I'm sitting here with my pants down around my ankles, forceps in one hand, a twelve gauge needle in the other and sweat on my brow. Who would think the nice suburban teenager who played in the marching band all through highschool (i know, cool, huh?) would be straddling a dentist chair in a tattoo parlor on the verge of driving a piece of metal through his sack?
At A Glance Author jakrabbit11 Contact jakrabbit11@yahoo.com Artist james (me) Studio Temptress Tattoo Location Athens, Georgia It all started two days after I left for college. I needed a job to keep me occupied throughout the summer because I moved to Athens two months before school started. I've always been a huge fan of piercing and between the two short months between my eighteenth birthday and graduation, I went from having one cartilage ring to four body piercings total. I was driving down broadstreet and i saw a tattoo shop about three blocks from my apartment. I decided to stop in and see if they needed any help.
The shop was called Classic City Tattoo and it definatly had a cool atmosphere. The walls were decorated with baby dolls, Virgin Marys and posters for The Genitorturers. This chick (i found out later that her name was Nikki) came out from the back room and asked me if I needed any help. She was about six feet tall because she wore these five inch monster platform boots. She also had magenta dreadlocks, a labret with a spike and had a 00g and a 7/16 flesh tunnel in each earlobe. She had full sleeves a really cool angel tattoo on her sternum. I asked her if they were in a position to hire a piercing apprentice or a mopboy of some sort. She told me I would have to talk to the owner but that she had run to the post office and would be right back if i wanted to hang out. Score!
So about ten minutes later Fauna (the owner) came in and asked me if I was willing to help out around the shop to learn how to pierce and I said yeah, so there I was, the newest employee of Classic City Tattoo! My job was to answer the phone, talk to customers, sweep, mop, scrub forceps and observe piercings. I was so excited about my apprenticeship that I immeditly told everybody I knew, first on the list was my piercing buddy, Lillie.
But to make an already too long story short, i learned alot over the three months of the summer. the shop changed it's name to the more appropriate Temptress Tattoo and recieved a well deseved makover. I slowly climbed from just obseving piercings to being the only full time piercer the shop had. Matt, the piercer i learned from, floated from our shop and another one in athens so the person who always happened to be there to help when I was performing piercings for the first time was Nikki. She had been a piercer for nine years and then became a tattoo artist. Since Matt was the one i had seen perform countless piercings, and Nikki was the one who helped me with my first ones, i developed a blend of their techniques (which were pretty much polar opposites) along with a little of my own style.
On the night in question, Nikki, Sergio (the tattoo apprentice) and i were sitting around the shop. Nikki was working on this huge back piece and sergio was obseving as part of his job so i was left to entertain myself. Fauna and Nikki had told me that i had to pierce myself at least once to really observe my technique or whatever and i had been toying around with piercing my hafada. I decided that I might as well try it and if i didn't like it, i could just take it out or do it over again.
So I autoclaved my needle and a 14g circular barbell and headed on back to the piercing room. I dropped my pants and cleaned my work area with Iodine and stood in the mirror to mark my points. I looked for a really long time trying to figure out how it would look and where the best placement would be. i decided that i liked it in the center low enough that it wouldn't be uncomfortable when i got an erection. The first time i marked it too high. So i added two dots right below the first two. I sat down and couldn't tell if the dots were straight because the area shifts around so much. I figured that it would be fine and if it was crooked then i could just do it again.
Okay so here i am. sitting in my chair trying to line up the dots in the forceps. There they are. wow. now all i've got to do is pierce it. i grab the needle and swirl it around in the lube and hold it up to the dots. Whew! This is totally one of those cliffs that it's hard to make yourself jump off of. So i look down, line up the needle and take my inhale. I barely touch the thin skin and it's through! Holy mother of god! Wow. It definatly wasn't painful or even the pinch that other piercings have. It was like feeling a needle tear through a piece of fabric. Very simple very easy. All i have to do now is thread my barbell through and screw on the bead.
I got up and went about my evening as if nothing happened. i went to a short film festival with Nikki and Fauna that night and went to bed with no problems. It's been a week now and it is healing really well. i hardly notice any discomfort. It's really amazing to see a piercing that you performed healing into a nice healthy piercing. I always see people leaving with a fresh piercings after i put a hole in them or people who come in and need help with their infected piercings. It is just so cool to see the healthy finished product. My confidence has soared and my piercing has become much more fulfilling really knowing that i help people make themselves beautiful in their own image and in turn, make the world a more beautiful place
If you made it through this entire story, you get a cookie. You rock. If you have any questions or if you just want to talk about why piercing is important to you then drop me a line. peace ya'll