When women bleed, we know that it’s coming before it starts. We learn this over time. At 12 years old we did not have the practice. At 40, we are well-versed in the ferrous stirrings that herald the blood.
In our dark centre a faint ache pulses. This place is so deep within that it feels cavernous – like space, the gaps between the stars. At the same time it feels tight, like a walnut shell stuffed full of rubber bands. It is a mysterious place in there.
We will feel the blood while it is still inside us. Before it appears on our knickers or thighs or pooled brightly in the loo like dye, we will sense the extra wetness. This is a curious thing. Under our skin we are already wet. Carve a hole into your flesh and stick your finger in there. It’s moist. How can the wettest part of us feel wetter?
Yet it does. A new layer of wetness slicks its way downward. Between our legs we feel the expectation of wetness before the wetness itself. We feel the promise of blood, though it’s still just an idea. We know it won’t be long.
Sometimes we taste it in our mouths. There is a connection between the mouth and the vagina. If you stick garlic up your twat (not from boredom or curiosity; supposedly it helps cure thrush, though I tried it once and it did not), after a few hours you will taste garlic – unmistakably, violently – in your mouth. You will rise in the middle of the night and urgently pluck out the garlic and brush the obscene flavour from your teeth and tongue. You will go back to bed still haunted by the hot and dirty tang.
So when the blood comes, our mouths pool with metallic saliva. Just a hint of that animal warmth. Reminding us that we are organisms. A flesh system no different to any other earth beast. A functional design that, however remarkable, is not particularly special.
We can smell ourselves when we bleed. We can smell it on each other. It is not an offensive smell. It’s just a smell. Like cutlery and throats. Like hot beetroot and witchery. A deep earthy throb.
Just before we bleed, there is a tension. A suspended pause, like a drawn out note on the clarinet.
Then when we bleed, there is relief. A sense of letting go. Another bloody surrender.
Prawn and Sphincter 