Indelibly (1/2)

**I met Melinda at a local industry trade show. Her company was marketing some ghee-whiz gadget she had been the lead designer on.  My company sold accounting software tailored to the same market — my job was just to do setup and get out of Marketing’s way. It was kind of cool, actually, but you don’t want to hear about that, I guess.

Melinda was wearing a light jacket over a sleeveless blouse, pants and calf-length boots when I met her, which is why I was able to talk to her in the first place. If she’d worn what she wore to dinner, this never would have happened. I wouldn’t have made a fool of myself and she wouldn’t have given me the time of day. As it was, I did make a fool of myself, but it was the second or third impression instead of the first one.

But I get ahead of myself.

I was setting up our booth, which involved crawling around on the floor and setting up PCs and a mini-server for the actual sales reps. I was working pretty hard and not paying attentin. She could have been watching me for hours, and I wouldn’t have known. I looked up and there she was, leaning half over the booth in a way that pushed up her breasts a bit. Her skin was mostly covered, as I said, which meant I wasn’t too flustered.

“Hi,” she said.

“Um, hello,” I replied.

“I was wondering if you had an extra outlet over there. They were supposed to supply us with surge protectors, but there weren’t any here.”

“Oh,” I said. “Ah… sure.” I stood up and brushed the dirt off my knees and she just smiled. She was about my age, brown eyes and blonde hair pulled back in a bun. “But you can get them from the organizers.” I pointed back to the table where all the vendors had to sign in.

“Well, then,” she said. She smiled at me and her eyes lit up a bit. “I guess that makes the most sense, and keeps things from interfering.” She set her plug down, and then leaned back over the wall. “Will you be manning the show?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m just here to set up. They don’t let us tech guys out to see the public.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m the tech-gal for us, and no one understand the product like I do, therefore I’m forced to do these things.”

“You have my condolences,” I said.

She laughed. “You live in town, then?”

“Yep, we’re based out of here.”

“We are too,” she said. “After all this, I think I’d like to spend some time with a regular guy. Would you like to dinner?”

I blushed, I’m sure. I hadn’t seen much of her, but she was beautiful. And I don’t get out much. “With me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I could see you knew what you were doing, crawling around down there. I get tired of always talking to sales and marketing people.”

“O-okay,” I said. Then with more confidence, “Sure!”

“Great,” she said. “Tonight at 7? At Simon’s?” I nodded and she put out her hand. “I’m Melinda, by the way.”

“Kyle,” I said. As our hands shook, she turned her hand so hers was on top. Her jacket rode up on her arm, and I saw a bit of a tattoo there. It was a word, maybe with a capital T. I took a deep breath, and felt a wave of lust rush through me. “I, uh, look forward to dinner very much Melinda.”

“Cool,” she said. “See you then.“**

**
I tried to be cool. ‘Tried’ being the operative word. I had a date, with a woman. She’d even asked me out, which of course was how I had a date with a woman. But more importantly, she had a tattoo. A tattoo with words.

And that was all I could think about.

What did it say? Was it a quote, a thought, a poem? Was it only on her arm? Were there other quotes, or other words on her? She seemed normal, dressed in her business suit, but she wasn’t, and that bit of tattoo was the hint that she was just a bit odd, right? Odd like me?

I don’t know where my fascination for tattoos came from. One of my early girlfriends had one, a butterfly just above her ass. She liked to fuck doggie style and I’d watch it whenever we had sex. I’d rub it with my finger and she’d urge me on whenever I touched it. My next girlfriend had stars over her ovaries, and demanded that I kiss and lick them before I went down on her. A proper kiss, then a couple of licks on her pussy, and she’d roll me over and ride me hard. My longest relationship was with a woman who had a poem tattooed over her heart. I’d recite it to her between kisses on her breasts as we made slow, sweet love. She’d pushed me to get my own tat, but I’d always resisted — I think that finally ended things for us.

Those three experiences kind of locked it in for me. I’d had one night stands with women with no tattoos, but never more than that. I don’t know if it was just me — a fetish or something — or if it was something about my personality and the kind of person who gets ink. Of course, I’d become fascinated by tattoos; by now they were a fetish for me, and I needed my lover to have one. And when I could see one on a woman, at least one who was available, I often lost all control or civility, I admit. Which is why it was good that Melinda had approached me without me realizing she had such wonderful ink on her.

The day I met Madeline, I got nothing else done. Except some web surfing about tattoos of words.

At least I had enough focus to get myself home, cleaned up and back to the convention area in time for dinner. Since she was local we could have gone anywhere, but back downtown to Simon’s it was. It was one of the nicer restaurants in town, and had the advantage of being connected to the hotel and convention center. I parked in a nearby lot, and walked in. I was there fifteen minutes early, of course; she was waiting for me when I go there.

Again she wore a jacket, but this time over a black dress that came down to her knees. I wasn’t sure if the boots were the same, but they came up to her calves, leaving a short gap between their tops and the hem of the skirt. On the outer side of the left leg, in the same script as her arm, was the word ‘kiss.’ As I approached her,she turned, and I saw on the inner part of her right leg, in the same gap, was written ‘fore’.

I felt myself stir as desire to read her words, to see all of what was written on her passed over me. I wanted to see her naked, or as naked as was required to see everything written on her. And I wanted her. I wanted her very very much right then.

She turned to me and smiled. “Kyle!,” she said. “You made it, I’m glad.” Her hair was in a ponytail and it swung from one side to the other as she spoke.

“Melinda,” I said, reaching out to take her hand. “Of course I made it. I’ve been looking forward to this all day.” As we shook, I quickly looked down.  This jacket was a bit shorter than the one she wore to the trade show.  The word that began with “T” was “They”.

“Me too,” she said.

Soon we were being seated, and talking lightly about our industry. “So what do you do, Kyle?” she asked.

“I’m IT,” I said. “All of it. I have an assistant, but we do all the IT stuff for the company. Cloud apps help.”

“How big is your company?”

“Around 200 or s o.”

“That’s pretty impressive, working with just two people in IT.”

“Thanks,” I said. I admit I blushed a bit from her praise. “It’s not like R&D, though. That must be interesting.”

“I like it,” she said.

I asked her what she did day-to-day and she lost me in a jumble of science and technical details that I just barely understood or had heard before. All geeks and nerds and tech people size each other up when they meet, see where they are in the hierarchy. I’ve never been high, but I’m the most technical person at my company. Melinda left me in the dust. There was no doubt she was smarter than me.

As I listened to her talk, I started to wonder what I was doing there, hopelessly outclassed by this woman. It only intrigued me more, made me want her more. Her obvious intelligence meant that the only way I’d ever figure out her words was to see them myself. It didn’t help that I saw her left hand as well, and it had the word “these” on it. “These”, “they”, “kiss” and “fore”.

“Fore” was too short or archaic though, it could be forewarned or forearmed or, and I thought this was right: forever. “They kiss these forever,” I thought. An intriguing combination, but not the words went together, of course. I had to know, and I was no match for her. There was no way to win this.

It must have shown on my face, because she stopped talking about her gizmo for a bit. “What is it Kyle, am I boring you?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Although you lost me a few turns back. I’m afraid I’m not up on that tech.”

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I’m pretty passionate about my work; sometimes I tend to go on about it, in the hopes that someone will understand some of it.”

“Well I got some of it,” I said. “I guess that’s why I’m here.”

“In part,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Your ass was also very cute where you were crawling around on the floor,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, blushing. She just smiled at me.

“I’ve embarrassed you,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can be too forward sometimes. It’s just that when I want something I go and get it.”

“And what do you want?” I asked.

She smiled and leaned back. “First, I want to know what you want. You’ve seemed distracted all evening.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I admit, I’ve got a bit of an obsession for tattoos. I need to know what all yours say.”

“Need?” she asked. She stood up, dropping her napkin on her plate. She stood too close to me then, towering over me a bit. She put her hand on my chin as I looked up at her. “Well, Kyle, that’s up to you. There’s a price to seeing all my tats, and reading all my words. But I can guarantee you that if you’re willing to pay the price, you’ll see every last one of them.”

I felt myself go rigid then. My cock was hard in my pants, pressing against my briefs. My voice broke as I spoke. “I-I’d like that ver-very much.”

Her finger brushed my cheek. “Oh, you are going to be fun.”

She signed her room number to the check, and led me to the elevator.

I was going to see them! To read the words she felt important enough to ineradicably stain her body. I was rock hard as she led me to the elevator.

She stepped on the elevator as it opened, and I entered behind her. “Help me with my jacket,” she said.

“O-of course,” I said. I held the collar of her jacket, and she slipped out of it. I tried to see around her to read the words written on her arms, but we were the same height and the heels in her boots gave her an advantage. She took the coat from me, and draped it over her left arm, obscuring it. The top of her dress was held up by straps, but showed very little cleavage. Every part of it was meant to obscure precisely what I wanted to see, I was sure.

“Here,” she said holding out her right arm. “This is the start of it, and the price to see the rest.”

I took her hand in mine and read aloud what was written there. “They shall always be mine, those who read all my words and follow their every command.” I looked up at her. “What commands are written on you that I would have to follow?”

“Well, that’s part of the test,” she said. “You’ll have to decide once you see them.”

Once again a rush of lust washed over me. I was going to see her words and read them.

And obey them, a small part of me whispered. And obey them.**
Return next Friday, January 11, 2013 to see the conclusion to Indelibly. As always, your comments and feedback are appreciated!