At A Glance
Author	Volt Control
Contact	pleasuresofbass@hotmail.com
When	A week ago
Artist	a man with a beard
Studio	Metal Fatigue
Location	Bournemouth, Dorset.

So, as my favourite piercing studio in the small polluted hometown I like to call Weymouth shut down, I was left with no reliable source to get my body perforated. Unless of course I took a happy stroll along the beach and accidently stepped on a sharp seagull that died from swallowing shit that tourists fed it, I'd probably die of AIDS, but hey, it's something cool I can show off to my friends in my last 3 months alive.

Rusty signs which read 'Piercing and Tattoos' tried to direct me down toward the bloodstained backstreets. These made my double tongue piercing seem less likely to happen.

I took a trip to Bournemouth, and being the secret agent that I am, I remembered a clean looking shop called Paradox I bought an ear stretcher from a few years ago.

I was weary at first, I asked a girl behind the desk if it was okay to get the tongue pierced twice in one go. She said it was alright, then told me the piercing I thought I had made up was called a 'Venom'. Venom sounded hotter than 'my tongue will have eyes arharhar'. It made me seem more like a snake.

She lead me over the road to a green door, then up a few flights of stairs to the piercing studio 'Metal Fatigue'. I whipped out 50 quid from my Bad Motherfucker wallet and filled in a form.

I flicked through the piercing portfolio. Most of the pictures were in black and white, and only one was of a Venom. I started getting nerves, butterflies in my stomach, regret, whatever you want to call it, untill I found a hazed picture of an xxx ott goth woman with crap Kiss makeup and a gigantic ring in her nose pulling coy model girl poses. That was the hilarity of my day. It was like pesticide to my nerve ridden stomach.

Moments later the door to the studio opened, and a guy with a beard called out "Ven-OM?". My quivering ass put down a copy of Maxim that was left on the side and I strode into the startlingly white studio.

I sat back in the piercee chair. Like a dentist's chair, only for people who are getting pierced.

I swilled my mouth out with some pink stuff that I thought was for freezing my tongue. It wasn't. Now I sat on a Mescalin cactus earlier and it was nothing compared to the second time I got the needle through my tongue.




I got my friend to take a few pictures of the procedure as part of my Media project. She felt faint and didn't snap up too many. There wasn't ANY blood at all... (Wow? What?)

Almost a week later, five days to be exact, it's still swollen as fuck, though it doesn't hurt. I managed my first solid meal yesterday, which was accompanied by about 5 other solid meals. Boy was I happy.

Venoms need slightly more tending to than normal tongue piercings, but I'd be pretty strict on hygine with any piercing. I gulped down a few Nurofens which really, really do help. The piercer didn't give me any aftercare advice, or reccomend a mouthwash to use. There were aftercare instructions on the back of the form I had to fill in which I got to keep, though I do think a good piercer talks to their customer and goes through everything with them there and then.

I got recomended Oraldene, an alcohol free, antibacterial mouthwash by a friend of mine, though it does dry your mouth out so you must drink PLENTY of water, especially if you rinse your mouth out with sea salt water (which really does help too). A dry mouth causes bacteria to breed (which is why you get bad breath with dehydration) and bacteria means infections! Yep, rinse after every meal with Oraldene and no smoking for two weeks and stick to it.

Nutrition is also VERY important while you are healing. The blender is your best friend when you've got a new tongue piercing. DON'T live off ice cream for two weeks because your mate said so. It might be cold but there is no nutrition whatsoever in ice cream, and it won't speed up your healing time. Instead make smoothies for breakfast with ice cold milk, or Soya as I preferred. Chuck in things like banana for fibre, and strawberries or raspberries or kiwi for healing vitamins. Crush up a multi vitamin tablet and some protein powder if you have any to make it a whole meal. Eating is difficult during the early stages of a piercing so it is important to get as much nutrition as possible from one meal. SlimFast is good if you fancy something sweet and are out in town. It's full of vitamins and fills you up, though don't rely on it, stick to natural foods if you can. Eat home made soups for tea if you think you can manage any, just make sure you get a wide variety of foods.

Good luck to anyone considering getting a Venom, and I hope I'll be talking normally by the weekend.

I can't wait till I can smoke again.