Close-up of a fine line black script tattoo of the word free on the back of a hand, with a woman in a denim shirt resting her hand on her shoulder.

Small script word "free" on the hand

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows the back of a hand with the word "free" written in thin, joined black script. The linework is delicate and even, with the lettering sitting slightly diagonally across the hand. The shot is taken from close range with a soft-focus denim shirt, turquoise rings and beaded bracelets in the background.

Fine line Lettering Hand Word Free Script

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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 reach the door of the Pavilion Ballroom at a quarter to eight, and Mr Haddow, who has stamped hands there since the war, takes your wrist as though he's checking a pulse. "Early birds get the free dance," he says, and presses the rubber stamp into the ink pad. When he lifts it, the letters are backwards on your skin. He turns your hand over and there it is, slanting across the back of your knuckles: FREE. It means the sixpence stays in your purse. It means nothing else, but you decide it means more.

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Inside, the band is still tuning, and the glitter ball throws loose coins of light over the empty floor. Tom Ashby leans by the pillar with his hair flattened down with water. He doesn't ask. He just holds out his palm, and you look at the word on your hand before you put yours in his. Tonight it is the only thing on you that didn't cost anything, and you find you want to show it to him.

The ink wears off as the evening goes on. Hands get damp, the band plays too many quicksteps, and by the last waltz the letters have softened to a grey smudge that still leans the way it always did. His thumb rests on it while you turn in slow circles under the ball, and you stop caring whether the stamp will last until Monday.

At eleven you step out into the wind off the sea and hold your hand up under the lamp. The word is faint but it's still there. Tom asks whether it'll wash off. You tell him it was always going to, and then you put your hand in your coat pocket anyway, where nobody can check it.