by Shayn Bloom
you need to show me this tattoo,” Ray responded, turning around.
The sly smile that slid across the room from Mary to Sarah wasn’t missed by Raymond. Nevertheless, he found distraction in Mary’s suntanned movements as she lifted her hands high and pulled off her white shirt. The shirt, already thin enough, came easily from Mary’s slender form – the grace of its departure in no way minimized by the casual elegance of its wearer. Her smile grew as he stared at her chest.
The expression of surprise on Ray’s face was not so easily hitched away this time. He gazed at the design cascading down her upper chest, his own inhaling extra air with which to contemplate the intricacy he would soon have to caress. The tick in his cheek didn’t belong to self-doubt. Rather, it belonged to involuntary awe.
Eventually he recovered himself, however.
“They’re fantastic,” Ray said nastily, staring at Mary’s chest, its only defense a loose fitting bra. “And I can see why you want them, Sarah. But I’m sorry – I’m just a humble tattooist. For all my appreciation of the subtle and necessary art of their creation, I don’t do implants.”
Sarah expelled air. “Not those, Ray! That!”
“Ah-hah!” Ray exclaimed to Mary. “You meant the dreamcatcher? Sorry – my bad. But you know – it being Sarah – I just immediately thought of implants.”
“You’re a jackass,” Mary told him.
Sarah tried not to let the hurt show. The feat was difficult, however. After all, nobody knew more about the extent of her insecurities than Raymond. His willingness to bludgeon her with criticisms even in the afterglow of their relationship was a catalyst – a tool of inspiration driving home the desire to do the thing right. Sarah found Mary’s eyes, and both silently agreed that the moment had arrived.
“It’s a truly marvelous dreamcatcher,” Ray was saying. He had retreated to the back of the room momentarily to collect an inkwell, a pen, a pad, and tracing paper all from the same credenza. His materials gathered, he faced Mary once more, the cap of the pen in his mouth and the tip touching paper. “Let’s see,” he murmured. “Let’s see.” His legitimacy was hardly less questionable following his furrowed brow. “We have green –”
“It’s turquoise, actually,” Mary said.
“Turquoise,” Ray repeated, writing it. “And red –”
“It’s burgundy,” Mary said.
“Burgundy,” Ray repeated, writing it down. “And then pink –”
“Magenta,” Mary corrected.
“Magenta,” Ray said, his pen scribbling. “And finally, purple.”
“It’s violet,” Mary said.
“Good!” Ray said enthusiastically. “That’s all of them!”
Mary shook her head. “One more,” she said, indicating the color.
“Whoops!” Ray cried. “Right, of course. Azure!”
“It’s blue, actually,” Mary pointed out.
“Blue,” Ray repeated, recapping his pen. “It’s really stunning is what it is. Many artists I know would hesitate to try and replicate this. The focus required to work on something of this complexity is infinite.”
“And you?” Sarah asked. “Will you do it, Ray? Are you infinite?”
Taking a backward step, Ray squinted at the design. “It’s gonna be tough,” he admitted. “And will take several hours – probably past dinner. Of course,” he began, his grey eyes finding Sarah’s, “I’m game, if you are…”
Sarah nodded. “I want to do this.”
“You sure?” Mary asked, hiding her smile. “Once it’s done you can’t go back.”
Sarah took a deep breath. “I’m sure – yeah, I’m sure.”
“Couple questions,” Ray said, his eyes spinning from Sarah to Mary. “Where exactly did you get that done? Who did it?”
Mary tried to sound convincing. “Oh, it was just this little place in Westminster. Don’t remember who the artist was – no relation. But he did a great job. I’m so glad I went to a professional over an amateur.”
“Yeah,” Ray said, sensing the inference. “Good thing –”
“What did you say it means again?” Sarah asked, successfully interrupting Raymond. “The dreamcatcher… Why did you choose to get one?”
“Oh that,” Mary said, her every smidgeon of tenacity working to keep giggles from breaking the surface of her face. “I just really wanted something that would help me ward off the nightmares in my life. It’s been working really fantastically. Bad grades and douche-bags alike leave me be.”
“Wow,” Sarah said. “I could so use that. You already know that though, Mary. One of the reasons I want one so bad is to make sure no more douche-bags come into my life. I’ve been having problems with that lately.”
At this point, Raymond seemed to be catching onto their words. “If this is some joke to you,” he began angrily, “then you can both get out of here. I already told you I’m running a business. I don’t have time to play around!”
“No joke!” Mary said hurriedly. “Let’s do it.”
Suspicion in his eyes, Ray turned to Sarah. “You ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.
“Good,” Ray responded. “Didn’t mean to lose my temper there.”
Mary waved him away. “No worries – it happens to the best of us.”
“Of course it does,” Ray said. “It happened to me!”
The girls looked at each other.
“You want it to look exactly like this?” Ray asked. His movements were closer now as his eyes devoured the design more thoroughly. “No variation whatsoever, Sarah? How about a boyfriend caught in the middle of the web? You know, to symbolize what happens to the men in your life?”
“No thank you,” Sarah said. “Just the dreamcatcher, please.”
Ray shook his head. “Oh well – I thought that was pretty clever.”
“There is one more thing she wants, though,” Mary cut in, the color of her eyes sweeping Sarah into the conversation. “It might be kind of tough, so we’re not counting on you being able to provide it.”
“We’ll see about that,” Ray countered. “What is it?”
“This,” Sarah said, and she gestured to Mary’s chest. Her full-bodied smile released from captivity at last, Mary gracefully lifted her hand to her chest and touched the tip of a fingernail to her dreamcatcher.
The pad and pencil fell from Ray’s grasp. The inkwell smashed on the floor, coloring the disbelief of his peripheral consciousness. Numbly, Ray’s mouth gaped at her chest, his own suddenly heaving with tense fear. Grey eyes were the most telling, however, for his were wide and aghast, milked of astonishment.
Mary’s dreamcatcher had come to life.
Unraveling itself from the solace of sleep, the loops and curls of its winding center had begun to spin crazily. Up and over and down and up, the thing moved with startling speed in every direction within itself. It spun madly only to switch direction at whim, sending inky jets of inspiration across her chest before reclaiming them with alarming accuracy. It was as though a story had awoken on her chest, a story of colors and webs and dreams longing to be found. Like a whirring, spinning star it moved.
“What is it!” Ray roared, his eyes tearing at the edges. “What is this thing?”
Her own smile unrestrained, Sarah cocked her head at Mary. “Why, I don’t see anything. Do you, Mary?”
“Nope,” Mary said. “Nothing at all.”
“Make it stop!” Ray cried. “I – I… It can’t be!”
“Can’t be what?” Sarah asked calmly. “Ray, I’m beginning to worry about you. Are you seeing things that aren’t there?”
“I – I…” But words had finally failed him.
His features were becoming a palette of color, the stunned horror turning to red and purple on his cheeks. Yowling like a beast, Raymond wrenched his eyes from the living motions of her catcher and bolted for the door. Tripping over nothing in particular, he went tumbling to the floor. Gasping, he righted his steps before flinging himself out the doo
r and up the street, the mad dash of his fear cut free.
Howling with laughter, the girls hugged each other. Mary reclaimed her finger from her dreamcatcher and its movements gently faded back into silence. The web comprising the tattoo’s center seemed to smile at Sarah – the beads hanging from it dimples in the kind face; the cascading feathers a beard of wisdom.
“Great work,” Mary told her.
Sarah wiped her eyes. “You too!”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “We showed him!”
Sarah gazed around at the sparse furnishings, blinking in what suddenly seemed like a brighter sun from beyond the window. “What now?”
“We get the hell out of here,” Mary instructed, allowing her shirt to fall back over her figure. “That’s what.”
They left.
Now that the task was accomplished, the street outside seemed more friendly somehow. Objects and barriers that had been obstacles before were now just another stitch in the fabric of living day. They were to be contemplated rather than avoided, their outlines finding graceful silhouettes in shadows born of the late afternoon sun.
Ray was nowhere to be seen.
“Funny how the wrong kind of people can bring about the wrong kind of life,” Mary remarked. “Take you and Ray, for example. He was always making you disown your autonomy, pushing you to live like him. And once you start living the way somebody else does, you start thinking like them too.”
“Maybe,” Sarah mused. “But I don’t regret the relationship. It’s all experience.”
“Yeah, the wrong kind of experience,” Mary said. “You might want to start chasing the right kind – the right kind of guy, the right kind of
