Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  Someone’s bright idea was to put a mirror facing the door in the bathroom so you could watch yourself use it. I accidentally caught sight of myself before I stepped into the shower.

  “I’m a fucking cliché,” I said to my reflection, as I turned on the water. A woman who hates how she looks, now there’s a plot twist. Cosmopolitan and those other mags were practically written for me.

  I was getting pretty tired of whinging to myself about my body, so I didn’t spend a second longer than I had to in the shower. I got out and put my pyjamas on: the oldest pair of tracky-dacks I owned, and a big t-shirt I’d stolen from Henry. The beauty of them was that they were so baggy that they completely hid my body and didn’t give me the opportunity to notice and hate it. Trying to shut my brain up, I poured myself a glass of wine and went to the balcony to drink it.

  I needed to get a fucking grip. I was 25, not a teenager. This ‘I hate myself’ crap wasn’t cute anymore. I didn’t have anything to complain about, either: I was already working for Fortune 500 Company in a permanent position being paid way more than other people my age, and I had a great boyfriend and a family who loved me. On top of that, my presentation slides tomorrow were a work of fucking art, and Diane fucking Frost had smiled at me. Everything was great. Seriously, what the hell was my problem? Whatever it was, I knew I needed to get over it.

  There was a gentle, warm breeze outside. I was able to admire the lights even more from up here, and while I was waiting for the wine to take hold, I decided to have a shot at painting them.

  I went inside to grab my laptop and tablet so I could set up shop on the deck. It was distractingly quiet out there, so I put some cartoons up on the screen of my laptop while I scribbled away.

  Nothing was working, though. I couldn’t get the angle right on the bridge, and my strokes were all over the place. After ten minutes there wasn’t a single thing I liked about what I’d drawn, so I just erased the whole goddamn lot and sat back, seething.

  I hadn’t really been paying attention to the cartoon and now that I was looking at the screen, I realised all the characters were inexplicably opposite-sex versions of themselves. They were also singing for some reason. This show had always been a bit weird, but I think this episode was incontestable proof that all the writers were boiling mushrooms. I sat there frowning at it for another few minutes, but the random gender-bending was never explained. After some consideration I decided I actually preferred at least one of the characters that way.

  I exhaled and looked down at my empty canvas. I didn’t draw people that often anymore, so perhaps it would be good practice to draw that princess as a prince? More fun than lights on a bridge, that was for sure.

  I’d been using my own reflection in the balcony door to get her head right and I was only three strokes in when I got caught on my body. The way I was sitting was the perfect reference; I was hunched and I couldn’t see any sign of breasts at all. I’d also tied my hair back so it didn’t get in the way. The screen from my tablet and the lights from the streets below lit me from underneath and were a very soft blue. I liked how it fell on me.

  Well, I had been complaining about all that woman stuff, right? Fuck it. I sculled the rest of my wine in one mouthful and set to work.

  Despite the fact I’d promised Henry again that I wouldn’t stay up late, it was well past midnight when I finished the painting. I sat back and looked at it. There were some things I didn’t like—like how I’d handled the pose and the lighting—but overall I’d captured the atmosphere really well. And then there was me. Because I knew I couldn’t look at a picture of myself with any sort of objectivity, I flipped the canvas horizontally and hoped that would help.

  It did, and my first impression was that I’d done a great job. I’d given myself a really funky haircut and dressed myself in a suit with a wide-collared shirt and a waistcoat. The tie I’d left kind of loose around my neck, and I’d copied one of Henry’s awful paisley ones. It was hideous; I loved it. The rest of how I was sitting was basically the same. I grinned at it. There was something ultra-cool about wearing an expensive suit and then sitting with one leg scrunched underneath you and the other propped on a table. I’d put the tablet on my lap, too. I looked awesome, and all my angles looked really cool instead of really awkward. I sighed at it.

  God, if only.

  As soon as I’d thought that, I began to feel really uneasy about it. I looked down at the painting again, and my face stared back at me with a really intense expression, reclined exactly like I was. Seriously, what the hell was I doing? It was stupid. What a fucking stupid idea.

  I closed Photoshop and went to turn off my tablet, but I hesitated as my mouse hovered over the shutdown button. Was it really as bad as all that? I opened the file again and had another look.

  The execution was great, that much I had to admit. I had no idea what my weird problem with it was; it was a good painting. I should probably just upload it to Deviant Art before I started losing watchers who thought I’d abandoned my account.

  I logged in and took a quick peek at my messages. I didn’t get many these days—I was so busy with work I didn’t get the opportunity to paint much anymore—but there were a few regulars I recognised. One of them was from a girl who was having some dramas with her friend and for some reason thought that because I could draw that I would also be full of wisdom. I resisted the urge to tell her I hadn’t spoken to any of my friends outside of Facebook for months and basically gave her the text version of a pat on the back.

  While I was uploading the painting, I got a bit stuck on the title and eventually settled on ‘Lights Out’, and submitted it.

  Leaning back in the chair, I stretched my arms over my head and yawned. It was probably about time I tried to get some sleep. I needed to be awake for that presentation tomorrow so I could soak in all the glorious adoration for my amazing, life-changing PowerPoint slides about why Frost was the best company in the world. There was only so much Red Bull could achieve.

  I put my phone on silent and went to bed, but before I went to sleep I had to log in again to take another look at that painting. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it was still completely harmless. Normally there were things I liked and disliked about all my pieces, but why the hell did I love and hate this one so much?

  I exhaled and put my phone back on my bedside table. Probably some weird body image thing, I decided, and then groaned and turned away from it, putting my head under the doona.

  Min, for fuck’s sake, it’s just a painting. It’s pixels on a screen. What sort of damage could it possibly cause?

  TWO

  It was a good thing I’d disabled vibrate on my mobile, because when my alarm went off in the morning, there were a 109 messages waiting for me on Deviant Art. I lay there, half dead, staring at the little white numerals on the corner of my screen and wondering if I had double vision or something. I’d never gotten that many messages for my stuff before. Maybe the painting had been featured on the homepage?

  I tabbed through them, expecting the usual messages of ‘OMG, wow!’, or the extremely occasional detailed critique from someone who knew what they were talking about. That was definitely not the case this time. They were mostly from women, and mostly telling me how hot the ‘me’ in the painting was.

  I kept scrolling down through them, the surprise waking me up a lot faster than usual. Sure, I’d selected ‘self-portrait’ as the category, but didn’t they look up in the corner of my page and see that I was a girl…? Oh, right: I’d forgotten that a year or two ago I’d changed my profile so it hid my gender because I was sick of creeps hitting on me with lines like, ‘looks like you’re pretty good with your hands’. Yeah, no.

  I put my phone down on my chest and lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling fan rotating slowly above me. All those women were really into that guy in my ‘self-portrait’. How ironic. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, so I just laughed bleakly. I would have been great as a guy, too. Women loved tall
men. And men hated tall women like me. Well, most men did.

  I buried my head in my pillow and groaned loudly into it. Okay, well. I had a presentation today and I couldn’t spend all morning thinking about that stupid painting and those poor women who had no idea they were lusting after a fictional character. I changed my mind several times over whether or not to display my gender again, and in the end I decided to just do it.

  I was in a weird mood the whole time I was getting dressed, especially as I watched myself in the mirror, hopping around trying to get my stockings on. As nice as it was having people hot for what they thought I was, it was also kind of depressing. I couldn’t let those women keep assuming I was some sort of stud when this was the reality.

  I stopped awkwardly stumbling around for a moment and just stood and stared at my reflection. I was wearing a bra and undies that didn’t match, and my stockings were cutting into my stomach. There was nothing in the world less sexy than this. It was a pretty far cry from that stylish guy reclined in an expensive suit on the balcony. Those poor women. It was just dishonest to let them keep complimenting me. Fuck, though, it felt good when they did.

  While I was doing my makeup, I toyed with the idea of just taking down the painting. The trouble was, as much anxiety as it was causing me, I liked it. It was also good for my portfolio—it showed that I wasn’t just good at landscapes and nothing else. Not that I should really care that much about my repertoire at the moment; there was no way I had time for private commissions and it wasn’t like I needed the money. I decided I actually just really liked the painting. I liked it. And I didn’t want to take it down.

  After I finished my makeup, I wasted a minute or so frowning at my phone again before I slipped on my heels, collected my handbag and headed off to work. I was being ridiculous. Seriously. The sales team was running my team’s pitch today and that was what I should be focused on.

  Once I’d arrived at work, I didn’t even get to sit down before one of my teammates came rushing over to me. “Hey, Mini!” he began, using the ironic nickname they had for me which I hated. “Did Sales give you a copy of the info pack? Because they’re in a meeting somewhere and I don’t think we transferred all the files onto the USBs. I want to check before I just go barging in on them.”

  I shook my head as I side-stepped around him and put my handbag into my bottom drawer. I never worked on those, which he should know by now since we’d been in the same department for four years. Anyway, apparently this file transfer issue was some enormous drama that required the whole team to freak out. I knew marketing was all about teamwork and I was supposed to actually care about stuff like this, but I was seriously too tired. I’d stayed back here while they were all home with their families or relaxing in front of the TV, so as far as I was concerned they could panic without me. Perhaps I was being a bit harsh. Most of them were pretty nice, I guess. Given the option, though, I’d design whole projects by myself. Even after several years, teamwork was still up there with group assignments, rocket lettuce and sunburn: things I’d rather avoid at all costs.

  Whatever ‘teamwork’ they were doing on the other side of the partition was making Michelangelo’s head nod. I watched it for a few moments. This was way too much energy for eight on a Tuesday morning on the amount of sleep I’d had. I needed a Red Bull.

  Another marketing rep I’d worked with some time ago was already at the machine, stuffing coins into it as I walked up to her. Sarah, her name was, except everyone tended to call her by her surname, which was ‘Presti’, for inappropriate reasons. I didn’t.

  “Hey, Min! Long time, no see,” she said, as I walked up to her. I smiled at her greeting. Her voice was husky; it was the kind of voice you ended up with after spending all night getting drunk at a bar and singing loudly along with the music. Even with makeup, she looked the part as well. The concealer was doing nothing for the bags under her eyes. She gave me about the same look I was giving her. “Guess you were here late, again?”

  I sighed. “Til about 11,” I said, watching her select a diet option from the panel. “How are you, anyway? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  She collected her drink, held it at me in a toast and then took a huge mouthful. “How’s that for an answer?”

  I laughed. I knew exactly how she felt. “I hear you. My team’s running that Queensland pitch today.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, leaning a shoulder on the machine. Her hair fell perfectly around her slender shoulders even though she wasn’t paying any attention to it. How did other women just do that? “I heard about that. That’s a major project, isn’t it? You must be so excited.” She said the last part with such exaggeration it was practically dripping with sarcasm.

  I grinned. “Like it’s my wedding day. I don’t know how I’m containing myself.” When she realised she was blocking my access to the machine, she shifted across a bit so I could get a drink for myself. I glanced up at her while I slotted coins in. “You look like you pulled a late one yourself. What’s your excuse?”

  She laughed. “My man just got back from Broome. He’s doing fly-in, fly-out this year. It’s, uh, great to have him back, if you catch my drift.” She grinned smugly, and took a sip of her energy drink.

  Well that explained the husky voice: it wasn’t drunk singing, they’d just been keeping each other up. She seemed happy about it, too; I knew she was really into him. “How long has it been for you two now?”

  “Three whole years.” Her smile didn’t slip at all.

  “Wow,” I said, opening my own can. I remembered when they’d met. “Three years? You do know I sell diamonds for a living, right? You’re practically my target market.”

  She waggled her ring finger on the can. “You should study me,” she said. “And write a report about my shopping behaviour.”

  “I’ll make some illustrative graphs to explain you,” I agreed. “Please specify your preferred colour scheme.”

  She laughed openly and patted me on the arm. I wasn’t actually a big fan of being touched, but I quite liked her so I let it slide. She’d always made working long hours far less torturous. “Min, you crack me up,” she said. “I hope we’re on another project together soon. Anyway,” she checked her watch, which had fashionably slipped to the inside of her wrist, “I should let you get on with it, your pitch is in like 45 minutes. Good luck!”

  I smiled appreciatively; she was right about getting on with it. If I cared about career progression, I needed to at least feign interest despite my part being complete. Standing around, chatting at a vending machine wasn’t likely to score me any points with the bosses.

  “See you ‘round,” she said, and then with zero effort, sashayed gorgeously back to where her team were gathered. I wished it were harder to like her; some women just made everything look so easy.

  The actual pitches were always completely anti-climactic, as far as I was concerned. My job was mainly managing the design and layout of the materials and presentation, and then someone far more bubbly and outgoing would deliver it to the clients. After that, we’d break for lunch and all the smooth-talking closers from Sales would casually mingle with the clients while they ate, engaging them in pleasant conversation until there were signatures on contracts. I found that part of the whole process sleazy and was glad I didn’t have to be involved. Just in case there was a terrible PowerPoint crisis, though, I needed to be on hand to divert any potential catastrophic presentation failures. I was yet to figure out why IT couldn’t do that, but I guessed it was more of this ‘teamwork’ thing I kept hearing about.

  During lunch, we all stood at an acceptable distance from the conference room, waiting for the word on whether or not we’d been successful. Sometimes clients wanted to go away and have endless meetings before they’d make a decision, but occasionally we’d find out directly afterwards. We all loitered around just in case.

  I had my phone with me because I’d missed a couple of calls from Mum before, and being a hopeless masochist, I’d opened the
painting again to agonise over it. There were more comments on it, and the image was on the homepage of the category. I couldn’t stop reading them, and the better I felt about the compliments, the more I felt like I was staging this huge lie to the women of the internet.

  While my finger was hovering indecisively over the ‘delete’ button, all the boys started whooping and, remembering how close they were to the conference room, almost immediately muted themselves. Instead, they smacked each other’s shoulders and made borderline offensive victory gestures. It was like being at the footy.

  We must have signed the clients, but truthfully I wasn’t really that surprised. It was a pretty hard market at the moment so as long as we were able to deliver, we’d most likely get the contracts.

  Whoops, what was I saying? Of course it was obviously my amazing presentation that won them over.

  When the clients had left and Sales started trickling out of the room with their chests puffed out, I saw Diane Frost shake hands with Omar, the Sales Manager, and then walk sharply over to us. I watched the boys all turn from drunken yobbos into executive marketing reps on six figure salaries in the space of two seconds.

  She stopped in front of our team and stood there for a moment. Fuck, she was scary. “Congratulations on winning the pitch,” she said cordially, but it was difficult to know if she meant that or if it was just her way of saying hello. Then, she held up one of the brochures from the info pack, like it was evidence in a murder trial. “Who did this?”