Daddy Issues

The Butterfly

They'd been talking online for a few months now, having swiped right on Tinder. His profile was basic and simple - 50 year old really in need of a clingy babygirl. Her profile was similarly straightforward - 18 year old clingy girl looking for the arms of her daddy to run into.

They hit it off from the moment they started messaging on Tinder. "Hey babygirl 😍" were his opening words. "Hello daddy 🥺" were hers.

From the start he sensed that she was a vulnerable girl. Often girls who liked older men had daddy issues, and these were sometimes really deep. Her dad had left her mum when she was a toddler, and she never saw him after that. This came out in their first conversation and his heart broke for her. It had really hurt her, and she openly admitted that she now sought an older man who could give her the stability and love she never had from her dad.

What she didn't admit, or even know, was that her nascent addiction to tattoos and piercings had its roots in those daddy issues. She'd gone as a 16 year old to an older male friend who was a tattoo artist and asked for a tiny butterfly on the small of her back - somewhere she could easily hide from her mum.

The pain she experienced that first time left her somehow invigorated. It was like the clear feeling in your head that you get when you've eaten really spicy food. She had walked away from her first tattoo with the sharpest, clearest mind she had remembered.

Subconsciously what was going on was that she associated pain with her dad. Having an older guy etch this indelible ink into her skin, causing pain with each scratch, made her feel cleansed somehow.

Psychological damage caused by a father leaving his daughter runs deep. It is etched into the psyche like the ink from a tattooist's pen. The way each abandoned girl copes with this is different, but in Aleksandra's case it came out in this paradoxical way.

Perhaps it was because she was in control of the pain. She was gaining some ownership of this trauma from her past. The temporary burst of pain and discomfort from the tattooist's pen was in her control. It had a beginning and an end, and she determined when that was.

The experience of pain would provide a relief for her, it would release all the pent up sadness until the next time in the tattooist's chair.

It hadn't taken long in that first conversation with Steve for her to bring the subject around to tattoos. "Do you have any?" Steve had gone through his life not even thinking of the possibility. "I've got a few", she said. "What was your first?", he asked.

She answered with a picture. She was standing with her back to a mirror, taking a selfie. She was wearing a top with a V shape at the back. In the middle of the V shape was her butterfly tattoo. It was barely visible, but Steve could enlarge it on his phone and see the delicate artistry of the tattooist. The lines of the butterflies wings were drawn thinly, and each wing was coloured a luminescent blue.

As Steve studied the tattoo his eyes were drawn to her back. She had pale white skin, the perfect canvas for such a beautiful image. He imagined what it would be like to trace the outline of the butterfly wings with the tip of his finger, and then move towards her back with his lips. He had never studied a tattoo so closely, and felt he was beginning to fetishise it. Because of his association in this moment between the tattoo and this beautiful vulnerable pale girl, it began to arouse him.