Veni. Vidi. Amavi

"Veni. Vidi. Amavi."

“What’s the story behind your tattoo?” he asked as he traced it with his fingers. “We came, we saw, we loved”. “I got it on my shoulder just for this…,” I smiled playing with his fingers, “but for someone else long ago. He would kiss me there every time we finished making love”.

He looked uncomfortable, perhaps from having stepped in a dead man’s shoes without realizing it. I could sense he was thinking of a joke to lighten the mood, as others had before… I wondered if it would be the lame pun on “we came”, or a late “wasn’t that some old king’s line?” or “hey, I saw a MasterCard spoof on that!”, but he didn’t.

He stayed silent and pulled me closer. I sighed, and realized I’d been holding my breath. “He’s different,” I thought to myself. And that’s when it hit me; he’d never asked me what it meant. He’d already known.