Mirror Image - incomplete
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
People often say that it can be your worst enemy on a bad day, because at any one moment, it can capture your innermost feelings and throw them right back at you. Without your consent.
Strange how you can hide from the whole world, but the one thing you can never seem to hide from is a mirror. Even if you don’t own one, they’re everywhere. In shops, malls, bathrooms. Every martini and vodka shot you down, every chocolate indulgence, every sinful act you commit against your body - the mirror shows it all. And perhaps this is why I’ve taken pains to drill mirrors into every square inch of my room. To remind me of my sins.
I start at the feet.
They always ask me why, but I can only stare back at them in silence. Because really, I haven’t a clue. But I start there. And they’re the daintiest feet you’ve ever seen. The delicate toes with nails that are perfectly trimmed into white orbs. The gentle arch of the foot that leads to the soft slender ankle. And then comes the legs.
They’re not too bad too. They curve seductively all the way to my hips, which I’m told are slightly bony. But that’s okay, I have a slender waist. I admit I haven’t been exercising as much as I should have, but it’s not too badly out of shape. There’s just the teensiest smidge of a belly, which can be corrected with a triple workout of crunches and floor routines.
Then it’s my face. Not a particularly beautiful feature, but striking nonetheless, with an interestingly defined bone structure. The cheekbones are high and protruding, giving me the air of an aristocrat. My nose is straight and pert and my eyes are like huge drops of brown chocolate. My lips are a bit freakish though. It’s too big for my face. They look like they’re pouting even when I’m not.
Which is annoying, because it’s one of the reasons why people think they’ve seen me before. They’re imagining all those nastily shot, poorly budgeted porn flicks. The ones where ridiculously plump collagen injected lips are making smacking sounds to get you all … ‘excited’.
But that’s where I end. At my lips.
Which obviously leads them to ask me, “ What about the rest of your body? Do you feel uncomfortable about your chest hair, your upper lip hair, your…”
I’m sorry if you think I’ve lied to you, or somehow misled you, because honestly, that was never the intention, it just seems like I should somehow tell the story to you as how I see it, as how it was told to me. But that’s why I started to talk about mirrors… they say that mirrors never lie. Well… they turned out to be the biggest liars of all.
I was born a charming, baby. Baby boy, that is. A healthy ten pounder with just a hint of honey blond hair. And pretty, big brown eyes which Mother said would make all the girls swoon. That, I was to find out later, was just half of it.
So, I started to grow up. At first, no one really suspected anything, because all that happened was my lips growing larger. Somehow, all the girls seemed to think it enhanced my good looks, because they all started blushing when I happened to look their way. Yes, they blushed. At nine years old, you’d think that children wouldn’t know a thing about flirting and blushing and lip biting etcetera, but I did. They were blushing. So I suppose Mother was partly right - I’ll give her credit for that - girls were swooning all over me.
And I even won the most photogenic award from my school. I remember grinning up at a red faced Ms. Patty. I think she had the smallest of crushes on me too. Anyway, at that point everything was just fine and dandy.
It wasn’t until I turned thirteen that everything started to change.
Of course, what affected me was puberty, and I assure you I knew even then that puberty would change me. The only thing was, I never expected to change into a girl. My Father had lectured me at length on the development my body and how things like my voice would change, and how hair would start turning up in all those different places… so in fact, I was waiting for it to happen.
Instead, I started to get a weird tingling in my chest. At a particular time every month, my chest would even feel slightly swollen. My nipples were suddenly extra sensitive and an accidental brush would send them into overdrive. I certainly wasn’t expecting THIS. What I WAS expecting to happen in lower regions however, didn’t happened. I wasn’t excited by ANYTHING in the least bit. Well, certainly not by girls.
So I thought that perhaps I was gay. And for good reason too.
I suddenly started noticing my male friends a little bit more than what was usual. I stared at them intently as they walked around half naked in the showers, and I noticed myself starting to get embarrassingly aroused. So much so, that at times I had to wait for everyone to leave before I dared to venture out, in case they spotted the awkward blush on my face.
People often say that it can be your worst enemy on a bad day, because at any one moment, it can capture your innermost feelings and throw them right back at you. Without your consent.
Strange how you can hide from the whole world, but the one thing you can never seem to hide from is a mirror. Even if you don’t own one, they’re everywhere. In shops, malls, bathrooms. Every martini and vodka shot you down, every chocolate indulgence, every sinful act you commit against your body - the mirror shows it all. And perhaps this is why I’ve taken pains to drill mirrors into every square inch of my room. To remind me of my sins.
I start at the feet.
They always ask me why, but I can only stare back at them in silence. Because really, I haven’t a clue. But I start there. And they’re the daintiest feet you’ve ever seen. The delicate toes with nails that are perfectly trimmed into white orbs. The gentle arch of the foot that leads to the soft slender ankle. And then comes the legs.
They’re not too bad too. They curve seductively all the way to my hips, which I’m told are slightly bony. But that’s okay, I have a slender waist. I admit I haven’t been exercising as much as I should have, but it’s not too badly out of shape. There’s just the teensiest smidge of a belly, which can be corrected with a triple workout of crunches and floor routines.
Then it’s my face. Not a particularly beautiful feature, but striking nonetheless, with an interestingly defined bone structure. The cheekbones are high and protruding, giving me the air of an aristocrat. My nose is straight and pert and my eyes are like huge drops of brown chocolate. My lips are a bit freakish though. It’s too big for my face. They look like they’re pouting even when I’m not.
Which is annoying, because it’s one of the reasons why people think they’ve seen me before. They’re imagining all those nastily shot, poorly budgeted porn flicks. The ones where ridiculously plump collagen injected lips are making smacking sounds to get you all … ‘excited’.
But that’s where I end. At my lips.
Which obviously leads them to ask me, “ What about the rest of your body? Do you feel uncomfortable about your chest hair, your upper lip hair, your…”
I’m sorry if you think I’ve lied to you, or somehow misled you, because honestly, that was never the intention, it just seems like I should somehow tell the story to you as how I see it, as how it was told to me. But that’s why I started to talk about mirrors… they say that mirrors never lie. Well… they turned out to be the biggest liars of all.
I was born a charming, baby. Baby boy, that is. A healthy ten pounder with just a hint of honey blond hair. And pretty, big brown eyes which Mother said would make all the girls swoon. That, I was to find out later, was just half of it.
So, I started to grow up. At first, no one really suspected anything, because all that happened was my lips growing larger. Somehow, all the girls seemed to think it enhanced my good looks, because they all started blushing when I happened to look their way. Yes, they blushed. At nine years old, you’d think that children wouldn’t know a thing about flirting and blushing and lip biting etcetera, but I did. They were blushing. So I suppose Mother was partly right - I’ll give her credit for that - girls were swooning all over me.
And I even won the most photogenic award from my school. I remember grinning up at a red faced Ms. Patty. I think she had the smallest of crushes on me too. Anyway, at that point everything was just fine and dandy.
It wasn’t until I turned thirteen that everything started to change.
Of course, what affected me was puberty, and I assure you I knew even then that puberty would change me. The only thing was, I never expected to change into a girl. My Father had lectured me at length on the development my body and how things like my voice would change, and how hair would start turning up in all those different places… so in fact, I was waiting for it to happen.
Instead, I started to get a weird tingling in my chest. At a particular time every month, my chest would even feel slightly swollen. My nipples were suddenly extra sensitive and an accidental brush would send them into overdrive. I certainly wasn’t expecting THIS. What I WAS expecting to happen in lower regions however, didn’t happened. I wasn’t excited by ANYTHING in the least bit. Well, certainly not by girls.
So I thought that perhaps I was gay. And for good reason too.
I suddenly started noticing my male friends a little bit more than what was usual. I stared at them intently as they walked around half naked in the showers, and I noticed myself starting to get embarrassingly aroused. So much so, that at times I had to wait for everyone to leave before I dared to venture out, in case they spotted the awkward blush on my face.
posted by teri at 6:04 PM
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