Free Bad Things by Varian Krylov

fucking business,” Xavier joked.
    “ Hey, just stick to tattooing super-hot chicks and letting a pack of drooling guys watch while you do it, and you’ll have a going enterprise. I mean, that’s it. They’re not even paying for the art. They’re paying to pick a fuckable girl out of a lineup, and to get to sit there for two hours, telling her exactly how to sit or lie or bend over, and leave her there spread out in front of them while they recite a bunch of pathetic fantasies and I paint them on her skin.”
    “ But the pictures on the coasters aren’t of Brian’s canvases.”
    “ How do you know?”
    “ I’ve seen a couple of the coasters when I’ve had to settle things down at the tables,” he lied. No point outing Natalie for her oversight earlier that week.
    “ Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that, either. Each coaster corresponds to one of the canvases. Someone who looks a lot like the girl in the picture. But you’re right, it’s not them. I guess they just got models for the coasters, and they’re not going to redo them every time there’s a personnel change, you know?”
    Shading the spread of blossoms, darkening their centers a deeper pink almost as thick and vital as her blood staining the square of gauze between his fingers, Xavier asked, “So what’s up with the paintings?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “ You have your unique style. Softer, more delicate and nuanced than Natalie’s. But there’s an interesting similarity.”
    Connie let out a pained laugh. “I’m just taking dictation. Seriously. When Brian hired me, he paired me up with this girl Violet. She doesn’t work there anymore. But I shadowed her for a week, and learned the alphabet, or whatever. It’s like learning Chinese—there’s a set picture for every body part, every act.”
    “Yeah? Like what?”
    “ I don’t know. Give me a pen and paper.”
    Xavier set down his gear, dug through a couple drawers, and came up with a pencil and a notepad. Connie propped herself up on her elbows. Trying not to seem overly eager, he went back to tattooing her.
    “So, a customer will say,” Connie switched into a satirical, low voice, ‘I’m gonna put that little cunt on her knees and give it to her good and hard in her wet little pussy.’ So, I do this symbol.” Connie made four neat, efficient strokes of the pencil. “That’s doggie style. Vaginal. But if he’s talking about anal sex, the symbol’s like this.”
    She drew a similar, but discernibly different pictogram. Just a gentle nudge, and she did five more, narrating what each figure meant, until there was a small, simplified index of the collages that appeared across the bellies, breasts, asses and thighs of the canvases of Gomorrah every night.
    “Crazy, the things people will spend their money on,” he said.
    He took the pencil and notepad from her, tossed them back into the drawer and kicked it shut. As soon as she left, he dug the pad back out, and on a separate page, copied down what she had said each figure represented.
     

FOUR
     
     
     
    “ Hey, Carson. Come here.” Brian signaled him from the stairs.
    He wouldn’t mind a couple more two hour messenger missions if he got to pocket another grand. Charlotte, his trainee, was good. Efficient. Never left the girls waiting to get drinks to their tables. Maybe Brian was testing him. Maybe if he did well on a few more of those secret missions, Charlotte would take over and he’d be cut loose from lowly bartender duty.
    It startled him, for some reason, seeing that Max was in the office with Brian. He must have come in through the back, because he hadn’t seen him pass through the club.
    “ Hello Carson.”
    “ Hi Max.”
    Max grinned, and a second later, Brian’s mouth bent in a creepy fun house reflection of Max’s expression.
    “Brian and I have been talking,” Max said.
    Shit. That sounded ominous. “Yeah?”
    Max’s grin turned into a smile. Carson deliberately didn’t look at Brian.