Skin Care Regime
Written By: Rebecca Kemp My fingers caressed the new bottle, the words shone brightly in my fluorescent bathroom lights, promises that I knew would be granted.
Skin Care Regime
Written By: Rebecca Kemp
My fingers caressed the new bottle, the words shone brightly in my fluorescent bathroom lights, promises that I knew would be granted. I plucked it from the counter, the bubble of joy popped in my stomach, and it gurgled up my esophagus into a croaked laugh, a moment of closure, of finality. Now that I finally had it, I wanted to rub it like a genie in a bottle, but I had already been granted everything I needed. I cleaned my face. That is what it said to do. Dry lightly with an Egyptian silk cloth. Steam your face with mineral water for five minutes. Pat dry again. I opened the lid, and the click matched the beat of my heart, an orgasmic pop, like the loss of virginity. The cream sludged out across my fingers, a pearlescent off-white in the light. I slid it softly across my cheeks; I watched my fingers in the mirror, smearing the mask across my skin. I went lightly at first, like the touch of a new lover, but excitement filled me, and my fingers grasped for more and more and more as the person looking back at me became whiter and whiter, until only my eyes peering back at a satisfied me. I went and laid down. The bottle said to wait twenty minutes. Five minutes and the tingling began. I laughed and laughed, giddiness gurgling out of my pores. Ten minutes, I couldn’t feel my face, my eyes stung with tears of joy. Fifteen minutes, my body spasmed lovingly on the sheets, and I screamed my voice hoarse. The alarm went off, and I rushed to the bathroom and splashed the prepared warm water on my face. The rosy cream slopped into the sink, my fingers dashed over my skin, my cheeks, chin, and forehead, the sound of it falling slapped the porcelain, staining it and the surrounding counter red. I looked in the mirror and screamed, joy filling me as my tendons stretched, blood gushing from the remaining skin that patched my face together, a pulp of continents on a fleshy map. I considered doing a second round. My hand shook as my vision dimmed, encompassing the glistening white bottle. My teeth rattled in my grit smile. I felt beautiful for the first time in my life, my skin splattering in chunks on my white tile floor as I poked the muscle, now exposed, my chin, my cheeks, my forehead. A laugh ripped through my throat. I was everything I could be, everything I wanted, and all I had to do was work on my inner beauty. Right? That’s what people always say, that you’re beautiful inside and out? Now I could ensure I was both. I mean, how was I supposed to work on my inner beauty with all that skin in the way?
Rebecca Kemp is a writer based in Ontario, Canada. She specialises in feminist horror and absurdist fiction.