Neo-traditional pin-up tattoo on the upper arm of a woman in a red polka dot bandana, flexing one arm, with a small figure tucked against her side.

Pin-up flexing arm with small figure in red bandana

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A pin-up woman with a hair bun and red polka dot bandana raises one arm in a flexing pose, drawn with bold black outlines and soft grey shading. Her eyes are turquoise and her lips are red, and the bandana is the strongest area of solid colour. A small grey figure with blue eyes is wrapped against her side, and the composition fills the upper arm with the design running down the skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The paddle at Stoke Bottom lock has seized again, and the windlass spins on its spindle as if it is laughing at you. Pilot is knotted inside your shawl against your ribs, a grey kitten fished out of a fishmonger's crate in Nantwich, and she complains in small furious squeaks while the heron on the far bank pretends not to notice. Nobody else is on the towpath. Nobody ever is on a Tuesday in February.

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Your father used to say the canal does not care who is steering, only who is pushing. So you tie the red spotted scarf tighter over your hair, pinned up in the same bun your mother wore, and set your shoulder to the beam. Nothing. Then a groan of old oak, a shudder through the paddle gear, and the water begins to climb. Your forearm burns from wrist to shoulder, and you grin at nobody, because it held.

Behind you the Maudlin drifts toward the cill with its tiller swinging free, and you realise you have left the stern line on the bollard without a loop. You lunge for the rope. Pilot wriggles out of the shawl, lands on the beam with her blue eyes huge, and hangs there by one claw over the black water. You catch her by the scruff with the hand that was holding the rope, and the boat bumps gently against the gate and stops.

By the time the lower pound has filled and the gates have swung open, she is asleep again, warm against your ribs, her small grey head tucked under your chin. You knot the shawl, pull the red scarf straight, and steer out into the cold with one hand, the other still aching in a way you decide to be proud of.

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