"Well, I never did a septum before, but I've observed it a lot while I worked at Tribes," said my friend Tira, the girl who was to pierce me that day. She had apprenticed at Tribes, and even worked there for a good while before she quit that job and moved over to my friend Nathan's place to work for him. She was professional, true, but also a little, well, I guess you could say "ditzy", so I wasn't sure how good I felt about her trying out a piercing on me that she had never tried before. Nevertheless, I knew she would do it cheap if not free since she was my friend and she hadn't any experience with that part of the body.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon Artist My Friend Tira Studio For The purposes of this story, Anonymous Location Boston, MA "You can do mine," I muttered, "but you better do it right."
"Oh no problem! I would think it would be like anywhere else on the body, just a little more difficult 'cause it's hard to see in there. But yeah, I can do it. I just pierce through that little piece of skin between the cartilage and that nub at the end of your nose. No problem."
She walked over to the jewelery cabinet and picked out a pretty good sized circular barbell. I'd had my ears and tongue done before, so I had explored the world of knowing jewelery by diameters and gauges, so I figured the barbell was 14 gauge and maybe about 5/8" in diameter.
"This one is 14g," she confirmed.
I asked if she had anything thicker because I'm a pretty big guy and something like a 12g would look good one me, if not a 10g.
"Well, I could pierce with those, but they'd really hurt you, trust me. 12g might not, but I think the 10g would." She rummaged through the drawers in search of at least a 12g circular barbell, but found none. "Yeah, sorry, this 14g is all I have."
"Ok, let's do this then," I said, then proceeded to go over to her red and black piercing chair and kick back. Tira began to sterilize her equipment, and then asked me to stand up so she could prep the chair. I found a good disc to toss in the CD player while she prepped, and Nathan was there, sitting in the other chair, just observing. I assume he was just as new to the septum as she was, since he'd only really done tongues, eyebrows, etc. before. His main position at the studio was as manager and head tattoo artist, so piercing wasn't really his forté. Finally, Tira was ready to begin. I resumed my position in the chair.
The first step was to check out my nose and see how straight it was, how much room she had to work with, and how far up the piercing should go. She pulled at the tip of my nose and felt around in the flesh alot. I closed my eyes, and could hear only the music and questions she posed to Nathan now and again. "Does this look alright?" she would say. "Would this be high up enough? Am I too close to the cartilege?"
Nathan would answer back as best he could. He's had some medical training, so if Tira was getting into some weird areas, he would let her now. She eventually found where she was most confident and marked it with a pen. "I don't see why I'm marking it...I can't really see in there," she proposed.
That was slightly unnerving.
I then felt her clamp the area and pull it out a little. It made my nose sore and a little pained, but it wasn't anything worth really mentioning. I thought about how long I'd been sitting there. It seemed like a half hour at least. Tira must have been thinking the same thing, because she said "Yeah, I know it's taking a while, but I'm trying to be thorough. I don't want to fuck around in there." That was somewhat reassuring.
The sounds of the equipment on the metal tray sounded like a small steel factory. The tools clicked and clanked on the surface, and with every little pinging sound, I grew more nervous. "Tira, DO NOT FUCK UP," I thought.
Something told me she'd find a way to so anyhow.
"Ok, here we go," she said, and put the needle against my skin. With a tiny "psssh" sound, the needle went through. My body tensed with some pain, and I felt a warmness in my nose. "Oh shit...wait a minute," I heard her say. I could feel the warmness flow from my nostrils down my face. "Oh no...I think I went through the cartilage. Nathan, come look at this." All this pressure was in the middle of my nose. The warmness spread down the side of my face onto the chair. "Damn it...That's not right at all!" she said, and Nathan confirmed.
My friend Joe, who had been sitting on the couch in the background, suddenly spat, "WOW! Dude, that's a lot of blood! AWESOME!" I could feel the liquid spreading on the chair.
"Quick..." Tira said, and began to ask Nathan for some different tools. For some reason the needle wouldn't slide out, and it was making Tira uncomfortable. The blood still flowed. I could tell Nathan was trying to clean up the biohazard while she was attempting to remove the needle. "Why won't it move??" she wondered.
Finally, the needle came out. Tira, took a deep breath. "Want me to try again?" she said.
"Eh...Well," I wondered how safe that idea was, "yeah ok. Fuck it." I laid back down in the chair. Tira took another deep breath and began to look at the wound and examine where she should have pierced. I could feel her tremble slightly. I guess the situation made her tense.
"Ok, this has to be the right spot," she said. She had Nathan confirm it.
"Yeah that looks right," said Nathan, and then he began to use some medical jargon to support his claim.
I felt the clamp embrace my septum again, and I hear Tira ask me if I was ready. I breathed agreement, and I felt the needle touch my flesh. Psssh...it went through again, only this time it was far less painful. My eyes watered slightly, but I felt alright. "How is that?" she asked.
"Better," I said.
Tira began to unscrew one of the balls off the circular barbell and get it ready to put in my nose. She went to push it through and, and the threads scraped around in the wound. "Woops! I'm so sorry!" she said. I prayed for her demise. When the barbell was in, she and Nathan looked at it from a slight distance. "Hmmmm...Does that look crooked?" Tira asked Nathan. I opened up my eyes and through the haze I saw Nathan scratch his chin.
"Actually, I think it is..." he said. Tira stomped her foot, came over and asked me what I wanted to do.
"Well, I guess...pierce it again?" I suggested.
"No, it's irritated. Best I can do it take it out and we can do it again in two weeks."
I sighed. "Fine, if that's all we can do."
I was not happy with Tira AT ALL.