Free Claiming Olivia II by Yolanda Olson Page B

show you. Just gimme your number and I’ll call you.” 
    Regardless of how adorable his dimples may be beneath the frames of his glasses or how hot he looks with his tight polo stretched across his impressive expanse of chest, he still strikes me as a bit odd. What the hell. Never know unless you try it. Might as well give the fella a date. There’s no harm in a free meal and a good story.
    Eh, I like dick too much for the whole lesbian thing. I think I need to start performing thorough background checks and social checks on any male who even glances in my direction. However, the lip ring doesn't seem like such a bad idea...
    It’s that train of thought and that particular episode of reminiscence that lead me into my favorite tattoo parlor that just so happens to be the place of employment of my best friend to have another hole poked into my body. If her schedule allows, I think I'll invest in some new ink while I'm here. I need some serious distraction to draw my mind from the thoughts of the train wreck of a date that followed that first conversation with Chris. What the hell was I thinking??
    Back to the present...
    Jaime is more than accommodating when I ask if she has time to sling out a small piece for me. "Girl, I've got nothing going on for three more hours. What are you calling small this time?" she asks with one of her doubly pierced, perfectly arched eyebrows raised in question. "Your legs are looking nice but your shoulders are looking kind of bare these days. What'll it be, pretty lady?" she asks as she walks circles around me while examining various areas of my body to find the area for her next canvas.
    After a moment of contemplation and my explanation of the idea that’s been floating around in my mind lately, I feel the certain giddiness that comes with the knowledge that I'll soon be getting some much needed meditation that seems to only result from that certain, highly therapeutic gun buzzing across my skin, marking its path with the colors that will remain with me until the day I’m turned to ash. Being from a highly religious family, I've gotten a lot of grief from my older relatives since I came to Christmas dinner sporting my first tattoo shortly after my eighteenth birthday- a black and green two-headed dragon with each of its heads resting behind an ear, twin necks stretching from one earlobe to the other before joining in the middle and disappearing beneath the collar of my shirt. I thought that my grandmother would have a coronary right there at the table. Ten years and thousands of dollars later, she's still alive and I'm gloriously decorated from my neck to my toes and they have finally stopped complaining about my choice of bodily décor. I browse the books covering the tasteful glass and steel coffee tables and scattered about the lobby of the shop and the hundreds of framed work hanging on the walls. I see nothing that I must have on my body before my current idea gets put onto my skin so I go for another grouping of meaningful lines to keep with me forever. Making my eighth Chinese symbol, "memory" will soon be on the right side of my collarbone, barely concealed by the collar of a tee shirt. 
    Prepped and stenciled, I lay on the table and close my eyes as I hear Jaime start her gun and the familiar buzz fills the air, effectively setting my zone within easy reach. As the cluster of needles makes contact with my skin, I take off into the corners of my mind. Reality is merely an inconvenience to which I'll return in an hour or so. 
    Before I realize that time had slipped away from me, I feel a cool sensation of my overly sensitized skin being wiped clean of the excess ink surrounding my latest acquisition. "Check it out," Jaime points toward the large mirror with the thick, extravagantly carved frame hanging on the wall behind me. I move to the mirror and focus, an enormous grin spreading across my face and tears flooding freely down my cheeks. "You've outdone yourself this time,