Black and grey octopus tentacle tattoo with rows of suckers running from the upper arm down the forearm, seen while the wearer raises a white t-shirt sleeve.

Octopus tentacle down an arm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A long octopus tentacle curves down the arm from the upper arm to the wrist, with rows of round suckers drawn as dark rings with pale centres. The shading is in black and grey, with the suckers giving a sense of depth and the tip of the tentacle curling inwards near the elbow. The arm is shown against a white t-shirt and a plain light background, with the wearer's torso and hand partly visible.

Forearm Upper arm Octopus Tentacle Sucker

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The boat came in on the top of the tide with its nets hanging empty, and Dora Penrose stood on the harbour wall counting boots the way her mother had taught her. Four pairs came up the slipway. She counted them twice. Ned Carrow was not one of the men.

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He had gone out alone to clear the old pot line off Gull Rock, and the rope came up heavy. Something had wrapped itself round it, a grey-black thing as thick as a man's arm, with rings all down its length like the bottoms of drinking glasses. Ned cut the rope. The tip of it would not let go. It crept over the gunwale and round his forearm and held there, its pale-centred suckers pressing one after another, until he worked the blade under and cut it clean. The mark it left was dark by teatime.

Dora's mother used to say the sea keeps its own tally. That night Ned came to the cottage with his sleeve pushed up and showed her the marks, which had stopped looking like a wound and started looking like a row of coins under the skin. Each night after, the rings grew sharper, and the tip curled inward toward his elbow, as if it were listening to the floor.

On the new moon he walked down to the slipway with a lamp held high. The water rose to his chest, and Dora watched his arm spread flat on the surface, unrolling, feeling for the cold deep. In the morning the boots were lined up neatly at the top of the slip, five pairs, and the mud below was printed with a ring of pale circles, each one with a dark centre.