Reflections on Vanity (1 of 2)

It seemed like a really strange birthday present, to be honest. I mean, who in the world gives someone a mirror for their birthday? But my uncle has never really been the most normal of people–there’s a reason my parents never really went over to his house. It’s just crammed with junk. He says he’s a collector, but he never could explain what, exactly, he was collecting. When that show hoarders came out, we realized what might be happening and tried to have an intervention, but he fought tooth and nail, refusing to give up anything. Old, chubby, a bit of a miser, and honestly? A bit of a creep too. But he was family, and so I took the mirror with a smile, surprised he’d been willing to part with any of his junk at all.

I was just going to leave it in a closet or something, but he came over the next day and insisted he help me hang it on the wall in my room, and I couldn’t very well say no. I figured I’d just take it down when he left, but reconsidered. It was my first year living alone, and he’d generously offered to help with the rent at the apartment where I was living alone while going to college, so I couldn’t really afford to be ungrateful to the guy, even if that meant he had a habit of dropping in randomly, using the spare key to let himself in.

But one he was gone, and I was in my room alone, the thing was…captivating. Something about how the surface caught the light. I took a selfie with it, mostly for a laugh…but then things got weird. I didn’t remember much of the next few hours, but I do now I sat in my room, looking at myself in the mirror, and masturbated…just…staring at myself. I swear I could hear someone whispering in my ear, but I told myself it was nothing.

But a few days later, scrolling through my albums on my phone, I found pages and pages of nudes I’d taken that day, all of them in that mirror. I couldn’t remember taking any of them, and I’d always been more of a modest guy, so I deleted them and resolved to take that mirror down when I got home from class…but things only got worse from there.