Claire and I broke up because of Johnny Cash. Now, years removed, I want to tell myself it was more than that. Something more mature. Nothing as simplistic, as shallow. But the truth, like death, is unavoidable. It knows the reason why: Johnny fucking Cash.

I met Claire in a wine store; she was training to become a sommelier. She was short and fit, with rust-colored curls that fell across her face. I feigned an interest in a Chilean red, and we flirted. Her voice had a raspy Janis Joplin quality to it, like she smoked too many cigarettes as a child. It was sexy. I asked her to dinner.

A few days later, we went to a tapas bar that was reputed to have an extensive wine list.

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As soon as we were seated, Claire brushed the hair from her eyes and asked, "So, what do you think of tattoos?"

She wanted to cut the foreplay and get right to it, sidestep the formality of childhood pets and high-school English teachers. Even as she asked, I could see the beginnings of a rose bush peeking out from the sleeve of her blouse. The vines entwined with the veins of her wrist, the roses black.

"I suppose the right ones, on the right woman, can be sexy," I said.

As soon as it left my mouth, I knew it was a lame noncommittal response. A politician's answer.

"Well, I have a lot," she said with her eyes on mine.

As she listed each tattoo and its location on her body, I realized what she was doing, and I loved her for it: she was saving me — and herself — from the awkwardness of the uninformed reveal. Over dinner, Claire delved into the back stories of her body art. Some were simple enough. She had a giant purple squid on her shoulder because she liked squids. Why not? Below her left breast was a lacrosse stick memorializing her high school athletics. All-righty. A shamrock because she was Irish, a skull-and-crossbones from a temporary Goth phase. At some point, though, her stories veered off the road of symbolism and headed precariously towards regret. A drunken night in San Diego garnered her the zodiac symbol for Pisces. (Claire is a Taurus.) On the flesh over her lower back was a flaming blue cauldron emblazoned with — wait for it — the words "BAD ASS."

I believe the Bible says something about not passing judgment if you're trying to get laid.

"I've tried to put happy and beautiful things on my body in the hope that it would make me feel happy and beautiful," Claire told me during dessert.

I realize now that this statement was laden with body-esteem issues and general emotional baggage. At the time, though, it seemed like an honest summation. Five glasses of wine and as many weeks without sex had shut down my "crazy" radar. When she asked if I wanted to go back to her place, I naturally said yes.

My feelings about Claire's ink didn't fully coalesce until we were in her bed, undressing each another. This was it: her unveiling, her one-woman show. Even though I knew what to expect — all her characters were present and accounted for — I was still taken aback. Clad solely in black panties, covered in these drawings bereft of any real meaning, her body didn't look so much sexy as it did comical, commercialized, like I was about to have sex with the cereal aisle. Even so, I decided to ignore my feelings for the sake of our unfolding sexual drama. I believe the Bible says something about not passing judgment if you're trying to get laid. I made a move for her underwear.

"Wait," she said. "I have another tattoo I didn't tell you about."

"Okay," I said, the blood returning north to help power my imagination.

Claire then told me how she used to sing in this Johnny Cash cover band, and how much his music meant to her. She said his voice and lyrics conveyed a lifetime of pain, loss, love and faith.

And this is why Claire then told me, "I have Johnny Cash tattooed on my pussy."