"Tell you what," he said, "I'll pay you a hundred bucks plus the cost of the tattoo if you'll put on one for me."

I squinted at him. "Don't screw around with me. They're permanent. These mean something to me."

"Maybe that's why I want you to get one. This would matter to me, but I could never get one."

"Why not?" I said, but I already knew. He was white, six feet tall, with straight blonde hair and perfect teeth. His shirt probably cost more than my watch. No way would he violate that perfect body image he had.

"I just can't," he said. "But it would mean a lot to me."

I shrugged. "I can do it. It has to be organic, though. It has to fit what I already have."

"No problem," he said. "I want...

I asked him what it meant. "Strength," he said, a distant look in his eyes.

The next day I had it done. My usually talkative tattoo artist was uncharacteristically quiet in the two hours it took to do the art. Afterwards, he said he had felt inspired. It was the best work he had ever done, he said. I believed him too. The tiger almost seemed alive on the skin of my back, and the green eyes were piercing and seemed to stare straight at me as i gazed over my shoulder into the mirror. The artist took a polaroid and I mailed it to my wealthy patron.

I showered. Probably stupid, I know, but I wasn't thinking. I didn't even think about the blood on the sheets, or how I should clean up -- or if I should clean up. I didn't know what had happened. I shouldn't destroy evidence.

Of course I should clean up. The thought growled in my mind, surging quietly in the confusion of hot water and steam.

The sheet was white. Dazzling white, I thought, such as no fuller on earth could bleach it. Mark chapter nine, the transfiguration.

I hadn't made the bed, but there it was, pristine as though the maid had taken care of it.

Had the maid been in?

I was at home, not on the road. There was no maid. But there was no blood. I had been covered in it. I remembered the stickiness of the sheets, my face in the mirror, scrubbing the blood out of my fingernails.

I walked, stark naked, to the cabinet where I kept the liquor. Glass, two ice cubes from the mini-fridge, three fingers of Glenlivet. I brought the glass to my lips.

I didn't taste it. As soon as I smelled the scotch I felt the voice in my mind again, a deeper growl than before, almost subliminal. You shouldn't drink, it said. It makes you lose your edge.

"I want to lose the edge," I said to the room. My voice sounded foolish and small in my ears, absorbed by the carpeting and papers and bedding. I didn't care. "I want a drink," I said.

Anyone with tattoos like mine gets used to having her body seen by others. I suppose it comes with the territory. I'm used to it.

Well, almost. The stranger wasn't leering at me, quite, but he had a strangely hungry look in his eye that sent shudders down my spine. I caught myself snarling at him under my breath, and changed the guttural growl into words to hurl at him.

"Serve it yourself," I snarled. I was feeling hot-tempered--more so than usual, I suppose, but I think I should be given some allowance for my lack of clothes. I walked quickly over to my closet and stepped inside to rectify my nudity.

"Do you mind if I turn on your television?" The stranger called out to me. I grunted an affirmative reply, pulling a skirt and blouse on. They were modest--a bit more modest than usual, but I didn't want him seeing any more of me than I had to let him.

As I walked back into the bedroom I saw him, bottle of Glenlivet in hand, watching a news program describing what appeared to be a grisly murder and kidnapping. All the evidence suggested that the damage had been done by some kind of big cat. The stranger looked at me and smiled. I felt the blood drain out of my face.

Striding to the door to demand his exit, I realized he hadn't entered that way -- the door was still locked from the inside. I spun around and went to the window to make him leave the way he came, but it was closed, too. My confusion swelled into anger when I turned again and saw him smirking. "The sooner you accept your fate, the easier this will be for you," he said. "Trust me."

Trust yourself, said the voice. Now I wish I had heeded its advice sooner.

"Whatever it is you want, why don't you do it yourself?" I demanded.

What was in that tattoo ink?

I did not look human anymore! I could see white fur sprouting all over my body. My face was feline, whiskers growing longer on either side of my now fanged mouth. I froze for a split second to try and comprehend what I was seeing, but then I turned to him, full of rage. What had he done to me?

The words came to mind unbidden. They were just there. Alive. In my head. My legs bent in a painful zigzag. I shifted my center. The painful transformation was complete. My clothes lay rent upon the floor. I hadn't known that I'd torn them off, until I noticed the threads poked out of my elongated claws. My senses were amazing. Everything was so accentuated, so clear.

Him.

I could smell him. He smelled of sweat and rage. Then he made a terrible scent. It almost made me gag. He was marking his territory. It was so potent! The scent was as bad as a skunk. I shivered. My mind raced; I could only imagine how bad the smell of a skunk had gotten.

quote:

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Stepping out of the story for a moment.

Summary:

• Tattooed woman gets a new tattoo because a man pays her to. (Everyone caught the fact that we didn't identify gender up front, and LaserLips made the MC a woman, right? For me it was quite a jolt.)
• MC wakes up in her home, drenched in blood.
• She showers, even though it may be destroying evidence. A voice in her mind encourages her.
• When she leaves the shower, she discovers that the room is completely clean and the man is there.
• The TV says that a large cat has killed someone, but the man says it wasn't the MC; the man says he will "release" her when she stops the killer from striking again.
• MC turns into a werecat.

I don't feel like I really know the character, and I really don't know what the man is all about. Some of those would be fleshed out if we weren't writing beginning to end and collectively, but that's part of the interest of this form of writing; however, we should probably answer a few questions within the next few entries.

• What is unique about this main character that makes her reaction to this situation interesting? E.g., does she start to relish her role as avenger or protector? Does she hate the man enough to fight everything he does? Is the werecat essence she has acquired in conflict with her, so that she has to fight to control herself, or is it an enhancement of her usual character?
• Who is this rage-filled man who wants the to stop the other cat, and what are his overt motivations? (And in the back of our hive-mind we should be thinking about what covert motivations he may have as well.) Is he a real person, a dead person, a demon, a necromancer, the lackey of a necromancer?
• What is the nature of the other cat? For example, is it really a predator? Was the "murder" really a justified killing of an evil person?

We should attempt to use the contradictions that have been built into the story (a rage-filled, apparently evil man (who "marks his territory"?) trying to prevent further gruesome murders; the impulse in the MC's mind vs. the man's overt conversation; the blood on the bed, even though the MC didn't commit the murder; maybe more) to make the story go in an unusual direction -- but one that should clean up the contradictions. I have a few thoughts on where this could go, and some might be too obvious here, but they should really come out in additional entries.

We should also attempt to set specific goals for the MC and possibly the man, since right now there isn't much to go on. Also, of course, the types of goals selected would characterize the characters.

---

My vote is that he's a murder victim, a ghost. That's the real reason why he couldn't get a tattoo.

"What is the nature of the other cat? For example, is it really a predator? Was the "murder" really a justified killing of an evil person?"

I'd tie that in to whoever killed the rage-filled man--as I'm making him a victim of the real bad guy.

"We should attempt to use the contradictions that have been built into the story (a rage-filled, apparently evil man (who "marks his territory"?) trying to prevent further gruesome murders; the impulse in the MC's mind vs. the man's overt conversation; the blood on the bed, even though the MC didn't commit the murder; maybe more) to make the story go in an unusual direction -- but one that should clean up the contradictions."

Going along with what I've already said, I'd posit that there really wasn't any blood, only a hallucination by the MC due to a psychic link with the killer-cat. Don't know about the other contradictions, but I agree they are great and intriguing guidelines.

"I have a few thoughts on where this could go, and some might be too obvious here, but they should really come out in additional entries."

I dunno about the rest of you, but I only take collaborative stuff as an opening exercise. I'm all for letting this blow in the wind at the start, but eventually I'd have to rein it in and actually tie everything together. After that, I'm all for a new collaborative prompt.

"We should also attempt to set specific goals for the MC and possibly the man, since right now there isn't much to go on. Also, of course, the types of goals selected would characterize the characters."

I sat back on my haunches and watched the stranger. My mind struggling to assert itself over the new personality. My wiccan training surged to the fore and I found myself repeating the mantra, 'Do no harm'.

"Because without me, you can't control the beast you've become. And besides, you can't do anything to hurt me. Go ahead, try." He said, lips twitching up into an evil smile.

That was all the permission I needed, I leapt in an instant, straight for his throat. And promptly crashed into the dresser on the far side of the room. The mirror tilted precariously on the wall before sliding to the ground, shattering loudly.