Chapter 61

“I can tattoo you.”

Lucca said the words casually, over breakfast. An entirely uneventful week had passed, and it was Sunday again.

Valerie paused, the fork in her hand going still halfway from her plate to her mouth. The two had been eating quietly, in companionable silence; Valerie had run for longer than usual that morning, and she was focused on her food. She felt optimistic, for once, that she would finish her half of what Lucca had prepared.

Her mind was in six different places while she ate, worrying about her final week of work, about returning to Dana, about her life overall, and myriad other concerns. Her hands managed the business of eating and drinking while she attended to her swirling anxieties, without any need for conscious supervision.

Lucca’s comment, devoid of context and framing, sharply and suddenly focused her attention on that present moment.

“Uhm… oh?”

“I’ve got the tools for it; I know how to use them. I’m no artist, but something simple…”

“Wh-”

Valerie simultaneously wanted to recite the entire litany of who, what, where, when, why, and how; but getting past the first syllable required picking one to ask first. As soon as she decided on a good candidate, one of the others seemed suddenly more important.

Lucca raised an eyebrow and waited while she cleaned up the mess of six— make that seven, with this new topic— derailed trains of thought.

“What?”

“I have a design in mind.”

Their response was both simple and cryptic.

“No, wait, like, I mean… back up. Tattoo me?”

“Well,” Lucca started, and paused for a moment.

They rolled their head from side to side, stretching their neck before speaking. Valerie placed her fork down on her plate and took a fortifying swig of coffee.

“You said last week you wanted tattoos,” they continued. “The first one is always the hardest… Not the pain, I mean. Just… pulling the trigger.”

“Okay, yeah, but I didn’t mean…”

Valerie’s voice trailed off at the end. She raised one hand in a gesture of bafflement.

“It might be good for you. And…” Lucca paused, locking their gaze on Valerie for a moment. “It’d be hot. I… like marking people. We don’t have to, but, it would make a good scene.”

Valerie’s pierced nipples twinged at the reminder. She maintained eye contact for a few moments, but broke it quickly, and stared down at her plate. She nudged a butter-soaked half biscuit with her fork. Without speaking, she reached for a jar of strawberry preserves, and spread some on the biscuit.

She sectioned off a bite-size portion of the biscuit and ate it, chewing much more slowly than the tender baked good called for.

She washed it down with another sip of coffee.

“What scene?” she asked, softly.

“A little rope. A blindfold. You can keep your hearing… I think you should hear the buzz.”

Their voice was casual, like they were discussing plans for a barbecue.

“Nothing too strict or intense,” they went on, “I don’t think that’s what you need right now, and you’ll get plenty of that from Dana. Just enough that you know you’re not in control.”

Valerie was halfway through eating another bite of biscuit; she swallowed it heavily, and felt the lump, just slightly too large, travel heavily down her throat.

“I’ll tattoo you, and then maybe a reward, if you’re well-behaved. And after, you can see your new tattoo. After,” they reiterated, “Not before.”

“You won’t show it to me before?”

“Well, that’s the idea.”

“I don’t… I’m not sure about this.”

“That’s not a no. What’s holding you back?”

“Where will it go? The tattoo?”

Lucca made a thoughtful sound, and shook their head.

“Part of the surprise. But… Below the neck. Nowhere too painful, for your first time. Or too tricky; like I said, I know the basics, but I’m no expert.”

“Can I think about it?”

“Yeah, of course. But.. If we’re gonna do it, it should probably be today. I figure you’ll be heading back next weekend, tattoo will be mostly healed by then, but not if we wait a few days.”

The reminder that her time with Lucca was two thirds gone was sobering. The idea of leaving filled her with a dark, heavy sadness; and the thought of going back to Dana brought up a surprising amount of icy goose-bump dread.

“Have you heard anything from her?”

Lucca did not need any extra clues to know the question was about Dana. They shook their head no, with an apologetic shrug.

“Fuck it,” Valerie declared, after a few moments.

“Yeah?”

Lucca’s voice was almost giddy.

“Yeah.”

“I want to be clear… the piercings, if you’d taken them out right away they would’ve healed right up, maybe not even left a mark. Tattoo, once the needle touches your skin, it’s permanent.”

Valerie chewed on her lip for a moment, her eyes slanting away from Lucca.

“Let’s do it,” she confirmed, before she thought better of it.

“Cool,” they replied, and started in again on finishing their own breakfast. “I’ve got some prep work and other things to get done, but I’ll get it all set up for after lunch, and then we can have a late dinner afterward.”

Valerie tugged experimentally on the ropes binding her to the four corners of the bed. They had plenty of slack, and the wide single column ties around her wrists were no more than a gentle grasping; snug without being tight. She could not move her hands and feet more than a few inches in any direction, but that was slack enough for her to be both completely comfortable and completely immobilized.

A similar wide band of rope encircled her waist, locking her torso in place in the middle of the bed.

Valerie was certain that if she could see the knots, she would have had enough mobility to untie them; but Lucca’s idea of a blindfold turned out to be five turns of opaque PVC bondage tape that encircled her head, blocking even the smallest sliver of light.

Her heart was pounding from the anticipation of what was coming. Lucca hummed as they arranged tools, their actions discernible only by the rustling of wrappers and the clinking of metal.

The mattress shifted under her in a way that could only be Lucca moving themselves onto it. She heard the squeak of a spray bottle as they doused her chest with something, covering a wide area starting just above her breastbone. She could smell the sharpness of alcohol and feel the chill as it evaporated from her skin.

Lucca spread something across her skin with their nitrile-clad fingertips, and then smoothed paper over the area. They pulled it away after a moment, and she felt them settle back into the mattress.

They were still and silent for half a minute or so, though it felt like an eternity to Valerie.

“Ready?”

Their voice was quiet, maybe less than two feet from her ear. Her thoughts were racing with a hundred different fears about what was about to happen. Were they lying about the placement? Will it hurt too much? Will it get infected?

She nodded shakily.

“Tell me you’re ready.”

“I… I’m ready.”

Her voice was unsteady, but not unsure.

“The most important thing is that you don’t move.”

She felt the buzz as much as heard it, in the center of her chest an inch or two below the top of her sternum; and a pain that felt more like the first moment of a grease burn than anything needle-related.

Valerie gasped, but managed not to twitch with the surprise of it. It was a close thing.

She was surprised by how aroused she was, her mind slipping into the quiet calm of subspace almost immediately.

The buzzing, burning sensation continued, broken occasionally by the somehow more painful feeling of Lucca wiping a dampened paper towel across her tender, just-inked skin. She whimpered minutely the first time it happened, though only the first time.

Lucca finished their work without comment; the buzzing stopped and Valerie thought they had only paused again, but it did not resume. She heard another spray bottle, and something cool and tingly on her skin. The pain was manageable, like a mild sunburn; and whatever spray Lucca used had dulled it further.

The process had not taken much time, though Valerie’s perception was warped enough that she was not sure how long it had truly lasted; more than mere minutes, certainly, but not as long as hours. Less than an hour, she thought.

Lucca pressed something against her skin, thin plastic a little like the kind used for laminating paper; flexible, but still holding some structure. After a moment, they pulled it away again. She felt the mattress shift again as they stood.

Valerie trembled slightly as she started to drift back to the surface of conscious presence. She listened to the sounds of tools being put away and gloves being stripped off. While she did not hear their steps when they left, she could tell they were gone by the silence that filled the room in their absence, and the sounds of hands being washed in the kitchen.

Their absence was brief; Lucca returned and sat on the edge of the bed, close enough that her fingertips could just brush their bare thigh. They stroked her cheek with one hand, and she was suddenly conscious of how hard she was breathing, and the feeling of her heart pounding in her chest. Each beat of her pulse brought the smallest twinge of pain from her new tattoo.

“Such a good little pet,” Lucca whispered in her ear, their voice low and breathy. “So still, so quiet. I think you’ve earned that reward I promised.”