Chapter 57 Tattoo.

Chapter 57: 57 Tattoo.

Despite the challenges, Ayra’s session went more quickly than Elsa’s, mainly because she never asked for breaks.

In fact, when it was over, she asked if she could get another tattoo of my face on her ass, but I vetoed that right away.

The last thing I wanted to see when I started banging her from behind one day was my own mug.

When the work was done and she was on her feet again, she wanted to see the result, so she bent to examine the fresh tattoo with a grin.

"It’s perfect!" she declared, beaming. "I hope it will hurt like this forever and ever!"

By this point, it was late afternoon, and Val’s hand needed a rest.

We took a break for an early dinner, eating leftover pizza and then ordering even more to give everyone a chance to recover before my turn.

The conversation during the meal was a minefield of potential slip-ups, with Ayra nearly mentioning portals twice and Elsa at one point taking off her baseball cap.

Thankfully that was easily explained by wiggling my fingers and saying "D&D" once again.

Val maintained professional detachment despite everything. "You three have an interesting dynamic," was her only comment, delivered with the neutral tone of someone who’d seen far stranger things in her career.

As evening settled in, and I had to make a fake call to "cancel" our D&D game, it was finally my turn.

I removed my shirt and lay back on the bench, the alcohol-soaked cotton ball cool against my skin as Val prepped the area over my heart.

The stencil of just the runes looked so plain compared to the elaborate designs the girls had received, but I wasn’t complaining about the reduced tattoo time.

Both women hovered nearby, offering a running commentary that Val pretended not to hear.

"If you show weakness after my incredible performance, I shall be severely disappointed," Elsa informed me, her own tattoo still visibly throbbing beneath the clear bandage, but healing pretty fast due to our System powers.

"I can heal you afterward," Ayra whispered, just quiet enough that Val might have missed it. "Just a tiny bit of magic to take the edge off."

The needle made contact, and I realized I’d been right about chest tattoos being painful—especially directly over the sternum.

Each stroke sent lines of electric fire across my nerve endings, but after fighting monsters regularly, it was manageable discomfort.

"It’s perfectly acceptable if you need to hold my hand," Elsa offered, dangling her hand in front of my face. "I will not mock you."

"I’m good," I said, which got a shrill gasp out of her like I’d slapped her across the face. She ended up grabbing my hand anyway.

"Well, I’m not. I will not sacrifice this opportunity."

"That’s not fair!" Ayra squealed. "I’ll take this hand, then."

The girls held my hands tight throughout the massage, but I was fine.

Still, it did feel right to have them attached to me as I underwent the process. There was something profoundly intimate about the experience.

The three of us were being permanently marked with symbols meant to bind us together forever. Whatever happened in the future, this connection was literally under our skin now.

Val worked hard and focused well, all things considered, and my smaller design took less than an hour.

When it was complete, I sat up to examine her work in a hand mirror. The runes formed a pattern over my heart, elegant and simple in its minimalist design.

"That’s all of you," Val announced, applying the final bandage to my chest. "Quite the bonding experience, I suppose."

I paid her generously—double the quoted price plus a substantial tip—and thanked her for making the house call.

"Take good care of those tattoos," she instructed as she packed up her equipment. "Keep them clean, apply the ointment I left you, and no swimming for two weeks. Showers, not baths, too. And maybe..." she glanced at Ayra’s barely-concealed tail, "maybe take the costumes off before I arrive if we do this again sometime."

Once she was gone, we collectively exhaled.

"That was an ordeal," I admitted as I collapsed onto the couch. "But we did it. Do you think you can heal these tattoos for us so that we don’t need to go through the whole recovery process, Ayra?"

Ayra shook her head, frowning. "Not just yet. If I heal too soon, it’s possible the ink will vanish too."

I nodded, taking that in. "Maybe in a day or two then."

"Okay, so... Now what?" the dog-girl asked, gingerly touching the bandage over her fresh ink. "How long until Juniper can cross over?"

"Magical bindings usually take time to settle," Elsa explained. She winked as she tried to find a comfortable sitting position. "We should rest and see what develops."

The evening passed quietly. All three of us moved carefully to avoid jarring our tender new markings, and it was the girls’ soreness that probably protected Cock-Grey from further assaults that night.

Taking out the midnight monster arrival was awkward with the pain, too, but it was only a skeleton with a spear—the weakest monster we’d fought since the girls arrived.

I helped both women apply fresh ointment before bed. It wasn’t until I was gently smoothing ointment over Elsa’s tattoo that something unexpected happened.

The tattoo suddenly pulsed with a faint ruby glow, illuminating my fingertips from below.

Elsa jerked back, startled. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah," I confirmed, as surprised as she was. "It’s... reacting somehow."

We conducted some impromptu experiments over the next half hour and discovered a pattern—the girls’ tattoos responded to sexual thoughts about me.

We confirmed the pattern without a doubt when Ayra admitted to planning to give me a blowjob after Elsa fell asleep.

When we asked her what she was thinking when it lit up, she embarrassingly narrated the imagined encounter in explicit detail. Her tattoo glowed brightly enough to be seen through the long, white T-shirt she borrowed from me as a nightie.

Elsa was not a fan. "How mortifying! Our desires for you will be broadcast for all to see?" Right that moment, her own tattoo lit up. "Oh! I can’t help it! I’m nearly always thinking something lewd about you! This is supremely unfair!"

Ayra was less bothered by it. She pointed to her belly proudly as it glowed. "Master, look! I’m thinking about how terrible it would be if you bruised my tender rump with a vicious slap right now. How cruel you are!"

"Well, I guess this means the tattoo... works?" I offered, trying not to laugh at Elsa’s persistent horrified expression when her own tattoo betrayed her thoughts moments before. "At least we know there’s some kind of magic happening with it already, right? That must mean Juniper will be able to find us now."

As we finally settled into bed that night, all three of us maneuvered under the covers carefully to avoid pressure on our fresh ink.

When I started to doze off, I realized that I had no idea what to expect to happen tomorrow. It was more or less like that every day now.

And I was kind of alright with it.