After emailing and calling everyone I thought could do the brand I had in mind, and networking and networking to no avail, I had all but put the idea out of my head. Then it happened that there was some interest by a few close friends of mine for work that would be done by a very accomplished acquaintance of mine. Having not seen him since my 2nd wedding, and knowing he was definitely more than capable to do the brand I had imagined, I let myself get excited about it again. It ended up being one of those times where what you imagine pales in comparison to the reality when it finally is before you.
At A Glance Author SATYR Contact SATYR@bme.anon When Six months ago I have a series of six red bands tattooed down my right arm and had envisioned two more bands, branded bands, between the sixth tattooed band and my hand (is that poem or what?). I wanted one of the brands to go completely around my arm, but it is so low on the arm that it's practically on my wrist. I was worried that the bottom side of it would be too close to the veins there for it to be done, but my friend was confident that wouldn't be an issue and of course he was right. So I showed him what I had in mind and the next day he did the procedure.
We spent a good amount of time drawing and redrawing the bands around the arm with a permanent marker. It takes time to draw bands that look straight on flesh that is less than perfectly cylindrical. He was very patient with me about it, as any real pro would be, and together we got them looking really nice. Then he set up his device. It was an electro-cautery pen, and it was something to see. We're not talking about a little hand-held pen with batteries here. This thing was pretty intimidating to see. It took the two of us to carry it into the procedure room and set it down. He opens a huge case (imagine something big enough to hold a copy machine) and there are lights and dials all over it, reading mostly two words, COAG and CUT. He sets all the many switches and dials and tells me casually that if dialed up to their highest settings, this thing can cut limbs clear off.
We're all set up. He has a large foot switch that controls it and an assistant usually operates it. "Since I don't have an assistant today, I'll need you to work the footswitch," he says, "that'll make this a bit more interesting." I'm excited at the prospect. I really like pain and especially kinds of pain I haven't experienced. I put on a recording of my band that is nothing but heavy drumming and insane electronics (funny enough one called "sizzling circuits" and there was about to be some sizzling, but not of circuits) and we got started.
After taking the pen and putting a small tip on it he looks at me very calmly and intently and says, "Now this is probably going to be the worst pain of your entire life. The most difficult thing to do is not to jerk away. I'll go for just three seconds at a time so you can breathe and we can see how it goes. The skin is going to contract quite a lot and it will look much different at first than it will once it's healed. After we're done you probably won't feel any pain or any sensation at all for several hours, and then it will ache and hurt very badly for a week or more." As we are both seated, I clench a fist around his pant leg to keep myself from jerking away, and put my foot down on the control switch.
I look down and see what looks like a tiny tesla coil spark shooting from this pen tip to my arm. It feels like being burned and cut and shocked at the same time. As he gets around the underside of my wrist my fingers twitch a tiny bit, but for the most part I am able to stay very still. He tells me I'm taking it about as well as he's seen and that it's going smoothly. Soon enough, one circular line is completed. He begins the second line. There is so much smoke coming off my arm from the burning flesh that the room really begins to reek. I think to myself, if anyone comes in here it's going to smell like a charnel house for days. Then we stop for a moment so he can switch from the small tip he used to 'outline' the rings to the larger tip he'll be using to 'fill in' the rings. He says this one will likely hurt a bit more. I can't imagine that so I don't. I just brace myself.
As he starts in to the filling I focus my attention on the spot where the pen is. I always try to stay attuned to the sensations instead of trying to ignore them because it's the only thing possible really, and well, if this were to never happen again, I would want to know that I really felt it. I close my eyes and put even more attention there. When the pain is at it's highest I close my eyes and pucker and exhale slowly, just like I would if I was feeling something ecstatic and wonderful, and in a way to me, this is just like that. Then I try to keep my eyes open because it's fascinating to see this, burning flesh.
After about twenty minutes of drawing and burning we are done. Just like he said, the moment he retracted the pen the pain was gone. I look down at my arm and I look like the f***ing Michelin man or something. The flesh had contracted so much that it was as if I had two very big very tight rubber bands around my forearm. The skin between the bands was very puffy and where he had burned it the skin was a dark reddish brown and very dry like an instant scab, the burnt part was extremely sunken in. It looked like it was carved down into me. The room absolutely reeked and there was so much burning flesh smoke I was surprised that we hadn't set off the fire alarm. I thanked him very much then went to my front porch and lit a cigarette and waived goodbye as he drove off in the drizzling rain.
I think it was about 12 hours later or so before it started to hurt, then it took 12 hours after that, maybe more to really get to the peak of the pain. At it's worst point I could feel my heartbeat in each one of the rings around my arm and it itched and burned all day and night. This went on for a few days then slowly subsided. At one point a few days in, soaking in a long hot bath, I knew it wouldn't be a bad thing for me to peel this first layer of scabs off. I had nothing at the time to cut the scabs (since I was pretty much homeless at the time, not even a knife in the kitchen of the empty house I was in) so I just leaned down and chewed a big hole one of them. Then I slowly and agonizingly peeled the scab out and it peeled off in one big piece like human jerky, disgustingly cool, I kept it. I liked seeing the blood hit the water and making a red cloud and tasting it in my mouth at the same time. The other one did the same thing. I have them both to this day, till some one mistakenly eats them anyways.
>From there on out they never fully scabbed over again. Every time I took a shower or a bath I just scrubbed the yellowish/pinkish scab formations off. Eventually they stopped trying to form. The rings were really pink then and still are pretty much to this day. They aren't all the way done healing yet, and they still itch but only very occasionally. The skin on them has a much more pronounced sensitivity and is very fun to scratch even when not itching. Once they have as much keloid as they will have when fully healed, I'll tattoo them to match the other red rings on my arm, unless they keep the cool gray/pink tone they have now. I can see myself having this done again in other places, for sure.