Wetlands

by Charlotte Roche

  He’s finally arrived.

  “Robin?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do they stretch your butthole open wide enough to fit multiple hands into it?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. That will be the source of most of the pain when the anesthesia wears off in a few minutes.”

  Hmm. In a few minutes? I need pain medication right now. The thought that it might take a while for painkillers to work scares me so much that I think I’m going throw up. I’ve held out against the pain too long and now I’ll have to wait ages for this shit on my ass to stop hurting. I’ve got to learn to give in to pain and become a patient who’d rather ring too soon for medication than have to make it through the minutes it takes for the stuff to kick in. There’s no medal for holding out against pain, Helen. My asshole has been fatally distended.

  It feels as if the hole is as big around as my entire ass. There’s no way it will ever close normally again. I think they purposefully inflicted additional pain during the operation.

  I was in this same hospital a few years ago. It was the greatest acting job of my life. I was failing French class and was supposed to take an exam the next day. I hadn’t studied and had been skipping class. I had faked being sick for the previous exam. I had pretended I had a migraine so mom would give me a note. This time it had to be something more convincing. I just needed some time to study.

  An excused absence would mean I could make up the exam some other time. First thing in the morning I told my mom I had palpitations in my lower left abdomen. And that they were getting worse. Mom started to worry because she knew this was a sign of appendicitis. Even though the appendix is on the right side. I know that, too. I started to double over in pain. She drove me straight to the pediatrician. I still go to the same doctor I went to as a child. It’s closer to home. He laid me on a stretcher and began to press on my abdomen. He pressed on the left side and I shrieked in pain. He pressed on the right and I didn’t make a sound.

  “It’s unmistakable. Acute appendicitis. You’ve got to take your daughter to the hospital right away. There’s no time to stop off at home for her pajamas. You can drop them off later. This kid’s got to get to the hospital. If it ruptures it’ll infect the entire body and she’ll need a blood transfusion.” I thought to myself, What kid?

  Off to the hospital. This one. Upon arrival I put on the same show. Left, right, all the right reactions. Like a game. Emergency operation. They cut me open and find an appendix that’s not infected or swollen at all. They take it out anyway. You don’t need it. And if they left it in and sewed you up, you might just come back at some stage with real appendicitis. Which would be doubly annoying. But they didn’t tell me they took it out. My mother did.

  When she caught me lying another time, she said: “I can’t believe anything you say. You lied to me and all the doctors just to get out of a French exam. They took an uninfected appendix out of you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Mothers know everything. The doctors told me outside the operating room. They had never encountered anything like it before. So I know what a liar you are.”

  At least I knew it was out. Before that conversation with my mom I figured the doctors had opened me up, seen it wasn’t infected, and left it in. So I had always worried I might really get appendicitis. And what could you say then, when you’d supposedly already had appendicitis? So that’s what had happened. Good to know. A lot of needless hours of worrying. Right after you’ve had your appendix taken out, it hurts incredibly badly to laugh, to walk, to stand, to do much of anything, because it feels as if the stitches are going to rip open. I tensed and curled up just like now with my ass. Is it possible the doctors recognized my name? Did it cause a sensation in the hospital back then—that a girl would endure an operation just to trick her teacher? Did they go out of their way to make this operation particularly painful—oops, I slipped—as payback? Am I paranoid because of the pain? Because of the painkillers? What is going on? It hurts so bad. Robin. Bring the pills.

  Here he comes. He hands me two tablets and says something. I can’t concentrate. I’m writhing in pain. I slurp the pills down. Please, let them work fast. Now. To calm myself down, I put my hand on my pubic mound again. I always did this as a kid, too. But back then I didn’t know it was called a pubic mound.

  As far as I’m concerned, it’s the most important part of the whole body. Nice and warm. Perfectly positioned for your hand to reach. My center. I stick my hand into my underwear and run my hand around. This is the best way to put myself to sleep.

  I root around like a squirrel down there, and just as I’m falling asleep I have the impression there’s a log of crap poking out of my ass. The bandages feel exactly like that. I dream that I’m walking across a wide field. A field of parsnips. I can see a man in the distance. A Nordic walker. One of those guys who hikes with a pair of ski-pole-like walking sticks. I think: Look, Helen, a man with four legs.

  He approaches and I can see a giant cock is hanging out of his form-fitting sports leggings. I think: Nope, a man with five legs.

  He walks past me and I turn and watch him go. It pleases me to see he’s pulled his pants down in the back and a huge log of crap is hanging out of his ass, bigger even than his cock. I think: Wow, six legs. I come to and I’m thirsty and aching. The hand on my pubic mound wanders to the back to feel my wound. I want to see what they did back there. How can I have a look? I can look at my pussy if I bend way forward, but I’ve never been able to see my own ass. A mirror? No, a camera. Mom needs to bring me the camera.

  Will she be here when I wake up? Message.

  “It’s me. Can you bring the camera when you come? And can you wrap up the bulbs in my room without breaking the shoots? And bring the empty glasses, too, please. But hide them when you come in, Okay? You’re not allowed to have anything but cut flowers here. Thanks. See you soon. Oh yeah, can you also bring about thirty toothpicks? Thanks.”

  I grow avocado trees. Besides fucking, it’s my only hobby. As a kid avocados were my favorite fruit or vegetable—whatever they are. Cut in half with a dollop of mayonnaise in the hole where the pit’s been removed. And a bunch of hot paprika powder sprinkled on top. I would play with the pits afterward. My mother would always say kids didn’t need toys—a rotten tomato or an avocado pit did just fine.

  At first the pit is shiny and slimy from the avocado oil. I like to rub it on the backs of my hands and up and down my arms. Spread the slime all over. Then you have to dry the pit.

  If you leave it on the radiator it only takes a few days. Once the moisture has dried, I run the soft, dark-brown pit across my lips. When they’re dry they feel so soft. I like to do it for minutes on end, with my eyes closed. It’s like when I would run my dry lips across the greasy leather cover of the pommel horse in the school gym—until someone would interrupt me. “Helen, what are you doing? Stop that.”

  Or until the other kids would laugh at me. Then you spare yourself the embarrassment by doing it only during the few moments you can sneak into the gym alone. It’s about as soft as my ladyfingers when they’re freshly shaved.

  You’ve got to peel the brown shell off the pit. To do that I stick my thumbnail into the shell and keep cracking it. Just be careful not to let any pieces of the shell jab under your nail.

  That hurts and it’s hard to get the pieces out even with a needle and tweezers. And trying to finish ripping open the shell with splinters under your nail hurts worse than the initial pain of them getting jammed in there in the first place. It’ll leave ugly bloody marks under your nail, too. The blood doesn’t stay red, either. It turns brown. It takes a long time for it to grow out. In the meantime your nail looks like a sheet of floating ice with a piece of driftwood frozen into it. Once the shell’s completely removed you can see the pleasant color of the pit—either light yellow or sometimes pale pink.

  Then I hit it with a hammer. But not so hard that it crushes. After that I put it in the freezer for a few hours
to simulate winter. Once you’ve had enough of winter, you pull it out and insert three toothpicks into the pit. Then you suspend it in water in a glass, using the toothpicks to hold it at the right height.

  An avocado pit looks like an egg. It’s got a thick, round end and a more pointed end. The narrower end has to stay above the water. About a third in the air and two-thirds submerged. It’ll stay this way for a couple of months.

  A slimy film grows on the part of the pit in the water. I find it very inviting. Sometimes I take the pit out of the water and put it inside me. I call it my organic dildo. Obviously I only use organic avocados for my starter pits. Otherwise I’d end up with toxic trees.

  You definitely want to take the toothpicks out before you put it inside you. Thanks to my well-trained pelvic muscles I can shoot it back out afterward. Then it’s back into the water with the toothpicks stuck back in. And then you wait.

  After a couple of months you’ll see a crack in the round end. It’ll get wider, a deep crevice in the pit. It looks as if it’s about to split in half; then a thick, white, taproot will start to grow out of the bottom. It curls into the bottom of the glass—there’s no other direction for it to grow. Once that gets pretty long, if you look closely at the crack on the top side of the pit, you’ll see a tiny green sprout starting to grow. Now’s the time to transfer it to a pot full of potting soil. Soon a stem grows with big, green leaves.

  I’ll never get closer to giving birth than this. I looked after that first pit for months. Had it inside me, pushed it out. And I take perfect care of all the avocado trees I’ve started that way.

  As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to have a child. There’s a recurring pattern in my family. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and me. All first-born. All girls. All neurotic, deranged, and depressed. But I broke the cycle. This year I turned eighteen and I’ve been waiting for that moment. One day after my birthday—as soon as I didn’t need parental approval—I had myself sterilized. Since then the thing my mother says to me so often doesn’t sound so threatening: “How much do you want to bet that when you have your first child it’s a girl?” Because I’ll only be having avocado trees. Apparently you have to wait twenty-five years for a tree to bear fruit. Which is also about how long you have to wait to become a grandmother. These days.

  While I’ve been lying here thinking happily about my avocado family, the pain has subsided. You always notice when it begins; but you don’t notice when it stops. That moment doesn’t grab your attention. But I realize the pain is completely gone now. I love painkillers and try to imagine what it would have been like to have been born in another era when there were no good painkillers. My head is free of pain and now there’s room for everything else. I take a few deep breaths and, exhausted, fall asleep. When I open my eyes I see mom leaning over me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m covering you up. You’re lying here totally exposed.”

  “Leave it the way it is. The sheet’s too heavy on my wounded ass, mom. It hurts. It doesn’t matter how it looks. Do you think they haven’t seen it here a thousand times before?”

  “Then stay that way. Good God.”

  That reminds me.

  “Can you please take down the crucifix over the door? It bugs me.”

  “No, Helen, I won’t do that. Stop being so ridiculous.”

  “Fine. If you won’t help me, I guess I’ll have to get up and do it myself.”

  I start to move one leg off the bed, bluffing that I’m going to stand up, groaning with pain.

  “Okay, Okay, I’ll do it. Please stay in bed.”

  No problem.

  She uses the lone chair in the room to reach the cross. As she’s climbing onto it, she speaks to me in an artificially friendly, sympathetic tone. I feel sorry for her. But it’s too late.

  “How long have you had this condition?”

  What is she talking about? Oh, right. The hemorrhoids.

  “Always.”

  “Not back when I used to bathe you.”

  “So I got them sometime after I was too old for you to be bathing me.”

  She climbs back down off the chair, holding the cross in her hand. She looks questioningly at me.

  “Put it here in the drawer.” I point to the metal nightstand.

  “You know, mom, hemorrhoids are hereditary. It’s just a question of who I got them from.”

  She closes the drawer firmly.

  “From your father. How was the operation?”

  We learned in health class that divorced parents often try to manipulate their kids into taking their respective sides. One parent will bad-mouth the other in front of their kids.

  What those bad-mouthing parents fail to realize, though, is that they are always insulting one half of the child. If you consider a child half the mother and half the father.

  Children whose mothers constantly insult their fathers will eventually take revenge against their mothers. It all comes back like a boomerang.

  So for years the mother has tried to get the child on her side only to have the opposite happen. She’s just pushed the child closer to the father.

  Our teacher was right.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there—they used general anesthesia. They say it all went well. It hurts. Did you bring my avocado pits?”

  “Yes, they’re over there.”

  She points to the windowsill. Right next to the diaper container is a box with my beloved pits. Perfect. I can even reach them myself.

  “Did you bring the camera?”

  She pulls it out of her handbag and puts it on the nightstand.

  “What do you need it for here in the hospital?”

  “I don’t think you should record only the happy moments in life—like birthdays—but also the sad ones, like operations, illness, and death.”

  “I’m sure it will be a joy for your children and grand-children to look at an album of those pictures.”

  I grin. If you only knew, mom.

  I hope she’ll leave soon. So I can take care of my ass. The only situation in which I would want to spend more time with her would be if there was a legitimate hope of getting her together with dad. He’s not coming today. But tomorrow for sure. A hospital with your daughter in it is the perfect place for a family reconciliation. Tomorrow. Today: ass photos.

  She says her good-bye and tells me she’s left pajamas in the wardrobe. Thanks. How am I supposed to get at them? It doesn’t matter—I’d rather lie here bare-bottomed anyway, with all those bandages. Air is good for the wound.

  As soon as mom’s gone I ring for Robin.

  Waiting, waiting. There are other patients, Helen, hard as that is for you to imagine. Here he comes.

  “How can I help you, Ms. Memel?”

  “I have a question for you. And please don’t say no right away.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Can you help me…actually, can you not call me Ms. Memel. It’s too formal for what I want to ask.”

  “Sure. Happily.”

  “You’re Robin and I’m Helen. Okay. Can you help me take a picture of my ass and the wound on it? I want to see what it looks like.”

  “Um, let me think for a second—I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

  “Please. Otherwise I’ll go crazy. There’s no other way for me to figure out what they did back there. You know, Dr. Notz can’t even explain it. And it’s my ass after all. Please. I can’t tell from feeling it. I’ve got to see it.”

  “I understand. Interesting. Most patients don’t want to know. Okay. What do you want me to do?”

  I go to the menu on the camera and set it to close-up. First try will be with no flash. It always looks better. I pull off the outer bandages and the plug of gauze. It takes a while. They’ve stuffed a lot of gauze in there. I carefully turn on to my other side, my face to the window, and hold my cheeks apart with both hands.

  “Robin, now take a picture of the wound as close-up as possible. Hold it ste
ady—the flash is off.”

  I hear it click once and he shows me the test shot. You can’t make anything out. Robin doesn’t have a steady hand.

  Other talents, though, I’m sure. We’ll have to use the flash. And repeat the whole thing.

  “Take a few pictures from various angles. Up close and from farther away.”

  Click, click, click, click. He won’t stop.

  “That’ll do it, Robin, thanks.”

  He carefully hands me the camera and says, “I’ve worked here in the proctology unit for ages and I’ve never been able to see the actual surgical work. So I thank you.”

  “No, thank you. Can I look at these on my own? And would you do this for me again if it’s necessary?”

  “Sure”.

  “You’re really cool, Robin.”

  “You, too, Helen.”

  He walks out grinning. I stuff the gauze stopper back in.

  I’m alone with the device in which the pictures of my wound are saved. I have no idea what to expect. My pulse quickens and I start to sweat with anticipation.

  I turn the little wheel mechanism next to the display to the “view pictures” option and hold the camera right in front of my face. It shows a photo of a bloody hole. The flash has cast light deep inside. My ass is wide open. There’s nothing to suggest the closure of a sphincter.

  I can’t make out any crinkled, red-brown skin of a rosette. Actually, I can’t make out anything familiar at all. So this is what Notz meant by “wedge-shaped incision.” Poor description. I’m appalled at my own asshole—or rather, what’s left of it. More hole than ass.

  So: I’ll never be an ass model. It’s just for private use now. Or am I holding the camera wrong? No, that can’t be possible—Robin would have held the camera the same way to take the picture.

  Yikes. You can look right in. I feel much worse now that I’ve seen it. The pain comes back suddenly, too. Now that I know what I look like down there, I can’t believe the pain will ever go away. There’s no skin at all around the entire opening, just red, naked flesh.