The Intercessor

            He folded his slacks, then crouched to lay them atop his loafers.  His shirt was next. He fumbled with the buttons like a man with no fingers. Next, he pulled off his undershirt, folding and adding  it to the neat stack at his feet. He crossed his arms to fend the chill, then looked to the large man tending him, a man the size of an NFL defenseman.

            “Everything,” the big man huffed, “means everything.”

            He pulled off his socks then, noticing the lines the elastic made on his calves. He tugged at the lint on his toenails. He glanced at the giant who nodded once in confirmation, then he removed even his underwear. He was naked and pale, stark white in the white tiled stairwell.

            The guard stood out from the void, a dark and menacing presence.

They shared the stairwell with a wisp of a woman who was drooped over the bottom two stairs. She, too, was naked, but wrapped in a ratty wool blanket. The stench on her--vomit, alcohol, her own waste--was stronger than the smell in the stairwell. She lay unconscious and barely breathing.

The big man stepped closer, examining the naked man’s jaw, temples, and the contours of his neck. The inspection continued to a new low point of humiliation: “Bend over and spread your ass cheeks.”

He blanched, then glanced again at the woman, again at the man now squatting behind him, then complied.

The big man had him show the soles of his feet, had him open wide and say ‘ah,’  and even asked if he would fill a cup for him. It seemed ludicrous, for the cup was just some paper cup the brute had found on the stairwell floor. Again the naked man complied.

The big man peered into the cup, then tossed it aside. He growled and looked down on the naked man, squinting. “You daft? Glasses too, and the grill.”

Without even his glasses, the naked man truly felt exposed. He snapped them flat and set them on the pile of clothes. He confirmed the woman on the stair remained unconscious before popping out his false front teeth. He shivered thinking of that partial plate being exposed in this place, and he took time to tuck it into a fold of his shirt. “It’ll be there when I get back?”

“Sure,” the big man shrugged, then gestured to the thick door behind him, now ajar.

The naked man picked up the girl and made to follow, but the doorman swung his massive arm like a crossing guard, slowly and gracefully, but with authority. “Leave the blanket.”

As if it could get no more awkward, he was now forced to hold her against him, her flesh against his own. It  was once what he had always wanted, but tonight it made him retch. She was caked in filth. He hefted her, limp and bony, higher against his chest and carried her across the threshold.

They were refugees seeking asylum, moving from searing white to a dim and painfully colorful vault.   Graffiti had exploded all over the walls and floor. Every surface was marked with crazy colors, intricate designs, signs and wonders. Slack jawed, he turned a full circle, juggled the girl more closely in his arms and wondered aloud, “What is this place?”

“My studio,” a woman said, stepping from a dark corner. She became gradually distinct from _____________. Beautiful, ethereal, smiling at him warmly. She was as wildly marked as the rest of the room. As she drew closer, he realized that she, too, was naked, that all the patterns and images on her were elaborate tattoos. Only her face was unadorned. “Yes? You like it? I did them all myself.”

This seemed impossible. The intricacy, the pain, the unlikely dexterity it would take to reach some of the places she claimed to have inked herself. The topography of her body was skillfully incorporated in a wild gyration of every style of tattoo work he had ever seen. Though no expert, he knew her work when he saw it. He was coming to believe that it could all be her handiwork.

He was so studious, he was shocked to hear the noise at his back. The big man had left and closed the door behind him. It shut with a ‘thud,’ and for only that moment he was able to take his eyes off the exotic woman..

She cleared her throat and covered her nose with a knuckle. “Please, put her over there.”

He laid her to rest by the door, arranging her into what he hoped was a comfortable position. He stood, watching her body crumple to lie flat on the floor like a rag doll.

“Intercessor, huh?”

“What?” he turned back to the tattooed woman, again conscious of his nakedness. He held his hands in front of his manhood.

“Your introduction. You said in your call that you’re her Intercessor?”

He cleared his throat but could not find the words. This was too important. It had to work. He would do anything--he was doing everything he could think of--and it had to work.

“Oh, don’t be so awkward,” she chuckled. “You’re as white as a sheet. Relax. We’re in our natural form.”

As his eyes adjusted he could make out a couch and kitchenette in the shadows. A light shined down on a drafting table that had been consumed with graffiti. Another light illuminated a dentist’s chair with appliance trays nearby. She turned and walked toward it, her back to him.

When she came into the circle of light, he gasped. Her back was cleft wide open, exposing the bones of her spine. So beautiful, yet so horrible. He did a double take, recognizing it then as amazing, photorealistic tattoo work.

“Take a seat,” she ordered, “let’s talk this out.”

He approached the chair and studied it, end to end. It was upholstered with black rubber, and a number of leather straps hung from the arms, head and foot of it. He thought of the cruel things that might happen in this place.

When he did not sit, she did, reclining on her side to face him. She pointed to a stainless steel stool nearby.

He sat on it, suddenly aware of how his testicles came to rest on the cold metal seat. He turned some out of modesty.

“Intercessor… I’ve never heard that before,” she smiled. “You’re speaking in tongues, then? In the dialect of your deity?”

“No…I…”

“Ah, regardless. You’re speaking for your friend, am I right?”

“Yes,” he said, trying to think of how to begin. The stripping, this room, and now her sprawled in her otherworldly glory--he was giving it his best. “She can’t ask for anything right now.”

“Toasted?”

“And worse,” he said.

She propped her head on one hand. The other hand gestured him on, from her hip. “So…intercede,” she said.

Her arm was draped over the back of a massive alligator tattoo. This image morphed into the skin of a rocket ship across her abdomen. Vines of all colors pushed through the rocket’s heat shields and burst with bouquets of flowers over her chest. It was eclectic but it flowed over her every curve in a beautiful mosaic.

            The Intercessor kept pulling his gaze back to her spellbinding eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s all a little much.”

            “It’s fine, gawk all you want. There’s a lot to see.”

            He tried not to take the invitation. “Thank you for meeting with us,” he mustered.

            “And why are we meeting?”

            “My…my friend. She needs a new…life. You’re the best there is. Everyone says so. We have money, lots of it. Money is no--”

            “Shhh,” she had slid her hand from the alligator to touch her lips. “Don’t speak to me of money. Not even in the womb of my lead room.”

            He glanced around. It was hard to imagine those carnival colored walls were foot-thick lead, but it all was coming to make sense.

The strip search for implants. 

Removing his every appliance.

The naked meeting.

Discretion.

            “Speak to me of why’s and wherefore’s, Mr. Intercessor. Lay me down some groanings too deep for words. Speak what can’t be spoken.” Her hand came to rest on the black rubber cushion just below her floral breasts. “I’m all ears.”

            She was, he thought, much more than ears. She was lithe and beautiful, wrapped in a fanciful and alien flesh. She was a mythological creature. What would feel like to touch her supernatural skin, to trace a finger along just one tattoo?

The Intercessor looked to the ceiling, not surprised now to find even it was splashed with color and design. He closed his eyes and began, “She’s everything to me, always has been, but she’s run her life in the ground. She’s running more and more, and they drag her back every time.”

“Why can’t she just go?”

Why indeed? He swallowed hard.

“I think she has value to these people, maybe?” The woman craned her neck to look at the body by the door. The movement exposed an illustration of wiring and cables from her collar up to her chin.“Who drags her back, and to whom?”

“I’ve dragged her back,” the Intercessor admitted, “home.”

“She’s been a captive then, and now you want to set her free?”

“All I want--ah! nothing I want matters anymore--what she needs is to be free from her demons.”

            “Metaphorically, of course,” she said.

            He blinked and looked long at her before continuing. “She wants to be her own person, but it is not allowed. She wants to be independent of everyone’s assumptions, but no one will let her. Ever. She’s trapped. When she feels trapped, she breaks away. And when she does that…I usually try and help. I clean her up, make excuses for her, and take her home.”

“But your help is no help,” she surmised. She nodded her head, knowingly.

“No,” the Intercessor confessed. “I’ve just put her back in her cage.”

“That is your problem, isn’t it? You don’t know how to help her, so you do what’s expected of you. I would guess that until this night, right now, you have caused more harm than good.”

He nodded, and it strained the lump in his throat. “You’re right about that, I tried doing the right thing, all the right things, everything expected of me.” He turned his attention to the crumpled girl at the door. “This is so wrong, so…permanently wrong…to disfigure the perfect woman…but if we do not, she’ll be chased and caged again and again, and I can’t live with myself if I just let that happen--not even one more time.”

He realized he was still talking, saying much more than he ever intended. He turned his full attention back to the illustrated woman just as she stood up. He stood to join her.   

She seemed satisfied by this and stood tall, posture-perfect. She held out a hand, and spoke in a brisk kilter: “Maddyn Ann Dameron, Tatter.” She bobbed her head and grinned. “Get it?…M.A.D., Tatter. AKA: The Mad Tatter. It’s a silly moniker, but it’s mine.”

            Her handshake was as crisp as her words. Had her hand not been covered in images of snakes and eels, the exchange could have passed for professional.

            The Intercessor nodded. He knew who she was, though before this meeting, he would have thought her just another urban legend. The Mad Tatter was the rogue who had first blinded the law with her artful skinwork. ScanTats, as they were called, were highly illegal, even though only the best of them were effective against facial recognition scanners. He had seen amateur knockoffs in the courtroom, poor attempts at ScanTats, even in the highly elevated courts and clients he served. 

Inking facial tattoos of any sort required a level of talent and a steady hand, for the better ones covered even eyelids and ears. Effective ScanTats took even more talent and time, just the right combination of graphics to scramble even sophisticated facial recognition software. The works of the Mad Tatter took ScanTats to another level. Her level of craft was legendary. Coffee table books and entire sites on the Interface showcased facial tattoo work attributed to her hand.

“Let’s take a look at the project then,” she said and slipped past him.

“Please,” he said, rushing to intercede. “Please promise me you’ll do it. Sight unseen?” Though he knew it was bad form to do so, he shot an arm around her and pulled her to him.

The Mad Tatter--warm, flesh and blood, the stuff of urban legend incarnate--twisted to face him, revealing now a dagger in her hand. She had a twinkle in her eye he could not read, but he did not feel threatened by her blade.

 He spoke in no more than a whisper, for they were so very close together: “You’re her only hope at anonymity.”

“I’ll do the job for love alone,” she said and brushed his arm away. “It’s obvious to me you love her more than your own life itself, Intercessor.”

She crouched down, set her knife aside, and pulled back the platinum hair pasted to the girl's face. The Mad Tatter caught her breath, then slumped to the floor by her side. Maddyn Ann Dameron’s wild eyes searched for something as she regained her composure. She pulled the stinking girl up close to her and cradled her in her arms.

“So…even though you know now…you’ll do it?”

“Yes.” The Mad Tatter shared her most electrifying grin and pledged, “I will. It will be my best work ever.”