Skin Deep, Ink Deeper

The first time I saw her, I thought she’d be a man. The name on the booking confirmation was ‘Alex Reed, Hand & Machine Tattoo Studio,’ and the voice on the phone had been a low, gravelly murmur that gave away nothing. I’d pictured a burly guy with a beard and sleeved arms, smelling of antiseptic and stale coffee. Not this.

She was leaning against the reception desk, scrolling on her phone. She had the sleeves, sure—intricate, swirling blackwork that disappeared under the cuffs of a simple black tank top—but the rest was a study in elegant contradiction. Her hair was shaved close on one side, the other side a long, dark waterfall that fell over her shoulder. She had a delicate silver hoop in her nose and, when she looked up, the most startlingly pale blue eyes I’d ever seen.

“You must be Morgan,” she said, and that voice, now that I could see it coming from her, did something complicated to my stomach. It was still gravel, but a smooth, expensive gravel, like a driveway at a house I couldn’t afford.

“That’s me,” I said, my own voice coming out too high. I cleared my throat. “I’m here for the… the consultation. And the first session. For the phoenix.”

“Right.” She pushed off the desk, and I got a full view of her. She was taller than me, willowy but with a wiry strength in her forearms. She gestured with a hand adorned with a few simple black rings. “Come on back. We’ll talk design.”

Her workspace was exactly what I’d expected and yet completely different because she was in it. The sterile smell of disinfectant, the hum of the overhead lights, the framed flash art on the walls—standard. But her station was meticulously organized, every pigment bottle lined up with military precision. A small, thriving succulent sat by the lamp. A postcard of Frida Kahlo was taped to the edge of her mirror.

“So,” she said, pulling up a second stool for me. “Rib piece. Full color. A phoenix rising from flames. Tell me why.”

I’d rehearsed this. “It’s… a rebirth thing. A few years back, I got out of a… a long situation. Not good. This is my reminder that I burned it down and walked out of the ashes.” I didn’t usually share that much with strangers, but something about the quiet intensity of her gaze invited confession.

She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “Good reason. Not just a pretty bird. I can work with that.” She turned to her tablet, her fingers flying over the screen. “It’s a painful spot. Especially near the sternum and under the arm. We’ll break it into four sessions. Outline today, some shading next week, then color, then final details and highlights. Gives your skin time to heal between assaults.”

“Four sessions,” I repeated, the reality of it settling in. Four afternoons in this room, with her.

“If you’re ready, we’ll get the stencil on. You can use the screen.” She pointed to a corner with a modesty curtain. “Just the area. I need clean skin.”

My hands were slightly unsteady as I undid my shirt behind the flimsy fabric partition. I was wearing a soft, front-clasp bra that I’d bought specifically for this, something easy to maneuver. I took a deep breath, unclasped it, and held the shirt closed over my chest as I stepped out.

She’d turned her back, giving me privacy. “On the table, please. Lie on your left side.”

The leather of the tattoo bed was cool against my skin. I lay down, my right arm curled above my head, exposing my right side from just under my breast to my hip bone. I felt terrifyingly exposed, the air of the studio a shock against my naked skin. I kept my eyes squeezed shut for a second, listening to the methodical sounds of her preparing: the rip of a paper towel, the click of a bottle, the soft shhh of her spraying something.

Then her hands were on me.

The first touch was clinical, efficient. An alcohol wipe, cool and brisk, sweeping over my ribs. I flinched.

“Cold,” she murmured, an apology in her tone. Her hands were warm, I realized. She must have been running them under hot water. The next thing was the stencil transfer, a weird, tacky gel. Her fingers pressed the paper against my side, her palm flat and firm over my ribcage. She held it there, counting under her breath. In that stillness, I became hyper-aware of the heat of her hand, the slight pressure, the way my own skin seemed to rise to meet it.

“Okay,” she said, peeling the paper away. “Take a look.”

I shuffled to the mirror she held up. The design was breathtaking. It wasn’t a generic phoenix; it was hers. The bird was both fierce and graceful, its wings curving around the contour of my body, its head thrown back in a silent cry, emerging from a maelstrom of flames that licked up toward my breast and down toward my stomach. The lines were confident, alive.

“It’s perfect,” I whispered.

“Good.” She smiled for the first time, a small, quick thing that transformed her serious face. “Then let’s make it permanent.”

The first session was pain and professionalism. The buzz of the machine was a relentless, angry bee. The needle was a hot, insistent scratching that vibrated deep into my bones. I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles white, focusing on my breathing. Alex was a study in concentration. Her brow was furrowed, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she leaned over me, one hand stretching my skin taut, the other guiding the machine. Her touch was impersonal, precise. She’d pause to wipe away blood and ink, her movements economical. She offered brief, soothing words—“Doing great,” “Just this wingtip, then a break,” “Breathe through it”—but they were delivered like facts, not comfort.

Yet, even through the pain, I noticed things. The scent of her—clean skin, green soap, and a faint, spicy sandalwood from her shampoo. The way a tiny, intricate moth was tattooed behind her ear. The surprising gentleness with which she applied the balm and bandage at the end.

“Keep it clean. Moisturize. No picking,” she instructed, handing me a care sheet. Her fingers brushed mine. “See you next Wednesday, same time.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling strangely bereft as I buttoned my shirt over the throbbing, wrapped artwork on my side.

I walked out into the late afternoon, the city noise a jarring return to reality. My apartment, a one-bedroom with a view of a brick wall, felt emptier than usual. I stood in front of the full-length mirror, carefully peeling back the bandage to look at the raw, red outline. It was a promise, a beginning. I already missed the quiet of her studio, the focus in her eyes.

The second session was shading. The pain was different—a broader, deeper ache rather than the sharp scratch of the outline. I was more relaxed, knowing what to expect. Alex seemed more relaxed too. She asked questions as she worked.

“What do you do, Morgan?”

“I’m a graphic designer. Freelance.”

“Ah. Another maker. You get it, then. The need to put something into the world.”

“I guess so. Your work is… incredible.” I gestured weakly with my free hand toward the walls.

“Thanks. It’s my language.” She switched needles, her hand coming to rest on my hip to steady herself as she reached for a pot of grey wash. The contact was brief, but it was different from the clinical skin-stretching of the first session. This felt… placed. “The phoenix suits you. Strong lines. A story.”

I blushed, grateful my face was turned away. “You see a lot of stories.”

“Every day. Most of them are lies people tell themselves. This one,” her machine buzzed to life again, sinking into the soft area beneath my arm, making me gasp, “this one feels true.”

By the end of the two-hour session, a strange intimacy had settled in the room. It was the intimacy of shared endurance, of her witnessing my pain and my stillness. When she wiped the final time and leaned back to survey her work, her hand rested on my stomach, just below my ribs. It was a natural point of balance, but it sent a current through me that had nothing to do with the needle.

“The color next week,” she said, her voice a low hum near my ear. “That’s when it really comes alive.”

The week between was a slow crawl. I worked from my couch, my laptop burning my thighs, but my mind was in that room. I found myself researching her online, not just her portfolio but interviews. She’d dropped out of art school, apprenticed in Brooklyn, opened her own place at twenty-five. She was quoted saying, “Skin is the most honest canvas. It tells me when I’m hurting it, when I’m healing it, when I’ve found the truth.” I read the line over and over.

The third session was color. Reds, oranges, yellows, golds. It was also the session where everything shifted.

The pain was intense, a bright, searing sensation as she packed vibrant pigment into the flames. I was breathing in sharp, controlled pants. Alex was in a zone of deep focus, her body curved over mine, her face inches from my skin. I could feel her breath, warm and steady, washing over the wet, tortured area.

“You’re taking this like a champion,” she muttered, more to herself than to me.

Her left hand, the one that stretched my skin, was no longer just functional. As she worked on a particularly sensitive patch near the underside of my breast, her thumb began to move. It was a barely-there caress, a slow, circular stroke on the un-inked skin just a centimeter away from the needle’s path. It was so subtle I thought I might be imagining it, conjuring sensation from the haze of pain and endorphins.

But then she did it again, lower, near my hip bone, as she filled in a feather with cadmium yellow. A deliberate, soothing sweep of her thumb. My breath hitched, and not from pain.

She paused. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “Just… intense.”

“I know,” she said, and her voice was like dark honey. “Almost done with this part.”

Her hands lingered. When she wiped away the excess ink, the paper towel moved slowly, and her fingers followed, tracing the newly colored edges of a flame. When she reached for a new pigment pot, her hand would slide across my back or my stomach to brace herself, the contact lasting a heartbeat too long. The professional barrier was thinning, becoming permeable. Every touch was a question. Every lingering moment was a sentence left unfinished.

I found myself arching slightly into her touch, a minute, involuntary movement. I saw her eyes flick up to my face, those pale blue pools unreadable. She didn’t pull away. Instead, her hand settled more firmly on my waist as she changed needles.

“Last bit,” she announced later, her voice slightly rough. “The eye of the phoenix. It’s a small detail, but it’s everything. It’s where the soul goes.”

She mixed a tiny dab of iridescent gold and white. The machine’s buzz was a softer, gentler hum. She leaned in so close her cheek almost brushed my breast. I held my breath. Her finger, not her gloved hand, came up and touched my chin, guiding my head to look down, to see the mirror she’d positioned.

“Watch,” she whispered.

I watched her hand, steady as a surgeon’s, place a single, brilliant point of light in the bird’s eye. In that moment, the tattoo ceased to be ink on skin. It became alive, watching me back. A shudder ran through me.

Alex sat back, turning off the machine. The sudden silence was deafening. She peeled off her gloves with a slow, deliberate snap. Her hands, now bare, were pale and elegant, dotted with faint ink stains. She reached for the balm.

This time, when she applied it, there was no pretense of clinical detachment. Her fingertips smoothed the cool ointment over the hot, swollen skin of my side, her touch slow, almost reverent. She covered the entire tattoo, her palm sliding over my ribs, the curve of my waist, the dip beside my navel. Her thumb stroked the unharmed skin just above the waistband of my jeans. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.

She finally pulled her hand away, leaving my skin tingling. She began to clean her station, not looking at me. “Same time next week. For the final details. The highlights. It’ll be… quick.”

I dressed in a daze. My skin felt electric, hypersensitive. The tattoo burned, but so did the memory of her thumb on my hip.

“See you then, Alex,” I said at the door.

She looked up from wiping down her machine. Her gaze was heavy, direct. “I’m looking forward to it, Morgan.”

The week was agony. The tattoo healed, itching and peeling, a constant physical echo of her. My apartment became a cage for my obsession. I’d stand for long minutes in the bathroom, the door locked, tracing the healing lines in the mirror. The skin was tender, a landscape of raised, colorful scabs. My fingers would hover where hers had been, and a flush would spread across my chest. I drafted a dozen texts to the studio number—innocuous questions about aftercare, a compliment on her work—and deleted every one. I’d lie in bed at night, the streetlight painting stripes on my ceiling, and imagine the weight of her hand not on my ribs, but on my thigh, my neck, between my legs. My rational mind argued it was a fantasy, a transference born of vulnerability and pain. But my body knew the truth in her touch. It was a language older than reason.

The day of the fourth session arrived. I wore a simple, wrap-style dress. Easy to remove. I’d shaved my legs, moisturized, put on a scentless lotion. I felt like I was preparing for a date, not a tattoo appointment.

The studio was quiet, the usual background music off. Her station was, as always, immaculate. She was wearing a grey sleeveless hoodie today, her arms bare. She looked at me, and a slow smile touched her lips.

“Last session,” she said. “You ready to finish this?”

“Yes,” I said, and my voice didn’t waver.

“Good. Let’s get started.”

There was no modesty curtain this time. She turned her back as I undid the wrap dress and let it pool at my feet. I was naked from the waist up. I lay on the table, assuming the now-familiar position. The air was cool, raising goosebumps on my skin.

She approached, and I heard the soft click of the lamp being switched on, bathing my side in a pool of bright, white light. She didn’t put on her gloves immediately. Instead, she stood there, looking at the tattoo. Her bare hand came out and hovered just above my skin, not touching.

“It healed beautifully,” she murmured. “The color settled perfectly.”

Then her fingertips made contact. A light, tracing touch, following the arc of a wing. “This,” she said, her voice low, “is some of my best work.” Her finger trailed down a trail of flames. “But you know that already. You felt every line.”

Her touch was electrifying. It was appraisal, but it was also possession. She was re-mapping the territory she’d conquered.

Finally, she pulled on her gloves. “Just highlights and a little black reinforcement. Maybe an hour. You can relax.”

But relaxation was impossible. The machine’s buzz was a familiar song now. She worked quickly, efficiently, adding tiny dots of white to make the flames sparkle, deepening a few shadows. The pain was negligible, a distant buzz. My entire awareness was focused on her. On the heat of her body so close to mine. On the way her hip brushed against my arm. On the scent of her—sandalwood and soap and the clean, mineral smell of the ink.

She was quieter than usual, her concentration a palpable force. I watched the muscles in her forearm flex as she worked, the tattoos there seeming to shift and coil with her movements. Once, when she leaned across me to adjust the light, her hoodie gaped, and I saw the swell of her breast, the edge of black lace. I had to close my eyes, a soft sound catching in my throat.

She finished the last highlight with a final, precise zzzt. She turned off the machine. The silence rushed in, thick and expectant. She peeled off her gloves, the snap of latex loud in the hush. For a moment, she just looked at the finished piece, her head tilted. Then her eyes lifted to mine. The professional mask was gone. What was left was raw, open hunger, and a question.

She reached for the aftercare balm. She squeezed a generous amount onto her bare fingers, her gaze never leaving my face. The air between us crackled, charged with everything unsaid from the past three weeks.

She didn’t speak. She simply placed her warm, slick hands on my ribs.

It was not the gentle application of before. It was a massage. A claiming. Her palms slid over the entire tattooed area, kneading the sore muscles beneath, her thumbs pressing into the spaces between my ribs. A moan escaped me before I could stop it, part pain, part overwhelming relief, part sheer, undiluted arousal. My back arched involuntarily, pushing my skin more firmly into her hands.

“Shhh,” she breathed, but it was not a sound of comfort. It was dark, thrilling. Her hands moved lower, skimming the sensitive skin of my stomach. One hand drifted up, the heel of her palm grazing the lower curve of my breast. I gasped, my eyes flying open to meet hers.

We were frozen there, a tableau of charged hesitation. Her hand hovered, her breath coming faster. I saw the conflict in her eyes—the artist, the professional, warring with the woman who had been watching me, touching me, for weeks. This was the line, and we were both standing on the edge of it. The risk for her was real; this was her livelihood, her reputation. The weight of that choice hung in the air between us, as tangible as the scent of balm and ozone.

I didn’t look away. I let her see everything in my eyes—the want, the permission, the answer to the question she hadn’t voiced.

A shudder went through her. The decision was made, not with words, but in that silent exchange. The professional yielded.

Her hand settled fully on my breast, her thumb brushing over my nipple. A sharp, sweet jolt went straight to my core.

“Alex…” I gasped, her name a plea.

“I know,” she whispered, leaning over me, her face so close I could see the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, the dilation of her pupils. “I’ve watched this skin flush for weeks. I’ve felt the way it heats under my hands. I wanted to see the colors rise on you here.” Her thumb circled my nipple again, making me cry out. “And here.” Her other hand slid down, over my hip, fingers slipping just beneath the waistband of my panties.

She kissed me then, and it was like the first breath after drowning. Deep, hungry, and tasting of mint and the metallic hint of ink. One of her hands tangled in my hair, the other still mapping my hip. I kissed her back with a desperation that shocked me, my hands coming up to clutch at the fabric of her hoodie, pulling her closer.

She broke the kiss, her breath coming in ragged pulls. “Up,” she commanded, her voice rough with need.

She helped me sit up on the edge of the table. My dress was a puddle on the floor. I was half-naked, my new tattoo gleaming with balm under the bright lights. She stood between my knees, her hands on my thighs, pushing them apart. Her eyes devoured me, tracing the lines of the phoenix, then my face.

“To see my work come alive on you like this…” she growled, her hands coming up to frame my waist, her thumbs stroking the peaks of my hip bones. “It’s better than I imagined.”

She kissed me again, a fierce, possessive thing, then her mouth left mine and trailed down my jaw, my neck. She paused at the junction of my shoulder, biting down gently, making me cry out. Then she was kneeling on the floor between my legs.

Her eyes, blazing blue, looked up at me. “I wanted to learn every part of this canvas.”

Her hands pushed my thighs wider. Then her mouth was on me, and the world dissolved.

Her tongue was an artist’s tool, skilled and deliberate. She licked and sucked and explored with a focused intensity that mirrored the way she worked on my tattoo. She was learning my topography, finding the sensitive lines and hidden curves, mapping my responses with her mouth. I fell back onto the table, my hands scrabbling for purchase on the cool leather. Sounds were ripped from my throat—gasping, pleading, wordless cries.

She brought me to the edge once, twice, her fingers joining the exquisite work of her tongue, then pulling back, leaving me trembling and desperate.

“Please,” I sobbed.

“Not yet,” she murmured against my thigh, her breath hot. “I need more.”

She stood up, her own breathing ragged. She pulled her hoodie over her head in one swift motion. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Her torso was a canvas of ink—a majestic owl across her collarbones, delicate filigree down her sides, a geometric pattern wrapping around her narrow waist. Her breasts were small, high, with pierced nipples that gleamed under the lights. She was a vision of curated wildness.

She pushed me back until I was lying flat again, then climbed onto the table, straddling my hips. The rough denim of her jeans rubbed against my bare skin. She leaned down, her inked breasts hovering above my face.

“Touch me,” she ordered.

I reached up, my hands trembling. I cupped her breasts, my thumbs brushing over the hard metal of her piercings. She hissed in pleasure, rolling her hips against mine. I pulled her down and took one nipple into my mouth, sucking and teasing the ring with my tongue. She moaned, a deep, ragged sound, and ground herself harder against me.

After a moment, she pulled back, her eyes dark with need. “My turn.”

She shifted down my body, her kisses raining over my phoenix, as if worshipping her own creation. When she reached the waistband of my panties, she hooked her fingers in them and looked up for permission. I lifted my hips, and she slid them down my legs, tossing them aside.

Then she was on me again, her mouth and hands everywhere. This time, she didn’t tease. She drove me relentlessly toward my climax, her tongue circling my clit with perfect, maddening pressure, two fingers curling deep inside me. I came with a shattered scream, my back bowing off the table, my hands fisted in her short hair.

She rode out my convulsions, gentling her touch until I was a boneless, shuddering heap. Then she crawled back up my body, kissing her way up my stomach, between my breasts, finally claiming my mouth again. I could taste myself on her lips, salty and sweet.

“Now,” she whispered against my mouth, her own need evident in the tension of her body, “I need you to make me feel it.”

She rolled off me and onto her back, pulling me on top of her. We were a tangle of limbs and ink on the narrow tattoo bed. I kissed her fiercely, my hands roaming over the incredible landscape of her body. I moved down, mirroring her path, my mouth exploring every tattoo, every scar, every inch of her. When I finally took her in my mouth, she arched off the table with a guttural cry. Her hands fisted in my hair, not guiding, just holding on.

She was louder than I was, less restrained. Her pleasure was a series of sharp, beautiful curses and breathless moans. “Right there, yes, just like that—fuck, Morgan—” She came quickly, powerfully, her thighs clamping around my head, her whole body tensing like a bowstring before collapsing into tremors.

For a long time, we just lay there in a heap, our breathing slowly returning to normal. The smell of sex and green soap and ozone from the tattoo machine hung in the air. The bright surgical light felt absurd, exposing our spent, sweaty bodies.

Alex was the first to move. She pressed a soft kiss to my shoulder, right next to the new tattoo. Then she sat up, swinging her legs off the table. She found a clean towel and wet it with warm water from the sink. Gently, with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the fierce passion of minutes before, she cleaned me up. She dabbed at the smeared balm on my tattoo, then carefully patted my stomach, my thighs.

“We should get you properly wrapped,” she said, her voice soft, husky.

I just watched her, this incredible, fierce woman who had just rewritten my entire understanding of my own body. She fetched a fresh roll of sterile bandage and, with practiced hands, taped a protective layer over the phoenix.

“There,” she said, running a hand over the bandage. “All done.”

I found my voice. “Is that what you usually do with your clients on the final session?”

A genuine, full-bodied laugh burst from her. It transformed her face completely. “God, no. Never.” She sobered, looking at me intently. “Not ever. You were… different. From the moment you walked in. Your reason for the tattoo. The way you sat through the pain. The way you looked at me.” She reached out, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I was trying to be professional. I really was. But by that third session…” She shook her head, a wry smile on her lips. “I was lost. I’m not sorry.”

“I’m not either,” I said, and meant it with every fiber of my being.

I got dressed slowly, my body humming with a pleasant, deep ache. She cleaned her station with a quiet efficiency, but her eyes kept finding mine. When I was ready to go, she walked me to the front door of the empty studio. The street outside was dark, the city lights painting the pavement in neon and shadow.

“The aftercare instructions,” she said, a playful glint in her eye. “No submerging in water for two weeks. No picking. Moisturize gently.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping. “And… call me. Not the studio. Me.” She took my phone from my limp hand, typed in a number, and saved it under ‘Alex (the important one).’

She kissed me then, soft and deep, a promise of more. “Goodnight, Morgan. Take care of my art.”

I walked out into the cool night air, my fingers tracing the outline of the bandage over my ribs. The phoenix was complete, a riot of color and fire sealed beneath the gauze. The ghost of her touch was everywhere, on my mouth, between my legs, a sweet, lingering ache. I could still taste her, a complex flavor of skin and salt and want. I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that this was not an ending. It was a beginning, etched in something far more permanent than ink.