The Last Darling (9 page)

He took a step back, tossed the pen on the desk, and yawned. The two employees gazed at his artwork. Never before had they seen life articulated with such speed and precision. Though he had only used variations of black, his images looked more vivid and real than any color drawings they had made.

Rose, regrettably impressed and realizing her plan had backfired, was forced to hire him. The following months she trained him in the use of needles and ink. She showed him how to clean the equipment and handle the tools. She taught him how the texture and color of skin affected ink, how sun damage and freckles affected color dye, how wrinkles could change the image over time. He absorbed every word she spoke and practiced late at night after the store had closed. When he was tired, he secretly slept in the back office, curling on the floor with his shoes as a pillow. Rose discovered him one morning still dreaming. She never spoke of it, though later that night he found a blanket waiting for him.

When his proper hand had finally healed, he attempted innovative and interesting variations of ink work. He mixed colors and augmented designs as the blind artist had taught him. After a month of experimentation, Leo Darling had crafted a style that was unique and unequaled. Customers never stopped praising his work, and his reputation quickly spread through the tattoo community. Customers of every background and lifestyle came to the tattoo parlor looking for
the kid
. Every one of them left satisfied.

The only person Leo Darling failed to satisfy was Rose Fox. Despite his best efforts, she would not reciprocate his affection. She showed only a mild appreciation of his work, praising him just once during the five months of his employment. She would not return his glances or smile in his direction. She flirted playfully with everyone, even women, but she would not flirt with him. They touched only once since he had been hired and he was almost certain it was by accident. One of the muscular employees, while rearranging the back offices, haphazardly pushed a desk into the hallway catching Leo’s leg. At the exact same moment, and completely unaware, Rose exited her office. Leo collapsed into her – the desk pinning them both against the wall and each other. Leo was quick enough to slide his hand behind her head and back, softening her fall. The desk, which just barely fit through the door, caught on the hinges. It took the muscular employee exactly five minutes and forty-three seconds to shake it lose, during which time, Rose and Leo were uncontrollably pushed into one another.

He could feel her heart beat hard and her breath quicken. He tried to control his excitement, but every attempt to restrain it was thwarted by her soft breasts and warm cheek against his own. His excitement manifested below his waist and was almost immediately felt by Rose. Her cheeks reddened and she failed to hold back a small laugh – a laugh everyone shared when the desk was dislodged and Leo’s erection was revealed to the rest of the shop. The women cheered and whistled, which made Leo smirk until he realized they were staring at his crotch. Embarrassed and bright red, he hurried into Rose’s office.

He did not, nor would he ever, know that Rose had enjoyed their embrace more than he did and, after the first thirty seconds, had enough space to slip free; instead, she pressed closer to him, not wanting to escape his grasp. When she felt his cock against her body, she secretly enjoyed it, momentarily forgetting about her scars.

That night, for the first time in nineteen years, she dreamt about sex – waking hot, sweating, and wet. She stretched her arms across the bed, thinking they would find the naked body of Leo Darling. When they did not, she was dejectedly thrust back into reality. She left the bed and examined her scars in the mirror. She wanted Leo Darling to want her, but she feared rejection more than anything, and so she kept a safe distance from him, doing her best to avoid and resist his advances.

During the weeks that followed, Leo Darling, still young and uneducated in love, interpreted Rose’s distance as disgust. His love for her never wavered, but his affections, untethered, stirred toward a woman younger and more coltish than Rose. She was a client and tattoo enthusiast by the name of Leanne Laboe. Her short blond curls and kittenish smile immediately caught Leo’s gaze. When she accused him of staring, he turned red and sheepishly smiled. Amused by his innocence, she kissed him on the cheek. Later that night, once the tattoo parlor had been closed and secured, she took Leo’s hand and led him to her apartment.

In the safety of her home, she undressed and described the intricate and ambitious tattoo that would stretch and wrap around her body. Leo took a marker from his bag and, without asking permission, began drawing on Leanne’s skin. She was, at first, startled by the cold marker tip, but soon discovered that Leo’s assertiveness excited her.

The truth, which the young Leo Darling had yet to ascertain, was that the limber Leanne Laboe had lured him to her apartment and stripped in front of him with the sole intention of having rough and meaningless sex – an act she was both skilled and exceptionally comfortable with, but, before Leo Darling could finish the sketch around her lower stomach which would lead him to her vagina, she grabbed his hand, fell over his shoulder and painfully vomited down his back. She felt her stomach lurch into her chest a second time and her body tense. She covered her mouth and ran to the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet.

Leo, confused and a little disgusted, took off his dirtied shirt, tossed it in the bathtub and kneeled down next to Leanne in order to hold her hair out of the toilet bowl. He did not know the origins of her sickness, and she would make certain he never did. As she gagged a third time and spit into the toilet, she knew that her symptoms pointed to the most serious and incurable of aliments – motherhood.

She had married young and for all the right reasons. They were madly in love, had just enough money to feel comfortable, and a mutual desire for many children – seven to be exact. Two months after the wedding she became pregnant. The news made them both happier than they had ever been. Like first time parents, they fretted over everything and enjoyed every moment of it. Thinking himself a gentleman and loving husband, Peter insisted on driving, at least during Leanne’s pregnancy.

On one occasion, while on their way to the hospital for a routine checkup, another driver, neglecting a stop sign, smashed into the passenger side of the Laboe’s car. If her husband had allowed Leanne to drive as she had wanted, their unborn son might have lived, but, given the trajectory and impact, he would not survive the ambulance ride to the hospital. The doctors managed to stabilize Leanne, but the damage to her uterus, they quietly explained, would leave her barren.

Her husband stayed with her for one year, making sure her injuries had fully healed, then one morning he and all of his possessions were gone. She found signed divorce papers on the dining room table and a note explaining that he still loved her, but needed a woman that would provide him with a family.

She cried, screamed, and broke whatever was in reach. In the years that followed, she would have three worthwhile relationships – each one ending when she felt it had grown too serious. Eventually, she found it more convenient to have weekend flings or one night stands. She engaged in sex so often, and with so many partners, she didn’t bother remembering or learning their names. Being barren, she didn’t worry with condoms or contraceptives, and, when she missed her period the previous month, she thought little of it. However, while Leo Darling gently rubbed her back as she vomited in the toilet, she thought very carefully about the recent months.

She did not know who the father was, nor did she care, for she was overcome with a sudden and urgent desire to have a family – a family absent of an unreliable man. She stood, wiped her mouth, and abruptly pushed Leo Darling out of her apartment. She was so quick and decided in her action that he didn’t have time to grab his shirt. He stood in the hallway half-naked, cold, and very confused.

Leanne Laboe, returning to her bed, would not sleep that night due to the excitement and joy that spilled out of her heart. Nine months later she would have a healthy son who would be the center of her universe. She would never marry, nor would she have another romantic relationship. Her only source of happiness would be her son and, later, her seven grandchildren.

Leo Darling would never learn of these events, nor would he think much about the woman, except to remember her kittenish smile and the loss of his favorite shirt. When she would not respond to his knocking or shouts, he assumed she had returned to the toilet due to more unpleasantness. Knowing of no other way to assist her, he walked back to the tattoo parlor. The sun had risen by the time he reached his destination and Rose was waiting at the front counter.

The night before, Rose had fretfully watched him leave with the cute and flirty blond, and though she could not explain the sharp and uncomfortable pain in her chest, she told herself that it was, most definitely, not jealousy. At home, she paced, counted sheep, drank warm milk, turned off the lights and curled into bed, but nothing cured her restlessness. Seeing the time, she decided to forfeit her sleep and return to work. She could not explain why she had brought a pillow for the young Leo Darling, but when she could not find him asleep in the back office she became agitated. She waited at the front counter with a pen and pad of paper, sketching unflattering pictures of him, which she then crumpled and threw into the garbage.

When she saw him enter the shop shirtless and shivering, she threw the pad of paper at him and stormed off, thinking he had slept with the blond tart. She did not notice the smell of vomit on his clothes or the distraught expression on his face for she was too frustrated to notice anything but her own heartache.

Leo, confused and reconsidering his chances with women, allowed his temper to get the better of him. He shouted at Rose – his words honest, but piercing. She turned, furious and full of fire. She called him ugly and worthless and shouted other incoherent profanities while she slapped his face and pushed against his chest. He grabbed her hands, their lips almost touching in the struggle.

She could feel the desire in her heart spilling out and she feared it might reach him. She tried to break free from his grip, but he was too strong. She screamed and cried that he would never love her. Her head fell against his chest. He pulled her closer and softly whispered that he already did.

She shook her head, stepped away and, with her eyes tightly shut, took off her shirt and slid down her pants revealing her secret and grotesque scars. She stood before him, shaking with terror and embarrassment – more defenseless and vulnerable than she had ever been.

He stepped toward her, his hands and eyes moving deliberately and with a kind of caringness she was unfamiliar with. He touched her skin as if it was uncut stone, searching it for the potential beauty buried beneath – just as the blind artist had taught him.

He kissed her scars and her stomach and her thighs and her hands and her fingers and her lips and every part of her he could. His heart and cock swelled, and he made certain she felt both. She whimpered as much from surprise as relief. In the back office, Leo unfurled his blanket on the floor and laid Rose upon it. He made love to her with a slow and attentive pace so that she always felt safe and in control.

As the months passed, they kept their romance a secret, sharing glances when no one else was looking, lightly grazing one another as they passed in the hall, leaving the shop at different times only to meet at Rose’s apartment together.

One evening, a month after moving in together, Leo Darling presented Rose with a gift. It was a clever and well crafted design for a tattoo that would almost completely disguise her scars. It was bold, but still feminine and, with his skills, it would only require three sessions to complete. She was hesitant, but since they had started having sex regularly, she had regained some of her confidence, and so agreed to his request.

For three nights, after the shop had closed to the public, Leo worked on Rose’s chest and thighs, creating what he would later describe as his greatest masterpiece. On the left side of her chest he sketched the trunk of a peach tree, its branches and peaches stretching across her breasts, covering her scars. Along her thighs, he sketched a series of roots that directed the eyes up and away from her lingering wounds. He enhanced the tattoo with a variety of vibrant and unique colors.

When he was finished, he made her stand naked in front of a mirror. She was astonished. Even when she stood very close and squinted, she could not distinguish the scars from the tattoo. She knew the scars had not vanished, but she felt as if something had been restored in her. Overcome with a sense of wholeness, she eagerly pushed Leo Darling into the tattoo chair, making playful and sensual love to him five times before the sun rose the next day. That night would not be the last time they made love. It would, however, be the first and only time that resulted in a child. They would discover this exactly one month and seventeen days later when Rose exited the bathroom with a positive pregnancy test.

Realizing they could no longer keep their romance a secret, Leo and Rose disclosed everything to the other employees, who, nodding with approval, said it was about time. When the men heard Leo was going to be a father, they insisted on taking him out to celebrate. Even though he was well under the legal drinking age, they used their connections to get him into a local bar. He drank cranberry juice while they guzzled beer and hard alcohol.

Their hearty laughter and general cheerfulness lasted late into the night. It was interrupted only once and quite tragically when a stranger slammed an empty mug onto the table in front of Leo Darling demanding it to be filled. The muscular employee stood, poured the contents of his glass into the stranger’s mug and, with a jolly smile, raised his empty glass to toast Leo Darling. The rest of the group happily raised their mugs, but before they could speak, the stranger stumbled into an adjacent table, spilling his beer down the shirt and pants of another patron.