Storm:  Nik said I should intro this, so I’m gonna. *grins*  Nik was doing her data entry stuff last night, so she was ignoring me, pretty well.

(Nikki: *glares at him*)

Well, you were! *pushes hair back over his shoulders* So, anyway, I was thinkin’ about a lot of things, and so I decided to go and get a tattoo. *shows the one on his arm*  This one is cool and all ((it’s a snake wound around a metallic blue Strat)), but I wanted to get something special done because of what I was thinking. *looks down and lowers his voice*  Alright, I might as well tell you.  I was thinking about Dion, and how I feel about him, and I decided that I couldn’t be carrying Illusion’s memory around like a weight around my neck if there was even the SMALLEST chance that he wanted me to be with him.  So I came up with a design – you wouldn’t believe how EASY it was!  And-

(Nikki: *sigh*   Could you just get on with it, please?)

Storm: *glares at her*  Hey, it’s MY story, isn’t it?  So, anyway, I went down to this tattoo shop I remembered from when I was still in Spastique Colon.  A guy named *swallows and looks uncomfortable* Tigra runs it…I always thought he was a cool guy.  At least, I did up until last night! *makes a face and bites his lower lip*  But I’ll let Nik take it from here.  And Dion, if you read this, don’t hate me, okay? *pulls his knees up to his chin and sits down to wait for a reaction*

**NOTE: Thoughts will appear in  =    =.**
 
 

    The blessedly cool air washed over Storm’s heated face as he walked out into the breezy night.  It had been another unbearably hot day, and the dozens of cold drinks and three cold showers he had suffered through hadn’t helped him rid himself of the heat of the afternoon.  =Damn air conditioning,= he thought to himself.  =It has to pick the ONE day of the year that I need it most to go on the fritz.  Oh, well, nothing I can do about it right now, so I might as well forget about it for the rest of the night.=  He stopped for a moment and breathed deeply of the crisp night air, refreshing his senses before he flipped his long raven hair over his shoulder and continued towards the street.  Any thoughts he’d been entertaining about driving there in his silver Camaro were forgotten in the serenity of the quiet neighborhood.  Slipping his keys inside the pocket of his leather coat, he strolled down to the corner, his aqua eyes taking in the stillness of his surroundings, his lithe body gliding confidently over the sidewalk with his long-legged strides.

    He passed a few bars along the way to his destination, and he briefly considered the notion of going in and having a couple of drinks just to see if there was anyone in the crowd who looked familiar.  But somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered the previous few nights he had spent with Dion, and he realized that his heart wasn’t feeling up to dealing with the obvious ‘come-hither’ glances and the even less subtle propositions he would have to endure.  So he continued along his route until he came to the large Gothic structure that was Cobra Tattoo.  The shriek of guitars from a nameless death metal song assaulted his ears as he entered the smoky studio, and he squinted and covered his ears as he pulled the glass door shut behind him.

    “Jesus Christ!  Turn that shit down, would ya?  I haven’t heard anything THAT raunchy in years!”  Somewhere in the back of the room, an unseen employee responded to his request by turning the volume down to a more reasonable level.

    “Thanks, Tigra.  It’s been way too long for me to be able to stomach that screamy stuff.”  He grinned at the tall, purple-haired tattoo artist who was just finishing up a rabbit for the buxom brunette in his chair.  Storm winked at her, causing her to nearly fall onto the floor as she forgot where she was and gaped back at him.  “If you have any 80s stuff you can throw on, though, I’ll quit my bitchin’ and show you what I want done.”

    “Fair enough, bud.”  Tigra smiled back at Storm as he lowered his impossibly long, artwork-covered arm in the direction of the brunette’s back.  The needle whined like a dentist’s drill as he continued filling in the gray of the rabbit’s fur.  “I’m almost done here, and then you can show me what you want me to put on you.  But in the meantime, you can tell me how in the hell you’ve been doing for the last couple of years.  I haven’t seen any of you guys since your last concert.  What was it…back in ’92?  Christ, I don’t know where the time goes.”  He took his foot off the pedal and looked directly at Storm. “I was really sorry to hear about Illusion, man.  What a shitty way to go.”  The needle began its buzz again as Tigra went back to work.

    “It was.”  Storm’s eyes grew sad as he remembered his best friend, and what it was like to be drenched in sweat with him onstage, what it was like to share the rush of the crowd as they screamed for an encore.   Most of all, he couldn’t seem to forget what it was like to be tangled up in that impossibly long, soft cherry-red hair and that slim, beautifully fluid body.  As if he had willed it, an image of Dion’s expressive face as he expertly went down on him crept silently into his mind.  With a determination renewed mostly by the stirrings of lust, Storm shook off his melancholy and remembered why he was there.

    “I’ll always miss him.  But I figure the time has come to lay his memory to rest and get on with living.  So I hope you’re up for a few more hours of torturin’ me with that little bondage toy you call a tattoo needle?”  He nearly laughed aloud as he saw the brunette’s eyes light up (not to mention her legs squeeze together) when he mentioned the word ‘bondage’.  =If it wasn’t for Dion, babe, I might be willing to give you a taste of how the coming of the Storm would affect you,= he grinned to himself.  =But for maybe the first time in my life, I don’t feel like playin’ musical bedbuddies.=  His grin faded as the shock of the thought he’d just had slammed into him with all the force of a freight train.  =My God, I *must* have it bad for the guy if I don’t feel like a meaningless fuck.=  Smirking in self-derision, he turned back to study the sketches lining the walls of the inscence-filled room.

    “I’m *always* up for spending some time catching up with you, Storm.”  Something about the way the leanly muscled artist looked at Storm had his stomach tightening in dread.  But he shook off the feeling as he forced himself to meet Tigra’s wide hazel eyes.  “If the only way I get to see you is to grind obscene patterns into you with a motorized pin, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.  You never bring that pretty mug of yours around here unless you’re drunk.  And then you never make sense, so how am I supposed to carry on a conversation with you?”

    Storm had no idea if Tigra had picked up on his discomfort or not, but it was exactly the right thing to say to put him at ease.  They chatted about mutual acquaintances until the rabbit was filled in and the brunette’s back was cleaned and bandaged.  Storm laughed at her expression as Tigra told her the rules for caring for her new tattoo, then he walked over to the chair she had just vacated and stretched himself out in it.  Tigra had taken her credit card and was telling Storm about a tattoo he had recently designed as the woman walked back towards the chair, eyeing Storm hungrily.

    “Are my keys anywhere around here?” she asked huskily.  Storm looked around him; her keys were nowhere to be seen, so he smiled and shook his head.  She appeared to be trying her damnedest to strike up a conversation, but Tigra stopped her in her tracks by twirling her keyring around his finger.  Sighing, she gave Storm the benefit of one last smoky glance as she took her keys and walked out of the studio.

    “Man, I see that you can still pull the babes with the best of them,” Tigra teased.  “Whether they remember you from Spastique Colon or not, they sure don’t notice much else when you’re around.  It almost makes me want to cut off all my hair and become a monk.”

    “Aw, come on, man.  You know I can’t help the way I look.”  Storm pretended to pout as the bigger man grinned down at him.  “Fine,” he sighed.  “So people like what they see.  Can we talk about my tattoo now?”  He pulled the sketch he had drawn out of his pocket and described how he wanted it to be shaded, and what colors he wanted it to be filled with.  They only thing he didn’t mention to the artist was the motivation that had caused him to want it in the first place.  Tigra listened and nodded his head in understanding, then snapped on a rubber glove and filled the needle’s reservoir with black ink.

    “Aren’t you gonna make a stencil first?” Storm asked.  It *had* been a long time since he’d had his last tattoo done, but the process couldn’t have changed all that much in the last twelve years.

    “Nope, I know exactly what you’re talking about.  All I need for you to tell me is where you want me to put it.”  Tigra smiled at Storm and tested the pedal to make sure it was still receiving an electric current from the battered outlet halfway up the wall.

    Storm looked at him warily.  “Okay, man, but I sure hope you know what you’re doing.  I’m not paying you if it turns out shitty.”  He lifted his hips up and unbuttoned his pants, exposing his sculptured hipbones to the top of his pubic line.  “I want it on my left hipbone, right where my hip meets my stomach.”

    “No problem,” Tigra answered.  “And you know that I stand by my work.  Tell you what, as my personal guarantee that I’ll do an excellent job, I’ll throw in a freebie.  Freehand.  Just pick a design and it’s yours.”

    “Jesus, Tigra!  Can I have a bloody chance to think about it first?!?  I mean, Christ!  I’m gonna have it forever, so I think I’d better be sure that it’s something I really want before you go ink-happy on me!”  Storm sat up and pushed his hair back, not noticing how similarly predatory the look in Tigra’s eyes was to the brunette that had tried to get his attention earlier.  “Can it be anything, or does it have to be on the wall?”

    “Anything you want, Storm.  It can be your own idea, or one of the shop designs.  It’s entirely your call, buddy.”  Storm’s gaze turned toward the grouping of animal designs on the far wall, and Tigra drank in the shape of Storm’s torso as his coat fell open.  =Still as beautiful as ever,= he chuckled to himself.  =And when he realizes that I have no intention of letting him leave here without allowing me the pleasure of his orgasm first, he’ll just have to get used to the idea.=

    “Okay, then.  I want that snarling black panther in the top right corner.  Think it would look good on my other hipbone?  Then I’ll still have a matched set.”  Storm grinned up at Tigra, having no idea in his innocence of what the tattooist had been thinking in his sadistic mind.

    “Then it’s yours.  Now lay back and relax so that I can position this chair to the proper angle.  And I’m sure you already know this, but you’re required to stay perfectly still.  So you may want to choose the most comfortable position you can.”  It was Tigra’s turn to nearly laugh out loud when Storm crossed his arms behind his head and lay on them.  =He is making this altogether too simple for me.=, his passion-driven mind whispered.  =He won’t even know what hit him until I’m on him like a Harley on a hard gravel road.=  Tigra smiled smugly before he stepped on the pedal again and began the transfer of the ink into Storm’s skin.

*******

    Storm could never recall why, but for some reason or other, the sound of a tattoo needle always relaxed him.  He let his mind float free as he thought back to the night where Dion had made him tremble like a leaf in a strong breeze with his yowls and moans of pure enjoyment. =God, I’m surprised that we didn’t wake up the whole flippin’ neighborhood with all the noise we were making!= Storm grinned and closed his eyes as he felt himself swell with the heat of the memory.  =I don’t think I’ve ever came so hard in my entire life.  Jesus!  What the hell is it about Dion that makes you want to cuff him to the wall so that he never leaves?=  His next thought wiped the smile off his face as surely as  if someone had slapped him.  =If he doesn’t want me, that’s it.  I swear to whatever God is listening that I’ll never get close to anyone again.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for complete monogamy, because I can’t even do that myself.  But if I had to wake up every single fucking day of my life knowing that he was with someone else, it would kill me.=  Storm felt his body shake in an involuntary shudder, and he felt the tattoo needle slip a fraction of an inch.  =Uh oh, better change tracks here before I end up with a black line running all the way down my dick.  Okay, happy thoughts, happy thoughts.=  As Storm fell into a dreamlike state, an image came into his mind of Dion’s room, and the three-way he’d been in with Dion and Torin.  For some reason, though, Torin’s face was cloudy in this memory, unfocused.  All he could see was Dion, his eyes closed, his breath coming in gasps and grunts at Torin’s rapid thrusts in and out of his ass.  Storm’s lower abdomen tightened with his arousal as he relived the feel of being sheathed in Dion’s warmth.  He could see himself as if in a dream, digging into Dion’s slender hips as he pounded into him repeatedly, almost sobbing when release finally washed over him.  And Dion’s own orgasm splattering against the back of his thighs as he drove into Storm like a man possessed.  And the hot dampness of Dion’s mouth as he swallowed Storm’s engorgement to the hilt.  And oh, God, if the feelings were any more real, he would scream as he exploded…

    It was the sharpness of Tigra’s teeth that brought him spinning out of his reverie.

*******

    “What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?!?!?”  Storm jerked Tigra’s head up by the hair as he snarled at him, eyes gone to mere aqua slits in rage.  =How the hell could this have happened without me knowing it?= he thought frantically.  =Was I sleeping that deeply that I didn’t even realize what the prick was doing to me?!?= Sparing a brief glance downward, he noted two things: one, his tattoos were both finished and bandaged; and two, he was exposed from his waist to his knees in all his semi-naked glory.  “And how the fuck are you doing this when I can still hear the goddamn needle??”

    “Come on, Storm.  You knew damn well what was going on.  You just won’t admit it.”  Tigra smiled cruelly at Storm as he licked the taste of him off his lips.  “It was a simple matter to rig the needle so it would keep buzzing.  But surely you were awake enough to know that it was no longer touching your skin?  Or are you as much of an airhead as you’re rumored to be?”  He wrapped his hand around Storm’s shaft and began to work it with smooth, practiced motions.

    Storm shoved his hand away roughly, feeling the pain only slightly in his desire to crush Tigra’s artistic fingers to a pulp.  “Fuck you, Tigra.  You can try to explain it any way you like, but you’ll never change the fact that it was against my will.  Tell me something, asshole, is it a tattoo studio you run here, or a rape scene?  Because I’d love to tell everybody we both know about what happened here-“

    “Why, you little slut!”  Tigra snarled.  “You breathe one word of this to anybody, and I’ll tell them that you came on to me like a bitch in heat.  I’ll tell them that you practically *begged* me to blow you because you were whining about not getting it really good lately.  And who do you think they’ll believe?  You, the musician who’s known for fucking anything on two legs? Or me, the low-key businessman who doesn’t stick his nose into anyone else’s affairs?  Hmmm?”

    “You can tell them whatever the hell you want.  I really don’t give a shit.  And you can forget about me paying you, too – without even knowing it, I already fucking did.  I’m outta here!”  Storm yanked up his leather pants and shoved himself into them as he turned to leave.

    “Not so fast, my beautiful boytoy.”  Tigra’s fist slammed into the back of Storm’s head like a wayward missile, and Storm felt his knees buckle as he slid dizzily to the floor.  Tigra wasted no time in pouncing on him with catlike agility.  Before Storm had even opened his eyes, the artist had pulled out a pair of police-issue handcuffs and had run them through the rung at the bottom of the chair.  He struggled as best he could, given the waves of dizziness that were promising to render him unconscious, but Tigra had already locked the cuffs tightly around his wrists.  Helplessness engulfed him as he felt Tigra yank his pants back down and wrap his lips around Storm’s still-semi-erect sex.

    Even knowing that he could do nothing to prevent the sadistic tattooist from swallowing him whole,  Storm gritted his teeth and focused his full concentration on ignoring the movements of Tigra’s mouth and tongue.  A tear rolled down his cheek as he wished with all his might for Dion to know that something was wrong, and come looking for him.  =Please, Di.  Siva.  Anybody!  Come and get me out of here while I can still hold back!  I don’t want to give in to him, but pretty soon I’m not gonna have a choice!  PLEASE!!  ANYBODY!!!  COME AND GET ME AWAY FROM HERE…=

    He grunted as he felt his own orgasm, and closed his eyes in shame when he heard Tigra’s lips smacking as he swallowed every last drop.

***

    As soon as Tigra uncuffed him, Storm got up and pulled his pants back up, carelessly shoving the part of himself that had betrayed him to one side before zipping himself up.  All he was thinking about was getting home and scrubbing the artist’s stench off of him.  But there was one thing he was deadly certain of - right now, he had no idea where, or no idea how, but he would get his revenge if it was the last thing he ever did on this earth.  He walked to the door without looking at Tigra and made it out into the street before the shakes set in, wracking his body and turning his stomach until he thought he was going to be sick on the sidewalk.  It took the very last of Storm’s strength to call a cab to take him home.  Once he made it there, he collapsed into a heap on the bed and finally gave in to the blackness that had been threatening to overtake him.