Frodo’s eyes met mine and asked, “Are you ready, dear Katherine?”

“I am.” I grinned then turned. “Hey, Zack.”

“Hey!” He lifted the machine from his client’s shoulder. “They should make a movie about a chick getting married who gets a tattoo. I have the perfect title: The Bride Wore Ink. Catchy, right?” he asked me.

“I think you’re onto something there, Zack. You just need a crew and a studio and a script and equipment and…”

He was no longer listening to me. He was telling his client all about the storyline of his cinematic masterpiece.

Frodo led me to a far corner closed off from the public. My tattoos weren’t indecent, but I wanted them to be a surprise.

I sat on the edge of a black, padded table wrapped in plastic and shook like a leaf. I was nervous, embarrassing as that was. I’d never had a tattoo. The closest I’d come to having pain inflicted on my person was a Brazilian wax.

Frodo wheeled himself toward me on a little stool and put his hands on my thighs. “Shall I tell you a story?”

My teeth chattered my reply. “Sorry.”

“Quite all right. This is not the first tattoo I’ve given to a novice.”

“You make it sound like I’ll be getting more.”

I’d told him before that, when I had bloodwork done, I always laid down. Always. I hated that needles made me queasy, but that was just something about me. I could watch with fascination as the nurse gently pushed the needle into my skin. I’d just be on the floor when she was done.

He grinned and put black rubber gloves on each hand before he instructed, “Lie on your back.”

I felt the corners of my mouth shake as I smiled my reply. “Okay.”

I wore my favorite laze-around-the-house outfit, which I bought with the intent of doing yoga. But usually, I wore it to eat high-calorie desserts and watch TV.

Frodo prepared my skin and soothed me with his rich voice, deepening as he said, “Relax, Katherine.”

I felt him marking the outline, which tickled, but I could handle it.  Instead, I focused on his words.

“Ready for my story?” he asked.

“Sure.”

The machine began to buzz just as he began to speak.

“When I was a little boy, my mother decided to convert to Judaism. Where my addictive personality later found sex and alcohol, hers found that, after one viewing of Yentl, she wanted to learn Hebrew and denounce Jesus. My dad, on the other hand, thought my mother had lost her mind. They were already divorced by then, but Mom had full custody since my dad traveled with work quite a bit.”

The machine hit my wrist, and though my jaw flinched with the sensation, I knew, thankfully, I’d be able to handle it.

“Zack’s parents were members at her synagogue. He and his sister—Katherine, you wouldn’t recognize them if you saw a picture. Zack was a Dungeon Master, comic book reading nerd with a buzz cut and acne. His sister, Rebecca, had braces and big hair. I kept to myself with an act of severe shyness. But after that summer, my father noticed a change in me and decided it would be better to raise his son. It took two more years for him to gain full custody of me, and two summers later, I spent with my grandparents who were Pentecostal.”

“What is that exactly?”

“People speaking in tongues.”

I couldn’t help but giggle, but did my best not to move my body. “That sounds awesome in theory, but as a kid, I think it would freak me out.”

“Well, they feared for my eternal soul, worried that I’d strayed too far from our Lord and savior. I watched other true believers praying, muttering what I thought was nonsense, gibberish…and that was the day I bravely marched in the middle of the church, closed my eyes, and just…well, I can’t tell you if I was moved by the Holy Spirit or not, but whatever I’d ‘done’ convinced my grandparents.”

“For some reason, this doesn’t surprise me about you at all,” I told him.

“One down, one to go.”

I looked at my right wrist. Initially, I wondered if maybe the sentiment was too much, maybe Holst wouldn’t like it. But right then, looking at the swollen, marked flesh, I knew I’d done the right thing. “It’s…it’s perfect, Frodo.”

He wheeled himself and his little trolley to my other wrist. Since Frodo was being so open, I decided to take the opportunity to pry a little more into who he was.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking…”

I’d turned my head to look at him as he once again grinned.

“How did I go from my Pentecostal Youth to pornography?”

I couldn’t control the movement of my chest and arms as I chuckled and felt him hold the skin on my arm taut. “Well…yeah. That’s pretty much exactly what I was wondering.”

“That story…” He looked beyond me, toward the window of the shop, then back down to me again, “…is not as nice, but by the time I finish it, I’ll be done with your other wrist.”

“What’s your real name?” I asked.

He smiled with pride and told me, “Frederick Charles Bell.”

“Well, Fred…I think you should know…I saw you at Dee’s. She would never say anything, not now. And I promised not to mention you to her again. But, and this is a huge but…I know there are people you should shake and can’t, and people you should shake and won’t. And the two of you, I hope you fall in the third category of don’t. No matter how hard it gets, don’t let her go. I’m a sucker for a happy ending.” I smiled.

He sat up and closed his eyes and took his time to reply. But I was happy he had, because he left me with the most beautiful words of hope I’d ever heard.

“Dear Katherine…Deirdre is my dove. She gives me a peace I have never felt. Not with substance, not with sex, and no other human being has ever given me that peace. I tried to cage her and keep her, but she’s not ready for that. She loves me in the same way I love her. I believe that, and it’s in that belief I carry my hope.”

“It doesn’t bother you to see her with another guy? I didn’t care before, and I know guys are different, but I used to be the female equivalent of a dude. If Holst put his dick anywhere near another woman, I’d have to kill him. And her.” I smiled.

“Distraction,” was all he said. He then took my other wrist and told me how and why he got into making pornos.

His story began with, “I was fourteen…”

So was I.

And Frodo and I had so much more in common than I could ever have imagined. He promised me the name of a counselor in town who dealt with older victims of sexual abuse. And when he finished my tattoos and covered them both up, I gave him honesty.

“You know…” I whispered. “There’s something about you, Frodo. I can’t figure it out. Part of me wants to take you in my arms and rock you like a baby. The other half…I can’t tell you.” I grinned, an expression that Frodo returned in full understanding. “But I’m glad to know you, Fred.”

And with that, I leaned down and kissed Frodo on the lips. I don’t know why I did it, but it wasn’t sexual; it was driven by emotion, too much of it to put into words, and instead, I used my lips.

“Beautiful Katherine,” he whispered, his lips still touching mine as he said, “A gift from a golden queen. Go. Go to your king.” He never stood up and didn’t turn to watch me go. When I looked back, he had his fingers pressed to his lips, and I would never tell a soul, but now, I understood him, his secrets, and why Frederick Charles Bell had become the extraordinary man he was.

***

With my wrists wrapped up, I headed home. It was perfect timing, seeing as how I was the bride and I could pretty much do whatever the fuck I wanted. In the last few months, I heard people say things like, “Well, she’s the bride…” and somehow that excused everything from unexplainable tears to cold-blooded murder. (I hadn’t killed anyone…yet). Instead, I took advantage of my Bridezilla status by allowing myself to be late.

I’d parked Holst’s car in the alley behind Dee’s cottage. I was on a kind of high, excited about my first tattoos, excited to get married, excited to walk down the aisle and see Holst at the end. I loved that my mom and I had finally connected and my dad was out of my life. And, of course, just when you think you’re in the home stretch, something comes out of nowhere to fuck with you.