Page 37 of Savage Grace

All I wanted was for him to press his lips there again, to feel the warmth of his mouth on my skin.

“Alright,” he said, snapping me out of my daydream.

The patch of skin felt cold now that his hands were gone.

But I watched him prepare with a keen curiosity. He washed his hands, put on gloves, shaved the patch of skin, and set out an array of inks and needles on his benchtop, lining everything up with a practiced precision.

“I’m gonna put the stencil on now, okay?” he asked.

Each step of the way his eyes held the same question in them.‘Are you sure?’they seemed to ask over and over again.

I nodded.

“No peeking,” he smirked before opening the drawer to retrieve the design.

“Fine,” I sighed, letting my head lull backwards and staring up at the ceiling.

It was hard not to jump at the feeling of him tugging my underwear down a little before he pressed the piece of paper with the stencil on it against my skin. After he smoothed it out, he peeled it off and rolled his stool backwards.

I brought my eyes back down to him then, watching as he assessed the placement from every angle. He tilted his head side to side, drew closer and then leaned back again.

“No,” he shook his head finally.

Reaching back, he snatched up another copy of the stencil, and this time applied it even lower, so the design was sitting at the top-most part of my thigh. He looked far more satisfied as he considered the placement again, a small nod of his head giving away the fact that he was happy with it.

“Perfect,” he looked up at me finally.

A few tense moments passed before he slapped the vinyl material of the bed, motioning with a jut of his head that I should hop on.

“Get comfy,” he instructed. “It shouldn’t take long.”

Again, I did as I was told.

It took a great deal of self-restraint to avoid peeking down at whatever Ashe had picked to permanently put on my body. I trusted him enough to know that maybe it wasn’t a crude drawing of a dick or something, but still, it could be anything.

What if I hated it?

What if it was a fucking butterfly or something?

But I had far too much pride to back out now. I was self-aware enough to know that my stubborn gene was so strong that I would rather wear a scribbled hairy ballsack on my thigh for eternity than admit that I was wrong.

For some reason though, perhaps intuition, perhaps naivety, I trusted Ashe to make this decision.

“Ready?” he asked with a smirk, buzzing the machine in his hand once as if it were a threat.

He was testing me, seeing if I would back out.

I scoffed.

He didn’t know me at all.

“Good to go.” I put my hands behind my head, stretching out and getting comfortable.

“Zar,” Ashe said, a warning type of cut to his voice. I looked down at him with a frown, and his expression was serious, maybe tinged with a little bit of worry. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, Ashe,” I rolled my eyes, lying back again and focusing my gaze on the TV screen mounted to the wall that played what seemed to be an old-school episode ofRage.

Without another word, he rolled his chair closer and pulled the hem of my underwear up, hitching it higher on my hip so he could easily access the spot.

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