Chapter 9: She's Taken By Surprise
Leslie sat in her bathroom, wearing just a red thong and bra set, gently cleaning the skin where her tattoo was. It was Christmas Eve today; the tattoo had had five days to heal, and it was progressing nicely, despite some scabbing. She hadn't had a chance to see her boyfriend since she got it, and she wondered if that was a good thing, as she could hide the gross reality of the first few days after getting a tattoo.
Before she got it, she wasn't sure if a lion's head was too masculine for her to get, but the thin, intricate, dark green lines weaved a delicate picture of a lion with a beautiful floral mane. She had even started wondering when she could get the design coloured in. She had also been nervous about the size of the tattoo as it was quite big; it was placed just above her ankle bone, and covered 5cm by 5cm across the outer side of her lower leg, but when she considered what it was, a gift to Stuart, she was happy she hadn't caved to her fears and gone smaller. The thing she liked about it most though - and each time she saw it, this feeling sunk into her a little bit more - was that it was a permanent mark of Stuart, etched onto her skin forever.
Her family didn't know this, of course. They each had a different reaction to her new body art. She cast her mind back to when she returned to the house hours after getting her Stuart-inspired branding.
When she got back that day, she walked into the kitchen and her family, presumably curious to see what a freshly tattooed, middle-class mother-of-two looked like, quickly joined her as she placed her bag down on the same counter she had been bent over a few weeks previously, as the teenager who bullied her son took her from behind.
Both her children looked to their father. He had tried to hide his look of disapproval, which, in fairness, had Leslie not known him so well, she might not have noticed, but it was there to read on his face. Despite this, he spoke politely, his annoyance barely conspicuous as he stated both the tattoo and the belly dangle 'looked nice'.
"Yeah, I like your belly button, Mum. I didn't expect something so pink. I think it's really cool. I think it'd look really good if I got one," beamed her daughter, who then nervously looked at her dad before adding, "When I'm 18, of course."
Leslie had avoided making eye contact with her husband, worried about the reaction he would have to their daughter being encouraged to modify her body because of her own piercing and tattoo. Instead, she turned to her son, who was inspecting her ankle tattoo.
"Wouldn't have expected you to go for a lion," said her son.
"Oh, you don't like it?"
"Actually, I kinda do. Bit strange how you made it look so girly, but I do think it looks good. Why the lion?"
"Oh... um..." she mumbled, feeling a pang of guilt as she thought about how it was the zodiac sign of Lewis's bully, "Just liked the design."
"Good a reason as any," added her husband, his tone obviously sarcastic.
Her husband had made a couple more comments betraying his displeasure but after a couple of days those stopped. Leslie had hoped that was because he had become less bothered, but she suspected it was more likely to be that he was ignoring the situation.
Leslie finished cleaning her tattoo and put on her black swing dress; a shoulder-strap dress that hung loose over her whole body, before moving to her bedroom, where she donned a pair of red open-toed metal-stiletto heels. She grabbed some rouge lipstick from her make-up drawer; it was a shade of lipstick she wouldn't have normally worn, as she preferred more natural tones, but this time it matched her underwear, her shoes and her carefully painted fingernails and toenails.
She checked the time, half-past six, and peeked her head out the bedroom door. Her sister, along with her family, was due to arrive soon but, judging by the lack of extra voices coming from downstairs, she assumed that they were still on their way.
Leslie quickly shut the bedroom door again and whipped off her dress; as it was loose, it barely took a second to remove it, and grabbed her phone from her desk. She opened Whatsapp and went to her conversation with Stuart. A few days ago she realised that no one in her family would ever check her work phone. With her personal phone, it was commonplace for her children or husband to use it without ever needing to ask. It would be very suspicious if she suddenly changed the PIN code or in any way prevented them using it, however, with her work phone, she had legitimate reasons for keeping it private.
Technically, she wasn't allowed to use her phone for personal reasons at all, but, in practice, provided she didn't rack up any charges on her phone, which she wasn't as she was careful to use it only when connected to WiFi, then no one would check.
Of course, this didn't work both ways, as Stuart still only had one phone to contact Leslie on. She had expressed her nervousness at this to Stuart, but so far nothing had gone wrong; his phone was password protected and to date no one had seen anything she had sent him, especially as a teenager being possessive over their phone was the norm.
Leslie turned her phone to 'selfie' mode, and ensured her body was in shot, including the fingernails of the hand she wasn't holding her phone with. However, she avoided getting her face in shot; she knew such a precaution was pointless, considering Stuart had a sex tape of the two of them going at it, but she still didn't feel comfortable having her face in a provocative shot sent over the phone. She captioned the photo with 'Everything matches... do I look pretty?'
She snapped another photo, this time of just her lips pouting and sent that too, labelling that with 'My lips match too... wish they were wrapped round your hard cock.'
Leslie looked excitedly at the confirmation that the photos sent - after all, she had bought the lingerie set for him, though, ironically, she rarely wore underwear around him - and turned the phone back to standby mode. She quickly put her dress back on, checked her appearance and then, after she took a second to let her heart stop racing at sending such an explicit message, headed out of her bedroom.
Coincidentally, just then, she heard the chime of the doorbell and she eagerly sped up. The loose, lightweight material of her dress billowed up around her waist; it wasn't enough to expose anything embarrassing but it tickled her bare skin and threatened to reveal her skimpy underwear. Unwilling to flash her family, she slowed down enough to prevent her intimate areas from being put on show, descending the stairs with caution.
She reached the final step when her daughter flung open the door to Steph, Leslie's younger sister. Steph was a couple of years younger than Leslie but they had always looked very similar, though perhaps Leslie's features were softer and more 'motherly'. Steph had always bonded to people quicker than Leslie could. Steph was always the wilder one, always she was the exciting and adventurous one; their mother secretly confided to Leslie many times that she was worried Steph would never be a success in life.
So it was a shock to their family when Steph got engaged at the age of 23, and it was almost out of the blue, after a string of short-term boyfriends. It took a few days for Steph to admit it, but after asking for the wedding to take place at a short notice, it became obvious that she had fallen pregnant, and six months after she was married, her little sister gave birth to twin boys, just weeks before Lewis was born.
The sisters hugged, kissing each other's cheeks, and the extended family members greeted each other, Katie particularly enthusiastic to see her aunt; the two had always been close, bonding over more traditional 'girly' things like make-up and clothes. Their sons were a lot more muted in their greetings, but the male cousins were good friends as they were the same age and had similar interests. She noticed the guests glancing at her ankle, but none of them said anything about it.
