Black linework drawing of a pair of legs in high heels, covered in traditional-style tattoo flash designs such as a heart banner, anchor, spider web and skull across the calves.

Traditional flash designs on drawn legs

Traditional · Calf · Mixed · Flash

A black ink line drawing shows a pair of legs in black high-heeled shoes with red soles, set against a plain pale background. The legs are covered in traditional-style tattoo motifs, including a heart with a banner, a star, an anchor, a spider web, cherries, a diamond, a skull, a butterfly and dice, with the words LOVE and SHY GIRL. The linework is bold and even, with the designs filling the legs and the shoes shaded in solid black with red accents.

Traditional Calf Heart Banner Star Anchor Spider web Cherry Diamond Skull Butterfly Dice Spade Dagger Leg High heel Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You learn the trade on Tanner Street from Mr Halloran, who keeps a tin of pillar-box red lacquer under the bench and will not let anyone else touch it. By Friday there are three pairs of black patent heels waiting for their soles, and the dancer from the Tiller Ballroom is the one who insists on the red. She says the boards at the Tiller are polished so dark that nothing shows under the lights unless it is bright enough to bleed, and she wants her heel to leave a mark when she turns.

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You paint them on the Thursday night with the shop door bolted and the radio turned low. Through the wall you can hear the Tiller's band working through a slow foxtrot, the saxophone coming down through the bricks like someone clearing their throat. Halloran's spectacles are on the end of his nose. He tells you that a sole is a promise you make to the floor, and that you keep it by not rushing the second coat.

She collects them herself on Saturday, still in her coat, and tries one on right there on the lino. She turns once, slowly, and the red flashes at the heel like a struck match. She tells you she is off to Manchester on the Monday and will not need the other pair after all. You say nothing and wrap them in tissue.

That night you walk over to the Tiller with the spare tin under your arm. The hall is empty, the lights dimmed to a glow. On the far side of the dance floor, where the boards were scuffed by a hundred turns, a single red print has dried on the wood, perfect and round. You stand a long while before you leave it where it is.