Christian sat in his chair at the Old Town Tattoo parlor, polishing off a tattoo on some giggling college girl, if he had to do one more butterfly on the lower back today he was going to lose it.

"Okay, you're all done."  He said pushing back from the chair so she could get up.

"You're done already?  I barely felt a thing, you have very gentle hands."  The perky blonde said tossing her hair back flirtatiously.  Christian just rolled his eyes as he peeled off his gloves, five minutes ago she had been practically screaming in pain.  Besides he wasn’t interested, he knew her type.  Used to skating by on her looks, having everything handed to her and guys acting like dumbasses around her.  Probably got her tattoo as some small form of rebellion against daddy, too bad the choice in tattoo was cliché as fuck.  Plus he knew within a 10 minute span of meaningless conversation that she was someone he didn't care to spend any more than a limited amount of time with.  He smiled politely at her as she examined herself in the mirror.

"Oh my god Christian this is so awesome, I absolutely love it!"  She said beaming proudly.  This time he gave her a genuine smile.  Even though he didn't necessarily relish pounding out unimaginative tattoos all day, there was some satisfaction derived in seeing someone someone's face looking at their new tattoo. Even the worst tattoos were intensely personal snapshots of a moment in time permanently inked on someone's body, so to know that they love it and he had a part in that felt good.  He bandaged up the area as he explained the after care then led her up to the front

"All right Casey, Juno'll take you care of you."  He said nodding at the guy behind the cash register.

"Okay so maybe. . .I'll see you around?"  The girl was asking hopefully but Christian was already distracted as his eyes landed one on one of the most spectacular asses he had seen in a while.  She was wearing a fitted black pencil skirt and matching black sleeveless top that showed off her toned curves along with four inch black stiletto heels.  He found his head swaying to the rhythm of her hips as she walked around looking at the tattoos on the walls.  She definitely wasn’t the type of woman he was used to seeing in the shop.  When he realized he had been blatantly staring he immediately looked away.  He returned to pretending to tend to the blonde that was desperately vying for his attention but she could see in his eyes that she was going nowhere fast and decided to leave with some semblance of pride.

"Excuse me?"  He looked up at the woman in front of him, smiling politely.  He quickly scanned her face, beautiful dark eyes framed by thick black eyelashes, her flawless brown skin seemed to have a golden glow from within, though unfortunately she wore makeup instead of letting her natural beauty shine though, her sensual pouty mouth sparked all sorts of instantaneous fantasies. 

"Yes ma’am I’m Christian, how can I help you?"

"Hi Christian I want to get a tattoo." 

“Yes we’ve been known to do that from time to time.”  She narrowed her eyes at him, not amused by his sarcasm.  He smiled innocently at her.  "Sorry. . .did you see something on the wall you liked Ms. . .?"

"Highsmith but you can just call me Audre.  And no I actually brought what I wanted with me."  Audre pulled out a folded up piece of notebook paper and handed it to him.  Despite the fact that he was drawn to her physically, he knew that now was the time she ruined the moment by showing him a Chinese character or heart.  Well maybe she'll want to at least getting someplace that would be fun for me.  He thought as he opened it up.  His eyebrow raised as he looked down at the drawing, actually impressed.  It was a heart, but it wasn’t just a heart.  The heart was broken in half but growing out of the pieces was an abstract black lily.  It felt like it could almost be a Frida Kahlo drawing and yet something about it was new and completely different. 

“Wow, kind of dark, I like it.  Who drew this?”  Audre grinned at him.

“I drew it myself.”  He looked at her dubiously.

“Really?  You didn’t trace it?”  She frowned at him.

“Yeah I drew it from scratch.”  She said, bristling.  He held his hands up.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to offend you.  It’s just such a beautiful piece of work, you’re very talented.”  Her face warmed as she smiled at him.

“Thank you. . .so can you do this?  I’d like to put it on my hip?”  She asked looking up at him.  His eyes moved down to her hips before slowly coming back up to her face.

“Yeah, I can do this.  For a tattoo though I think I would soften this up a bit.  On your skin this black lily would be too harsh, I wouldn’t do it completely in black but use lots of shading, and instead of using black shading either make it a deep purplish or reddish black to make it pop out against your complexion.  Also since it’s going on a curvy part of you body I would just round out some on these angles.”

She nodded.  “Whatever you think would look best.”

“Okay well let me clean up my area, draw this up and we can get started, give me about 20 minutes okay, if you’d like there’s a coffee shop across the street.”

“Okay thanks.”  He watched her as she walked out again.  Shaking his head at the involuntary response her hips were drawing from his body.  Stop acting like some horny thirteen year-old.  He admonished himself as he turned to clean his work area.

Audre smiled to herself as she walked across the street to the coffee shop.  It had been awhile since she had felt herself being blatantly checked out by someone who wasn’t homeless, drunk or had the word “teen” at the end of their age.  She had seen him watching her in the reflection of the glass tattoo displays and she had to admit she did add an extra swagger to her walk just for kicks.

But it was all just a game, after all he was hardly her type.  He was rough, not at all like the pretty boys she was used to dating, his muscular right arm was covered in a tattoo sleeve, he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while.  Though he had beautiful eyes he also looked like he had kicked someone’s ass on more than one occasion and fairly recently.  It was actually kind of sexy but he wasn’t exactly someone to take to the company golf outing.  No, he definitely was not what she was looking for no matter how cute he was, even if the look he gave her did send a small shiver down her spine.

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“Wow, this is beautiful I absolutely love it!”  Audre was looking over Christian’s shoulder at the tattoo he had sketched out.  He had kept her tattoo but the shading and way he had smoothed out some of the sharp lines made it literally jump off the page.

“Shall we try it on?”  He asked.  She nodded.  “Okay, pull up you shirt and roll down your skirt.”

“Roll down my what?” 

“You said your hip right?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t exactly tattoo over your clothes.”  He smiled at her patiently.

“Right, of course not.”  She pulled up her top and slowly rolled down her skirt. 

“Sorry you’re going to have to pull down the strap of your underwear too ma’am.”  He stared at the wall, trying to make her as at ease as possible.  He tried not to pay attention to the black, lacey strap of her panties that had been exposed to him, or the smoothness of her unmarked skin.  A few seconds later he turned back and kneeled of her, centering the tattoo at her hip.  Audre bit her lip, trying hard not to think about how long it had been since a guy had touched her body, even if it was just the tattoo artist – who was getting hotter by the second.

“Take a look and see what you think.”  She turned to mirror and looked at the image on her hip.

“Um I think I should have it lower so it can’t doesn’t peak out over my pants.  If my mom sees it she’ll kill me.”

“Your mom?”  He said looking at her skeptically; she was obviously old enough to do things without parental guidance.

“Yes my mom. . .and shut the hell up.”  He held his hands up.

“I didn’t say anything.”  He bent down and cleared off the tattoo, placing it lower.  “Take a look now.”  She grinned at her reflection.

“This is great; I like it just where it is.”  He smiled at her.

“Me too.  Okay lay down here.”  He turned to get a towel as she settled into the chair.  “Okay now I’m going to need you to roll your skirt down lower so I can have space to work, you can use this towel to cover up you private area ma’am.”

“You might as well call me Audre, you’re getting to see an area of my body that guys usually only see after at least buying me dinner first.”  He laughed as he looked down, prepping the needle while she adjusted herself.  He saw a hesitate look in her eyes as he turned back with the needle.

“Um, this isn’t going to hurt a lot is it?”  He bit his lip to keep from laughing again.

“It might, it kind of comes with the territory.”

“So how painful are we talking?   Like ripping a band aid off of a hairy arm pain, childbirth pain, or oh my good that guy just sawed my arm off pain?”

“Well maybe somewhere in the middle?  It really depends on your threshold for pain.”  He reached behind him and grabbed a stress ball off of the table behind him.  “Just hold on to this and remember the less you squirm the shorter time it will take.”

“How much time will it take?”

“Well if you don’t move 45 minutes to an hour.”  Her eyes widened quickly, than narrowed.  Come on Audre you’re a big girl, you can handle this.  She nodded at him.

“Okay I’m ready.”  When she first heard the sound of the needle she almost passed out, all sorts of thoughts flooding her mind.  But then he looked at her and gave her an unexpectedly warm smile.

“You can do this Audre, and you’ll be glad you did.  Take in a deep breath. . .let it out. . .good girl.”  The first stroke felt like something was clawing into her skin.  This shit hurts like hell she squeezed the stress ball, drawing in deep breaths. 

“You’re doing good Audre.”  He briefly looked up at her smiling, before he returned to what he was doing. 

“So you’re an artist?” He said, trying to distract her from the pain.

“No, hardly.”  She said through gritted teeth.  “I’m a lawyer.”

“Oh.  I’m surprised you’re not doing anything with your art, that drawing was amazing.” 

“It’s just a hobby.”

“A hobby?”

“Yeah I mean I studied a little, but my mom said there was no way in hell she was supporting some 30 year old starving artist and I needed to do something practical with my life.  So law school it was.”  He bit back the sarcastic comment that was on his tongue, instead opting to change subjects.

“So no offense but you hardly seem like someone that would be caught dead in a tattoo parlor, what made you decide to get the tattoo?” 

“It’s on my list.”

“Your list?  What like the bucket list or something?”

“More like the fuck him list.”  She said squeezing the stress ball to within an inch of it’s life.  He laughed, still looking down at his work.

“Okay so you know you gotta explain that.”

“I was dating this guy, for seven years and we were happy, at least I thought we were happy, I mean I guess we were happy.”

“How do you define happy?”

“We fit together, we came from the same background, we’re both educated, committed to success in our jobs, wanted the same things in our future, I understood him and his needs.  We were like perfect couple.”

“So by fit together you mean you fit in a defined box of what society. . .or you mom says an ideal couple should look like.”  She gave him a dirty look, momentarily forgetting her pain.

“No by fit together I mean we were. . .compatible.”

“Compatible?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so you were living the happy or maybe not so happy life with Mr. Compatible.  And then what?”

“And then we broke up, only now I find out that within months he was living with this woman he’s been working with and then he up and gets engaged to the chick last weekend.”

“So he left you for her?”

“No, I broke up with him.”

“You broke up with him?”

“Yes.”

“Because you found out he was cheating on you?”

“No because he wasn’t committing to me.  Although now, I’m starting to wonder.”

“And you’re upset because he moved on before you did?”

“Yes. . .I mean no. . .I mean the point isn’t that he’s moving on.”

“Then what is the point?”

“The point is that, I was with him for seven years he was with her for five seconds and now he wants all the things with her that he never wanted with me.”

“And so now that he’s happy with someone else you have decided to go through this ‘fuck him’ list and getting a tattoo is at the top of the list?”  She didn’t like the way he made it sound, but it pretty much was that way.

“Something like that.”  She responded gruffly. 

“Why a tattoo?”

“Well, I kind of always wanted one, but Greg – that’s my ex- he always thought it was kind of tacky.”  She looked over and saw the amused look on his face as he worked.  “What’s so funny about that?”

“Nothing, it’s just typical.”

“Typical?”

“Yeah, I mean I’ve heard you sit here and go on and on about how you fit with this guy, you probably had this whole Barbie and Ken existence planned out for the two of you am I right?”

“You know never once did I hear you say anything about love.”

“Love?”  She frowned at him but he stayed focused on her tattoo.

“Yes love.  I mean maybe I could understand if you were still in love with the guy, but that’s not what this seems to be about.  You feel like your perfect five year plan for your life was jeopardized.  And then you let this guy who’s clearly a jackass knock your self esteem for a loop so now you’re doing all of the things you’ve always wanted to do that Mr. Compatible never approved of.”

“That’s not true.”  Okay maybe a little.  

“Audre, don’t take this the wrong way but you seem to be driven a lot by what other people think, your mom, your ex, society.  Even this ‘fuck him’ list, it’s about getting back at some guy who probably didn’t deserve you in the first place.  Do you ever do anything just for you?”

“No. . . yes. . .I mean, okay so maybe there is this expectation of what my life should look like that is in a way defined by society. . .and my mom.  And maybe I’m driven by meeting that expectation.  But really isn’t that everyone to a certain extent?  I mean we all allow society to define us in some way.  Even if you say ‘I’m an outsider’ you can only say that based on what you feel society has determined to be an insider.”

“Sure maybe to a certain extent what you say is true.  But still it seems to me that you are hiding who you are to society.  It’s more than defining yourself by societal standards it’s changing yourself to meet the status quo.  Don’t move!”  He responded as she jerked, not from the pain but from his words.

“And what the hell would you presume to know about me?”

“I know you are an artist, a great one who’s wasting your talent to become a lawyer because you let your mom scare you out of your dream.  You refrained from doing something you wanted do, probably a lot of somethings you wanted to do because your boyfriend didn’t like it.  You walk around with your designer clothes, perfectly coiffed hair, extra layer of makeup that, frankly, you don’t need, so afraid of what would happen if you let it all go.  You’re so hung up on bullshit appearances that even in a moment of freedom like getting a tattoo, you have to make sure it’s not someplace where mommy can see it.  But then I look at this incredible drawing and I can see that underneath it all there’s someone just screaming to get out of that fucking box you’ve locked yourself in.”  She stared at him aghast, taken aback by his audacity.

“Mr. . .?”

“Mueller, but I told you to call me Christian.”

“Mr. Mueller, I’m paying for a tattoo, not therapy from a guy who has a skull tattooed on his arm.”  He looked up and smiled at her.

“Well Ms. Highsmith, I’m charging you for the tattoo, but the therapy is on the house.”

“Why don’t you keep your deep thoughts to yourself and finish my tattoo.”

“No problem.”  They sat in silence as he finished up.  But she noticed he kept giving her teasing glances, he knew he had her pegged and he knew she hated it.  “Okay Ms. Highsmith, you’re all done.”  She shot him a withering look as she stood up gingerly and walked over to the mirror.  Her hardened expression softened as she looked at her tattoo.  It was breath taking.  She couldn’t get over it, it was her drawing but Christian had bought the life out of it.  She gazed at it intently, the ends of her mouth curving up into a smile.

“This is amazing.”  He nodded.

“It’s beautiful.”  She met his eyes in the mirror for a second then looked away.  He cleared his throat.  “Sit down, we gotta bandage this up for a while.”  He explained to her what to do to take care of it and then brought her up to the front to settle the bill.

“Well Ms. Highsmith looks like you’re all done.”  She looked at him.

“Thank you. . .Mr. Mueller. . .for the tattoo anyway.”  She turned on her heel walking out the door, he couldn’t help but watch knowing it was probably the last time he was going to get a look ever again.

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“Oh hell no.”  Jenelle whispered angrily.  They were staring at a bust of Jesus, with a cell phone cradled by his ear.  Jenelle shook her head in disgust.  “Is just anything considered fucking art these days.”

“Apparently.”  Audre whispered back, they were at the breakthrough artist exhibit.  It ranged from ridiculous to just plain insulting, but at least they had top shelf alcohol.

“I told you didn’t I?  I missed Ugly Betty for this?”

“It was a rerun.”

“I hadn’t seen it.”  Audre rolled her eyes at her.  “It’s not that bad. . .”  She started until she saw the half opened can of baked beans on a pedestal.  Underneath was the title ‘Life In Vitro.’ She looked over at Jenelle biting her lip.   “Okay ten more minutes and we’ll leave okay?”

“Ten minutes Audre, I’m not playing with you.  I’ll be at the bar.” 

 They separated and Audre continued walking though.  She was about to give up when she saw the most mind blowing painting on the wall leading into another room.  There was a collage of photos in black and white of a little girl staring into the camera with a haunting look in her eyes, a bright range of rich painted colors were added to the parts of the photograph giving it a slick, stylized almost stained glass appearance.  The swirl of patterns that jumped out at her, it was chaotic but it was an organized chaos.  It was unlike anything she had ever seen, it was beautiful and moving.  She needed to know who this artist was.  She looked down at the plate underneath the painting.  C. Mueller.  She frowned to herself.  No way couldn’t be. 

“Ms. Highsmith,”  She heard the laughter in the voice and rolled her eyes turning around.  His smiled got even wider.  “I’d recognize that backside anywhere.”