At A Glance
Author	aniorange
Contact	aniorange@bme.anon
IAM	aniorange
When	Five years ago
Artist	Don't remember his name
Studio	23rd Street Body Piercing
Location	Oklahoma city, Oklahoma

Quite some time had passes since last I was pierced. I had moved from a fairly open-minded college town to a rather conservative small town in Oklahoma. I had retired a few of my piercings because the job location I transferred into was very opposed to piercings. However I did not stay at that job for long. Without getting into a lot of unnecessary details I will just say over time I found a job that was not too concerned with piercings.

I was engaged and planning a marriage when my fiancé and I decided to go get pierced. We both wanted to get our labret done. Neither of us has had this piercing before. Both of us had been feeling the itch for quite some time. I was not familiar with Oklahoma at all, at least not yet. She grew up in Oklahoma however and knew a great place to go get pierced. It was an hour or so away in Oklahoma City but it would be worth the drive. We set a date to head off to Oklahoma City to do some shopping and to get pierced. When the time came, we headed of to 23rd Street Body Piercing.

This would be my first time going to another shop to get work done. I had always gone to Dogstar Tattoo, but that was way back in North Carolina. I trusted my fiancé enough to know that this was the place to get pierced. She had been there before. We find the place park and head inside. It was an almost completely different experience than my usual shop. You see, in Oklahoma it is against the law to tattoo, so this place is all about piercings and nothing but piercings. The place was very impressive.

I knew 23rd Street Body Piercing was serious about piercing the moment I walked in. It is a very clean and well-lit place. There are two big comfy sofas on either side of you when you walk it. They have a big counter full of jewelry. The jewelry they carry is all internally threaded. A lot of it is from Anatometal. The counter is kind of a double L shaped. They have drawers and containers behind the counter that have autoclaved and sealed jewelry in them ready to go.

We walked to the counter. I was half expecting someone to recognize my fiancé but no one seemed to. At the time I was about 23 and she was 22 years of age. The lady behind the counter did not believe my fiancé was 22 years young. They wanted to see some ID, which I expected but they tried to tell her that she had a fake ID. Her hair color had changed but other than that she was the same. They told me they where being extra careful because some people had come in with fake IDs that where under age. We got past that part and went to sit down. My fiancé was rather upset that they did not believe her. I told her she should feel good about it, which helped out. We paid for our piercings and jewelry and got our receipt, an aftercare sheet, and had a seat on one of the comfy sofas.

We sat around a while before they called us back. We where led down a hallway to one of several doctors office looking rooms. It had bright white tile and clean counter tops with sinks in each room. There was a padded table in the middle of the room to sit or lay down on, and a mirror to check out your new addition.

I don't know if I decided I would go first or if we decided I would go first. It had been a couple of years since I was pierced. I was a little worried about the pain. I had heard somewhere that lip piercings where more painful than most. I don't know where. I should have just come to BME looking for information, but I did not.

I don't remember the name of who pierced us. He told me to lie down and open my mouth. I asked him if I should keep my teeth closed and he looked at me funny. I was remembering when I went to Dogstar to pierce my smiley and was told to keep my teeth closed. He told me no. I saw him set out a bunch of stuff. Everything was sterile and came fresh out of autoclave bags. He made some little puddles of something on a tissue and laid the jewelry in one and the needle in another. He grabbed my lip and looked at it inside and out. He took a toothpick with something on it and put a dot on my lip and asked me to look and see if that was where I wanted it. I sat up and looked in the mirror. I had rarely been asked this question before. I had no problems with what I saw.

I laid back down and he took hold of my lip and asked me to count to take a deep breath, and then to exhale. Upon exhaling he pushed the needle though. I remember a very quick sharp and fleeting pain. I thought, "Wow, was that it?" He then went to put the jewelry in. That hurt just a tad but not much. He asked me if I wanted to take a look. I stood up and went back to the mirror and was so very pleased with what I saw. There was this neat little silver ball under my lip. Yep that was me in the mirror. I looked over at my fiancé and told her, "Piece of cake." She laid down and took her turn. I could not stand to watch. As much as I love piercings, I could not bare to watch one.

We thanked out piercer and my fiancé recommended we leave a tip. Up until this point that was something I had never heard of. As we walked out and passed our piercer I handed him a small tip. I don't recall how much. We headed on out to my car and headed back home. I could feel my lip starting to throb just a bit.

For me healing was not that big of a deal. It was a very new experience having something in my lip. It really did not get in the way of anything. Having a flat disk on the back was interesting. I no longer played with my tongue piercing as much; instead I started playing with the back of my labret piercing. I was introduced to salt soaks and Provon. I took little paper cups and filled them with salt water and soaked the outside for a bit, then cleaned it up with Provon. I loved the salt soaks because it would loosen up all of the crusties from the piercing and make matters so much easier. No more moving bar with crusties causing sharp pains in my piercing. My lip got just a little swollen but not bad. In a week things where looking great. Unfortunately my fiancé was not having such good luck. I heal rather quickly and easily, but she has a hard time.

I remember at one point the ball came loose. It took quite a while to get it back on. For one it was internally threaded with was new for me, and it was tough to hold things still while I screwed the ball on. I finally figured out that I could hold the back of the bar between my teeth and hold it still. That worked pretty well as long as it did not slip loose. Then it would get mashed between my teeth and hurt my lip just a bit. I found myself having to repeat this process a few times because for some reason the ball would keep coming loose. I eventually started checking it to make sure it was tight every night before bed.

After a few weeks I was able to get a shorter bar for the piercing. The swelling had gone down and the bar and ball where sticking out kind of far. It really was a blast to change them out since I decided to do it on my own. I was back to the holding the back of the jewelry in my teeth.

I was happy to have added this piercing to my collection. Unfortunately by this time I had taken some of my piercings out. It was not too long after that that her and I where married. For the sake of our family I hid my piercings. I learned that weed eater line could be used to keep the hole open. Probably not the best of ideas, but everything was healed so I was not worried. I cut a about an inch of line off and took a lighter and held it some distance above the flame, just enough to make the line soft. I fashioned it into a fishtail type shape. I made one sharp bend right behind where it would be in my lip and a small curve in the other direction to follow my teeth and gums. Do not try that at home.

I had to keep my home made retainer and had to use it again. I had to undergo a medical procedure and needed to take all of my jewelry out. I kept my piercing alive for a while but eventually retired it. I have such fond memories. I may yet one day revive it. Yes, one day.