Two illustrated female portraits on the forearms, one with blonde hair, a black blindfold and red lips, the other with red hair and a black gag across the mouth, in a bold neo-traditional style.

Blindfolded and gagged portraits on forearms

Neo-trad · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

Two female portraits sit on the forearms of a person wearing a black top. The left figure has blonde hair, a black blindfold and red lips, while the right figure has red hair and a black gag across the mouth. Bold dark outlines and flat fills of black and red give the pair a graphic, illustrative look against the pale skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You arrive at Mrs Pargeter's boarding house in Clacton in October, when the lodgers have gone and the wallpaper sweats. The landlady hands you a key on a brass fob shaped like a lighthouse and says the two girls in room four have been practising since breakfast. Through the floorboards you hear one of them humming and the other not.

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The act is called The Hush Sisters. Marjorie is blindfolded with a strip of black silk knotted at her nape, and she reads the audience by the creak of their chairs. Dolores wears a gag of the same silk and answers every question with her eyebrows. They have never once been caught out, and the pier manager pays them in cash folded inside a programme. You help them fold the silk each night. Your fingers keep finding the knot too tight.

The turn comes on the last night of the season, when a drunk sailor shouts that the blindfold is a fraud and reaches for it. Dolores, who has not spoken on stage in three summers, works the silk loose with her teeth and says his name, the one nobody on the front knows. The sailor goes white. Marjorie, still blind, turns her face toward the sound and smiles for the first time in the act.

Afterwards, on the pier steps, you watch them unpick the knots together while the tide comes in under the boards. Dolores says she has been waiting years to say that. Marjorie says she knew the whole time, and that is why she never looked.

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