i. First Phase

It began when I was twelve, when I awoke in a pool of blood. Actually, I was eleven. Eleven years and seven months. It was four in the morning of August 31st, my first day back at middle school after a two month long heat wave filled with muck and mosquitoes and combated by Freezy Pops and trampolines. The full moon was still out, high in the sky, searing through my partially open blinds as if to reflect the utter horror of my discovery.  

It was four in the morning of my first day back at middle school, and I thought that I was going to die.

By the time my heart stopped thudding and my ears stopped ringing, I gradually realised that to call it a "pool" of blood was probably a gross overstatement. Highlight "gross." I switched on the bedside lamp, casting glare on the window and blocking out the condescending moonlight.

I examined myself. Nothing hurt. Nothing oozed. For a moment, I considered that it was all a bad dream. Then I noticed the deep red-brown stain on the back of my nightgown and everything started spiralling out again. I dropped my underwear around my ankles and began to quiver, eyes welling up. I was dying. I had to be.

Quickly, I formulated my master plan. I'd throw everything out, conceal and destroy the evidence; I wished I could burn it all, but that would be too obvious. I would have to sneak out to the dumpster at the back so no one would find my underwear in the trash. Maybe then I'd just dump bleach on the bed sheets and no one would be the wiser.

Just as I decided I most definitely wasn't going to wake up my parents, of course, the light in my room did the job for me. It was my father who opened the door.

"Honey, what's the…"

And then he saw me and the bed and my fallen underwear and he bolted from the room like he wished he'd never entered in the first place. I sobbed, staring numbly through my tears at the dried, cracked stain on my panties like it was the Devil. Red was His colour, after all.

Mother whooshed in then and started wildly cursing under her breath at the mess and muttering in a voice so low I was sure I had a right to be ashamed – even if the entire situation was well out of my control.

"It's all right, honey, we'll just change the sheets… You need to put one of these on. I'm sorry they aren't thicker. I just can't believe there's so much blood already…"

And just like that, I felt I had to be abnormal.

She handed me a box of sanitary napkins, which I looked at blankly. Of course I knew what they were, but it was so unreal.

"Why do I need to?" I asked, frozen to place.

Mother just made a hissing sound like I was being ridiculous as she began to tear away the bloodstained sheets from my bed. "Don't worry," she said, "your cousin Ellie wears them too. Just read the box. It's okay."

My cousin Ellie was four years older than me. I was so young compared to her. We didn't even like the same kinds of music. It absolutely wasn't okay. I peered sadly down at the box of pads and started to turn away.

"Oh, and honey?"

I turned back to Mother, who was still speaking in an urgent, hushed tone. She was pointing down at my discarded underwear from across the room, as if the garment was a poisonous serpent.

"Just throw those out in the bathroom."


ii. Second Phase

It didn't take long for me to begin to feel like an alien. At school, whenever it was my Time, which seemed to be more often than not, I would watch the other girls closely to see if they waddled the way I did, if they ever cringed quietly because of the cramps or the sudden flow, if their seats were ever smeared with crimson when they rose. Of course, they didn't. I was all alone in my time of suffering.

I remember there was a time in my youth when I leapt at the opportunity to join the other girls in games of soccer or softball. Unimaginable now. I would always end up with stained underwear in the end, and I'd have to wait until the change rooms were empty to remove my pants for fear of being noticed. Discretion got to be the ultimate strategy. The only sports I played now were blood-sports.

Of course, there were dispensers in the girls' washrooms for sanitary napkins, but they were always broken, and that lead me to believe that no one else needed to use them. Besides, I was afraid to use the facilities at school to change napkins, because the wrappers were loud and the smell was awful and I was convinced that everyone would know, if they did not already. As result, I often waited too long and the blood would overtake the napkin, just as it was slowly overtaking my life, and I would be left to return home with one more deep red stain between my legs.

One day, Mother emerged from the laundry room, clutching my soiled underwear, and as I knew what was coming, I cowered.

"Again?" she cried. "I can't keep throwing these out. They're expensive, you know that? I'm going to have to bleach them. Why can't you just keep yourself clean?"   

"I have."

Mother just rolled her eyes and went to return to her task. I went into my room and wept. What more could I do? When the flow was regular, sometimes I would wear two, or even three napkins simultaneously. Whenever my napkin supply ran low, which sometimes it did, and I couldn't bring myself to ask Mother for more, I simply stuffed my underpants with folded toilet paper. Everything bled through in the end. The thing was clearly unnatural, and it wanted me dead.

I couldn't take it anymore. The next day, after school, I went alone to the drugstore. I rushed inside, quickly, never making eye contact with anyone. It was like I was buying rubbers. If only I was just buying rubbers. Just spending five minutes in That Aisle was comparable to an eternity in hell. Mother had never offered me any option other than the puffy, stiff napkins she used; I assumed she had a reason for it, and that she would punish me for even considering the other option. But enough was enough. Hastily, I located the box I was looking for, and shoved it into a basket full of candy, as if enough junk food would conceal its presence when I brought it up to the counter and would spare me the shame.

When I was home, I ran into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and unwrapped one of the tubular devices, like a tiny missile. The instructions were clear enough. I positioned my fingers on the cotton so that they were well in range of becoming stained with sticky, black blood. I told myself it would be over soon.

Sucking in my breath, I thrust my fingers inside, gasping when I felt the burn against my unbroken barrier within. I hadn't accounted for that. The hurt. It was unfathomable to me, how it could be so difficult for me to access my own body, when so much of my bodily fluids did not hesitate to slip out, even as I sat there.  

However, as my eyes watered, and blood trickled down my wrist, I realised it was a good kind of hurt, because it meant that there was finally something dividing me from It. I closed my eyes and spread my legs and shoved my fingers up until my mind went blank from pain and I could picture the thing inside smothered and dying, and I smiled.


iii. Third Phase

Adam, who was only three months older than me, held me down, scratching my bare torso with his beard stubble. I fought back against him, clawing him at some point, but in the end, we both giggled like idiots.

"Come on," he pleaded, "why not?"
"Just wait a few days. Like three. Four, tops."
"This is so stupid, you know."
"We can still do other stuff. Come on, just… lie back."
"I know we can," he sighed, "but… don't you… trust me?"

I sat up, folded my legs under me, still clad in jeans. My eyes fixed on a tear in the fabric of one of the thighs. I'd somehow always managed to avoid this conversation before.

"Yes," I said. "Of course I trust you. I love you. You know that."
Adam slid up next to me and rested his chin on my shoulder. "Hey, they're just sheets. I can wash them."
Just sheets. They were never just sheets. I pulled away, heart pounding, pulse throbbing in my temple, nausea building in my gut at the mere thought.

Sex was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that I was free to maintain cleanliness by whatever method I wished without fear of pain. It had been well over two years since I'd had to throw out or bleach a pair of underwear, and even longer since I'd had to confront Mother about the thing inside. Suddenly, I'd felt like every girl in those stupid advertisements I'd come to hate – the ones who weren't afraid to live life just as though it were any other day. Everything was finally normal, how it was meant to be.

And now, in one fell swoop, I was about to have that all ripped away from me.

I muttered, "You don't know what it'll be like."
"But don't you want to? I don't want you to just make me happy. I want to make you happy."
"I told you, three days."
"But you didn't say you didn't want to." Adam smiled wolfishly.
I paused, struggling, pressing my thighs together.
"Maybe," I said softly, "maybe I do want to. But I don't want you to… think badly of me."
"Why on earth would this make me think badly of you?"
"It isn't something you'll understand."
"Now you're the one who thinks badly of me."
"No, I think everything of you. I'm just afraid."
"You don't need to be afraid of me."
"No, I know," I said, knowing fully well it wasn't him I was afraid of. "You're right. I just want to make you happy. And me happy."  
Adam laughed and kissed me, a bright gleam in his dark eyes. "See, we'll be careful. I promise we'll be careful. I love you."

And so he removed my jeans and undressed, and I forced him to turn away when I removed my undergarments and hid their stained, clotted nature from sight. Maybe it would be all right after all. I lied back on the bed, trying to keep myself elevated so as not the stain the sheets, and waited for him.

"Adam," I said.

Adam turned to me, respected me by not looking in between my spread legs, instead peering straight into my eyes. "Tell me if you want me to stop," he whispered. Then he kissed me ravenously, and I shut my eyes tightly in wait.

I was tense. It was going to hurt. It had to hurt, I thought. I knew it.

But it didn't. Adam slipped inside and fell into rhythm easily, instantly. I kept waiting for It's dull throb, the kind that scalded me every month, unwarranted, but it never came. I relaxed. It was so smooth; a sensation that felt like it would never go away, like being dragged along an endless, hazy red tunnel. I let myself be taken by Adam, but it wasn't long before I realised I wanted more. I shoved against him, tried to push him over.
"Are you –"
"Shh…"

I forced myself on top and as I kept rhythm, barely conscious of any movement but my own, I felt the adrenaline rush through my veins, sweat form on each pore. I peered down between us, but saw nothing remarkable. No smears of disgusting, sticky, horrible, wet, sensational, magical blood. Suddenly, I wanted to see it. I needed to see it.

Faster, I moved, breath wracked, imagining the fluid pouring from me, streaming like a gruesome waterfall, painting us both, making Adam's belly slick, feeling it on my fingers as I pushed him back, the warmth, the strings of red like cobweb, picturing the bed…

Soon, everything erupted at once, like a fountain caused by a split artery. It gushed impressively with some vague sense of familiarity, and yet, like nothing I'd ever experienced before. It seemed to last forever. And then it was all over.

When Adam came out, I saw everything. Not quite what I'd imagined, but it was wonderful. Adam didn't say anything. He tried a smile and I smiled back at him.

"It was okay," I panted. Then I went to retrieve my underwear.


iv. Fourth Phase

It was a full moon, and I felt the hunger of a wolf. I felt something in me had changed, something feral. The curse… Maybe I had accepted that it was no longer a curse. I was reborn.

I was in the bathroom, preparing myself to feel like a woman for the night, when the doorbell rang. I beamed, knowing exactly who it was. I practically jogged out to answer the door.

Adam stood there.

"You're early," I smiled, feeling like I could run a marathon. I planted a kiss on his lips. "And you don't look nearly ready for a night on the town." I had expected him to be a little more dressed up.
"No, I guess not."
"What about that?"
"Listen, um." He shuffled his feet. "I'm not sure we should do that."
I frowned. "What do you mean? Do you want to stay in? Are you sick?"
"No, I'm not sick. Listen…"
"Stop saying that, Adam. I am listening."
Adam didn't even smile. "I can't really do this anymore," he said dumbly.
"Are you –" I stopped. "Are you saying we should…? I don't understand."
"It's… I just feel like this isn't working anymore. I'm sorry." And Adam turned away, ready to leave. I stepped out after him, voice shaking, eyes stinging, throat tight.
"Is this about what we did?" I lowered my voice to a hoarse whisper, like the one Mother used so many nights ago. "What… what you talked me into doing? The other night? I told you. I told you, you wouldn't understand. You shouldn't have let me say yes. You knew I didn't want to…"
"What? No. No, of course not. Don't make this about that. It isn't like that at all."
"Then what's it like?" I wasn't crying, not yet.
Adam shook his head. "You're different. You're different and it's… making me different."
"But I love you."
"I'm really sorry," Adam said. And then he left.  

And I was left standing there, shaking, eyes tearing, going over the same thought over and over and over again, going numb. Adam said no, Adam said no, Adam said no, it wasn't because of the thing inside, it wasn't because of the thing inside, it wasn't – but I knew better. I just knew.  

I returned to the bathroom because I had nowhere else to go. Just stood there, staring at myself in the mirror, expecting something. Nothing happened. Nothing happened and I had been betrayed. By Adam, by my own body. I felt it. My body was rejecting me. Trying to claw itself open, push itself out from the inside. Bursting free.

Before I could stop myself, I cried out. I tore off my clothes, which I'd so slaved over in preparation for the evening. I scattered them everywhere. Soon, I was standing in the middle of the bathroom, naked, standing stock-still in front of the mirror. I watched, as though I were a complete stranger, as a trickle of blood rolled down my inner thigh. Was it taunting me? The thing inside…

What happened then happened in a blur. I couldn't be sure where I got the knife. I was doubled over myself, standing on the tile, thrusting the blade up, easy as inserting a tampon. Sometimes I stopped and watched myself in the mirror. There was so much blood, but I kept telling myself that I'd seen more, I'd always seen more, the thing had always given me so much more.

The tiles were splattered, not red, but black. The mirror became smeared. But there was more, there had to be more, I had to get the thing out. It wouldn't be over until it was out, it would never be over. I was giving us what we both wanted. I told myself that. It was for the best. I deserved it.

I never felt anything. I had always felt so much pain, every time It returned, every cycle of torture. Tonight though, I felt nothing. This was how it was meant to be.

Suddenly, I was in the bathtub. My legs were spread, dangled over the rims like I was waiting to get fucked. Getting fucked, all right. I was sitting in It, with my surgeon's blade. I had an angle on It, and soon it wasn't just fluid. Tissue. Muscle. Clots. I dug them all out fiercely; I was so close to emancipation. I would be normal soon. My head buzzed with the glorious knowledge. I was so close. I faintly heard myself laughing. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I'd never known such happiness. Mother knew, Mother knew something was wrong right from the start, but she didn't know how to fix it. Now I knew how to fix it. I knew how to fix It.

With one final wrench, the largest fleshy piece came out. The entrance was much larger now, though it was indistinguishable due to all the gore, like I'd just given birth. That was it. I'd exorcised myself.

I dropped the knife in the tub and my head fell against the rim and slumped over to the side. I was left staring at myself in the crimson-splattered mirror. That was it, I thought, smiling. And then it all ended when I shut my eyes and lied down in the pool of blood.