Ink and Desire – Part 2: The Last Line

The final session took four hours. Kiara worked in silence for most of it, the radio low, Elias sitting very still in the chair, his eyes half closed. When she finally set down the machine and wiped the last drop of ink from his skin, the design lay across his forearm like a bridge at dusk: thin silver-grey arcs over dark blue water, with one small red line running through the centre like a heartbeat.

"That's my favourite," she said, quietly.

Elias opened his eyes and looked. For a long time, he said nothing at all.

"It doesn't hide anything," he said finally.

"No," said Kiara. "It just stands on top of it."

He turned his arm slowly under the studio light, the ink still glistening. Then he looked up at her, his expression open and nervous.

"Can I take you to dinner tonight?" he asked. "The place on Court Street with the bad jukebox and the very good pasta. You can tell me what you think of it."

"Yes," said Kiara, and felt the smile spread across her face. "But I'm picking the wine. You're far too sensible about it."

"I'm sensible about everything except you."

She laughed, and set down her gloves, and began to clean her station.

The restaurant was small and warm, with checked tablecloths and a jukebox that played Nina Simone and then, inexplicably, a polka. They ordered the pasta. They drank a red wine from Sicily that Kiara declared perfect and Elias declared overpriced. They talked about their families, their first jobs, the friends who had stayed and the friends who had gone.

"My mother still thinks I should be a lawyer," said Elias. "She thinks architecture is a hobby for people with good handwriting."

"My father thinks tattoos are for sailors and criminals," said Kiara. "I told him I was both, and he didn't speak to me for a week."

"And now?"

"Now he's proud of me," said Kiara, with a small shrug. "He thinks I'm very good at getting people to hold still."

Elias laughed. Then he grew quiet, turning his glass slowly on the table.

"Kiara," he said. "Can I tell you something I haven't told anyone?"

"Yes."

"When I was twenty, I wanted to disappear. Not die. Just stop being the person who never got it right for my father. The scar was the only thing I could control." He looked down at his arm. "I haven't felt like that in years. I think the design did something to me. Gave me a way to see myself as something other than a mistake."

Kiara reached across the table and took his hand, gently, her thumb brushing the edge of the new ink.

"You're not a mistake," she said softly. "You're the man who came back every Tuesday and let me draw on him for six weeks."

"You made it easy."

"You made it possible," said Kiara.

They walked home afterwards through the quiet streets of Brooklyn, the air cool, the sky full of stars over the water. At her door, he stopped, and turned to face her.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Yes."

"Would you like to see my studio? It's messy, and it's full of models of bridges that didn't work, and I want to show you the one that did."

"Yes," said Kiara. "And can I ask you something back?"

"Anything."

"Can I kiss you first? Before the bridges?"

"Yes," said Elias, very softly. "And if you want me to stop, I'll stop, and show you the bridges anyway."

She kissed him, slowly, under the porch light, his hand coming up to rest against her cheek, his fingers warm and careful. The kiss was unhurried and sure, tasting of Sicilian red and something sweeter underneath, and when they parted, both of them were smiling in the dark.

"Green?" he asked, low.

"Green," said Kiara. "Very green. Now show me the bridge that worked."

He took her hand, and they went inside together, into the quiet, into the rest of the night.