Peeling off the plastic film from her newest tattoo, Ankita admired the black ink running down her spine through her full length mirror. What little light pierced through her bedroom curtains offered just enough visibility to examine the scales of the thick rattlesnake scales, its curled tail at her coccyx. The body of the snake twisted as it ran up the centre of her back to where the hissing head nested between her shoulders. When wearing a t-shirt, the head and tongue of the serpent would be just about visible, by design.
She smiled a rebellious grin, the same thrill she had gotten years ago when first unveiling the vines that ran up her slim legs, or the mystical crescent moon in the centre of her chest. Looking at it made her wet between the legs, or rather, it intensified her unending pulsing arousal. Of late, Ankita had found herself constantly ravenous. Nothing seemed to abate the constant state of need; somehow the pain of the tattoo only seemed to fuel it.
This was unlike her, and after a hectic few days at work which served as a welcome distraction to her horniness, she finally now had a day off and she intended to spend the entirety of it in her room tending to herself. She opened a drawer and retrieved a vibrating dildo, holding it while she finished admiring her reflection with the full canvas of her designs now in view. Her eyes were still dark and smokey from yesterday's makeup, she had experimented with making them cat-like to distract from her nose, a self-conscious habit. She had an ovular face in perfect proportion, with thin red lips and long dark hair. The supple brown skin of her hips and thighs drew her gaze, where the tightness of her naked body was most apparent. Her modest breasts were perky, her figure slight and slender. Staring at herself amidst the ink, the roaring passion in her loins made her feel youthful, even in her mid-twenties, and she couldn't hold from touching herself a second longer.
Laying down on the bed, careful not to put undue pressure on her back, she switched on the toy and pressed it firmly to her engorged slippery clit. The arching of her spine stung - even after weeks of healing it was still a shock - but Ankita powered on, moaning as the intricate vibrations overtook her.
Something was wrong. Ankita was usually quick to cum, especially with this toy and as horny as she was right now, but it wouldn't give. The electric potential for pleasure felt somehow stuck, her muscles contracting expectantly as her wet pussy tingled with excitement, but where nirvana should have been was instead a wall. The humming toy felt good, but she couldn't reach orgasm. It was infuriating. She changed tact, sliding it inside her, roaring internally but after over an hour of experimentation she couldn't take the incessant teasing anymore. Clicking off the toy, she tossed it to the floor where it clacked noisily against the wood.
"You alright in there?" came a soft voice from outside the door, her flatmate Mei checking in on her as she often did. Ankita found her cloying obtrusive at the best of times, and after days of build-up unrealised she snapped more harshly than usual.
"Fine!" Ankita exclaimed at top volume, "Just leave me alone."
"Alrighty hun," Mei replied, just as warmly as before, "I'm gonna make some tea, let me know if you want any." The girl was always making tea, or otherwise sprawled out in the living room practising yoga or cleaning spots of the house that were already gleaming. An ever-annoying little ball of positivity.
Ankita patted her hand around her bedside table, overcrowded as ever, sending a pair of straighteners and a tower of coins spilling onto the floor before finding her vape and taking a long puff of blueberry. She decided perhaps another approach could work, discarding the vape and sliding her fingers inside herself to massage her g-spot. She was slow at first, but her ferocity increased with her hunger.
That day she didn't leave her room, alternating between using toys, her fingers, vaping sessions and naps but not once reaching orgasm. She was close to tears as dusk rolled around, panting in bed and staring up at the ceiling in disbelief. A loud text tone from her phone stirred her from quiet fury, and another cacophony of falling objects from the bedside table accompanied the sloppy retrieval of her phone. A message read:
'DAILY REPORT // Orgasms blocked: 7 // Criteria not met: Taste juices // Next criteria: 28 hours'
There was no sender number, the contact simply read "Report Status". For a while, she just stared at it, in awe of its impossibility. Simultaneously terrifying and strangely reassuring, the knowledge that something really was blocking her orgasms. If her inability to cum hadn't been so unusual, and if the orgasm count in the text hadn't so closely aligned with her own estimate she might have dismissed the message immediately. Yet the fear and shock of the message was secondary to the key it contained. A criteria she needed to cum. The curiosity was intoxicating, her fingers brought hesitantly to her tongue to taste herself, and though the thought of it was vulgar, something inside her wanted to savour it. An unfamiliar urge. With her other hand she rubbed her clit, back on the brink of orgasm in an instant, but this time tonguing her sticky fingers and plummeting into a deep hard orgasm which dropped her into a chasm of pleasure.
The relief was incredible, so powerful that the horror of what had just happened nearly escaped her as she lay drenched in sweat. She sat up, and after the room felt real again she re-read the message. This was really happening. Something had been done to her that made her unable to orgasm freely. Terror swam over her, yet her hand soon absentmindedly fell between her legs and began to stroke at her needy little wet nub. She couldn't think straight. Just one more orgasm, then she would be able to figure this out. Pumping her fingers deftly in and out of herself, she swapped hands, slurping the renewed juices with one hand while she worked with the other, cumming once and immediately followed by an orgasm so hard she squirted across the floor and began to feel dizzy. Both disgusted and relieved.
At last she began to feel herself again, the amplified arousal of the last few days finally released. With the mist on her mind finally lifted, she suddenly realised the only possible cause of this sudden change in her body.
* * *
Ankita should have known to be suspicious when a long-vacant storefront by her flat had suddenly been reconfigured to display a trendy sign for a new tattoo parlour. Nothing remotely interesting could be found along this high street, so 'Pop of iNk' stood out significantly, plucked from her dreams and drawing her in. Inside she got chatting to the artist as he continued the design of a castle on a lady's shoulder. Right away she could tell he was the kind of artist she liked, pouring with enthusiasm for his craft, though she suspected he didn't take to her at all. He explained the store was a pop-up while he looked for a more affordable permanent location, mentioning other local artists that Ankita had worked with on her other tattoos and piercings. The design he was tattooing now was beautiful, with intricate brickwork which perfectly matched a nearby sketch, though he used a device she had never seen before - much larger than the usual equipment. He also pointed her towards pictures along the walls which showed some of his recent work, most of his favourites being back and shoulder tatts. As she browsed, she described the snake she had always wanted to get along her spine and the artist beamed at the idea, directing her to an image of a similarly complex piece he had worked on before.
"If you'd be willing to pay a deposit I could draw something up?" he offered.
"I actually have some sketches already, I can bring them over." said Ankita, casually dropping her occupation as interior designer into conversation in an attempt at artist-to-artist kinship. As usual, her attempt at subtlety was embarrassingly transparent and as she listed some awards she had won he nodded along politely. Feeling she hadn't earned his respect as an artist, she instead insisted she would permit him some artistic licence but would only pay if the product closely resembled her designs, "I know what I want and you can just say if you're not confident you can deliver."
He seemed unphased by her condescension, and the next morning she came along with the designs and he gave her a quote well below what she had come to expect for multi-day works like this. Still, she haggled him down for the principle of it, and they agreed on a price. During that visit he was working on another client, this wolf tattoo just as striking as the one yesterday, and she made sure not to give away how impressed she was at how quickly he had achieved a steady stream of clients in such a new location. The diary he produced to find her a slot seemed teeming with bookings, but he offered her a few times across the weeks, each multiple hours long and thankfully there were a few that worked with her schedule. During the first session she filled out some forms with contact information and set up payment instalments, then they got started.
Ankita was happy with the results right away, especially as he used an unexpectedly effective numbing agent in the sessions to minimise the pain, and the strange equipment he used with the 'N' insignia on the side seemed to make quick work of the design. A thick hose ran from the top of it to a rack of machines along the wall and despite her repeated queries he offered little information about it, suggesting it was a more precise and less intrusive tool. Yet sometimes after her sessions she felt an ache in her back which felt deeper than any tattoo she had gotten before. She had been warned that the spine was a uniquely painful location to get a tattoo, and felt smug in the knowledge that the pain hadn't beaten her yet.
