Gentrification Ch. 01

The bodega's facade is weathered brick. It's wedged on a triangular lot, on the inside of a gentle curve of the street it faces. The awkward layout combined with the inarguable convenience of its location has allowed it to prosper, making it as unattractive to developers and as it is indispensable to the local residents. It's older than most of those residents, having survived decades, through multiple waves of gentrification and decline.

Older than most, but not older than the two old men sitting on the weathered bench just outside the entrance, sipping coffee and watching the neighborhood go about its business.

"I dunno, Eshwar. I grew up on the instant stuff." says one, a clean shaven white man. His sparse, snowy hair is carefully combed. He wears an old bomber jacket over a blue button-up cotton shirt. One leg of his khaki pants is tied in a neat knot where the corresponding limb ends just below the knee. A pair of battered crutches are tucked in their usual spot behind the bench.

"It is only for you, my friend," replies the gaunt Sikh sharing the bench with him, "that I make my son stock a can of those awful grounds."

The vet grins and takes another sip. His turbaned, mustachioed companion chuckles and raises his own ceramic mug to his nose. The aroma released by the escaping steam speaks to fresh-roasted beans, recently ground. He enjoys the odors for a moment before taking his own sip. They sit in companionable silence for a while, watching the neighborhood move around them.

It's fairly late on a Sunday morning, and the mix of people moving past the old men begins to shift from neighbors they trade nods with to include more young urbanites. Sophisticates descending from their downtown condos to do a little shopping in the esoteric mix of businesses the neighborhood currently hosts. The old men, and perhaps the bodega itself, understand that this is the beginning of a new surge in gentrification. Some of the downtown people will decide to relocate to the area, because they enjoy the atmosphere.

A little bubble of their own reality will follow them, and those like them, and a little of what they are will mix into the local flavor. Then too many will come, drawn by the whiff of the familiar in the scent of the exotic. Eventually, seeing the demographics shift, outside businesses will begin to buy out the local shops. Soon rents will rise, and the locals will move somewhere more affordable as the flood of urbanites continues. Eventually the neighborhood will be as bland as can be, and the cycle of decay will begin. The old men know this, but they understand that nothing will prevent the circle from completing again, so they don't talk about it. They just sit and sip and watch and enjoy the sunlight on old bones.

A young woman walks by slowly, peering in shop windows as she explores the street. She smiles at the old men, who both nod to her as she goes by. Eventually, their view of her is blocked by the curve of the street, and the veteran addresses the Sikh.

"I know we don't usually comment, and I dunno how you people... uh..."

Eshwar chuckles. "Your ignorance is willful. Do you think I am blind to beauty?"

The old vet just grins in reply, and they continue to sip their drinks.

----

Emily smiles at the two old men sitting in front of the little store. This neighborhood is so amazing! They look like an advertisement for, oh, something diverse.

She should really look into apartment prices around here, it's so lovely and... *ethnic*. All the little shops!

She pauses in front of one, just around the bend from the store. The window is filled with hundreds of small squares of white paper, and each one has a little drawing on it. Birds and faces and buildings and just shapes. She doesn't see any price tags, and there's nothing naming the shop, just a 'Come In, We're Open!' sign tucked into the bottom of the front window.

Emily pushes the door open, setting off a tinkling of chimes. The inside of the shop is a little dim after the brightness of the morning sun, and she gives her eyes a moment to adjust. Looking around, there are more drawings tacked to almost every flat surface, most of them just stuck in place with a thumbtack or a piece of scotch tape. One corner of the store is taken up by a big old barber chair, the kind that reclines and elevates so men can get a shave. There's a counter with a blackboard behind it, listing numbers next to a list of prices.

"Good morning, then, miss, can I help you?"

Emily starts, and jerks away from the voice. Almost at her elbow is a tall, striking, dark-skinned woman, dreadlocks pulled back into a sort of ponytail. She's wearing a smock over street clothes.

"Oh! I'm sorry! Uh, I just saw all the pictures in the window, and I couldn't figure out if you're selling them or... um, what do you sell? I'm Emily."

The woman smiles. Her teeth are very white. "Hello, then, Emily. Call me Ada. I do tattoos."

"Ohhh! I get it now!" All the little pictures make sense, and the numbers on the blackboard must be sizes, or maybe times, followed by prices. "I'm sorry for bothering you, I'm not really a tattoo sort of person. Do you mind if I just look at the drawings for a little bit?"

The woman smiles again. "Of course. You never know when you might be inspired. I think a little ink would suit you. I'll be in the back if you need me."

"Thank you!"

Emily watches her vanish through a door she hadn't noticed. The woman moved so quietly! She looks around, and walks closer to a wall, and begins examining the pretty drawings in minute detail.

----

"I usually lock up the shop for lunch. Do you want me to leave you here?"

Emily blinks. How long had she been looking at the drawings? She's reluctant to stop.

"Oh if it's no trouble, I'd love to keep looking. Your art is so good."

The artist looks at her for a few moments, an odd expression on her face. "One moment."

She steps into the back room, then returns a few seconds later, holding something like a large photo album.

"Come over here, you'll want to sit down to look at this, it's too heavy to just hold up."

The tattoo artist steps over to the barber chair, and Emily follows. She watches as the older woman kicks a lever under the chair, and it settles lower with a hydraulic hiss. Another lever un-reclines it, and she waves Emily into it. Once she's seated, Ada gives her the surprisingly heavy album.

"Take all the time you want. These are some of my favorite pieces. If you finish with it just leave it on the counter. I should be back in about twenty minutes, are you okay being locked in here?"

"Oh of course, thank you so much for taking this much trouble for me."

Ada waves a long-fingered hand. "As much as you're looking, I half expect you to talk yourself into a tattoo before you leave today."

Emily grins. "I doubt it, but I appreciate this so much."

"All right then, I'll be back soon."

The door clicks shut with a tinkle of chimes as she steps into the sunlight, and Emily hears the lock slide home a moment later. Adjusting the heavy book in her lap, she flips it open to the first drawing. It's an abstract, unlike the art on the walls.

Emily shudders involuntarily. She's unable to express why, but the image almost immediately repulses her. Swallowing a sudden burst of bile, she quickly flips the page. The next image is much better, but still offputting. The next is lovely, and warm. The next prickly.

She slowly works her way deeper into the album, occasionally moving more swiftly when she finds an upsetting shape. For the most part, they're delightful.

----

Ada pauses as she passes the bodega. "Hi, Eshwar. Where's Ray this morning?"

"Good afternoon, Miss Ada. He is here, just answering a call of nature. How are you this lovely day?"

"It's slow, but Sundays usually are. I've got a possible customer looking through some designs in the shop."

"Very good! And how is your brother?"

"Oh, you know Carl, he never changes. He's supposed to stop by later, I'll tell him to come say hi."

"Excellent, excellent. Well, I will not keep you from your customer. Do you have a good feeling about them?"

"I'll know if I do here in a minute."

With a wave goodbye, she passes around the bend and unlocks her shop."

----

"Well, I guess I *do* have a good feeling about you."

Ada enters her shop to find Emily staring down at a page in the album. Her mouth is slightly agape, and her unblinking gaze reveals eyes that track over the pattern in front of her, over and over.

The artist walks up and looks at the design the shorter girl has chosen. She whistles. "Well, you don't fuck around, do you?"

She presses two fingers against the bottom of the girl's jaw, first closing her mouth, and then raising her head, forcing her to break her line of sight away from the design. She stares at Ada.

"So," Ada says, "this is the design you want?"

"... yes."

Ada closes the book and heaves it off of the girl's lap, turning to place it on the counter. Turning back to Emily, she gently tugs the dazed girl's hand until she stands up.

"Turn around."

Emily does nothing for a moment, then slowly turns until she's facing away. Ada reaches forward and lifts the hem of the girl's shirt, exposing the flawless expanse of the pale skin of her back. She's wearing high-waisted pants. Ada places her palm against the girl's spine, fingers aimed downward, and slips her hand into the waistband.

Her fingers slip downward against the unresisting girl's skin until they discover the top of the cleft of her buttocks. Pulling them back slightly, she presses with the tips of her fingers just above the crack, and whispers in Emily's ear, "You want it right here?"

"... yes."

"Take off your pants."

She steps back from the girl and watches the show. Emily is wearing fairly demure panties, but they shouldn't pose a problem during the inking. Ada steps around her to the chair and begins pulling levers. The leather contorts and clunks into a new, unlikely configuration, and she leads Emily onto it. The girl straddles a raised hump and leans forward as the artist presses against her spine. The result is that the globe of Emily's pale ass is effectively hanging in space while she leans against a support, her legs drawn forward and resting in a pair of valleys designed for that purpose.

Ada gently runs her hand down Emily's back and gives her ass a little squeeze. The girl starts slightly, and shakes her head.

"Wh... what is... what are..."

Ada walks over to the counter, opens the album, and unclips the design that had so fascinated the girl. Emily, meanwhile, is starting to extricate herself from the chair.

"What.. did you..."

Ada walks over to face her. "You said you wanted a tattoo."

"Tattoo? No... no, I..."

"You said you wanted this tattoo." Ada holds the design in front of the young girl's face.

"... yes"

"You want me to mark your flesh with this."

"... flesh"

"Tell me what you want."

"... tattoo"

"Are you sure?"

"... please... tattoo..."

"Will you pay?"

"... pay... i will pay."

"Will you pay forever?"

"... forever..."

"What will you do?"

" ... forever... pay you forever..."

"Will you pay me with your money?"

"... yes"

"Will you pay me with your flesh?"

"... flesh..."

"Tell me."

"... my money... my flesh..."

"Your mind."

"... what..."

"You will pay me with Emily. If you pay me with Emily, if you give up Emily, I will mark your skin with this. It will be part of you. Is that what you want?"

"... i..."

"Choose."

"... i..."

"Do you want to be Emily, or do you want this on your skin?"

"... i..."

"Choose."

"..."

"... tattoo."

----

"Hello, boys. Still sunning yourselves like a pair of lizards, I see."

Ray grins at the big man. "Hiya Carl, been a while. You here to see Ada?"

"Yup. Got some family business to inflict on her."

"Ah, but family is such a blessing!" says Eshwar.

"Say that after you've helped my mom move her piano collection for the fiftieth time, Esh. I'll try to stop by and catch up later, fellas."

They nod to the big man as he heads away, towards his sister's shop.

----

"Hoo, caught one, did you?"

Ada finishes hugging her brother and steps back over to her stool, preparing to put the finishing touches on Emily's new tattoo.

"More like she caught herself. Look at which one she picked."

He steps over to the girl's head. Ada has taped the design to a floor lamp and drug it into Emily's field of view. The unblinking girl is drooling a little. Carl studies the design.

"Merciful Christ."

"Right?"

He takes a closer look at her face. "She's a pretty one, too."

He runs a thick thumb along her slack lower lip for a moment, and then slips it inside her warm mouth. He bends close to her ear and whispers, "Suck."

After a moment, her lips tighten around him, forming a seal, and her cheeks cave inward slightly as she begins to suckle his thumb. Glancing down to where his sister is working, just above the crack of the girl's pale ass, he sees she's almost done.

"Well," he says, freeing his thumb with an audible pop, "good catch, either way."

"Thanks. So what do you need? You were cagey on the phone."

"Guess."

She sighs. "God, no, I can't take another weekend wasted helping that woman rearrange her house for the thousandth time."

"She's your mother."

"She's *your* mother, too!"

"Yeah but she knows guilt trips don't work on me. I'm just the messenger."

"Ugh."

The buzzing of the tattoo gun is the only noise for a few minutes as Ada finishes her work.

Once the tattoo is complete, save the final stroke, she sits back with a sigh. Then she looks up at her brother with a crafty look in her eye. "I'll tell you what..."

He laughs. "Ohhhhh, no. You can't talk me into taking your place up there. She drives me nuts."

"Hear me out. You take the bullet for me..." she says, idly pulling down the back of Emily's panties to reveal more of the girl's ass to her brother, "... and you can have this one."

Carl is silent for a moment. "And by 'have', you mean?"

Ada draws a finger where the missing stroke belongs in Emily's tattoo. The girl shudders.

"By 'have', I mean you'll quicken her. Just make sure she sends me a few thousand."

Carl is silent for a much longer moment. Finally, he says, "Dammit."

Ada claps her hands and laughs. "Sucker!"

"Oh shut up and let's get it done."

Still laughing, Ada gets up and does a shuffling little victory dance as she disappears into the back room. Carl stares at the body of the girl straddling the chair, frowning, until his sister reappears. Seeing his face, she says "Oh cheer up. Just think about what you'll do to this one."

He grunts and takes the small knife and dish his sister hands him. Slashing his thumb lightly, he dribbles a dozen drops of blood into the tiny bowl, then pinches the cut together and mumbles a few words under his breath. When he releases his skin, it is clean and unmarked, with no evidence remaining of the wound.

Ada takes the dish from her brother, and carefully loads a different, sterile needle into her gun. Using a special cartridge made just for the purpose, she mixes her brother's blood with a drops drops of dark, swirling ink and reloads the gun.

The buzzing of the device fills the room again, and Ada expertly completes the final stroke of the tattoo. She rolls her stool out of the way, and Carl approaches, and carefully places the fingertips of his left hand just so over the complex shape inked into the girl's skin. When he's satisfied with the placement, he lowers his thumb to touch the blood-infused final stroke his sister just finished inking.

The entire design flares brightly for a moment, and then fades, until no trace of it remains on Emily's unmarked skin. The girl convulses, and begins to gasp as though she can't get air. The siblings ignore her struggles, Ada retrieving the paper with Emily's design on it and returning it to the album, and Carl walking to the front of the shop and looking out the window at the lowering sun. Emily eventually stops thrashing and just lies limp in the chair.

Ada says, "She'll be out for at least an hour. Dinner? My treat."

Carl nods. "Sure. What are you in the mood for?"

"I don't know, lets just walk and see what we find."

"Works for me."

Ada looks around the shop as they leave, double checking that all is as it should be. After a moment, she walks over to the chair Emily still straddles, bends over, and picks up the girl's pants from where they lie crumpled on the floor. She folds them neatly and lays them on the counter. Satisfied that everything is in order, she joins her brother outside and locks the door behind her.

----

Walking back from dinner in the twilight, they pass the bodega. The bench is empty.

"Ray and Eshwar packed it in."

"Yeah, I saw them earlier. Those guys don't ever change."

"You know Eshwar is bonded to the building, right?"

"I did *not* know that. I guess he really *doesn't* change, then. What about Ray?"

"I'm not sure, but I heard him talking about his leg one time."

"Yeah?"

"Said he lost it in the 'Great War'".

"As in World War *One*?!"

"That was my reaction. I didn't say anything."

"Hunh. I've never picked up a glimmer off of either of them."

"Yeah well they were old when we were in diapers, if I'm right. They might be a little out of our league."

"Do they know about you?"

"Ray once said something about liking having my shop around. Something about slowing down gentrification."

"Well, you do tend to attract the primary culprits. And they don't tend to move in afterward."

"Just so."

Ada unlocks the door to her shop. The two of them walk in to find a very confused girl trying to put her pants back on.

----

The girl is startled by the door opening, stumbling until she falls to her hands and knees, her pants wrapped around her calves. She looks up to see the tattoo artist and Owner walk in.

"Wha..." she says, then clears her throat. "What happen... ed. To. me."

"She came around pretty quick."

Owner doesn't reply, just looks at her for a moment as she struggles to get back to her feet.

Then he speaks. "Stay on all fours."

She stops struggling, and just rests on her hands and knees. "What..."

"Be quiet."

She closes her mouth, and her desire to talk drains away.

Owner turns to the Ada, and says, "I'm still not convinced this is worth an entire weekend with mother."

"Deal's a deal, brother mine. Want to take her for a spin? I kinda want to watch."

He grunts in reply, staring at the girl. "Take your pants back off, and stand up."

With a fluid grace she was unable to command moment before, Emily slips her calves out of the tangle of her clothing and rises to her feet. Tears begin to roll down her cheeks, though she makes no sound.

"You may speak."

"*What did you do to me?!*" she shrieks, causing both siblings to wince.

"Indoor voice, please. Tell me your name."

She opens her mouth to answer, but closes it after a moment and begins to sob.

"Calm down, and relax."

Peace floods her, and she draws a shuddering breath as her emotions come back under control.

"The reason you can't remember your name is that you sold it to my sister, here. Do you remember where you live?"

The girl mutely shakes her head.

He looks at his sister. "Everything?"

"You saw the pattern she picked."

He nods and turns back to the girl. "Do you remember why you sold yourself?"

"I... So she would draw it on me."

"It?"

"The picture."

"So she did, and I quickened it. Do you know what that means?"

Another negative shake.

"What is my name?"

She speaks without hesitation. "Owner."

"Have I ever told you that?"