Short Story: Skin

Short Story: Skin

Lily was an attractive girl of nineteen years of age. She was single and jobless, but never lonely or penniless. Lily could always be found, at weekends, down at the local pub, her glass rarely empty. Invariably she would be surrounded by a swathe of admiring potential Romeos, and at the end of the night, Lily would happily stagger away with the chosen one, whilst her girlfriends gladly carried away the rejected ones. And so the harmonious balance continued week after week, until eventually reality caught up with our Lily.

For there was a chink in the perfection of Lily’s life. Deep down inside her soul there nestled a black succubus. It was a pinprick in size, but with every passing day it ate away a little more of Lily. It rooted itself onto Lily's thoughts, suckling away like a changeling newborn on her dreams, hopes and anxieties.

You see, Lily's dark rooted secret was, quite simply, that she hated herself. Not her looks, nor her personality, nor even her body. No, they were perfect - almost. It was her skin colour, or rather, lack of colour. For Lily’s skin was a flawless white, an albino expanse of nothingness. No blush of shame, nor flush of rage had ever darkened its sheer, luminescent whiteness. Foundation merely flaked off in minutes. Skin toners and dyes did nothing. The walnut oil recommended by a gypsy at a fair brought her out in a very nasty little rash. No foreign sun had ever done anything kinder to Lily’s skin than blister it for a couple of days. The succubus swelled with glee at each failure.

When Lily's best friend, Maria, was getting married she asked Lily to be her Maid of Honour. Lily was naturally ecstatic, until the realisation of the forthcoming scenario dawned on her. Maria and her family were half Italian, with luscious tawny skin. The succubus sniggered and pointed out to Lily that everybody would be laughing at her, whispering about her, pointing at her. She would be a laughing stock, a waxen effigy in the midst of that warm Mediterranean sea of glorious skin.

As the succubus waxed stronger in confidence and power, Lily's confidence waned accordingly. No longer did she carry herself proudly. Gone was her elegant composure, replaced with a dishevelled and unbalanced looking Lily as the dreaded day drew close. Even at the pub it was obvious that she was no longer the centre of attention. The once rejected Romeos seemed to grow in stature, now turning their backs on her, some even ignoring her. It was Lily’s mother who eventually noticed the depression that had consumed her so.

"What's the matter, Lily?" she asked.

"You wouldn't understand," replied Lily, from the depths of her deep, white depression.

"Try me!"

Lily looked into her mother's face, and could bear it no more. The pent-up emotion and anguish nurtured so carefully by the hidden succubus burst forth in a flood of incoherent tears. Although, naturally, not the slightest pinkness of nose nor eye could be seen on Lily’s perfectly pale face.

"Sun beds, you silly girl, that's the answer. Sun beds," was the brisk maternal answer.

The wedding was now less than three weeks away and Lily’s mother had taken over, as mothers are wont to do. The following day Lily became the owner, temporarily, of her very own rented sun bed. And slowly, so slowly, the unimaginable began to happen – Lily’s perfect pale skin began to darken.

The eve of the wedding saw the hitherto pale Lily emerge from her cocoon-like existence and back into the fold of her peers. Once more she was the focus of attention at her local pub, and the Romeos gathered around her, entranced by her dark beauty. Lily had forgotten what it was like to be complimented and sought after. Lily, like any other self-respecting addict, was hooked once more and enjoying her first fix in a long time.

The succubus grizzled and twisted inside, the ache of loss sharp inside it.

At the end of her triumphal return as the acknowledged queen of her peers, Lily crawled into her bedroom, too many vodkas singing triumphantly and discordantly inside her, and lay on top of her bed. Photographs winked benignly at her. Light glowed gently on her golden skin. Blue light. The sun bed glimmered at her – she hadn’t turned it off before she went out. Its jaws widened invitingly, Lily’s haven, Lily’s protector, slayer of the succubus. Lily closed her eyes inside the blue light and dreamed of weddings and fairytale endings.

As she dreamed, the succubus saw and grabbed its last chance with all the power left in its little black soul.

The morning of the wedding saw Lily’s mother up at first light. There were dresses to press, hair to curl, people to nag. As she passed Lily's room, she stopped and sniffed. The air smelt like burning candle wax. She opened the door and stared into a world filled with electric blue light. From the jaws of the sun bed a hand hung limply, a black, wizened hand, with beautiful, red celebratory fingertips in staring, glaring contrast.

The bloated succubus snickered and sniggered in its charred cradle, and began to die. Without its life force to feed off, it could exist no more. But it would be reborn elsewhere, there were a thousand more Lilys out there all willing to pay the price for beauty. Its job here was done. It was gone.