The Girl with the Zipper Tattoo

**CW: body horror, gore, pandemic references**

It was mid-October of 2022 and the sun was setting, but the crowded towers of downtown Toronto still radiated with the day's heat. The air was as close and humid as August. Out on the streets, people were going around in shorts and t-shirts, dresses and sandals, trying to enjoy one last gasp of summer before the cold permanently settled in.

Inside one of the many towering hotels, Hunter Jackson poked a sneaky finger under the bottom edge of his mask, trying to let a little air in. Was it just him, or was the actual fucking heat running? Did they turn the furnace on at the start of October and just let it go, no matter what the weather was outside? His face was sweating under the mask and it was making his beard itch. He tried to turn his attention back to the presenter at the front of the room, but of course the one speaker he'd wanted to see on this panel was a no-show, so now he was stuck listening to the other two random papers that had been crammed into a mixed-bag session at the ass-end of the conference. What was the presenter saying? Something about precarity? Something about isolation? We've heard it already, buddy, and you're over 20 minutes. Just wrap it up so we can hit the bar already.

Hunter was not normally a cynical person, but he was hot, tired, and more than a little fed up with this conference, despite all the work he'd put in to get here.

As his thoughts drifted again, Hunter let his eyes wander around the room. Backs of heads and shoulders, mostly men. One woman was answering work emails on her laptop while taking notes on the presentation in another window and tapping at the phone on her lap, which lit up with notifications every two minutes. At the back of the room, another woman was standing by the door. Something about the way she leaned casually against the doorframe caught his eye. She didn't seem to be paying any attention to the presentation. She was scanning the room, just like him.

Once his eye was hooked on her, Hunter noticed something even stranger. The top button of her white blouse was open under her trim grey suit jacket, and there was something metallic-looking just visible where it dipped below her collarbones. She was looking away across the room, so he took the chance to peer closer. It looked like she had a zipper embedded right into her skin just below the hollow of her throat. It was definitely not on her blouse collar or her suit. Jewelry? But there was no chain. Could it be a piercing? He shuddered, thinking how much it would hurt to get a piercing made out of a zipper pull right there. And why show it off here, of all places? She looked completely professional otherwise, with her dark hair cut short and sharp and her suit custom-tailored to her curves. The more he thought about it, the more curious he became. Here was someone with a story. He decided to try and catch up with her on the way out.

At the front of the room, the panel moderator finally managed to stop the last speaker's headlong rant by waving a Sharpie-scrawled sign that read: "7 minutes over. Please conclude now."

"Ah, thank you so much to all the panelists. We're almost out of time here, but we do have a few minutes for discussion, if anyone has questions...?"

After a long, awkward pause, one hand went up.

"Ahem, yes, thank you all. Great work here. Fascinating. I have more of a comment than a question, really. In an article I recently published on labour conditions in the Southern Ontario manufacturing sector during the 1918 pandemic, I argued that..."

Hunter rolled his eyes and glanced back toward the door in desperation. The woman with the odd zipper was looking at him directly now. She jerked her head twice toward the door and pointed to her watch. A wave of relief washed over him. As he stood and collected his things, he let his body language say: 'Sorry, folks, got an important meeting. Look, I'm being called away. Already late, must hurry out.' He even nodded to the woman and smiled when he reached her as if he knew her, just to sell the scene. Hunter liked acting a part, especially when that part called for him to leave with an attractive woman.

Walking out of the conference room and into the empty, spacious lobby was a breath of fresh air, literally, since the air conditioning was working there. Hunter turned to the woman who had rescued him from the jaws of ultimate boredom.

"Thank God! I mean, thank you. That last speaker just--" He checked himself before badmouthing the presenter. You never knew who knew who. But she laughed and finished for him:

"--just wouldn't shut up! Honestly, does anyone stick to the time limit any more? Or are tenured profs too good for that?"

Hunter laughed again and bantered back,

"I wouldn't know, I am but a lowly adjunct. So naturally, my presentation was 19 minutes and 59 seconds long."

"You presented too? What day was that?"

"First day, first panel. The dreaded 9am slot. Don't worry, you didn't miss much. How about you?"

"I didn't speak. I'm here to watch and learn."

"You a grad student?"

"Post-doc. But sociology isn't my area. I'm in...well, it's interdisciplinary. Hard to explain."

She shrugged. The shape at her open collar caught his eye again.

"Hey, if you don't mind me saying, that's an impressive piercing. Uh, is it a piercing?"

Her hand went to her throat and fluttered there. Something twisted deep in Hunter's gut at the way she stroked herself.

"Oh, no, it's actually a tattoo."

She pulled open her blouse a little further. Looking more closely, Hunter could see the inked zipper tracks running down the front of her breastbone. He caught just a hint of dark cleavage below, into which the tracks disappeared invitingly. He wrenched his eyes back up to the zipper pull, and then to her amused-looking face.

"That is uncanny. From across the room it looked totally real. The 3D shading and the metallic highlights, I mean, that's top-notch work. It's like those M.C. Escher illusion tattoos you see online. Have you posted it on Reddit or anything?"

She ducked her head shyly.

"No, I didn't do it to get attention on the internet, if that's what you're asking. It's just for me. Because I like it."

Her fingers stroked her throat. There it was again: that darkly sensual feeling. That inexplicable erotic twist. Hunter couldn't say why, but the heat between them when she did that was as palpable as it had been in the streets at sunset. Something humid and lush, blossoming out of season.

Hunter realized they were standing much closer than two meters apart. He was near enough to see the faint sheen of sweat on her skin. For a second it was like he could feel her breath on his face, which was insane because she also had a mask on. He stepped back and adjusted his mask nervously.

'Get a grip, man,' he told himself mentally. 'I know it's been almost two years, but you can't jump the first girl you meet at a conference straight off.'

Then again, why couldn't he? She had to be fully vaccinated to get into the conference, and they all took rapid antigen tests every day. She was clean. He was clean. He had to get back in the saddle someday. Why not now?

When he looked up at her again, her eyes were smiling at him. He would even go so far as to say "sparkling." And her hand was still at her throat, toying with the tattooed zipper pull.

"Hey, do you want--"

"Would you like to--"

The both broke off, laughing at their simultaneous attempts to speak.

"You go first," she said.

"I was going to say, do you want to go get a drink at the hotel bar?"

"And I was going to say, would you like to come have a drink in my room? There's a mini-bar I haven't cracked into yet."

Hunter's heart gave a hard kick against his chest and set up a pounding that went straight to his groin. Had it ever been this easy? Sure, he'd taken up running during the pandemic so he was in pretty good shape, and he'd finally managed to get to a barber for a professional haircut and beard trim before the conference, but he didn't usually have women propositioning him after a few minutes of conversation. Mostly it was the other way around. Hell, he didn't even know her name.

"Oh hey, what's your name?" He blurted out, following his own train of thought. He cursed himself instantly for the stupid move.

"Why, do you have a veto list? No Berthas allowed?" The woman said mischievously.

"No, no! It's not that! I was just thinking, this is amazing, but I don't even know her name..."

"Such a gentleman. It's Adeline."

"Adeline," he repeated softly. "It has a Southern charm."

"And you are?"

"Hunter. Hunter Jackson."

"Hunter," she repeated, mirroring his posture. "It has a Northern brutality."

She gave him that saucy look again. He was utterly hooked.

"Shall we?" She asked, gesturing grandly toward the elevators.

"We shall." He decided.

She was in room 713, a rare inside-facing room with no windows. Hunter didn't think they made hotel rooms without windows, but here he was, looking around at the framed pictures of scenic views that adorned the walls in place of windows while she raided the mini-bar. She'd already taken off her suit jacket, shoes, and mask. Somewhat nervously, he'd followed suit. Now he was having trouble remembering her name as a rush of adrenaline flooded his system. Adelaide? No, Adeline. That's what she said.

"Adeline," he whispered to fix it in his memory.

"Yes?" She replied.

"Oh I, uh, didn't think you could hear me."

"Yeah, it's quiet in here. I think it's soundproofed. No noise comes in at all from the hallway. It's the best room I've ever had."

"Great. Mine is noisy as hell."

His voice died off. He shifted in his chair. He'd forgotten about the awkward part of hooking up where neither person is quite sure when or how to start and you're both feeling each other out, nervous and excited --and yes, still very much horny. Usually this was where he took the lead, but this time...

Adeline sat down on the bed across from his chair with a pair of tiny bottles in one hand and two plastic cups in the other.

"Scotch or gin?" She asked.

"Which one do you want?"

"I'll take the gin, if you don't mind. I think scotch tastes like dirt. They make it with dirt, you know."

"It's smoked with peat," he corrected, accepting the already-opened bottle.

"Which is a soil made up of decayed vegetable matter, a.k.a. dirt."

"First point goes to Adeline. What should our next verbal sparring match be about? Something easy, please, I need a chance to score conversational points too."

Adeline tilted her head back luxuriously as she downed her shot of gin straight from the bottle. Hunter couldn't help noticing that she had a beautiful mouth, full and generous. It was almost like seeing her naked, to see the mouth that had been hidden behind a mask now revealed, naturally pink, with a drop of gin still glistening on her lower lip. How he wanted to suck that drop from her lips!

"Don't be so eager to score." She mock-chided, as if reading his thoughts. "I'd like to keep you at love for a while first."

"Love?"

"Tennis. Zero points is love."

She handed him the scotch in a little plastic glass. He downed it and set the empty cup on the desk. It was a shame to shoot it like that, but he was too riled up to sip slowly.

"Well, here I am at love, waiting for my chance to score, if that's what it's even called in tennis." He said a bit sarcastically, irked at the sports metaphors. Sports weren't really his thing.

"Wonderful, isn't it? The moment before. The moment of possibility. I love this moment." She replied.

There was no sarcasm in her tone. Her voice was sincere, soft and husky with anticipation. Once again Hunter felt himself respond to her, to the intimacy she created when she dropped her witty façade and let her desire show.

He found himself rising without thinking to join her on the bed. She shifted to meet him, dropping the empty gin bottle to the floor so that she could wrap both hands around the back of his neck and head to draw him into a kiss. Hunter kissed her back avidly --God, it had been so long since he'd kissed another human being!-- and reached for the collar of her blouse.

"Do you want to see it?" She breathed into his mouth. "Do you want to see what drew you to me?"

"Yes," he murmured back, not really knowing what she was talking about but willing to go with anything she proposed.

"Look," she whispered in his ear. Then she drew back from him, sliding up the satiny comforter to frame herself against the head of the bed. Nestling into the pillows, she slowly undid the buttons of her white blouse. She did it in such a way that she seemed to be tracing the track of the tattooed zipper, parting the fabric exactly over the line that plunged down between her breasts to her belly. She had no bra on underneath, nothing to interrupt the path of the zipper until she reached the waist of her pants. She pulled the shirttails out from her waistband and threw the white blouse off.

Normally Hunter's eyes would be drawn to a woman's breasts like magnets, but somehow this time it was the line of her tattoo that kept him enthralled. It was so unusual and so realistic. She played her fingers down it, stroking it with the backs of her nails.

"How far down does it go?" He whispered hoarsely.

"Do you want to see?" She asked again.

Not trusting his voice, he nodded.

Sitting up on her knees, she gripped the waistband of her black pants and squirmed slowly, sensually, out of them. She'd hooked her the band of panties--a tantalizing line of black lace-edged satin--in the same move and pulled them down together so that once again there was nothing to interrupt the course of her reveal. She was clean-shaven and the tracks of the tattoo went down across her Venus mound to the cleft of her lips. Her legs were closed so he couldn't see where the teeth ended, but surely she wouldn't get a tattoo that went all the way down there. He was already amazed at her audacity, and apparently high pain tolerance, for getting a tat that went that far.

In a flurry, she tipped back, drew her legs up in front of her and pulled off the pants and panties, flinging them recklessly off the bed. As she sat up again, Hunter was startled to see the zipper catching the light along the length of her undulating belly. Impossible. It wasn't really metal, it couldn't reflect. But look at it flashing! The skin on his back and arms prickled with the sudden conviction that the zipper was real. Horror movies start this way, he thought. She's going to pull it down and there's going to be all kinds of teeth in there and then--

"What is it, Hunter?" Adeline asked. "You have a weird look on your face."

He shook his head. 'Do NOT fuck this up, man. Not now.' He told himself.

"Nothing. It's just your tattoo looked so real, it gave me a creepy feeling for a second."

"Oh, that! I know, isn't it amazing? It's the way the highlighting is done, it matches the contours of my ribs and belly. It's actually white ink. I'll have to get it redone in a couple years because white ink fades faster, but I think the effect is worth it. Feel."

She crawled across the bed toward him and now his eyes did find her breasts as they swung with her motion. They were just how he liked them: full and ripe, without being overly big or fake-looking. He caressed them and was gratified to feel her nipples harden under his hands. She knelt up in front of him, presenting her body art. Almost superstitiously, he touched the tattoo where it ran between her breasts. He laughed at himself as his fingers stroked hot, silky skin. Of course it wasn't real. This wasn't a horror story. This was his own personal live-action porno, and he intended to enjoy it after going so long with only the internet variety to keep him company.

Without any more delay, he quickly undressed and seized her face to kiss her again. She kissed him back for a few moments, but when he began to fumble passionately between her legs she pulled back, giggling, and said,

"Whoa, cowboy. Slow down. Start here." She guided his hand up to the zipper pull. "Start here and stroke it all the way down."

Moving more slowly, he ran his hands from her throat down between her breasts to her belly. She squirmed in sensual delight but didn't open her legs just yet.

"Again!" She said, a note of command surfacing under the childish request.

He brought his hands up again to her throat. This time he moved his hands off the tracks to circle around her breasts and pinch her nipples playfully. She moaned as if she liked it, but then gently pushed his hands with her own back to the line of the zipper.

'She really has a thing for it,' he thought. That was ok with him, though, because this time when he traced the zipper's line down to her belly, she opened her legs for him. He could see the tattoo running over her mound close up now, and follow the dark tracks to the very edge of her folds. Carefully, he brought his mouth down and used his tongue to part her labia. No zipper teeth on the insides of them, thank God. He wasn't sure what he'd think of her if she'd gone that far with it. No, it was just a design, a bold design carried as far as was sensible, but not into psycho territory.

He lapped at her again. She gasped appreciatively.

"Oh, that's good. It's been so long!"

"For me too," he said, clasping her hand.

Then he didn't say much for a while, as his mouth and tongue were fully employed in pleasuring her. When her breath began to come faster with the approach of orgasm, he sat up and hunted around for his pants. There they were. Inside them was a wallet, and inside the wallet was a condom. He peered at the package. Still good.

"It's ok, you don't need it," she said, impatient at the delay.

"I should use it, though. Even if it's been a while, either one of us could have something and not know it. All kinds of diseases can be asymptomatic..."

"No more disease talk! Put it on if you want, but don't say that word again."

"What, asymp---" He broke off laughing as she swatted at him in protest. "I wasn't gonna say it. I'm all good now. We're safe."

He stroked his cock to be sure the condom was unrolled all the way, and then a few more times for good measure, to get ready. Then, after a few more vigorous licks that had Adeline practically begging for it, he plunged into her hot, wet depths.

It was glorious. It was everything he had remembered, or imagined, or dreamt of in his wildest midnight pornhub binges. She seemed to have some sort of control over her insides, as if she was using her pelvic muscles to stroke his cock in rhythmic waves. Probably she did Kegels or something. He had no idea. He could barely think, the pleasure was so overwhelming.

"Touch me here!" She purred, hands stroking her breastbone at the line of the zipper.

He obliged, stretching his hands up as he pumped into her from a kneeling position. His fingers traced the teeth of the zipper. Between her breasts the tattoo felt a little rigid where it crossed bone. He hadn't noticed it before, but then again she was arching against him pretty hard and pressing her ribcage up. He closed his eyes in rapture as his hips continued to thrust against her. His fingers reached for her throat again.

Hard. Something hard, moving beneath his fingertips.

He opened his eyes, but it seemed darker in the windowless room now than it had been before. He could dimly see the zipper and it looked as realistic as ever, but he couldn't tell if it was any different than before. His fingers felt it, though. The contours of a metal zipper, warmed by her body like the zipper on a pair of jeans, so familiar and yet so very out of place, like the unseasonable heat in the autumn city.

"Pull it down." She said. Her tone was definitely a command now.