Chapter 7: The Sheriff's Permission
The bear was taking shape on the paper under his hand, its lines growing more defined, more predatory, when the knock came. Not the bell. A hard, direct rap of knuckles on the shop door. Gunnar looked up. The orange neon bled into the dark street, illuminating Sheriff Moss standing there, a six-pack of local IPA dangling from his fingers. His face was unreadable in the fragmented light.
Gunnar unlocked the door. Moss stepped in, the night air clinging to his jacket. He set the beers on the counter with a soft clink.
“Evening, Bjornstad.”
“Sheriff.”
Moss popped the top off a bottle with a key from his ring, took a long swallow, then gestured for Gunnar to take one. Silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken things. Moss’s eyes scanned the shop, pausing on the bear sketch. He took another drink.
“Bea,” he finally said, his voice low. “She hasn’t stopped talking about that tattoo. Not once.” A slow, unsettling grin spread across his face. It didn’t touch his eyes. “That ‘MINE’ you put on her… she was squealing like a teenager on prom night. Couldn’t keep her hands off herself. Or me.”
Gunnar stayed quiet, twisting the cap off his own beer. The hoppy bitterness was a sharp note in the room’s chemical air.
Moss leaned forward, his elbows on the glass countertop. His breath smelled of whiskey and mint. “Said you were a perfect gentleman. Cold as a damn stone.” He chuckled, a dry, hollow sound. “Said it was the most professional thing she’d ever done.”
He took another swig, his eyes locking onto Gunnar’s. “Thing is… she also said it was the most turned-on she’s been in a decade.” He paused, letting the words hang. “She’s going to need a touch-up. In a week or so. Skin like that, it doesn’t always hold the ink perfect.”
Gunnar took a sip. “I’ll get her on the schedule.”
Moss’s grin widened, turning wolfish. “Here’s the thing. When she comes in… don’t be so goddamn professional.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial rasp. “She told me. After. She wanted to beg you to fuck her right there in the chair. Wanted to feel that machine in your hand and you inside her at the same time.”
The air in the shop grew heavier, the hum of the fridge the only sound.
“She’s got a fantasy,” Moss continued, his gaze drifting to the window that looked out onto the dark street. “A real specific one. She wants to get worked on… and she wants me to watch. Through the window. Says the idea of me seeing her get railed by a man like you… a man with your hands… it makes her so wet she can’t think straight.”
He finished his beer, crumpling the empty bottle in his fist. The sound was like bones cracking. “You do that for us, Bjornstad. You give her that touch-up, and you give her what she’s really paying for. And I’ll be out there, watching. Consider it… part of the town’s welcome package.” He straightened up, his official demeanor sliding back into place like a mask. “Hicks boys are gone. Your window gets replaced tomorrow. We’re square.”
He left then, the door closing softly behind him. Gunnar stared at the crumpled bottle on the counter. The bear on the sketchpad seemed to snarl back at him.
Bea returned exactly eight days later, just after sundown. She wore a long, dark coat belted tight at the waist, but underneath, he saw the same strain of fabric against her curves. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with a nervous, illicit energy.
“It’s itching something fierce,” she announced, her voice breathy. She didn’t wait. She strode past him into the back room, shedding her coat to reveal a sheer black lace teddy that did nothing to contain her. The tattoo, the word “MINE,” was slightly faded in spots, the healing skin flaky.
“Needs a few lines deepened,” he said, his voice flat. He set up his station with the same sterile precision as before.
“Sure,” she whispered, hoisting herself onto the edge of the tattoo chair. She didn’t lie back. She sat, legs slightly apart, the black lace a dark frame around the angry red script on her pale skin.
Gunnar pulled on his gloves, mixed his ink. The machine buzzed to life, a familiar, angry drone. He positioned the light. He began to work, his focus absolute on the line of the ‘M’. The needle bit into the tender skin. Bea flinched, a sharp gasp escaping her lips.
Then she moaned.
It was a low, long, deliberate sound. Not from pain.
His eyes flicked up to hers. She was watching him, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling quickly. Her hand came down, not to push him away, but to settle in her own lap, her fingers sliding beneath the lace. She touched herself as he worked, her middle finger circling her clit in slow, visible circles.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed, her head falling back. “The needle… feels so fucking good. Like a little burn right where I need it.”
He continued, tracing the ‘I’, the vibration of the machine mingling with the wet, soft sounds coming from her. Her hips began to rock subtly against her own hand. He could smell her arousal now, a musky, sweet scent cutting through the ink and antiseptic.
“He’s out there,” she panted, her eyes closed. “Watching through the crack in the blinds. Can you feel him watching you fuck his wife with that needle?”
Gunnar didn’t answer. He moved to the ‘N’, deepening the serif. His own pulse was a drum in his ears. She was soaking wet; he could see the slick shine on her inner thighs.
“He can’t get hard,” she hissed, her finger moving faster. “Not for years. But he gets off on this. On watching a real man handle me.” She opened her eyes, glazed and desperate. “Are you a real man, Gunnar? Or are you just his hired hand?”
That did it. Something cold and hard snapped inside him. He set the machine down with a sharp click. He tore off the gloves. He unbuckled his belt, the leather sliding free with a whip-crack sound. He didn’t undress. He just shoved his jeans and boxers down to his thighs, his cock springing out, already thick and fully hard.
Bea’s eyes widened, a flash of real fear before it was swallowed by raw hunger. “Yes,” she snarled.
He grabbed her by the hips, yanking her to the very edge of the chair. He positioned himself, the head of his cock pushing against her dripping entrance. He didn’t ask. He didn’t tease. He drove into her in one brutal, claiming thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
She screamed, a ragged, uninhibited sound that echoed off the tiled walls. Her back arched, her nails scraping the leather of the chair. He fucked her like that, with her sitting up, her legs wrapped around his waist, with a ruthless, jackhammering rhythm. Each thrust slammed her body back against the chair. The tattoo gun vibrated off the table beside them.
“This what you wanted?” he growled, his hands digging into the soft flesh of her ass. “Him watching me wreck this pretty little pussy he can’t use?”
“Yes! God, yes!” she sobbed, her head thrashing. She was clamping down on him, her inner muscles fluttering wildly. “He’s seeing it! He’s seeing you own what’s his!”
Gunnar glanced at the window. In the sliver of space between the blind and the frame, he saw a pale, shadowed face. Watching. Moss.
The sight ignited a darker fire. He pulled out suddenly, making her cry out in frustration. He spun her around, bending her over the chair, her ass in the air, the freshly touched-up “MINE” on blatant display for the watcher at the window. He spat onto his hand, slicked himself again, and re-entered her from behind. This angle was deeper, more invasive. He gripped her hips, holding her still as he pounded into her, the slap of skin on skin a violent percussion in the small room.
Bea babbled, a stream of filthy praise and curses. “Fuck! Right there! Don’t stop! He’s jerking off out there! He’s jerking his limp little dick watching you ruin me!”
Gunnar felt his climax coiling, a tight spring in his gut. He leaned over her, one hand tangling in her hair, pulling her head back. “You tell him,” he grunted, his thrusts becoming shorter, harder, driving her into the leather with each one. “You tell him what it feels like. To get filled by a man who isn’t broken.”
“It feels like… like being alive!” she shrieked.
That was all it took. With a final, deep snarl, he came, pouring into her in hot, pulsing jets. He held himself there, buried deep, as the last tremors ran through him. Bea convulsed beneath him, her own orgasm ripping through her in silent, shaking waves.
He pulled out, spent. Bea collapsed onto the chair, a sweaty, trembling heap. Gunnar stepped back, tucking himself away, fastening his jeans with hands that only now betrayed a slight tremor.
The room was silent except for their ragged breathing. The neon from outside cast a sickly, throbbing light across the floor. He walked to the sink, ran cold water, splashed his face. When he turned, Bea was already pulling her coat on over the ruined lace, her movements shaky but deliberate. She didn’t look at him. She dug into her purse, pulled out a thick fold of cash, and laid it on the counter next to his tattoo machine.
“For the touch-up,” she said, her voice hoarse.
She left without another word. Gunnar listened to her heels click away into the night. He walked to the window, peered through the blind. The sidewalk was empty. Sheriff Moss was gone.
He looked down at the cash. It was twice his usual rate. He picked it up, the bills crisp. He folded them, shoved them into his pocket. His eyes fell on the bear sketch. The animal’s eyes, now fully inked in dark, savage detail, seemed to hold a new knowing. A complicity.
He sat down in his chair, the leather still warm from her body. The smell of sex and fear and sweat was heavy in the air. He stared at his own hands—the hands that held needles, the hands that had just held her down—and for the first time since he’d come back to this town, he felt not like a soldier or an artist, but like a ghost haunting a room he’d built himself.