Ink

"Do not let dull facts stand in the way of brilliant truth."

- Unknown

Some of these events happened. Some of them should have.

---

The student lounge was often empty on a Tuesday afternoon, especially so that late in the day. There were no lectures or workshops scheduled that day of the week, so only the most diligent of students would turn up to work in the studios, and those that did would slink away to the student bar to catch happy hour. That left the lounge all to you; a quiet little haven, albeit a haven of mismatched furniture and stained grey carpet that still managed to smell faintly of cigarettes despite the ban. A shabby pool table sat in the centre of the room, listing to one side slightly. Hard plastic chairs were scattered about, and you took the only other furniture, a worn and cracked leather sofa that managed to still be comfortable despite its sorry appearance.

You didn't look up from your sketch book when you heard the doors swing open, assuming it was a fellow student heading for the vending machine in the corner. You were slightly startled by the *flumph* of someone dropping themselves onto the sofa next to you, and instinctively pulled away slightly to make more room.

Focused still on your sketch, you catch a glimpse of a pair blue-black glitter finish Doc Martins, the back of the heels decorated in a pair of words set in a gothic script: "yes" on the left heel, "no" on the right. Pushing the boots forward across the tired carpet was a pair of bare legs, stretching out.

"Nice inking. Very bold."

Her accent was english, not quite the cut-glass inflection of some of the other students from moneyed backgrounds, nor the soft-edged consonants of the working class. It lay somewhere in the middle; casual but with a careful and lyrical cadence.

You finally look up at the girl sitting next to you. You recognise her face, but are unable to place a name to it, having only seen her a few times before; at the back of the lecture hall, sitting silently in group crits, flitting between shelves at the library, tucked at the back of the coffee shop shielded by a book. She was one of those few rare students who forgo the studio space in favour of working elsewhere, seemingly without the need for a physical space to work in. You weren't certain what she specialised in; video? Photography?

"Sorry, that was rude of me to peek," she smiled.

Her ethnicity was as hard to place as her name; dark eyes that suggested something asian, or mediterranean perhaps. Skin the colour of a latte, not the wan complexion you'd expect of the english. The darkest hair you'd ever seen, a jet black pixie-cut-meets-undercut that made it appear as if her face was emerging from shadows. You found yourself staring at her full lips as she spoke, watching them move.

"Hey, I have a great idea! Can you draw me a tattoo? I want to get one, but just can't decide."

You're about to refuse, but she thrusts her hand out in front of you, her fingers long and lean, with slender wrists that make you think about wrapping your hands around them.

"How about we start here," she points at the arch of skin between her thumb and index finger. "Just along the edge. Whatever you think will look good."

You consider this strange request for a moment, wondering if it's some kind of obtuse prank, but her dark eyes are sincere and the way her lips move and purse around the word "good" and how her tongue curls against her teeth as she says "think" are distracting, and before you know what you are doing you've taken her hand in yours and pulled it closer. She leans in as you take your pen to her skin, and you catch the fragrance of her, both light and floral yet with something warmer and heady beneath.

You begin drawing, and as the pen nib moves across her skin she stifles a subtle moan and flicks her tongue across those lips, a subconscious gesture. You're not certain why, but you inscribe an eagle, wings spread, clutching a snake in its talons, no longer than a matchstick.

"It's great!" She beams. "I love it! Here, do another" and she rotates her arm, exposing the smooth and soft underside of the wrist and forearm. The way her fingers flex as she moves makes your heart shudder; slowly furling and unfurling in a way that makes you think of grasses swaying underwater.

You are less hesitant now, your pen strokes bolder, more confident. You draw a tangle of thorned vines around her wrist, curling them up her arm where they encircle a heart wreathed in tongues of flame. She leans in so close to watch that you can hear her soft breaths, her lips parted slightly.

"Wonderful," she sighs, and turns away from you. She unbuttons the top buttons of her dress and slowly wiggles her shoulders free. She tilts her head forward, causing the vertebrae of her back neck to rise, and they remind you of small hills leading downwards, and you imagine yourself exploring where they lead. Her hair is shorn short at the back, a gradient of dark hair to paler skin at the nape and you fight the urge to run your fingertip down it, to feel the curve where neck meets shoulder.

"I can't see, so I leave it to your discretion."

You set the pen just above and between her shoulder blades, and she jumps slightly in surprise, but doesn't pull away. You draw without pausing for thought, with no goal in mind. The room is silent, no sound save the occasional click and whirr of the vending machine, the rise and fall of each other's breathing. After -- fifteen? Twenty? Thirty minutes? -- you lift the pen and she let's out a sigh, as if she had been holding a breath this whole time. A complex whirl of baroque swirls and fractal organic motifs spread across her upper shoulders and rise up the back of her neck like some kind of bird wrought of gothic architectural forms.

Outside the light grows dim, and there is perhaps another hour before the studio closes. She turns to face you again and buttons her dress close. Silently, she pulls her legs up onto the sofa, sitting on her heels, and pulls the hem of her parachute dress up, exposing a smooth expanse of thigh.

"Here," she whispers, pointing midway up her thigh, just towards the front. This time you opt for something whimsical, and render a koala clinging to her thigh, a tribute to your home. The skin of her leg is soft and supple beneath the pen nib. As you draw she tilts her head back and to the side, eyes closed, as if listening to some music you can't hear.

She nods approvingly, and shifts in her seat, parting her legs and pulling her skirt up higher. She brushes her fingertips against her other thigh, higher up this time, and towards the inside. You lean forward to take a closer look, but the angle is awkward and your own shadow obscures the view.

"Here," she pushes you back slightly and moves her legs out from under herself. She extends them down the length of the sofa, either side of you, knees raised. She parts her knees slowly, settling into a reclined position.

"Better?"

You can only manage a nod, as your heart hammers so hard you don't trust your voice not to betray you. You lean forward, your head inline with her knees, so close you can actually feel the warmth of her, smell the scent of lightly perfumed talc. Here her skin is softer, yielding under the pen nib, and you run your fingers against her to hold it taut, as the lines flow forth from the pen, dark ink curling and sweeping against her flesh. The pain in your back is intense, holding this awkward posture, but you daren't move, daren't break this most fragile and intense moment.

The doors of the lounge sigh open, and you both look up to see Rob, one of the younger students walk in. He pauses, wordlessly nods at both of you arranged in a tangle on the sofa. He purchases a drink from the vending machine, the sound of the can tumbling down seeming unnaturally loud, and then exits the lounge, walking backwards through the doors as he looks at you both.

You both let out held breaths, and for a moment you both sit there in silence, the air heavy and tense.

"Come with me," she grabs your hand, tugging on her boots and leading you out the lounge, giving you barely enough time to gather up your things. By now early evening has fallen, the glow of the sodium lamps painting the pathways between the campus buildings a sickly yellow. She sets a brisk pace, leading you from the studio building to the accommodation block behind the cafeteria. She doesn't pause to talk, only occasionally looking over her shoulder to cast a wry grin at you.

Her room is similar to every other room in the block; barely large enough to hold the single bed and desk by the window. And like every other room in the building it is uncomfortably warm, all fed by a central heating system with no individual thermostats. You stand in the doorway as she moves about with purpose, lighting a pillar candle on the window ledge, moving a pile of books off the bed and starting a playlist on her phone: taut instrumental post rock interspersed with melancholic trip-hop.

Closing the door behind you, she leads you to stand next to the bed, while she silently sheds her clothing and boots, and stands there in the candlelight. You study the angles of her body, limned by the flickering light. She turns towards you and the light falls upon her slight chest, the small curve at the front of her underwear, and you realise immediately that she was not born a girl, but became one.

"Is this... okay?" She sweeps a hand in front of her, and you are uncertain if she is referring to the light or her body.

"It's perfect," you blurt out before you can stop yourself giving such a hackneyed response.

She lays down on the bed and beckons to you. "Keep drawing."

Long into the night you decorate every inch of her skin. You start with a menagerie of whimsical and fanciful iconography: a skeleton knelt in prayer on her shoulder, a winged serpent curled around one wrist, a snarling lion above her navel. Soon you imagine yourself a cartographer of her body, searching for the unexplored, unmapped parts of her, embellishing them with curlicues. The small beauty mark on her left check, just in front of her ear. The scar on her left shoulder, no bigger than a pinkie nail. The pale birthmark on her buttock, small and near invisible in the candlelight. You decorate them all, and each sweep of your pen elicits sighs and gasps, the occasional writhing as you draw on the more sensitive areas.

When you run out of ideas for drawings you write words instead, starting with lewd words both crude and subtle. "FUCK" along the edge of her clavicle. "LUST" nestles in the hollow of her throat. "TRYST" arches over the ridge of her left hip.

And when you are finally bereft of words she reads to you, and you transcribe the paragraphs on her, the lines running over chest, circling her nipples. Down over the smooth sweep of her belly, words tracing down her fingers, metaphors encircling her ankles, verses and stanzas between her legs and over her ass.

And with each brush of the pen she writhes and moans, arching her back, her breath heavier, more urgent. She makes you pause as she reaches into a bedside drawer, and produces a glass dildo that glistens in the light, and slips off her panties. Face down on the bed she pleasures herself with the toy, as you straddle her, finding the last bare areas of her that you can put your pen to.

Satisfied that you have left no skin unmarked, she takes your ink-stained fingers and leads them to her face, slipping them into her inviting mouth, before leading them down her body. On her back, with her legs spread before you, she draws the dildo out of her and slips your fingers inside her. You feel her tense around you as you slowly draw them in and out, quickening the rhythm as you feel her relax around you.

In the dying light of the candle you can make out a chrome cock cage, surrounding it a phalanx of angels on the one side facing devils on the other, the final drawing from your pen. Finally the candle gutters out, and she grips you wrist as she grinds down upon your fingers. You slip another finger in and she lets out a deep moan that seems to vibrate throughout her, as she reaches up and flickers her fingers over her nipples. There in the darkness she tenses around your fingers, arching her back as she shudders, pulling at the sheets as she drives her heels down into the bed.

And then suddenly, with a final tremor she falls limp, breathless, limbs slowly drifting around as the last waves of pleasure flow through her. You move to pull your fingers but she grabs your wrist.

"Stay." Her voice, in the darkness. "Stay for a while."

In the thick, muggy heat of bedroom, you lay next to her, and soon sleep falls over you both.

---

You are awoken by the faint click of the door latch closing. Morning light spills from the window, falling across the tangled ink-stained sheets. She is gone, and for a while you sit there, uncertain if or when she will return. You find your sketchbook on a nightstand, and on it sits a paper coffee cup from the campus cafeteria, the contents still warm to the touch. Pressed to the side of the cup, a PostIt note reads "Had to go somewhere. See you in the studios. X"

---

Reading week followed, and you find yourself meandering half empty studios, as many of your fellow students have either decamped home for the break or secluded themselves in their dorm rooms, emerging only in the evenings to attend one of the many parties and socials taking place.

Drifting past her studio space you see the walls remain blank, save for the ghostly outlines of tape framing absent pictures, and one battered steel chair with a piece of paper reading "Don't take my damned chair" in her now familiar handwriting. You find yourself lingering in the library more than usual, nursing your coffee a little longer than usual in the coffee shop, glancing up whenever the door opened.

The week grinds on with no sign of her. You consider -- more than once -- leaving a note beneath her door, but each time the words stubbornly refuse to come to you as you stare at a blank sheet of paper until you admit defeat.

---

Another week passes before you see her again, unexpectedly, in the student lounge where you first spoke. You hear her before you see her, her laugh bright, as she leans against the pool table and jokes with the two male students currently finishing their game. Instinctively you almost turn to leave, but she catches your eye and gives you the vaguest of half smiles, so subtle you're not certain if you merely imagined it.

Sat on the dilapidated sofa, you try your best to focus on the book in your lap. You attempt to shrink your field of perception to encompass only those pages, to not let your eyes wander upwards, but as soon as the shadow falls over the book you know it belongs to her.

"Hey. Shoot some pool with me."

She presents the cue to you with a curious tilt of the head that seems to pose a question you can't fathom. You defer the offer, explaining that you've never played, but she dismisses your protests with a soft puff of air that makes you stare at her mouth for three whole heartbeats.

A dozen questions lodge in your throat, but before you can ask a single one she's tugging you towards the pool table. You long to know where she's been, if that night held some kind of significance or was a night of lustful impulse, if it was something to be forgotten. And as she guides you to lean across the table with your cue in hand, you are almost indignant at her casual air, as if she were so quick to act as if that night had never happened. As she demonstrates how to form a bridge with her hand for the cue to rest upon you have the urge to push her away, to demand to know where you stand in her opinions.

But there.

On her hand, the long fingers arched and pressed against the stained green felt, on the span of skin between thumb and forefinger, the dark lines still limned with red, the tattoo still fresh.

No larger than a matchstick, an eagle in flight, a snake clutched in its talons.

And you smile.

---