My gorgeous hubby will be the very first to tell you that some of his tattoos were crazy teenage/early 20s mistakes. Like the alien in the human uterus. (One time, our Mexican restaurant waiter switched tables with another waiter after asking Jackson what, in fact, the tattoo was. It must have freaked him out.) Or the Buddha with back-to-back aliens behind it. Or the creepy spider-looking one on the inside of his right wrist.
“That’s not a spider, Aimee,” he just told me. “It’s a tribal face.”
Aaaaah, well, I wondered! (He has an intense arachnophobia.) Still, looks like a spider to me.
Jackson’s favorite tattoos are the ones of his children’s names—each on his upper arms—but he has eight in all.
“Eight is enough,” he just joked. (Remember that TV show from the 70’s? What a dork.)
Jackson’s tattoos have never been an issue for me, turn-off or turn-on. They’re just a part of him. And once upon a time, I even had my own tattoo. Yes, that’s right: had, past tense, meaning I no longer have it. It was a sunflower, about the size of a 50-cent piece, located near my right hipbone. It’s completely gone now, but that’s another story. One that’s included in THE BOOK, I might add—well, kinda.
Anyway, Jackson’s newest tattoo will be #9—he doesn’t have it quite yet—and since he’s turning 40 this summer, he won’t really be able to count it as some young, dumb, spontaneous choice. This tattoo is one he promised me almost five years ago, during the summer of 2012, when we first started dating.
Jackson knew I had just begun my Master’s Degree program in creative writing then, and he also knew that someday, I wanted to write my own book to hopefully be published. As I struggled through writing my thesis, sometimes threatening to give up and quit, frustrated and bummed by how difficult the task ahead of me was, he would remind me of this promise.
And it has now almost come to fruition. I’m so excited!
Jackson promised, pinky swore, and crossed his heart that one day, when I had my own book written and published and in his hands, he would be happy to have my name, in my handwriting, tattooed across his a** cheek—an autograph of sorts.
I’m just going to add one more stipulation, Prince Charming. Since we were married during the past five years, and I legally added your name to mine, I think it should also be included in that tattoo: ‘Aimee Ross.’ Yes, that’s it. Or maybe even ‘Aimee Ross’s.’
Don’t ya think?
P.S. NO one backs out of pinky promises, Jackson.
Aimee Ross 
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