The first round of the tattoo, that day after Jae Sun left, a lot of people had showed up at the house to watch it and to say goodbye to me. This time, though, no one was there to see the touch up but Jess and her boyfriend. Everyone was going home or had already left. The summer was ending. Cuando mi brazo ya estaba hinchado y sangriento y Jess dijo que no podía hacer mas sin seguir arrancándome la piel, lo limpiamos, le pusimos bálsamo y volvimos a la tienda de campaña a descansar. La noche anterior fue sábado. Fue un torbellino. El sudor en la sauna era igual que siempre y no necesitaba conmemorar el karaoke del Pot Belly con un tatuaje para nunca olvidarlo. Fue la ultima noche en SMC de Laura. El día siguiente se iba a Canadá. Se alegro de verme en el bar y cantamos juntas en el karaoke, un dúo con una chica y un chico. Ella era el chico, bajando el tono de su voz y con los hombros hacia delante, todo completo. Once my arm was swollen and bloody and Jess said there was nothing more she could do without continuing to tear my skin off, we cleaned it up, put some salve on it and I walked back to my tent to rest. The night before had been Saturday. It was a whirlwind. The sweat in the sweat lodge had been hot as usual and I wouldn’t need to commemorate the karaoke at the Pot Belly with a tattoo in order to never forget it. It had been Laura’s last night at SMC. The next day she would leave for Canada. She was glad to see me at the bar and we sang karaoke together, some duet with a girl voice and a guy voice. She was the guy, really dropping her pitch and rolling her shoulders forward, the whole thing. Sentada al lado de uno de nuestros amigos en el escenario del karaoke, le dije que me atreviera a besar a Laura. Estaba tan feliz y ligera, casi no sentía el suelo. Me retó a besarla y lo hice y en breve Laura y yo estábamos sentadas en el porche dándonos masajes por encima de nuestra ropa y hablando de siempre nos habíamos gustado, desde el principio. Estaba cansada, físicamente, pero había algo que me seguía empujando, algo que me daba patadas en los lados, que intentaba que galopara. Llevaba sentada, sin moverme durante tanto tiempo, sin hacer nada. Lo quería todo. “¿Quieres volver a mi tienda de campaña?” me preguntó. “Vale”, le dije, y la juerga-del-día-libre-del-Dhatun continuó. Sitting next to one of our friends near the karaoke stage, I told him to dare me to kiss Laura. I was so happy and light, I barely felt the floor underneath of me. He did and so I did and before long Laura and I were sitting on the porch giving each other back rubs through our clothes and talking about how we had always liked each other, right from the very beginning. I was getting tired, physically, but there was something pushing me on, something that seemed to be kicking my sides, trying to get me to canter. I had been sitting still for so long, doing nothing. I wanted everything. “You want to go back to my tent?” she asked me. “Sure,” I said, and the Dhatun-day-offbinge continued.
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