The next day, at the studio

You're a bit shaken even the next day. You declined to answer Lynda's call at 2am, and slept a bit fitfully. You'll talk to her soon enough, but you just needed to get away.

Your studio is down at the end of your drive, near the public road. The sign says "Bingo's Body Art" and has a large tattoo of some finger guns on someone's hand. Yup. Still, from your approach, coming from the house, you see only the back of the sign.

As soon as you flip the sign to 'OPEN', some beat up Camaro pulls up too fast for the gravel and a skinny-legged chick in short overalls, ink all over, mostly cheap tourist cursive, storms her way through the door. "Hey, you do Tattoos? Can you help me?"

There's no way she's got cash for a real tattoo, judging by the junk she's got scattered across her body. "Let's find out, what are you looking for today?" You turn to indicate the wall behind you, which you covered with some at least passable templates for cultural symbols or fan art tattoos for your less serious customers.

She calls your attention back to her. "No, none of that today man." She twists her torso and faces the door, showing you her right shoulder blade. To the left of her overall strap, just above the white cotton tube top, and just below the dyed and fried, straightened blonde hair, you see more cheap script:

Ringo's Girl

You try not to laugh out loud, and it comes out as a snort. "Yeah laugh it up asshole, can you get rid of it?"

It turns out Ms Amy Hoffstatler was married to 'Ringo' for 2 years before she chanced to see the same tattoo on some rando bitch at the Super 20. After the brief conversation and resulting catfight, she laid the bitch out, stole Ringo's Camaro and shotgun and hardly drank anything before driving straight here. To you. To Bingo's Body Art.

You explain the process, time, and money required to remove a cheap-ass tat, and Amy's face droops more and more as you do. Finally, she cuts you off, "K, can we just cover it up?" She sways unsteadily. No, wait, it's on purpose, she's trying to be sexy. She leans on the counter between you and says a little quietly, "maybe with a flower or something? Maybe you can gimme a discount on account a it's a 'mergency?"

Ugh. "Sorry Miss, I don't got a lot of time for discounted cover-ups or removals. I'd try one of the shops in ..."

"Come on, I need it now!" She slams the counter, then steadies herself, like she remembered it's too early to be drinking or something. "Okay, sorry, look, can you just cover it up with black then? I got a twenty."

You could. You could cover it up with black in 15 minutes. "Twenty bucks Miss, we'll be quick. We can just black it out so you can't read it, and we can turn it into something else some other day alright?" Yeah right.

She nods, and you get to work. You have no real appointments til noon anyway.

As she lies on the table, ass up, right overalls strap undone, you level your needle at her back and start filling in skin.

But you start at the R. For shits n giggles right? It's not like anyone cares what order you fill in the space...you gotta start somewhere. There it is, too obvious to pass up:

Bingo's Girl

It's not like you'll get a chance for that again. You debate trying to sneak a photo with your phone, but it's risky, so you lean back and admire the joke for a second, and resume your work.

But she squirms and pulls aside. "Hey, hold on." What now? This chick wants her tat covered and then she doesn't?

"Something wrong? Second thoughts about covering up your mistake?"

"We... we shouldn't go any further until we ask Bingo."

You blink. She's drunk, confused. "You mean Ringo? Thought you left him, though."

"No, I mean Bingo, whoever that is. I'm his girl now and I don't know if he'd like a big black bar on his girl's back ya know?" She reaches around her body protectively.

This can't be. "You said you're Bingo's girl now?"

"Yeah, I mean, I don't know who he is, but if h..."

"That's me... I'm Bingo." She drove in from the west side, never even saw your sign.

Amy Hoffstatler shifts her weight uncomfortably in front of you and says "K well I guess it's up to you then huh?"

"Yeah...sure...well...we'll leave it the way it is, in that case."

Amy smiles and shrugs, "K." And she just stands there, like she's waiting.

Nowhere in Noughuairesville is 'nice,' but the west side helps keep the whole town's average closer to 'trash'. From her dirty white sneakers, up her long skinny legs, past the cuffed overalls shorts above her thighs and her skinny waist covered by the denim front, her bosom pressing against her tube top, no bra, all the way to her fried from dye and straightening dark brown hair with platinum ends from last season, Amy Hoffstatler is what you would call hot for a westie. Her crappy ink isn't helping though.

She brings you back to the situation. "Well, you wanna do anything else, or should I just go then?"

What kind of question is that? You didn't even finish the tattoo. Yeah you wanna do something else, tell her to shut up and draw a dick on her forehead. Enough with her bullshit!

"Yeah, let's do something else. Wanna change some of the stuff on you arms next? Heck, why don't we write 'Noughuairesville 4 Life!' up n down your leg!"

"I mean, you can if you want, but I already got this so it'd gotta be on the right leg, like on the back." She has a big old koi on her thigh. "And there's this..." She pivots and shows off a ribbon on the back of her calf...

"Yeah, what else you got that we need to cover up?"

"Well, I got plenty, but I don't need to cover any of the rest of 'em. Now that Ringo's fixed and it says I'm your girl..."

"But you're not my girl. For the moment I'm still with Lynda. I just turned the R to a B as a joke, you know? I was just filling in the black and that was where I started!"

She's actually getting frustrated. "Well it doesn't matter, Bingo, I'm yours now, you wanna see the rest of my tattoos or not?"

You find yourself slowly nodding, failing to grasp the full reality of the situation as this random westie starts to disrobe in plain sight in the front of your store.

Amy tosses her blonde tipped hair over her shoulders so she can reach the one overalls strap that's still buckled. She pulls the metal buckle apart and drops the strap, letting the front of the overalls fold at the waistband, straps dangling between her legs. Her stomach, otherwise nice and slender with a tiny little innie button, is covered in stupid shit like from someone's second-hand imagining of dated pop-punk music videos. There's a flaming heart on her stomach. 'Should have been a liver' you think to yourself. The silhouettes of naked women make you think of trucker mud flaps. The butterfly is actually not that bad, you're not too cool to admit it to yourself at least.

Her perky breasts bounce gently out of the white tube top she's just pulled over her head. No tats on her tits. You find yourself more and more attracted to Amy, despite your lurching gut every time you really notice her tats. As you see more and more of her quite attractive little body, you imagine how good she might look if you'd been the one to ink up that flesh. In your mind you wipe away the sparkling diamond under her barely visible ribs, rub out the fading '_M_an eater' down her left side, erase it all! You imagine her taut stomach covered in a blue and purple nebula, an interstellar spider weaving a web of stars like a constellation you could wrap around to her back. Maybe there's a Camaro blasting through the scene with blazing rockets! Maybe she's simply destined for bad ink!

She turns, hooking her thumbs into her overalls at the waist, and as she stops the spin, facing directly away from you, she slides and wriggles out of her clothes, pulling them down her legs slowly as she bends all the way over. Her tight, white little heart-shaped ass is a pretty sight, except where it says 'lucky boy!' right at the spot where her cheeks meet her back.

It's somehow worse than a regular tramp stamp.

"So..." She stands up straight and looks over her shoulder at you. "Anything else, or we done here?"

Westie trash or not, she's making your mouth water. For better or worse, however, you don't get to answer her.

Another car is pulling up to the shop, not a Camaro. It's a familiar car, a dark blue 1970 Pontiac GTO just as tough and beautiful as its driver. Lynda gets out and double-takes at the scene in front of her. She's carrying a brown paper bag and approaching the studio with a determined, if also confused, look on her face.