The Tattoo
As Axyl DeVries entered Ink Inc one Friday afternoon, the teenage girl behind the counter took immediate notice of the good-looking musician.
"Can I help you?" she asked with a smile meant to indicate that she might be interested in him as more than a customer.
"Yeah," he replied, with a lazy half-smile of his own. "I want to get a tattoo. This is my first, so I'm not sure of the procedure."
"An ink virgin, huh? Well, you're in luck then. Leila will be back from lunch any minute now, and she doesn't have any appointments scheduled until later this afternoon."
"That's great," the handsome young man nervously exclaimed.
It was evident that part of him was still a bit squeamish about the whole affair, and he would no doubt have preferred postponing the ordeal a little longer.
"Do you have an idea of what art you want, or would you rather look at the sample books we have for inspiration?"
"I think I'll look at the samples. Thanks."
As Axyl thumbed through a large binder full of various skulls, dragons, snakes, American flags and eagles, he saw a pretty young woman enter the building, carrying a container of salad and a can of Diet Coke.
"Here's your lunch," she announced, giving the food to the teenager at the counter.
"Thanks, Leila. Oh, a customer came in while you were at lunch," the girl said nodding in the young man's direction.
Leila Henning smiled and told him, "When you find something you like, just yell. I've got to go sterilize the needles."
Several minutes later Axyl took a deep breath and called to Leila.
"I found one I like: this electric guitar with the flames around it."
"Come with me," the tattoo artist commanded, leading the customer to a back room furnished with two chairs that resembled those found in a dentist's office, a cot and three padded stools on wheels.
"Where do you want it?" she asked. "The chest? The arm? The back?"
"The upper arm will be fine."
"Have a seat," she said, rolling the tray of needles and ink toward him and sitting down on one of the stools.
Once the customer was seated, she raised the armrest on the chair and strapped his arm down. Axyl looked uncomfortable, as though he might faint at any moment.
"Don't get nervous," Leila said with a smile of encouragement. "The straps are just to prevent you from moving your arm and destroying all my hard work."
The artist then picked up the needle and began outlining the guitar. Axyl looked away.
"You must be a musician."
"Yes, how could you tell?"
"Because you chose the guitar. I can tell a lot about a man from his tattoos."
"Oh? What else does my choice of tattoo tell you about me?"
"For one thing, you don't have either a wife or a fiancée. If you did, you'd ask me to include a little heart with her name or initials on it."
"You're right. I play guitar in a group called Mirage, and I don't have a girlfriend. Do you have any tattoos?" he asked.
"Of course. That's what got me into this field."
She raised her sleeve and showed him the rose vine that encircled her upper arm.
"I also have a large tattoo across my back, from shoulder to shoulder, and a small one near my navel."
"So, tell me, Leila, is there a man's name tattooed anywhere on your body?"
Leila smiled invitingly and shook her head.
* * *
Axyl DeVries and Leila Henning dated for several months, during which time the artist had the musician's name tattooed on her arm. She also talked him into letting her tattoo a vine of hearts and roses across the top of his back.
"A design this size should take twenty to thirty hours to ink," she estimated. "But there's no rush, is there? I can work on it an for hour or so each day."
"What am I supposed to do for the next few weeks, walk around with half a tattoo on my back?" he laughed.
"Wear a shirt. Then nobody will see my masterpiece until it's done—nobody except for me, of course."
Leila worked on Axyl's tattoo from one to two hours a day, two or three days a week, depending upon his schedule. His band, Mirage, was beginning to get a loyal following, and the number of bookings was steadily increasing.
It was while the group was performing at a club in Boston that its guitarist and lead singer met a beautiful and wealthy Harvard law student. During the four-week gig, he took her out every night after the show. Then Mirage went back to New York, and Axyl went home to Leila.
Three days after returning to Brooklyn, however, he received a telephone call from the girl in Boston. Leila came home from work while he was talking to her, and Axyl quickly ended the call and hung up the phone.
"Who was that?" Leila asked.
"Just a fan who heard us play up in that club in Boston."
"Is her name Elsbeth Cabot by any chance?"
Axyl turned pale.
"How did you know her name?"
"She phoned this morning, right after you left. Why did she call?"
"She just wanted to ask if we would be playing that club again."
"How did she get your number?"
"Why? What's with the third degree all of a sudden?"
Up until that point Leila had seen no reason to question her lover's loyalty, but his sudden defensiveness made her suspicious.
"I only asked you a question. Why should it make you feel guilty?"
"I'm not feeling guilty. I didn't do anything wrong. It's not as though we're married, you know. There's no reason I can't spend time with one of my fans."
"Just how much time did you spend with her?"
Axyl picked up the telephone and, in a fit of anger made worse by the guilt he felt at being unfaithful, threw it against the wall.
"I've had enough of your questions," he shouted and then left to spend the night at a friend's house.
From there, he phoned Elsbeth back and told her he would be in the Boston area in another couple of weeks.
Axyl returned to their apartment the following morning, where Leila, who had been up half the night crying, greeted him with swollen, red eyes.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I won't question you anymore."
He brushed her aside and walked into the bedroom.
"Save your apologies, Leila. I'm not interested. It's over between us."
He took his suitcases out of the closet and began packing.
"Why? I said I was sorry, didn't I? I won't be jealous anymore. Okay? Is that what you want?"
"I want out," he said, cruelly disregarding her feelings. "Frankly, this relationship is beginning to bore me."
"It's that girl, Elsbeth Cabot, isn't it?"
"She's part of it," he admitted, "but it goes beyond her. I just don't want to be tied down right now. Not to you, not to anyone."
"I don't want to tie you down. I just want to be with you."
"Well, I don't want to be with you anymore," Axyl confessed as he grabbed his bags and walked out the door.
Leila crumbled to the floor in tears. She had never even gotten the chance to tell him she was pregnant.
* * *
Two weeks later Mirage had a return engagement at the club in Boston. Elsbeth Cabot was at Logan Airport to meet the musician's plane.
"I missed you," he said after the couple broke their passionate embrace.
"I missed you, too," she replied. "I'm glad you flew up early because I borrowed the family's yacht. I thought we'd cruise around the Cape for a few days, perhaps go out to the Vineyard or Nantucket, if we have time."
"Sounds great," he said, as they headed toward her Land Rover.
From the airport, Elsbeth drove to Hyannis where she and Axyl boarded the Cabot yacht. They immediately changed into their swimsuits and stretched out on the deck to get a tan.
"You're as white as a ghost," Elsbeth laughed. "I'd better put some sunblock on you."
Axyl closed his eyes and sighed with contentment as she rubbed the cool lotion on his chest, arms and legs.
"Roll over and I'll do your back."
The musician obediently turned onto his stomach, and Elsbeth squirted the sunscreen onto his skin.
"Who's Leila?" she asked.
"Leila?" Axyl echoed. "She's a tattoo artist in New York. Why?"
"She tattooed her name on your back."
"You mean she signed the tattoo?"
"It's more than a signature. She wrote her name in large letters across your back."
"She did what?" he yelled. "She was supposed to be tattooing a vine of roses."
"The vine of roses encircles her name. Haven't you seen the tattoo yet?"
"No. She didn't want me to see it until she had the chance to finish it."
"It looks finished to me."
"Damn it! I can't go through life with Leila written on my back."
"So, go to the tattoo parlor and have her create something over her name."
"I don't know that I'd trust her anymore."
"Don't worry, darling. Just threaten her with a lawsuit. You'll see how fast she'll be willing to accommodate you."
* * *
A month later Axyl was back in Brooklyn. After he had the chance to unpack, he tried phoning Leila, but a computerized voice informed him that her number was no longer in service. He then drove to Leila's apartment, but another woman answered the door, claiming that she had just leased the place the week before. Finally, the musician returned to Ink Inc. An aging hippie, with his hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt, was working behind the counter.
"I have to see Leila," Axyl announced.
"Leila? Sorry, but I don't know anyone by that name."
"She started a tattoo on my back that I want to have finished."
"Oh, you must mean the girl that used to work here. I was hired as her replacement. If you've already paid for the tattoo, I'd be more than willing to finish it. Do you have a receipt?"
"No, she was doing it on her own time. Do you know where she works now? Maybe she left a forwarding address."
"There is none. She's dead."
Axyl was stunned.
"Dead?"
"Yup. Suicide. I heard from the teenager who works here on weekends that the poor girl was pregnant and that the guy walked out on her, so she killed herself."
The young man was struck speechless with a mixture of surprise, pity and guilt.
"Tell you what I can do for you," the elderly hippie at the counter continued. "I'll take a look at that tattoo and give you an estimate on how much it would cost to finish it."
Axyl shook his head and walked toward the door.
"Some other time maybe."
For days he bore his guilt and pain in silence. Then he boarded a plane and headed for Boston. When he showed up unexpectedly at Elsbeth's Cambridge home, the family butler answered the door.
"I have to see Miss Cabot," the New Yorker said.
The musician was shown to the study and asked to wait. Several minutes later Elsbeth joined him. Axyl immediately embraced her, but she remained stiff in his arms.
"You shouldn't have come here without calling first," she declared with annoyance and inched away from him.
"I'm sorry," he replied, hurt and confused by her rejection. "I received some really bad news the other day. A friend of mine died, and I needed someone to talk to."
"Why me?" she asked coolly.
"Why you? Elsbeth, what's wrong? Why the cold shoulder all of a sudden? Not long ago we were skinny-dipping off your family's yacht, and today you treat me like an insurance salesman."
"We can't talk here. Go to my apartment. There's a spare key under the mat. Wait there and I'll talk to you later tonight."
Elsbeth then disappeared down the long hallway, and the butler showed him out.
Axyl waited at her apartment for four and a half hours. Eventually, a man driving a late model Porsche dropped Elsbeth off at the front door.
"Who was that?" he asked jealously.
"He's a good friend of mine from Harvard."
"How good?"
"I'm not going to lie to you. Daniel and I are going to get married after we graduate."
"You're getting married? Then why did you come on to me?"
"I was having some fun. There's no crime against that, is there? After all, I'm not married yet. Hell, I'm not even officially engaged."
"So, you decided to go slumming before you settled down with Mr. Harvard graduate with the Porsche, is that it?"
Elsbeth looked him straight in the eye, and said defiantly, "That's it exactly, but why are you so concerned about the other men in my life? Did I question you about the girl who answered your phone in New York?"
"Leila," he said, more to himself than to her.
"Leila? The girl from the tattoo parlor?" Elsbeth asked and then started to laugh. "Tell me, did she tattoo her name on your back before or after I phoned?"
"She's dead," he announced, expecting no sympathy from Elsbeth. "She killed herself after I left her."
"Is that why you're so upset? You shouldn't feel guilty. Girls like her can't cope with life's problems."
"Girls like her? You don't know anything about her."
"I've seen her kind before. They work in tattoo parlors, beauty shops, bars, Walmarts and fast-food restaurants. They have boring, low-paying, dead-end jobs, and they can barely make ends meet. So, they wait for Prince Charming to rescue them. They'll settle for the first guy that comes along rather than try to make something better of themselves."
"You snobby bitch!" Axyl cried. "Maybe Leila didn't have your education and breeding, but she had a heart of gold. She was a much better person than you'll ever be."
"Then why did you leave her?"
"Because I was blinded by your beauty, your brains and your wealth. I thought I was moving up in the world, but I see now that I was just slumming, too."
* * *
Three weeks later, as Axyl was shaving in front of the bathroom mirror, he noticed an odd mark on his neck. He turned his head to the side but could not get a good view. Rifling through the vanity drawer, he found a hand mirror and used it to view the back of his neck.
"What?" he cried in disbelief.
The tattoo between his shoulder blades had somehow spread to encompass his entire back, from his beltline to the base of his skull. The mark he glimpsed while shaving was part of the vine that now traveled across his neck. As he stared at the width and breadth of the tattoo, he noticed that Leila's name was no longer visible in the mass of roses that were blooming on the tattooed vine.
He put on a turtleneck sweater and paid another visit to the middle-aged hippie at Ink Inc.
"Hey, man," the tattoo artist said when he recognized the young customer. "Decided to have that tattoo finished after all, huh?"
"I want you to take a look at my back," he said.
The two men walked into the large room with the dentist's chairs. Axyl pulled off his sweater, and the hippie whistled with appreciation.
"That's beautiful work, but it looks like it's already finished. What more do you want done?"
"Take a good look at it, will you? Is it really a tattoo?"
"I don't follow you, man. It's a tattoo, all right."
"When Leila stopped working on it, the entire tattoo was confined to the area between my shoulder blades. The rest of the design just suddenly appeared out of nowhere."
The hippie laughed, believing this was all some sort of practical joke.
"What have you been smoking, man?"
"I'm serious! The tattoo on my back has been growing."
* * *
As the days went by, the tattoo continued to spread. In less than a week, the vines traveled down the musician's legs, and in less than two, they made their way down his arms toward his hands. He thought about seeing a doctor, but he doubted a man of science would believe such a preposterous story. No one else did. He already tried convincing his closest friends, and they all thought he was joking. Who had ever heard of a tattoo that grew on its own?
As the vines gradually covered his body, Axyl tried to conceal them with long sleeves and high-neck shirts. He even took to wearing gloves to hide the vines on his hands. Eventually, the tattoo made its way to his face.
"No!" he screamed when he saw the first prickly leaves appear at his temples. "Not my face!"
When the tattoo started making its way across his cheeks toward the bridge of his nose, he smashed his bathroom mirror in a fit of rage.
"How much further is this going to go?" he screamed.
The tattoo grew for two more weeks. Every inch of flesh on Axyl's body—including his eyelids, his scalp, his lips, the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands—was covered with vines of roses and hearts. Feeling like a freak in a circus sideshow, he stayed in his apartment behind a locked door. Things such as working, eating, dating and even living itself mattered little to him now. His phone went unanswered, and his bills were unpaid.
Axyl sat at his kitchen table munching on a moldy piece of cheese sandwiched between two slices of stale bread. As he chewed, he felt a strange tickling sensation on his forehead, a distinct wetness.
Am I sweating? he wondered. Strange, I don't feel hot.
He reached up, touched the area with his fingertips and looked at his hand. The tips of his fingers were red with blood.
Slowly the bleeding spread, from heart to heart and from rose to rose, all along the vast network of vines that covered his body. Soon the blood soaked through and stained his clothing. He stripped and stood in the shower, hoping to rinse the blood away, but the warm water only seemed to increase its flow. He was soon bleeding profusely from the hundreds of hearts and roses that were tattooed on his body.
A wave of dizziness hit him. He reached out his hand and grabbed the shower curtain, which tore loose from its rod as he fell. He landed half in and half out of the shower stall. His blood was running down the drain and pooling beneath him on the bathroom floor. His eyes fluttered briefly and then closed.
* * *
Axyl DeVries's body was found three days later by the superintendent of his apartment building. The cause of death was not immediately apparent. The police found no wounds, no blood and no unusual marks on the body—just a tattoo of a guitar on his upper right arm and a second tattoo on his back. Between his shoulder blades was a small heart, roughly two inches tall and three inches wide with the inscription "Axyl and Leila forever."
Salem, that can't be a tattoo taking over your body. Cats don't have tattoos.
