I'm Not a Monster, but Together We Can Live Forever

Spencer’s POV

“James, stop!” I yelled as I ran around my shop as my boyfriend and a piercer here, chased me around. About a minute ago, I threw a pillow off the couch in the waiting area at him in boredom because neither of us have appointments and my new employees haven’t showed up yet.

“Never!” he shouted back as we shot past the workstations. I was about to run into my office in the back when my cell phone began to ring. ‘Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!’ from my favorite song A Little Piece of Heaven by Avenged Sevenfold was my ringtone. I stopped abruptly making James crash into me and knocking both of us to the floor; I groaned and fished my phone out of my back pocket which was difficult with a two hundred pound guy lying on my back like dead weight.

“Hola!” I answered a bit breathless.

“Hey, Spencer. It’s Sam from Johnny’s last night,”

“Yeah, I remember you. And your friend Kris too,” I smiled when James got off of me. Instead of getting up, I just rolled over on my back.

“Yeah, when do you want us to come in?”

“Uhh any time before noon is fine,” I replied, waving off James when he offered to help me up.

“Can we come by now?” she asked.

“Now would be awesome! You have the address, right?” I retorted.

“Yup, we will be there in like fifteen minutes,” she stated, sounding happy.

“Great! I’ll see you then.” I responded. We both said goodbye and hung up.

“Babe, Sam and Kris are gonna be here in a few!” I called from floor, still not making a move to get up.

“Okay!” he called from the waiting area; he was probably gonna take a nap, the lazy fucker. I just laid there for a while staring at the ceiling. Then I started thinking about the shop.

In my opinion, I think the place looks pretty damn good. The whole front wall of the place was made up of several large panels of two-way mirrors; the sign outside read ‘Punk rock Shoppe’ with a different color illuminating the halo letters painted with aluminum. Inside, all of the walls were painted white with a lot of splattered black paint and neon paint of almost the whole color spectrum. When you walk through the door, which is on the far left, you see the front desk which is where all of the body jewelry and racks will be on display. I have yet to hire a receptionist who will get a customer their desired jewelry or show them the tattoo designs available and answer the phone. The waiting area is to the right; there was a plain black table in front of two black minimalist couches that resembled the paint job on the walls, one facing the glass wall and the other with its back to the front desk. A plasma screen TV was mounted to the wall on the right ahead of the furniture.

Behind the front desk and the waiting area was a wall; I had the middle of it, from floor to ceiling, knocked down, creating a wide walkway. Beyond the altered wall, the workstations of the tattooists, piercers, and hairstylists were located. On the left side, about three feet or so from the wall stood a stomach-level glass top desk for drawing tattoos, the “drawing board”; if something needed to be traced there was a switch that activated several very bright long bulbs under the glass and a dimmer. Five feet from the drawing board the row of eight tattoo/piercing chairs and behind each of those chairs I placed a metal cabinet for the employee to put there tools and personal items in.

On the other side, up against the reformed wall was a couch with six hairdryers above each seat. I installed a long sink into the wall on the right that had six dips in the side opposite to the wall for someone’s neck to be comfortably placed; above the sink, there was a shelf with hair washing products placed over each dip. There are also gonna be towels up there but they haven’t been delivered yet; fucking slow ass shipping company. Moving on towards the back of the shop, I had James push two rows of two vanities back-to-back facing North and South; behind those vanities was another two vanities with the back up against the wall. I bought the kind of vanities with the round light bulbs surrounding the mirror; they remind me a lot of makeup mirrors in the dressing rooms of theaters.

There were only rooms in the whole building that had doors: the bathroom, supply room, and my office. The supply room was small with cabinets lining the walls and the bathroom pretty plain, at least for now. My office wasn’t anything special either; the walls were painted similar to the walls in the main room but there were only neon green, blue and black paint splatters. There was a large glass desk in the middle of the room with a black, high-back spiny chair behind it, and at the moment only a phone, and my work laptop rested on the desk. The walls were still bare; in fact the whole shop seemed to lack some personality. However, when, not if, business picks up I’ll be able to decorate.

The little bell above the door sounded notifying me that front door was opened. I heaved myself off the floor and saw James hop over the back of the couch. Sam and Kris just looked at James in confusion.

“James! Stop harassing your new co-workers!” I scolded as I walked through the walkway. Sam and Kris turned to me with looks of relief.

“Hey, this is my boyfriend James. I forgot to mention him and his occupation as a piercer here when I met you guys last night,” James waved at them with a smile, “Before you say anything let me give you a tour of the joint” I stated quickly. I lead them the shop, with me and James explaining things as we went.

“What do you think?” James asked as everybody took a seat in the waiting area at the end of the tour. Sam and Kris informed me that they wanted to be a hairstylist and a tattooist, respectively. I’m happy to see James and the girls getting along. Previous girls that were offered positions here were always flirting and James was always rude to them. Sam and Kris looked at each, then at us.

“The place is great!” Kris exclaimed with a huge smile that made me blush, “When can we get started?” I looked at James and he nodded.

“Well I have jobs for both of you,” the girls smiled excitedly, “Sam, since you’re gonna be a hairstylist, I want you to dye my hair black. And Kris I want you to give me a tattoo, it’s already traced onto the transfer paper. So are you ready?” both girls nodded, “Then let’s get started!” I exclaimed heading towards the vanity next to mine.