NOVEMBER 18, 2002
MY SUMMER WITH THE MOVIE STAR
CHAPTER TWENTY (Continued)
…Ezra wheeled into an Ace parking lot between two crumbum buildings, one of which read, Blood Bank, out front with a sign underneath that said, $25.00 a pint. So there we were in a part of town where all the poor winos go to sell their blood so they can buy more wine.
"Come, Sylvia," he said, as the attendant gave him his ticket and called him Mr.Godland, because he recognized him. "Come with me, he said, taking my hand. "Wearing my initials is your first step toward belonging to me."
What he could be buying me in the slums of L.A. was beyond even my imagination. I was already wearing his initials inside my shoes. Perhaps we were going to some favorite cut-rate jewelry store of the type operated by old Jews in big black hats. I envisioned a chic charm bracelet with a dangling E and a G, or perhaps a ring with his initials and the date inside. Undoubtedly, if I was to receive major jewelry from him, sooner or later I would have to do it. I would have to go all the way, or why should he bother to shower me with gifts? The point is, I wanted to do it with him and, as we left the parking lot, I was beginning to get that warm, tingly feeling down below, starting around my navel, and heading south. Perhaps he would decide we should do it after he bought the jewelry, and I hoped it would be in a clean motel somewhere, not right here in some downtown flophouse. (It could happen in some shack because of his need to hide out from the masses.)
"Here we are," he said, breaking into my speculations, and I looked at the front of the place, expecting to see the black velvet jewelry cases, necklaces and rings, etc. But there weren't any showcases. It was a miserable, tiny cave of a place, and the sign out front read Artistic Tattoos.
He was still holding my hand, sort of leading me in and, of course, I reacted. I started to pull back. After all, I was smart enough to know we weren't going in there to have a rose tattooed on his chest.
"For the last time, Sylvia, do you want to belong to me, or don't you?" He sounded stern, not menacing, but stern.
"Yes, I do," I said.
"Then prove it," he said. "I promise it won't hurt."
"Where will they put it?" I asked.
"Where it won't show." He said.
Open on ECU hypodermic needle. See blue dots form as needle punctures flesh. But we don't know it is flesh because we are too close. See blue dots form letter, "E." Still staying up close, needle begins to puncture letter "G" in red. Fade credits on as needle continues the tattoo. As credit scroll ends, pull back to see needle has tattooed initials E and G on rounded, female buttocks. Cut to girl's head resting on her arms, brown hair flowing softly over girlish, vulnerable shoulders. We don't see her face. Slow,caressing pan down to where a tanned, male hand, wearing a large scarab ring comes into to frame to rest on the right cheek of the girl's butt.
That's the way the Grade B movie would go, and that's just about the way it happened, except for the ring.
Ezra came into the booth while the man did it to me. Some old fart with nicotined-stained fingers, and a gray beard with his lunch caught in it. Ezra Godland supervised the whole deal, just like when I was trying on clothes at Hanson's. He told the man what colors to use, and cautioned him not to make it too large.
As far as the mechanics, the man had me lie down on my stomach on the table after telling me to unzip my jeans. When I was in position, he pulled my jeans down just below my rear, rubbed some alcohol or my left cheek and tattooed me, just like that, like something that happens every day to a girl. He tattooed E.G. in initials about one-quarter inch high, one in red, one in blue. It hurt, but it didn't hurt, if you know what I mean. I was lying there with my butt hanging out with two men looking on, while one man jabbed this needle in over and over. Fast pin pricks and with a certain rhythm to them. O.K., it was sexy. I was squirming around partly because it hurt, and partly because it was sexy. Especially when Ezra started stroking my butt, and whispering, "There, there," like he was calming some terrorized pony. Toward the end of the procedure he was stroking almost my entire butt, across the crack, and everything.
"Don't let her take a bath for twenty-four hours," the man told Ezra, like he was my, well, pimp, if you want to know the truth.
"Thanks," Ezra said, and handed the man two ten dollar bills.
"Don't be such a stranger," the man said.
So, apparently, I wasn't the only human being running around town with E.G. tattooed on her ass. I had this flash of myself, years later, when I would be rich and well-cared for, in a Beverly Hills sauna, perhaps Elizabeth Arden, and counting the E.G.'s on everyone's butt.
No, he didn't take me to a motel or a hotel or his house or anywhere else. He took me home, and dropped me on the street--like a newspaper--exactly where he left me two hours earlier, one block from my house.
(to be continued)
