April 29, 2008
Fiction
Maze
“Where does it go?” he’d asked her, the night before he left.
“What do you mean where does it go?” She pulled a pillow closer, propping up her head so she could see her tattoo herself. It was an old-fashioned labyrinth, occupying a space the size of a demitasse plate, between the cant of her hip and the divot of her navel.
He traced a finger along the path, in, and out again. “It just seems like it should go somewhere.”
She laughed. “It does. From here,” and she took his hand and made his finger jab at the entrance of it, “to here,” to touch its center, “From me, to me, and back again.”
He frowned at her. “Seems like there should be more to it.”
“It’s just a tattoo,” she explained, but his frown remained. “What if there was more to it?” she asked, rolling back on the bed, still holding his hand with its finger outstretched. She took his finger into her mouth, and licked it, as she had licked other things, earlier that night, and felt down with one hand to see if such actions should be done again. Other parts of him agreed with her.
•
He hadn’t explained himself when he’d left. He’d just stopped returning calls. And she was used to this dance — while it wasn’t her favorite, it was her most familiar.
Maybe he was right, she thought, looking at herself in the mirror some days afterwards. The labyrinth was stagnant, had been so ever since she’d trapped it on herself years before, a small act of expensive rebellion before moving out in the world. She’d never wanted to get another tattoo, and could only vaguely remember getting this one — perhaps there’d been liquor involved. She covered it up with her palm, and in the mirror, her flesh was all flesh again, the color of a doll’s plastic skin. She moved her hand, revealing the labyrinth again to herself, and, and — maybe he was right. Maybe it should go somewhere. Maybe she should go, somewhere.
She dried off, got dressed, got into her car, and drove.
•
“I want it bigger,” she’d said, explaining herself to the tattoo artist. He was young and, judging from the flash in his portfolio, the lack of original works, inexperienced. But he was open that day, while other artists were booked.
He looked disappointed, when she took off her jeans to show him the pattern. “Just line work?” he asked. “I could shade some…and maybe put in some color around the edges —”
“Just line work,” she said. “That’s all I want.”
She wanted more than that, of course. She wanted new beginnings. And new endings. Nothing that a tattoo could give her. Still, sometimes even the acknowledgement that change should begin deserved commemoration. And what better way to remember, than to see it on herself in the mirror each morning?
The workmanlike way the artist knelt beside her, looking at the labyrinth’s pattern on her flesh, made her happy and sad both at once. Was this it, was this all there would be? She was a board to a carpenter, a tooth to a dentist — there was no love in his eyes, or his touch, and even though she could feel the heat from his breathing flow down the length of one naked thigh, the chill it left behind was more profound than alcohol evaporating.
“It’s going to take me a bit to draw the next piece. Then I’ll transfer it over and —”
She shook her head. “Don’t draw ahead of time. Don’t — don’t think about it. Just draw it.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I signed the papers,” she reminded him.
His lips curled into a grin. “You did, I was there.” He stroked the plane of her flesh, drawing out a pattern on her with a gloved forefinger. Drawing in spaces that didn’t exist yet, delineating them in his mind. In his touch now, in the freedom she’d granted him? Heat. He looked up at her, from his position by her hips.
“Are you sure?”
She saw what she felt in his eyes then. A piece. A piece of her path. And she wanted it, from him, on her. In, her.
“Yes.”
He smiled, and began.
•
Sweet singing stinging pain. The kind that every nerve in your body tells you to run away from. The kind that certain people can tolerate, and some few enjoy.
If you had asked her that morning, which category she would be in, she would have told you about the valium in her purse. If you had asked her now, behind his closed door, as he stroked across her stomach with the cleaner, her skin prickling with the touch, and how she’d tried to stop from moaning when the buzzing began and the needles did their work, and how the design he drew upon her pulled them both into it, drawing the spirals out, wider, longer, further, until the design now took up her whole right hip, and he had an excuse to slide his hand between her thighs to pull the skin taut and how her body ground against his hand there, wet against the latex of his gloves, and then the gun was forgotten, dropped to the floor, and a sudden silence followed, before he entered her and — well. You wouldn’t have to ask her. You would know.
•
“This is my number —” he said, and gave her a card, with handwritten digits on the back. She was sore, would be sore for days, in a multitude of places.
She smiled at him. She threw the card away outside.
•
There were other artists. Some were men, some were women, and she didn’t sleep with all of them. Just most of them. The labyrinth’s path extended out, twined around her body, all pieces of a path towards an unknown destination. Her own path now traveled over the southwest, as convoluted as her tattoo, from place to place, from person to person. Each of them added something to her, and she took it in, made it her own. A different woman might have lost herself on her travels, forgotten why she’d left, and why she was going. But not her.
Anytime she felt tired, or weak, or lonely — because sometimes she did feel lonely, still, but that was a part of life now, not something to be feared, not anymore — she could find her center, a point halfway between the cant of one hip and the divot of her navel.
Sometimes she would just let her fingers rest there, content to know herself in quiet silence. Other times, she would trace her own path out, remembering, finding herself in the curves, stroking around breasts, down her stomach, remembering the delicious redhead who’d done the lines alongside either edge of her labia, and who’d then given her clit a single, chaste, kiss.
•
Her torso was complete. One leg was finished, and then, the other.
•
What would happen when she was done? She wondered this sometimes as she drove along the interstate. Would she ever, really, be done? Was an end possible? Was it death, or worse than that, anathema to her now — stagnation? What would happen when she reached a point where all of her skin was covered, and no one would grant her sweet release?
If there was such a time, she thought, driving on one of the great flat expanses that stretched limitless from horizon’s edge to horizon’s edge — if there was such a time, may it be far off. As far off as I am from the edge of the world right now.
The edge of the world did really seem far, at that moment. But edges and endings both have a way of creeping nearer.
•
Soon, lines reached down both her arms like opera gloves, and arrowed down each finger in lightning bolts, before returning up again.
•
Even tattoo artists who have facial tattoos will not easily let you make that leap. To get a tattoo on your face is to mark yourself, more visibly than you ever have up until that point, as different. Until then, you could hide, with clothing and coats, tights and gloves. But after that, there is no shelter — you are exposed to the outside world, and chances are they will not like what they see.
She went from shop to shop, always feeling the space upon her neck where the labyrinth drew up short. So close to perfection, and yet she’d never felt further away. She would walk in, and sometimes even the people behind the counters would reel away in horror at the nature of her request.
But she could feel it. Every morning in the mirror, she could see it. Her whole body was covered in the labyrinth’s lines, a map of her life, the paths she had taken and the people she’d taken them with. All of them ended, here — she could point to the spot where, between collarbones and above her sternum, the last session had drawn to a close. If she’d known that that would have been her last one, she would have done something different, something to make it longer, harder, sweeter.
“Only one man’ll do that to you, girl,” said the flash-covered man from behind the counter. “Too many people are afraid of lawsuits these days to go there.”
She’d heard these stories before, of mythical brave men, and had seen them melt away in the sun. “And he’s not?”
“No. He’ll do it. He’s good, too.” He drew a map out on a card for her. “He doesn’t work much anymore. That’ll be the hard thing, getting him to do it. It won’t be because he’s scared, though.”
Something in this conversation had the taste of the real. She reached forward with a quivering hand to take the map away. “Will he be there?”
“I dunno. Might have moved, even. But that’s the chance you have to take.”
She smiled at him. “I’m good at taking chances.”
•
He wasn’t there when she first got to his house. If it was his house. She sat outside in her car, idling, listening to the only radio station she could get reception to. Maybe he was on vacation? Or maybe a preacher’s family lived here now. She imagined them, him with a wide shouldered suit, his wife with a pillbox hat, two perfect children, and three perfect dogs. And when they all got home from the church potluck, they’d wonder who the hell the tattooed freak standing in front of their house was, before they routed her with pitchforks and lit torches.
She found that out of the two choices, she was more scared of the former.
Dusk came. She made herself a bed in the backseat of her car, and she slept.
•
There was a tapping on her window near dawn. A rugged man stood outside her car and she rolled the window down.
“I heard about you,” he said. “Come in.” And he turned, and walked away.
She gathered herself and patted down her hair, then walked down the dusty pathway to the door of his house. She let herself in, and found herself in a room with a tiled floor, a table, and two chairs. He sat in one of them, already.
“You’ve heard…about me?” She wanted to be flattered, but you never knew.
“On and off. I figured it’d be a matter of time.” He kicked the other chair out to her, and she sat down.
“So you’ll do —” and she left the phrase hanging, not sure of what verb to use, or what word could adequately express what she wanted.
“You need me to do it, don’t you?” he asked. She nodded, and so did he. “Show me what you’ve done so far.”
She stripped, and stood before him. Orange light filtered in through yellowed panes of glass. She turned in silence, so he could see the tracework of all the others, all additions to her path.
“Nice work, most of it,” he said, and, for the first time in a long time, she felt, maybe, deflated. Maybe, ashamed. Wasn’t this, the goal of her life’s work, valuable to him? Wasn’t she of value, to him?
He continued to contemplate her, while she felt more naked as each second passed. Eventually, he made a thoughtful noise.
“Only one way to get this right.” He reached out, and touched the spot of her center, between hip and navel. “I’ll have to start at the center. And work my way out.”
No one had done that before — no one except her, and the first artist. Each of the rest had started in on their own work, and she’d taken their art upon herself, to make it her own. But none of them had begun at the beginning, to trace the fullness of her journey, to understand the course she’d set for herself in its entirety.
And so when he put his finger just, so, there, and began winding his way upon her, it felt strange, and wrong, and happy, and good, and she wanted to run, and she wanted to hide, and she wanted to exult in each looping twist he made, finding a line that had run its course and folded in on itself, pulling back from the edges of her where she wanted him most. She turned when he needed to reach more of her, she moved so that he could follow the paths around her legs, down them, and up again, she lifted her hair as his hand found the lines that ran up her back.
Eventually, he found the emptiness at the pocket of her throat. His finger sat there, her pulse soaring beneath.
“Please,” she asked. “Please, please, please.”
“There’s no going back from this.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
He sighed, released her, and pushed a lamp over. “There’s no mirrors for you here. I’ll do what I like. We play by my rules.”
“That’s fine. I trust you.” He’d already followed her labyrinth from end to end. On one hand, there was nothing else he could do to her now, he knew her, fully. And on the other, there was so much more yet to be done.
“Good. Sit down. Close your eyes.”
She did as she was told, sat down naked, in the warming light, and the buzzing began.
•
This time the pain was exquisite. She stayed still, as he drew his chair up between her open legs, holding her chin with one hand, and his gun in the other. She turned as he pushed her to, one side, then the other, as patterns curled up her neck, upon her cheek, across her forehead, and down again. He was so close, and she could feel his concentration upon her, almost like a touch.
Too soon, the sound stopped. The needles, stopped. And she was alone with herself and his work.
Would it be enough? She opened her eyes for the first time in hours, and saw him there, staring at her. He nodded, to himself, surveying what he’d done. It echoed inside of her: this might really be the end.
He surveyed her as an artist surveys a finished piece. From his eyes, she knew he did not see her, but only his work left upon her. It was thrilling and deflating, both, at once.
“You’re a masterpiece,” he said, holding her chin in one hand.
What to say? There were no words. He swayed her head from side to side, looking at her, looking through her, and she did not fight him.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever helped create.”
There was wetness on her face still, wounds weeping from the needles passage. She could feel it cooling. “Thank you —”
“You’re welcome.” He started putting away his gear.
The passage of time and nearness between them — it seemed like it needed more. Required more. She sat there, being naked, and feeling naked, waiting.
He looked over at her, closing his case. “You’re done. Go home.”
Bile rose, unbidden. This was the end, she could feel it, but — it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Instead of release or joy or satisfaction, she only felt panic.
Was it really over? She put a hand to her tender face. She had only thought of getting to this moment, and had never pressed beyond. What now? Where, now?
•
She put her clothes on as fast as she could, hiding herself and her labyrinth from him. She ran out to her car, and slid into the driver’s seat, and rested her still bleeding forehead against her steering wheel, and cried. Why?, she thought, even as the tears rolled down. She cried for everything she had done, everything she hadn’t done, and for what she’d done to herself, carried so far down a path of her own making. What to do, now that she’d reached the end? What use was life, when there was nothing left to be lived?
She sobbed, for a long time. Between the hours he had spent on her face, and her time crying, it was almost night when she finished, washed up, poured out, ended. She turned the engine over, and flicked on the overhead light.
To finally see. What he’d done. What she’d done. What she’d let him do.
•
Closing her eyes, and then opening them with a willfulness, she stared at herself in the rearview mirror, not expecting to recognize herself.
But.
It was still her.
Blood turning to scabs formed marks on parts of her face, and other skin raised, shiny and bruised — but — it was still her. She reached up and felt the lines — she knew they were there, she’d been there when he’d placed them upon her.
But.
He’d used no ink.
She inhaled, and exhaled, reached up and turned off the light. And then she walked back up to his door.
•
“You’re still here?” he asked.
“You — did this to me,” she said.
“I did,” he agreed. “I did a good job, too.”
She nodded, and there was silence. “You said it yourself, there’s no going back.”
“And you said you didn’t want to go back,” he said, and shrugged.
She looked around at the plain around them, and the star-filling night above. Her labyrinth was complete now. And it had brought her here.
“And you said I should go home,” she said.
“I did,” he agreed.
What she was about to say was foolish, and stupid, and too much too soon. But if she could find herself at the end of her own labyrinth, if she could tolerate the heights of ecstasy and the depths of pain, then saying these words was nothing to her, delicious nothingness and excruciating somethingness at the same time.
“I think I am home.”
He smiled. And he moved away from the doorway, to let her inside.
• • •
lives happily in the redwoods of Northern California, with far too many piercings and not quite enough tattoos. She is a recent graduate of Clarion West and is becoming a nurse to write better medical scenes.
