Black and grey tattoo of an ornate antique pistol with rose engraving and a dotwork lace garter band on the thigh.

Ornate pistol with lace garter on thigh

Dotwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A large pistol with a curved, rose-engraved grip and an ornate metal frame is shown in heavy black outline with grey shading. A delicate lace-like band with dotted edges wraps around the thigh beneath the gun. The composition is centred on the pistol, with smooth, warm-toned skin filling the background.

Dotwork Neo-trad Thigh Pistol Gun Rose Lace Garter Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The pistol came across the counter wrapped in black lace, the kind a widow pins to her hat, and Mrs Ada Fenwick would not let Martha unwrap it until the shop door was bolted and the gas turned down to a blue bead.

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Under the lace it was heavier than it looked. The grip curled like a swan's neck, and someone had engraved roses along it so finely that the petals seemed to lift when the lamp moved. The frame was worked in scrolls and little knots of metal, the barrel dark and plain beneath all that fuss. Martha turned it over twice before she remembered to breathe.

"Mr Ashdown brought it in on Tuesday," Ada said, smoothing the lace flat with two fingers. "Pledged it against the funeral. Said his wife had always liked the roses and he could not bear to see them go into the ground without something of hers beside them." She tapped the ledger. "Three shillings. That is what the book says it is worth."

Martha looked at the ticket, then at the lace, which was dotted with seed pearls along its scalloped edge and had clearly been cut from a wedding gown. The shop was built on fair dealing. A pistol was a pistol, and the book did not care about roses. She wrote the ticket for four shillings in her own hand, tucked the lace back round the grip, and carried the bundle to the front window. By the time the bakers across the road lit their ovens, the lace was fanned out like a hem among the paper flowers, and beside it hung a card in her careful script: Not for sale. Ask at the counter.