Skin Deep

Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

Rule number one: never act on your feelings. Rule number two: always follow rule number one. Rule number three: breaking either rule means defeat.

During my nursing studies, I interned at the largest hospital in town, and two things happened: the student who was supposed to be supervised together with me dropped out of nursing school, and I was relocated from floor two to floor three in the infection ward after several nurses fell ill during a tuberculosis outbreak.

The dean of our faculty thus had to relocate everyone who was supposed to work on floor two; some were transferred to other wards but three of us were just sent a floor up. While the two nurses-in-training – my future colleagues – were supervised by the same mentor, I was, given the urgency of the situation, put in the care of one of the senior nurses who was supposed to retire the same year the epidemic broke out.

Needless to say, the old woman despised me and everything I represented. She was callous and bitter, and she took every opportunity she could to humiliate me in front of as many people as possible for the tiniest mistakes I made.

It was during this time of my life that I almost broke rule number one. It was pure coincidence that I was relocated one floor up and met the person I wasn’t supposed to meet. Like running into an old friend after many years, I knew I had to keep my distance to follow the rules I set for myself.

But the attraction between us was visible even from miles away, despite how distant and cold we appeared outwardly, and my supervisor wasn’t about to ignore it. The more she humiliated me, the closer the link between us became, like a deflated balloon that stretched endlessly and was difficult to rip with your bare hands.

I remember when she asked me to choose two or three patients to take care of for the day, and I picked one regular patient and one who wasn’t an ‘infection patient’ but was brought to our ward due to the epidemic. For her, this choice was yet another opportunity to mock me. As I was giving a brief of our regular patient’s well-being to the assistant doctor, he gave instructions on the kinds of medicine he was going to prescribe before I could give a brief of the other patient I chose.

When he was done and I had taken my notes, my supervisor stopped him and asked: “What about the other patient?” He looked at me, who was still clueless as to why he had skipped that particular patient in question and replied: “That’s not our patient. His own doctor will arrive later this evening.” I think he knew what my supervisor tried to do. And I think that was when it… when it became difficult to follow my rules.

The entire internship continued like this for a while and I was nearing the end of it. Despite strict regulations prohibiting it, my supervisor had already contacted my clinical supervisor at my nursing school and told her about how incompetent of a nurse I was. It was kind of comical when my clinical supervisor told me this, though. The patients, the other nurses and the orderlies all praised my knowledge and skills, yet there I was – a mere student whose words went against that of a senior nurse. I was bound to lose the battle.

Her demeaning behaviour affected me in ways no words could truly capture. When I learnt I failed my internship a week before my last day on the ward, I quit and dropped out of school. That woman broke me. She truly did. But it wasn’t just her – it was him too.

I hated the way I felt about him. We hardly spoke yet my walls seemed to have given in to him already. The day I quit, I went back home and decided to leave everything behind and survive this wicked world, no matter what. That was how my writing career started.

With the passing years, not only did I manage to close off my heart again, but also my mind to other people. Like a hermit living in the jagged mountains, I lived a life of enclosure and solitude. Living like this had its setbacks, of course.

There was increased pressure on my shoulders from all around, urging me to step into the spotlight and narrate my stories, my inspirations, and my aspirations in my own voice. I never accepted an award show invitation in my youth, never showed my face, and never took advantage of my position as a best-selling author, either.

That is, until I turned 54 and received an email from one of the leading magazines in the Western Hemisphere. I recognised the name of the sender, or rather, the surname I thought I had forgotten. How could I ever?

A photo of a young woman in her mid-twenties appeared in the search results as I typed her name. Goodwin. Lara Goodwin. An LGBTQ+ journalist who graduated from Harvard University with a law degree. Although the surname itself wasn’t uncommon, something in her face warmed my heart. Was it her emerald eyes, her rosy lips, or her straight, light brown hair? Or was it the shape of her face, the way her intelligent eyes seemed to seal all the secrets of the world or the way she talked?

Yet… deep down, I knew why.

Perhaps this insight, this resemblance, was what tore me apart as I noticed that she was raised by two men – her fathers. At that moment, when I realised the gravity of my belated discovery, a flood of memories washed over me.

How was this possible? As I sifted through distant memories, trying to make sense of my past and my present, all I could remember was a man in love with a woman. I knew this was the case even if I lacked the words to describe it. So how…? Had I been deceived, could my memories have been betraying me all this time—no, that couldn’t be the case!

But if that were truly the case, then how could I explain this newfound insight about the man I thought loved me? The answer came to me two years later one wintry evening when I least expected it.

The man who had almost broken me had transitioned. But it wasn’t just his body that changed – his face did too. It was like looking at a distorted mirror of my past self – of my youth – at a time when I was the most beautiful.

Then it dawned on me.

I wasn’t the one she was in love with. She was in love with my face, this feminine visage that was everything she ever wanted to see on her former face.

This happened during the 80s, mind you, when transitioning wasn’t as readily accepted at that age and time. I couldn’t help but wonder: had I given in to my feelings back then, would she have ripped my skin and put it on her own? Perhaps I knew this was the case, this was why I kept my distance all along. After all, I was so in love, so madly in love, that I’d offer not only my hollow heart but also my face to her.

Dysphoria

Photo by Max Griss on Unsplash

I knew I liked boys in a different way than I did girls when I was about eight years old. Being raised in the late 90s, however, has not been easy. 

People had prejudices against my kind, they still have to a certain extent today, but it wasn’t like I could control the way my mind and body worked.

I prayed for untold nights – weeping – asking God to save me from this disease, but he didn’t. I was beyond salvation.

My desires grew with every passing year, and I considered suicide at one point in my early adolescence. Why was I like this? It wasn’t natural, I wasn’t supposed to like men.

But I did. I did… and I wished I didn’t.

 When I was forced to come out back in middle school, life turned from bad to worse really quickly. There was this guy I liked, his name was Shaun, and he was the only one who ever spoke to me at school.

Despite being a male, I was too feminine and weak, even more so than the girls in our batch. I thought Shaun was a real friend, someone I could confide in and tell my deepest secrets to, and so I did.

We were sitting at the rooftop of our school, chatting and having fun, when Shaun asked if I liked guys. I never made it obvious to him, or anyone for that matter, but I guess he could see through me.

Although I hesitated, I still told him the truth, and then he… he asked if I wanted to kiss him. And again, I said yes. I shouldn’t have. It was the biggest mistake I ever made.

The next day at school, everyone knew I was gay. The boys were especially harsh on me for this; they humiliated me in ways no kid should ever be subjected to and turned me into this miserable young man I now was. 

But I didn’t choose this, did I? Did those people really think I wanted to be what I was?

I hated myself. I hated every inch of my body. I hated this world, this society that deemed me a deranged and perverted sodomite.

But I didn’t choose this… It chose me. If I had the opportunity to get rid of this part of me – this part that made me so miserable – I wouldn’t hesitate for a second.

If only I had been born as a woman, then none of the things I’m about to tell would’ve happened. 

I shut my eyes momentarily and sighed from where I was crouching, my slender fingers running along the sharp blade in my hand.

When I opened my eyes, an older version of my first love stared back at me with darting eyes. His soft, kissable lips were taped, his cold, shaking limbs tethered and his body naked and vulnerable. I caressed him as a tear slid down his high cheekbones.

“It’ll be over soon, love…”

Even though I couldn’t discern what he was saying, I knew he pleaded with me to save him, to release him. I cocked my head. He looked so helpless, like a lamb at the mercy of a wolf, repeatedly begging me not to hurt him.

I wasn’t trying to hurt him; I loved him. Letting my eyes wander to his exposed abdomen, the sharp knife cut the tip of my finger by accident, the blood hit the wet ground between us as a smile crept on my made-up face. 

“Do you know what it feels like to be born like this? To feel like you don’t belong, that you don’t fit anywhere? I bet you don’t. If you did, would you have done what you did to me, Shaun?” 

His body convulsed as I reached out for his lower half, my rough hands tightening around him with deliberate force. 

“I’ll show you what it feels like… to be miserable, to feel like you’ve been born in the wrong body.”

I cut into his foreskin, taking my time skinning it, before slicing his penis off. 

“Soon, the two of us, we’ll be equal. You’ll love your new look. Shaun, my love, I’ll make a woman out of you.”

Although he put up a fight at first, he soon turned stiff and gave up all attempts to save his penis. As the warm blood pooled beneath us, growing bigger as I neared the end of his new beginning, he stifled the screams, trying to escape. 

I paused, inches from cutting off what remained of his penis, and lifted my eyes. His bloodshot, delirious eyes brimmed with tears. He was beautiful, and he was mine. 

“Do you know what? I’m gonna kill you after this, Shaun. I don’t want you to suffer humiliation like I did. Don’t want to create another me – another monster. I’ll show you mercy. Then I’ll turn myself in—what? I can’t hear you—hold on, I’ll take it off.”

“Just- just kill me, please! Kill me—”

I put the duct tape back on.

“I’m not a saint, you know. Why would I let you off the hook so easily? You reap what you sow, Shaun. That’s how this world is and this is how it’ll be, I don’t know, until Judgement day? If you believe in that sort of thing. So don’t look at me like that. You have to pay for your sins.”

I cut off his erect penis and placed it to the side. This time, Shaun screamed his head off and kicked around to be set free from the soaring pain. I wiped off the splattering of blood with the back of my arm; it wasn’t over just yet.

I sliced into him, crafting a neat hole, as the blood gushed out from all openings. When I was done, he had long since passed out and stopped breathing. A bitter grin curled up on my lips.

“So cruel… to just die on me like this. We didn’t even get to the fun part yet.”

I wiped the clotted blood on my shirt and picked up a blond wig from the built-in wardrobe in the basement. The size was a tad small, but I forced it down until it fit his square face. I posed him for the camera and snapped a picture. So pretty, just my type. 

I had always wanted to be a photographer. But my dreams were short-lived. Wherever I went, I was known as this feminine guy, who liked other men, derided like no other for something I had no control over. Like in a recurrent nightmare, there was no escape from this. 

Smiling bitterly, I kissed his cold forehead and lay my head on his stiff chest. The absence of his beating heart aroused me. I picked up his lifeless hand, and let the coldness embrace my lower half.

I lied to him; I wasn’t going to turn myself in. I was going to die in his arms now that we were both equals. If only I was a woman… then maybe none of this would’ve happened…

Another smile crossed on my hardened face as I was coming. The thought of the two of us on a cloudless morning out in the meadow somewhere far away from everything and everyone lingered in my mind.

Just the two of us, there, laying side by side, madly in love and free. I flew my eyes open and moaned.

If only I were a woman…