Page 11 of Dark Ink

The one girl continued, “Yeah, he was draped all over me, like. And there was this…intensity to the way he moved. Like I can’t even describe it.”

Describe it, an urgent voice murmured in the back of my head. I squeezed my folded thighs. I willed myself not to feel the building heat; it didn’t work.

“Like there was sweat on his brow he was exerting himself so much for me, ye know?” the one girl continued in a frantic whisper to her friend. “Like I could feel his hot breath on my neck. It sent such tingles down my spine you have no fucking clue.”

“Oh my God,” the other girl replied.

The same words echoed through my head. “Oh my God.” “Oh my God, yes.” “Oh my God, this is wrong.” I tried to refocus on what Professor Levine was explaining, because it was wrong. Listening in. Getting aroused in class. My oversized hoodie, washed so many times it was as soft as down, suddenly felt rough against my hard nipples. The friction as I shifted made me bite my lip.

What was wrong with me? Why did my body react this way? Why did I hate it so much, that my body reacted this way?

“And it hurt,” the girl went on as I stifled a moan. “Like I’m not going to tell you it didn’t hurt. It was like way bigger than I thought it was going to be. And it just kept going in and in and in. And at this pace that I was, like, shite, this is mental. Like how can you sustain this? And like how can I not scream my fecking head off, ye know?”

I wanted to watch. I wanted to watch this girl get stripped naked by this man. I wanted to see his big cock drive into her as she struggled not to scream. God, I wanted to get off on them. I wanted the sight of them to drive me mad, to send me over the edge, to give me some fucking relief.

My mouth was dry. I licked my lips and tried to remember when last I had water. Had I ever had water? I could lick him, when they were spent. I could lick her. I could lap up their pleasure. I could get by on just a drop. Of sweat. Of cum. Of just a lick of the very tip of his tongue.

My fingers flinched toward my clenched inner thighs and I hated myself. I could hear his words. Slut. Whore. I could see me. Slut. Whore. Getting off in public.

“But when he was finished,” the girl whispered, her voice thready, almost desperate. I was desperate, too. Desperate and ashamed. “When he was finished, it was so fucking beautiful. Like I’d never seen anything like it. Just like, I don’t think anything could have been more perfect.”

I imagined his back arching. His fingers digging into her skin, needing something to hold onto. Needing me to hold onto. I imagined his teeth sinking into the crook of her neck to stifle his own screams. I imagined his teeth sinking into the crook of my neck. I imagined him filling me. Collapsing on me. Melting into me. Me. Me.

“And now I’ll have a part of him forever,” the girl whispered.

“Yes,” I whispered to myself.

“Do you want to see?”

“Yes, yes,” I whispered again.

I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward to spy on the two girls. I wanted to see scratches so deep they’d leave an everlasting scar. I wanted to see a bruise from his digging thumbs that would never heal. I wanted to see the indentation of teeth at the swell of her breast that would never go away, so ferocious was his bite.

When I saw the girl’s arm, when I saw the peeling back of the bandage, when I saw the tattoo, I was at first disappointed. Then ashamed at my disappointment. Then fucking livid.

Call it emotional whiplash. Call it whatever you bleedin’ want. But you try seeing your fucking face tattooed on some random bird and tell me how keeping your emotions in check went, okay?

“Where the fuck did you get that?” I hissed, leaning over the top of my laptop.

The two girls looked up at me, clearly startled.

“Mind your own business,” the girl with my fucking face on her arm told me.

I jabbed my thumb into my nose, yes, my fucking nose, there on some stranger’s arm and she yelped in pain. She pushed away at me, but I had the advantage of the higher position.

“Where did you get that?” I hissed again.

The girl’s friend was the first to notice. Her annoyed look switched to confusion and then surprise and then excitement.

“Oh shite,” she said, knee bouncing as she patted her friend’s leg. “Look.”

Perhaps given different circumstances I might have had more of a chance to be jealous of their obvious friendship. I might have longed for that kind of easy communication that comes from time spent drinking pints at the local together and between overstuffed vintage racks and sprawled out on the Mallorca beach together.

But the fact that I was staring at my face permanently inked onto someone I didn’t know by someone I didn’t know kind of took precedence.

The girl with the tattoo seemed to at last recognise me as the person from her own limb. Somehow that pissed me off even more. When did I become a fashion accessory? Adornment for an arm? A piece of art to be gazed at every now and then and forgotten?

When did I become so little? Why had I let myself become so small?

---