She winced and breathed in sharply. Letting it out slowing as she rubbed her lower abdomen. This period was a bad one.
"That bad?" he inquired, ignorant of the realities of menstrual pain.
"Yeah." She bit off sarcastically. Wishing to god that education in the US wasn't so broken, especially when it came to anything related to sex, as she continued to rub her cramping uterus. Fuck it still hurt. Why couldn't he see that? It was fucking obvious.
"Sorry babe. Anything I can do?" he asked contritely.
"Not really. It'll be ok." looking at her phone. "I'm going to get some more Advil." Pausing Netflix and setting the heat pad aside, she walked off to the bathroom.
Her frustration at his obliviousness subsiding into guilt at being sharp with him. Fucking hormones. He really did try to be understanding even if he wasn't very good at it sometimes. He didn't call her period "blowjob week" like that asshole she dated in college. Or avoid any mention or anything remotely connected to her period like her ex. She reached into the cabinet for the bottle of Advil, and shook four into her hand, the prescription dose. She tossed them into her mouth holding them there while she filled the cup with some water. Taking a pull from the glass she tried to swallow the tablets but swallowed wrong. One of the tablets had not followed the others. The sensation made her breathe, but before she could stop she inhaled some of the water. And she coughed. Hard.
The feeling was indescribable, except to women who had experienced it. It felt like something fell out of her, like a chunk of her insides plopped out of her vagina. Followed immediately by a gush, and the sensation of peeing out of her vagina. 'Fuck. My. Life.' She thought to herself. Continuing with, 'Being a woman is shit. Glass ceilings, shit pay and this hell'. I guess this explains why I haven't bled much so far today. She pulled down her comfy pants and white period panties with a single quick yank in her angry frustration at the situation. A sudden sharp pain of ripping hair unexpectedly accompanied it.
"FUCK!" she cursed.
The unexpected Brazilian wax, a risk of wearing pads and not being bare. Just a few hairs had to find a tiny bit of exposed adhesive to maim a very sensitive area. 'Perfect' she thought. 'Anything else you want to do to me universe' she said to herself, running a couple fingers along the newly waxed area to remove any still attached hairs before pulling her pants down the rest of the way. As she did so, a huge clot, the size of half dollar, detached from her and stayed on her pad followed by a couple drops of blood. 'blech' she thought first at the feeling the detachment and then seeing the clot. The flood had nearly gone off the edge of her pad. Thankfully it didn't, because that would have just been period hell perfection. She opened the cabinet by the toilet and blindly felt for the package of pads.
She pulled out a Stayfree ultrathin overnight, the only pads that didn't irritate her vagina and still covered enough. Hopefully, this period was short enough she wouldn't get the chafing she got from all pads on her longer periods. Silently wishing tampons didn't feel so damn uncomfortable to her anatomy. "You're just not using them right" was the refrain when the subject would come up in conversation with other women. It's not like she hadn't tried all the different brands, sizes and ways of putting them in. Year-round swim team in her teens gave her lots of practice using them. And every damn time she wanted to swim on vacation. If her period were the lottery she'd be a millionaire with her luck at getting it at the worst times. Women can be so dismissive of other women's experiences if they don't agree with their own. She opened the new pad and set it on her leg. With a sound like tearing, she pulled the used pad from her underwear and set it on her other leg. It was at first warm on her leg, and then she could feel it cooling. The smell of her period, that musky odor, slapped her. She gave a slight shiver at the overload of squicky sensations. She pulled the backing paper and plastic wrapper from the pad. She pushed the pad into the discolored crotch of her underwear, the ghosts of periods past. She wrapped the old pad quickly in the wrapper. The smell thankfully fading as she did so. She tossed it toward the trash, missing, as she pulled the paper tabs off the wings. Flipping them over the sides of her panties, she stuck them to the underside of her panties being extra careful not to leave any of the sticky side exposed. No more unexpected Brazilian waxes.
She stood and pulled up her underwear and comfy pants together. After adjusting how the pad was pressed against her she turned see the evil eye of the Sauron staring out of the toilet. The blood had settled into the lower part of the bowl making it a deeper red-orange orb with glowing ring of yellow-orange surrounding it. She flushed quickly feeling a new wave of squick.
**********
As she left, he put down the book he'd been reading and picked up his phone. Googling, he looked up period cramps, trying to find possible remedies. He was an expert at searching and skimming data for relevant information. He found nothing new. Advil, done. Heating pad, check. Some little electronic thing called Livia? Yeah, no. 'I'm not paying $100 for something I don't understand.' He said to himself. Although it did get decent reviews. TED talk from Dr. Jen Gunter...cramps equivalent to stage 2 labor. Damn, he thought to himself. 'No wonder she's miserable, and why don't they explain this to guys in sex ed?' He thought to himself. He kept looking. Some natropathy and homeopathy recommendations of dubious quality. He continued down the rabbit hole. Hot baths. Massage. Well, at least those are possible and seemed reasonable. Water. Exercise. What didn't those fix these days? Orgasms. He paused. In his experience, the last thing she wanted when she felt like this was sex. Which used to drive him nuts sometimes, but he adapted. Given the pain of stage 2 labor article he found, he now understood why. He clicked the article anyway. It was the most interesting hit he'd found in the last several links.
Apparently, he read, the contractions of orgasm can help relieve some of the painful contractions of cramps. The hormones released during orgasm also seemed to have a pain-relieving effect or so it said. Searching for orgasms and period specifically he found a few other pages that suggested the same thing. Most of the pages touting the cure were sex positive or feminist. Not surprising given the taboos around discussing sex and especially menstruation let alone sex during menstruation he thought. The few brief mentions of periods among his buddies were of disgust and very derogatory. He was a bit ambivalent to the whole thing. He had learned more from her about actual periods than the brief, apparently heavily sanitized, version he got in school. To him it was just another part of life like death and taxes.
He wondered if she would consider it. He knew didn't feel like sex if he was sick or hurting. Occasionally he was horny when he was sick; it was a cruel irony when that happened. Her wanting to have sex when she was feeling crappy, and especially on her period when he knew she already felt less than sexy, seemed highly unlikely. Several sites had suggested it, so it was seemed worth mentioning along with the rest of the possible remedies. He heard her coming back.
She sat down, put the heating pad back over her stomach and drew her legs up. Her common pose to ease cramps. She was about to restart her show.
"Hey, babe. I umm tried to look up cramp remedies." He stuttered. Not sure exactly how she was going to take his info or that he was looking up her 'lady troubles.'
"Ok." She said noncommittally, unsure where this was going. Doubtful he had found anything new.
"Well..." he started not sure how this was going to go. However, it was too late to back out. "It seems like hot baths, massage..." she interrupted him.
"Yuck! I'm not taking a bath bleeding like a stuck pig." she said disgustedly. The thought of sharing water with the red squid she aborted moments ago making her feel ill.
"Sure, um, makes sense." He tried to recover his thoughts. "Umm I could give you a massage. There were some homeopathic remedies that seemed quacky. Some electronic widget..." She broke in again.
