BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 04

TUESDAY
08 OCTOBER, 1996
ISAIAH

               The fluorescent lights of the Londis corner shop sear my eyes in their sockets. I squeeze them shut, praying for the migraine that has been lurking in my periphery for hours not to pounce though I know I'm testing my luck. Working on my dissertation this late wouldn't do wonders even if I wasn't doing it in this lighting.

Someone snaps their fingers and I jolt. A woman waits at the till, waving a hand in my direction as she leans over the counter. 'Oi, hello!'

I apologise as I stand from the saddle stool. She glares at me the whole time as I scan her celery, clementines, and laundry detergent, an odd selection of ingredients for someone to be buying at this time. We mostly get students buying ramen past nine o'clock. I do my best to ignore the needles her stare tacks into my hands and face as I take the money from her.

'Why are you sitting down while working? It doesn't look good.'

Am I supposed to stand for eight hours even when there are no customers? Most of us who take nightshifts are students and our manager is perfectly fine with us working on school things on company time as long as everything else is done. I imagine telling her that I'm disabled though I've had this interaction enough times to know the response will be "you don't look disabled" which is just a complicated way of saying you're a liar.

I offer her the receipt and change. 'Have a good night, ma'am.'

With a scornful huff, she takes her shopping and leaves. I watch the door swing shut with a chime of the bell and resist the urge to roll my eyes.

Someone places a bottle of Coke and a bag of sweet chilli crisps on the counter. 'She needs to relax.' He says it with the exaggerated annunciation of a comedy sitcom.

I grant him a smile though don't bother meeting his eye.

He opens his wallet but his fingers card the notes tucked into it without taking any out. 'Do I know you?'

I don't glance at his face before I reply. 'I don't think so.'

'Yeah, I know you.'

I look up to a face I certainly don't recognise and just as I'm about to tell him that he's mistaken me for someone else, he leers. I still don't recognise him but I'll recognise a smirk like this on any face.

'My mates have told me about you. Doubt there's anyone else in this city with skin like that.'

There certainly are other people in Oxford with vitiligo, but what are the chances there are other people in Oxford with vitiligo who are common conversation topics among men? Among men who discuss their conquests with their mates.

Those are my ideal men, the kind who don't notice when I don't get hard and I don't have to explain my complicated web of chronic illness and medications, any one of which could be responsible. No one else is going to be like Dorian, who, the first time my body betrayed me at the pivotal moment and I withered with embarrassment because most eighteen-year-olds have the opposite problem, said, "when have you ever done things just because everyone else does?"

Once, a man pulled his trousers up and handed me a tenner and when I told him I'm not a hooker, he stared at me with genuine shock and asked, "Why would you let me treat you like this?" Which meant: what are you gaining from this? The answer I gave was a shrug to say, nothing.

Why do I do it then? I don't know. Why did I start smoking? I can't remember anymore but it's too late to quit now.

Besides, I'm not intended to enjoy sex. I was taught that long before I kissed Dorian. My place is under men who can't handle the intimacy of beds.