“Is the rest of the art yours, too?” He turned around to examine all the framed pieces.
“Yes, except the long one over the door.” I pointed at the wide frame. “That’s by my mentor, Otto. I apprenticed for him in Colorado and in here for a few years. He retired couple of years ago, because his arthritis got too bad.” I still felt salty at the world for that, but Otto himself seemed to be taking it just fine.
“I love it.” Bear tilted his head as he looked at the painting. “I like the colors so much.”
“Yeah, that man’s a genius in using color for sure. He used to do a lot of nature-inspired tattoos along with more traditional styles.”
The painting was an autumn scene in a park we’d frequented in Colorado. Otto had still been smoking and took his smoke breaks there while I inhaled whatever lunch I had brought any given day.
“Did he ever tattoo you?” Bear turned to me, eyebrow raised.
I smiled. “Yeah, I have one he did for me a few years ago, right before he retired.” I lifted the hem of my T-shirt and showed him the tattoo over my ribs on my left side.
Bear’s eyes widened and his mouth went round like a child’s. He even bent down to examine it, then reached his hand over as if to touch it. At the last moment, he pulled his hand away as if he’d been burned.
“It’s okay; you can,” I promised quietly. The sense of awe in his expression was more important than thinking about how him touching me would feel like, what it would mean to my psyche.
The tattoo covered most of my ribs, and had a large Lily of the Valley plant, with a seven-spotted ladybug on one leaf, and a vibrant Holly Blue butterfly on the white flowers. The colors all popped and everything looked alive.
My whole body tingled as Bear reverently stroked the gradient blue wings of the butterfly. My nipples turned into hard nubs, and I willed that the curious, childlike exploration of his wouldn’t make me hard.
“It’s stunning, Luke,” he whispered, glancing at me before going back to the tattoo. “Why all these things?”
“It’s a celebration of Otto’s art and my heritage all in one,” I explained. “Those are the national flower, butterfly, and insect of Finland.”
Sitting in Otto’s chair, gentle as he was as an artist, had been torture. I’d still been reeling from losing Elio and the conflicting feelings I had around that. Ribs could be the worst place to be tattooed, and for me, it had been hell. But I’d sat there for hours upon hours while Otto worked his magic.
I didn’t have many visible tattoos, and the ones under my clothes were all special as hell. I could see Bear notice a couple of them, but he didn’t ask. Finally, I lowered my shirt again and he straightened.
“I don’t have any tattoos,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I want any, either.”
Smiling, I shrugged. “It’s definitely not for everyone, but if you ever change your mind, let me know and we’ll find the right artist for what you have in mind.”
He nodded very seriously, then went to look at a group of frames. “What’s this?”
“Those are an assignment I did for Otto back in the day. I wanted to do Neo-Traditional style when I started, and he’d done mostly American traditional for the first decade of his tattooing, then he branched out and ended up being a master of realism. He told me to pick a subject, any subject, and that would be what I’d do every time he wanted me to show what I’d learned up to that point. Of course, it wasn’t that simple and I did other sketches and tattoos all the time for that purpose, too.”
“But he wanted you to have something concrete like this?” He waved a hand at the nine frames.
“Yes.” I smiled fondly at the memory. “As you can see, I chose a hummingbird motif, because my mom loves them. They go clockwise from the 12 o’clock position and the middle one is the last I did for Otto.”
The first sketch wasn’t anything to write home about. It was okay, you could tell what I’d been going for. The most important thing was that the work got better with each sketch. It was so obvious now.
“But the middle one is like a photo?”
“Yeah, turns out that while I love Neo-Traditional, I love realism more.” I winked.
Bear blushed and ducked his head. “It’s incredible. At first glance, it’s hard to even tell it’snota photo.”
That was exactly the point, so I just hummed. It made me feel proud that he recognized the skill that had gone to the roughly palm-sized piece of art.
He started to ask questions about my tattoo machine and the colors I used, so I gave him a brief tour of everything tattooing. He seemed to absorb the information like a sponge, clearly wanting to touch everything but holding himself back. The colors fascinated him, too.
“Have you ever done any art?”
My question made him tear his gaze off the ink bottles. “No, not really. Never had time as a kid. I did some art at school of course, but that’s it. Why?”
“I was thinking that you seem to like colors a lot.” I gestured at the bottles and the art on the walls. “Maybe coloring could be worth trying?”
