r/nosleep | Reddit Horror Stories • Collection

I'm in love with my girlfriend's tattoo.

I was sixteen years old when I first had the dream of Persephone. As in all my dreams of her she was nude and would whisper in my ear as she danced around me.

‘Do you want Persephone?’ She would ask sweetly.

‘Do you need Persephone?’ She would say, running a hand across my chest.

‘Do you love Persephone?

‘YES! YES! YES!’ I would cry back.

‘Then you must kill for me.’ Persephone would finally say before planting the softest kiss upon my lips. Then, as always, I would wake up.

When I met Juliana I had just finished my university studies, graduating with a degree in Art History from Essex and hadn’t had any dreams of Persephone for several years. Juliana and I found each other through our volunteer work at the Colchester Art Galley known as The Minories. The Minories was small for a gallery and was staffed by a team of volunteers who all shared a passion for art. I spent most of my days there, talking to guests about the various pieces of work on display and keeping the place clean. I was looking for a job which actually paid, but I hadn’t been fortunate enough to find anywhere which would hire me, and especially nowhere where my degree subject would be applicable. I dreamed of moving to London and working at one of the famous galleries, but when I met Juliana I stopped dreaming of this and began to only dream of her.

Juliana wasn’t like the other women I had met in my life. She did not care for her appearance and would often wear the same paint splattered dungarees for a week at a time. Her eyes were dark, as was her hair which was always tied back in ponytail. She lived in a house-share on the Greenstead estate, which was known as being the rough side of town, but god help anyone who wold try to cross Juliana. She was fierce and passionate and that passion glowed the brightest when she was painting.

We started dating in June and by August I had already moved into her already crowded house. Neither of us had paying jobs and lived off of government assistance, which we were both ashamed of, but work was hard to come by in the town of Colchester, and at least we weren’t spending our money on drink and drugs. Instead whatever was left after rent and the little we spent on food and bills went almost entirely on Juliana’s paints. She was a visionary artist. Her command of colour, the form of her figures and the emotion she could conjure with a simple brush stroke was nothing less than genius. I thought I loved her. I truly thought I did, but I did not know Persephone would come back into my life.

It was the beginning of October when I asked Juliana what she would like for her birthday present which was coming up in a couple of weeks’ time. I thought she would ask for paints and was most surprised when she told me she would like to get a tattoo. I had no tattoos and neither did she, I had no idea she wanted one, but I’m not one of those people who find tattoos distasteful, and so that’s what I got her. Three weeks later we sat in the Flaming Gun Tattoo Studio where a middle aged bearded goth called Darren spent four hours creating her. He moved his tool with such expertise and precision from her head to her toe, flattering her curves and gifting her the features of a goddess. I watched trance like as she came to life and by the end of the session I was almost speechless at the beauty of her.

‘Do you like it?’ Juliana had asked.

‘I do’ I replied.

But this reply was less of an answer to Juliana’s question and more of a vow. A vow that I would never part from her because it was her, inked on her arm, a part of this world… it was my Persephone.