The Skin She Lives In

by Red Goddess

Maryam doesn’t know when she realised she was different but it was at a young age. She knows that people were trying to be kind, but she could see it in their eyes. They were pretending. She knew that they could see she was not right.  Her parents tried to deny it, to tell her she was normal, but that’s what parents do.

When she was young, she lived in a small village, was used to seeing the same people, to the same people seeing her. Her class was small. She would look at her friends, her kind friends who liked her even though she was a freak. If only she had been normal like them.

And later, her parents tried to play tricks on her, made her see a doctor, tried to persuade her that she could face the world looking the way she does. They said that it was all in her mind, that she was just like everyone else, that she wasn’t disfigured. But Maryam would stare in the mirror, at that misshapen body. She would punch and pinch herself, try to mould herself into something different. She hated those doctors who tried to say it was a psychiatric not physical problem, who made her talk to counsellors instead of referring her for surgery.

So she tried to hide herself. She wore the baggiest clothes to cover her body. She longed for winter when she could swathe her face in a scarf and hide herself. She would resist having her hair cut for as long as possible. She would sit at her school desk, bowing her head forward, letting the long hair cover her face like curtains. Her mother used to say. “Such lovely curls. I bet all the girls wish they had your hair.” But for her it wasn’t an adornment,  just a disguise, her first veil.

Going to high school was a nightmare. The other children from primary school has been kind, overlooking her freakish nature, but at high school, there was no protection. A group of boys had spotted her, had recognised the wrongness of her and had made her life a misery. It hadn’t helped that she was small for her age, unable to defend herself. Each day she wondered if it would just be cruel words, or if she would be beaten again. Some of her friends from primary school stood up for her, tried to protect her. But others recognised that she was tainting them by association, and ignored her when she tried to talk to them. She didn’t blamed them. Who would want to be seen with a freak like her?

And growing up meant her body was changing in ways that she hated.

She was 13 or 14 when the van driver drove up behind her, shouted at her. “Give us a smile, love.” She had been walking with her head down, her long hair covering her face. She hoped that he hadn’t seen her properly.

“Are you ignoring me? Oi, over here, darling.”

She had walked faster, aware of the van slowing alongside her. She kept her eyes on the ground, hoping he would go. She couldn’t look at him and risk exposing her face to him.

She heard the van pull level with her and he heard him gasp and laugh as he caught sight of her.

“Jeez, look at the state of you! Fucking freak.” The van sped off.

There it was. At last someone had the courage to say it to her face. She was wrong, unacceptable, unnatural. It was a relief that this stranger had confirmed it.

And then, a miracle. She remembers the first time she saw them. Her parents had been watching the news, a report from a far off country. Something about a war or a revolution. She didn’t remember the details, all she remembers is the women. At least, the reporter said they were women. All she saw was formless, faceless black shapes. They were creatures with no skin, no hair, no features. Where faces should be, a curtain of black cloth. Where limbs should be, unbroken layers of fabric. Her mother tutted at them, but she felt an unfamiliar feeling surging though her – hope. This was the answer to her search.

She couldn’t wait to search for the images online. She remembers reading the words – hijab, niqab, burka… Her eyes hungrily devoured the pictures of women who were more fabric than flesh. She would forensically inspect the photos, discarding those where a hand remained ungloved, where a shoe was visible below the skirts, where the glint of an eye below an eye screen betrayed the lax covering. She knew then that she had to join their ranks.

She knew what she had to do. Those next few years were torture. She pretended a peace with her appearance that did not exist. She mouthed the words that the doctors expected, faking an acceptance that allowed her to come off the pills, to stop attending the sessions. Her parents were relieved. She overheard her father telling her mother “See, I told you it was all just a phase.”  She let her mother to dress her in the clothes that her mother said suited her. But she could see her freakish form. She smiled in family photographs but wished she could cut her image out of them. She faked an interest in the things her parents expected her to like. And every night, she crossed another day off the calendar and sobbed herself to sleep.

All the time, she was planning. She would ask for money to buy clothes, then return some of them without her parents knowing. Slowly she built up a second wardrobe, her shadow wardrobe. On those days when her parents were both out of the house, she would lock her bedroom door and begin to learn how to conceal and cover herself. She can still remember the first time she turned to her full length mirror and instead of seeing something wrong, instead she saw a featureless column of black. She was so relieved, so happy that she felt tears flowing down her face. She reached out a gloved black hand to touch the black figure in the mirror. Surely, this was her true form at last.

But her freeing coverings had to be hidden. She lived in a small rural area. Her community, her school were overwhelmingly white and Christian. She knew she had to wait to bring her plan to fruition.

She carefully researched her options for university. She knew the best courses for her chosen subject, but then she further narrowed down the choices. She had to go to a large, diverse city. She scoured the university websites, reading up on the ethnic make-up of the student body, of those with thriving Muslim student societies, even those institutions flagged as being hot beds of radicalisation. But she also knew she had to choose an institution that was liberal and wouldn’t question her choices, her requests.

She dragged her parents to open days, paying little attention to the talks and tours, and instead staring at the students. Her eyes were hungry for the sight of students in black, of headscarves and abayas, of jilbabs and khimars. At one visit, she sighed as she saw three women, swathed in back, their faces covered in niqabs walk towards her. She made her choice.

Of course she got in. Whatever her body was lacking, her sharp intellect made up for it.  Finally, the day of her liberation arrived.

Her parents had driven her to her halls of residence. Her father helped to bring in the suitcases of clothes, full of new clothes her mother had helped her to choose. And hidden below them, her collection of shadows.

There had been a tearful goodbye, her mother hugging her, her father saying he was so proud. She had watched from the window as they left, and then closed the blinds.

She opened the suitcases, pulling out the clothes, putting them in two piles. Some of the new clothes, the black t-shirts, the black jeans, the black hoody could stay. The rest, she pushed into carrier bags under the bed.

Then she filled her wardrobe with her real clothes. A cupboard full of shadows, the abayas, the jilbabs, the khmers, And the drawers full of darkness, of carefully folded gloves, hijab hoods, scarves and of course her beloved niqabs.

She prepared for her first day at university.

She began by covering the mirror with a towel. She didn’t need to disturb herself further by being confronted by her reflection.

She stripped to her underwear, stuffing the clothes she’d worn earlier into a bag. She’d have to keep them for going home during the holidays but she couldn’t think of that now.

She started with long black socks and gloves. She smoothed the gloves up her arms, seeing her skin disappear. Then she added a long-sleeved black T-shirt and black leggings. She pulled her hair back from her face, and pushed it under a hijab hood, tucking the ends of the hood into the top of the T-shirt. Most of her skin was covered now, but she could still see her deformed shape.

She stared into the wardrobe. What should she choose for her first public outing in her new form? She decided to start with a simple overhead abaya. She still wasn’t confident with wrapping and pinning a scarf. The garment felt heavy to start with, falling from the top of her head to the floor. She fed her arms through the openings, securing the loops around her thumbs to keep them in place.  She knew from her rehearsals that nothing of her figure but her height and the width of her shoulders could be seen.

Then the final piece – the niqab. She chose a two layers niqab. The gauze of the second layer hardly obstructed her vision, but hid her eyes. It was perfect.

She pulled the towel off the mirror to check her appearance. It was perfect. There was no skin on show, no hint of her figure, no sign that below this skin of cloth was a wrongness. At last she felt normal. 

Her robes caused little comment in the corridors of the university but she knew that registration might cause an issue. She asked to see a member of the student support team, explained her situation, her choices, her decision. The member of staff listened carefully, nodding. He suggested that she contact the counsellors there, but at the same time, he didn’t refuse when she asked to have her new name added to her ID card and she was given dispensation not to have her photo on her ID card. She had chosen Maryam as it was close to her old name. It was Muslim but could also belong to other cultures. She wanted to pass as a Muslimah but not have to spend her life spelling her name or explaining how it was pronounced.

And so on the first day of teaching, Maryam slipped into the lecture hall like a shadow. She saw how the young Muslim men in her computer classes automatically gave her space, knowing that they must not sit near her.  The few Muslim girls in the class called her sister, and she would politely reply to their salams. She kept her voice quiet and low, avoiding drawing attention to herself.

She took leaflets for the Muslim society, pretending an interest. She knew she had to get enough knowledge to fake it properly. She would follow the Mulimahs out when they went to pray, but would hide in the toilets. She knew when it was Ramadan so that she wouldn’t be spotted eating during daylight. She impressed her female classmates with her supposed piety, refusing to unveil even in front of them when they met for group work. She mouthed the words about her niqab bringing her closer to Allah, about keeping her honour for a future husband. She hated lying to them, but at least it spared them from seeing the real reason she covered. She felt she was able to actually make friends, secure in the knowledge that none of them would ever have to fake acceptance of her, never have to suffer the pitying or appalled glances as they forced down feelings of revulsion at her appearance.

She researched conversion, read the Quran, looked at message boards and websites, wondering if she was actually being called to revert. But she realised that the spiritual was not the attraction. She was and remains an atheist. It was only the clothes, always the clothes. They were her biggest source of security, safety and sanity. As long as she could cover this body she was safe.

The only problem was Christmas. She had to go home and put on her biggest performance, putting on the old clothes, responding to her old name, pretending that she hadn’t spent the last ten weeks in a safe black cocoon.

At university, finally free of those intrusive thoughts about her body, her mind was free. As her academic career progressed, as her talents were recognised, she was given excuses to remain on campus during holidays, taking part in research projects, working on small contracts for companies that her tutors put her forward for. She was developing her skills and creating contacts, but she was also avoiding those people from her old life who expected to see her uncovered and exposed.

When she did have to go home, she would travel in her robes, then as she neared her destination, she would slip into the train toilet and transform back into what her parents were expecting. Every moment out of her coverings was hell and she would count down the days, hours, minutes until she could return to her true form.

Finally graduation approached. And she made a decision. She told her parents how she had been living, how she has been dressing, how she intended to continue dressing, about her new name, and about the lucrative job she would be starting immediately after graduation.

“You can come and see me graduate as Maryam or you can stay home. I want to stay in contact with you, but if you can’t accept my choice, I’m sorry, I can’t change for you.”

There had been shouting. There had been tears. There had been angry silences, then more shouting and tears. In the years since, she had come to an uneasy truce with her parents, would see them occasionally, but she knew they had never really accepted who she was, what she was. They couldn’t see the real her.

And so she had walked across the stage at graduation in her flowing black robes, to the applause of her classmates but not her family.

She opens her eyes to blackness. She always does. Some would find the dark scary, but she finds it comforting. The heavy curtains over the windows keep out any hint of daylight, and do not allow any prying eyes to see in.

She pushes her duvet aside and sits up.

In the darkness, she moves towards the bathroom, a windowless room attached to her bedroom. This is the worst part of the day for her.

Her fingers move to her neck, feeling for the ribbon that keeps her sleeping hood in place. It’s tricky to unknot the tie with gloved fingers but she does this every day and it’s second nature to her now. With the hood removed, she feels the air on her face and she can’t help a grimace from crossing it. She keeps her eyes clamped shut. Next, she moves her fingers to the fastening of her sleep suit. She unzips it and steps out. It includes socks at the bottom of the legs and the gloves that dampened her sense of touch. Wearing it in bed spares her the sensation of any part of her body touching another, thigh touching thigh, of arm touching torso. But now she shudders as she feels the air touch her skin. Her hated skin, her unacceptable skin.

Quickly she steps into the shower, allowing the water to run over her. Reluctantly, she picks up the soap and lathers it between hands. She rubs the suds over her legs, arms, torso, face. All the time, she pushed down the feelings of disgust that this body raises in her. She reaches for the towel, drying herself carefully, keeping the fabric between her hands and the body part she is drying. She combs her hair and fastens it into a bun at the base of her skull.

She wraps the long robe around herself, and ties the belt tightly. It covers her form but it is not enough, it is never enough.

She leaves the bathroom, moving easily through the bedroom. She has memorised the layout of the room and can navigate it completely blind.

She had laid out her daytime coverings the night before, and she starts to pull them on. The panic and nausea caused by exposing herself in the shower are eased with every piece she puts on.

First her underwear. Black of course. Everything in is black. Then she feels for the stockings. She has moved on from the socks she used to wear, and find the long black stockings more covering, more secure. She smooths them up her legs.

Next come her gloves, again long and black. She pulls them above her elbows. Most people would find the gloves blunt their sense of touch but for her, the covering removes the pain of exposing her fingers to the world. With them bare, she cannot bear to touch anything, let alone herself. She flexes her black clad fingers.

Next the long sleeved T-shirt and the leggings, checking the fit of the tight black fabric over her limbs. She tries not to think of the body below the black, below this, her true skin

At last, she pulls the hijab hood over her head. She wishes she could completely cover her face at this point but she must be practical.

She is almost tempted to open her eyes at this point, but then she might be accidentally confronted by the image of her limbs. Her skin may be covered, but her figure is visible.

Her gloved fingers feel for the next layers. She pulls the baggy trousers over her legs, covering their shape. An equally shapeless top follows. In the early days, she would have to open her eyes at this point, but now she is so practised, she continues her blind preparations.

The overhead abaya is heavy. It is made from metres of cloth. It was advertised as the largest abaya available. When she ordered it there was no need to state a size, only to enter her height. It is a garment designed to encompass, to swamp, to swallow her up in a forgiving shroud of darkness, to erase her form from this world. Gratefully she dives into its welcoming black depths. She surfaces and feels it unfurling over her. She pins the opening to the hood. She knows now that from the tip of her head to the floor, she is an unbroken line of black. If she folds her hands in front of her, there is virtually no sign of a human figure, she is a black column. The long sleeves hang down over her hands. She can push them back when she needs to use them, but they save her from having to see her fingers, to be reminded that she is a body below her cocoon of cloth.

She still feels the air on her lips, her nostrils, her eyelids. Another layer is needed.

She pushed the black fingers out from the sleeves and feels for the most precious of her coverings. She might be an atheist but she would thank God or Allah or whoever designed this marvellous thing. She lifts the niqab to her face, feeling the gauzy layers settle over her features. She ties the ribbons tightly behind her head.

Here in the darkness, she leaves down the three layers. Later she will raise a layer to be able to go about her work, to navigate the world on the few times she leaves her flat. But for this moment, she drinks in the sensation of the fabric concealing her. Her breath heats up the air below the niqab but it is reminder that she is safely covered now.  If she looked at herself now, she would see no sign of the body that distresses her, of the shape that she must hide, the wrongness she wishes she was free of.

Finally she opens her eyes, though in the dark of the curtained room, and the dark of her curtained eyes, she can see little. By memory she moves to the window, to open the curtains. A soft light flows in. Although the curtains are opened, opaque blinds cover the windows. Just as she is careful not to look at herself, she is also careful to stop others from looking at her.

She makes breakfast, additional black rubber gloves over her undergloves. She was delighted to discover the all-in-one nutrition drinks that Silicon Valley developed. Food is just another reminder that she is still trapped in a biological prison. These shakes giver her the calories and vitamins she needs to survive, but she can further divorce herself from the physical world.

The necessary refuelling done, she is ready for work. But before she moves to her desk, she must add another garment.

The khimar sweeps down to her hips. Yes, she has covered her shape, but sitting at the desk, she must free her hands to type. The forgiving sweep of the khimar covers her hands, the keyboard. As with so much in life, she relies on touch so that she does not have to see her own hands. She has angled the computer screen so that there are minimal reflections. Even if she does catch a glimpse of herself, it is nothing but a shape. No face but a blank black curtain.

She logs on and the lines of code start to scroll past her eyes, as she searches for errors, makes corrections, creates new functions.

Her job is perfect. The company is new and progressive. They are used to those that the “normal” world insists on labelling as divergent in some way. They didn’t bat an eyelid at her refusal to turn on the camera for the online interview. They never insist she speaks in online meetings. All her interactions are through chat. Has she heard half of her colleagues’ voices or does she just imagine them now in her head as she reads each person’s individual style of writing, their idiosyncratic codes? She knows that she never talks to them, that everyone knows that her keyboard is her voice, her code is all she needs to prove her worth.

She almost wishes that she could live online as a series of electrons, as zeroes and ones, as pure thought frees from this body.

But this is the closest she can get. She has erased her bodily form, hidden herself from others and herself. At last she is not a creature of flesh and bone, of skin and hair. She has a skin of cloth, her body is made of whispering layers of fabric, she moves through this world like a collections of shadows, a formless, shifting cloud of smoke.

As is usually the case, she loses herself in work. Often, when she stops at last to refuel her physical form, it will be dark outside. She knows that she must exercise this body, even though she would rather be free of it. The thought of going to a gym is out of the question. Even the thought of removing enough of her covering to exercise at home, is unacceptable. Instead she walks, earbuds pumping out a series of podcasts, distracting herself from the sensations of movement, of her muscles moving, of her breath moving in and out.

She only feels comfortable leaving the house after dark. Every time she goes out, she checks in the only mirror in the house. It is positioned near the front door. She must be certain that she is fully covered before she leaves. Even though she is always certain that everything is in place, she can never risk exposing herself to anyone outside. She checks the small mirror and is comforted to see an unbroken facade of black. She will then slip into the evening, a being of shadows becoming one with the dark.

She had chosen the location of her flat so that she could be close to the mosque, close to the Muslim community. She still does not share their religion but it is easier for her to walk the streets here. There are incidents of name calling from ignorant people, but she would rather be called a terrorist than for them to see her true face.

But today, she can’t lose herself completely in work. She has an appointment. An appointment she has to leave the flat during daytime for. She can’t be a shadow in the night, but must face the daylight.

She removes the hip-length khmer and replaces it with an ankle-length one. She carefully positions the opening over her niqab, the top layer spilling out of the opening but the other layers trapped inside, sealing her in. There are slits for her hands, but she can also pull them inside the khmer, appearing limbless, formless, an anonymous cone of black.

Her phone and keys in her abaya pockets, she stands at the door. She takes a deep breath and opens it. She walks as quickly as possibly, keeping her head down. She is the image of the modest Muslimah. She passes other women in the hijab, in the niqab. Luckily, although her coverings are extreme, she is not the only figure in black in this part of town.

She travels the streets she usually only navigates at night, but she knows how important this appointment is. She had been keeping it regularly. She has to, she needs to.

She presses the bell at the door and her counsellor buzzes her in.

She had finally gone online and found the answer to the questions of what she was, She found the words that described what she was, the diagnoses, the treatments. And she was able to find a counsellor who understood her. Who knew that the feelings she has weren’t imaginary, who was able to help her.

She sits down opposite her counsellor, her layers of black settling around her. She has been able, with time, to pull back successive layers of her niqab. She will not bare her face yet, but she looks at her counsellor with uncovered eyes.

The counsellor asks if the hormones are having any side effects.

No, none but their desired effects. Her breasts are swelling. She feels her hips growing rounded and softer. When she forces herself to touch her skin, she feels that it is smoother. Her facial hair is softening too, the hated stubble turning to peach fuzz. She talks little outside these sessions, but she thinks that her voice is softer, higher. Or it could just be that she feel free to speak in her authentic voice.

The counsellor talks of the gender confirmation surgery, again says that they have to work together to get her to a mental stage where she is ready.

“You are still hiding yourself. You are so used to hiding yourself, hiding what you saw as the wrong body. We are so close to matching your body to the woman you know you are, that I know you are. You don’t have to keep concealing yourself. We need to work on addressing this dysmorphia further.”

They talk further, making a plan for further therapy, for the work that Maryam still has to do to accept herself. Slowly, Maryam is finding peace with herself. At the end of the session, she thanks her counsellor, checking the time of their next appointment. Then she pulls the layers of her niqab over her face as she leaves the office.

When it happens, when the hormones have completed her transformation, when her breasts have finished growing, when her hips have finished swelling, when the gender confirmation surgery corrects the sense of wrongness she has endured her whole life, when her body looks like the woman she always knew she was, even as her parents called her Mark and insisted she was a boy – what then? When her appearance finally matches her image of herself in her mind, will she discard her black layers? Will she ever be able to bare her skin to herself? Will she ever want to show her skin to the world? Or will this black fabric forever be the skin she lives in?