All participants are over 18.
*****
I give myself credit: it took some courage to walk into a police station filled with macho, notoriously sexist and homophobic policeman wearing a tattoo on my head that read CUMSLUT in bold red letters. The label wasn’t standing off my face by my choice; rather, an unhappy date on whom I passed out and vomited vindictively stamped me with those letters as revenge for ‘teasing him’. I was here to press a complaint against the renegade tattoo artist.
I stood before the window at reception, cap pulled down well over my forehead, as the desk sergeant took my name and the basic details of my complaint. He looked up at my covered forehead, but didn’t press the matter.
“Sit down,” he said. “An officer will be with you shortly.”
In truth, I didn’t wait long. A door opened to the offices behind reception, an officer emerged and called my name. I stood up and followed him back to an interview room.
“I’m Constable Mayhew,” the officer said as he moved to the far side of a desk in the small room. He was a thin, lithe young man and I assume he wasn’t long out of the academy. “Have a seat.”
I occupied a chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“Just so all our cards are on the table, I will tell you this is an interview room, but there are no cameras or tape recorders rolling here. The only record of our conversation will be the details I take down in my notes.”
“So, I understand you have a complaint against an unknown tattoo artist who, uh, inscribed something derogatory on your forehead.”
I blushed as I nodded.
“Let’s see it.”
I pulled off the cap. I kept my head shaved bald, so there was no hair hanging over my forehead to obscure the illuminated letters printed there.
“I see,” said Mayhew. “Who did this to you?”
I explained to him that my memory of that night was fuzzy. I recalled only a tall, powerfully built man with long, dark hair and a lot of tattoos. I described my conversation with another tattooist named Greg who recognized the tattoo style and design as belonging to a dangerous man named Vance.
“Vance, huh?” Mayhew said. “I’m going to call in one of our detectives, Masters.”
Mayhew made a quick call on his cell out in the hallway. I couldn’t hear his voice, but I couldn’t follow the discussion. He returned to the room with the man he introduced as Detective Masters.
“Nice to meet you,” Masters said. Our eyes didn’t meet; he was busy studying my forehead sign. He didn’t take a seat, but remained standing.
“So you got drunk and picked up by this guy, but you fell asleep on him and threw up in his lap, and he took his revenge by branding you with the name ‘cumslut’. You want us to find him and you’ll press charges. Is that about right?”
I confirmed it was.