Lunch time in the refectory can be hectic. Students and staff share the same facilities, queuing for hot meals or panini's and coffee. It isn't the largest room in the college so, the tables and chairs can become precious, especially when they are pulled out of their serried ranks into group patterns so friends can socialise while they eat.
Today was just like any other at lunch; hectic. The place heaved with a mass of young people whose voices joined in a cacophony of noise. The smell of food being cooked and coffee wafted on a warm breeze that circulated the canteen.
The scrape of a chair on the herring-bone parquet flooring drew a glance from me, focusing my attention for a brief moment and bringing me back from the worries of the day that played on my mind. It was then that I noticed the student standing in front of me. She was quite tall and had an open backed top on. The large vee shape held together by thin strands of the same material as the top. It wasn't that her skin that was visible that drew my attention though, it was a tattoo that covered her shoulder blade on the right and continued all the way down her spine, disappearing at the waist band of her jeans. I couldn't see the entire tattoo, but enough to make out that it was of a dragon, in the Chinese style of a wyrm. The scales had been inked in with a delicate touch of fine green lines and the whole thing seemed to ripple as she moved.
"Great tattoo." I said to her, thinking that she would like the compliment.
"Thanks, it's my own design." She had turned to face me as she answered. The girl was striking in looks. Not pretty as such, her nose was too aquiline to be considered beautiful, but striking with the clearest green eyes shining from carefully made up eyelashes. "Would you like to see the rest?"
"Sure, that would be nice." I answered, not thinking that it could be too dangerous. "Where do I find you?" Her steady, direct gaze was a little unsettling.
"Room B07 in the Facilities Department." "Okay." She turned back and then was gone as soon as she had been served.
I didn't think anything more about it. The day wore on, an endless succession of meetings and departmental issues that a senior Manager has to deal with in a quite large college in the centre of London. In fact, the episode passed from memory over the next few days, it wasn't until nearly a week later that the memory came back suddenly.
A knock at the door had me calling for the person to enter. I was deeply engrossed in some architecture drawings, trying to work out the logistics of room moves during the summer break. She coughed, one of those hello, I'm here coughs. I looked up, but didn't recognise her, my only previous sight had been the profile of her face as she spoke to me and of course, the exposed part of her back.
"Can I help you?"
"You wanted to see my tattoo remember?" I think she might have coloured her hair since I saw her last. Now it was a shocking green at the tips, almost day glow in intensity and brightness, with a black base.
"Oh! Sorry, I didn't recognise you, you look different."