Skin Sin

-This short story was originally published on The Cadaverine Magazine website in 2008 (www.thecadaverine.com) and then featured in The Cadaverine Anthology in 2009 which used to be sold in Borders, and now... I'm not sure where it's sold.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

I nodded knowing that I wasn’t. Next to my lavender and geranium oils were the pills, massive white things, little corpses asking me to join them. Geranium did not make me any happier, lavender didn’t settle my mind. Jonny stared at me and I found myself simply blinking in response, as if that was the only thing I could do, as if every single sinking and rising movement of my eyelids was a great achievement, like it was the only thing I needed in the world. And at that precise moment I suppose it was.

I would prolong the feeling of hunger by not eating because I wanted to see how thin I could get. I wanted to see my skin stretch over my bones, the traitor and liar of a skin I had, pale and useless. I enjoyed feeling my muscles struggle, screaming for nourishment. Nobody cared at work. They had their own anorexia to deal with amongst other more consumer driven dilemmas. Big brand coffee and designer purses.

Most of the customers coming in assumed I was gay for being a skinny white boy working in a natural cosmetics shop. They didn’t use that word but delved into their minimal vocabularies to find better and harsher replacements. They never said anything.

But I could still hear them.

And I assume that’s how it happened. The depression came seeping through my skin and made it my enemy, the false shelter against exterior dangers. Because the real danger was inside me. I could tell because Christina kept snapping at me, for almost anything I did. Bought the wrong bread. Chewed too loudly. Changed the channel in the middle of the ad she found interesting to analyse. Christina thrived on picking adverts apart and explaining conscious and unconscious goals within them. It was as if the Holy Grail was somewhere inside them, or an explanation for the meaning of life. I knew nothing could explain the meaning of life, and Christina hated me for my scepticism. I just thought I was being realistic.

“I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” she said one evening, licking the spoon clean of chocolate pudding.

“What do you mean?” I said, foolishly thinking that she was talking about late night desserts or the art of spoon licking. There was metal shining through, and for a moment her tongue looked absurd. The reflection in the spoon made her tongue look like a cow’s tongue, but for a second I thought that distorted red thing was attached to hers. I wondered why the spoon and the real world had merged, or how I had been able to perceive it so. Not knowing what was an exaggerated mirror image for what was really there. I knew Christina’s tongue so well.

“Us,” she added. So it had finally happened. My heart shattered when she said it, but I had to agree. I loved her for everything she was, her smooth dark skin was perfection against my pale enemy. But it would never work between us, we both knew it when we first got together yet we defied it; moving in together and being a couple for seven years. Slowly her things began to disappear from our flat, along with her presence. I was supposed to move too; there was not a chance that I could afford our flat on my own but I couldn’t bring myself to get started.

The stench of old food kept spreading. I found it difficult to locate the source, but I guessed it was between the grease stained bags somewhere, scattered over the floor. All I thought about was Christina. She was everywhere in the flat, her body had left an imprint only I could see on everything I owned. It strained my lungs, brought fire to my throat. And my skin seemed to devour me, the white ghost crawling over me, clawing for my bones. My twig fingers could only dig so deep into my skull. And my skin wouldn’t relax, my chest felt like it would explode. The next moment I was alright but hollow, empty and useless. I felt guilty for everything. I felt bad for keeping her for as long as I did. When I could motivate myself to move I thought I had to do something about my anxiety attacks.

First solution: self harm. How many times had I read or watched films about poor anxiety-filled youths that cut themselves to ease their inner pain? Not perhaps the most efficient method but it saved me from pouring my heart out to some shrink. I rushed into the bathroom and grabbed my razor. I had to stare at it for a while to really contemplate what I was going to do, and then, very frightened, I let it glide over my arm. The adrenaline wouldn’t allow much me to take notice of pain and as I looked down I saw that there was no mark. Braver, though I felt more scared now than before, I did it again, forcing it down and when I felt that it cut through skin I swished it quickly across my arm. It stung like a right bastard, but left only two minor caverns. Nothing to brag about and nothing worth hiding. It began to burn quite ferociously but my inner angst was still there. Only now instead of being miserable I was miserable and in pain.

Second solution: Shrink. I saw a nurse a week after booking a spot in their busy schedule and she let me know, quite patiently, that it was only my GP who could refer me to a counsellor, and that this counsellor only allowed six visits before deciding if psychiatric treatment was necessary or not. I booked an appointment for the following week, repeating what to say inside my head, writing a whole script. The idea was to convince him I was not another lovesick guy, yet maintain my problems inside me. There was a lot of history that I didn’t wish to share so quickly.

It was a young doctor. I mentioned my problems and why I was there. I told him about the fear of my skin eating me alive but fearing for it to break so anyone would be allowed to see me for what I really was. He thought I was joking and asked me to specify why I needed to see a counsellor. Like it was a test. Then he suggested going to the gym. I squirmed in my chair, feeling my nails pressing into the palms of my hands. The pain now, was good.

“Working up a sweat releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. There’s an eight week queue to see Margaret, our counsellor. You may want to think about exercise first and if that doesn’t help maybe we can put you onto the list.”

I felt shamed, and panicky. I murmured something about hating the gym. That it was a place I could see the anxiety return ten-fold. But he wasn’t taking me seriously.

“How ‘bout aerobics? A lot of men do it, it gives a great trim.”

But I knew what he meant.

“You’ll feel happier and perhaps shed some calories.”

Apparently my starvation didn’t show. So I felt further shamed. He named gyms and lessons, and prices. Asked about my availability, and snorted at my reluctance and part time job. I could see his biceps perfect under the white coat. I answered him but I wasn’t really listening. All I could think of was my skin. The way I wanted to rip it off, the way I’ve seen it done to snakes in documentaries. A slash in the middle and the skin pulled off. Tenderises the meat. I wanted to do that to his biceps. See the muscles well out. He thanked me for coming, and said to return if the gym failed.

Solution three: Suicide. Endorphins could not solve any of my inner dilemmas. If I had taken up sports, every morning before work, I would be the happiest miserable man in the world. And I would eventually have killed myself. I decided to skip the middle section and just go for death.

Deciding on the method became my reason to get up in the morning. My life mattered very little to the world when I was alive. I wanted my death to be meaningful. I wanted to be remembered, not only as statistic. I did research. I read books about the science of death, the religion in death, the philosophy and psychology of death. It was like an obsession, to die. I searched the internet, and stumbled into some odd sites and they proved to be exactly what I was looking for.

Meeting Jonny I kept thinking of that German man who ate his friend. Jonny showed his camera proudly, a new one with better frame quality than the last.

“Have you done this before?” I asked.

“Nothing so extreme. But it’ll sell well. I’ll see to it that your name will be remembered in certain circles. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

He spoke of me as if I was already dead.

“And about the method, are you scared of any kind of pain? I don’t mind at all if you want to bring your own stuff, you know. I ain’t paying you any, so you should choose how to go.”

I kept wondering what kind of snuff films this man had done before. I hope it had nothing to do with rape or animal torture. I felt disgusted being near him, his yellow grin was greedy and mean. And it reminded me of why I was doing it in the first place.

“I wouldn’t know what to take.” I was so shit at cutting my arm with a razor, I wouldn’t even want to know what would happen with heavier methods.

“I feel quite creative. How ‘bout a mixture? Drugs. Sedatives. Poisons. I wonder what happens when you do a mix of things. Might make the film more interesting.”

I shrugged. He spoke of it like the GP had talked about exercise.

“One condition,” I said. “There must be a gun there. I’ll take whatever you want, but if I can’t handle it, if you give me something to prolong my death, I want the quick option next to me.”

I realised that it wouldn’t offer me much security. I might not be able to control my hands and I had a feeling that Jonny wouldn’t exactly be the type to finish me off at the request. He would film it and rejoice if I pleaded for mercy.

I said my name into the camera and promised that I had fully agreed to kill myself and be filmed doing it, allowing the film to be distributed in whichever underground societies it would find its way into. I stared at those pills, they all looked the same but I knew that this was the experiment he was after, making sure I had no idea what I was taking. Huge white soulless things. They kind of looked like enemas.

Without much thinking my skin settled nicely over my bones and I felt at home with myself. My hair smelled of naturally scented soap, honey and vanilla. I rose and thanked Jonny.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

“I have decided against death and for life,” I said humbly, proud of myself for finally being able to make a decision.

“We had a contract!”

“We had a verbal agreement, and as you aren’t paying me I think that I should be able to choose life over death if I so wish. Don’t worry man, I won’t give you up or anything. Let’s see it as if we haven’t met ever before.”

But Jonny resembled a bull more than a man, his red cheeks swallowing his glistening eyes.

I walked away and found that my happiest moment in life, was a second before I heard the gun blast and felt a bullet punch through my skull.

Lynx Cycle (First published 2007 in the Cadaverine Magazine: www.thecadaverine.com)

When she was born her grandmother looked over her little pink body, dark framing eyelashes and yellow eyes and declared that her name should be Loa. Her old and fragile voice crackled in a rough Swedish, whereas her father, completely Finnish with no sole drop of the Swedish language in him, merely grunted like a dog ready to bark. Loa’s mother struggled in giving birth long enough and then her body gave in and her soul escaped in a trickle of smoke nobody else could see than the infant Loa.
Loa was raised on a farm out in the deep Finnish woods, with mighty pine and deceiving spruce enclosing the landscape, and a lake at the edge of the fields. The farmer spoke seldom to his daughter, he mainly managed sheep and cows, and crops. A girl in the house was not something he could manage, so their communication lessened until it almost only consisted by body language, comprehended by nodding or shrugging.

The house was old, red painted with white corners. Inside rested the large black stove where usually a fire crackled, bread in the making. Their television set was old, black and white and seldom used. Indeed technology was something Loa learned to fear as electricity was like the lightning in the thunderstorm and she feared the storms, hiding under the kitchen table with the dogs.
At school she found herself an outsider, but not because she was different. She faded into the background and spoke very little. Her hair was dirty blond, soft as fur, and her eyes yellow and gleaming. She had dark and long eyelashes, making her one of the prettiest girls in school, and attractive in her father’s friends’ eyes. Her skin was pure and strong and would endure falls without as much as a cut on her knee. Over her back were dark, big freckles that emerged over her shoulders on a hot summer day like growing clusters of parasites.
Loa sat on the floor fiddling with a kitten. Her father was out in the fields with the other farmers, the Scandinavian cowboys, discussing moonshine and cattle.
She heard them talk about a lynx out in the woods, a male. She could hear them far across the fields; something she had been taught in school was a matter of empty distances and the speed of sound. But she could hear them as clearly as if she would be sitting nearby with the kitten biting into her fingers. They worried about the sheep, grazing at night with a predator near, but her father corrected them, saying that a lynx will not attack livestock as long as the woods have enough deer and hares. Certainly it would move along soon; lynxes were traveling animals.
Loa grew worried over the cats on the farm; she had heard that lynxes tended to go for domestic pets. The dogs went into a barking frenzy as her grandmother came back to the yard.

In the winter her grandmother fell ill and would not recover because her age would not allow it. She was placed in a hospital, where Loa insisted her father to drive her to every day.
“I will not live through this winter, grandchild,” she said in her country Swedish. Loa’s father merely grunted.
“But you must not cry, Loa dear. I will travel to another place where my heart will be at rest and from there I shall be watching you. But I don’t want to leave this world without having you know a thing or two. Your father knows very little of children and you must not hold that against him. He is a working man, with blistered and rough hands and his heart in the fields. You are not like him Loa, your heart beats in the woods. It has been fourteen years since you blessed our lives, but you are still a child. Before I leave this world I advice you not yield for your father’s friends, they are a bunch of dirty old men. There is a man for you somewhere, Loa, and his heart; it too beats in the woods. You will be entering womanhood soon, and things will begin to change. I can already see your breasts peaking under your shirt.”
Loa shifted in her seat, embarrassed by her grandmother’s remark. She carefully turned her head in her father’s direction and was glad to see the old man’s face occupied in the latest gossip magazine, reading about a local politician’s extravaganza with some younger women.
“Womanhood will prove to be a difficult thing, my dear. Your body will begin to change. You will experience hair growth. You will experience the change of your moods and interest. And there shall be a monthly visitor, which will frighten you at first, but you will soon grow accustomed to it. But by this change the world will begin to notice you, they will smell your fertility. Be careful with what you give away, Loa dear. You might want it back. And keep away from those dirty men by the fields. Keep your heart in the woods.”

The following week, when Loa was dressed and ready to go see her grandmother her father simply shrugged.
“Why not?” she asked, frustrated.
“Grandmother died yesterday.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she did. They rang from the hospital.” Her father helped himself to a biscuit to have with his coffee. Loa wandered outside, weeping like a child. She patted snowballs in her hands and threw them at the house. The balls banged against the wall until she could hear her father growl from inside. She ran and hid in the hay loft, trembling of hate and drowning in her grief.

The funeral was dark and cold. The snow under her heels was soft as mush, water slowly sipping into her shoes. She didn’t mind the cold. As the casket was lowered into that dark pit in the midst of snow and flowers, she dried her tears bravely.
Afterwards her father cut her a piece of chocolate cake at the reception. Her grandmother had few friends, all of which had turned up at the event to salute the old woman. But they found Loa peculiar and spoke very little with her. Her yellow eyes were abnormal, they said among each other. When she looks at you it feels as if the devil is staring right into your soul.
It was a new moon when the change arrived. Loa felt confused and distressed but calmed herself as she remembered her grandmother’s words. Out there in the woods was another heart beating, waiting for her. She stood by the hay barn looking out at the black distance. Her fingers ached as the nails started to grow. Her shoulders caved in and she fell onto her knees where the transformation prospered. Her clothes ripped, and she pulled them off because she felt them closing in on her territory, straining her of freedom. It was midwinter but she wasn’t cold. Her thick fur brushed the cold away. She pressed her claws back into the paws; there was very little pain all in all. She smelled things, rats and hares in the woods. Her ears stood up, the little tufts of fur channelling the sounds around her. One paw at a time, she made her way to the woods.
She hunted for birds, and her body was slender and strong. She caught something, a hare white in the snow, and ate it slowly with not a fear in the world. By the next morning she found a comfortable shadow to lie in, the sun felt blistering on her skin.
She hunted the woods for more nights, her bigger front paws making marks in the clear snow, her back paws shifting. She stayed away from the farm, knowing there were cats and dogs around. She didn’t want to tempt herself with flesh that would make her loathe herself if she ate it.
One evening she could feel another transformation. The fur grew thinner and she found it hard to stand on her four legs. She moved closer to the farm and stopped by the barn, now waiting.
She woke the next morning, naked in the snow, freezing. She ran back to the house. It was still early and her father would be feeding the cattle now. She could slip into the house nude, unnoticed.
“So it suits you to return now, does it?” he asked. His daughter had been missing for four days. He didn’t think much of it. She was a teenager and probably had a gang she could set hell lose with. There was probably a boy involved. Hopefully she wouldn’t come home with a child in the belly. If she did the kid would be her problem. Not his.
Loa sat in the chair, in pyjamas, warming her fingers by the stove. She said nothing and smiled into the flames.

People were noticing her. Especially boys. Her father’s friends gave her long looks on their visits. As they would get drunk after a night in the sauna they often approached her, wanting to touch and cuddle. But Loa knew her ways around the woods and could keep away. At school the boys made efforts to talk to her, and the girls started nasty rumours about her, which spread like the plague. This kept some of the boys at bay; they were in an age where reputation was gold and embarrassment death. Loa didn’t care, and her rebellious attitude gave her nothing but grief. But at the next new moon she walked out to the barn and undressed in the cold night. She slowly transformed again, fur upon skin, claws over nails, and her posture sinking. But as she transformed she didn’t whimper like the first time. She purred.
Her father was complaining about a lynx moving too close to his barn. If a lynx was approaching society it could only mean they were low on wild animals to feed upon or that they carried a disease. Loa thought how sad it was for the lynx to approach humans when dying as if wanting a touch, a speck of love before the eternal dark. Her father looked at her with silent dispute and forbid her to touch the lynx should it approach. Probably mad. Probably needs to get shot. This was a warning enough for Loa. By the next new moon she transformed inside the forest, and kept away from the farm at all times.

In March the nights were becoming very hot in lynx’s fur. She halted in the soft snow at the discovery of a new scent. She could hear something deeper in the woods, a short shout which repeated. It was like a moan, or a bark of sorts, repeating in a rhythm over the lake. It came as a heartbeat channelling through the tufts on her ears. She smiled, her bright yellow eyes blinking. She followed the scent eagerly and stopped at the sight of a man, a male, in front of her. Instantly her instincts raged, and she cowered letting a low growl rise from her throat. The male snickered, larger than she, and jumped on her and they rolled in the snow, biting each other. Her claws dug into his sides and he responded in a deep bite in her neck. The pain throbbed and she halted, whimpering. The male let go and began licking the wound. She then responded in licking his fur, matting it with her big tongue. He purred and pushed his head against her jaw, a scent transferring from his fur to hers and inside she could feel her heart jump a pace.
She and the male hunted deer together, which they feasted on in the falling evening. There after they mated, heated in animal instinct and love.

She felt strange, sitting in the house. Her stomach had had some kind of bad reaction to their dinner, she could only sit and hold it. As the month passed she knew she was expecting cubs. April came with showers and snow, and she transformed only to find her lover’s scent to have faded and him to be gone. But inside, somewhere between her growing babies she knew that he would return come next March.
Her father noticed in May how his daughter’s belly had grown and shook his head. He followed her with his eyes as she caressed the swollen stomach lovingly. There was a strange gleam in her eyes, feline. He associated this feminine attribute with evil, he began hauntingly eye every man and boy he met to see if there was a glimmer of guilt inside them. Her daughter certainly was no dog. Who the hell had disgraced her? Was it his friends and co-workers? Or someone from that gang she possibly hung out with? But the phone had never rung for her, not even teachers worrying of her increasing absence. The teachers of her school fully understood the female issues which arrived every month. They understood that it might give too much discomfort for a girl of her age to be in school. They never questioned her belly.
Loa walked out in the woods in June, at the new moon. It was still cold though summer had stubbornly melted all of the snow and planted green on the trees. Her stomach ached badly, and as her body took to the usual transforming she wept. Her stomach was heavy, and she circled the area to see it was safe. She found a place behind a large rock in the hillside and lay down. She was frightened, and wished for her lover to be present.
She gave birth to two cubs in the night, and she licked them clean. They suckled at her teats for the next four days, until she transformed back to human form. She sat, famished for she had had very little to eat, and the cubs kept suckling at her breasts. She made them a small nest of clothes, and brought more each day to cover them. At nights she made a small fire, eating chocolate with her cubs eating at her breasts.
Her father noticed the belly had gone, and was glad. Maybe his daughter had only gained weight? But his eyes still stayed suspiciously on her large breasts, and he kept wondering where the child was all days.

As the cubs wanted more on their menu than milk, Loa brought them raw meat. At the new moon she took them hunting, but found it difficult. The two little mouths were difficult to please, and always, always wept for more!
As a young mother she did all she could but when the woods emptied of most animals, she had no choice but to steer her eyes to the livestock. A sheep here or there would probably not matter. Though her grip was limited in her state, she knew how to open the gates. She hunted sheep for her cubs first for the convenience and then out of laziness.
But her father would not let this behavior pass. There was lack of meat in the pantry, and his sheep was reducing, once a month, almost by the clock. He scratched his chin as he looked in the wet soil for prints, and saw the lynx’s paw marks clearly. At first he thought it to be a dog’s, but then focused and noticed the claws had been pushed back into the paw. No dog print could show that.

Loa knew school was starting again soon. She would have to figure out a plan how to support her younglings and pass her education without arising suspicions. She stared out of the kitchen window in a hollow gaze, tasting blood from her gums. When was the last time she had brushed her teeth?
She saw her father walk across the field towards the house. She rose in a panic. The dog next to him gave a satisfied slobber. It wasn’t carrying anything. Her father didn’t have anything slung over his shoulder. But still she knew.
She ran out of the house, pass him, into the woods. He took little noticed. She forced through moist moss that would eat her shoes, and sharp twigs blinding her eyes in angry whisks. Loa stopped as she saw her babies on the ground, not breathing. They were away from the rock’s protective shadow, the rascals had wanted to go out and play.
She fell onto her knees in a despairing cry, which frightened the birds out of the trees. She sobbed and screamed and hugged her children close, the blood soiling her shirt. Their soft fur still penetrated some heat, but their small bodies were limp.
Loa didn’t notice her transformation happening. It was day and the moon had not been near a new moon in the night. But she changed in despair and grief, clenching her babies to her chest. When she rose onto four feet she gave the cubs a loving push and turned her head to the farm. There was nothing but fury in her now.
She leaped across the wooden paths, determined, smelling her cubs’ blood on her father’s fingers. He stood by the barn. The other farmers weren’t around. Loa didn’t know why. The dog barked at her when she came running. If her father had carried a gun she would have been shot. But he was without weapons and stood in shock as the lynx rushed towards him, looking strangely familiar. The dog did its efforts to protect him, but Loa’s claws needed only to scratch it once across the eyes and the dog fell back in fear, whimpering. Her father struggled to flee but Loa jumped him, tearing at his throat, taking his beatings. Her grip was strong and blood gushed over her teeth, and it tasted like poison. She was disgusted but held her grip steady. Soon his fingers stopped ripping her fur, falling limp to the ground. Loa, drenched in blood, ran across the fields back into the woods where she vanished.

***

There was this young band traveling, heading for Russia and then down across Europe. It would be their chance to break lose from the Northern charts, and try their luck south. Their van was packed with instruments, which served as hiding places for several drugs and drug related items in case the police should peak into the back.
They, of course, had to pick up this lonely girl in the road. She was wearing some kind of dreadful excuse for a t-shirt. They would fool around with her, maybe scare her, and in the future make a song about her. The girl looked up at them distantly, her yellow eyes estranged. She saw the young rockers with dyed black hair, tattoos and piercing in the van and didn’t think much about it before jumping in. As she did they noticed that the dirty large t-shirt was the only thing she was wearing. And she reeked of mud, crap and something strange, something like blood. She laid down to rest, and all they could do was stare.
“Is there anything we can get you?” one of them asked, handsome and pale, thinking she could probably do with vodka.
“Strawberries...” she mumbled before falling asleep, “Organic.”