Tattooed on my heart

Coming to you live!

Third person POV -

Tommaso was in his gym office, running a chain of high profile gyms wasn’t his dream.

He always loved sports, being an athlete was all he wanted, but when you near your 30’s not many still have interest in you and had decided to invest the money he had made as a pro athlete into opening his own gym.

As a kid he was into soccer, he played very well but by the time he was about to finish his elementary school he had doubled in size and was as tall as his teachers, when he started middle school he was pulled into basketball, but his passion was always fighting, he did some wrestling as a kid and loved that he got a way to release his aggressions, when he was 14 he started martial arts and quickly found himself in the MMA world.

His name was well known and he had many people coming in and the demand was high - with help of his childhood best friend who was a business school graduate, they managed to open several gyms all over Italy, investors practically lined up and within less then 10 years he had anything he never dared to dream of as a kid from a low income family.

It was a calm day, he had some meetings in the morning, and he had just finished responding a bunch of emails for various clients while he had his lunch.

As he needed to wait a bit before he could go work out and finish his day, he grabbed his phone and read some messages, as a notification of a live stream on i********: popped up, usually he would completely ignore it, he had time dedicated to social media, but in this case it involved his only guilty pleasure, tattoos.

He was always on the look out for artists, anytime he had an idea he would spend days, weeks and even months finding the right artist to bring to life the tattoo he had in mind.

His body’s was full all over with various tattoos in different sizes and styles, none he regretted due to his meticulous and relentless search each time.

So the only notifications he had on were of the future artists he was considering to approach, at the moment he only had a couple of artists on the line, while he hated to admit it, it was due to him pretty much obsessively stalking one of them.

He had originally came across a paid ad on i********: while searching for tattoos artists in his area, he didn’t feel like travelling far for his next piece unless something extraordinary popped up.

As he went on their page, he saw it was an all female studio, with each artist having their own unique style.

There were only a few pictures of vibrant coloured tattoos, mostly flowers, some gem stones and other colourful elements, but those few really captured his eye.

He clicked the pictures and saw the tagged artist, he clicked her tag that took him to her profile, he found mostly drawings and tatto sketches she had available, some of her works and other costume made articles like clothes, shoes and bags with hand made drawings.

Some pictures of her while she was tattooing, her big eyes fixed behind big thin framed glasses.

Even in her well cropped pictures it was easy to see there was something appealing about her, he found himself curious to see more and put together the bits and pieces from her photos.

As soon as he realised that he had closed the app, scoffing at himself for taking that deep dive, but hours later she again popped into his mind, he grabbed his phone and looked her up, as soon as he wrote her i********: handle another account with her name popped up, the eyes of the girl in the picture were certainly hers, he tapped the screen, to his surprise her account was public, she had very little followers and it was filled with selfies, images of her in different locations around the world and some of her art.

He lost track of time going over her pictures her videos showed her smiling and laughing, her curvy figure in summery outfits or bikinis in distant locations and a bunch of highlights called “fitness journey” of her in the gym lifting and showing progress as days goes on.

He was impressed, a bit annoyed the gym she went to wasn’t his own, he would’ve like to “run into her” on his court.

He had turned on the notification for both her accounts and until today he had only managed to see her live once and for a few minutes while she was tattooing and the client had a joint live with her before they had signed off. In those few minutes she was sweet and funny, with quick witty comebacks while she was prepping after they took a break.

Now he had a chance, the live just started and this time again she was on with a client, Francesca, a quick look into her profile showed she was a small time influencer.

“Hello everyone that’s coming back to the live, I’m here with my talented artist Thalia! And as was promised send us questions and we will respond!”

Responding to her followers Francesca showed the original drawing that Thalia had made for her, then pointed the camera to her upper thigh where Thalia was tattooing at the moment to show the details that were added free hand after the placement.

Someone in the live chat wrote “why add it after? Couldn’t she have just drawn it before or not add it all?”, Francesca read it out loud for Thalia to respond.

Stupid question Tommaso thought, but he was curious to hear how’d she respond.

“Well” she said placing down her tattoo machine on the station next to her, and she took off her gloves.

“I can show you better than I can explain just in words” she took the big drawing that was taped somehow off camera, and stood up so now you could see her form, the jeans dropped lower as she stood up and you could see the marks left on her stomach now, she adjusted her self and continued on, twisting to her profile and placing the big drawing on her upper thigh where it was placed on the other girl, then she spoke “well the paper is flat and our bodies are not, so as you see here no matter how much I curve of twist it I cannot make it the same as the body’s curves, adding the free hand details allows me to create the perfect flow, that compliments her body and makes the tattoo more dynamic and anatomically correct.”

She leaned over and taped the drawing back to her side and set back down putting on another pair of gloves.

Tommaso really liked her response, his eyes moved down the screen as it seemed the chat was going so fast, faster then before.

The comments were all excited, less about the answer and more about Thalia.

“Wait wait, why is she so hot?!”

“Omg what tattoo shop is that again, I thing I need a new tattoo #inlove”

Lots of heart and fire emojis filled the screen

“Can she stand up again and show us I think I need to see her again to understand it better”

Francesca was laughing

“Thalia I think you’re about to trend!” She exclaimed, she was reading a bit more with the faint sound of the machine buzz in the back, when she said “I know right! She’s hot and pretty! Wait I’ll ask her - Thalia, everyone wants to know if you’re single?!”

Thalia seemed unbothered, she lifted her head and dipped the machine in the ink beside her and looked straight up into the phone, the ring light reflecting in her glasses, she smiled and said “That’s for me to know and for you to find out” a soft giggle followed, as she was about to drop her head down and continue, Francesca said “But how will the viewers know if they can ask you out?”

Thalia laughed at that “Well, they won’t, when you hit on a girl at a bar you take a chance, if someone is not brave enough to take a chance and ask me out without being certain, then they shouldn’t ask me out”.

Francesca seemed a bit shocked but smiled and said “you heard it here! Try and find out! Next question is about the ink brand”

At this point Tommaso wasn’t really listening anymore, his eyes were on her in the back, partially lit by the ring light above her as she worked, all he could think was ‘challenge accepted ’.