my tale
This is a submission i made on BME about a year ago. Hope it's enjoyable.

I'm no longer with the boyfriend mentioned herein. He's a wanko-cunt and a smell-shite who took my money and made me buy both engagement rings.

'Well it's been a darn long time since I got my last tattoo; I was still working at Costcutters so it must have been a good 4 months ago. As you can imagine I got the itch very hard a couple of days ago, particularly when I had a delectable credit card fall through my door with £1000 limit on it :D
So I decided that I would buy myself a very lovely tatty, and also one for my fiancé because he was whinging at me. So off we trot down to the Hidden Jewel, and we had a look through all the flash, and try to decide what we wanted. Reggie decided to go for a broken heart motif with tribal through it. He's building up a sleeve at the moment, so he looks naked on one arm and totally killer on t'other.

He had his on the inside of his left arm, so I left him wincing in the chair while I looked for a design for myself. Flash card after flash card and no avail.....I considered getting a tribal scorpion as I already have a tribal spider on my back in a very similar style......I was a little ummy and aahy about it though.

I knew that what I wanted was something pretty big on my arm, something that started from my shoulder and went down my arm, rather than a 'blocky' design stuck in the middle of me arm. I'm not the skinniest of ladies so I knew it'd look silly to have a weeny woo tattoo.

Reggie was still in the chair, so I decided to go grab a sandwich as I hadn't eaten that day. Lucky I did really considering how much PAIN I was about to feel.

Back I go, still no idea what I wanted, although I was thinking something dragon-y. Then I came across a little book, with a little design hidden behind one of the pages. A tribal bird of paradise. 'Ooooh rather nice' thought I, asked how much, and was told about £90.

'Marvellous, I'll take the bugger' I said. So I waited for it to be drawn up, and my very sore fiancé came out of the room, poor old sod. Then it was my turn. So I strut into the room, poking my tongue out at Reggie for being such a wuss, and got cleaned and marked. Perfect placement, so I say 'ok, get on with it'. This was to be my 6th tattoo, so I thought I knew it all. Turns out that it really is different every time you get one.

Now I have had a lower spinal tattoo, and I thought an upper left arm would be cake. After all, the skin isn't as sensitive on the upper arm as on the back right? I didn't know what all the fuss was about when Reggie was getting his sleeve done and winced about everything.

But oh dearie me, the closer the tattoo got to my shoulder the more I tried to bite my own fingers off, it wasn't very nice at all. I tried to concentrate on other stuff, but realised it made it worse if I did that. The tattoo is about 6-7 inches long, going from my shoulder to near my elbow, and I felt every god-damned inch of it as he sketched his way through my sensitive nerves and machettying his way through my virgin skin. Hoo!!

The design itself was all black, but I decided to have a little colour put in, it was a bird of paradise after all! I had a little red put in at the tips of the wings, tail and hair (or whatever birds have that looks like hair sometimes) which made it look a little more vibrant. My tattooist, Ben, was great; he put me at ease, and actually revealed that he was the one who drew the design. That was pretty cool, knowing that it wasn't just some bit of random flash. Although it wasn't my design, I think it's more important if the tattoo means something to you. To me that tattoo symbolised freedom and independence. I'm certainly both.

So it took about an hour or so, which wasn't too awful, would have taken less but I really needed a fag break after the outlining was done. The thing about tattys is that there's really no point in holding back because you're scared of the pain.....once it's over you'll be left with something that you'll treasure forever......like having a baby, women don't refrain from that because of the pain. But I wouldn't recommend covering a baby in Preparation H and covering it in Clingfilm for 2 days........Social Services might have summat to say.

Lookit - img256.imageshack.us/img256/7322/birdy0ln.jpg

Tattys rock, get the right one and it'll inspire you always

Chili.'

Length is in the eye of the beefholder.
(chili_kitten Cheese, peas and honey bees, Fri 1 Dec 2006, 11:08, Reply)