Even afterwards it is hard to be sure who begins, or how. Certainly, there is not a patch of skin left untouched, so that one would think he knew all about her and she about him.

[More:]

He strokes her scars gently at first; his fingers rubbing Simon's Gothic curves, the italicised corners of Ryan's initials, the twining pattern of leaves and flowers now losing their petals. He kisses her butterfly sun and moon, lets his fingers, words and tongue flow smoothly, sleekly across her scented orange blossom branch and graceful outstretched angel wings.

She caresses his contours too; exploring his ecstasy and anguish. She licks the colours of different tattoos: magenta, black, cobalt, cyan, crimson – the fragmented pigments of his past life.

For both of them the edges have blurred now, pictures words and phrases run into one another. Loser! It was only a kiss! It didn't mean anything!

They try on new sounds, sketch out new designs together: birds flying free, then their thatched cottage in the country, even a stork with blue ribbon. Words are etched with care though now, or so they think: You know me, darling. No lies never, always the truth. I won't make promises I can't keep.

Against their silky soft flesh, one tattoo still stands out stark and clear. It shouts: This is me ― love me as I am. But they never stop to read it; they miss each other's patterns of pain and need, simply pick absent-mindedly at the bloody scabs of old shapes and those faded marks that the laser has failed to remove completely.

He continues. She continues. Their uncut, unstained skin gleams white as the moon against fresh sheets, while words scratch their skin like needles and their fingers move like ink, retracing the scars of old tattoos.