Love at Large (2 page)

“Okay. It’ll take me a few minutes to draw it up on transfer paper and get my gear ready. We should talk price, too. How about eighty dollars? I prefer cash.”

He gave me another grin, and I felt a strange tingle start somewhere in the vicinity of my knees.

I hadn’t been sure what the cost would be, but eighty dollars seemed reasonable.

“Eighty’s fine.” I hoped I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. “Roughly, how long do you think it will take?”

“Well, maybe an hour and a half, two hours. Most people, though, find an hour is about as much pain as they can take. Some handle it well, some don’t. Is this your first tattoo?”

I nodded. Maybe I was in over my head?

“Okay. How about we see how you’re feeling after an hour, and if it’s bothering you too much, we’ll call it a day, and you can come back in a week or two and get it finished off?”

“All right.” The last syllable came out in a squeak. I was about to find out the hard way just how high my pain threshold went.

Rip busied himself with his preparations, gathering ink and, gulp, instruments. I leaned against the counter and studied him at my leisure while he was otherwise occupied. He was a tall man, with a well-muscled body. Shiny chestnut hair was gathered into a longish ponytail low on the nape of his neck. He had long legs clad in well-worn leather jeans topped with a black t-shirt, the sleeves ripped out leaving his arms bare. His feet sported black-strapped boots with Cuban heels. I wondered if the motorcycle parked out front belonged to him.

While he might never have been described as handsome, he had a pleasant and open face with a high forehead, deep brown eyes with lashes any woman would envy sweeping dark against his cheek, and a wide mouth with a full lower lip. There were laugh lines etched beside that mouth and matching ones crinkled the corners of his eyes.

I pondered my own reflection in the mirror stretched across the back wall. I only just reached the shoulder of the tall man I’d been watching. If short and fat were where it’s at, I’d be there. My hair, a deep lustrous red that owed more to the chemical industry than nature, curled below my shoulders to brush the slopes of breasts that were more than generous. My hips flowed out in corresponding curves from a narrow waist – an hourglass figure, with several extra minutes of sand. I had wide-set grey eyes in a round face, tipped with a pert nose and garnished with a full mouth. It was far from meeting the narrow standards of conventional beauty, but it wasn’t an unappealing package to the discerning viewer, if I did say so myself.

As he straightened from retrieving the last of his impedimenta from beneath the sink, a posture that provided a very enticing view, the butterflies in my stomach metamorphosed into elephants and shifted up a gear from soft-shoe shuffle to tap dance. I’d managed to distract myself from impending events in contemplation of Rip and my own vanity, but as he beckoned me toward the torturer’s chair, I realised my moment of truth was at hand.

I lowered myself into the chair with trepidation.

“Show me again where you want this positioned,” said Rip, donning latex gloves as he seated himself on a wheeled stool and scooted it over beside me.

I felt a blush creep up my cheeks as I unbuttoned my blouse, my modesty grateful I’d had the foresight to wear a tank top beneath it. Not that I really minded being ogled if it were done with sincere admiration, but there was something very intimate about disrobing, even partially, while in such a vulnerable position with a man who, I had to admit, was getting to me in ways I didn’t dare examine in detail.

I pointed to the expanse of upper breast thus bared and avoided his gaze.

“More to the left?” His hand, holding the paper with my design, hovered awaiting my assent.

I peered down my nose trying to see if that was where I wanted to put the tattoo.

“Don’t worry too much. I’ll apply the transfer, then you can have a look in the mirror and see if that’s right. It’s no hassle to wipe it off and try again,” he said, smoothing the paper over my skin.

His knee brushed my arm, sending another of those disconcerting flutters freewheeling through me. He peeled it away, leaving the outline of the sketch printed on my skin, and stepped back to allow me a view of my reflection.

I pondered. “Maybe a bit more to the left, please.”

Rip swabbed the first try away with a little alcohol, and repositioned the transfer.

“Better.” I smiled.

“Great. Make yourself comfortable, and we’ll start. I’m just going to adjust the chair, don’t be alarmed.” He raised the chair and lowered the back to a reclining position.

Getting comfortable seemed an impossible task in the face of the ominous nature of the contraption in which I was seated, as well as my puzzling reactions to Rip. I squirmed, feeling awkward, reminded again all too vividly of being in the dentist’s chair, fitting my knees over the long leg rests. I was about as comfortable as I was going to get, given that every tendon in my body had gone rigid with fear.

“So does your other half know you’re doing this, or will it be a surprise?” he asked.

“I don’t have an other half.”

“Ah.”

I wasn’t sure what his ‘ah’ meant, but I had other more immediate worries.

He pulled himself closer into my left side, so close I could feel his knee warm against my thigh while his breath stirred loose strands of my hair. He smelled of something herbal and spicy, and I had to drag my eyes away from his too close face.

I was blushing again.

“Ready? If the pain’s bothering you too much, tell me and we’ll take a break. Okay, here we go.”

His forehead creased in concentration as the needle began to buzz. He dipped the tip in black ink and lowered it toward my skin. My right hand gripped the armrest so tightly my fingers tingled, as if I were in an aircraft and in mortal fear of flying. I hoped I didn’t actually take flight when the instrument touched my vulnerable bosom.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect, but the sensation that ripped through me was electrifying. Every instinct told me to swipe the source of the fire that burned into my epidermis away, right now. I steeled myself to remain still, though every muscle I possessed, and some I wasn’t aware I had, screamed with tension. I gritted my teeth, determined not to whimper. This was a choice, I reminded myself, and I’d be damned if I wimped out with just a thin black line to show for drumming up the courage to get to this point.

“How are you doing?” Rip interrupted his excavation on my chest to re-ink the needle.

“O-okay,” I gasped. The respite was welcome, but I couldn’t summon breath enough for a more detailed reply. Both the tattooing and his proximity combined to suck all the air out of my lungs.

He gave me a sympathetic glance. “Worse than you expected? It won’t feel this painful for too long. Most people say the outlining is the worst part. I’m not sure if that’s true or if the body’s natural painkillers, the endorphins, kick in after a bit and take the edge off it. Anyway, like I said, if it gets too bad, tell me and we’ll stop.”

I nodded, and he bent his head to his task once more. The buzzing of the needle so close to my ear sounded like a nest of hornets, a not unlikely simile given the sensations I was experiencing. I tried to concentrate on the music coming over the sound system, Santana followed by Janis Joplin, losing myself in the songs in an attempt to focus on something other than pain and the unnerving effect of an attractive man invading my personal space in such an intimate way. The frequent short stops as Rip re-inked the needle helped, though during those breaks I found my attention riveted to his person in an entirely disconcerting fashion.

Twenty-five minutes in, and I was feeling rather more in control of myself, both with regard to Rip and the pain. Either the outlining
was
the worst of it or my endorphins were kicking up a storm in my bloodstream. Whichever, while I wasn’t exactly enjoying the experience, I was up to getting a crick in my neck trying to see what he was doing.

Noticing my contortions, he straightened. “Gotta change colours and clean the needle. Want to stretch and take a look in the mirror, see how we’re going?” He lowered the chair until my feet could reach the floor when I sat up, then stretched his arms over his head. The series of impressive cracks emanating from his spine were audible even over the music. I tried not to stare at the expanse of bare abdomen exposed as his t-shirt rode up.

I stood, grateful my knees weren’t quivering more than a bit, and stretched myself, working the kinks out of muscles tense with apprehension. I took two steps to the mirror and pushed my shirt back.

There was my design, at least the outline of it, etched against skin slightly reddened from the trauma inflicted upon it. I pulled back the right lapel of my shirt and compared the pristine décolletage there to my now illustrated left. My stomach did its umpteenth nervous flip flop for the day, but I was grinning.

I liked it!

Rip stood behind me, looking over my shoulder at our reflection. He was close enough that I could feel the warmth of him all down my back. I suppressed a shiver and fought the desire to take a step back to find out how that body would feel pressed against the length of mine. Instead, I met his gaze in the mirror as he raised his eyes from the beginnings of my tattoo.

“What do you think?”

I regarded my inked bosom again and smiled. “Let’s colour it in.”

“Good! The way you were inspecting it, I was afraid you were having second thoughts or didn’t like my work, or – well, anyway, it’s a bit late to take it back now…”

“Oh, I don’t want to take it back. I like it.” I liked him, too, but I wasn’t planning on saying that. Not just yet.

I arranged myself in the dreaded chair again, even more aware of the warmth of his body so close to my flank. He had gentle hands, even wielding an instrument of torture.

The first few seconds of the incessant buzz, and the nagging prickling of my skin took me by surprise all over again, but after a stern word to myself I found my zone in the music once more. The short intervals of respite as he re-inked the tool brought me back to a too complete awareness of his closeness. I could see small beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he worked, and I resisted the impulse to wipe them away. I didn’t want to startle him while he was etching something permanent upon my person.

At last he put down the needle and pushed himself back, casting a critical eye over the results.

When I glanced at the clock above the sink, I was surprised to see an hour and a half had passed. I’d have guessed at perhaps a scant hour since my panicky self had first reclined in the chair.

“May I take a look?” I could see my chosen colours emblazoned on my breast, but from the corner of my eye the image was blurred. I could hardly wait to see what it really looked like.

“I’m not finished, but I think that’s enough for one day, hmm? Here, go ahead and take a proper look.”

Rip lowered the chair for me again, and I made my way over to the mirror.

“So, what’s the verdict?”

I parted my shirt where it had fallen together as I rose and looked.

My design was almost exactly as I had imagined. The graceful arc of equine tail followed the curve of my breast. Dark green shaded to palest along the seahorse’s body, highlighted in yellow. Washes of blue water curled about both beast and the seaweed, the whole delicately outlined in black. I could all but smell the salt.

I could see it wasn’t quite finished, but I loved it.

“Looks good, eh?” Rip seemed pleased with himself. “The blues need more shading, I think, and I’d like to do a little more shadowing with the black, but you can see how it will be.”

“Yes.” I wasn’t sure if it was the approval, the heady proximity of a healthy specimen of male, the end of the torture, or the endorphins partying it up in my system but I felt great, as if I could take on the world and bite its head off if it didn’t do exactly what I wanted.

“Come back in, say, ten days to two weeks. What we’ve done today should be healed by then and I can put in the finishing touches. Here, I’ll write down the name of an antiseptic cream to use, and this should explain everything you need to do to take care of the tattoo.” He scribbled on the back of a double fold business card and handed it to me. “And if you’ve got any questions, phone and ask, or drop in. Otherwise I’ll see you in around two weeks.”

“See you then,” I agreed, buttoning my shirt and pocketing the card. I was already looking forward to seeing him again.

The shopfront had filled up with several customers, a couple of them surely too young to acquire a tattoo without parental consent. Rip, depositing my payment in the cash register, had clearly encountered them before.

“I’ve told you a dozen times, I won’t tattoo either of you until you produce proof of age. Go on, clear out!”

He meant business, but his grin and the cheeky retort from one of the youngsters took the sting out of the exchange. He waved to me, hovering in the doorway, and turned his attention to the next victim, er, customer.

Out on the street, my euphoria only increased. Though the day was cool, the afternoon was sunny, blue skies boasting scarcely a cloud. Everything looked so clear, colours brighter than I’d ever realised, the breeze fresh and invigorating. I strode down the slope back into the main shopping precinct, reminding myself to pick up the recommended antiseptic cream before I headed home.