Fade to Black
A throwback to a piece I wrote over 3 years ago! I hope you like the 2026 edit!
This story will appear in Tender, my collection of more emotionally heavy in a good way stories. Coming soon.
Fade to Black
To the world of movie fans, they were two happy couples. In love. But all four led two lives. One literally acted out in public, the other behind closed doors.
The studio had no name above the door. A man named Sol worked alone, after hours, with the blind pulled down and a bottle of bourbon on the bench for the nerves, not his own.
He asked no questions. He’d inked sailors and senators, and once, he said, a bishop, and some men paid as much for his silence as for his needle.
The four arrived in pairs, an hour apart, in hats and dark glasses, the way they did everything. A studio car waited three streets over with the engine off. The driver, hat low, read the latest gossip columns, not that he needed to.
Irene went first. She’d insisted. If one of them was going to be brave, she said, it would, of course, be a woman, since the world spent so much time telling women they weren’t.
Sol worked the letter slowly, the buzz filling the little room. Irene watched the ceiling, held Carolyn’s hand, and said nothing.
When Irene sat up, she instantly felt faint. The others laughed nervously as they dabbed at her forehead with a damp handkerchief. She gazed down, fingering the letter ‘C’ tattooed on her inner thigh. So tiny, so powerful. Once she trusted her legs enough to hold her, she stood.
Carolyn went next, then Gregory, then Daniel, each of them quiet under the needle in a way none of them ever were in front of a camera. There were no marks to hit here. No light to find. Only the discomfort involved in something hidden becoming seen.
The two couples held hands, lined up side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and faced the mirror. Held tight to each other. Buoys in a storm.
Each with their thigh exposed.
The initials G, D, I and C, etched in permanent ink forevermore. Hidden emblems of strength, statements of their lifelong love for one another.
