The tattoo gun whirred and her skin beneath its needles burned and tingled numbly. She could feel her hot blood cooling as it ran in thin rivulets down her arm. She had her eyes closed and was concentrating on being other places; thinking of the strange lure the sea had upon her senses, longing for the rocking of the ship, tasting the salted air on her open mouth, the punctuated cries of the seabirds. It was a one week countdown before she boarded the R/V Dreadnought for month-long exploration and she could think of little else.
She had a tattoo to commemorate each long journey out since finishing her degree in Oceanography; nine tattoos in five years. And all of them clearly indicated her reverence for the sea and its creatures.
The gun was lifted and the work blotted.
"How're you doing, Mariana?" Greg leaned in close and whispered this softly.
She sighed and opening her eyes looked at the artist. "I'm okay. Is it finished then?" He smirked and shook his head no. "It has to be finished today, Greg. Has to. I'm leaving in less than a week and I want it healed up."
He nodded. "You're the boss." He put the gun on the tray beside him and flexed his fingers. "Where are you off to this time?"
"Cape Agulhas. Just off the tip of South Africa. More rogue wave running." She craned her neck trying to see the work completed on her left shoulder. She reached a tentative hand up and Greg batted it away, smiling. She pouted at him, "How does it look?"
Still flexing his fingers he examined his artistry. "My first octopus and he's looking damned good, if I say so myself." He grinned and picked the gun back up, using a foot switch to turn it on and bent over her shoulder intently. The impossibly large and distinctly green-grey octopus inked into her left breast with its thick, long tentacles wrapping and reaching over her shoulder and under her arm and along her collar bone seemed to gaze fiercely back at his creator out of one visible devilfish eye.
Mariana closed her eyes again and felt the pain of the tattooing undulating from her shoulder to her solar plexus, a powerful wave rising to heights nearly unimaginable and she welcomed the opportunity to ride it out.