Even Lines: A Slowburn Romance Story

Part 1: Enter

I'd had the tattoo in my head for months now. I thought I'd wake up one day and it wouldn't be there anymore but I liked the idea of it too much. Something simple on the smallest part of my waist. Any bra or bathing suit top would cover it, so it would be like a secret for myself—and the person that did it—and if there were certain other people that would come to see it down the road, it would be my choice. I liked the idea of a double unveiling: the poetry and possibility of having multiple layers on me at all times. Of somebody's breath hitching as they said, "I didn't think you'd have one of these." I liked the idea of having a surprise that wouldn't expire.

I had done some research, too, but with each person's work, it was as if something was missing. I found when a site had an artist's picture and bio it was like it wasn't hitting the mark though I would've sworn I wasn't keeping a score sheet.

So it was a whim really that caused me to pull into a tattoo parlor off a road I had never gone down before. I had taken a wrong turn, and perhaps I mislabelled the mistake as fate. It wasn't practical. I had groceries in the back that would go bad. I thought this as I took out my keys and opened the car door. I hadn't even taken the time to look up a single review, but I liked the look of it. Clean lines. Minimal, curly font. It should've been cold but as I got closer there was a small warmth that exuded out of the building like its minimalism was done out of the owner's quiet confidence in their work. There was no need for flash or pomp on the outside; it was what happened inside that mattered.

I opened the front door. Empty. No one in the waiting room and no one behind the counter. I waited five minutes, ten, but curiosity got to me. I walked down the hall. There were four doors. I poked my head into the first and found a clean room with a single chair. No one was there.

I went to the second door. It looked to be an office overwhelmed with pages and pens, but no person. I sighed and poked my head into the third door. I wouldn't check the fourth.

"What is this place run by ghosts?" I muttered and then reared back.

It wasn't a ghost but a man who was in the midst of walking out of the room.

I shouted out an obscenity and then breezily said, "Do you take walk-ins?"

He looked at me, and his expression was all cool composure while I was sure mine jittered with nerves.

"Sure," he said. "But they usually don't walk in so far."

"Oh." I paused as if waiting for a better remark. Nothing came to mind.

He blinked at me and I stepped back to let him pass.

Over his shoulder, he said, "You're here for a tattoo?"

"Yes," I said and then frowned. "Do you offer anything else?"

"Not currently," he said.

He must've liked puzzles, I realized. Cryptic comments were his main form of communication.

"Do you know what you want?" he asked. He had stationed himself behind the desk in the front room and was looking at me cooly, his chin tilted up.

"Yes. I was thinking something small on my waist, almost at the rib cage. A butterfly. I was hoping it could be more of a watercolor. Something blue."

If I expected to see derision on his face at my choice, I didn't, even a hint of it.

He nodded. "You have a picture?"

"Yes, well, it's-" I started and then stopped. The clarification didn't matter anyway. "Yes," I said and took out the scrap of paper I'd been keeping in my purse for months now, just in case. I'd tried it many times before I did a drawing that seemed right. Just a small blue thing, bits of pipes in the wings and a round black middle, nothing too sharp or intricate, nothing with hard edges. I wanted it soft. I didn't even care if it disintegrated, if it turned into something that resembled a bruise, a single black line, before dissolving into nothing at all. I liked that I could decide if I wanted to recolor it or let it fade away. You didn't always get to choose things like that.

He studied the slip of paper for longer than I expected.

I had to stop my hand from grabbing it back from him and shifted on my toes. "It doesn't have to be exactly like that, of course," I said. "I know you have your own artistic vision and some of the elements may not work with tattoo ink. You're the expert so what you say goes"-he was still looking at the paper-"but that's the idea of it anyways."

He looked up at me from the drawing. "I can work with this," he said. "You want to do this?"

"You have time?"

He didn't make a point of looking around the empty waiting room. He just said seriously, because he seemed to say everything seriously, "I've got time. Something this small won't take long."

I tried to hide my frown. "Oh good," I said. "Good." I followed him down the hall to the third room.