Traditional black and grey tattoo of a mermaid holding a shell beside a moon, placed on the outer thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mermaid with shell on a thigh

Traditional · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A mermaid sits within a scalloped oval frame, holding a seashell up towards a large circle that represents the moon, with two small birds in the sky. Her tail curls around the composition and rests on a dotted, banded edge, with a flower and leaves along the bottom. The bold outlines, solid black areas and stippled grey shading are set against the skin of the thigh.

Traditional Thigh Mermaid Seashell Moon Bird Flower Leaves Tail

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are the last one left in the ballroom on the Western Pier, sweeping glitter off the boards while the band packs its horns into velvet-lined cases. Mr Dobbs has gone for his tea. Under the floor the sea knocks against the pilings, patient as a man who has forgotten his key and knows someone will open up eventually.

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The side door bangs and Teddy Marsh comes in smelling of diesel and rain, his cap pushed back. He has a seashell in his fist, pearly on the inside and freckled brown outside, and he holds it out to you like a man presenting a ring he has not quite finished paying for. 'Cadiz,' he says. 'A fellow sold it me off a barrow for two cigarettes. Said if you hold it to the moon you can hear the whole ocean.' You tell him that is the oldest trick in the world. He puts the gramophone on anyway and the needle drops into a waltz that is already scratched, and you dance the length of the sprung floor while he counts under his breath, and you pretend not to notice when he stops counting.

The tide turns at four. He has to be at the dock before the sun is up, and the lamps on the pier go out one by one behind him. At the door he presses the shell into your palm and closes your fingers over it. 'Full moon,' he says. 'Hold it up to the window. I'll be out past the bar, looking back at the lights, and you'll see us both in the glass.'

You do not see him again. The shell sits on the windowsill above the mop bucket, and every full moon you lift it to the glass and listen. Gulls cross the silver circle, two of them, always two, and under the boards the sea keeps knocking, and you dance by yourself until the sky goes grey and that scratched waltz is the only tune you know.