“It makes more sense when you recall my mum is of Indian descent and I would spend hours watching her henna my hands for my birthday, my sister’s too on her birthday. She also did it for friends of ours and family members when they got married and sometimes we also had it for Diwali. I would always go with her when she was doing it for other people. I loved to watch her. I loved how patient she was and how focused, and then the end result, it was always so impressive, so transformative. I would doodle on my arms and legs for hours as a kid, trying to emulate my mother’s designs and then slowly finding my own style. Eventually, I was old enough and good enough to do it alongside her.”
Charlie’s eyes glide along the length of my arms and I can almost feel the path they take as heat crawls across my skin. “And did you design any of your own tattoos?”
“All of them,” I say in a quiet voice. I hate how I want to swallow my pride at how much I love my tattoos but it feels like the wrong way to be when it’s my body and my body is nothing special. In fact, it’s a pretty broken body what with the day-to-day pain and pressure in my head, not to mention the migraine attacks I get and the hell they inflict on me.
“You’re very talented,” Charlies says eventually.
I shrug it off again. “Like I said, my mother is artistic. I guess I get it from her.” And I hope that’s the end of this conversation.
But it isn’t because Charlie is studying me with a slow-growing smile. “You’d be an incredible tattoo artist, Mina.”
“Just because I can draw?”
“Yes, because you’re ridiculously creative and your artistic skills know no bounds, but also because you’re focused and diligent. You’d go above and beyond to make your clients happy, just like you do at HNO. And I can imagine you’d be able to stay pretty relaxed and calm for clients who were nervous or scared. Besides, you know how it feels to get a tattoo on… err,” Charlie stops talking and drops eye contact. “Well, lots of different parts of your body so you could empathise with that too.”
I don’t miss the blush in his cheeks as he brings his glass to his lips.
“Thanks, Charlie,” I say. “But it’s never going to happen, so it doesn’t matter that I’ve had my clit tattooed.”
When his eyes pop wide open and his body freezes, his glass still held up near his mouth, I can’t help but smile smugly.
“Have you… is that even… Have you really—” he stutters.
“No, Charlie, I don’t have any tattoos on or anywhere near my clitoris. But it was worth the lie to see your brain melt down like that.”
After shaking his head quickly, Charlie’s features relax and his hand lowers his glass. He then pins his eyes back on me. “But seriously, same what-ifs to you. What if you could do it and all the reasons you shouldn’t or couldn’t just didn’t exist?”
I chew on both his question and the corner of my bottom lip, tasting the sweetness of my lipstick. I first bought it because of the colour – the darkest burgundy red I could find – but I kept buying more of the same brand because of the sugary sweet taste it leaves on my lips. Although, I’d never admit that to anybody, of course.
“Fuck you, Charlie,” I say in response and when his face crinkles into one of his impossibly wide and white teeth-filled smiles, I know he knows what my real answer would be.
*****
After Charlie decides to do a tour of the room and introduce me to some people, I realise more than a few moments too late that he is far from sober.
“This is Mina, my date!” He’s shouting out to everyone who approaches him and shakes his hand.
Most of the partygoers nod at me politely, shake my hand and then move on after a few minutes of small talk centring around Charlie’s work, his mother’s birthday and far too frequently, his brother’s recent promotion to Managing Partner. A few of them give me questioning looks that could be because of what they thought they knew about Charlie’s sexuality or it could be because I look the way I look. Considering the average age of the guests is well above fifty, I’m not wholly surprised and I’m able to shrug it off easily.
Eventually, we end up face to face with the Managing Partner himself, and fuck me, his supermodel husband who would be walking, talking confirmation to any bisexual woman that she wasn’t gay. He’s tall, he’s tanned, he’s got that floppy dark hair thing that I would never admit does things to me, and he’s also got a pair of piercing green eyes that all but glitter as he smiles at me.
“This is Cameron and his husband Bruno,” Charlie says and his tone has completely changed. It’s almost like introducing us physically pains him. “Cam, Bruno, this is Mina, my… err, date and well, also work colleague.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mina,” Cameron says extending his hand which then gives mine a firm shake. He’s not exactly bad looking himself. He has the height and slim physique to match his husband, but his hair is the same dark blond as Charlie’s, although his is longer and combed back off his face while Charlie’s mop always sticks up a little, like he used a bit too much product and ran his hands through it one too many times. He also has different eyes to Charlie; they’re light brown and are almost duller, weaker or perhaps just more tired-looking, while I’ve always thought Charlie’s blue eyes always seem very awake, alert and eager to take in the world around him, a fact that used to annoy me but this evening I’m finding it considerably less irritating.
“Lovely to meet you,” Bruno says and I have to look away from his eye contact because it makes me want to giggle like a lovestruck teenager and I would rather be caught dead than do that in front of Charlie.
“You’re very brave to come here with Charlie,” Cameron says. “And for a first date too.”
It’s not clear if Charlie’s brother is saying these things to hint at the fact that he doesn’t believe this is a real first date, but I feel my neck elongate as if perceiving a new threat. Managing Partner of some fancy law firm named after too many old white men with too many syllables in their surnames he may be, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s still just another dude thinking he knows me better than he really does. Just as well I know how to handle men like this.
“Well, I’ve been waiting for Charlie to ask me out for ages so it didn’t really matter where we went.”
“You have?” Both Cameron and Charlie say at the same time.
“You’d think these Atkinson men don’t think they’re the catches they are,” Bruno says with a soul-shatteringly beautiful smile as he nudges his husband.
“Kind, cheerful and handsome. What’s not to like?” I say to Bruno with a shrug.
