Free Blackbird by Nicole Salmond

passion.
    Claire stood on her toes, gripping Nate’s shirt
tightly.  A craving yearned inside of her. Nate, welcoming her passion,
cupped her face in his hand, his other hand sliding down her spine. 
Suddenly, he stopped.
    Pulling away Nate looked into Claire’s eyes, an
uneasiness filling his own. “I remember…”
    Claire’s’ hold on him loosened.
    “I remember the day of the accident. You came in
for a tattoo…”
    Claire gasped. She remembered that day as well,
almost like it was yesterday…
     
    “You’re not seriously doing this are you!” Layla laughed at Claire hysterically as they walked into
the tattoo parlour.
    “A bet’s a bet,” Claire replied smiling.
    “But it will be on you forever!”
    Claire shrugged. “It’s only a tattoo.”
    They approached the counter, Claire’s eyes
darting back and forth to find someone to do her tattoo.
    “You’re a crazy girl, Claire.”
    “That’s why you love me so much,” Claire said,
winking at her.
    A tall muscular man dressed in all black
approached the counter. Tattoos streamed down his arms like a beautiful
painting. She looked at him more closely, and her mouth opened in awe. He was
hot, very hot. He had characteristics women would melt over. Hell, she could
feel her own legs melting under his stare!
    “Hope you get him,” Layla said quietly, nudging her in the side.
    “I hope so, too,” she replied, unable to pull
her eyes away from him.
    “Can I help you?” he asked.
    Fuck, his voice is even sexy, Claire thought to
herself.
    Claire pulled the small cut out piece of paper
onto the counter. “Yeah I was wondering if I could get this tattooed on me? ”
    The man looked down at the piece of paper then
back at her, his eyebrow raised.
    “Have you ever had a tattoo before?”
    Claire shook her head. “No, this will be my
first.”
    He looked at her in disbelief. “You want ‘this’
to be your first tattoo?”
    Claire beamed. “Sure do.”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “Fair
enough. Did you to want to do it now?”
    “Yeah if you could that would be great.” She glanced a smile at Layla . “It has
to be that size too, no smaller.”
    “Righto. I’ll
get everything set up, and come back and get you when I’m ready. I’ll also need
you to fill out some paperwork for me before we get started. Maddie will help you with that. You’ll need to prove you’re
eighteen as well,” he said, handing Claire some forms. “I’m Nate by the way.”
    “Claire.”
    He nodded and walked away.
    Claire picked up a pen and started filling in
the forms in the paperwork.
    “He was smoking hot!” Layla exclaimed a little bit too loudly.
    “ Layla ! He might hear you!”
    Claire agreed with Layla -
he was hot all right! But he was also only in the next room and quite possibly
just heard her outburst.
    “He’s sexy though, right?”
    “Oh he is sexy. If there was no Dave in my life
right now, there would definitely be a Nate,” she said grinning at Layla .
    She finished filling in the paperwork and sat
down to wait. Shortly after Nate came over prepped and ready
for her.
    “Where exactly do you want it?” Nate asked.
    “Just here,” Claire said, pulling down her
pants and underwear to reveal the bare flesh of her hip.
    “ Alrighty then,” Nate
said as he adjusted her pants to fit  a white
sheet between her skin and the pants. “This may hurt a little. If at any time
you want to stop you just let me know.”
    “Ok,” she said with a smile. Strangely enough
Claire wasn’t nervous or scared at all.
    Layla gave her
hand a squeeze as Nate turned the machine on, the buzzing sound filling the
room. As he lowered the tattoo gun to her, Claire could feel the light breeze
of his breath on her. Then she felt the stinging sharp pain of the tattoo gun
hitting her flesh. She tensed her body slightly, refusing to give into the pain
or move should she potentially ruin an already ridiculous tattoo.
     “So can I ask, why this tattoo?”