{"id":17111,"date":"2021-10-18T09:03:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T07:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stadtsprachen.de\/de\/?post_type=stsp_text&p=17111"},"modified":"2021-10-19T11:04:11","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T09:04:11","slug":"shaved-while-menstruating","status":"publish","type":"stsp_text","link":"https:\/\/stadtsprachen.de\/en\/text\/shaved-while-menstruating\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaved while menstruating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shortly before she had tried to shave her vulva by herself as best as she could. But she was bleeding: thick, dark bloody Kl\u00fcmpchen<\/em> \u2013 she couldn\u2019t remember the English word and enjoyed the sweetness of the diminutive in the German one. The Kl\u00fcmpchen<\/em> mixed with her black curly hair and became entangled in the razor. Above that, the whole right side of her vulva was painfully swollen. The slightest pressure of the razor pressed curses out of her mouth. \u201cCo\u00f1o, co\u00f1o, co\u00f1o\u201d she murmured and then paused to smile about the accuracy of the curse word in this situation. Co\u00f1o equals cunt in Spanish. Cunt, cunt, cunt. Bleeding painful cunt, she thought.<\/p>\n

Shakily she squatted on the hospital bathroom floor and tried hard to get rid of all the black hair so that the nurse did not have to do it. In German they were called Schamhaare<\/em>, but she refused to think about them in this way. She did not feel shame towards the hair, as the word suggested.<\/p>\n

A bit later she was back in bed and waiting again. She was only wearing the Krankenhauskittel<\/em> that had been handed to her. She lay on her side so she would not soak the tarp on the mattress with her blood. Again and again, she touched her vulva, searched for leftover hair, and thought about going to the bathroom to shave more rigorously. She could barely think the word \u2018rigorously\u2019, its pronunciation made her tongue twist impossibly. Gr\u00fcndlicher<\/em>, even the German word was easier. Nevertheless, the mere thought of heaving herself out of this bed was too painful. She noticed the blood on her fingers and smeared it on her thighs. There too she left red stains.<\/p>\n

Finally, the nurse came in. She was wearing her hair braided back. Her dark hair was dyed red in the front.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I managed to get all of it\u201d, she told the nurse in German.<\/p>\n

\u201cJa<\/em>? I will take a look anyway. The doctors have to work here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She cringed at the word \u2018arbeiten<\/em>\u2019. It made it sound as if the place between her legs would be a construction site. She opened her legs wide so that the nurse could inspect the construction site.<\/p>\n

\u201cTut mir leid, ich blute auch noch<\/em>.\u201c Even though she had not wanted to, she apologized for menstruating.<\/p>\n

\u201cAch<\/em>, don\u2019t worry \u201c, the nurse said in a soothing tone. Then she put on blue medical gloves and took the razor.<\/p>\n

\u201cJa, doch, das ist schon sehr gut.<\/em>\u201c The nurse complimented her shaving work.<\/p>\n

With a few quick movements she shaved off the last hair. To do this the nurse had to shove her swollen labia aside. She pressed her hands on her head. Co\u00f1o, this was painful.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, das passt<\/em>\u201c, said the nurse when she finished.<\/p>\n

On her electric blue gloves clung short black hair mixed with bloody Kl\u00fcmpchen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease lift your Popo<\/em> for me one second,\u201d the nurse said, using a childish word for her butt. She took away the bloody, hairy tarp.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time soon they will take you up to the operation room. I\u2019ll let you know. \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, danke<\/em>,\u201c she said. She liked this nurse. Somehow, she had managed to make this situation less uncomfortable than she would have expected.<\/p>\n

However, when the nurse left the room, she thought that this had been one of the strangest moments of her life. Maybe more so since, while she way lying there almost naked and the nurse shaved her bleeding swollen co\u00f1o, she was wearing a light blue mask that covered her face, distorted with pain.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Then she was waiting again. She had come to the hospital hours ago, the day passed by, while she was waiting for doctors to take a look between her legs. Luckily, she had not eaten since breakfast, which meant they could operate her today. Unluckily she was dizzy from not eating and drinking the whole day. And from the pain, probably. As if it was not enough to have a swollen co\u00f1o that hurt in every possible position, her ovaries hurt. It had always been this way. The blood never came without the cramps.<\/p>\n

She sat up and moved towards the edge of the bed. Her legs shook slightly when she set her feet on the floor. She looked for the hospital panties that she had taken off to be shaved. They were made from a strange synthetic material, she doubted they were wiederverwendbar<\/em>. Although she knew that matters of the environment seemed less grave in hospitals, where everything was focussed on saving lives as efficiently as possible, she still was astonished about how much of the used material would simply be thrown away. After putting on the panties with the thick white cotton pad (that was not so white anymore), she limped towards the locker. She took the small notebook \u2013 it was barely bigger than her hand \u2013 out of her bag and rummaged for a pen. Back in the bed she placed the notebook on her stained thigh and started scribbling words. She chose a third person narration because the whole day, since she had set foot in the hospital, she had felt strangely detached from herself. I became a she, a junge Frau<\/em>, like almost everyone in here had called her because of her young face.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

When she woke up, she started crying and felt pathetic. Someone called her name, from far away, it seemed. And when the words reached her, the pain spread through her body. She could feel every stitch in her vulva, her Mumu, how she even now called her co\u00f1o playfully.<\/p>\n

A woman in turquoise scrubs (a word she actually only new in English after watching every episode of Grey\u2019s Anatomy at least twice) asked her if she was in pain. She only nodded, unable to speak. She realized they had already put that awful blue mask back on her face. They gave her something for the pain, pumped it straight into her veins, trough the Zugang<\/em> in the crook of her arm, which had been placed this morning. She could hear two men crying and moaning, one of them was opposite of her, the other one to her right. She felt strange about being the only one suffering in silence. The scrubs-lady came back and asked about her pain. She moaned that she was still hurting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNicht weinen<\/em>,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s going the be better in a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

No way she would stop crying only because the scrubs-lady asked her to. If she knew how much she had cried that day, she would not even bother to ask. After all, the day had started with tears in her breakfast M\u00fcsli<\/em>. Which is when she decided to drive to the hospital.<\/p>\n

She felt the pain diminishing. Nevertheless, she could still feel the stitches. The idea that a group of people had uncovered her lower body and opened her legs to cut and sew her co\u00f1o while she was unconscious, made her very uneasy. They had put three blankets on her, as if to cover the fact that they had been in control over her body for some time.<\/p>\n

Now that the pain was bearable, she wanted to leave this room and go back to her room where she was alone and without the moans. But, as she took from the conversations of the scrubbed people, the Abholdienst<\/em> was taking a break. Apparently, their only function was picking people up, so they did not have to get out of bed. That too had been rather weird: lying in a bed in a small lift, a strange man standing next to her. Now she wished he would come back.<\/p>\n

The scrubs-lady returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesser?<\/em>\u201d She asked.<\/p>\n

She nodded. The pain was okay by now.<\/p>\n

Then something strange happened. For the first time since she and her swollen Mumu had entered the hospital, someone asked her how her name was pronounced. The whole day people had been mispronouncing, stretching syllables, changing letters, making it into something completely new that she still was able to recognize as hers, after years and years of mispronunciation. She gratefully pronounced her name for the scrubbed lady. The woman repeated it and nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Abholdienst<\/em> will be here soon. But first the anaesthetist has to clear you.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she was back in her room the nurse with the braided hair told her she had to stay in bed a bit longer. The nurse asked her if she wanted something to eat and she nodded strongly. She came back with a very typical German dinner: two slices of dark bread, butter, salami, and some slices of cheese; called Abendbrot<\/em> because it was bread served in the evening \u2013 eveningbread<\/em>. Before the nurse left the room, she asked her to pass her bag. The eveningbread<\/em> did not meet the expectations of her hungry stomach but at least she could continue writing.<\/p>\n

Only now she realized she had written in English. She could have chosen so many tongues but decided for the one most detached from herself. After all, this could not be her story she was telling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shortly before she had tried to shave her vulva by herself as best as she could. But she was bleeding: thick, dark bloody Kl\u00fcmpchen \u2013 she couldn\u2019t remember the English word and enjoyed the sweetness of the diminutive in the German one. The Kl\u00fcmpchen mixed with her black curly hair and became entangled in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":17048,"template":"","categories":[46,10],"class_list":["post-17111","stsp_text","type-stsp_text","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-19","category-prosa"],"yoast_head":"\nShaved while menstruating - stadtsprachen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stadtsprachen.de\/de\/text\/shaved-while-menstruating\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale:alternate\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shaved while menstruating - stadtsprachen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shortly before she had tried to shave her vulva by herself as best as she could. But she was bleeding: thick, dark bloody Kl\u00fcmpchen \u2013 she couldn\u2019t remember the English word and enjoyed the sweetness of the diminutive in the German one. 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