Realism tattoo on a thigh showing a woman's face half turned into a skull, beside a red rose and a line of black script.

Half skull portrait and rose on thigh

Realism · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A realistic portrait of a woman with wavy blonde hair, split down the middle so that one half of her face is a skull. A large red rose sits at the lower left, and black script in a cursive hand runs down the right side of the design. The shading is smooth grey and black, with red used for the rose and the lips, and the tattoo fills most of the frame on the thigh.

Realism Thigh Skull Portrait Woman Rose Script Quote Blonde hair

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Vera, Ostler finally paid me for Thursday in cash, so you can stop making that face about my rent. The Crown Ballroom was half empty by ten, just the regulars and a sailor who kept asking for a waltz nobody could play. I sang Stardust twice and muffed the second verse both times, and Ostler said nobody noticed, which is the kind lie he tells everyone who sings for him.

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The painted girl on the cloakroom wall was new this month. Ostler's cousin did her for the masquerade night, one half of her face a skull and the other half a sweetheart with red lips and a soft little mole, a rose tucked near her shoulder like she'd just been handed it. Half the room thought it was morbid and the other half kept touching the wet paint to see if it was real. Mrs Dunmore stood in front of it for a long while with her gloves on, then went home without her coat.

She came back on Friday, though, and left a rose on the upright piano. Red, from her own bush on Mill Lane, with the thorns snipped off so nobody would bleed on the keys. Tucked under the stem was a card in her careful hand: If you're going to be two-faced, at least make one of them pretty. Ostler read it aloud as a joke and then didn't laugh.

I've put the rose in a jam jar on the windowsill of my room, where the light comes in grey off the chimneys. Come Thursday and bring your good shoes. I'll play you the waltz the sailor wanted, badly, and you can tell me which of my faces is the honest one. Yours, Marjorie.