I am stood in a pair of grey trousers, breasts exposed, cold. It’s a Wednesday morning and I have 40 minutes to get ready before I need to leave for work. 

 

I haven’t yet decided on what top to wear. But this won’t matter, as I will soon swamp whatever I dress my torso in, in a cream knitted oversized jumper, which has blue striped unevenly distributed up either sleeve. 

 

I walk over to my wardrobe, pull out the lower drawers and rummage through an unorganised dump of long-sleeved tops and find a dark grey turtleneck. 

 

I have already rolled up the blind that covers my window and faces the back lane. Turning myself away from the window, I slide on the turtleneck in an attempt not to flash the students who live over the back. 

 

Now, facing the full-length mirror, I flash myself. 

 

The mirror is not fixed onto the wall but propped against it. Pinned between where the mirror rests hang a pair of mint green lace gloves. 

 

I bought them around three months ago. I didn’t even try them on in the shop. 

Instead of putting them away in a drawer ready to be re-discovered, I layered them, decoratively, over the edge of the mirror. 

 

I am holding them with my thumb and index finger, and slowly I begin to pull my fingers down as if to straighten out the lace. Each indent, ridge and hole feel larger between my fingertips.

 

I go over to the window and close the blind. 

 

Slipping on the gloves I stretch my fingers into each sewn crevice. 

 

I thought they would extend past my elbow and ping back slightly, adjust and then settle into position. But as I pull the gloves begin to grow. Green particles attach one onto another, lace atoms bond and expand like the formation of a snowflake or that magic stacking sand. There is no need to tug when lifting them up past my elbows. The stretching motion is smooth, like applying thick buttery hand cream. 

 

They spread upwards, and the green lace begins to coat my arms as it sets out to become full body. 

 

The two separate gloves conjoin; they worm their way around the juts of my shoulders and seal themselves across my chest. My nipples poke through the holes and the lace wraps itself around each one. 

 

The gloves work their way down my back, mummify themselves across my stomach and over each butt cheek. Then they pause and stretch down my outer thighs and calves. Mint green stirrup hooks are forming that hoist up my heels, as the lace spreads and tickles across the bottom of my feet. The particles break here, span out in different directions and create space for each individual toe. Each foot is now wrapped and bound. And as the breathing space between lace and skin collapses, the lace decides to work its way inwards. 

 

I can tell you what it is like to wear clothes, the feeling of fabric brushing past your arm hair, taught threads growing with your rib cage as you breath in and out. I can tell you what it feels like to do up your belt too tight, denim indenting its stitch marks into your belly. What it is like to be tied in. Or in full motion with wind and skirt, to stretch with tights or to float along with rayon. 

 

But what does it feel like when clothes wear your insides?

 

The lace enters me, and I could feel the particles balloon, momentarily pause, then drip down. With each breath in, the lace fills my lungs to the brim, and with my breaths out it overflows and leaks. 

 

My liver excretes the excess lace, ready for it to be passed on. I have never felt my intestines before but now swaddled up they form into ribbons. I wait and feel the lace slip into my veins as if threading a needle. My blood soaks up the lace, my heart pushing it round, and after circulating a few times I see a perpetual circulation of minty green fluid moving underneath sheer skin. 

 

My face is the only part of me left un-covered. 

 

The lace gloves force their way back out and cut themselves off at the top of my neck. Sliding up the back of my scalp, I can hear a sudden flurry of sound as they sneak in through my ears. There is an uncomfortable whirring, as I feel the sound of them moving, pushing through the muscle to sit beneath the layers of skin on my cheeks. Reaching upwards the gloves position themselves through the backs of my eyes, and I begin to see like a fly. They feed themselves down through my nostrils, coating my throat, the movement has stopped, and the gloves now lay dormant under my tongue. 

 

I feel around for empty space, and realise I am full. 

 

I pull over my grey turtleneck, swamp my torso in the cream knitted-oversized jumper. I add socks, then shoes and unravelled the rolled ankles of my trousers so no skin(lace) shows.  Heading downstairs I clip my helmet on, wheel my bike out the door and head to work. 

 

As I cycle my thighs chafe against my cotton trousers. Rubbing against the seat of the bike the lace starts to wear down my skin. The circular motion begins again, with every peddle push and hill I face, my breathing becomes heavier, and the lace is pushed into overspill. 

 

When lace is made into its desired patterns, it requires a fabric to hold up it in place, creating a structure and bond, whilst it is worked on. This sacrificial fabric is then chemically dissolved and once it has fully disintegrated the lace is left to exist with its holes, indents and ridges. 

 

My skin and organ linings are the structural fabric holding the lace in shape as it becomes its desired pattern. And now it will dissolve. I sink into the mint green lace, every part of me melts away like sherbet mixing with spit, it fizzes, pools and crackles leaving a wetness of sugary salivary sweetness. 

 

There is no longer skin on skin, but lace on lace and all my solidity ceases. 

 

This pleasure is mine. This pleasure is mine not yours. 

 

I arrive at work, and I begin to lock up my bike. I head into the building and up the stairs to the low ceilings and repetitive flood of unnatural computer light. I sit at my desk, and wonder if anyone notices my minty green fingers as I type.