The Period

Her period was back again.


She'd had the pill, one capsule with her orange juice on Saturday morning. And yet here it was, back again, as if nothing she ever did would matter. She imagined the capsule, the white and red bleeding out of her body with the rest of it. She felt eerily elated; it was a disarming feeling.


She went to tennis anyway, with a tampon shoved in. She could almost feel it moving inside her as she served to Roger. She was cramping by the third set, a dull ache turning her returns into thin air.
"You all right?" he drawled, "wanna break?"
It was getting worse. She bent over, hands on knees, and breathed in deep. The air smelt of latex and rubber.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Nothing. Period."
It was worth saying it just to see his face muscles tense. If she wasn't in so much pain she might actually have found it funny.
"Oh. Wanna stop?"
"Why, you scared?" She reached for her racket and straightened up.
They played for another hour as she served through the heat waves of pain. She bet him in the end, six sets to three.
"Bitch!" he said, "I'll see you next week. To kick your ass."
"You wish!" she shouted after him.


She watched him leave and felt the blood sink down, drenching everything.


*
She loved the feeling. Trickle, ooze. Trickle, ooze. She arched her back slightly and the next drop came. And the next. Her stomach began to ache again. She put her legs up and felt the pain. It felt good.


"Ashley," said her mother, "Ashley, you have to tell him."
She pretended not to hear but the words came anyway, dimming everything into grey.
"Ashley, are you listening to me?"
Dimmer and dimmer.
"Ashley!"
"Mom, it's not his problem. Give it a break, okay?"
"Not his problem? Not his problem? Ashley, that was his fucking sperm, and this is his fucking baby."
"There's no point now." She felt the blood rush to her head. Her face. Everywhere except out.
"Well, in the ideal situation, you should have told him before you decided to-"
Suddenly it felt harder to breathe. "Let it go," she said.
*
In the bathroom, she took out the tampon and watched it drip onto the floor. It was oddly liberating watching her own blood as it fell onto the mezzanine, drop by drop.


"That was his fucking sperm..." So did that make it his baby? It had been her egg, did that make it hers? She turned down the toilet seat and sat on the very edge. She hadn't replaced the tampon; dark red blood spilled out in all directions.
Was it still yours? If it was living in someone else's home, drinking someone else's milk, and would one day grow up to be someone else' child?


And did you stop being a mother after you gave it away? Or did you keep being one, even if you lived your whole life and said other things and became someone else?


She leaned back and watched the trails of blood. She let them take her back.