back to my apartment. Things are normal again. I’ve just gotten home from the tattoo shop, and I’m expecting a phone call. I wait for this call every night. I rarely get home until midnight, and the phone call comes like clockwork as soon as my butt hits the couch.
It is the same tonight. He never makes me wait because he wants to talk to me just as much as I want to talk to him. My phone vibrates, and I pick it up on the first ring.
“Leif!”
“Hey, beautiful. Did you fill your cancellation?”
“Yeah, but I wish I hadn’t. It was a six-hour slot booked a year in advance. She couldn’t help getting sick and canceling, but I would’ve put it in my portfolio since we’ve been working on this piece for three months. I called some of my waitlist and took the first person who answered. If I had known what they wanted, I would have skipped them.”
“That bad?”
“He wanted a tattoo of Homer Simpson taking Marge from behind, and he wanted it across both ass cheeks. He had the hairiest ass I’d ever seen, and I had to shave it before I could tattoo him.”
“My perky ass is hair free, and if I could find a bit of skin free for you to tattoo, I want it to be something special.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Well, when we finally meet, I want you to pick. It’ll make it more special.”
“You will set me loose on your body with a tattoo gun? What if I decide to play a prank and brand my name on your forehead?”
“Then I’ll ask you to put ‘property of’ on top of it and wear it with pride. That way, other women know not to hit on me. I’d hate for you to commit a felony because you’re jealous.”
“Smurfette only hits softballs, not women who throw themselves at you.”
“You didn’t throw yourself at me. I do believe you accused me of being a stalker.”
“Well, you kind of were. You lied your way into that chatroom to get close to me because of my father.”
“We had to, Ariel. He’s planning something big.”
“Leif, it’s time to tell me how you know that. I know he’s evil, but I ran away from him for a reason. Unless you can give me proof he’s about to do something major, I had no reason to get involved with him again. I want to meet you and Aeron, but I don’t want to get tied up with my father again.”
“Tomorrow. You, me, and Aeron on three-way. We’ll tell you how we know. Do you trust us?”
“You know I care about both of you.”
“Then, promise me you won’t freak by what we tell you. We wanted to tell you in person, but I have a feeling you won’t come to Mexico unless we do.”
I bolted awake. Leif and Aeron told me they were the Horsemen the next day on a three-way call. To say I took it badly was an understatement. I hung up on them and turned my phone off. I grabbed my weed stash and went to Miss Mabel’s to get high. I didn’t tell her what we talked about. I didn’t confide in her they told me they were the Horsemen.
She just sat there and let me rant as I said they were both crazy, and I was never talking to them again. She must have known. She had to. She didn’t expose herself, even then. She just gave me advice like always.
She suggested I paint and see what happened.
So, I did, and that was where all the horse paintings in my living room came from. I started to realize I had gotten myself into some deep shit. I borrowed Miss Mabel’s well-worn Bible and started poring over the Book of Revelations.
I can’t believe how dense I was then. I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that Leif and Aeron were in the Book of Revelations, and I knew they were after my father, but I never connected my father to the Antichrist in the book.
I didn’t call Aeron and Leif for clarification, either. I stayed locked in my apartment, painting, and visiting with Miss Mabel. I went to my softball games and the tattoo shop, but that was it.
There was a method to my paintings. There was always this massive urge to get them all out, but I always knew when the series was about to end. I could feel it in my marrow that I was