My skin was itching for another tattoo. Three years ago, the thorny black rose blooming just above my shaved pubes was all I wanted. Now, I wanted more. I picked the place, a little shop in the neighborhood where I worked as a waitress, and made my way there late one Saturday afternoon.
Stung, the city’s only twenty-four hour tattoo joint, was packed. A shifting crowd of people was jockeying for space along the tattoo-etched wall. Others sat on the worn leather benches, nervously fiddling with their money or staring into space. A couple of leather boys compared old tattoos, baring muscled backs and biceps to anyone who cared to look. I walked up to the woman at the front counter.
“How long is the wait?”
Her pierced eyebrow rose when she saw me. I knew what I must have looked like to her—a petite brown-skinned girl with wide, long lashed eyes and rounded cheeks who seemed like she’d never seen the inside of a tattoo parlor, much less wanted a tattoo.
“At least three hours, maybe four,” she finally said. “Why don’t you come back later, around midnight when things are less crazy?” The girl glanced at the mob of people behind me. “Most of the crowd from the biker convention should be gone by then.”
At 11:52 PM I was back at the nearly deserted studio. My design in one hand, the cash in the other, and a smile on my face. The woman I’d seen earlier was just getting ready to leave. She smiled at me as she grabbed her stuff. “Hey, I’m glad you came back,” she said. “Our newbie is working the graveyard shift. She’s real good, though.” It really didn’t matter who worked on me, as long as I got what I came for.
I handed over the money and my design, filled out the paperwork, then made myself comfortable on a reclining chair in a sterile back room. Except for a stool and a low leather-covered table that smelled like it had just been wiped down with antiseptic, the room was bare. With nothing else to do, I closed my eyes and waited.
“Is this what you want?” My eyes opened at the sound of the familiar voice.
Ria stood there looking yummy and fuckable in her baggy button-fly jeans and a tank top that shaped her full breasts like clay, offering them up to my eyes for inspection. After two years, she still had the same innocent baby face and barely-there head of black curls. She didn’t seem surprised to see me. Until now I had no idea that she was back in town.
She was my ex. The one who left me almost two years ago with my first and only broken heart. I gave her a small smile of recognition, then looked down at what she wanted to show me. In her hand was a thin piece of paper with the design I had copied and carried around with me for about a year.
It was perfect. “Yes.”
“Where do you want it?”
I stood up and showed her the place on the small of my back.
“Alright. Take off your shirt and lay face down on the table. Straddle it.” I did what I was told. My bare nipples hardened when they touched the cold leather. Ria arranged my hips at the very edge of the table, then touched my spread thighs once as if she couldn’t help herself. She rolled the stool closer to the table and sat down.
My mind blanked as she tended to me, bathing my lower back with something that cooled my skin.
“Relax.” Her breath shivered against that cool place.
I remember that tone from years ago, how it lulled me into trusting and yielding to her. It worked its magic on me now, softening my body, preparing me. Did she treat all her clients this way? Not that it mattered. We weren’t together anymore.
With the touch of her gloved hand on my back I remembered what had drawn me to this girl. Her pierced labret made me wet the first time I saw her. All I could think about was sitting on her face.
The first touch of the needle sent a shockwave of pain through my body. It made me remember how often she’d made me come just by touching me, once, then whispering a firm command in my ear.
The steady buzz increased the pain until I bathed in it. My teeth clenched.
“Relax. This is supposed to be fun, right?” I could imagine the ironic curve of her mouth—that sweet red thing—as she said that.
I’d worn pants that unzipped in the back, just in case taking my shirt off wouldn’t be enough. I felt her hands on that zipper now, easing it down to bare the slope of my ass. Again, there was a coolness, then the heat of her hand on me. Just like I remembered, she was a furnace, all fire and stillness, inviting me to move under or over her. This time I stayed still, breathing slowly through my mouth.
The needle moved again over my flesh, startling pinpricks of sensation that pushed tears from my eyes. Pleasure came slowly, like a fever. It started under the needle, then to the point of contact between her skin and mine. Again, I wanted to move and ease the tension between my thighs, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
The door was closed and we were alone. I could hear her breath, the needle, my breath, and the squeak of leather as I tried to relieve the ache in my nipples.
When she left me two years ago, I had been out of my mind with pain. I would have done anything to keep her. Except put up with her bullshit. She didn’t want me; what she wanted was a toy to play with then toss aside whenever her mood decided. And Ria almost had me like that. She was all I had ever wanted in a woman—clever, ambidextrous hands paired with a wicked imagination. We would have fuck sessions that kept me from concentrating on my work the next day, that left me raw and still wanting more.
The needle swept across my skin, drawing up pain and blood. I felt her hand wipe it away, gently. This was nothing new. Often, after long hours of feeding on each other, with blood near or on the surface of our skin, she would tend to me first, wiping me clean with a warm rag then kissing my cheeks and forehead. She made me feel like the luckiest dyke in the world.
The vibrations from the needle held my whole body captive, drumming into my bones, the skin over my back and hips. We had long ago passed the stage of foreplay. My body was being tuned by her skillful hand, turned into a vibrating organism on the edge of fulfillment and release. And just when I thought I would fall over, she took the needle away and wiped my skin.
My body was drenched in sweat. My neck, the flesh between and under my breasts, my back. All wet.
“I don’t think you’re relaxed enough.”
My breath was heavy. “I’ll feel better after you finish.”
Ria got up from the stool and came up behind me, her jeans brushing against my thighs. All the while the needle continued its dance over my flesh.
She hadn’t been there when I got my first tattoo. But I had told her how it was, how my skin felt like it wanted to jump off my body and hide. Even my brother’s hand clenched between mine hadn’t been enough to stem the urge to take it all back.
As her body pressed against me, I could feel that she was packing. A quick breath hissed through my teeth.
The needle stopped and I felt her smooth something on the rawness at my lower back. Ria’s hands settled on my hips, her fingers poised like question marks between my pants and my skin.
“Yes?” She asked from behind me.
“Uh huh.” I gasped my agreement through the droplets of sweat that clung to my mouth. Suddenly parched, I licked the saltiness away.
My hips rose up to allow Ria whatever she wanted. She took off my pants, then gently pushed me forward against the table. Tears of relief fell to the leather under my face. Her fingers found me first, wet, wanting. A low noise of protest scraped against my throat. I wanted Ria to fuck me, but not with her damn fingers.
“Open this.” She pressed a plastic wrapped condom against my mouth. I ripped the package open with my teeth, gasping as she teased my clit and rubbed her fingers through drenched pussy hairs, to my clenched belly then back down again. Behind me, I heard the buttons of her jeans pop open.
The first stroke made me gasp. This was a bigger dick than the one she packed when we were together. It filled me, sliding deep inside where I could feel it, squeeze it.
I remembered how Ria liked to lay on top of me, curling into my back like a child while her hips pistoned against my ass. She arched over me now, careful not to rub my new tattoo raw. I could smell her pussy. Fabric rustled behind me and I felt the hard points of her nipples against my back, the crush of her breasts. Ria pushed slowly into me, pulling a low moan from my throat and driving my fingers into the leather of the table. Her jeans were rough against the back of my thighs. She pressed us together, keeping still. Her fingers brushed my nipples, feather light, leaving electric tingles in their wake.
“Do you really want this?”
I swallowed. “It’s a little late to ask that question, don’t you think?”
Above me, Ria laughed. Then began to move with long, luxurious strokes, pushing deep inside me then inching out, like she was pulling apart melting toffee. My back arched for her. I could feel the sweat gathering along my spine, trailing down the sharp valley of flesh that led to my tattoo. My breath released in a shuddering sigh. “Now. Please.”
The table groaned under us as she rode me, building up her strength and speed with each stroke. I gasped and panted and pushed back into her, wanting more. Ria cradled my hips in hers, hands curved around my waist as she thrust into me.
“I missed you.” She said, not meaning a word of it.
“Just shut up and fuck me.”
Beyond thought, I spread myself wider to take more of her. I lost myself in the soft liquid suck of my pussy around Ria’s dick, her low moans and the slide of my sweat soaked skin under hers. Ria’s hands covered my breasts, squeezing the nipples to the rhythm of her strokes. Beads of sweat, hers and mine, splashed against the table. The sensitivity of my back, the friction and pressure of her dick, the hands on my breasts were all pushing me toward the come I craved. Wetness trailed down my trembling thighs.
“Do it now,” I demanded.
Ria’s breathless laughter poured over me as she lifted my hips to fit us even closer together. Her thighs slapped against mine. Faster. Pinpricks of heat flew from our contact point all over me, into me, my body was a ball of light, throbbing, waiting for the right signal to explode. Her gloved finger circled my clit, then finally, firmly, stroked the throbbing bundle of nerves. That was the signal my body was waiting for.
Her name ripped itself from my throat in a low, ragged moan. I pushed my face into the sweat-dampened leather, trembling, shuddering under her. The table shook as I collapsed against it. Behind me, I heard the sound of condom being stripped off and tossed away.
“You’re done,” she said.
I licked my dry lips and took a deep shuddering breath. “I hope so.”
“I meant your tattoo.”
“Me too.”
She gave me instructions on how to take care for my tattoo, looking away as I pulled my clothes back on.
“Thanks.”
In the mirror, my tattoo was a dream. A silhouette of the Goddess of Desire, a writhing, snake haired woman with her long legs spread and arms open wide to embrace the universe. My own legs trembled as aftershocks of pleasure rippled through my body.
“Sure.” She looked at me with a slight smile. “This tatt’s on the house. Tell Shelly to give you the money back and I’ll settle up with her later.” This was as close to a real apology that I was going to get from her.
I nodded and kissed her soft, pouting mouth. “See you around.” After one last lingering glance at her, I walked out, smiling and satisfied. Just like old times, Ria had given me exactly what I wanted.