speak it out loud, ‘Sharp,’ She whispers. ‘Want it sharp.’

He pauses for a moment, looking down at her, then shrugs. ‘Just tell me if it’s too bad.’

She closes her eyes. She feels the coldness of the cream on his fingers. It makes her shiver.

‘Just wait a moment for it to settle in.’ She can hear he’s a bit – what? –  embarrassed or something? Is it turning him on as well? She can’t open her eyes then. She thinks of her brother and his stupid girlfriend. She wouldn’t even dream of something like this. And that stupid bitch in Kensal Rise and even stupid Short Shel out there with her no boyfriend world. If she does this, though, then Denny will really know where he should be touching. She’s doing this for herself. Just her.

‘Ready?’ She nods. ‘Just pulling the skin apart with a clamp.’ She feels his fingers in the right place, then hard steel. ‘Okay,’ he says, ‘a sharp stab.’