In the Flesh
(Skin Deep III)

8-22-09

All my life I’ve dreamt of being a housewife. Some women have lofty goals of landing big careers, big houses, big cars and big families. Me, I just want to be left alone while I watch TV. So when my husband, Craig, told me he wanted me to quit my job because he thought the city was too dangerous, I was more than happy to oblige. Little did he know that confining me to the suburbs would make the city a lot less dangerous, at least to its female residents with clear skin. Of course, no one knew that but me, and perhaps the detective who showed up at my door one afternoon.

Detective Ross of the Philadelphia P.D. knocked on the door of my quaint suburban home one day while I was splayed out on the couch in my pajamas, eating Cheetos and watching The State on DVD. I decided not to answer, as I wasn’t expecting company and I was in no condition to welcome visitors: I hadn’t brushed my hair in weeks, I hadn’t showered in days and I was wearing ratty old sweat shorts with a hole in the butt. So I turned up the TV and pretended I couldn’t hear the knocking.

“Philadelphia P.D.!” came a gravelly voice through the door, followed by louder knocking.

What? I felt nervous for about ten seconds, then I remembered that my neighbor had a crop of marijuana growing in his backyard. I sighed heavily, paused my DVD and opened the door to find a short, pudgy woman with curly brown hair shoving a gold badge in my face.

“Detective Ross, Philadelphia P.D.,” she said.

I sighed again. “Surely the Cheltenham police could have dealt with this,” I said, crossing my arms.

Detective Ross looked confused. “Dealt with what?”

“The pot garden next door,” I said. “Isn’t that what you’re here about?”

“No,” she said, chewing her lip, “but I’ll check it out while I’m here.” She took out a small black notepad and scribbled something on it.

Oops. I guess I narced out my neighbor. Oh well, I was getting sick of the pot smell blowing into my windows anyway.

The detective finished writing and looked up at me with beady brown eyes. “Are you Chloe Sullivan?” she asked.

She knows my name? I started closing the door. “It’s Beaumont now,” I said, “and I’m very busy, so if you could just tell me what you want—”

“I’m investigating a murder, Miss Sullivan,” she rudely interrupted.

“It’s Mrs. Beaumont, Detective Roth,” I said with a scowl.

“It’s Ross,” she corrected. “May I come in?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said, slowly inching the door closed. “As I said, I’m very busy.”

“Yes, very busy watching TV,” she said with a half smirk.

I glared at her. It was too bad she had terrible skin, or else her face would have been in my fridge within twenty minutes. I didn’t need it anyway. I hadn’t had a single pimple since just before my wedding, three months ago, so there was no need to resume my somewhat unconventional homemade acne treatment.

“I’d just like to ask you a few questions,” the detective said, stepping closer to me.

“About a murder?” I asked. “What would I know about a murder?” Quite a lot actually, but nothing I’d want to tell her.

Detective Ross pulled a photograph out of the manila folder she was holding. “Do you recognize this woman?” she asked, thrusting the picture at my face.

“No,” I said automatically.

“Maybe you wanna take another look,” she said, pushing the photo into my nose.

I snatched it out of her hand and glanced at it. Of course I recognized the woman in the photo. It was Busty, Blonde Debbie, the low-cut-top-wearing slut from my old office, who chatted up my husband-to-be and subsequently turned up dead and faceless in the parking garage outside of her dermatologist’s office. She was the last clear-skinned victim of my homemade acne remedy.

“She looks vaguely familiar,” I said, tossing the photo back at Detective Ross.

“Look again,” said Ross, passing it back to me like it was a hot potato.

Clearly she wasn’t going away until I identified the blonde bitch in the photo. I feigned sudden realization (quite convincingly, I thought) and nodded. “Oh yeah, that’s poor Donna from the office.”

“Deborah,” said the detective, taking the photo.

I cocked my head to the side in a thoughtful manner. “No,” I said. “I think it was Donna.”

“Deborah,” Ross repeated. “She was murdered three months ago.”

“Yes,” I said, with my best attempt at a melancholy expression. “So sad. She was so young.”

Detective Ross rolled her eyes. “I need to come in and ask you a few questions.” She stepped forward and put her loafer-clad foot in front of the door.

“Wait,” I said. “Didn’t the police already arrest someone for Donna’s murder?”

The detective looked at the floor and flushed slightly. “That turned out to be a mistake,” she said through clenched teeth.

Damn it. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you,” I said, edging the door past her foot. “I didn’t know Donna very well.”

Detective Ross jerked the door open with surprising strength. “I think you can, Miss Sullivan,” she said, turning her beady eyes on me. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

Despite her awful cliché, I was suddenly finding the detective a bit intimidating, so I gave in and stepped aside. “It’s Mrs. Beaumont,” I muttered.

Detective Ross pushed her way into my living room and started looking around, examining photographs and bills that were lying around. “Can I get you some coffee?” I asked.

“No, thank you,” she replied, putting down some junk mail she’d been sifting through.

“Tea?” I tried again.

“No, thanks.”

“Juice? Water?”

“No, I’m fine.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Wine?” I asked.

“No!” she snapped, flopping down on my couch and staring at the TV.

“Are you hungry? I could microwave something.”

“No, please take a seat, Miss—Mrs. Beaumont.”

I sat on the recliner beside her and drummed my fingers on the armrest. “Well?” I demanded.

She picked up one of my DVD’s and started reading the back. “Is this what you were so busy with?” She asked, nodding at the TV.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Can we get this over with, please?”

She put down the DVD and opened her notebook. “When was the last time you saw Deborah?” She looked at me expectantly, her pen poised over the paper.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I hardly ever saw her.”

“You worked with her.”

“I worked with a lot of people.”

“What about your husband?”

“Worked with him sometimes too.”

She scribbled in her notebook. “Didn’t you see Deborah the day of her murder?”

I shrugged again. “Don’t think so.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She stared blankly at me for what seemed like an hour before she started scribbling again.

“Is that all?” I asked, getting up from my chair.

“Explain why you were seen leaving the office with Deborah that evening.” she asked, without looking up from her notebook.

I sat back down and gaped at her. I couldn’t speak. I’d thought I’d been as careful as possible that day, even to the point of wearing a hooded sweater and sunglasses to conceal my face from the security cameras.

Detective Ross looked up. “Well?” she said.

I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. “Who sold you that crock?” I asked.

Ross shrugged. “A few of your co-workers saw you.”

“Well they’re mistaken,” I said. I barely knew Donna. “Why would I leave with her?”

“You tell me.” Ross put her pen down and crossed her legs like she was preparing for a long-winded explanation.

“I said I didn’t. Now, unless there’s anything else, I’m very busy.” I stood up and headed for the door.

“Just one more thing,” said Detective Ross, like a squat little female version of Colombo. “Why didn’t you go to your dermatologist appointment?”

“My what?”

“The appointment you had at the dermatologist’s office where Deborah’s body was found.”

I laughed and leaned forward so that I was just inches from her face. “Do I look like I need a dermatologist?”

Ross didn’t blink. She stared straight into my eyes and grinned. “Why did you have an appointment?”

I stepped back and pretended to mull it over. “Oh yeah,” I said, snapping my fingers. “My husband made the appointment, because I had a few little zits before the wedding.

“But you didn’t go.”

I gave a dismissive wave. “No, I didn’t need to.”

“How did you get rid of your zits?”

A secretive smile crept onto my face. “I used a… homeopathic remedy.”

The detective nodded and stood up. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Beaumont.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said, escorting her to the door.

“By the way,” said Detective Ross as she stepped outside. “You should try that ‘homeopathic remedy’ again. You have a ‘little zit’ on your forehead. Have a good day.”

She walked away, leaving me standing in my doorway, gawking after her.

A zit? I felt my heartbeat speed up. I couldn’t move and I could barely breathe. A zit? It was impossible. She must have made it up just to mess with me. Yeah, that had to be it.

I waited until I heard her car pull away, then I turned and looked in the mirror in my entryway. At first, I saw nothing, except the crow’s nest that my hair had become. I really needed to run a comb through it. I leaned forward to get a closer look at my bangs, and that’s when I saw it: a tiny, almost microscopic red dot at the very top of my forehead. A pimple. Detective Ross hadn’t been lying. It was right there in the mirror, plain as the nose on my face—or the zit on my face. It was happening again.

I tried to relax and tell myself that the zit would probably go away and that would be the end of it, but it was no use. I knew that one zit was definitely not the end; it was the beginning. Soon it would call for backup, and all of its bright red and white oily, festering buddies would come out and play, and they’d have one big pimple party on my face. It would be like Zit Woodstock. They’d all be dancing and getting high together all over my face, and they wouldn’t leave until the party was over, until I put an end to it. I knew there was only one way to end it, but I couldn’t possibly pull it off, not with Detective Nosey Loafers on my case.

There was nothing else I could do. I’d tried every acne treatment in the world and none of them had ever worked. No matter what I did, the zits would keep coming and they’d ruin my life just like they did two years earlier. I would have to go back to being a single, unemployed temp living on the wrong side of the tracks. I only had one option left, and I really didn’t want to do it.

I chose a doctor’s office that was over an hour away, to avoid suspicion from Craig, my neighbors, and especially Detective Ross. Her name was Dr. Kim, and her web site said she specialized in the treatment of acne. When I entered her office I was greeted by a brusque young receptionist wearing huge eyeglasses and a cheap floral print blouse.

“Name?” she barked at me.

“Beaumont,” I replied. “Chloe.”

The receptionist consulted her computer and handed me a red plastic clipboard piled two-inches high with forms. “Fill these out and give me your insurance card,” she said, blinking at me from behind her oversized frames.

I obeyed and sat down in the nearly empty waiting area. An old woman smiled at me from across the room. The skin on her face was pulled back so tightly that it looked like it was about to rip right down the middle. She could have played some bizarre alien on Star Trek TNG. I flashed her a phony friendly smile and started filling out my mountain of paperwork.

What felt like days later a nurse called my name and led me to a different room, where I waited another week until Dr. Kim finally made an appearance.

“I’m Sue Kim,” she said Sue Kim? She was a doctor, wasn’t she? I glanced at her wall of certificates just to be sure. “You can call me Sue,” she said. “Doctor Kim is so formal, isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer. I certainly wasn’t planning on calling her “Sue.” I wasn’t about to let someone called “Sue” poke and prod at my face, and I definitely wasn’t going to accept prescription drugs from “Sue.” I much preferred to deal with “Doctor Kim.” Coming here was starting to seem like a mistake already, but I decided to give “Sue” a chance. “So, we’re having a little problem with acne, are we?” She asked.

Oh, God. “Yes, we are,” I replied with a fake, toothy smile. Dr. Kim laughed longer than I thought was appropriate. I looked at my watch.

Eventually she composed herself. “OK,” she said, snapping on some latex gloves. “Let’s have a look.” She pulled my face to her and squinted at my forehead. She poked at the zit and I winced. “Is this tiny little spot what’s bothering us?” she asked, like she was comforting a child with a splinter.

“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” she said, patting my shoulder.

I could feel my face flushing. “It’s not nothing,” I almost screamed. “This is how it always starts. In a few days I’ll have a hundred pimples.”

She laughed again, although I failed to see what was funny. “OK,” she said, removing her gloves. “I’ll give you a prescription for some antibiotics. Take them twice a day.” She scribbled on a little notepad and handed me a slip of paper, then, to my horror, she walked out of the room. “See you in six weeks,” came her voice from the hallway.

I stared from the door to the slip of paper in my hand, then back to the door. That’s it? I thought. Just take a few magic pills? I had a feeling it wouldn’t turn out to be that easy.

I took my first pill that night before I went to bed. It was practically the size of a tube of lipstick, but somehow I choked it down. Then I looked at my little zit in the mirror. “This had better work, Sue,” I said to my reflection.

“Are you stressed again?” Craig asked me three days later, as we sat down to a Monday morning breakfast of blueberry bagels and cream cheese.

I abruptly stopped spreading cream cheese on my bagel and looked up at him. The last time he’d asked me if I was stressed was just before our wedding, when I’d started breaking out for the first time in two years.

“Why?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

Craig opened his mouth and then closed it again, as if he suddenly realized he was treading on dangerous ground.

“What?” I demanded, dropping my bagel. “What is it?”

He opened and closed his mouth a few more times, like a giant goldfish swimming around a bowl. The expression on his face told me all I needed to know. I grabbed our stainless steel coffee pot and tried to look at my reflection in it. My face was warped and my head was upside-down. I whined and hurried into the bathroom.

My worst fears were confirmed by the vanity mirror. It had begun. The one zit on my forehead had turned into four, and there were at least seven more scattered about my cheeks, chin and nose. What the hell were Dr. Kim’s magic pills doing?

I ran to the phone in my bedroom and called Dr. Kim’s office. Her receptionist answered. “I need to speak with Dr. Kim right away,” I said.

“Sue’s on vacation,” said the receptionist. I could hear her loudly chewing gum while she spoke.

“What? For how long?” I struggled to keep the desperation out of my voice.

“Two weeks,” the receptionist replied. “I can set an appointment for you for when she comes back.” She snapped her gum.

“Two weeks? I can’t wait that long!” I shouted.

“Don’t get an attitude with me,” she said, smacking on her gum in my ear.

“Attitude? She ruined my face! Her stupid pills made it worse!”

“I can’t help you, Ma’am. Call back in two weeks.” I heard a loud click as she hung up on me.

I stared at the phone in disbelief. “Who was that, Babe?” asked Craig, peeking his head in from the hallway.

I jumped. “How long have you been there?” He shrugged. “It was, well…” I began. I decided I might as well admit it. “It was a dermatologist I saw.”

“Oh!” He looked alarmed. “Not the one in the city, where Debbie…” he trailed off.

“No,” I said. “One around here.”

“Oh… and the doctor’s not helping?”

“No.”

“Sorry, Babe.” He kissed my cheek. “I gotta go to work. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Mm,” I replied noncommittally.

“Just do whatever you did before the wedding. That seemed to work.” He smiled and walked out.

He was right. I was going to have to do what I did before the wedding. It was my only hope.

“Sue” may have been on vacation, but her receptionist was apparently still coming in to answer the phone. So I knew she’d be there the next day, chewing gum and barking at patients in her cheap floral blouse and obnoxiously big glasses.

According to Dr. Kim’s web site, her office closed at 5pm, so I left the house at 3:30 with my bag full of supplies: rubber gloves, a plastic rain poncho, some newspaper, a few old towels, and my favorite large serrated knife.

I arrived at the office around quarter to five, parked my car around the corner, and walked up to the entrance. I knew there wouldn’t be any patients inside with the good doctor on vacation, so I let myself in and locked the door behind me.

The receptionist was chatting on the phone while leafing through an issue of Cosmopolitan. She looked up when I came in and shot me an annoyed glare. I’ll call you back when I get home,” she said into the phone before hanging it up. “What are you doing here?” she barked at me. “I told you Sue’s on vacation. You have to leave.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said with feigned confusion. “I thought I had an appointment today.”

“You don’t,” she said, rolling her eyes, “and we’re closed. You have to leave now.”

“Fair enough,” I said with a smile. I gave the door a halfhearted tug. “The door appears to be stuck,” I said to the receptionist. “Would you mind opening it for me?”

She sighed dramatically and stomped over to the door. I reached into my bag and felt for my knife. She pulled on the doorknob and scowled. “Why is this locked?” she snapped. As she reached for the lock I grabbed her ponytail and yanked her head back. “What the—” I slit her throat before she could say anything else.

She groped at her neck and collapsed in a heap of floral fabric on the floor. Blood spilled down her polyester blouse and onto the threadbare teal carpet. As she gagged and writhed I kicked her a few times, just for the hell of it. “Hurry up and die already,” I said, putting on my rain poncho. “I don’t have all night.” I looked at my watch and frowned. It was Wednesday, and I wanted to be home in time to watch Ghost Hunters. I really needed to get DVR.

When the receptionist was finally still, I put on my gloves, set down some newspaper and studied her face. Her skin wasn’t perfect; she had some pock marks from old zits that “Sue” had probably cleared up with her magic pills. I shrugged and started cutting her face off anyway.

For some reason it was harder to pull off the skin than I remembered. I thought maybe it was time to sharpen my knife. After all, I had used it on seven victims now, and to slice cheese and stuff at home. I would have to pick up a sharpener later.

After a lot of slashing, ripping and cursing, I finally got the receptionist’s skin off. I took a seat on one of the waiting room chairs and put on my headphones so I could listen to Cat Stevens on my iPod. Then I gently placed the skin on my face like a mask, and relaxed as “Here Comes My Baby” began to play.

I sat there, drifting in and out of consciousness, until my playlist ended, about forty-five minutes later. Then I dropped the skin on the floor, toweled myself off and stepped over to the reception desk. I found what I was looking for in the first drawer I opened: Dr. Kim’s vacation itinerary. She was due to arrive at the Philadelphia Airport on American Airlines flight 43 next Sunday at 4:15pm. I planned to be there to welcome her home.

As I was leaving Dr. Kim’s office with my bag of tools, I noticed a copy of Teen Vogue sitting on an end table. The cover read, “When Acne Just Won’t Go Away.” Out of curiosity I picked it up and paged through it until I found the article. It talked about recent cases of a new strain of “Super Acne,” which was resistant to antibiotics, and in some cases was actually made worse by them. “Son of a bitch,” I said. I threw the magazine at the receptionist’s lifeless (and faceless) body and stormed out.

The first thing I did when I arrived home that night was flush all of my painfully large pills down the toilet. It seemed like a shame because they had cost me a hundred and fifty bucks, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to use them and risk making my “Super Acne” even worse.

A glance at my reflection in the bathroom mirror showed that my face was already beginning to clear up. I just needed one more treatment, but it would have to wait until next Sunday at 4:15.

It took all of my will power to sit at home and ignore my acne for over a week, but somehow I did it. Dr. Kim’s receptionist’s grisly murder was a top story on the news, but I didn’t hear from Detective Ross again. However, Craig did comment on how weird it was that people kept getting killed at dermatologists’ offices. I assured him that I wouldn’t be returning to mine.

The following Sunday I got up early, put on a pot of coffee and packed my supplies. As I ate my breakfast, I googled “Super Acne.” Apparently it was very common, and as a result most dermatologists were reluctant to prescribe antibiotics for acne. When I read that, my blood boiled. I gripped my mouse so hard that it made a popping sound and scrolled down three pages. Dr. Kim had handed out those pills without a second thought. She saw my two zits and laughed them off, then gave me antibiotics just to make me go away. My face was a joke to her. Well, she wouldn’t be laughing much longer.

I took a train to the airport at 3:12pm, found the gate where Dr. Kim’s flight was due to arrive, and waited. I had brought a book with me in case her flight was delayed: Confessions of a Shopaholic. I got through three chapters before I finally heard the announcement that American Airlines Flight 43 was arriving. I stood behind a red-headed couple with three ginger children who all looked exactly like their parents. They were holding signs written in crayon that read “Grandma.” I had a good view of the gate from over the ginger mother’s shoulder.

Dr. Kim walked out alone, wheeling an immaculate red leather suitcase and yelling into her Blackberry. “No, I didn’t know! I didn’t have service out there! …Well I told her I’d be in touch through e-mail. Oh my God.” She was just finding out about her receptionist. I smiled as I recalled the look on that polyester-wearing cow’s face when she fell to the floor, oozing blood from her throat.

I followed Dr. Kim out of the airport and into a convenient back alley, where she stopped to light up a cigarette. There was no one else around, and the sun was setting quickly behind the tall buildings, allowing only a small sliver of orange light to peek into the alley.

“I gotta go,” Dr. Kim said into her Blackberry. “I have to call a cab. Thanks for letting me know… I will. Bye.” She pulled the Blackberry away from her ear and began anxiously pressing buttons on it.

“Need a lift, Dr. Kim?” I asked, stepping slowly toward her with my trusty knife in my hand.

She squinted at me through the orange glow of the setting sun. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked, flicking ash from her cigarette.

“Oh yes,” I replied, unable to stop myself from grinning.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I really need to make a phone call.” She went back to pressing buttons on her Blackberry. I stepped closer and held my knife behind my back. “Yes, a cab company near the Philadelphia Airport,” she said into the receiver.

The sun sank lower in the sky, enveloping the alley in darkness. I stepped behind Dr. Kim and lifted my knife. “You won’t be needing a cab,” I said. Then I brought my knife down into her back. She made a grunting sound and dropped both her Blackberry and her cigarette. I jammed the knife into her back again and she slumped forward onto the dirty pavement. “My face is a joke to you, huh?” I yelled. “Who’s laughing now, Sue?” I stabbed her over and over again, and each time I plunged the knife into her flesh I felt increasingly more satisfied. I must have stabbed her sixteen times before I finally composed myself and got down to business. I used my cell phone as a flashlight and carefully removed the skin from her face. It came off much more easily than the receptionist’s had, and within minutes I had it on my face.

I sat on the ground beside what was left of Dr. Kim and read a few more chapters of my book by the light of my cell. Then I took off the skin, cleaned myself up and changed into the extra set of clothes I’d brought. As I walked out of the alley, I stomped out Dr. Kim’s still-smoking cigarette. “Second-hand smoke kills,” I said, shaking my head reprovingly.

Two days after Dr Kim’s untimely demise, my skin was as smooth and clear as ever, and I was able to go back to my leisurely housewife lifestyle worry-free. That afternoon, as I lay splayed out on my couch in front of an episode of Bones, my regularly scheduled programming was interrupted by a special news bulletin: Local dermatologist, Susan Kim, was found dead outside of the Philadelphia Airport, a little over a week after her receptionist was brutally murdered in her office. The announcer said that the police were looking for a man who had previously been arrested for four similar murders two years earlier, and had subsequently been released pending further evidence.

I smiled and scarfed down a handful of Cheetos. That should keep Detective Ross off my back for a while, I thought. I picked up my remote and flicked through the channels until I found a rerun of What Not to Wear. “Life is good,” I said to myself. Then I drifted off to sleep with my bag of Cheetos resting on my stomach.