Holly stops the upward progress of her shirt after only a couple of inches, reversing the action much more decisively. A tight tug returns the shirt to its intended presentation except that it immediately grabs the sweat of Holly's torso and suctions down tight. Dark spots start to soak through the light-colored fabric at her chest and belly making a three dimensional landscape of the once flowy fabric. The sweat does not take long to make the fabric translucent making a mockery of Holly's attempt at modesty.
"Now that would be thoroughly unprofessional of me, wouldn't it? Grace told me of the crime scene scrutiny you gave this place before you made an appointment. I wouldn't want to tarnish your high opinion of my sister's place of business."
Gail took a step toward Holly. It was slow but determined. In unison, her hand lifted from her side where it had been resting.
Not knowing the destination of Gail's hand, Holly continued.
"Do your doctor's mirror your state of undress during your appointments?"
"Only when I set up a Porky Pig pap." Gail states matter-of-factly.
Holly laughs. It is an unguarded, wholehearted laugh. Honestly, Holly would be hard pressed to recall a time where she had such an easy, fun exchange with a friend or an electric flowing dynamic with a women of interest. Even more honestly, Holly had thought that this type of situation only played out in lesbian fanfiction. (Definitely not on TV though - a hot, smart doctor could never end up with a beautiful, sarcastic, trash-talking cop).
Another deliberate step and Gail's thumb and fingertips come to rest on Holly's shirt, on a wet spot near her solar plexus. As Gail's finger applies the slightest pressure, the gray of the tattoo beneath bleeds through.
Holly's laugh fades to a smile as Gail presses forward. The sparks of . . . professionalism . . . fly out from Gail's thumb and fingers and light up Holly's inside, distracting her from the hilarity of cartoon nudity. Gail's thumb presses more firmly into Holly's midline and brushes to holly's right and downward, spreading the translucency of the shirt to reveal even more gray ink.
Gail looks up from Holly's increasingly pointless shirt. Although not new to the game of overt flirtation with the intention to bed, Gail is not accustomed to the target being a woman. Nor is she used to feeling like she might actually give a shit how things end up. It is a bit more tenuous then Gail is familiar with because she wants to know Holly, and talk to Holly, but she also wants to see Holly, and touch her . . . maybe even with her tongue. And pressing for the latter might interfere with the furtherance of the former.
But Holly looks backs at Gail, into Gail, with big, beautiful brown eyes full of something resembling a mix of hope, interest, tentativeness and confusion. Not the easiest of looks to use in gauging a next action. Thankfully, there are other physiological signs to consider. Holly's quickened breath is more apparent beneath the clinging shirt, as are twitching muscles beneath Gail's fingers.
"Holly, you are a doctor. But you aren't my doctor. And while I have never requested any degree of nudity from a female service provider, the idea of seeing what is only now kind of hiding beneath this shirt is . . . well . . . stimulating.
Holly puts together a weak "oh really" expression to counter, so Gail continues.
"It really isn't that different from wanting to see what art an artist decorates their own space with, what music a musician listens to, or what kind of donuts a baker buys."
Gail seems to drift away momentarily on a cloud of delicious donuts, but when Holly shakes her head at the absurdity of the comparison, Gail quickly returns.
"And, yes, you are currently my tattoo artist, but I have never heard of a tattoo artist taking an oath of conduct or, based on what I have seen in my "scrutiny" leading up to me getting McNally's fucking badge tattooed over my tit, it is the loosest most lenient oath in the history of oaths. And even if you took that ridiculous oath, don't you kind of want to show me what you got anyway? Aren't some risks worth taking? Aren't some questions not actually even questions? Aren't some people worth trusting? Live a little, Holly, before life swallows you whole."
And there it was, a statement conferring a deeper understanding while actually knowing nothing of the truth. The implication of a connection that is more than physical while not yet even technically being physical radiates energy from Holly's center outward, everywhere simultaneously
Holly shakes her head.
"This is ridiculous."
Gail nods as her fingers curl under the bottom of Holly's shirt and both peel and slide the fabric up over Holly's abs, then ribs, then breasts. Finally, and in complete fluidity with Gail's movement, Holly lifts her arms to allow Gail to liberate the shirt from her hot, wet skin.
The right side of Holly's torso is tattooed ala Gray's Anatomy. It is exquisitely detailed, shaded and labeled - a live engraving all at once vibrant and morbid. It isn't a cold flat image of an unknown person's insides. It is Holly laid open for Gail (or whoever lays eyes on it) to see. The delicate lines follow Holly's curves exactly. They arch and dip with respective highlighting and shading making every contour an extreme version of itself. It is multilayered with some areas having bare bone and muscle attachments while other areas are just muscle with intricate fibers that shortened and lengthened when Holly's body moved, the way Gail imagines those muscles and fibers would actually shorten and lengthen in response to the movements.
From what Gail can tell in Holly's current state of dress, the tattoo stops below Holly's right breast, under the bottom of her bra. As her eyes move back down over Holly's torso, she notices that Holly's right side is also tattooed. It is is far more simple then the work of science and art on the left, but what it lacks in detail, Gail has no doubt it makes up for in meaning.
On Holly's left side is a scar. It runs from about the bottom of Holly's sternum down one-inch or so and then shoots hard right all the way around her back out of sight. Gail gently spins Holly to see where it ends - about one inch short of her spine. The scar is tattooed with crude stitches. They don't look like the neat, professional stitches Gail imagines Holly would do. The stitches look . . . angry. On each side of the scar are three names. All the names are different. All female. All are written in the same script as the Gray's anatomy text on the left side.
Gail turns Holly back around lightly tracing the scar with her index finger as she does.
When Gail looks up at Holly, Holly's eyes are closed.
Without questioning or thinking, Gail takes Holly's right hand and places the fingertips onto Gail's right wrist, where the skin is still textured from the ropes she had been bound with. Holly leaves her eyes closed as Gail leads Holly's fingers around the circumference of the scar.
Holly slowly opens her eyes, finger tips still on Gail's wrist, Gail's hand still on hers. For once in her life, Gail doesn't look away. She doesn't immediately make a smart-ass comment or an excuse to leave. She squeezes Holly's hand and keeps her eyes on Holly's as Holly releases the fear she instinctively must hold when laid bare before someone for the first time.
"I had no idea nerdy textbook tattoos could be so hot . . . "
Well, at least she didn't make the smart-ass comment immediately.