“For the betterment of all,” I said. “Hey, Tomika. As per the agreement just reached with Whip, we’ll use my blood in the tattooing process.”
“How’m I gonna do that?”
I walked to McQuestion and held out my hand. “Knife.”
The bemused man placed a six cementer folding knife in my gloved palm. I opened the blade and closed my grip around the smooth hilt. I rolled up my sleeve, ground my molars together to keep from screeching, and sliced my inner arm, scoring a couple millimeters deep. I extended the bloody blade to Cupcake, who rinsed the blade with water, spilling my blood to the ground, the water killing the nanobots that inhabited me. Simple water. Nanobots were designed to be inside a warm body. Water—scarce and valuable—killed them dead. With her other hand, she captured the blood from my cut in a shot glass and placed a cloth over the wound, as if I needed that to clot my blood when the nanos would do it for me.
“Mix a few drops with each of the inks,” I said. “Otherwise, they won’t take.”
“Well shit. I ain’t ever inked with blood before,” Tomika said. “I guess there’s a first time.”
???
Devil’s Milk was fabulous. My whole body felt like I was floating on air. Being branded felt like the best orgasm ever. Coming down off of it while I was inked with the roadhouse’s new colors—approved by the other clubs while I was being branded—had sucked, though a second very tiny sip had helped. A full second dose would probably addict even someone with nanobots. I closed my eyes, tried to breathe through the pain, and suckedshine through a metal straw to dull the torment of two tattoo guns working across my shoulders at the same time.
I was naked from the waist up, stretched across the biggest round table, my wrists and ankles tied to the table legs. My bare boobs were smushed against the table top. There was a lot of blood, which was being soaked into rags and then dropped into a bucket of water. Beside me, on another round table, Cupcake was drunker than two skunks and was singing along with the music being pumped into the room through the speakers. Tennille Tennyson’s mellow voice sang about rivers and streams and walking in the rain. Cupcake squawked like a dying chicken, “singing” along with the star.
“I’m not drunk enough for this,” I shouted to no one in particular. Alcohol didn’t work on me like humans. I’d never be drunk enough for this; it wasn’t possible. The nanobots treated alcohol like a poison, which I guessed it was, and cleared it from my system almost as fast as I could take it in.
“Dayam girl,” the voice on my right said. “You done drank two bottles a shine all by your lone self, and you ain’t bled no more than a sober person.”
Alcohol thinned blood and made the art work less than acceptable. Not for me. Not my people. Most artists didn’t allow alcohol during tats for that reason.
“Tomika,” I said, “keep it to yourself, but with myinfection,” I said using the word the clubs understood, “I can drink any man in this place under the table.”
“My lips are sealed. But next time I’m here, Imma take bets. And Mama gonna take the pot home.”
I laughed as one of the Sisters put a straw to my lips again. I sucked the shot glass dry. “You wearing gloves?” I asked.
“You done asked me that ten times already,” Tomika said, her mouth close to my ear.
I could see her knee and hip, bent over my shoulder, and part of her elbow in my line of sight.
“Yes. We all gloved,” she said. “Everyone a my girls. And we’re gonna get us somma that hot water showers when we’re done, anyway. Jagger say as long as we glove and shower and wash our clothes, we good.”
“Jagger,” I said, feeling the shine hit my system.
“Ummm,” Tomika said back.
The gun beat against my shoulders. Hurt like hell.
“You and him ever get together?” she asked.
I laughed.
I must have given something away because she said, “Way-ell, way-ell, way-ell. Listen to you purr like one a these damn cats.”
“The cats are inside the bar?” I tried to raise my head, but . . . right. I was secured.
“Ain’t interested in the cats, Shining. I’m interested in Jagger. He as good as they say?”
“Oh, Tomika.” I breathed in through my nose, remembering. “He’s the bestest.”
Disbelief in her voice, she asked, “Better than a sex-bot or batteries?”
I laughed out loud. “I never used either but he’s a machine.”
“Ummmm girl. I might see if I can get me some.”
