"Hold it open for the man."
She tried to do as he said. She held her lower lip open and exposed.
"Good, that's better." He turned to the man sitting in front of the woman and handed him a piece of paper. "This is what I want." A crooked smile flashed across the tattooist's face and he chuckled.
"Sure mister. But you know that inner lip tattoos don't always fade after a year or two. Most do, but this one's gonna be part of her from now on. This is serious shit."
"That's exactly what we want. Can you do it, just like that?" the man in the suit asked.
"Oh yeah, but it's going hurt like hell. This is a sensitive spot." The tattooist -- he liked to think of himself as an artist -- glanced back and forth from the slip of paper to the inside of the lower lip the woman was still holding open for him. She hadn't said anything since they'd been escorted into this back room of the tattoo parlor in a seedy part of the city.
"I know. And don't worry about anything hurting like hell. She kind of likes it that way." The smile returned to the face at this information. He taped the slip of paper to a lamp that hung over the woman's head and began readying the equipment.
The man in the suit leaned over to the woman and spoke quietly to her. "This is for us, you know. We want you marked. We want to know that whenever someone looks in that secret place, they'll know all about what you are. Of course it's going to hurt -- he said it would. But you'll take it. You always do."
She looked over at him. She knew she looked scared, but she also know that her being scared was exactly what he wanted. Him and his friend. She was about to say something when he put his finger to his mouth. "Shhh. We've been over this before. It's going to happen, and there's no need to wait any longer." So she said nothing, just sat there exposing her inner lip.
The tattoo artist was ready to start, and explained how things would go. She listened, nodded, and held her lip open as the buzzing of the machine began.
He was right. It did hurt like hell. Tears formed in her eyes and the beginnings of a whimper came from her throat. After a few minutes, the artist pulled back and said, "I think she's about to let go of the lips. Her hands are shaking and this isn't going to be as good as it should be if we don't hold this steady."
"What do you suggest?"