Wetlands. Charlotte Roche

plenty of helpful slime. The best lube is Pjur brand because it doesn’t clump and it’s unscented. I hate scented lubes. It’s usually when the showerhead is finally in—which can take a while, because it takes time to stretch out that much—I rotate it so the side the water shoots out of is facing up toward the cervix, toward the spot a guy with a long cock can hit in certain positions. Next the water is turned on, nice and strong. I fold my arms behind my head—both hands are free because my pussy holds the showerhead all by itself—close my eyes, and hum “Amazing Grace.”

      After what I guess is about four liters, I turn the water off and very carefully pull out the showerhead, letting out as little water as possible. I need the water to get off. I tap the showerhead on my ladyfingers, swollen from being held apart, until I come.

      It’s usually really fast as long as I’m not interrupted. When I feel totally stuffed—like with the water—it only takes a couple of seconds. Once I’ve come I press one hand on my lower abdomen and stick the other one deep into my pussy with all the fingers splayed out so the water gushes out with the same force as it went in. I usually come again from the water flowing out. It’s an effective way to calm myself. After the big rush of water, spurts of water will still come out for several hours, so I have to line my underwear with sheets of toilet paper—if it soaked through my pants it would look as if I’d wet myself. I don’t want that.

      Another sanitation device that’s perfect for this sort of thing is the bidet. My mother always stressed the importance of quickly freshening up with a bidet after sex. Why should I?

      If I fuck someone, I’m proud to have his sperm in every crevice of my body, whether that’s on my thighs, on my stomach, or wherever else he may have shot his load. Why the idiotic washing afterward? If you find cocks, cum, or smegma disgusting, you might as well forget about sex. I love it when sperm dries on my skin, when it crusts and flakes off.

      When I jerk somebody off, I always make sure that some cum gets on my hand. I run my fingers through it and let it dry under my long nails. That way, later in the day, I can reminisce about my good fuck partner by biting my nails and getting bits of the hardened cum to play with in my mouth; I chew on it and, after tasting it and letting it slowly dissolve, I swallow it. It’s an invention I’m very proud of: the memorable-sex bonbon.

      The same can be done, of course, with cum that ends up in the pussy. Just don’t wash it away with a bidet! Instead, carry it proudly. To school, for instance. Hours after sex it’ll ooze nice and warm out of your pussy—a little treat. I may be sitting in a classroom, but my thoughts are back where the cum came from: while the teacher is going on about philosophical attempts to prove the existence of God, I sit there smiling blissfully in my little puddle of sperm. The intermingling of bodily fluids between my legs always makes me happy, and I text the source: “Your warm cum is running out of me—thanks!”

      My thoughts return to the bidet. I wanted to spend a few minutes reminiscing about the way I manage to fill myself up with the bidet. But there’s no time. We’ve arrived in the surgery prep room. I can continue that line of thought later. My anesthesiologist is already waiting for us. He attaches a bag of fluid to the IV tube in my arm, hangs it upside down from a rolling stand, and says I should start counting.

      Robin, the friendly nurse, wishes me luck and leaves. One, two…

      I wake up in the recovery room. People are always a bit out of sorts when they wake up from general anesthesia. I think recovery rooms were created to spare relatives from witnessing this.

      I’m awoken by my own babbling. What was I saying? Don’t know. My whole body is shaking. Slowly the gears in my mind begin to turn. What am I doing here? Did something happen to me? I want to smile to try to hide my sense of helplessness even though there’s nobody else in the room. My lips are so dry that the corner of my mouth cracks when I do smile. My asshole! That’s why I’m here. It had cracked, too. My hand fumbles for my bum. I feel a huge bandage stretched across both ass cheeks. Through that I feel a thick knob. Oh man, I hope that knob isn’t part of my body. Hopefully it’s something that will come off with the rest of the bandaging. I’m in one of those embarrassing, apron-like hospital gowns. They love these gowns in hospitals.

      It has sleeves and from the front makes you look like a tree-top angel. But it’s completely backless except for a little bow tied back there. Why does this piece of clothing even exist? I mean, sure, if you’re lying down they can put one on you without having to lift you. But I was lying on my stomach for the operation so they could get at my ass. Does that mean I was essentially naked for the duration of the operation? That’s not good. I’m sure they talk about the way you look. And you hear it and remember it subconsciously even though you’re knocked out—maybe someday down the road you’ll go nuts as a result of the comments and nobody will understand why.

      This airy feeling on my backside reminds me of a recurring nightmare I had as a child. Elementary school. I’m waiting at the bus stop. Just as I often forgot to take my pajamas off before putting on my jeans, today I’ve forgotten to put underwear on beneath my skirt. You don’t notice that kind of thing at home as a kid. But you’d rather die than have people discover in public that you’re bare-assed under your skirt. And this was at exactly the age when the boys think it’s funny to lift girls’ skirts.

      Robin walks in. He speaks very deliberately, saying everything went smoothly. He pushes my gurney into an elevator and then along hallways, always slamming his fist on the game-show buttons that open the automatic doors. Oh, Robin. The lingering effects of the anesthesia make for a hypnotic ride. I use the time to find out about my asshole. It’s a funny feeling that Robin knows more about it than I do. He’s got a clipboard with every detail about me and my ass on it. I’m feeling talkative and all kinds of jokes about bum surgery occur to me. He says I’m so relaxed and funny because the anesthesia’s still affecting me. He parks my bed back in my room and says he could talk to me for ages but that he has other patients he needs to check on. Too bad.

      “If you need pain medication, just press the call button.”

      “Where’s the skirt and underwear I had on before the operation?”

      He walks to the foot of my bed and lifts the sheet. The skirt is carefully folded there with my underpants on top of it.

      This is the situation my mother always feared. The underwear is folded with the crotch facing up. Right side in, not inside out. But I can still see a shiny stain where pussy juice has soaked through and dried. My mom thinks the single most important thing for a woman going to the hospital to do is to wear clean underwear. Her primary justification for her ridiculously obsessive approach to clean undies: If you get run over and end up in the hospital, they take your clothes off. Including your underwear. Oh my God. And if they see any evidence of your pussy’s totally normal discharge—oh my, can you imagine?

      I think mom pictures everyone in the hospital going around talking about her, saying what a dirty whore Mrs. Memel is. Saying her well-put-together exterior is nothing but a lie.

      Her dying thought at the scene of an accident would be: How long have I been wearing these panties? Are there any wet spots on them?

      The first thing doctors and EMTs do with a bleeding accident victim, before starting to resuscitate? They have a peek at the blood-soaked underwear so they know what kind of woman they’ve got on their hands.

      From the wall behind me Robin pulls out a cable with a call button on the end of it. He lays it on the pillow next to my face. I won’t need that.

      I look around my room. The walls are painted light green—so light it’s barely perceptible. Supposed to be calming. Or optimistic.

      To the left of my bed is a built-in wardrobe. I don’t have anything to put in it, but someone will bring me things soon, I’m sure. Beyond the wardrobe the room goes on around, probably to the bathroom—or let’s call it the shower room.

      Between my bed and the wardrobe is a rolling metal nightstand with a drawer. It’s extra tall so you can get at it from the high hospital bed.

      To the right is a long bank of windows hung with white, see-through curtains that