Chapter 8: The Drunken Bet
The days after Bea bled together into a dull, metallic rhythm. The shop’s bell chimed for regular clients—a biker wanting a serpent wrapped around his forearm, a college kid with a poorly translated Sanskrit phrase. Gunnar worked with a focused, silent efficiency, his mind a blank slate under the buzz of the needle. The crumpled bills from Bea sat in his cash drawer, a tactile reminder that felt heavier than the rest.
He was sketching late again, the bear now part of a larger scene, a forest of sharp lines and dark shadows, when the night’s quiet was shattered. Not a knock, but the jarring jangle of the bell, followed by laughter—high, unsteady, and familiar.
Jenny Maeve practically fell through the door, one heel catching on the threshold. She was a whirlwind of synthetic cherry scent and tequila fumes, her dress—a tight, fire-engine red number—straining over her generous curves. Clinging to her arm, looking like a startled bird pulled into a hurricane, was Marla Krawczyk. The librarian’s usual cardigan was gone. Instead, she wore a simple, sleeveless black dress that revealed surprisingly toned arms. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated, and she held a half-empty bottle of cheap silver tequila like a lifeline.
“Gunny-bear!” Jenny crowed, sloshing the liquid in the bottle. She swayed, catching herself on the counter. “Look what I found wandering the stacks! Marla was just… cataloging my assets.” She giggled, a wet, drunken sound.
Marla smiled, a slow, tipsy unfurling. “She said you drew bears. I like bears.”
“We’ve been talking,” Jenny announced, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial shout. “About you. About this place. About the… services rendered.” She waggled her eyebrows dramatically. “Bea Moss can’t keep her mouth shut when she’s had two glasses of pinot, you know.”
A cold tension settled in Gunnar’s shoulders. He said nothing.
Jenny pushed off the counter and stumbled toward the tattoo chair, running a hand over the cracked leather. “We made a bet.” She turned, her gaze landing on him with a drunken intensity. “On the way over.”
Marla took a swift gulp from the bottle, coughed, and handed it to Jenny. “A silly bet,” she said, but her eyes, now locked on Gunnar, held nothing silly in them.
“Whoever screams loudest,” Jenny slurred, hiking her dress up her thighs and swinging a leg over the chair. She settled herself backward, straddling it like a saddle, her dress bunched around her hips. “When you go balls-deep. Gets free ink for a year.” She patted the chair. “Marla’s shy. Needs convincing. But I think she’s secretly a fucking dragon, don’t you?”
Marla’s face flushed. She didn’t deny it. She just stared at Jenny’s position, then at Gunnar, a raw hunger breaking through the alcohol and the librarian’s reserve. It was a look he’d seen in the desert, in the eyes of men who’d gone too long without water.
“This isn’t that kind of shop,” Gunnar said, his voice low. It was a weak protest, and they all knew it. The air was already charged, thick with the smell of their perfume and sweat and the sweet, toxic tequila.
“Bullshit,” Jenny laughed. “We saw Moss’s cruiser parked down the street last week. We know what kind of shop it is.” She leaned forward, her cleavage straining against the red fabric. “My bet’s on me. I’m a yeller. Always have been. Marla here… she’s a biter. A quiet one.” She reached behind her, fumbling with the zipper of her dress. “Come on, Gunny. We’re paying customers. In a manner of speaking.”
He watched, a stone statue, as she struggled with the zipper. Marla moved then, stepping forward with surprising steadiness. “Let me,” she murmured, her voice suddenly clear. Her fingers, usually dusted with library paste, were deft. She pulled the zipper down Jenny’s spine in one smooth motion. The dress gaped open. Jenny shrugged it off her shoulders, letting it pool at her waist. She wore no bra. Her breasts were full, her nipples already tight and pebbled.
“See?” Jenny said, arching her back. “Customer’s ready.”
Marla’s hands didn’t leave Jenny’s skin. She traced the line of Jenny’s spine, then let her palms slide around to cup Jenny’s breasts from behind. She pressed her body against Jenny’s back, looking over her shoulder at Gunnar. “She’s right,” Marla whispered, her librarian’s cadence gone, replaced by a throaty directness. “I am a biter. And I want to see if you make her scream first.”
That was the match to the fuel. Gunnar felt the last thread of resistance snap. He stood, the chair scraping back. He didn’t bother with pretense. He unbuckled his belt, the sound loud in the humming silence. Jenny’s eyes dropped to his hands, a triumphant smile spreading on her lips.
He walked over, his shadow falling over them both. He didn’t touch Jenny. He looked at Marla. “You first.”
Marla’s breath hitched. She nodded, a quick, nervous jerk of her chin. She released Jenny and stood, her own hands going to the hem of her black dress. She pulled it up and over her head in one swift motion. She stood naked except for a pair of simple white cotton panties. Her body was leaner than Jenny’s, pale and taut with a nervous energy.
“On the table,” Gunnar said, pointing to his workbench.
Marla obeyed, hoisting herself onto the clean, stainless steel surface. The metal was cold against her skin; she flinched, then settled, leaning back on her elbows. Her heart was hammering, a visible pulse in her throat.
Jenny watched, her own arousal forgotten for a moment, mesmerized. “Look at you,” she breathed, a mix of jealousy and admiration in her voice.
Gunnar stepped between Marla’s spread knees. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and tore them down her legs. She was already wet, her cunt glistening in the low neon light bleeding through the window. He didn’t wait. He didn’t kiss her. He positioned himself and pushed into her in one firm, unceremonious stroke.
Marla’s head snapped back, a sharp gasp tearing from her lips. Her eyes flew open, locked on the ceiling. It wasn’t a scream. It was a choked, guttural sound of shock and sudden, overwhelming fullness. She was tight, clenching around him with a virgin-like intensity.
“Fuck,” she whispered, her legs coming up to wrap around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back.
He fucked her on the cold steel table with a steady, punishing rhythm. The table rattled with each thrust, the bottles of ink clinking together. Marla’s breaths came in short, sharp pants. She was silent except for the wet, rhythmic slap of their bodies meeting. Her hands scrabbled for purchase on the slick metal. Then, her eyes found Jenny, who was watching, her own hand now tucked between her legs, rubbing frantic circles over her lace-covered clit.
“Louder,” Jenny urged, her voice husky. “You have to be louder than me, remember?”
That seemed to break something in Marla. A dam of restraint held for decades burst. A moan, long and low, built in her chest and erupted. “Oh, God… oh, fuck… right there,” she chanted, her hips rising to meet his thrusts. “It’s so deep… you’re so fucking deep.” Her politeness was incinerated. “Don’t stop! Make me scream, you bastard! Make her lose!”
Gunnar obliged. He shifted his angle, driving upward. Marla’s back arched off the table, a ragged, piercing shriek tearing from her throat. It echoed off the walls, raw and uninhibited. He felt her walls clamp down on him in violent, rippling waves. She came with a force that shook her entire body, her scream dissolving into sobbing, breathless gulps of air.
He pulled out of her, slick and spent. She collapsed onto the table, a trembling, sweaty mess.
Before the echo of Marla’s scream had faded, Jenny was scrambling off the chair, her dress falling completely away. “My turn,” she hissed, her face flushed with competitive lust. She pushed him back toward the tattoo chair. “You think that was loud? You haven’t heard anything.”
She shoved him down into the seat. He landed with a heavy thump. Jenny didn’t straddle him. She turned her back to him, bending over, gripping the arms of the chair, presenting herself to him. “Come on, Gunny. Fuck me from behind. Let the whole damn town hear who wins this bet.”
Her cunt was soaked, her folds glistening. He entered her in one smooth motion. She was looser, warmer, accepting him with a hungry, practiced ease. The second he was fully sheathed, she howled. It was a loud, theatrical, continuous sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure.
“YES! FUCK YES! RIGHT THERE, YOU BIG BASTARD!”
She met every thrust backward, grinding against him, her ass slapping against his abdomen. She was a conductor of her own noise, screaming curses, praise, nonsense. “Deeper! Harder! Oh god, I’m gonna come! I’M GONNA COME SO FUCKING HARD!”
She did. Her body shook, her screams reaching a crescendo that sounded genuinely painful. She milked him, wrung him dry, until his own release was ripped from him, a hot rush into her claiming depths. She kept yelling through it, a victorious, wordless bellow of triumph.
Silence crashed down. The only sounds were their heaving breaths and the hum of the fridge. Jenny stayed bent over for a moment, then slowly straightened up, a satisfied, wobbly smile on her face. She turned, not bothering to cover herself. “Told you,” she panted, wiping sweat from her brow. “I’m a yeller.”
Marla had pushed herself up on the workbench. She looked wrecked, gloriously so. A slow, dazed smile spread across her face. “You win,” she conceded, her voice hoarse. “But… I want a rematch.” Her eyes found Gunnar’s. “Soon.”
They dressed in a silence that was now comfortable, intimate. Jenny counted out a wad of cash from her clutch, twice the standard rate, and laid it on the counter next to Marla’s smaller, neater stack.
“For your discretion,” Jenny said, winking. “And your… artistry.”
They left together, arms linked, supporting each other, their laughter floating back on the night air before the door clicked shut.
Gunnar sat in the tattoo chair, the leather still warm and damp. The smells of sex and tequila and two different perfumes mixed with the scent of ink. The money sat on the glass. He looked at the bear on his sketchpad. The animal’s eyes seemed to glare back at him from the paper jungle, no longer just savage, but weary. Complicit. Another ghost in the room he’d built. He listened to the empty street, waiting for the sound of Sheriff Moss’s cruiser that didn’t come. The neon bled, and the silence pressed in, heavier than before.