Tattoo You

by Dayle A. Dermatis (aka Andrea Dale, 1/2 of Sophie Mouette, and 1/2 of Sarah Dale)

I have a friend (let’s call him Dave, since that’s not even remotely his name), who has the most glorious tattoo across the whole of his back.

Now, Dave’s pretty hot anyway, but that tattoo… I want to lick every last inch of it. Trace every intertwined line with my tongue. At least once.

So I keep writing about it. In a recent story, I wrote this:

Ink as black as his hair curved and swooped across the muscles of his back. It was Celtic—not the newfangled tribal kind, but the real knotwork-from-early-manuscripts kind—and it depicted a raven flying over the ocean, with the sun blazing overhead.

Right then and there, I had the overwhelming compulsion to lick his tattoo. Trace every spiral and intricate knot and line with my tongue.

I wanted it so badly, I trembled, deep inside.

Then there’s A Little Night Music, my rock star fantasy. Rock stars have gooooood tattoos. Nate’s a rock god, and Hannah’s wanted him since she was in her teens:

Hannah looked up. She grinned wickedly when she saw he was watching. Nate held his breath when she leaned over, waiting, but instead of his aching cock, she touched her lips to the smooth skin of his hip. Her tongue swirled over the tattoo there, a winged guitar wrapped in a banner bearing the words “Rock & Roll Forever.”

I’m picky about tattoos, though, both for myself and on other people. For one thing, I think blue-black tattoos—the generic line color—are the most attractive. I’ve seen a few nice color ones, but most of the times the colors just seem…off. Worse, they fade into a muddy sort of blob. Crisp blue-black lines…that’s what gets me off.

The tattoo has to be an original piece. Good lord, if you’re permanently marking your body, give it more thought than getting #5 on the wall that a gazillion other people will be sporting. It’s one thing to have this year’s handbag or copy Posh Spice’s haircut, but that tattoo’s gonna be a part of you forever.

Where the tattoo is can enhance its sexiness. For myself, my tattoos have to be where I can see them, because I like to look at them. One on my back would have me spinning around like a dog chasing its tail. I also make sure I don’t get one in an area that will sag significantly…


Recently, in the locker room at the gym I saw a woman with a pair of eyes on her lower back. I have a question for the guys: Sexy or not? Does it depend on whether you’re an exhibitionist? Because I imagine you’d feel like you were being watched…

But perhaps most importantly, I want to know why you got that particular tattoo. The story, that’s what’s sexy for me. Why that design, why that moment in your life, why that part of your body?

In this excerpt, the narrator is a professional photographer:

I kicked off my Birkenstocks and dropped trou before Tad knew what hit him. I posed face-down on the fountain, my red satin panties (now very damp) and red top (now hiked up a bit) revealing the tattoo at the base of my spine.

Tad forgot he was taking pictures. He stepped closer, his eyes scanning the old English lettering:

That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express.

“Francis Bacon,” I said, arching my neck to watch him. “Are you taking pictures or not?”

(“Flash,” as-yet unsold story)

The tattoo fits perfectly for her and her passion for her career. (I was inspired by a writer who has “In the beginning, there was the word” on her lower back, which also makes complete sense.)

Nate in A Little Night Music has the surname Fox, which was also the name of his band in the early days.

The curtain between the two lounges parted and Nate entered. His sleeveless t-shirt boasted a wraparound picture of a Magritte painting. Hannah tried not to drool over how the form-fitting shirt displayed his hard biceps. The fox-head tattoo on his upper right arm made her want to fall at his feet and beg to be his biker babe.

And that was just for starters.

I imagine it less as a cartoon fox and something sleek and stylized and a little dangerous, like Nate himself.

In fact, tattoos show up in a fair number of my stories. I didn’t realize it until I did some checking for this article.

She has tattoos on each of her jutting hipbones: a triskele on the left, a spiral on the right. At the small of her back, right before the swell of her cheeks, is a Goddess symbol, a full circle bordered by two crescent moons. I might see that later, but for now, I trace the two on her hips with my fingertips before parting her reddened lips and feasting.

(“The Witch of Venice,” to appear in Screaming Orgasms and Sex on the Beach)

With regards to this snippet from the Sophie Mouette story “All About the Ratings” (Sex in the Kitchen), Teresa and I can’t remember which one of us wrote it. The narrator and Drew are enemies forced to work together on a cooking show, and the narrator’s plan is to trip Drew up by getting him all hot and bothered.

She always kept her strawberry-blond hair pulled back in the kitchen. Usually she wore it in a ponytail, but today she’d gone for an updo, sophisticated, but with soft curls falling artfully out.

The viewers wouldn’t see that it revealed the dragonflies tattooed on the back of her neck. At first glance, the tattoo was innocuous enough, pretty, delicate insects in shades of blue and green.

On second glance, you realized they were mating.

The audience couldn’t see them…but Drew would.

Hell, even getting a tattoo is sexy. It’s dark and exciting, and still holds a certain illicit thrill. The buzz of the needle and whatever music is playing takes over. I like to get my tattoos without conversation, alone with my thoughts. Someone’s permanently branding my skin with a mark of my choosing; it’s a spiritual act for me, emotional and personal. Someday I’m going to have to write about that…

So what about you? Do tattoos turn you on? Are you picky about what they look like, where they are, and their underlying meaning?

I’ll show you my tattoo if you’ll show me yours…