Once Robin heard what Mark wanted to get, he was going to be in the chair a lot longer than Julie, she grabbed an artist by the name of John West, Junior, the old man's son, who was grinning at the idea. He was a tall, rail thin guy wearing a chambray work shirt and unpretentious jeans with a fairly wide seat, rather than the sort of fashionable skinny jeans being used. The New West did a lot of really awesome biker and rocker tattoos, but embraced the cowboy/working class symbolism. The idea was to discourage guys like Bryce from getting their Greek letters done here while being listed as one of the best tattoo companies; they liked the artistic challenges. Its why Mark picked it.
 
"I don't get a lot of Medusa requests, and you want a full upper arm?" 
 
"Hell yeah," Mark told him with a grin, "I wanna make my first a badass one."
 
"Nipples?"
 
"Nah, lets cover those with a snake or leave them out, but definitely the cleavage."
 
"So what do you envision?"
 
Mark went down the gallery of tattoos with John West, pointing out the things he liked; shading, darker inks, subtle grades of shading and the sort of things that challenged an artist to make a really good tattoo. The man was taking notes and sketching on the basis of an internet search they did for women and snakes, trying to pull together a more original image than, say, the Versace logo.
 
Of course, there was the occasional surreptitious glance over to see what Jules was doing, and to make sure she didn't run. He couldn't stop her from leaving, but he'd done his best to set the whole thing up on short notice with really good tattoo artists, expensive work in the couple thousand dollar range. Much as drunk frat boys might go to any old tattoo artist to get the Alpha Sigma Sigma letters on a bicep, you got what you paid for when you tried to do more complicated work. This place, it was all nice leather chairs and old fashioned wood shelves, like a barber shop, along with a high ceiling and the sunlight streaming in. It was relaxing, quiet, and not seedy, which perhaps made the whole process go over a bit better.

"So long as I actually see it; I bet you've got it in a place your sisters won't see it, since they'll run right to Ed and Mariska..." That was said with a grin; Jules' parents were okay with him, but thought he'd come around and get a real job after he got it out of his system. They weren't aware of the signing...or perhaps they were through Mark's mother.

In any case, it was hard to see what Julie was doing while the work started on his arm; the needle took up his attention as the work started. Over the course of his time working warehouses and other fairly physical jobs, as well as biking to get to school and then work until he acquired a (slightly junky) car with several years on it, so he had definition, and that was part of the planning on how to do a tattoo -- the curve of the arm, how much arm there was.
 
The reality was that the more skin and fat was at the location of the site of the tattoo, the less painful it generally was. But Mark didn't have a lot of that excess, so there was the buzz of the needle and the sensation of being pricked, but it quickly washed away as the endorphins kicked in. He has piercings done, with needles, multiple times, but it didn't quite prepare him for a tattoo. 

His phone started to rattle a couple times, a low buzz, but he didn't check the messages until John took a break, and then he saw that two of them were Maria, and some other from the bandmates. He snapped a picture of the tattoo being worked on and posted that on facebook, along with a location tag. But he was careful not to add Julie's name there -- parents, friends, boyfriend, if any of them knew the jig would most certainly be up.

It wasn't going to be done in one sitting and the quote on price for the ink was a lot; Julie's was a fraction, but Mark was getting major work done. But Medusa made sense, it was Italian and rock n roll, since chick and cleavage, and metal because mythical monster. Mark never held a job where tattoos mattered an it seemed unlikely he ever would, but the windfall money from signing meant that he could afford to make this tattoo a real work of art. Julie, if she hadn't been taken to a place like this for the sort of ink that stars got, the probably would have balked, even given those conditions. Of course, there was something affirmation all about friendship sealed in blood, and that counted for a lot. If Julie had refused, he would have grabbed Dalton, but he also knew that the work would take more than one appointment. Still, Dalton and he were buds later in life, he and Julie shared the sandbox.

There was at least one text message that required him to actually reply; his mother felt it was a good idea to have some sort of celebration with the neighbors and people he knew back home, which meant Julie and her parents, too. That might well wind up involving Bryce in some way, much as the thought disturbed him, but he steeled himself and responded anyway. The invitation included Dalton and his mom, but the rest of the band was sort of not a part of that...nor did he want to show off the likes of Cave and Stace to a bunch of neighbors in the Valley. They were generally California types, but a lot of the members of Reckless Life were a little too hardcore.

"Hey, Jules, heads up, my mom's decided that there's going to be a thing next weekend -- Harry and your parents will be there too." 

It was natural that he and John would talk while the work was being done, and the discussion ran to bands, Reckless Life and the record deal. "Wow, congratulations, man. So this is how you're spending some advance money?"

"Yeah," Mark replied, "the rest is gonna pay rent-- Julie is my roommate -- and I'll save what's left for whatever feed come up."

"Sounds good, always seems like a lot of guys just blow that first check..."John told him.

"I can see that," Mark admitted, thinking of Cave and Dalton especially, "So you've seen a few come through?"

John rattled off some names, and it was an impressive list. 

"Most of those are my dad's though," he told Mark.

"What is it like, inheriting a family business?" Mark asked-- he didn't know who his father was at all.

"Its weird, there's pressure to keep the legacy going. I mean, my father taught me everything I know and I went into this business to follow him, but am I as good as he is?" John mused, as he worked on the lines of another snake in the medusa's hair, "It's hard to say. I love what I do and I think that makes a lot of difference in life." 

"I can dig that." Though Harry Cohen was the closest thing he had to a father, and the guy taught him the rudiments of guitar before Mark way outstripped him. It wasn't like he was following in the man's footsteps though; Harry was a lawyer, a contracts guy. At least, Mark figured, he'd be locked down good on that end. No surprises and all that.

"So, how's it look," John asked him, as he turned him to look at it in the mirror -- there was some blood, there always was blood involved, but it got wiped away to give Mark a better look at the ink. 

"Looks good," but it wasn't really entirely done yet. "The more important question is, how does Julie's look?"

He was dying to know what the surprise was.