Ellen Datlow - Off Limits

Terry sensed it too. He worked his way up her calves, kneading the tight muscles like taffy. When he reached her thighs, Claren pulled him down on the sofa and climbed on top of him. He grinned, but let her lead.

She lay against him, both of them fully clothed, and breathed in his smell. Now and then she moved a little, rubbing her breasts against him, cupping herself around him as he got hard.

She felt like she did in the bathtub sometimes, as if she were drinking the water through her skin. Except this time, it was Terry she was absorbing. Everything she loved about him was soaking into her as she touched him: his strength, his playfulness, his warmth. His familiarity.

They lay nearly still together for so long that when she finally peeled his shorts off and took him inside her, they came on the third stroke.

The next morning at the shop, she studied the man’s data sheet and release form. He had given his name as Hadrian Franklin, his mailing address as a post office box in Tracker’s Point, Montana, and had left the line for a phone number blank.

She tattooed twenty-three other people that week. The college student who wanted a permanent gold chain around her ankle was the most interesting of the new clients. None of the others was interested in a trompe l’oeil effect. And Brad the Birdman came for his sixteenth appointment; the glorious blue-and-yellow macaw plumage on his back and shoulders was two-thirds done now.

None of it was as absorbing as the work on Hadrian Franklin. Claren spent every spare moment soldering new combinations of needles together in preparation for their next session.

Hadrian had healed well, and now that the skin had peeled, the coloration of the tattoo was precisely the right intensity. Because only the base of his prick was tattooed, it looked like a wax model that was starting to melt.

Claren was unsettled by the half-formed look of it. For the first time ever, she felt remorseful that her design was altering this smooth expanse of skin.

He remained silent, his huge body quiescent under her hands. Claren found herself wishing she hadn’t told him to keep his shirt on last time; she was curious about how the rest of him looked. Was he really a mutant?

She knew the answer at once. He was.

Confused enough by the thoughts she had while tattooing him, she didn’t try to talk as she worked. Normally she kept up a conversation with her clients to distract them from the discomfort. But with Hadrian, she felt the pain too. It was as if she were tattooing herself, only stranger.

The pain intensified as she moved closer to the tip, cradling his prick in her left hand as she tattooed. She’d gotten the knack of using her left thumb to stretch the skin out as she worked, to keep the detail of the tat clear enough.

Claren wiped off the blood and dye and switched needle bars. As she applied the new cluster, she wondered where he was really from, where he really lived.

The answer formed—not an image that built up one element at a time, but a complete picture that seemed to bloom instantly in the center of her brain. She was in a large log building, like a refectory, filled with people. Big bulky men and women, all with pale golden skin and dark grey eyes.

“Is that your home?” she blurted out. “In Montana?”

He looked at her sadly. “Yes, Missus.”

“How—” Claren set down the tattoo machine and swiped the sweat from her face. “ Why do I see it?”

He looked down at the blood that was welling from his penis. “Apologies, Missus. The pain—and you are touching me. My containment is not so strong when I hurt. And touching, skin closeness—” He stopped.

She waited for a moment, then realized he was stumped. He simply didn’t have the words to explain more. But why did he look so guilty?

“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind seeing things—feeling—the things you—”

Her reassurances didn’t seem to convince Hadrian. He looked guiltier than ever, like an overgrown child caught tormenting his sister.

She blotted the blood away and picked up the needle again. The duality of sensation was like a drug. Painful pleasure.

“Actually,” she whispered, “I like it.”

She tattooed six inches of skin in that one session.

She was very late getting home. Terry was waiting up for her, which irritated her. She had wanted to lie on the sofa by herself, undisturbed, and mull over what she had learned about Hadrian. Think about the sensation of pushing the needle bar and taking it inside her flesh at the same time.

She had wanted to think about him and masturbate.

But Terry was all over her, wouldn’t leave her alone until she yelled at him. Hurt, he retreated.

They each went to sleep unsatisfied that night.

The next morning, he asked her to close the shop at noon so she could come to his cycle race. Feeling guilty about her snappish-ness yesterday, she agreed.

The races were usually colorful, if a little boring—Terry mostly went in for track racing. But that day she found the lean, defined muscles of the cyclists’ legs and backs disturbing. Claren tried to watch the racers, but kept averting her eyes in distaste.

She managed to pay attention to Terry’s race, and she cheered for him when he won. His was the second to the last match. Afterward, the cyclists all went to the Tavern for beer and nachos, and Claren went along dutifully. Animated from the victory and the congratulations of his friends, Terry didn’t seem to notice her uneasiness. She was glad. How would she explain it? That the way their muscles were shaped looked wrong to her?

Watching Terry’s flushed face across the table, she knew he would want sex later. And she didn’t.

On the way home, still feeling expansive, Terry sped up North Lamar, weaving the Toyota nimbly around the barriers construction crews had left all down the center lane.

“ This isn’t a race,” Claren said.

“Sure it is! A race to see who gets home soonest.” He reached over and slid his hand up her thigh.

“The way you’re driving,” she said, pumping acid into the words, “it’ll be a miracle if we get home at all. If you’re going to speed, at least keep your hands on the wheel.”

The preemptive fight she had started escalated quickly. Within minutes, it spread from Terry’s driving to her irresponsible attitudes and finally to money.

He slept in the spare room that night.

Hadrian was three minutes late for his appointment. Claren was a nervous wreck by the time he arrived. The weather had turned cold the night before, giving them a crisp bright day on the line between autumn and winter. As he entered the shop, he swept air that smelled of woodsmoke inside with him.

“Missus,” he said, and picked up the towel she had ready for him.

As he turned toward the back, she said, “Hadrian.”

She had never called him by name before.

He looked at her, his dark eyes like pewter in the fading evening light. “Yes, Missus?”

“I’ve been thinking—your shape. The way you really are—it’s beautiful. Why did you want to change it? Have me cover it up?”

There was a long pause before he answered. Why had she asked him this aloud, instead of waiting until they were touching? She could find out anything she wanted to know when she touched him.

Maybe I’m afraid to know, she thought.

“I am in love, Missus,” Hadrian said, and went into the back.

Her heart pounding, Claren rearranged her needles. He was in love. Who with?

He came all the way from Montana to have me tattoo him. But that doesn’t mean —

She thought of daisies. He loves me, he loves me not.

Claren wasn’t certain she was ready to find out. But she could hardly wait to touch him again.