At A Glance Author Jess Contact Jess@bme.anon IAM Supapuppy When A week ago Artist Jay Studio Altered Bodies Location Norfolk, VA Simple answer... It was a birthday present from my piercer.
Jay and I have a strange relationship, it hovers somewhere between piercer/client/distant friends and pretty good friends. I stop in at least once a week and relieve his boredom, we talk about random subjects, and I often do my best to sell jewelry when he has actual clients come in.
I went in the beginning of last week for our regular talk and birthdays came up. Mine was that weekend and his was two weeks prior. We agreed to swap presents; of course he would just give me a piercing, so I was stuck with the short end of the stick. What the hell would I give him? He agreed to pierce my nipples on my birthday, the Ides of March, and I would have to come up with something for him.
With the help of one of my twisted friends, I assembled some things for Jay on Friday and went out and had a night of pre-birthday partying.
On Saturday I went out to eat lunch with Mom while my friends readied for the upcoming fes tivities. We all met up around 2:30 and were off. Or semi off, I needed more cigarettes and an ice tea before the piercing. We show up and Jay gets the first of his presents, a cow shaped lawn decoration that had been acquired by us a few years ago. As the years passed, the cow acquired more and more decoration via Sharpie marker. Jay handed me the consent form and aftercare instructions. "I'm testing you on that," he joked (like he always does) before gleefully took the cow back to the piercing room where it now resides in the window. He spent about twenty minutes back there, setting everything up and autoclaving the jewelry.
Finally Jay calls me back and says that I can only have one person in the room with me. There was a mad scramble amongst the 4 people who were with me. Lauren won, but the rest of them crowded against the door, which had been left open a crack. It looked like a cartoon where three people hide behind a tree and you see each head pop out, one over the other in a vertical line.
Jay and I cracked various bad jokes as he gloved up. He busied himself readying the iodine while I took off my shirt and bra. I laid back on the doctor's table (refinished in a very hip silver sparkly vinyl)while he cleaned and iodined my nipples. Plenty of obscene jokes come from the other side of the door, while my friend Lauren looked on horrified. Every ten seconds someone would ask, "Are you getting nervous now?" It was like a bad cell phone commercial.
Finally I stood up to get marked. Jay changed gloves again and we were ready to go. I have a problem standing still, I've always been an overly hyper person, but I was doing my best while Jay kneeled in front of me with a toothpick and purple dye. He got everything marked and nodded to himself. I checked it out in the mirror and laid back down. After another glove change he was putting the clamps on. It didn't hurt, there was no undue pressure, they were just cold.
Then come the needle, Lauren squeaked at the sight of it. I took in a deep breath and held it , as soon as I felt the pressure of the 14g needle tip on the side of my nipple I started to breathe out. All my friends either cussed, laughed, or called out to God. I just laid there. I felt the initial pressure when the skin didn't want to break for the needle but after that, nothing. No pinching, no pain, no bleeding and I apparently didn't even flinch. The second piercing went just as fast and painless as the first while my friends stood around and called me a hard ass. Jay slipped in the CBRs and we were done.
I checked out my new piercings and fell totally in love. I have major issues with my body, I hate the way I look. I've hated the way I've looked since middle school, when I was one of the unfortunate girls to have a fully formed adult body when no one else did. Years of teasing have made me so self-conscience that I would walk in a slump for the longest time in an effort to hide the fact that I have breasts. I started to get over my insecurities about three ye ars ago, and I felt the need to reward myself. First by stretching my ears, then by tattoos, now I've decorated myself with piercings and I'm feeling complete.
I get dressed and hugged Jay, he expressed his displeasure, in a joking way, about the fact that I never seem to feel pain. I then ran out to the car and got the rest of his birthday present. A Easter basket stuffed full of weird stuff like a Virgin Mary nightlight, bobble head dog, mousetraps (NO, he doesn't have a mouse problem, it was just something funny to throw in), some WWF ink pens, and a bright orange NO HUNTING sign, which he promptly hung on the door.
Its been nearly a week and my nipples have yet to really hurt. I feel a dull ache every now and then but I've mostly forgotten that they are there. I even rode a mechanical bull an hour after piercing.
I carefully wash once a day with Dial antibacterial soap in the shower. I'm a firm believer of washing my piercings and then just letting them be. And after a week of such care have had no problems. But I must say, a sports bra has become my best friend, I still wear regular under wire bras during the day, but I slip into a comfy sports bra for bedtime.
I love my nipple piercings, its something that I can easily hide and has given me some confidence just based on the fact that I feel better looking, and carry myself as such. I can't thank Jay enough for helping make me feel this way. If anyone is in the Hampton Roads area and looking for a piercing shop that isn't tourist infested, or that doesn't have ten different piercers with ten different methods of piercing and healing, then visit Jay. Even if you just want to talk things out, he's always up for a good conversation.