All stories

Colours coiled and writhed up the smooth curves of her sides, red black amber green. A flash of gold at the eye, teeth bared, scaled flashing, rippling with her every movement.

Dragons curled around plumes of smoke in vibrant swirls over her bare, tanned skin as she reached a rubber-gloved hand towards the man in the chair. His eyes misted with pain and desire as she brought the needle down into his tender, bleeding flesh.

Craig and the other men in the waiting room stared, bewitched.

She straightened and flashed that smile, blood red lips against snow white teeth, all the sweetness and wickedness of fairytale brought to life before them.

“Done,” she said. “Take the covering off tomorrow, but keep it clean and moist - use vaseline or another lubricant - an unscented moisturiser maybe.”

Her lips curved around the word ‘lubricant’. Craig heard the guy beside him moan.

“Right then guys, who’s next?” She turned the spotlight of her gaze on them and Craig resumed looking through the catalogue on his lap. The guy at the head of the queue hiccuped in alarm as she led him gently away to the leather chair.

Craig had come every Saturday for months. Every time she looked in his direction he would flip through the books frowning in what he assumed was a pondering, thoughtful way.

The truth was he had never had any intention of getting a tattoo. Since he’d seen this black-haired enchantress when he came with Kyle to get his Celtic band done, Craig had thought of little else but the way her black vest tops were cropped short to reveal the artwork on her skin, the way her…

“Ok, who’s next?” The words cut into Craig’s thoughts like a knife. To his horror he realised that he, in fact, was next.

He’d usually circle to the back of the queue periodically to avoid this eventuality, but he’d become so lost in his daydream that he’d forgotten and now he was following her and he was lying down and she was standing over him, impossibly close, smiling, waiting for an answer.

“I ...Uh…”

“I’ve seen you here before, haven’t I?”

She had noticed him! Craig’s heart sped up. Perhaps he wasn’t just some invisible slacker after all.

His eyes followed the curve of her body. Her mouth was moving and Craig was nodding, he didn’t care what he was agreeing to as long as he could keep saying yes to her.

And then she was touching him. The cool of her gloved hands turned him to face away from her and he barely felt the sting of the needle as the metal penetrated him. He felt the trickle of his blood and the press of her hands and the heat of her smile.

He left the shop in a daze, floating on air. She had noticed him, she had touched him. She had burned her artwork onto his body forever. He wondered what it would be, a dragon, perhaps, like her own, uniting them in ink. He raced home, eager to see what she had bestowed on him.

He needed two mirrors to be able to see the back of his own neck. But there it was, stamped on him forever in deep black for all to see:

TЯƎVЯƎԳ

‘You can stop looking so pleased with yourself,’ Lynn scolded the idiot opposite while internally chastising herself for being so in love with him.

‘What do you mean?’ deflected the volcano of frustration, lifting an extravagantly accessorised drink and gesturing towards the palm leaves and plastic flowers which adorned the walls. Phil wore an eye-straining Hawaiian shirt, knee-length Bermuda shorts, and a shit-eating grin. ‘Is this not exotic enough?’

Lynn raised both eyebrows.

‘There’s no pleasing you,’ Phil shook his sombrero with a smile. ‘I bring you to a lovely place, get us some fancy cocktails, and splash out on freshly cooked fruits de la mer…’

‘That,’ Lynn cut him off, jabbing a finger at the dish which had just been identified with an indistinct European accent, ‘is scampi and chips. That,’ moving her pointer to the drink, ‘is a pint of mild with an umbrella in it. And this,’ raising an index finger into the air,’ is the games room of the George and fucking Dragon.’

‘See,’ Phil leapt in, cocking a thumb at the coin-operated table which had been shoved into a corner to make space for them to dine. ‘It’s even got a pool.’

Lynn stabbed a fork into one of the breaded prawns as though it had wronged her.

‘When you said you’d take us somewhere exotic for our anniversary,’ Lynn said, trying to find the right spot between disappointed and entitled. ‘I didn’t expect Barbados, but I thought we might make it at least as far as Barcelona,’ she shoved the fried fish ball into her mouth before mumbling around it. ‘I might have even settled for Blackpool.’

Phil felt a sudden laugh swelling inside and took a gulp of drink to flush it away, resulting in a noise that fell somewhere between belch and hiccup. Lynn swallowed the scampi and washed it down with a mouthful of tackily-decorated cider.

‘Forty years, love.’ Lynn stressed, feeling the moisture in her eyes and becoming aware of the slight whine in her tone. ‘It’s a big one!’

Phil tread carefully, the last thing he wanted was for this to tip into a row. He reached across the table and took Lynn’s hands in his; she still held her knife and fork, raised like lightning rods either side of her plate.

‘I know you deserve more,’ Phil looked sincerely into Lynn’s eyes, caressing the tops of her wrists with his thumbs. ‘But until those slackers at the lottery office get on with pulling our numbers out, we have to make the best of what we have.’

Lynn shrank into her plastic seat. She knew they weren’t wealthy, but she had thought… maybe?

‘Shall I get these filled up? ‘ Phil asked, picking up their garnished glasses and motioning to stand. Lynn nodded meekly as he walked away, smiling to himself, heart beating against the tickets in his garish shirt pocket. ‘Bora Bora,’ he thought. ‘She’ll never believe it!’

The sand shimmers gold, blurry in the haze heat thrown down by the sun. No living creature moves on this deserted jewel of land somewhere deep in the vast lostness of ocean. No tiny crabs snicker their way across the sand, no toucans with their colourful beaks prance around in search of toucan food. There are no puffins either (they have colourful beaks too). There is not a thing living here. Not a dormouse, not a sausage dog. Not a sausage.

Cool water laps the beach, wavelets soft and gentle but crowned with dragon’s teeth that spell certain doom to the hull of any crude raft launched from the shore. It’s lucky that this island is deserted, so that won’t be happening either.

If anyone had ever actually visited this island then they might have named it Dragon Island. It’s not shaped like a dragon, and no dragons live here, or have ever visited. But if someone had ever actually visited this island then perhaps they’d have named it Dragon Island just to mess with people.

Wow! This one’s called Dragon Island! Do you think…? Could dragons…live there?

Just think. Hordes of daytrippers and paddlesteamers, all heading out to this remote dot of land in the hopes of glimpsing a dragon! Ha, ha. Bunch of losers, jokes on them!

But of course, no one has ever visited this island, so that’s not going to happen.

No one is ever going to taste the wonderful pineapples that grow on this island. They look really nice, all green and spikey, ripe and round, sweet and juicy. Definitely so sweet and tasty that if anyone did visit this island they would gorge themselves on the sweet juicy flesh and no doubt eat so fast that they end up with hiccups. But no one has visited this exotic deserted desert island for dessert. Slackers.

But what’s this? A sudden sound? Is that a cry? Is that a voice? Does something stir in this desolate place? Is that the sound of life to be heard? It’s a cracking sound, such as might be made by a tree falling in a forest, or perhaps a tall man with bad circulation might make at a dinner party as he swoons and cracks his head on the ornate foot of a carved wood umbrella stand.

Does this sound presage that something is actually going to happen? Perhaps something in the forest that hulks menacingly just at the edge of the sun-drenched beach. Surely, hopefully, possibly, something will happen now.

And, maybe it does. Maybe something super exciting is happening in the forest, but since this island is completely deserted there’s no one here to hear it.