Perfectly Reckless

Thirty-Three

#chapter Thirty-Three

Getting a tattoo is never something you should do on a whim, but Maura had been thinking about it for a long time. The place she’d gone to get her octopus had closed some time ago, but the girl who’d done her work had sent out postcards announcing that she was working at a new place. It was open, and it took walk-ins, and it was right around the corner from the movie theater.

“You don’t mind?” Maura asked Daniel.

He looked up from the binder of photographs he’d been flipping through. “No. Of course not. I can go back with you and watch, right?”

“Yep.” She leaned over his shoulder to point out a particularly stunning pin-up girl on some anonymous calf. “You sure you don’t want something like that?”

He laughed. “Um, no. Maybe another time.”

“Ha.” Maura studied the different licenses on the walls. The framed dollar bill. She liked the poster that said “No, it didn’t hurt. My tattoo was licked on by a couple of kittens.”

In another minute, Gretel, the tattoo artist, was calling her back. Maura got settled in the barber chair and held out her right wrist. It was going to be something very simple. One word.

Enough.

Daniel hadn’t asked her what she was getting, or why, but Gretel did. She wet the stencil and pressed it to the inside of Maura’s wrist. “Take a look at that. Why ‘enough’?”

Maura didn’t look at Daniel, who’d taken a seat on the stool beside her. “It’s a reminder.”

“Cool.” Gretel didn’t press for more information. She settled herself on her stool and held up the gun. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t take very long,” she promised, and Maura knew that was true.

It would take long enough.

The sweet sting began, and something like a moan slipped out of her. Gretel laughed softly. Maura wasn’t embarrassed. She was sure Gretel had heard everything from screams to whimpers. A semi-sex noise couldn’t possibly faze her.

Maura glanced at Daniel, though, and his eyes were gleaming. He leaned forward, looking from his wrist to her face. “It hurts, huh?”

“The skin’s thin here.” Gretel sat up for a second to wipe away some of the excess ink. “The top of the feet hurts worse.”

“It hurts,” Maura said. “Enough.”

Daniel met her gaze and gave a small nod, like he understood. Maybe he did. But after that, Maura closed her eyes and let the pain warm her.

It didn’t take long for Gretel to finish, since it was that single word in a plain script, done in black. “Check it out.”

Maura looked at it. As always, it was trippy knowing that she had marked herself permanently, that she would never again be able to look at that spot without seeing this new piece of her. And, like the other times she’d had work done, the euphoria left her a little woozy. She stood, reaching for Daniel to steady her.

“I want one,” he said.

Gretel looked up at him. “Yeah? Right now? I have time, depending on what you want to do.”

Daniel looked thoughtful. “You know the infinity symbol?”

“Sure.”

Maura knew it, too. “Where do you want it?”

He tapped the spot over his chest thoughtfully. “Here?”

“That would be cool.” Gretel nodded, and Maura wondered if everything seemed cool, or if she’d ever given someone advice against a design or location.

Twenty minutes later, Daniel stared in the mirror at the new addition to his formerly flawless skin. He turned a little to the left and right. Then he nodded a little at his own reflection.

“You like it?” Maura asked in the car.

“It’s too late now if I don’t, isn’t it?”

She wanted to ask him why the infinity symbol, but something stopped her. He hadn’t asked her about hers. Maybe that would come later, or maybe they’d never ask each other.

“It does hurt,” Daniel said and tapped himself just above the tattoo. “More than I expected.”

Maura flexed her wrist, feeling the ache there. “Yes. Sometimes it does.”