Kara Crawford: I think it’s impossible to discuss this story without talking about the way you approach taboo in the work. Specifically, this story approaches the themes of incest and homophobia (not to mention cannibalism) with a great deal of nuance and care. How did you approach writing about such sensitive, delicate topics? Did you think much about readers’ possible reactions as you wrote?

Apostol Mohamed: Thank you! When it comes to more triggering subject matter, very often what has felt the most violating about the way something is written or filmed for me has been its gaze, more than the subject matter itself. It's important to me to be able to tap into more than the transgression and edginess of it all, to find the human, emotive center of the story. It's not that that softens it necessarily, and I think to downplay the violence of a topic can be violent⁠ in itself—and very often the emotions and impulses in question are not at all what most people would call soft. I think it's more that they give us a way to look at particular instances of violence, and through that, come closer to understanding them. There's a catharsis in that, for me. A lot of how I get there is by grounding in character POV⁠—the subjective, emotional, and tactile—because in my experience that's where most of the meaning lies. 

I do think about reader reactions, sort of. Just not usually in the context of whether to broach a topic that's darker or more taboo. If they do or don't feel right by the above metrics, I tend to trust that. But I do think about how I'd like the intensity of a thing to unfold⁠—which details and scenes will feel most intimate and vulnerable and where to place them accordingly. For "Wet Skin", I wanted it to feel like we were slowly getting closer to Calvin's gooey center as it progressed. A lot of the taboo aspects of the story are sort of veiled through his perspective, so I was often considering different shades of explicitness and omission. I would try to describe certain things without describing them, particularly with the incest, because I think he finds that very grotesque and shameful. There are a lot of things that Calvin is trying to look away from, but every now and then, he'll confess something a little more outright⁠—just very rarely voluntarily.

KC: On a craft level, I wanted to talk about the authorial choice to reveal in the first sentences that Calvin ate Casey. Why start there? Why did you want the reader to know what would happen? 

AM: I tend to structure my plots intuitively, and I don't usually outline much if at all, so that was initially just an impulse. But I decided to follow and stick with it because I liked the idea of being able to more deeply and explicitly explore Calvin's rationale for the murder leading up to it. I liked the idea of having this violent act, which you assume to have been done out of hatred, be sort of narratively revealed to have these layers of desire and love and sacrifice underneath. And I liked how much it hung over their interactions; it meant there'd be a tension even in their most amicable moments, which helped me to sidestep outright stating much of Calvin's resentment and shame at being, in this mind, the lesser twin⁠—I think that's another thing he tries to look away from.

KC: One thing I appreciate so much about “Wet Skin” is that it offers a sincere critique of toxic, hypermasculinity, but resists oversimplified conclusions. For instance, Casey, though flawed, sometimes serves as an arguably positive masculine example (“My brother was a man in that way; he wanted to do it all, for the sake of someone smaller and weaker than him”). How did you work to provide such a complicated depiction of masculinity?

AM: For me, Casey and Calvin's dynamic is an iteration of a type of dynamic that you see a lot in literature⁠—the kind I remember discussing in grade school English (usually with some kind of comparison to Judas and Jesus), but not exclusively. I think a lot of the time there's an impulse to interpret those dynamics very binaristically, where one is the good one and one is not, but all of those people are human⁠. Which is uncomfortable, because it means we also have the potential to do bad things, and that there is no way for us to be ontologically good. Casey can be kind of naive, in that he isn't always thinking about how his kindness, or his goodness and greatness by whatever metrics he and other characters are measuring them, often rely on the weakness or lesser-ness of others. That power dynamic is Calvin's big angst, and in a lot of ways, the source of his erotic fixation. I think that's what Casey is ultimately trying to escape when he tells (or asks) Calvin to kill him. 

And thank you, again!

KC: Calvin is such an interesting narrator here, as he occupies a sort of in-between space in the highly gendered world of the story, seemingly less masculine than any of the other man characters. Could you talk more about his status as both an insider and outsider of manhood and how you see it impacting his narration of events?

AM: When I wrote Calvin, I was thinking mainly about transmasculinity⁠—although there are lots of other marginalized masculinities that aspects of his experience can apply to⁠, which is part of why he's not an explicitly trans character. Calvin's manhood, in terms of what his gender is, is unquestioned by the people around him⁠—that was not a conflict I was interested in exploring. But his relegation to a kind of lesser manhood is often manifested as a kind of feminization⁠—his role growing up was very tied to his mother and her work in the household, which carries over to his time on the island⁠—or an immasculinization⁠—like when Casey's coworkers bully him in ways that are meant to have kind of de-sexualizing implications⁠. He has a little bit of a criticality for other men in that he can recognize when they're being abusive, but he really covets what they have as well, what he perceives Casey to have that he doesn't, because of that. And I think that latter thing is what wins out in him, what guides him more often than not. I see his murder and consumption of Casey as an induction into that kind of masculinity. It's this very violent and terrible sacrifice that they're both willing to make. 

KC: Calvin is also, of course, attracted to his twin brother, at least on some level (the mutual erection scene was wild!). Why was it not enough for these characters to have homoerotic undertones, but that they be related? To push this even further, why was it crucial for the story that they be, not only siblings, but twins?

AM: I think a lot of the rituals that men have of proving their masculinity, especially to one another, are very homoerotic in nature, and I wanted to push that to its most extreme logical conclusion. So many of our ideas of gender are learned and reinforced in the home. For Calvin and Casey, that home was also an abusive one where Casey was constantly being held up as not only the better child and man, but also as desirable and attractive in a lot of ways. 

For me, the twin thing is about a very intimate related-ness. Neither of them have ever lived in a world without the other. They're very symbiotic and essential to each other, in their minds. I think their being twins heightens a lot of the typical rivalries that happen between siblings. The comparison is much fiercer. I think it would almost be better in Calvin's mind if they were identical, because at least then, he'd have more of him. 

I think there's also something about twins that can read a little mythological. Calvin certainly has his own mythology about their relationship⁠—the twin-eating thing, at least as he describes it, is not something that's exactly scientifically sound. But the idea expresses something that feels very true for him. 

KC: In “Wet Skin,” cannibalism and eroticism are inextricably linked. Could you talk about that connection?

AM: Sex and cannibalism are both very intimate and vulnerable acts, physically speaking. They're both very bodily. There's a lot of potential to bring out sensuality there—the interaction of skin, digits, fluids, mouths, etc. For Calvin, they're also both very violent, necessarily exploitative things, particularly when it comes to Casey. For their attraction to work, one of them has to be on top. And if one of them is on top, the other has to take the bottom. I mean that in a hierarchical sense, but I think the double entendre is fitting. It's a dynamic that blurs a lot of lines and lends itself well to acts of violence. In a lot of ways, it comes more naturally to them to express themselves that way.

KC: When you submitted this piece to us, you included a link to a Spotify playlist of the music you listened to while writing “Wet Skin.” How does music influence your writing process? Do you make playlists for all the projects you work on?

AM: I do make playlists for all the projects I work on (or at least try), but that started with this story! The tone and feeling I wanted to evoke was so specific that I felt like I needed some place to bottle it and refer back to. I ended up putting the playlist on shuffle every time I sat down to write "Wet Skin", for every draft. It put me in a very specific headspace. It was very trance-like; I'd enter a flow state and get super productive, and I'd be slightly disoriented whenever I came out of a writing session, sort of like when you exit a movie theater. 

I try to approach all my writing playlists in a similar way now. I still listen to the "Wet Skin" one sometimes, but I've since moved it over to Deezer after joining the boycott on Spotify for (among a bunch of other reasons) the CEO's military investments and the BDS campaign's support for the boycott. 

KC: Final question! Do you have a favorite piece of survivor/disaster media? This could be a book or film about a real event, or something entirely fictional.

AM: Funnily enough, that is not a genre I frequent at all! I think the closest thing I've got is the TV show Yellowjackets, which was an influence for "Wet Skin", as well as AMC's Interview With the Vampire, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Crush by Richard Siken, and Dead Ringers dir. David Cronenberg.