wedding tattoo
We were standing around the tiki lounge sharing a scorpion bowl with four or five good friends when the couple next to us struck up conversation. They used salt daddy’s tattoos as an entry point, as strangers often do.
“Nice ink!” Said the woman, a blonde MILF-type with long bleached hair and fake boobs neatly presented in her leopard push-up bra. “My boyfriend just got tattooed today,” and she volunteered the hand of a gruff 40-something man next to her.
“How’s it goin. I’m Beau,” he introduced himself as the MILF gently rotated his saran-wrapped paw in front of us, a mix of brown blood and black ink swirling with the movement. Beau looked the perfect match for this cougar with his tattered denim vest and biker tattoos crawling up a leathery neck.
“Wow, looks great,” we all said through our teeth.
“Where did you get it done?” salt daddy offered. As the boys started talking shop, Miss MILF turned her attention to me. “And aren’t you just the prettiest little thing. Do you have any tattoos love?”
“I do. Actually the one on my husband’s arm is our wedding tattoo, I have the same one on my upper thigh.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it.
“Ohhh! Let me see,” she said in a too-high voice for her age, silicon orbs gently bobbing as she leaned over to grab my hand. I reluctantly lifted my dress to reveal the big gold anchor with a blue compass rose at its center, set against persimmon-red flowers.
“Beautiful,” she admired. “That thing is huge. Let’s hope you two never break up.”
Blondie must have seen my face twisting with the possibility that the wedding tattoo could have a shelf life. My hand softly glossed over the ink, as if to comfort it against traumatic images of losing its other half.
“I mean, Beau had a tattoo from his X wife. I hated it. I made him cover it up,” she backpedaled. “He doesn’t like my X any better than I like his. But now we have each other,” she winked as she excused herself to smoke a cigarette with Beau and half our table.
At first I brushed off her reaction and told myself that this divorcee and her boyfriend were different than us - and different than we would ever be. But as the night went on and our scorpion bowls kept rolling, the comment kept resurfacing in my increasingly drunken thoughts. I replayed the conversation to everyone in our group, imitating the MILF’s voice with a little more sarcasm and snarl as my blood alcohol level got higher. Hers was becoming the voice of the enemy, the voice of my deepest fears.
No one else thought anything of it. “Who cares, just look at them,” salt daddy’s best friend pointed out. “They’re a different breed altogether.”
Still, deep down her skepticism had struck a chord. It feels safe to enter in to the sanctity of marriage, an impenetrable fortress that keeps out doubt and cheating and heartbreak. Right? But you take one look around the world - at divorced parents, at Madmen, at celebrities, at the couple next to you in the tiki lounge - and you can’t deny that the fortress of marriage is often breached.
I doubt anyone ever walks down the aisle thinking, “we’re going to break up one day.” But it happens 50% of the time. So how can I know for sure that we’re any different? That we’re any better than the other half of marriages that will inevitably fail, one breached drawbridge at a time?
I used to feel entirely insecure after watching shows like Madmen. Every time Don Draper cheated on one of his wives, my deep little fear was reinforced. This could happen to me. Every time I heard about a couple that broke up, cheating or otherwise, the same little fear was stoked. This could happen to me.
But we’re stronger, right? We’re better?
When we got home from the bar, I kept telling salt daddy what the MILF had said to me. “I don’t ever want to cover up this tattoo!” I cried.
“You don’t have to,” salt daddy comforted me. “We’re not breaking up. I love you.”
“What if things change? What if we get old and things change,” I slurred.
“You are the most important thing in my life. And that will never change.”
Even as the room started to spin from one too many rum concoctions, I knew he was telling the truth. “You’re the most important thing to me too.”
I went to bed feeling reassured that night, but every so often that looming insecurity of an unknown future finds its way into my thoughts again. I’m learning that instead of seeing those fears as truth, I can take it one day at a time and recognize the truth of our relationship right now. We love each other. We take care of each other. I trust my salt daddy and I trust his intentions with all my heart.
And doesn’t he deserve my trust? He’s no Don Draper. He’s no Don Juan. He’s my salt daddy, and no matter where our relationship takes us, one thing will remain permanently engraved along the way: a gold anchor and blue compass rose, always leading me to true north. Always leading me home.
