... and it all started with a tattoo (COMPLETED)

The parlour that sells tattoos instead of icecream

"I'm so READY for this!" I exclaimed for about the fifth time to anyone that'll listen. I've been waiting my whole life to get my dream tattoo, and now for an early birthday present my uptight mum, that wouldn't let her little princess go on a bouncy castle for fear of me 'being smothered by all that plastic', is not only letting me have such a disgusting thing like a tattoo, but paying for it too!

Yeah, right! I was more likely going to be smothered by her love and too ample breasticles.

Shut up, Brain! I'm happy right now, there's no need to be sarcastic!

What can I say? She brings out the best in me.

It was really hard not to imagine my brain with that smile little children give when they know that they've got you right where they want you, around their little finger. I know it's weird to think of your own brain as adorable and innocent, especially when you're nineteen, so you've seen and done pretty much everything under the sun that could curdle and corrupt anyone's mind, but it was doing a pretty good job at acting it in front of the grandmas at the nursing home I work for, so I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt... This time.

My mum is so disapproving of tattoos, she won't even say the words "tattoo" and "parlor" or "shop" together. She calls them "the parlors that serve tattoos instead of ice cream" as if she wasn't snobby enough.

The tattoo parlour that I had my appointment at was a little, out-of-the-way place down one of the many side streets in Nottingham, with a Gothic exterior that projected "BAD ASS" and "BIKERS COME HERE", until you got inside, to a receptionist's desk covered in a pink feather boa and then, to top it all off, the campest man you will ever meet, unless you're on some shady 18-30's holiday, appeared with a pen with a tuft of fluff on top.

(You know, the ones that every little girl had at some point because there was always one of those stupid party bags. I had one with chocolate-smelling ink so I thought it was real and... Tried to eat it... I'm not proud of that fact).

"What can I do you for?" asked the definitely gay man that was now sashaying towards us. "I've got a 2 o'clock appointment with Jack for a tiger tattoo" I tried to sound confident and being an actress really helped, but inside, I don't mind admitting I was shitting bricks. I mean, I was never a big fan of needles, to begin with, now there's the added pain of a needle going into your skin many times over to produce an image.

I think it was the pain. Yeah; it's definitely the pain aspect that's turned my stomach into a cement mixer. "You'll be fine!", my best friend Jess said encouragingly as if she can read my mind, which, at this point, is very easy to do because my face said it all. "And if not, we can always sue."

I can't help it. I burst into a fit of laughter that got us weird looks from everyone inside the shop and put Jess into a fit of hysterics that made her fall over a bar stool that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. What can I say? My real laugh, the laugh that only complete strangers and close friends and family hear, sounds like a butch, forty-something-year-old man trying to giggle and has always been Jess' kryptonite. That and the occasional derp smile.

2 o'clock comes around far too quickly, and Jack comes to prepare me for my tattoo. She's a woman with neon red hair that would come down to her ass if it wasn't for the French plait she'd put it in (don't ask me how she's done it, but she pulls it off!) and two sleeves. She asked me to take off my shirt and laid me down on a table that must have had someone who was radioactive on it before because BOY was it warm!

Jack let me explain what I wanted - a tattoo of a tiger walking, no STALKING out of long grass... Ooh, and the tiger had to be smirking as if to tell the viewer 'you're fucked, because you're my next meal"- then she cracked on.

I lay there, face down, with no idea what was happening until Jess tapped me awkwardly on my left shoulder, the one Jack wasn't working on and whispered in my ear conspiratorially "There are tonnes of screaming girls outside, and bodyguards have just brought in some guy through a back door with their head covered in a jacket!"

...

I waited for Jess to tell me who this mystery person was, but the silence dragged on, and the constant screaming from girls, and a couple of guys as well, were really starting to annoy me-

They're not even screaming a name! They're just screaming! That really pisses me off...

-So I pushed her for information. "Go on then! Who's so important that they need an armed escort?"

"I'm sorry, Ellie", said Jess in a hushed whisper, "The bodyguards are telling everyone that isn't an employee and doesn't have an appointment for a tattoo in the next hour that they have to leave and wait outside. I'llseeyouinabit!"

Well... This is interesting. You gonna find out who this mystery person is?

Don't see why not? But let's think... Who is a celeb guy that would get a tattoo in NOTTINGHAM and have girls screaming?

Please say it's not Justin Bieber. PLEASE SAY IT'S NOT JUSTIN BEIBER! I could really do WITHOUT that prick right now.

Curiosity was about to kill the cat because of my plan of action? Was to ask them how they were. It's not a bad plan. If they're nice, they'll reply and I'll know instantly who they are... hopefully. And if they're asshats, they'll probably tell me to piss off and I'll make an educated guess based on their voice. Worst case scenario? The beefy bouncer tells me to piss off. What's the worst thing that can happen? Heh heh.

The guy was placed in a chair just off to my left, lying back and relaxing with the jacket still covering his face and I saw this as my best (and only) opportunity to talk to him.

"Hey! How are you?" I was aiming for something between perky and, well... normality, but I ended up sounding really fake and chirpy, like those Girl Scouts that come to your door selling cookies. The guy, whoever he was, was bronzed and really tall, which isn't hard to do since I'm only 5'4", but he looked almost 6'. "I'm great thanks! How are you?"

This all happened to me in slow motion. I asked Jack if she could stop for a minute, and when she'd agreed, I put my shirt back on (well, you don't want to meet a celebrity for the first time in your bra, do you?) and waited for the jacket to be moved from around his head.

It was as he lifted it that something hit me right in the middle of my forehead so hard that it made me stunned, like a rabbit in headlights. He's AUSTRALIAN! Which left one, or rather, four options for who this guy could be, and I love them all... And the jacket was off...

"Oh wow!"

HOLY SHIT!

It was Calum Hood, bassist for the Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer... And he was smiling at me...