Beacon Of Love 07 Renaissance

7: Renaissance

C'est la petite mort? C'est la grande mort? Je ne sais pas. None of us can remember what happened after the lightning strike. We slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God. Maybe we ran the full gambit and beat the game of life, whatever that entails. Maybe we all attained true knowledge, selflessness, omnipotence, but by God's grace were allowed to forget divinity and carry on with our lives in the flesh. Maybe it was just science, the lightning rod being ungrounded as it was. Could even be that we died and re-spawned. I'd believe anything now. Between the acid, the molly, the boner pills, the poppers and getting struck by lightning, I wouldn't expect any sympathy from the coroner.

Somehow, though, some way, all three of us woke up in Jacques' bedroom, Jacques spooning me, and me spooning Skipper. The birds were at it again, skwaking up a storm outside. The sun was just rising over the Atlantic. The lighthouse's work was finished, for now at least. It was a bit like waking up from a dream, only the dream felt realer than the morning. It took some getting used to. My old reality was gone forever. Good riddance.

* * *

That June, Skipper and I met up with Jacques again in Provincetown. Traffic was a nightmare. She and I had seen plenty of each other that spring, winning race after race as a new sailing power-team, and celebrating thereafter as only we knew how. But we hadn't seen Jacques since the drug-fueled orgy that changed our lives. I was actually a little nervous. Even holding Skipper's hand, all the guys in P-town hit on me walking down the street, showing off my lotus tattoo and my belly ring. It was my first Pride as a little faggot, just fucking loving it!

Jacques was already at the café drinking a Molson when we got there. We all smiled so wide when we saw each other. Skipper kissed him first, then me.

"You got a tongue ring!" Jacques noticed immediately.

"Yeah, Skipper did it. It's my favorite. Pretty soon my ears will be healed enough to stretch. I can't wait!"

"You've got a long ways to go, and lots of skin yet to penetrate," Jacques mused. "Enjoy every thrill on the ride, mon ami."

"You guys wanna order something?" Skipper suggested.

"No," I replied. "I'm too excited. Let's just go do this now and we can all eat after."

"Wow, I guess if you want it bad enough... You go first."

"My pleasure."

Jacques left some cash on the table and we all walked over to the tattoo shop across the street. Skipper and I had already gone back to get our colors finished. She and I had matching lotuses, she and Jacques had matching phoenixes, and now we were all getting a new tattoo together.

The presumptively lesbian tattoo artist rolled both the sailor knot bracelet from Jacques and the steel chain bracelet from Skipper up my right arm. She shaved my already hairless wrist, then transferred on a wraparound stencil of the rope bracelet all three of us wore. Equal partners.

Even though our real bracelets were white, we each picked a color for one strand of the tattoo. Jacques picked navy blue for Quebec, I picked teal green for the sea, and Skipper picked hot pink, to bring some feminine energy to the party.

This knot couldn't blow away in any storm. It was down where the wrist meets the hand, all the way around low enough that no sleeves would cover it and everyone could see. I got my tramp-stamp for myself--I could cover that up easily enough--but this tattoo was for love, love beyond myself. The world deserved to behold my transformation. This is what Skipper meant when she whispered in my ear. I wanted it bad enough to commit.

Jacques and Skipper got stenciled too, Jacques' bracelet rubbing right up against his existing sleeve of Sailor Jerry tatts, alas there was only one artist, and I had volunteered to go first. I laid my hand down on the armrest palm-up. The woven threads of the rope bracelet resulted in a busy tattoo outline with lots of little lines going this way and that across the most sensitive part of my wrist, right on the thin skin over my veins. Then came the buzz.

"Aye aye, Skipper," I intuitively consented. The tattoo artist looked confused. I smiled and nodded. "I'm ready. Do it."

The pain at first was searing, almost unbearable. Skipper straddled my laps as usual, and I squeezed Jacques' hand with my left, breathing heavily and looking away. Getting tattooed sober was nothing like doing it candy flipping. This was a brand new experience. Alas, I'd bought the ticket, and this was the ride. Once you're inked, you're committed.

"Let go," Jacques advised me.

It worked. I looked back at the needle violently cumming into my flesh. The pain was still there, but it didn't hurt. I chose love instead, and it was just as intense. I closed my eyes and marveled at my beautiful creation.

* * *

Jacques stuck around that summer, teaching an ornithology class at Cape University, which Skipper and I both took. Of course the reading list was wall-to-wall Foucault. In the fall semester, we took a study abroad in Montreal, where we took Jacques' class in sexology at McGill. Strangely, that reading list was mostly about bird-watching. Eat your heart out, Judith Butler.

Like the osprey who mate for life, the three of us would remain mutually committed, albeit not in a way which would preclude us from further drug-fueled orgies. Jacques hosted a bunch at his flat in Saint Catherine, where we got the fuck high and laid all the time.

I thank God for love, for Skipper and for Jacques, for sending a beacon to my ship lost at sea and washing me ashore on that island. I thank God for every tattoo, every ring, plug, and stud by which I'm fortunate enough to be penetrated. I've gotten God only knows how many more tattoos and piercings since that. I love the way they jingle up and down my ears, and more! When people ask me what my tattoos mean, the answer's always the same: LOVE.