Two small black fine line butterfly tattoos on the upper thighs of a person seen from behind, with long blue hair and denim shorts.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small butterfly tattoos on the thighs

Fine line · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a person seen from behind, with long curly blue hair, a black bra strap, light denim shorts and black knee-high socks. Two small butterfly tattoos sit on the upper thighs, drawn in thin black outline with little or no shading. The ink is black and the background is a pale, softly lit interior wall with a framed picture.

Fine line Thigh Butterfly

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are kneeling on wet gravel behind the marquee with a shoebox of painted ladies, and the lid won't lift because the cardboard has swollen with the morning's drizzle. Mrs Adeyemi-Hart, who ordered them from a supplier in Kent, is already calling your name from the terrace in the voice she keeps for caterers. The string quartet has started the second movement without you.

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Inside the box, the butterflies are doing what butterflies do when they are cold, which is almost nothing. You tip the lid with a bent teaspoon and two of them climb onto your knuckle, wings closed, pale orange beneath and dusted like flour. Their outlines are thin and dark, each vein drawn in one steady stroke, and you remember the old sign-writer you apprenticed under, who said a clean line is only patience you didn't waste.

When you stand, the bride is at the arch with her veil lifted and her father's hand on her elbow. You open the box at the exact moment the vows finish, and the flock goes up in one ragged gust, straight into the glare over the lawn. Nobody looks at the sky for long. Only the groom's grandmother stays where she is, one hand flat against her chest, watching a single butterfly circle back and settle on the hem of her own dress.

Afterwards she finds you by the bins and presses a folded five-pound note into your palm. "Mine," she says, "was the one that came back." You don't ask what she means. You pocket the note and go to fetch the empty box.