More, man.
Vince’s hands are sweating as he palpates his thighs. They are rigor mortis under his now tight grey suit pants, slightly dampened under the heat of Utah summer. The windows of the church spires seem to be directing the prisms of light solely at him, making him easily seen by the older relatives on the furthest pews. The sweat beading and falling down his back under his cotton shirt he borrowed from his brother is now rappelling to the top of his pants, and pooling on the belt line. He crains his neck, up, down, at jaunty angles, like a bird darting in an uncomfortable mating display, before his avian dance is broken by the chime of organs.
She looks surprisingly beautiful, more beautiful than he had imagined she could. Not that his expectations are a proclamation of her ravishing looks, as much as she is in reality quite ugly. Her crooked nose, that hooks to the left at the bridge after a water skiing accident with her brother on the Weber River, precluded by the white drapery that falls across her face and down her rounded shoulders. The marks of various skin sensitivities and summer allergies remain remnant on the exposed forearms. Despite that, Jane looks surprisingly beautiful.
It’s hot, the suns traverse across the sky suspended at the very window above Vince, as if Elohim himself has held it as a spotlight on this moment of piety and grace. Vince wipes his hands.
With the ceremony over with minor complication and Jane laying naked in front of Vince on the bed in his brothers spare room, set up as the honeymoon suite, Vince’s carnal desires began quelling before they had even eventuated. All of his premarital life, the threat of damnation and hellfire made even the old ladies he was welcomed in while door knocking seem like forbidden temptresses. He would avert his eyes at magazine stands and dinners with community elders should Elohim feel the crotch of his pants expanding at the site of Brother Joseph’s wife.
But now, Jane sprawled before him, Vince’s scrawny frame becoming more and more naked with the removal of each garment, and Jane’s mixed look of apprehension and mutual disappointment casting over him, it didn’t seem all that exciting. Carefully aligned and with Jane releasing compensatory groans, as if an older Church defect had explained the motions behind the school bleachers. Thankfully it was over in a few minutes.
Vince went to the bathroom and poured himself a glass of water, drank it quickly, and poured another. Looking in the mirror, disappointed and having already forgot the little excitement of his first time, he thought about the next marriage he would attend.
Luckily as a Mormon man, it would be his, because Vince already has another three weddings lined up and he can forget about Jane in no time.
I don’t know if Mormonism invaded tattoo culture like some sickly Utahn plague and started treating each appointment like a religious polygamist fuck camp, but treating your tattoo’s like Jane is a trend I’d like to stop.
People are not satisfied with one tattoo per appointment. The more at once the better, to the point that you forget the first tattoo by the time you get the last. It’s the biggest moment of your life so far, a tattoo you’ve always dreamed of, comparable to your big wedding day. But as soon as the veil of expectation is lifted and that needle goes in, you’re rabid like a Mormon man having sex with his first wife while scrolling Salt Lake City Tinder; not with joys of your immediate experience, but with the ravenous lust for whatever comes next. Clients are scrolling through Pinterest boards yelling “MORE, MAN, MORE” about the next four tattoos you are going to do for them that day, meanwhile you’re still struggling your way through the first half of a eucalypt leaf. There six friends that came to the appointment with them are throwing phones and iPads and suggestions from relatives in your face and chorusing “MORE MORE MORE”, foaming at the mouth and eyes turning red with hunger for more ink. It’s the same masturbatory fury that happens when you’re deprived of sex for your whole life until the levee breaks and you wake up Mormon. One day, you’ll wake up, covered in 40 eucalypt leaves, “breathe” tattooed across your forehead, an infinity symbol binding your wrists together, and alone, thinking about how you wished you wouldn’t have fallen for the fury of all that stupid shit.
At least, I think that’s how being Mormon feels.