I shaved my legs for the first time in months. Scrape, scrape, light little scrapes, to make me presentable, like the centerpiece to a pricey meal. My body will soon not be my own anymore. It will be public property, where you can look-but-don’t-touch for a couple of minutes, for a couple of bucks. I slather on a thick skin of lotion – a lovely second skin that will be my only protection. My scaly calves suck up the moisture. I’ve neglected them all year to spare time for library laboring, or social fluttering. It’s ironic this is providing an opportunity for me to finally take care of myself.
Soon I will go upstairs, and apply makeup. I haven’t worn foundation since the seventh grade. I remember how I applied a layer, and looked into a clownish white mask. It was and it wasn’t me in the mirror. There was a certain separation achieved through that whispery layer of Avon, a withdrawal into myself, so that I can become that other someone I’m expected to be. Another skin of protection.
My vulnerable belly, girly rolling curves will be on display on a meat market in a few hours. A market where more money is paid for the least amount of meat, the most amount of illusion. Where frustrated, disillusioned men can be diverted by my youthful vigor, my wild lack of inhibition. They will be diverted by a phantom of their imagination and a phantom of me. Will they be cackling lechers, who display their yellow teeth when they lick the drool glistening on their lips, or leather briefcased businessmen, who whisper that my dewy skin remind them of their first love?
Those that I love will have different reactions. Half-hearted whoops of support from those open minded yet distant. Adamant opposition and ill-concealed disgust from Crys. My parents will continue grinning blissfully, because they will die before I let this secret fly into their ears. And K, the most recent to be crowned with significance in my life, you take a discomfortable resignation but you let your disappoint shine through. You think I am better than this. Or maybe I just think I am better than this.
But the truth is, this is all my choice. A melange of brash decisions and careless causes flew me here. $40,000 a year for tuition. $500 a month for rent and utilities. A work-study application filed past deadline. No job. In exchange I have my freedom, and my flighty whims sated. Now I have to barter grotesquely for more of the same.
It was only a matter of time before I got here, given my lifestyle, my liquid morals. In many ways, I wanted to be here. My penchant for the dark seething underbelly of human desire has awaited, palpitating, for this to occur. My salivating, counter-intellectual wish to be sexually craved will finally be fulfilled. Oh! and I’ve always liked to dance, and this will be a good work out! Gung ho, let’s go. Strap on those mental blinders. Let’s go.
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