For those of you who don't know, this is a blog about writing exercises. These exercises I've found around the web and may possibly come up with on the spot. This is just for fun and to get me into the habit of writing frequently. I hope you will join me on this journey of writing. I will be posting every Tuesday and Friday as long as I have steam to do so.
Exercise 10:
A character observes another
character's skin. This might be a lover's skin, or the wounded bare feet of a
homeless man in a subway. What can you learn about the person by looking at
their skin? What can you learn about yourself?
The Electricity of a
Touch
Her
skin wasn’t like the perfect skin of the windup in The Windup Girl by Paolo
Bacigalupi. It was imperfection, yet at
the same time seemed so perfect. It wasn’t
rough like any adults skin I’d ever felt. It was soft like a newborn baby’s skin. It was as if she’d been born just yesterday.
She was a ripe 20 years of age and
yet, her skin felt so brand new. I
wondered if it was some kind of lotion she’d used, or if she were an alien from
another planet.
Where she had scratched just
moments ago, her skin turned red like the flushing of skin during arousal. It seemed to me that her skin was really
sensitive. I wondered how it felt for
her to be bitten by a flea or a mosquito.
I could only imagine how sensitive it must feel to her.
I found myself unable to keep my
hand away from her skin. I was so
fascinated by it. My fingertips lightly
trailed down her arm as if it were the first time I’d ever touched her. It felt smooth to the touch.
Her skin was covered in small
moles, but it was as if they weren’t even there. It was like a table with grains underneath that
you could see but were unable to touch.
It was like her skin was laminated by a thin soft substance.
My curiosity got the best of
me. Where she’d scratched her chest, it
reddened. I wondered if that patch of
skin felt the same as her arm. “You must
have scratched yourself right there.” I
reached out and found my fingers trailing over her collarbone. My fingertips brushed over the redness of her
chest, and it felt just as smooth as her arm. My fingers grazed across her skin
so light and feathery. “Yeah.” She replied, looking down as I touched
her skin so gently.
Touching her skin made me feel so
warm inside. It was something different
that I’d never felt before. It was
intriguing. Was I attracted to the way
her skin felt? What an odd notion.
At that moment I hadn’t realized
how close I’d come to her. The gesture,
I knew, could only be an intimate touch.
Why was I so fascinated by her skin to not even realize I was being so
intimate? We were just friends.
Now I wondered what it might feel like
to her, for someone to touch her in such a place. I wondered if her skin was sensitive enough
to send shivers throughout her body at just the simplest touch. I wondered if I might have invaded her
personal space, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Did her collarbone feel as
sensitive as my own did, or was it greater in sensitivity? I knew there was no way to measure our different
levels of skin sensitivity.
Maybe I was over thinking it. Maybe
I felt more than she did. Was it the
touch of her skin, or was it the thoughts driven by the touch that made me feel
like I’d just done something I shouldn’t have?
Did I want her to feel the touch as if it were an intimate act? I couldn’t tell. I was now trapped in my own
thoughts.
I felt myself afraid to touch her,
and afraid to speak to her. I wanted to
talk to her. I wanted to ask her what
she felt, if anything at all. But how
could I ask her without showing my true desires? I’d have to say nothing. This friendship meant more to me than the
answers she could give me. Perhaps I was
afraid she’d say she felt nothing at all.
No electricity. Only I felt the electricity. The electricity caused by her perfectly
imperfect peachy skin covered in puffy red marks from scratching. The most wonderful skin I’d ever felt, and
may ever feel.
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Author's Notes:
I found this an interesting thing to write about. I thought, how might someone feel to touch such soft skin? What reactions might this stir up?
I have no idea what you can tell by looking at someones skin to be quite honest. I guess if they like tatoos, that's a sign they aren't afraid of pain? In the case of this story, could the woman with the soft skin be a sensitive person? Then comes the question, is she sensitive physically only, or emotionally too? Tell me what you think in the comments. ;)
What did I learn about myself? That I pay more attention to the way things feel than they way they look. Not just physical touch, but also the feelings a person obtains from touching things. I'm starting to think I'm more about feeling than seeing. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, being a writer and all. I need to learn to open my eyes and see things visually as opposed to just by touch.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the read and give this skin describing exercise a shot!
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