His and hers

Some friends and I canoed the Spring River on Saturday. Three couples rode the outfitter's bus with us (it had Hardy Baptist Church on its side, under a not-very-convincing coat of white paint). They were from Stuttgart, Arkansas, and they thought it a grand idea to get inked up the evening before spending all day on the river. They were bored, one of the men explained, and there was a nice little parlor in town.

The tats were covered with shiny goo. One man got a heart-shaped deadbolt on his wrist, and his wife got a key on hers. Another man got a buck-head, and his wife got a doe-head. The third couple's tats didn't play off each other, causing us some concern as to the state of their marriage. The wife got an American Indian head-dress, and I can't remember the man's.  But she also had a name (his?) on her ankle from a previous parlor visit.