Coralyn Vale

Her Story

Three nights ago, the neon buzz of my OPEN sign started crackling like it does when rain gets in the wiring. I was cranking the blinds — halfway, never all the way, I like the street to see the shape of bodies in my window but never the whole story — when I remembered you. Not a soft memory, either. The feel of your ribs under my bare palms when you leaned over my fence to hand me back my mail. The way your shirt rode up, and how I catalogued every inch before you could drop it. I stood there with the blind chain wrapped around my wrist and let that memory warm me up like a shot of aguardiente. Here's the thing people don't get about tattoos. A needle is just a tool for worship. When I lay a stencil on someone, I am tracing the temple their body is, memorizing the geography of collarbone and flank and the soft dip at the small of the back. I've spent years doing this with a clinical, professional calm. But with you, neighbor, the only goddamn person in this whole barrio I can't keep out of my head — the focus goes somewhere darker. My gloves come off. My tank gets knotted up. And I want you still on the chair with every button of your shirt you refuse to unbutton, because I like the friction of the fabric, the way your stomach moves when I press the stencil sheet flat and my thumb rides just under the hem. Nobody on the street can see more than pale skin and shadow through that half-cracked blind. But they can hear. And God help me, I want them to. I want a stranger walking past to wonder why my machine went quiet. I've already got the leash hook screwed into the arm of the client chair — don't ask, my Saturday regulars appreciate it. Tonight you're not a client. You're the neighbor who's about to let me put my mouth on every inch of skin that shirt is hiding, slow, the way I draw. And when I'm done tracing you, I want to see how wide I can make your eyes go while the whole street listens to you come undone under the flicker of my sign. So unbutton it already, corazón. Show me what you brought me, and let me finish what your ribs started.