Paperback Writer

The door chimed, and Keiko rolled out of bed with practiced ease to see who the new customer was. Some people would probably hate keeping such irregular hours, but Keiko considered a back room with a bed to be one of the perks of owning her own little tattoo parlor. She napped whenever she felt like it, only had to pay a mortgage on one little building, got plenty of business at odd hours of the night, and if she needed eight hours uninterrupted, she could always switch off the light and lock the door. But she almost never did. You never knew who would walk in.

When she came out of the back room and saw the woman standing in the entrance, she privately thanked every god she could think of that she hadn't decided to lock the door. She looked at a striking woman, six feet tall if she was an inch, with skin that was...that was oh, god. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Keiko had never seen anything like it, not in person. The woman held up an honest-to-god parasol to protect it from the light of the sun outside. Keiko's whole body tensed up. She wanted to strip this woman naked right here, and take that perfect, paper-white skin and make it into a canvas. Every ink would show up so perfectly, so vividly, and with the care she had to take about sunburn, they'd never fade. Keiko could make this woman a living work of art--no, not could. Would. Must. Keiko realized she was practically shivering. She felt every single ancestor urging her on, even the ones that would probably think she was a deviant if they ever actually met her.

The woman didn't pick up any of that. She just saw Keiko staring at her. "I'd have thought," she said, "that a woman who covered her whole body with tattoos would be a little more compassionate about being gawked at."

Keiko realized she'd been standing there too long without talking. "Sorry," she said. "I really didn't mean to stare. I--"

The woman sighed. "No, you meant to stare. You just didn't mean to get caught at it. This isn't the first time, you know. Everyone seems to think that 'albinistic' means 'inbred sewer mutant'. I have white hair, and white skin. It doesn't mean my parents were first cousins, alright?"

Keiko suddenly felt icy fear in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't lose this woman, and she'd already made her angry within the first few seconds of knowing her. "I, no, I really didn't mean to stare. It's just that when I saw you, I sort of--" wanted you desperately-- "I sort of started drawing tattoos on you in my head. It's a bad habit, and I'm normally not this bad about it, but you do have really good skin. I can tell from over here."

The woman sighed again, but in a tone of embarrassment rather than frustration now, and took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were pale blue, rather than the pink Keiko had expected, and there was an apologetic look in them. "No, I'm the one who should apologize. Twenty-two years of dealing with surprised looks, you think I'd be better at it by now. My name's Dahlia. Are you Keiko?"

Keiko nodded, the ice already melting inside her--in fact, now she felt more than a little warm. "Just like on the sign. Did you have any idea of what you wanted? For a tattoo, that is?"

Dahlia looked around at the designs on the walls. "No. I'm not even really sure why I want to do this. I just..." she sat down in a chair. "I want to not be me. Does that make sense?"

Keiko looked down at her own arms, on which dragons writhed and twisted as she flexed her muscles. "It makes perfect sense." She wasn't thinking about her tattoos. That had been decided for her when she was a child, when it became clear that Mother wouldn't be able to have any more children. Without a son, the family legacy had passed to her. Father had taught her everything she knew, just as his father had taught him, and his father had taught him, all the way back through the ages. Probably there were some women in there before Keiko, but Father had never stopped making her feel like she'd screwed up a lineage that went back to Ancient Mu.

She looked back up at Dahlia. Father would really hate her for this. "Howabout a kanji character? Lots of people like them, they're not too obtrusive, and they happen to be a specialty of mine."

Dahlia gave her a crooked smile. "So I'll be able to get a tattoo that says, 'Gullible Idiot' in Japanese?"

Keiko gave a mock gasp. "I would never do that...to someone sober and polite." She winked. "Hold on, I've got a book in the back with some designs. I'll go get it." She tried to control the pleading in her voice. "Don't go anywhere."

In the back room, she stood in front of the small sink, splashed cold water on her face, and took three long, deep breaths. She looked over at the small shelf on the wall, the one where she kept the...special designs. The family designs. She looked back at the mirror. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she whispered. "I'm not your daughter anymore. I don't want a good husband." She thought about that perfect, paper-white skin. "I want her," she whispered.

She grabbed the book and walked back into the main room. "Howabout this one?" she said brightly, flipping the book open to the first page. "It's Japanese for 'purity'." She practically held her breath. If Dahlia didn't like it, if she knew Japanese, if she could tell that the symbol wasn't even a kanji...

Dahlia shrugged. "Sure. Whatever you think works." Keiko nearly moaned. "I was thinking about just putting it on my ankle. I don't know if anyone will ever see it but me," and Keiko had to stifle another moan, "but I don't want anything big or elaborate."

"Maybe next time for that," Keiko said, then gulped. "If there is a next time. I mean, I don't want to suggest--" Her hands were shaking. She needed to calm down. "You know what I mean," she said with a forced chuckle and a dismissive wave.

Dahlia just nodded. She seemed to have dismissed Keiko as a bit of a flake. Keiko didn't mind. She just needed to keep her involved until she could put that sigil on her ankle. "So, if you just want to hop up on the table, and take off your shoes..."

Dahlia did so. She must have noticed at least a little of Keiko's nervousness, because she fixed her with those beautiful pale blue eyes of hers and said, "You're OK handling a needle, right?"

Keiko grinned. It was the first time she'd felt centered all day. "I was born to handle a needle," she said.

Sure enough, once she picked up the instruments, the shakes went away like they were never there. She looked at the ancient book, seeing the design as if for the first time, and it was like she was a child again. She heard her father, showing her the sigil in the book, and then pointing to her mother's arm, where that design was replicated.

"This is the first element," he'd said. Keiko barely even noticed herself operating the needle in the real world, so pervasive was the memory. "Before all the other elements, before friendship, before trust, before loyalty, before love, before control, this must come first. It is not the most important, but if it is not there, the others will never be enough. You cannot train a dog that is not in your house, Keiko."

Carefully, steadily, Keiko inscribed the sigil onto Dahlia's body. A part of her noticed that instead of wincing in pain, Dahlia sighed softly as the needles lightly pierced her flesh. That was good. Some people got the endorphin rush, some didn't. Keiko was glad to see that Dahlia did. It wouldn't change the course of events one way or another, but it would make it more pleasant for Dahlia.

Afterwards, Keiko explained a few tips for care of the tat during the first couple of weeks, how to avoid infection, exchanged both small talk and money with Dahlia, and watched the woman she loved walk out the door.

On her ankle, she wore the first element. Not the most important, but the one that would ensure the the others. In the ancient tongue, it read simply, Return.

*****

Even so, it took almost a month before she saw Dahlia again. Keiko hadn't been worried. Well, maybe she'd been a little worried. Hers was the first generation to grow up in a time of laser tattoo removal; she'd already defied her ancestors and shamed her family, it'd be kind of embarrassing if it all turned out to be for nothing because Dahlia had zapped the tat away. But when she heard the chime and saw Dahlia walk in again, her worries melted away. Perhaps that was why her panties felt so wet.

"Hi," Dahlia said. "I know this sounds...well, not dumb. I mean, you obviously must like getting tattoos yourself, or you wouldn't do it for a living. But I just never thought I'd want another one." She giggled a bit, clearly trying to cover her own uncertainty. She didn't know why she'd come back here, and she was trying to hide it. "But I guess I must, or I wouldn't have come back."

Keiko nodded. She didn't trust her own voice right now. She was going to have to close the shop for a bit once Dahlia had left, she could tell.

"Any ideas?"

Plenty, Keiko thought. I've got a bed in the next room, a box full of toys under it, and a vivid imagination. But all she said was, "Let me go get my book."

As soon as she got into the back room, she let out a long, shuddering sigh. Dahlia was hers now. Like a fly in a web. Did Father feel this way when he etched the sigils into Mother's flesh? She suddenly calmed down more than a little. Nothing got your mind off sex quite like thinking about your parents having it. She grabbed the book and walked back in.

"I was thinking we might try something a little more elaborate," she said as she returned. "Say, something on your back?"

Dahlia blinked, a little startled. "I was just thinking maybe another one of those characters," she said.

"Oh, I was still thinking about doing those, but I thought maybe two or three, a sort of sentence. We can put it below your neckline if you're worried about it being seen at work."

Dahlia looked down at her long-sleeved shirt, and over at her parasol. "I don't tend to wear a lot of revealing clothes," she said ruefully. Keiko clenched the book a little tighter, but Dahlia didn't notice.

"Trust me, it'll look great." And soon, I won't ever have to say that first part again, Keiko thought.

Dahlia glanced over at the door with a worried expression, and Keiko eagerly leapt over to lock it and pull down the shade. Taking a deep breath, Dahlia slipped her shirt and bra off.

Keiko refused to let herself stare. She just looked once, briefly, snapping a mental picture of that perfect, paper-white skin, those perfect breasts, tipped with pale pink nipples. Then she turned towards the needles, getting them ready as Dahlia lay down on the chair, face-down. Her back looked like a canvas waiting for the artist, like a book waiting to be written, and it was all Keiko could do to keep from running her hands along it, just to see the contrast between her own olive skin and the beautiful whiteness. She felt almost feverish. But once she picked up the needle, the shakes went away.

The first sign was easy. The only tricky bit was covering her own slight hiss of pain as she drove the needle into her own palm before she started. But she had been drawing this one ever since she learned to read and write. She inscribed her own name in blood and crimson ink into Dahlia's skin, in the center of her back, just below the shoulder blades. Whatever Father might be thinking about her decision, Keiko knew he would admire her technique.

She had to look at the book to inscribe the next sign, placing it just to the left of her name in emerald green, interlocking the two subtly. Friendship. The other sigil went to the right of her name, again in emerald. Trust. Keiko looked down at the marks, standing out against Dahlia's skin like a rose bush in winter, and knew she needed to come, now. She watched Dahlia dress like a deer in the headlights, rushed through the payment, and barely managed to squeak out a good-bye with a voice about an octave higher than normal.

Five seconds after Dahlia had walked out, Keiko was on her bed in the back room. She hadn't even bothered taking off her pants; she just collapsed back on the bed, unzipped herself, thrust her hand into her panties, and rubbed like mad. Two fingers into a soupy mess of a cunt, her thumb grinding against her clit, grunting in animal lust, and the images just cycled around in her head: The glimpse of Dahlia's breasts, the fresh tats on her back, the smooth pale skin so close, and finally, the next sigil in the book. She came four times before exhaustion and hunger pushed her to stop.

*****

Dahlia returned several more times before the tats were even fully healed, just on a social basis, and each time, Keiko wound up spending an hour or so after each visit frantically masturbating. The two of them chatted about hobbies and personal lives--Keiko found out that Dahlia wasn't into women, or really much into men, for that matter. Her striking looks, combined with her height, had intimidated most men away from asking her out...and those who remained had difficulty getting through to an aloof, cynical woman used to dealing with social ostracism. Keiko felt glad that she could be a friend to someone who obviously needed one; perhaps it was for all the wrong reasons, but Keiko felt like she was doing the right thing.

At least, that's what she told herself.

Then, two weeks later, Dahlia finally came in and asked for another tattoo. "I just...I like the way they look in the mirror, Ko. And..." she looked around, furtively, even though it was just the two of them in the shop. "I like the way it feels." She looked down. "Weird, huh? Being jabbed with needles, and I like it."

Keiko grinned as she got the needles ready. "It's perfectly normal. A lot of people feel it. The pain from the needles is really small, but your body feels it and releases tons of endorphins--kind of all-natural painkillers." Dahlia lay down on the chair again. "And when your endorphin levels spike, it's kind of like a drug high. Lots of people come back for tattoos on a regular basis, just to get that endorphin high."

Dahlia chuckled. "So they're addicted to tats?"

Keiko began to inscribe, her hands steady as a rock. She felt anything but steady, though. Her head was swimming. "Oh, yes." She lowered her voice a little, even though she, too, knew they were alone behind a locked door and a drawn shade. "Some people even get, you know...kind of horny when they get one." She filled in the sigil with vivid scarlet, moving slowly, not daring to hurry the process. "The endorphins kind of get their motor running." She was almost done, now. Carefully, she delicately interlocked the sigil with her own name, still as vivid as ever against the snow-white skin. "I'm not saying everyone feels that way, but I'm sometimes glad I have a bed in the next room. Grrrowl, you know?"

Dahlia didn't say anything for a long moment, as Keiko finished the design. Then she said, in a strained voice, "I didn't know...it wasn't just me." She rolled off the chair. Her pale nipples were hard. She took a long, shuddery breath. "And you...help people out when they're feeling that way?"

Keiko gave her a warm, seductive smile. "If they're people I like."

For a moment, Dahlia showed her the truth behind the aloof, cynical mask she wore. "Do you like me?" she said in a small voice. All this time, all this work, all this effort to ensnare her and she still had to ask.

"Oh, baby, yes..." Keiko gasped out, enfolding her in a long, gentle kiss.

Dahlia practically carried Keiko backwards into the back room. In fact, after the first few steps, she did. Keiko wound up entwining her legs around Dahlia's hips, and the two of them stumbled onto the bed with a creak of mattress springs. The two of them spent the next few minutes fumbling with each other's clothes; it was almost impossible to get undressed, the two of them were so fogged with lust. Buttons snapped, zippers stuck, Keiko got distracted from pulling Dahlia's pants off at least three times by those wonderful, delectable breasts, but finally, they were both nude.

Dahlia clearly didn't know what to do with her fingers and lips, so she tried everything. She rubbed, pinched and fondled Keiko's nips, stimulating them to the point where Keiko had to finally push Dahlia's hands away. All that meant was that Dahlia pressed her lips to them instead. Keiko let out a shriek of surprise as much as pleasure as she came.

After that, things blurred. They wound up in a sixty-nine, Keiko marveling at Dahlia's downy white pubic hair covering her pussy, and Dahlia learning how to read Keiko's moans and gasps like a new language as she licked and touched. Dahlia was on top, though. Her new tattoo was still a little sensitive, inscribed in a language that only Keiko could read.

Lust.

*****

A year later, and Dahlia was scarcely recognizable as the woman who first walked into Keiko's parlor. Her skin was richly inscribed with tats, each one a new word, each one a new command. The new Dahlia was no longer a canvas ripe with possibility, but a walking work of art. She practically advertised Keiko's skills.

Especially one day, when a young man walked into the tattoo parlor and goggled at Dahlia's skin. "That is really...really amazing!" he said. "I...wow." He turned to Keiko. "Did you do those?"

Keiko nodded with pride. "She's all my work," she said.

"Those designs are awesome. Do you think you could do one of those for me?"

Keiko looked at Dahlia for a long moment. She wondered for a moment if this would redeem her in her father's eyes, or just enrage him further. He'd never taken a second wife, even after Mother had been unable to give him a son. He'd never used the sigils again.

Then again, he'd want me to give him grand-children somehow...

She looked back at the young man, his skin a story yet to be told. "I have just the one," she said.

THE END