[ WP ] You run a tattoo parlor . Every couple of weeks the same customer comes in , always requesting the same tattoo - an additional tally mark on an ever-growing cluster of tally marks .

This smell. He's here again. Ready for another. 
 
 The parlor reeks of antibiotic from all the jobs and the fuckers who think they're hard enough to take the occasional full-back or full-frontal tattoos. Thing is that no matter what they smell like coming in, they do n't come out smellin' the same. 
 
 I come in reekin' of Marlboro and leave as a man smellin' cleaner than a Windex factory. Everyone else usually smells like booze'n' ass and leaves the same way as me. 
 
 But this guy? 
 
 Comes in smellin' like I do n't know what, leaves the same way. Asks me to do the same thing every week: give'm another tally somewhere he can remember. Even asks me to go hard and draw blood to make sure he does n't forget it. Short, simple, and I get paid each time. Why he does n't ask me to do a bunch at once, I dunno, but it's his reasons, my time: to each our own. 
 
 He do n't say nothin' and I do n't ask. Not your average Joe, more like your average Jimmy or a Max. Always got some black gloves on, so I know he do n't want the ink on his hands. Maybe he's got somethin' under them gloves that he leaves unmentioned. Who knows? His arms are fair game, though. Line after line. Been doing this for almost two years with near covert operation levels of radio silence between the two of us. 
 
 The first time he walked in, I ca n't forget. Took off his raincoat and shirt once he got in the chair, without a word. Then, right as I walked up to him, `` Tally me.'' Real quiet like, as though he's the only person on a stage and I'm the starstruck crowd. Nothin' smug about it either, just a certainty. You can hardly hear his Aussie accent, though its kinda gravelly. Never looks me in the eye again except the very first time, right when I'm about to start. His eyes are nothing like anyone else's I've seen and I've seen people squirm, smile, frown, all kinds of looks when I'm doing their tats. I do n't see in his eyes what I see in anyone else's or in my mirror. I do n't know what it is and I do n't ask. 
 
 `` Make me remember this.'' And that was that. Black ink and red blood on a rather sensitive spot on his shoulder. I started to go down for another one when he shook his head. `` Done.'' 
 
 He left cash on the counter, exact amount, without me having told him my rates. Even had his shirt and raincoat back on before I could even go on like I usually do about the healthy practices and how not to get an infection. Thought he was a bit of a right prick and quickly forgot about him. 
 
 Come a few weeks later, I see him again and he's got his shirt and jacket off again before I even recognize him. `` Again.'' That was all he said and he does n't even look at me again. His eyes are on his black gloves and his nice black, leather shoes. Strange he'd wear that on a rainy day, but who am I to question some this guy's tastes? I've got Indian words tattooed on the places where you slit your wrists, all across my throat, and where my spine meets my neck. Hypocrite, I am not. 
 
 And again it happens. Cash on the counter, no words. Fast forward another couple of weeks. This guy's strange and I do n't forget him. Does n't say a word, top's off again and it's lookin' like the start to a bad gay porno with how he's been waiting for me. I give him another mark, and as time goes by, you can see the black marks, outlined in red, crawl down his left arm as time flies, with hardly any sound between us. And soon, I switch to his right shoulder and make my way down his right arm. 
 
 It's the same today. But I've reached his elbow last time and I'm done with this arm. So I break nearly two years of silence today. 
 
 `` You want this one on your back?'' 
 
 He shakes his head and grunts, `` Chest.'' The chair is leaned down and he's horizontal as I make yet another mark right above his right pectoral. 
 
 I watch him as he gets up and I do n't make a sound. I see his back for the first time. 
 
 It's absolutely covered in tally marks, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, almost all the way down to his tailbone. Before I can even start a count, and there must be more than a hundred on his back alone, his shirt is on and he's about to leave. 
 
 My throat catches and I open my mouth. Do I ask about them -? 
 
 `` Why do you smell the way you do?'' 
 
 He's opened the door and he has n't left. His smell - I still ca n't place it - rushes into my face with the incoming stream of air, starting to empty the parlor of the antibiotic smell. 
 
 Whatever his name is, the man looks at me once again with those eyes. They're the same as they were two years ago, only now I recognized what I saw in his eyes. 
 
 Nothing specific I could identify with. But more than anything else, his eyes were hard. Harder than diamonds. I could n't see through them, I could n't see him. 
 
 And he opened his mouth. 
 
 `` Sacrifices.'' 
 
 His voice was gravelly, and, despite his monotone, his statement that I did n't know how to interpret was full of something unrecognizable as he eyes were to me two years ago and today. 
 
 His raincoat swept on, even though it was sunny, the man walked out of my parlor. Exact change on my counter, as though it was our usual meeting. It was n't. 
 
 That was the first time I ever asked him anything, when it was n't even what I really wanted to ask him. 
 
 I never saw him again.
