Skin-Suit Confidence

To be fair, Elle thought life would get easier after she killed her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend and harvested her skin for a human suit to impersonate her. However, looking at herself under Belle’s soft brows, through a pair of violet contacts purchased on sale from the perennial Halloween store down the street, Elle realized her contour stick was too red, too severe, for the late ballerina’s milky complexion. No wonder, she thought, dragging her skin-gloved hand across Belle’s face, no wonder why Trevor chose Belle. The face radiated years of SPF and a skincare routine that could have only been inherited from a wealthy mom’s wealthy mom, a family secret like Grandmother Elle’s refried bean recipe. No sunspots nor acne scars, not like the ones that stained Elle’s unevenly toned skin and told the story of an average girl from middle America who had burnt herself every summer as a kid, playing on the dirt sand of a no-name, man-made lake. No need for cakey foundation or TikTok tutorials on how to catfish Hinge dates. She had an hour left before Belle had to leave to meet Trevor. Her corset was making her sick, squeezing her like hands on a dirty dishrag. She’d saved up hostess tips for three full months to buy a complete set of Skims full-body shapewear—which she had learned about when Belle Tweeted the announcement that she was a new brand ambassador—so Trevor wouldn’t notice the difference in her and Belle’s waist. Hi, she said aloud, then hacked up some phlegm in a hanky and started again, speaking deeper, but also smoother, not from her chest but from her diaphragm, a voice that had been waiting to escape, Hi Trevor, I love you, and I’m skinny and pretty. She watched an Instagram video of Belle accepting some dance award, baby blue tulle spilling from her hips like a rough waterfall. Belle had laughed, a hiccup after a snort, the cutest snort Elle ever heard, like a pug. She looked in the mirror and tipped her head back and laughed with the snort of a hog. Her face grew hot and blotchy; Trevor used to say it looked like Bolognese, “in a cute way, babe,” yet Belle’s stayed stoic and lovely. Elle had taken the skin out for a dry run the day before and felt uncomfortable by the stares that Belle attracted and by the kindness afforded to her because of the cheekbones held in place with two sewn-in sacks of silicone. She felt an almost feminist admiration for Belle. She had been so beautiful, so rich, and still so successful in her own right. Elle would have gotten by as a kept woman. Maybe she would now. Maybe she was getting what she finally deserved. Elle took out Belle’s phone, the newest iPhone while she still had an 8, and tucked her chin down, pushing the cleavage of her crop top up and snapped a few hundred photos, overexposing them and adding the filter, Paris, that Belle had relied on to capture her essence. She sent Trevor number 67, the one where she looked down slightly and the yellow bathroom light glazed her collarbone, then 127, a close up of Belle’s nipple just barely exposed, and wrote, Can’t wait for tonight. Trevor’s unsent words bubbled like the champagne they would drink on Belle’s parents’ credit card, then stopped, then bubbled again, then stopped. Maybe he was jacking off; Elle would have if she had received that picture. She felt the need to now, to help lessen the nerves. She had not seen Trevor in six months. Still, he had texted normal stuff, like a playful warning that he would get a restraining order against her if she didn’t stop “harassing him,” then a two-am “u up?” They had liked to roleplay cop and robber when they first met, so she saw this as a sexy extension. Twenty minutes until she had to catch the train. She slipped a few fingers up Belle’s slit that opened up to Elle’s insides, rubbing her own clit as she gleaned Belle’s memories from her skin: summers in Europe, college-aged boyfriends in high school, decoctions of ginger and lemon before performances. Her body grew so warm she almost ripped off Belle’s skin, delicate as a rose petal. Her alarm buzzed. Five minutes before she had to leave to arrive exactly fifteen minutes late to her date with Trevor. She looked at Belle’s phone to read the hungry words Trevor must have sent, but she was shocked. Rather than the romantic messages he had sent Elle in the beginning, “🍆🍩🛏” or “ur the reason men fall in love. i wanna get in ur pants so bad,” he had written: I have been kinda thinking that I don’t want to get involve [SIC.] with anyone, I am still reeling from my last relationship. You seem nice, and I just don’t want to lead anyone on, if you know what I mean. I wanted to tell you this in person, but I am a coward. I hope you will forgive me. Here are the QR codes for the concert tonight. Take a friend. Sent 16 minutes ago, and another bubble percolated. Babe, you deserve so much better. “Oh well,” Elle as Belle said, her tired hands shaking as she opened the Instagram app to find Trevor had blocked her, just as he had done months ago, “Maybe this time we’ll finally get over him.”