Explore>Writing Awards>Comfort & Disturb (2025)>

Skin  

Skin is a visceral story about a young girl’s fixation with skin — her fragile shield against a world that overwhelms her.

Kim Campbell

My mum had been dead for one week before they came to take her body away. In the midst of an unprecedented heat wave, the rotting of her body accelerated and the smell drifted beyond our flat and into our neighbour’s. The police and ambulance came and took her.  People asked me questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. In the end they all left me alone. I didn’t care. I was just relieved that the state of her decomposed body hadn’t allowed them to see her perforated skin, which I had feasted on before she died. Stripped  and torn from her flesh. She had tasted as I had imagined she would, bitter and chewy. 

I don’t miss her. Well. Not really. Towards the end, she was barely here. She would go off to the local pub most days leaving me alone with my skin. I was happier that way. Sometimes she would return and bring me small gifts. Drunken men who made breathy, heaving sounds in her bedroom. Whilst the various men would sleep in unconscious states,  I would be invited into the room to explore their bodies for loose skin. Mum would look on smoking her cigarette. She smiled with pride as I tore pieces from their bodies. She always knew the right ones to pick for me. I miss that. More than that, I miss the presence of someone else’s company. The slight change of air in a room when you know that you are not alone. 

I can pinpoint the exact time in my life where my obsession began. I was five years old. I remember the sun shining down on my skin and feeling it prickle and tingle with the oppressive heat. I watched and felt my skin become hotter and hotter until the redness radiated and glowed. The lacklustre application of sun cream by my parents did nothing to stop the burning of my skin and my arms went from a rosy pink to an angry red. 

As I lay in bed naked that night, my skin felt tight and hot. Every movement of my body sent radiating pain down all four limbs. My sleep was fitful and disturbed, my body oscillating between fiery fever and icy tremors. My parents oblivious as they sat drinking in the bar below my room, laughing at jokes that hung on the wrong side of political correctness with their newfound holiday friends. Calling for either of them would be pointless, their ears deafened by the vodka and rum. And so I lay still and tried not to move. In the silence that followed later that night I could hear my skin move. Tiny ripples cascaded down my body.  My skin constraining bubbles of lava, waiting to erupt through the surface. I ran my fingers over my body and I could feel small watery blisters. Greedily taking all the moisture from my burning skin and feeding the puddles building and growing all over my body. In the darkness I stroked the blisters and enjoyed the feeling of pressing them lightly and making the water move under my fingers. The pain was numb. I felt only pleasure and curiosity as I touched my new skin. 

I woke in the morning and my bed felt damp. My skin was still pink and warm to the touch.  The blisters sagged, having burst their loads and spilled their contents over my sheets. I stepped from my bed and stood in front of the full length mirror. My appearance was unrecognisable. Pellucid skin hung from my limbs, exposing raw, shiny flesh underneath.  My body looked like it was melting, shedding layers like a snake. Digging my small nails into my arms, I began to peel the skin downwards, taking large sheaths from my body. It crackled as it tore from my body, like paper tearing in two. I held the skin up to the light and splendored at its beauty. Unblemished, pure white skin like crisp linen taken from a bed. It felt soft and damp as I rolled it in my fingers. The flesh exposed was tender to the touch, and sent small buzzes of electric shocks when I pressed my fingers against it. 

I sat cross legged on the floor and began to peel and pick at the watery skin. My arms. My legs. My torso. My face. Trying to wrap my small arms around to my back to grab at any loose skin I could. Fiendishly I pulled at the skin, relishing the sound, the feeling and the accomplishment when it tore from my body in large pieces. The glossy white floor tiles scattered with the cast offs from my body.   

My mum walked into the room to see me sitting amongst the skin, her face impassive. She stared at the sight of my new pink flesh, puckered all over my body. The piles of skin, proudly on display around me. She walked over and crouched down. Her long red nails found a lose piece of skin hanging from the top of my chest and she slowly pulled it down, a smile forming on her face as she saw the vastness tearing from my torso. She lifted the skin and placed it into her mouth, letting it sit on her tongue and then slowly she chewed. Pure pleasure spread across her face as she turned around and left the room, closing the door behind her. 

New skin grew in its place, like re-growth of grass after a blistering summer had burned it yellow. It wasn’t the same. I craved the feeling of picking and peeling and tearing skin. I would feast on my skin, sampling the differences between all I could find. Soft damp skin that melted on my tongue or tough chewy skin that would remain in my mouth for hours. I relished the challenge of it grinding between my young teeth. 

It was a delight when the eczema started a few years later. My skin squeezed dry of moisture. Red, inflamed and scaly skin sat in the creases of the folds of my body. I scratched and clawed at my arms, back and legs, all the tinged red skin gathering under my nails. Scabs that attempted to re-heal my skin only provided joy to be peeled open, exposing raw flesh and endless blood to leak from exposed wounds. Doctors and dermatologists advised and shook their heads, my parents feigned embarrassment. I had no desire to stop the attack on my skin. They told my parents to bind my hands at night, to glove my hands in the day. All of it was wasted words. When my skin provided no pleasure, I would cut and burn it to ensure it was giving me what I needed. I would sit and gorge on the sheaths of my off casts or I would spread them around me like prized possessions. My mum called me ‘disgusting’ with a slight smirk, whilst she snacked on raw liver, sneaked into her mouth as she made our dinner. Purple flesh and blood staining her teeth as she bared them at me.  

My dad was absent most of the time. When he was home I was only useful to him when I fixed him his rum and coke. In his drunken haze he would run his cracked, red fingers over my skin and call me beautiful. Through sideways glances, when I tore at my skin, he attempted to conceal his arousal and hide his twitching fingers. A voyeuristic bystander on the side lines, itching to be part of the game. My dad disappeared one day and never returned. I was not upset, I don’t think I even shed a tear. The dog was relieved as it meant that he was free from the daily whipping of the bamboo cane that lay by our front door. Eventually even he left us. Buried in the back garden. He has a happier life there, I like to think. 

I sit at my computer naked.  There are fifty people online today, all paying a premium price to see my skin. “You are beautiful”, “you should cover up, you freak”, “I want to lick your body”. The comments come thick and fast as I walk around my room displaying my body for them all to see. Sometimes I touch my wounds or peel off bits of loose skin, but that costs extra. The countdown timer on the screen winds down from one minute. As it hits zero, the screen goes black. Leave them wanting more. As I put on my dressing gown, I hear a message come into my inbox. It’s not unusual, some of them often try to tempt me back online or want a private show. Sometimes for the right amount that can be arranged. 

I sit down at the desk and read the message – “Can we chat? I think you are so beautiful and I would like to get to know you better, x.” There is a picture next to the message of a young woman. Her name is Jessie. She looks perfect. Her blonde hair is soft around her heart shaped face. Her lips are the colour of candyfloss. I imagine running my fingers over her glassy skin. For the first time I do not think about the texture of her skin and what it would feel like in my teeth. I only think about pressing my lips upon hers. I find the feelings in my body pleasurable but confusing. 

She becomes the highlight of my day. Messaging each other constantly. We talk about life and all that we are and what we have become. She talks about her aspirations for the future and I talk of my fears of leaving my flat for the first time in ten years. Days become weeks. I notice my skin is healing. Large scabs form over my body, coating itself in a protective barrier. I do not pick, I do not peel and I do not place it in my mouth. I live and breathe only on her. Reading her messages is all I need. 

We agree to meet. Her suggestion, not mine. She will come to my flat and we will have tea.  I do not sleep for several days. Tossing and turning, my bed sheets covered in blood in the morning where I have scratched my skin raw. I am a mixture of nervous and excitement. I can only imagine that this is what Christmas feels like. 

The day and time arrives. I adorn one of my mum’s old dresses. Tight blue satin clings to my skin and shoulder pads rub against my chin. I use them to scratch my face. My heart pounds, syncopating with her knocking at the door. I breathe in and open it. 

“Hello dear. Why, don’t you look pretty. Just like your mum.” 

“Dad? What are you doing here?” 

He steps over the threshold.  He has aged greatly and his face has become etched with deep crevasses. His skin is flushed red and his nose is bulbous. He has grown in size and his large stomach protrudes over his weakening belt. He smells of sweat and alcohol. 

“You can call me Jessie.” 

He laughs loud and his stomach shakes. He steps forward, closes the door and walks towards me. He raises his thick fingers towards my exposed neck and digs his dirty nails into the edges of a healing scab. He pulls it from my body with such force, that it takes my breath away. He expels a loud sigh. His climax has waited years to be uncontained. I feel wetness on my face as fat tears fall. The water mixes with my blood from the wound and I watch the pink fluid run down my blue dress, staining the satin. He places the hardened skin in my mouth and smiles as I chew.