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
I ran the drawing through the thermofax and cut out the tissue-thin stencil. She took off her fancy-fur coat. Beneath she was wearing some sort of designer jeans, I don't care enough to keep up with brand names, but they were looked pretty expensive. She was also wearing a black cashmere sweater with a rolled neck.
"You're going to need to lose the sweater," I mentioned.
She merely nodded, and pulled it over her head, her dark hair cascading down around her face as it came off. Beneath she was wearing a creamy-white, silk sleeveless shirt. It barely contained her very full breasts. She was slender without being skinny, and had a beautiful figure. She wasn't wearing a bra, and her nipples poked at the shimmering fabric. I swallowed heard, and tried to stay all business.
I gently misted the side of her neck with Dettol solution, and let it partially dry a moment before I carefully pressed the line drawing stencil to her skin and smoothed it, making sure it all caught the dampness from the solution. A moment later I peeled it away, and beneath was the design, in purple lines, on the surface of her skin. It really filled the space on one side of her neck, starting just beneath her jaw and ending an inch or so above her collarbone. Even when she was facing straight at me it was easily visible. I directed her to look in the mirror with a nod.
"Perfect" she said, after appraising herself for a moment, "let's do this."
"Look," I said patiently, trying to reason with her, "that's a hell of a thing to get done for a first tattoo, especially at your age. I'm not going to do it."
"Then I'll just go to someone who will," she declared in a matter of fact tone, and began to gather up her coat and sweater.
The thing is she could, most studios in town would be happy to take her money and ink her up. Most, however, would not do as good a job as I would. I figured that if she is going to get that inked in, it might as well look as good as it can. Besides, I had not yet given up on the idea of talking her out of it.
"Just get in the chair," I stated simply, directing her to the old barber chair where customers sit when they are being tattooed.
She sat, and waited quietly, watching me as I prepared my workspace for the tattoo. I deliberately took some extra time to set up, and tried to make it all seem very dangerous and painful. I snapped the rubber gloves on my wrist like a crazed doctor, and turned the power up on the machine as I tuned it, making it rattle and buzz like an angry hornets' nest.
