It was less than an hour after the studio opened that she walked through its brightly painted doors. Not being a morning person that put it sometime after one in the afternoon, probably around mid-week.
She looked young, very young, with long chestnut-brown hair, oval-shaped face, and startling almond shaped eyes that were almost amber in color. Her skin was very fair, what I could see of it, since she was dressed in a short fur coat which was either real, or a very good fake. She was very pretty, but looking as young as she did, I tried to notice in only the most abstract sense.
"The piercer doesn't come in until five..." I said, barely looking up from the novel I was reading.
She smiled, the mischief glinting in her eyes.
"I don't want a piercing, I want a tattoo," she replied.
"Come back when you're eighteen, I don't tattoo kids," I stated, and turned back to my Camus.
"Today is my eighteenth birthday," she purred, "and I am getting a tattoo, my first tattoo, from you, or someone else."
"Oh yeah?" I challenged, as I put the old paperback down after noting the page number, "Prove it."
She opened her purse and pulled her driver's license out of her wallet. I looked at it closely. I even dug mine out of my wallet and held them up, side by side, comparing them carefully. It looked genuine, and, sure enough, it had today's date, but eighteen years earlier. There was no doubting it was her picture.
"Well happy birthday sugar," I said, "Go pick something out if you want, or do you want something custom drawn?"
"I know what I am looking for," she replied with an appraising look, "and I think you'll have it."
I pondered that a moment while she went back to the lobby area and began leafing through big three-ring binders full of color designs.
She leafed through the design books for a half and hour or so, brought a binder to the counter, and indicated a design near the front of the book. It was a pair of cherries on their stems with some leaves; an old school design that I had reworked, and added a light blue swirly background and white stars to give it a more modern and funky feel. It was a real color-bomb design, and was pretty big, about four inches across at the widest point, and about the same high.
"Where do you want it?" I asked, figuring it was going on her ass, shoulder, or some other girlie spot.
She reached up with her left hand and caressed the right side of her neck with her long, French manicured fingernails a moment.
"Right there..." she replied, almost distantly.
"No way," I said firmly, "you're way too young for work that visible."
"I'm getting that tattooed there, by you, or someone else."
She was right about that, there were plenty of artists in town, and someone would want the money enough to do it without question. I wouldn't be quite so quick about it, and figured that I'd make a stencil, put it on her, and then she would listen to reason and chicken out, or opt for some other spot after she sees it. So, I absently shook my head and went to pull the original line drawing from a file folder
