A Prelude to Tattoos

Part One

I

Suzie sat erect on the sofa, trying to stay serious.

She squeezed her knees with her hands, and tried not to grimace with laughter, a laughter partly meant to conceal her nervousness.

It had all started out as a joke, really.

All those wagers and bets Jessica liked to make.

Over the stupidest things.

But Suzie would agree.

After all, what difference would it make?

Small change here, a few dollars there.

Five hundred dollars to see who'd make the better grade in Marketing.

The sofa, placed in front of the window, faced the kitchen and the small eating room on the left where the door to outside was.

Just a normal kitchen, granite topped counter separating the kitchen from the living room. Two armchairs, modular, modern, and light blue, were positioned across from the long coffee table in front of the sofa. The chairs pointed slightly towards each other and the sofa.

Jessica sat in the chair on the right.

Candles burned on the shelves lining the wall on the right side of the apartment living room. The blinds to the large window set in the opposite wall were pulled down, and dark blue, almost navy drapes shut out most of the daylight.

The dark blue drapes behind the sofa were also drawn close.

Jessica turned out all the lights.

She had arranged crystals in a loose Fibonacci spiral on the coffee table, and the crystals glittered in different colors.

Red. Green. Blue. Pink. Yellow.

When the Spring semester ended, and Jessica walked away with an A over Suzie's unexpectedly low B minus, she immediately held out her hand and said, "Pay up, girl."

Suzie fumbled in her purse for some loose and crumpled bills.

She found two twenties and a ten.

All these bets were making her broke.

At first she'd win, and win easily, but over time the wagers got bigger, and the bets started going against her.

A few loose bills here.

A couple of twenties there.

Nothing big, but they added up.

When Jessica wagered the five hundred dollars on their Marketing grade, she jumped at the chance to recover some of her losses.

Suzie, at eighteen a Freshman with a 4.0, had nothing to worry about going against Jessica, a Junior who partied all the time and never studied. Suzie knew her stuff, and she'd been working all semester on her Intro to Marketing project. Everyone on her team ground their noses and worked hard to make the project best in class.

It was free money, and free money is the best money.

Then her project started going to shit.

Pete, a small, delicate young man who usually got all his work in before everyone else, got further and further behind, until Suzie actually began to panic. Allison, a serious, sober-minded Freshman, started drifting off during their Zoom meetings, and once while sharing her screen, a bunch of lesbian porn websites showed up in the tabs of her browser.

"Sorry about that," she said, taking a sip of some pink liquid in what looked like a normal water bottle. "I forgot all that was still up."

Suzie didn't say anything, but she did scrunch her eyes.

She could have sworn that Allison had a boyfriend.

She used to mention him all the time in the beginning of the semester.

Had she turned queer?

Was Allison a dyke now?

It really wasn't her concern, but she supposed a lot of girls experimented with that sort of thing in college. She knew a lot of girls fooled around with each other in high school, so doing it in college was no big deal.

Even if it wasn't her thing.

Suzie might have rolled her eyes, but she smiled against her better judgment, and tried to lead the conversation back to the subject at hand.

But Suzie had kept her cool, scrambled everything together, cajoled, begged, and cried for her teammates to do their part for the project, did it herself when they didn't get their pieces together on time, and finally, finally, she had something to show the professor, Margot Katt, MBA.

It might not have been the best project.

But it should have netted at least an A.

But then her peer reviews came in.

Argumentative and uncooperative.

Incommunicative.

Insensitive to diversity.

It was enough to bring her grade down to a B minus.

"Attitude is important," Margot Katt, MBA, had told her during an office meeting. "Attitude makes up a big part of your participation and teamwork grade. You're going to have to work with all kinds of people. You can't be so. So intolerant."

Suzie wanted to scream.

Intolerant?

"Everybody else on the team was so supportive of Pete's transition, but you just badgered him about the project."

Transition?

What transition?

What the hell was Margot Katt, MBA talking about anyway?

Ms. Katt sighed.

"This is a good lesson for you. I know you're a good person, Suzie. You're just going to have to work on your bigotries and prejudices. A lot of women are gay. I'm surprised you held that against Allison."

Suzie opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out.

She suddenly realized Margot was probably a lesbian herself.

She tossed her long and wavy dirty blond hair behind her shoulders.

Stuck out her chest a little more, nice plump pears ready to be nibbled hiding behind her tight blue pullover.

Tried to catch Ms. Katt's eyes with her pale blues.

She needed to watch her next words carefully.

"So if that's it, Miss Miller, I'm afraid I need to get back to my papers. I feel so awfully behind."

That was that.

Dismissed.

Her obvious, clumsy efforts at flirting smacked down in an instant.

But all the way home she fumed.

She'd sue, that what she'd do.

She'd sue the hell out all of them.

Then she met Jessica at the door with her hand out.

"Pay up, girl," Jessica said.

How did you flirt with a girl, Suzie wondered, remembering her failure with Margot Katt, MBA. Remembering Allison's change. Or seeming change. Was she bi? Had she always been bi? But how do bi girls flirt with other girls?

She supposed it didn't matter.

"I have fifty," she said, handing the crumpled bills over to her roommate. "I can get the rest later."

Jessica shook her head.

Not so much in negation but in disappointment.

"You should have known I'd beat your ass in Marketing," she snickered.

"It's just that. I'll need to get it from my folks."

Four-fifty was a lot. For Suzie.

II

Living with Jessica had started out as fun, interesting, even a little wild. But Suzie, conscientious of her grades and her academic career, soon evaded her new roommate's suggestions of going out, clubbing and dancing. She needed to concentrate on her studies, hit the books, keep her nose to the grindstone.

Not that Jessica never studied.

Not that Jessica never read books.

She had a whole wall of bookshelves in the living room, some of them really heady stuff as far as Suzie could tell.

Lots of psychology, lots of psychiatry, lots of therapeutical stuff. Some books on Wicca.

Even a whole row devoted to hypnosis, which Suzie thought weird, scoffing at the very idea.

She didn't recognize any of the titles or authors, of course, but they all looked very scholarly, very academic. Which surprised Suzie. It's not something you thought of when you thought of Jessica. Being a brainy type, that is.

Later that evening, Jessica knocked on Suzie's door.

"I have an idea," she said.

Suzie's expression encouraged her to go on.

"About the bet you lost."

Jessica held out her hand, and Suzie saw the wad of bills she had given her earlier.

"I'll give this back to you, plus the fifty you still owe me."

Suzie stood up and reached for the bills.

"If you do something else."

Suzie's eyes widened in quick alarm.

"For me."

"What do I have to do?" Suzie asked.

"You have to get a tattoo."

Suzie's had dropped.

"What? You're crazy. I mean, why? Why do I need to get a tattoo?"

"Because you lost the bet, and because I want you to get one."

Suzie's head swept back and forth dramatically, almost angrily.

"Nah-ah. No way. Not gonna happen. Keep the money."

"Just a small tattoo, Suzie. Somewhere where no one can see. You won't even notice it. Just a tiny little tattoo."

But Suzie continued shaking her head vigorously.

Jessica glared at Suzie, then just as quickly relaxed, smiling pleasantly.

"No. That's okay. If you don't want to get a tattoo, I understand. It's your body, after all. Some people just hate tattoos."

Suzie immediately relaxed, visibly relieved that this weird conversation was drawing to a close.

Jessica turned to leave.

She paused in the doorway.

"It's just that. It's just that you did lose the bet, and I really hate taking your money. There must be something you're willing to do that you normally wouldn't."

Suzie just shrugged her shoulders.

I mean, she thought. It's just a hundred dollars. She could get that back easily from her folks.

"If I think of something else, will you at least consider it?"

Suzie shrugged again.

"Sure. I mean. Why not? If it won't hurt. Or mark me up permanently."

Jessica's lips widened in a bright grin, showing her clean white teeth.

"I'll think of something," she said.

And she did.

She did think of something.

III

***

Jessica didn't knock on her door for the rest of the night. Until right before bedtime.

Suzie heard a light tap on her door.

"Yeah? Come in," she shouted.

Jessica poked her golden blond head in.

"Hey, you doing anything tomorrow? We should go down to the pool. In the morning. We can bring down mojitos. I've got a great recipe."

"You're not supposed to have alcohol at the pool. It says so on the gate."

Jessica stepped inside Suzie's bedroom and threw her a dark and curious look.

"Girl," she finally said.

Then she bubbled out of the room.

"Night, Suzie!"

"Night."

True to her word, Jessica made cocktails of Bacardi, sugar, lime juice, club soda, and mint. Then she poured the drink into two large containers with screw tops. The containers were both pink with a pretty floral design running up and down the cylindrical vessels.

When Suzie woke up and stumbled into the kitchen, Jessica had just finished screwing the lid onto the second drinking bottle.

Jessica bounced and jiggled and spun in the kitchen, moving not only to the beat of a hidden drummer but to a steady bass line pounding through her psyche at almost all moments. The girl never really stopped moving, keeping herself in a constant state of half-dancing, half-swaying.

Suzie bit her lip at the bikini her roommate wore.

Sparkling blue triangles covering her nipples, ostensibly covering the mounds of her breasts, full but not enormous, like Suzie's own. A tiny blue string wrapped around Jessica's hips, and Suzie had to squint to see the thread running through her groin and out the back between the bare cheeks of Jessica's ass.

Surely it was illegal.

Surely no sane human being would ever wear such a thing in public?

Jessica saw her looking, swung her hip out with a hand on her waist and said, "Well? You like what you see? Where's your swimsuit, girl? It's time to go!"

Suzie turned around, and Jessica slapped her on her pajamas butt.

"Hurry, babe. I'm ready to soak up some sun!"

***

The sun glinted in a thousand reflecting sparkles off the rolling blue surface of the pool. The biting smell of chlorine mixed with aromas of coconut oil and alcohol, for the rule against intoxicating beverages was rarely enforced, allaying something of Suzie's fears.

The two students found a corner of the pool exposed to the sun. A wire fence, shoulder high and blacked-out by dark heavy cloth ran behind the two deck loungers in blue plastic.

Jessica slid her deck lounge to form a V, with the feet of their chairs nearly touching. She poured suntan lotion onto her arms, her legs, her belly, the exposed area of her bosom. She thought about asking Suzie to spread the lotion on her back.

No, she thought. Not quite yet. That might come later.

Suzie herself covered what skin showed in sunblock, having the kind of skin which burned easily and painfully.

For a while the two girls just watched the world go by around the pool. Three young men -- Suzie thought at least one of them might still have been in high school -- cavorted around the pool trying to grab the attention of three other young women -- Jessica recognized the trio as college students -- but the college girls didn't bite.

At least not then.

Suzie felt overdressed looking at the three women, who all wore shiny bikinis almost but not quite as scandalous as Jessica's. Then she noticed another person on the other side of the pool reclined on a deck lounge in the far corner.

She too wore a bikini. At least she wore a bikini top. A dark purple top showing the skin of her modest breasts falling flat against her body as she lay. The girl wore sunglasses and denim cut-off shorts with a wide black leather belt. She hadn't taken the black sneakers off her feet, and Suzie wondered why she had come down to the pool at all.

Not for sunbathing, she lay in the shade.

And she didn't look ready to swim just yet.

The boys ignored the girl. She had that short, squarish vaguely masculine body boys so often ignore in the presence of ideal womanhood.

And three exemplars of ideal womanhood caught sun on their deck lounges, offset a little from male trio, not giving the three men the slightest bit of attention.

Yet.

Something about the direction of the girl's face made Suzie realize that the other girl was returning the Freshman's gaze, and Suzie quickly looked away from the girl in the short Beatles haircut.

Jessica for her part gazed at Suzie's body hidden behind her drab, dark red one-piece swimming suit.

Those first weeks of clubbing with Suzie made the upper classman realize that her roommate kept to herself, avoided loud and crowded places, and generally behaved shy to the point of being anti-social.

She'd started those bets, those wagers simply as a way to get the girl to come out of her shell. As a matter of fact, Suzie's agreeing to the bets surprised, no, shocked Jessica. She really didn't think she had it in her.

Looking over her friend's body, curvy and feminine despite Suzie's best attempt to cover up, Jessica started forming a plan, a vague outline of an idea rapidly began taking shape until Jessica found herself beaming at the reposed form of Suzie in repine.

It was so simple, why didn't she think of it before?

The older student appraised her roommate, admiring her milky skin. Her eyes took in Suzie's soft, yielding body, unathletic but not flabby, soft in the way of a woman who doesn't get much exercise but who eats well and healthfully, full breasts and wide, round hips.

A good, soft body with bare, uninked arms and bare, ink-free legs, and a bare, inkless neck.

A blank canvas for her new art.

Jessica spoke up, casually speaking, coaxing information out of her roommate.

"Why the one-piece, Suzie?"

Startled from her light doze, Suzie turned her head to face Jessica.

"I don't like guys to see my body, is all," she said defensively. "It makes me feel. So. Exposed. Like a fresh meat waiting to be devoured."

"Just the guys? You don't mind the girls looking? Some girls like to see your body, too, Suzie."

Jessica pointed her head with a nod in the direction of the girl in the far corner.

Suzie frowned.

Was Jessica teasing her?

"Gross."

Jessica sat forward to look at her friend reproachfully.

"You need to be more tolerant, Suzie."

Self-doubt gnawed at the girl. Tolerant. There was that word again. Was she really intolerant? Prejudiced?

"I'm sorry. It's just. You know. I'm just not into them. Other girls. Dykes."

"You don't have to be into them. You just have to accept them. Lesbians. You need to learn to accept them."

Jessica sipped at her drink. Suzie, taking the opportunity to change the subject, sipped hers too.

She groaned with pleasure, waving her hands and arms while shaking her head from side to side in slow gestures of delight.

Suzie squeezed her eyes shut.

"Oh. My. God. This. This is so good."

Jessica's grin said it all.

She'd been so ready to paint lately.

Jessica kept up a steady stream of conversation, steering clear of anything that might alarm her younger roommate, might set the warning bells off before those bells turned useless.

"I have a boyfriend."

That statement came after a couple of questions about Suzie's romantic life. Jessica had tried to hook her up early on in their friendship, but Suzie didn't bite. She knew that the girl went back home every few weekends, and she knew about her boyfriend of course.

"I know. You've told me. Several times."

"Well, I mean. That's kind of why I'm not the party girl you are. I just want to. You know."

Suzie turned red.

"Get married after college. And I know he's the one. I mean, we've been together like forever."

Jessica nodded her head understandingly.

"I've only been with him."

Jessica arched an eyebrow.

"You know, I've been thinking. About our bets. About how you still owe me. And I think I found a way for you to pay me back."

Suzie took another drink from her bottle. A longer drink than her first timid sips. Not quite a gulp, but still.

"I'm listening."

Here it was, Jessica realized. I can do this. I can get her.

She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly.

"The thing is, and I don't know if I ever told you, but my mom and dad, they used to be stage performers. Magicians. Hypnotists. A real husband-and-wife team. They got pretty big from it. Before I was born."

Jessica paused, and in the silence she heard Suzie slurping at her mojito.

Suzie looked up at Jessica and gave her a quizzical look.

"Go on," she said. "I never knew that. You never told me. I wondered about all those books."

But you never asked, did you girl, Jessica thought. Why not? Why didn't you ask about them?

"Well. I've kind of dabbled in it, myself. Mom hung back a little, but Dad? He showed me a lot of their old tricks, and even taught me some induction techniques. And I kind of, you know, I've kind of been wanting to try them on somebody. And I was wondering if, you know. You could."

Suddenly Jessica threw her arms up in embarrassment, as if shooing away the idea.

"Oh never mind," she exclaimed. "It's a stupid idea."

But Suzie leaned forward, eager.

"Wondering if I could what," she asked, already knowing the answer and intrigued, enticed even by the idea. It was so, um. Tingling really. Electric.

All of a sudden, two of the black birds with long tails landed on the pool deck at their feet, squabbling and bawking at each other in curious, metallic screeches. Their wings flapped angrily, and they danced around in furious circles a moment before flying away behind the fence.

"If I could hypnotize you."

There. She said it. It was out.

"Or at least try to," she added self-deprecatingly.

Suzie didn't say anything.

"I'll give you your fifty back, and you won't have to pay me the rest. Just one session, and we'll be even. Whether it works or not."

Suzie finished her drink.

"Fine," Suzie said, "But don't blame me if it doesn't work."

It sounded so easy. Hypnosis was so phony.

And she hated the idea of hitting her folks up for four hundred and fifty dollars.

IV

Suzie sat erect on the sofa facing the television screen, focusing intently on the game. She squeezed her knees with her hands, and tried not to grimace, tried not to let her roommate Jessica see how nervous she was.

Now that she had a chance to think about it.

Jessica had immediately taken a shower when they came back from the pool, washing her suntan lotion off her taut, browned body. She toweled dried her hair, brushed out most of the tangles, and pulled her hair back in a long, loose tail. She threw a short, loose T-shirt over her bare breasts, pulled up a pair of snug red and pink gym shorts, and raced to the living room, trying hard not to show her excitement.