Supernatural, Fiction

Closer to the Bone

I’m talking about the kind of woman who makes a man want to shout poetry in the wilderness…

If you work with the public you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

You know the kind of person who shows up at your door looking for about three hours of your time, about a half an hour before closing?

In the tattoo business we call those kinds of people closers, as in see, losers.

A closer isn’t nearly as bad as a Bee-back, which is the kind of person who shows up an hour before closing time and spends about a half an hour gawking at the flash sheets I’ve got pinned to the wall before telling me, “Hey, I’ve forgot my bank card. I really want a tattoo tonight, but I haven’t got the cash. Can you keep the shop open while I run for my card. I’ll be back.”

Worse yet were the bee-backs who gave you the bee-back song and dance after you’ve carved in some custom ink. You know how it goes. You spend about three hours tattooing somebody’s arm with some gorgeous, custom made design and then they tell you, “Hey, I’ve forgot my bank card. I’ll be back.”

Which happened to me three times over the last ten years before I finally hung a sign on the wall that said, “PAYMENT IN ADVANCE.”

Well, let me tell you, the woman who walked in the door of my shop tonight wasn’t a bee-back or a closer.

She was an absolute, red-hot, looker.

I’m talking a head of long straight hair the color of a raven winging across a moonless midnight sky. I’m talking eyes that laser-beamed deep into your soul, with a gaze that smoked and smoldered like a campfire burning in the ruins of an ancient temple.

I’m talking about the kind of woman who could make a man shout poetry in the wilderness; the kind of woman who you want to take three or four baths before bedding her; the kind of woman who makes you want to shave your face and splash yourself with expensive aftershave that smells of musk and moonlight.

In a word, she was hot.

She was drop dead gorgeous. One of those long, lean goddesses; lean to the point of gaunt but still holding onto a rich and rare inner radiance. The tats she wore across her body could have served as a showcase of tattoo mastery. A walking Michelangelo of tattooed elegance. She should be on display in a museum. She made my own body’s collection of tattoos look low budget.

“Hi,” I said, offering her a handshake. “My name is Grant.”’

She didn’t return my handshake.

“Names are just handles people use to push you around,” she said. “I hope you aren’t offended if I don’t offer you mine. I’m looking for a tattoo.”

So much for small talk.

“You’ve come to the right place.” I said.

Her most striking feature was the sugar skull gypsy expertly worked across her face giving her a perfect lethal beauty. Still, her tats were a little faded. Most tattoos will go that way after about ten or twenty years of wear. Too much sun, friction, cheap or poorly applied ink, or just the aging of your skin can cause a tattoo to lose its luster. Tattoos fade like tired memories. Your body even plays a part in the pigment decay as certain immune cells actually work to absorb the pigment, treating the tattoo ink as an unwelcome invader.

Yeah, I had the pitch down pat. It was a fair bet I’d use that pitch on her if she didn’t mention the fading herself.

“Do you have an idea of what sort of image that you’re looking for?” I asked.

She turned towards the wall of flash that I kept pinned up close to the counter. I use them for tattoo virgins, and customers who don’t want to spend a lot of money. Flash images — like your anchor, panther, or a snake — are those cheap pre-drawn tattoos that you see on the walls of nearly every tattoo shop in the country. They are already stenciled and I can put a decent flash image on somebody’s back or arm or thigh in half hour or less, depending upon the size of the image. The flash wall in any tattoo shop is basically a used car lot. You hand me a few dollars and I give you a reasonable vehicle than you can drive around in until you save up enough spending money to pick up a Porsche.

She absently pointed at the tattooed gypsy girl flash sheet.

I was a little surprised at her choice. It was pretty enough, but compared to the work that she already wore upon her flesh, it felt a little off-the-cuff.

I had seen this sort of casual choosing in the past. Some folks actually became a little obsessed with the acquisition of new images. It was a kind of a hoarding habit that some people developed after their first few tattoos. It often started with somebody deciding that they wanted a sleeve of tattoos. I had quite a few regulars who shared this obsession. Every few weeks they’d show up and ask me for another tattoo. Some of those customers knew what they were looking for and had put some actual thought and design into the choice beforehand. Other clients just walked in and stared at the flash wall and said something like, “I feel like a bird today. Can you put a bluebird on my arm, maybe next to last month’s pickle jar? I just think birds are pretty, don’t you?”

Only I didn’t get any sort of feeling that this mystery of a woman was built that way. The tattoos that she wore were all carefully placed and well thought out.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, trying to phrase my question just as carefully as I could manage. I didn’t want to upset her. I needed the business. The power bill was due and it had been a poor month so far. Just the same, my professional pride wouldn’t let me casually carve some cheap piece of flash over the body of work that she had already accumulated upon her flesh. “If you give me a bit of time I’m sure I could come up with a custom sketch that might suit your other designs.”

She shook her head curtly.

“That won’t be necessary.” She said. “You’ll give me exactly what I’m looking for.”

It was more of a command than an assurance. I was beaten before I started. No matter how I argued, this woman was determined to get that cheap flash image laid onto her body.

Well, the customer is always right.

“So where do you want it?” I asked.

“Right here,” she said, pointing to a bare patch of flesh upon her left lumbar. There was probably just enough space between four different images for me to slip that bit of flash in where she wanted it. The tattoo wasn’t going to be particularly balanced or stylish, but she seemed determined and I did not want to disappoint her.

Like I said, I needed the work.

So I selected an appropriately sized Gypsy Girl stencil out of my filing cabinet and positioned my mystery woman upon the tattoo chair.

“This might hurt,” I warned her.

“It won’t hurt,” she said, with an odd sort of a smile. “I promise you, I won’t feel a thing.”

I leaned forward; ignoring what I assumed was a poor attempt at a joke.

I examined the bare patch of skin, making sure that there were no unexpected scars or follicles to deal with. I worked a very light coat of A+D Tattoo Moisturizing Ointment over the lumbar region to keep the skin moist so the needle did not tear or burn.

I pulled some ink into the cap of my tattoo gun and started my outline. Laying a tattoo like this takes skill and care. You have to know exactly how long you’re going to trace that outline. Where you’re going to start and where you’re going to stop. You don’t want to let your needle rest too long in any one location for fear of burning a line.

And then I felt a growing sensation.

Wow.

I was getting horny.

I’d never felt like this in the middle of a tattoo job. Sure, she was hot. I’ve known an awful lot of hot chicks. I’ve even been lucky enough to make love to a few, although not many. I’d tattooed plenty of gorgeous women before this one. It’s part of the job. It doesn’t always come with benefits, though. Contrary to what you see in porn movies, women DON’T usually throw themselves on tradesmen — not even the artistic ones.

That sort of thing — Jennifer decided that she was going to fuck this three hundred pound plumber, once he had finished unclogging her toilet. She just could not resist the man’s all-powerful plumber’s crack. — only happened in Triple X-rated porn flicks.

But there was something going on here, between me and this mysterious late night client.

I felt my cock stiffen as I worked my needle over her bare skin. It felt a little as if I were plunging my shaft into her wet and willing pussy every time I felt the needle moving in and out.

I took a deep breath, trying to maintain my composure. My lips felt dry. I licked them feverishly.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “It’s just I’ve never felt…”

Oh Christ! Was I really going to tell this mysterious woman that I’d never felt like this before?

Holy crap on a cliché, Batman!

I must have fallen asleep and awoken in a country music video.

I forced myself to concentrate, trying to keep my mind on the job at hand. I was a professional, damn it. I’d spent years learning my craft. What kind of an effect was this woman having on me, anyway?

My resistance was futile.

My cock was pulsing with every throbbing buzz of my tattoo needle as I worked it into her all too willing flesh.

“You can do it, if you want to.” she whispered.

“Um…”

Fuck.

Did I really just say um?

“You can fuck me,” she elaborated. “That is what you want to do, isn’t it?”

“Um…”

What a fucking master of fucked-up repartee.

“Don’t you want to?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, after awkwardly clearing my throat and setting the tattoo needle onto my work bench. “I want to fuck you. If that’s all right with you, I mean.”

“Don’t stop tattooing,” she commanded. “I want you to fuck me while you tattoo me.”

“I can’t do that,” I replied. “I’ll fuck up your tattoo.”

“My tattoo will be perfect,” she assured me. “I want you to do it this way.”

She clearly wasn’t taking no for answer, and neither was my body. I mean, talk about not being behind the wheel. I unbuckled my belt and let my blue jeans drop to the floor, kicking them out of the way, barely managing to not trip over them and hang myself in mid-kick.

The whole time I’m doing this I’ve still got hold of my tattoo needle and I’m still pounding skin, trying not to fuck up this goddamn tattoo.

And quicker than I could say “Damn, I got lucky!” I had my cock out and inside of her pussy and I was just working away at one sweet fuck, concentrating harder than I have ever had to concentrate upon the gracious act of copulation in my lifetime.

And that whole time I’m still laying that ink down like this was something that I was born to do. Like I’m talking sweet fucking destiny, like every single step I ever took in this lifetime was somehow taking to this one particular moment in time. But there was something different going on. It was like I was fading, somehow, drifting away like a boat that someone forgot to moor down.

“Just relax,” she’s telling me. “Just let yourself go.”

I look up and over towards the big full-length mirror that I keep for customers getting their whole chest or back tattooed and all of a sudden I’m staring at that woman’s reflection and there’s that goddamn Gypsy girl tattoo that I’d been laying onto her back and it’s picture postcard fucking perfect, not a single line blurred or burned or boxed out of shape only that Gypsy girl is staring out at me with a pair of eyes that I’ve stared at every morning in my life wearing a face that looks so goddamn much like the face I’ve shaved every morning in my lifetime and she’s still talking.

“Relax old man,” she tells me. “Just let yourself go down all easy and slow. Just listen and hear me coming.”

And I listen as she comes.

And then all I can see are the pores of her flesh and every molecule of ink grinning out at me as my very essence seems to break down and pour itself into her skin, through her veins, nerves and fiber, moving closer to the bone.

And then I’m gone.

Only I still see her.

I feel her.

I feel her skin, wrapped around me.

The weight of ink.

The weight of a scream.

The weight of a sigh.

I feel myself, trapped inside her skin, trapped in the cage of that single perfect Gypsy girl tattoo.

She wears me, wears me like a breath breathed out and in, wearing the hue of my last scream stretched upon the brightly inked cage of skin, tattoo and bitter regret.

I feel her wearing me, and yet at the very same time I feel the dried husk of my own empty skin stretched out upon my studio floor.

I feel myself stretched out like a long endless line of ink, stretched out between what I’ve given her, what she stole from me and what I must now leave behind.

Have you ever tried to scream inside of a dream?

Have you ever felt the weight of a nightmare holding you down beneath the ice of an endless dream that refuses to let you wake?

She turns wearing the a smile of a satisfied cat.

And as she walks out beneath the blind halo of moonlight and the forever swallow of a midnight-maddened sky I wonder just how long I will feel her carry my last eternal scream, surrounded by the screams of all of the other faces and all the living screams this mystery woman carried with her.

Listen.

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me coming?

The End

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Another tale by Patricia Ray