Small black outlined butterfly tattoo on the upper back, beside a dark strap top, in a simple fine line style.

Small butterfly on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small butterfly with outlined wings and a few inner lines sits on the upper back, below the shoulder blade. The linework is black and fairly thin, with little or no shading. The photo is taken from the side with a warm, vintage-look tint, and the rest of the frame shows a dark tank top and bare skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The trumpeter walked out halfway through a quickstep, so the Regal's ballroom had ninety couples and no brass, and Mrs Pryce switched the wireless on behind the stage and told everyone to carry on regardless. I was on the cloakroom hatch, handing back coats by guesswork, when the moth came in through the fire door. It was no moth. It had black wings edged in ink and a few fine lines drawn across each one, and it circled the chandelier the way a man circles a girl he hasn't decided to ask.

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Dennis from the Co-op had asked me for three dances since Whitsun and never once for a fourth. He came to the hatch for his mac, turning his cap round in both hands like a steering wheel. 'You're not dancing?' I said somebody had to mind the hooks. He said the butterfly had come a long way off its patch to end up under a light bulb, and I said it was only doing what everyone in there was doing, looking for somewhere warmer to land.

The wireless crackled and the song changed to a waltz. Dennis set his cap on the counter, lifted the flap, and walked round to my side as if the hooks had always been his business. We went out between the coats without a word. Behind us the butterfly settled on the rim of the chandelier and stayed put.

Later, when the hall had emptied and the chairs were stacked, I found a cloakroom ticket on the counter with a pencil drawing on the back: two wings outlined, a few lines inside them, and beneath, in capitals, DANCE NEXT WEEK. I have kept it in my purse for longer than the Regal stayed open.

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