When I'm inking her skin, I enter another zone where the normal world is dreamlike. My entire focus centers on the flesh beneath my fingers. Tattooing has always been my escape. With her, it's different in so many ways-the softness of her skin, the shiver that occasionally passes along her back and shoulders, and the timbre of her voice. The dark swirls of my past infiltrate her skin just like the ink. But unlike the ink, she absorbs the darkness and turns it light. She's playing ...