Take a Lemon

OK, I admit it. I panicked. It’s possible I even sort of screamed – just to myself. Actually, I guess, that’s kind of a lie, since Tina heard me, but in my defense, I think it’s a perfectly natural reaction when you wake to discover that you’re lying in a pool of blood.

It was Tuesday of break, three days since I had been stuck in this strange new life. Sleeping in a nightgown instead of pajamas was becoming almost familiar, and I no longer freaked out upon discovering myself to be female. I had even managed to put on parts of my make up mostly on my own Monday morning, and gotten a grudging, ‘not too horrible’ rating from Tina – before she made me take it off and do it again, of course.

My heel-walking was improving dramatically, and I had graduated to one-and-one-half inch heels. That wasn’t where I needed to be, but it was definite progress. Id been careful to walk in flats where Mom and Dad could see me – if they had seen me stumbling around in heels, they would have known a lot more was wrong. By this time, Tina had me walking with my shoulders back and chest out, which also meant that I was giving “my” breasts a lot more prominence than I would have liked; but once again, it was supposedly just part of how Marsha walked. And it had all seemed so easy when I’d made that boast!

I was trying hard to see ways to think of this as an adventure of sorts, but my belly was just feeling more and more sour. I’d tried drinking milk, but that didn’t help. I tried exercising, in case it was a muscle strain of some kind, but to no avail. I was so bothered that I woke up earlier than I should have, around 7:30. This being break, I had promised myself that I could sleep in, but as soon as I woke up I could tell something was wrong.

My legs were sticky. My abdomen was sticky. And my clothing was plastered to my skin, but it didn’t feel like sweat. I reached down to touch the sheets under me and felt a sticky liquid. I couldn’t see my hand in the dark, but I brought it to my nose and smelled it. It was blood.

I stopped myself from screaming as soon as I realized I had done so, and sort of froze in panic. I wasn’t fully awake yet and my brain hadn’t quite clicked in when Tina started pounding on my door and shouting, “Marsh! Are you alright?” I think I probably just croaked out something and she opened my door and ran in, asking, “what’s wrong?” in an extremely worried tone of voice.

She turned on the light and I pointed, “Look… blood! I’m bleeding! I’m…”

But instead of the sympathy I expected, she put her hands on her hips and scolded me. “Oh for… Marsh, this is why you wear a tampon.”

“A tampon? Why…? Oh. Period. Right. Um…” My brain was only starting to click into what was going on; after all, this was new to me.

Just then we heard Mom running down the hall. Her and Dad’s bedroom was at the opposite end of the hall from ours, and if I’d been luckier, she wouldn’t have heard me. But Tina poked her head out and said, “I’ve got it, Mom. Marsh just had a bad dream.” Then she tossed my comforter on top of me before Mom came in to the room.

“Marsh, are you OK?” Mom asked, obviously concerned about why her elder daughter might be screaming about a bad dream.

I wasn’t quite sure why Tina had made that claim, but I trusted her enough to stammer, “I’m fine, Mom. Really.”

She looked at the two of us, evidently decided that we had the situation under control, and went back to whatever she had been doing. I looked at Tina, confused.

“Marsha probably wouldn’t have forgotten to insert a tampon, but even if she did, she wouldn’t have screamed about a little bit of blood.”

“A little?” I echoed. “Look at me! I’m covered in it!”

My sister pulled back the comforter, which now also had a bit of blood on it and then pulled back my sheet as well. “No,” she insisted. “You got a bit on your sheets and on your nightgown, but that’s it. I guess you couldn’t tell it was coming.”

“Tell? How was I supposed to tell?”

“Well, didn’t you feel a bit funny or something the last two days?”

“Funny? Teen, everything has felt funny the last few days. How am I supposed to know the difference between a normal funny feeling and a funny funny feeling?”

“What about cramps?” she asked. “Or some kind of tension in your guts? Did you feel anything like that?”

“Oh,” I remembered. That was supposed to be my warning? “I thought that was just indigestion.”

“Well it’s not.” She sighed, again. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You can use a wash cloth to clean up the comforter. I’ll sneak the sheets and all into the laundry while you wash up.”

“Wait,” I protested. “Why all the secrecy? Is Mom not supposed to know that Marsha has periods?”

“I just thought you might be embarrassed about freaking out over a little blood.”

“Well I’m not. I mean, yes I am a bit, but not enough to sneak around. I mean… I’m not really sure I’m thinking clearly, here. This whole thing is new to me. If you think we need to keep it from Mom…”

“Maybe you should just tell Mom and Dad everything?”

“No!” I snapped. “Don’t be stupid!” Then I clapped my hand to my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I- I don’t know where that came from.”

“Feeling a bit irritable?” Tina guessed.

“Irritable? I guess you could say that! Things are coming at me from every direction and I’m not in control. My old body – my real body – didn’t surprise me with massive bleeding in the morning, I never had to do balancing acts when I walked or stick goo all over my face.”

“Well, your hormones are making you irritable. That’s pretty normal when you’re having a period.”

Somewhere among all of the feelings, I could tell that made sense. Certainly, I had seen my girlfriends’ moods change from time to time, but hadn’t realized to what extent it was biological. My friends and I used to joke when a girl got angry that she was “probably on the rag.” Suddenly, that didn’t seem particularly funny any more.

It also served as a real low point for me. I had been holding things together by treating this whole thing as a role I was playing. Wearing female clothing wasn’t bothering me too much because it was all part of the role; a role which I was only going to be playing for a limited time. But the period was something else. Unlike a costume, it affected me from the inside out. It wasn’t just something on top of my skin; I couldn’t even look at it the way I was trying to look at Marsha’s body – something for appearances only. I was bleeding from deep inside, using body parts I wasn’t supposed to have, and it was throwing my whole emotional state off – and of course, an actor’s emotional state is something he’s supposed to control, above all.

“Great. Just great. How are we supposed to keep Mom and Dad from figuring out I’m not used to this nonsense. That would just put the topper on everything. It would be super weird.”

“Weirder than Chad and me knowing?”

“Yeah. You and I are really close. We’re used to helping each other. And Chad and I are – or used to be – best friends. Mom and Dad are… parents.” Besides, Tina was already hot on persuading me to stay this way; what if Mom and Dad agreed? It would be horrible, having to resist that kind of pressure from my whole family. It wasn’t something I wanted to face. I didn’t tell her that, of course. I didn’t want to give my sister any ideas.

But meanwhile, I was covered with blood, and probably still bleeding. I didn’t really know how this “period” thing worked; it was one of those details I had chosen not to learn too much about. “OK,” I said. “I’ll get washed up; if you think you can get my sheets and things into the wash without Mom noticing, fine. Otherwise, I’ll just do it myself in a bit. But I guess I need you to show me how to do this tampon thing.” The very idea grossed me out, but I didn’t see a real alternative.

We eventually decided that there was a simpler way to deal with the blood. I bundled up my sheets and nightgown and soaked them in the sink while I showered. Then, following Tina’s instructions I managed to perpetrate this new indignity upon the body I was wearing. Telling myself that it wasn’t really my body helped a lot.

If there was any plus side to this latest experience, I admit that it helped me develop a greater respect for girls, given that they had to do this every month and still managed not to go totally insane. It’s really too bad every guy couldn’t experience it for himself, just once. At any rate, I was very glad that I was only going to have to go through it two more times.