Can I just say....whew?I have been insanely scribbling...with one hand...and taking calls with the other....
It's still morning where I am...does that count?
Please forgive any misspellings...I'll try to unwonk this later...
Chapter Thirty Nine: The Sorceress’ Tale Pt. IV: The Panther Poinsettia
Who knew Sunnydale had a tattoo parlour?
Well neither did we that night, not until we were on our way home….
We had stopped for the umpteenth time that night…defying potential passers by, raising devil-may-care fists to the vampires and demons of the world by stopping to neck right there against an abandoned building on the bad side of town….
We were Bad Girls…with the capitals…but Bad… in that cute…fuzzy way that makes you tilt your head and go " Awwww….look…Bad Girls….."
And heck, we figured we had our holy water pistols as well as our versions of Buffy’s Mr. Pointy….
… Monsieur Splinter, and Happy Stake…
so…. Back to the necking….I was a little preoccupied with the top button of Willow’s fuzzy-collared coat to notice much of the gorgeous landscape of Sunnydale’s "bad side". Nor do I, at that point, think I would have noticed a thermo-nuclear explosion ….
Damn the creator of the toggle button! How can I possibly hold true to the term necking if I don’t have a neck to work with???
I’m mildly distracted by the attempts at kissing her neck thwarted by mouthfuls of faux fur.
Oddly…it was a lot like making out with a Muppet….not that I have….you KNOW ..and I’m not saying Muppets aren’t attractive to…people who LOVE Muppets…. Okay…. Tara…buttons…buttons…….
" Tare…" Willow says, a little out of breath. She grazes my cheek with her lips.
" Hmm…?" Is my unfocused reply. Does she want conversation or action?… I can’t do both right now… The button thing, when your in the chaotic hurly-burly of lust,… is a virtual SAT test…where I’m SUPPOSED to flunk verbal.
" The s-sign.." She says…
I’ve never made her see signs before….well not from a few heated kisses on a side street, anyway….not only am I devoutly proud of myself at that precise moment…but I’m wondering what they might say…
YIELD?
CAUTION?
GO SLOW….BUMPS AHEAD?
And then she says something that overrides even the throes of passion with outright confusion…
" The Panther Poinsettia." She says. And I’m defeated by my own need to make sense of what she just said. I pull back from her neck, spit out about half of a faux rabbit, and look at her. She’s still flushed, and is not looking at me, but rather over my shoulder. I turn and follow her gaze to a little hole in the wall shop across the street. A very life-like rendition of a large black cat leaping out of a poinsettia flower is on the front of the building.
A sign above the door indicates its status as an open establishment.
And here’s the rub.
Neither of us was inebriated at the time. The red wine had long since worn off about the second time we stopped to make out. Which was about four times back…
And yet, suddenly, the idea of getting tattoos together was….a mutually silent agreement that overrode the need for flagrant displays of affection on a public street…. (for now, anyway)
~~
Inside the Panther Poinsettia was the stranger who was about to be our closest, and most intimate friend for the next few hours.
His name was Clyde, and he looked like a six and a half foot tax attourney…who had fallen into a vat of ornate ink designs and rolled about until they stuck.
He was the most beautiful work of art I had ever seen walking the face of the earth.
And when he welcomed us in, his voice was like shards of broken crystal wrapped in velvet, and tied up with a satin bow. Rough…with smoothed edges…and the slightest hint of an accent I couldn’t place.
" You two look like pixies." He said with a genuine smile.
I’m sure we did to a man that tall….. He had been drawing at a sketch table when we came in, but was standing now, and came around to shake our hands. " I see a set here." He said.
" A set?" We chime.
" Matching art. Moons, suns, signs…..something….special…. the lower back ones are very popular this year…very sexy……. But for sets…I usually suggest a spot that is distinct."
" I’m guessing the old ‘over the heart’ is a cliché around here?" Willow says chuckling. She is staring almost agog at the walls of designs.
" Yes…everyone and their mother has a tattoo over their heart….or has MOTHER tattooed over their heart…" he chuckles at his own joke.
" I’ll bet." I say. I couldn’t take my eyes of this one Celtic knot on the wall behind him. It was small, in the shape of a heart, and delicate…like fine lace. There was room in the center for a few words.
He was smiling….
" So do you two have any idea what kind of design you want?"
And we both raised our hands almost automatically and pointed to the very same heart. I hadn’t even been aware of her looking at the same design as I had been.
" That one." We both say together, and then look at each other for a moment. Clyde seemed pleased by our choice.
" She’s called to the pixies, I think. " He says, and as he begins to set up his station, he asks the craziest questions…
" So where do you want it ?" He asked. Willow and I blinked at each other. A place that is distinct? Distinctly what? Ours? Each other’s? A special spot that no one but us and our doctors would ever see?
Because oddly, this wasn’t about openly displaying affection. This was something more. Like our own little secret…pact…. A sexy, very pretty, and most likely… highly painful…. pact…
" I-inner thigh… high…" I said.
" Inner thigh…yeah…way..the heck up there…" Willow agreed. We chuckled nervously…
Is he going to think we are dorks? WHAT IS he thinking?
" It’s kind of an ouchy place to get one.." He warned. Hearing a man of his size, covered in tattoos, say the word ouchy was enough to quell at least the part of my fear of excruciating pain. This is a man who was going to try his best not to hurt the "pixies".
" We can handle it." Willow said in her not-so-tough… tough voice…
Clyde was scrubbing his hands like a surgeon.
" Okay…and now for the easy part…. What do you want something that is going to most likely be on you for the rest of this lifetime…to say?"
And it was there that he stumped us. How do I sum up how I feel about Willow in a few measly words?
I could see Willow was having the same dilemma. We took each other’s hands…trying to get back that synchronous vibe we’d had all along…hmm…I LOVE WILLOW?….. WILLOW AND TARA …..? Corny!
" THANKS FOR NOT SMOKING?" Willow suggested with her quirky smile..proving right away that our vibe was WAY off of this one…aaand that she was certainly at a loss.
" Wait!" She said again, with a grin. " How about: IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU ARE WAY TOO TARA RIGHT NOW…?
I don’t even have an answer for that.
" TALL CHICKS ARE WORTH THE CLIMB…?" She offers.
" We aren’t THAT tall….and though yes the climb IS worth it, Will…it lacks something….."
" Saw it on a bumper once. Okay…I’m getting that you want classy…. How about something in Latin?…… Quid pro quo?"
Oddly appropriate, but not really falling under the terms of class in that context….
" Divide et Impera….?" I suggest…falling haplessly into her vein of thinking. Willow raises a brow.
" Divide and conquer….Tara…you minx…."
Clyde is ready to begin, and though it seemed he was so tuned into his job at hand of bringing out all the things he was going to need, he must have been listening. He points to a sign about his work area.
TATTOOS ARE A FOREVER KIND OF THING…CHOOSE WISELY.
Ah yes…the old…you break it, you wear it forever spiel…very wise.
And then Willow’s fingers tighten on mine.
Was she thinking what I was?
That we should come back when we’ve figured out what we want it to say?
I guess not, because she takes out a piece of paper and scribbles something down. She hands it to Clyde.
" I want mine to say that." She says. He reads the paper.
" I don’t get a lot of call for Latin in here….it’s usually all…Jane loves Joe stuff…..what’s it say?" He handed it up to me. I could feel Willow watching me…. Her breath held….
Love. We’ve said the word to each other more times than could be counted.…said it in passing, whispered and sometimes screamed it in the throes of passion, spoke volumes of it with looks… It had always served its purpose on the corporal plane. A steady word. A utility which allowed us to feel safe, and warm, and wanted…
Lately, I hadn’t thought that such a tiny word could even begin capture what I feel or express for Willow in a way that would make her understand how I feel. Love is something a person can give or take away at a whim. This….what I feel when I’m with her, surpasses all of the boundaries of the rational.
Sometimes I feel as though we are connected by more that just a corporal word. That no matter how we tried, we would never fully be able to undo this… Not ever…. And I wondered how to express something like that…something so intangible that I often ache for understanding in a kiss, a touch…in her smile….
And Willow puts it to pen in the best way to explain it.
Of course it will be what we mark ourselves with.
It is a promise.
A pact.
A revelation.
And a truth.
in saecula saeculorum…..
until the end of time……
And we will see it, and recognize it as ours, and understand far better than anyone…..
What it means……
**
There is silence on the creaky old bed. Everyone is watching me. No questions. No shock or dismay.
Only the faint echo of that final sentence….
And then Xander props himself up on his elbows.
" So…you and Willow…. You…made…out…on a street corner? You’re talking….MAKING OF THE OUT?"
" I thought you’d outgrow this, Xander." Willow says. He shrugs.
Buffy looks thoughtful.
" You know… I kind of recall that week when you two were walking funny…. I just thought…" We all turn to see her turning red even in the pale light from the window. " ….I didn’t think…anything…at..all…nothing…"
Spike sighs. I think he’s being surly, but he puts his chin in his palm.
" I think I want a tattoo…" He says wistfully, surprising us all.
" No you don’t." Buffy says… a little too quickly.
" Ooh…What would it say?" Anya asks.
" I don’t know….something like… I’m …"
" Dust in the wind?" Buffy offers sternly. He raises his brows with a saccharine smile, but oddly, does not continue.
" You know…?" Dawn says thoughtfully to me, " You two were the most normal couple I knew…."
" Us two?….That’s…t-that’s so sweet…." Willow says, with a smile.
" Thank you, Dawnie…" I say.
" I’m not finished." She says.
" I’m mean…look at the mess that is everyone else’s relationships, You two were so great and cute together…until you had to go and be all stupid and break up and make us all miserable…there. NOW I’m finished."
" Thanks?" I say. Not quite sure that was the appropriate response.
" I think you mean..ouch." Willow says to me.
" I’m not saying you can’t get unstupid…I mean…everyone has potential…." Dawn offers.
" Unstupid sounds like a good plan, Dawnie. Once we get out of this …we’ll see…." I say.
Spike snorts.
" You two looked pretty un-bloody worried about getting out of here on that dance floor earlier." He says.
(Three cigarettes. I’m sure he smoked three….. I could hit him again for good measure…..)
" Dance floor? There was dancing in the big scary house, and I missed it?" Anya whines.
" It was disco." Buffy says.
" Oh….you know…a confusion demon invented disco?" Anya says.
" Who would have guessed?" Spike says with a curl of his lip.
" So…back to these tattoos… I’m interested….that’s a …tricky spot to you know…get tattooed."
" Xander? Where is this going?" I ask, warily.
" I’m just saying…it must have been…torture not to be able to….you know…for a …WHOLE WEEK."
Willow looks at him.
" Here’s a little clue for you, Xander….we aren’t always about that T.V. version stereotypical male fantasy of love-starved bimbos all into sexy-sex-kitten stuff and the kissys and the handcuffs with the fur……as a matter of fact… I don’t think it even crossed our minds once…"
Chapter Forty: The Witch’s Tale: Okay…It Crossed Our Minds More Than Once…
TBC......
