Brian had expected the interview to last ten minutes.
He had no tattoos, no piercings and no experience beyond two years behind the reception desk of an ordinary health clinic. The men waiting in the lobby of Ink & Pride looked as though they had been assembled specifically to make him feel inadequate: shaved heads, elaborate sleeves, heavy boots, leather harnesses and enough metal in their faces to interfere with airport security.
Brian sat between them in a pale blue shirt and neatly pressed trousers, clutching his résumé.
The studio occupied the ground floor of a converted warehouse. Framed designs covered the black walls—daggers, roses, skulls, saints and bright rainbow hearts. Somewhere behind the reception counter, a tattoo machine buzzed steadily.
The owner emerged from the back room.
His name was Victor. He was broad, bald and bearded, with both arms covered in dense black ink. Large plugs stretched his earlobes, and a silver ring hung from the centre of his nose.
He examined Brian for several seconds.
“You’re the receptionist?”
“I applied for the position.”
“You don’t look like you belong here.”
“I’m organised. I’m good with customers. I handled bookings, payments and confidential records at my previous job.”
Victor continued staring.
Brian fought the urge to hide his bare forearms.
“I know I’m not exactly the studio’s usual type.”
The smile should have made Brian leave.
Instead, Victor hired him immediately.
Brian’s first week went surprisingly well.
He learned the booking software, remembered every artist’s schedule and proved better than anyone expected at calming frightened first-time customers. Even people who initially mistook him for someone’s accountant soon began asking for him by name.
The artists teased him about his appearance.
“Still untouched?” one asked, tapping Brian’s bare wrist.
“What about a little stud?”
“Tiny tattoo behind the ear?”
Victor rarely joined in. He only watched Brian from the doorway of his private room, smiling as though he already knew how the conversation would end.
On Friday evening, after the last customer had left, Victor placed a black envelope on the reception desk.
Inside was a studio key card, a contract and a small sealed packet containing a single cigarette.
Brian lifted it carefully.
“Neither do half the men who come through that door.”
Victor leaned against the counter.
Brian laughed, waiting for him to admit it was a joke.
“Take it home,” he said. “Celebrate the new job.”
That night, Brian stood before his bathroom mirror and took a photograph.
He was shirtless, still exhilarated by the thought that his life might finally be changing for the better. The new position paid more. The studio was lively. His coworkers were direct but friendly. For the first time in months, he felt wanted somewhere.
The cigarette rested between his lips.
He had almost thrown it away.
Brian lit it, drew a cautious breath and immediately grimaced. The smoke tasted bitter and chemical, like burned rubber mixed with cloves.
He held the phone toward the mirror.
“At least the new job is going well,” he murmured.
A thin cloud drifted above him.
Then his left hand darkened.
Blackness had appeared at his fingertips.
It was not ash. It did not wipe away when he rubbed his thumb against his palm. The colour sat beneath the surface, glossy and absolute, as though ink had entered every pore.
The darkness spread across his fingers.
It moved over his knuckles, into his palm and around his wrist in branching lines. Within seconds, his entire hand had become pitch black.
Brian dropped the cigarette into the sink.
It landed on the porcelain without going out.
The change raced up his arm.
His skin darkened past the elbow, covering the muscle in a smooth reflective layer. No pattern remained, no visible distinction between natural skin and tattoo. It looked like the most extreme blackout work imaginable—except no needle had touched him.
Brian scrubbed at it with soap.
The blackness spread over his shoulder.
He stared into the mirror as it crossed his chest in a widening sheet.
His nipples disappeared beneath it.
The transformation flowed down both arms simultaneously until his body from the neck downward looked carved from polished charcoal.
The cigarette rose from the sink by itself.
It returned between his lips.
This time his jaw clamped shut around it.
Smoke pushed into his mouth.
Pressure seized his scalp.
The thick dark strands felt loose at the roots. A clump came free in his fingers.
He dragged his hand through it again.
It slid over his shoulders, collecting around the sink and across the bathroom floor. His carefully styled hair collapsed in seconds, exposing widening patches of pale scalp.
Brian rubbed frantically, but every movement stripped away more.
Soon only uneven stubble remained.
His head became completely bald.
The contrast was grotesque: pale frightened face, blackened neck and body, smooth bare skull.
Something cold spread beneath his palm.
Ink crept upward from the back of his neck.
It flowed over his scalp like spilled oil, stopping in an irregular line across his forehead. The upper half of his head became black, not merely stained but transformed into the same dense, rubber-like surface covering his torso.
Brian’s ears began to burn.
He saw the lobes swelling in the mirror.
Small holes appeared through their centres.
The flesh stretched without tearing, forming neat circular tunnels. Black rings appeared inside them, increasing in size as the holes expanded.
His left earlobe stretched farther.
The ring thickened until it was nearly the size of his palm.
Brian gripped it, trying to pull it free.
The jewellery had no separate edge. It had grown through him.
The weight should have torn the lobes, yet the altered flesh remained impossibly strong. Both plugs expanded into huge black circles framing his jaw.
Brian’s cigarette remained clenched between his teeth.
Smoke veiled his reflection.
When it cleared, metal shone beneath his nose.
Two silver rings pierced his septum.
A third appeared beside them.
Small studs punctured his eyebrows, forehead and the cartilage of both ears. Each one arrived with a sharp flash of pain and a tiny internal click.
The neat dark stubble thickened across his jaw. Hair poured down his chin, coarse and dense, spreading into an enormous beard that covered his throat and upper chest.
He seized handfuls of it.
It continued lengthening between his fingers.
The man in the mirror no longer resembled the polite receptionist who had left the studio that evening.
He looked like someone who belonged behind its counter.
That thought appeared inside Brian’s head with someone else’s satisfaction.
He rejected it immediately.
His voice came out lower.
A second voice seemed to answer from inside him.
The owner answered after one ring.
Victor was silent for a moment.
Brian looked at his reflection.
The vast ear tunnels moved when he turned his head. The silver rings in his nose swung gently. Black skin covered everything below his eyes except the thick beard and a shrinking section around his cheeks.
“With a cigarette you smoked voluntarily?”
“You knew this would happen.”
Brian’s breathing became unsteady.
“Because you were excellent at the job.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’ll understand tomorrow.”
Brian spent the rest of the night trying to reverse the transformation.
Makeup would not adhere to the black surface. Scissors could not cut his beard. A razor dulled instantly against his scalp.
He tried removing the piercings with pliers.
When he forced one eyebrow stud out, another pushed through beside it.
The ear tunnels continued expanding until each black ring rested against his shoulders.
At three in the morning, his clothing began to change.
The T-shirt he pulled over himself dissolved across his chest. Dark leather straps emerged in its place, forming a harness around his shoulders and beneath his massive pectorals.
His trousers became black and heavy. Chains grew from the belt loops. Thick boots enclosed his feet.
His body changed beneath them.
The muscles in his shoulders swelled. His arms thickened. His chest broadened and his waist narrowed, pushing him into the exaggerated proportions of the men featured in the studio’s promotional photographs.
His fingers remained black and glossy, their veins standing out beneath the altered skin.
Brian no longer looked human enough to walk unnoticed through the street.
Yet when dawn arrived, no one stared.
The woman in the neighbouring apartment greeted him casually.
She had always been nervous around tattoos. Now she did not react to the enormous plugs or blackened body.
Brian pointed at himself.
“You trimmed your beard?”
He opened his photographs.
At his sister’s wedding, he stood beside the bride with a black scalp, huge ear tunnels and a leather harness beneath his jacket.
His graduation photograph showed the same transformed man.
Childhood pictures were worse. In each one, the face belonged to a young Brian, but the ears were already stretched and the skin around his neck already dark.
The past was being rewritten to make room for the thing he had become.
Only Brian remembered the truth.
He went to Ink & Pride because he had nowhere else to go.
The studio was already open.
Victor stood behind the reception counter, examining the day’s appointments. He looked up as Brian entered.
His expression brightened.
Brian marched toward him.
Victor looked him over carefully.
The leather harness crossed Brian’s black chest. His huge beard framed a pale strip of face beneath the inked scalp. Metal covered his nose and brow. The plugs in his ears hung like impossible wheels.
Victor nodded approvingly.
“No. You look like the receptionist at a gay tattoo studio.”
Brian struck the counter.
The wood cracked beneath his fist.
Both men stared at the damage.
Brian had not realised how strong he had become.
Victor touched the broken edge.
“We’ll deduct that from your wages.”
“I agree. You should control your temper around customers.”
“You did this because I didn’t have tattoos?”
Victor pointed toward the framed photographs behind the desk.
Brian had seen them every day but never examined them closely.
They showed former employees.
A slender young man had become a heavily tattooed biker.
A nervous accountant had become a muscular leather daddy.
A clean-cut art student had transformed into a shaved, pierced tattooist whose tongue had been split in two.
Each sequence ended with the subject standing behind the same reception counter.
“What happened to them?” Brian whispered.
Brian already knew the answer.
The first customer entered.
He was a young man wearing an immaculate white shirt. His forearms were completely bare.
He stopped when he saw Brian.
The customer approached the counter.
“I’ve got an appointment for a consultation.”
Instead, his mouth formed the studio greeting he had repeated all week.
“Welcome to Ink & Pride.”
His voice sounded calm and deep.
The customer smiled nervously.
“I’m thinking about my first tattoo.”
Brian stared at the untouched skin of his wrist.
The cigarette craving returned.
Brian’s black fingers slid beneath the desk and found a small sealed packet.
He had never seen it before.
Inside was another cigarette.
The customer looked confused.
Brian’s hand moved against his will.
He placed the packet on the counter.
“Complimentary welcome gift.”
Victor watched from the doorway.
The customer picked it up.
Brian struggled against the words rising inside him.
His body had become part of the studio. The building seemed to move through his muscles, tightening his jaw and shaping his voice.
Brian forced out a warning.
The command changed before reaching his lips.
“Don’t worry. Just try it once.”
The young man slipped the packet into his pocket.
Victor entered the back room with him for the consultation.
Brian remained behind the counter.
He looked down at his hands.
A metal name badge had appeared on the front of his harness.
Below it, in smaller letters:
The badge was fused to the leather.
The leather was fused to him.
Brian continued reporting for work because every attempt to remain home ended with his body walking back to the studio.
His appearance kept developing.
The blackness spread over the remaining pale skin around his eyes until only the eyes themselves retained their original colour. Additional piercings appeared whenever Victor felt the reception area required “something new.”
They posed for photographs beside him. They asked for recommendations. They trusted him because he looked like the living embodiment of the studio.
His photograph appeared on the website.
MEET BRIAN — THE FACE OF INK & PRIDE.
The phrase made him laugh bitterly.
He no longer had a face anyone from his old life would recognise.
But gradually, even Brian’s memories began to change.
He remembered getting his first ear piercing at eighteen.
He remembered asking Victor to stretch the lobes.
He remembered volunteering for the blackout treatment.
Each false memory arrived beside the real one, then pushed it aside.
His parents began insisting he had always looked this way.
His friends remembered him as the outrageous one in their group.
No one believed the old photographs he described had ever existed.
Only the bathroom mirror in his apartment occasionally showed him the truth.
Some nights, when the cigarette smoke grew thick enough, Brian glimpsed the man he had been: styled hair, ordinary skin, small ears and a carefully trimmed beard.
The reflection always looked terrified.
Brian would reach toward it.
His black fingers met cold glass.
Then the old face disappeared.
Six months after Brian began the job, another applicant arrived.
He was handsome, conventional and visibly uncomfortable among the tattooed customers. He wore a pale shirt and carried a printed résumé.
Brian sat behind the desk, enormous ear rings resting against his shoulders, cigarette between his lips.
“I’m here about the receptionist position.”
“We already have a receptionist.”
Victor emerged from the back room.
He took Daniel’s résumé and glanced at Brian.
For one sharp moment, Brian remembered everything.
The horror in the bathroom.
He stood so quickly that the chair struck the wall.
Victor raised an eyebrow.
Brian pointed toward the door.
The single word tore through months of conditioning.
Victor’s expression darkened.
The studio tightened around him.
The ink covering Brian’s body became hot. His plugs pulled at his ears. The rings through his nose turned painfully beneath the flesh.
Brian forced himself to continue.
“They change you. They make you—”
The cigarette moved between his lips.
Smoke poured into his lungs.
When Brian exhaled, the resistance was gone.
He looked at Daniel’s clean-cut appearance and smiled.
Victor placed a black envelope on the counter.
Brian pushed it toward the applicant.
“Welcome to Ink & Pride.”
Brian’s smile widened beneath his vast beard.
“A little something to help you fit in.”
Victor placed one approving hand on Brian’s shoulder.
“There,” he said quietly. “Now you understand.”
Deep inside the body the studio had designed for him, the original Brian screamed.
The man behind the counter heard nothing.
He only lit another cigarette and waited for closing time.
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