Kink of the Week May 15-31: Writing on Skin

She had not wanted to give him her number, she had said that she did not have any paper.

“Write it on my forearm,” he had said, and Emerson frowned softly.

She leaned in to give him a fake number, but when she did, she smelled the sage on his skin. The scent aroused her so much that she wrote her right number–slowly–on his arm. His eyes and breath were responsive to every stroke of her pen. Emerson added an additional flourish at the end of her number eight, that was barely warranted.

When she finished that last flourish, she realized she had been so unconcerned with knowing more about him that she did not remember what his name was. He had told her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his initials in gold on his briefcase.

And that was how she and H. started seeing each other. Writing on their skin was a theme. The first time that he told her that he loved her, he wrote it on her hip. She looked in the mirror and saw in red, LOVE and she straddled him standing beside her. He entered her and she could see his love on her hip—literally—as she pressed her nose to his musky sage scent that had been her undoing.

Emerson loved him at the time, but she could not say the words. She had no desire to say the words to him. H. woke up one morning and through the hair on his chest, he could see red, bright like the sun I LOVE YOU.

When he sat up and stared at the words in the mirror, and said nothing, the red words glowed like traffic lights melting in her vision.

Stop, she thought.

“Stop overthinking!” H. said, and pulled her close to him. He kissed her, and she felt her heart stop crumpling because she felt their love. It had not been too long for her to finally tell him she loved him.

And when he proposed, H. pressed a fountain pen to the inside of her wrist. He played with the tip about her hand, until it started to tickle. He held her hand, kissed it and then wrote inside. Emerson could not make out the words.

“Close your eyes…” he commanded softly, kissing her hand.

She did not know what the words were, but she knew when he put her engagement ring box on her palm what it was.

“Yes,” she breathed, without opening her eyes.

They wrote less when they got married, but when they did write it was often secret and hidden. Just for them.

With chocolate, honey, ink and more, they occasionally stained the sheets. Their sheets looked like a Jackson Pollock, and their bodies were smeared with dirty words.

I am dedicated to using all the verbs from the verb list created by Richard Serra—you can find the list here. Last time I used “dapple,” today I am using “crumple.”

More Kink of the Week here: