Page 63 of Cross To Bear

“Do you want to see it?” I asked, looking at her over the top of my sketchbook.

“No.” She lay back against the bench, sucking in a breath, then letting it out slowly.

“You sure?” I rose to my feet, unable to stop staring at the picture she made right now. The white floral printed dress was stark against the black leather. Pretty, fragile and girly vs well worn, dark and masculine. And then there was that body, put on display by the cunning fit of the dress, nipping in at the waist, then flaring out over her curves, the fabric still rucked up over her knees. “Last chance.”

“Your choice,” she reiterated, serious now. “You choose how you’ll mark me, and I won’t look until it’s done.”

“OK then.”

It was good this was all just play. I’d never tattoo someone blind like this, without their consent, but I went through the motions, tracing the tiny design on a little scrap of transfer paper before going to work.

“You asked how I know the difference between a groupie and a regular client?” I kept my tone conversational, the same even friendly one I used with anyone who booked a session with me. “Well, a client is usually scared or excited or completely jaded. They don’t really pay too much attention to me. I’m just the guy with the gun and they know they’re paying me by the hour, so they just want to get on with it, but groupies…”

She jumped as I smoothed my hand up under her skirt, feeling the satin of her skin, wanting to stroke it, pet it, sink my fangs in and mark it much more savagely, but I held back.

“Everything about a session is personal, intimate. They try to stop it being two strangers stuck in a room to do a weird thing and make it something else. I need you to open your thighs wide now.”

“What?”

I flipped her skirt upwards, no longer willing to waste time.

“You told me I could mark you wherever I wanted? Well, I choose here.”

My hand slid across the very spot Tiffany had pointed to, because now, with another woman, that felt exactly right. I pinched the very soft flesh of her inner thigh, grinning when she jumped and then looked sharply at me.

“It’ll be hidden somewhere that no one in your workplace will ever see. No one but me and my brothers. It’ll be our little secret. So, now’s the time to bow out if you want to. Otherwise I’m gonna sterilise the area then apply the transfer and go to work.”

I wouldn’t. I told myself that over and over, though she needed to know. That I couldn’t create this kind of vibe in here with anyone but her. All the Tiffanys in the world could parade through here naked and there would only ever be Maddie for me. She just stared at me then, breath coming in too fast, prompting me to tell her to slow it down, lest the adrenalin had her passing out, right before she nodded.

I sighed, feeling like I was locked into a game of chicken, one where neither of us was sure the other would pull off. I turned and grabbed my gear, snapping on a fresh pair of gloves then opening an alcohol swab before going to work. Clean the area thoroughly, I thought, my fingers digging into her thigh as it jumped at the first cool touch of the swab. Make sure there was no hair or anything that would impede a clean transfer of the design. Bring the artwork over and then lay it on her skin, right up high, almost on the bikini line of her underwear. I went a little further in, sticking it down on the curve of her inner thigh.

“You sure you don’t want to have a say where this goes?” I asked her. “This spot? It’ll sting like a bitch long after I’m done. You’ll be walking around that office of yours, looking all cool, calm and collected, but right where no one can see, you’ll be aching for me.”

“You want to hurt me?”

She rolled up on her elbows, peering past her dress though not able to see the design at this angle.

“Tattooing hurts, baby,” I told her, willing her to see. “It always does, but the people that love them, they don’t care. The pain is worth it because on the other side is something beautiful. People in my business, they know what’s what. That there are some experiences you’ll never have if you avoid pain and having them is worth the price.”

Fuck, I needed her to make that jump with me. Not the tattoo. That was just a fucking metaphor, had been since the moment we started playing. I didn’t need her to commit to a tattoo but to me. Accept me. Claim me. Scratch the eyes out of girls like Tiffany for even looking at me, because then I’d know… I rubbed my thumb up and down her thigh, careful to avoid the tattoo design.

“Is that what girls like Tiffany come to you for?” Fuck, the cold edge was back in her voice. “Something beautiful?”

I sighed and shook my head, focussing on mixing some inks, like I really intended to do this, because by following the familiar ritual, I could choke this down. Frustration, irritation, anger at my fucking brother because he’d put this jaded shit on Maddie. It was like he’d tried to burn everything sweet out of her, leaving us to deal with the burning husk. As I set the little pots of ink up, all various shades of grey, I shook my head.

“No. I can smell a woman’s arousal, just like I can smell yours. In them it’s like the aroma of a food you don’t like. You know in your head most guys think its savoury, but it just turns my guts, so when girls spread their legs for me.” I shoved hers wider and held them there. “When they arch their back and present their tits. When they ask me to tattoo their nipples or their cunts or even their arseholes, I just look at the wet spot forming on their panties.” I rubbed my thumb through hers, almost able to feel the silken fabric through the thin latex. “And I feel nothing, not like I do when I’m with you. They put everything on display and I just call Cress in to keep them from making a damn fool of themselves. But they never, ever get me like this.”

I stood up, jerked my zip down, and then eased my cock past the teeth of my zipper. The latex on my cock made my hand feel weird, alien, almost like someone else’s, as I showed her exactly what she did to me. She stared at my hand, at the way the glove slid over the barbells inset along the underside of my dick, something that would rub so sweetly inside her until my baculum shot out.

“Only you, Maddie. You’re the beginning and the end for me. I don’t know how to make that more plain—”

“I do.” By the set of her jaw, I knew I wasn’t going to like this one little bit. “Tattoo me, Bjorn. You tattoo other women. Tattoo me.”

“I don’t tattoo people blindly. I don’t do it without their explicit consent.”

“I’m consenting.”

“I talk through designs with people, make sure they’re getting exactly what they want.”

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