That’s how we felt. Are you kidding me with this “at any moment you could become a mom!” stuff? We lived in a primarily Catholic and Mormon town, so our moms definitely weren’t chatting among themselves about periods. When any of my friends’ moms talked to them, it was to simply hand them some pads. I certainly wasn’t going to talk to my older sister about it, and because I could barely decode Tampax commercials, I looked for information in books. Naturally, my friends and I turned to Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume’s classic 1970 menstruation how-to, disguised as a preadolescent narrative. Among us ten- and eleven-year-olds, the book became required reading, and we ferreted out dog-eared copies from the local library, big sisters, and a few progressive mothers. Some girls, like me, just skipped to the blood pages. They’d hand me a copy and I’d fan through the pages to the good parts. Then I’d pass the wisdom on to the next girl. “Here,” I’d say, pointing. “Then here.”
We needed answers because it was all so scary—the idea of bleeding randomly and accepting it as natural seemed completely unnatural. After all, when you skinned your knee, you ran for a Band-Aid. “Where’s the Bactine? I have to cover this!” But when it came to our periods, we were supposed to be celebratory? Like our moms would suddenly initiate us into their blood cult? This was a horror movie set in the leafy surroundings of Pleasanton Middle School.
It came for Melody first. In fifth grade, during homeroom. She bled right through her pants. She looked down in shock, the blood slowly blossoming in the crotch and back of her pants, and Lucas, the boy who’d called me a nigger in the second grade, saw it first and reliably pounced.
“Melody is having her period!” he yelled out, disgusted and delighted. “Let’s jump her!” He and a few of his lackeys hooted with laughter, while the rest of us looked on in horror and panic. Now an initiate into the blood cult of adult women, Melody, of course, COULD GET PREGNANT AT ANY MOMENT. (Where was the teacher? Don’t ask. Faculty lounge? Smoke break?) After a few excruciating moments, Melody unfroze and ran screaming. No one followed her.
That included me. I felt ashamed. I was her friend, but for much of the school year, it was like being friends with a leper. Nobody else got her period for the longest time, but soon enough all the girls in fifth grade became familiar with Melody’s month-to-month schedule, and when she was absent, we spoke gravely of her condition, dramatically shushing each other when a boy came within hearing range.
By seventh grade, Melody was no longer alone in her period drama, as all of us were getting picked off like flies. One of our friends would stay home from school or race to the nurse’s office, and then we would know: “It came for her.” No one I knew was excited about it. You looked forward to it the way you looked forward to food poisoning.
I knew that at any moment, it would be my turn to stand up and everyone would point in my direction. I remember we all wore dark colors in case it happened. I began carrying my jean jacket with me at all times, ready for the big moment. I pinned concert buttons all over it of the Top 40 stuff I loved—Stray Cats, Def Leppard, New Edition, Billy Joel—and tied it around my waist to conceal the inevitable evidence when the time came. We asked each other so many questions, because unless we’d been struck, none of us had answers. “Like, what happens? You put this pad on, and then what? You’re just bleeding and sitting in it?”
I finally became a woman in a bathroom stall at Macy’s, halfway through seventh grade. I was at Stoneridge Mall with a few friends. I felt a little dampness down below, started silently panicking and screaming, then whispered to my friends, “Oh my God, I think it’s happening!” We speed-walked to the restroom, and my friend Becky, always prepared, handed me a pad. I went into the stall a girl and came out an adult.
When I got home, I tried to pretend as if nothing had happened. I balled up my bloody underwear and jeans and stuffed them deep in the closet of the bathroom I shared with my older sister, Kelly. I felt cramped and sore, but I just didn’t want to have the mortifying “talk” with anyone. I don’t know why I didn’t throw the clothes away. I guess it felt wasteful? Kid logic is just dumb. Weeks later, my mom found them while cleaning the house.
“I found your . . .” She paused. “Soiled underwear.” Ugh, to this day, the word “soiled” still makes me cringe. She handed me some pads—offering no instructions, no sitting on the couch and patting the cushion next to her—and that was that.
But I kept worrying about my next period, and I was terrified of being humiliated at school. Every month was a guessing game. “When will it happen? Will everyone find out? Will guys try to jump me and make me pregnant?” At first, I didn’t know how to use the pads, and for a full year I continually had accidents because my pads were riding high. Not only did I not know how pads worked, I didn’t understand how my vagina worked, either. And that’s because, dear reader, I thought my clitoris was my vagina.
I started masturbating early, at age five or six. So I knew where the fun was. I knew where my clitoris was. My vagina? Not so much. I’d lived my life thinking, Of course sex is painful, because it’s where you pee from! And of course childbirth is painful, because you pee out a baby! Even though I’d seen a number of anatomy diagrams, I knew where I masturbated, so I assumed that was my vagina.
I only discovered my vagina in the eighth grade, after a year of accidents. My girlfriend Danielle—Big D—and I were swimming at a local sports complex called AVAC, short for Amador Valley Athletic Club, and of course I got my period. In the water, I noticed a wispy trail of blood. It was coming from me. It was especially mortifying because AVAC was as fancy as a country club, with the best of everything. I frantically climbed out of the pool with Big D following, and locked myself in a bathroom. She talked to me through the door.
“Nick, it’s okay,” Big D said, concern in her voice but cool as ever. She had a bookie dad and was never prudish like most of the other girls I knew then.
“I have to go home!” I said, frantically.
“Oh, just put in a tampon,” said Big D.
“I’m not a whore!” I shrieked. We just assumed tampons made you break your hymen, so if you used them instead of pads, you were no longer a virgin. And at that stage, if you weren’t a virgin in Pleasanton, you were considered a whore.
“What?” said Big D. The record scratched.
“I’ve never used one,” I whispered.
“Open the door,” she said, and I did, but just a crack. She passed me a plastic-wrapped cylinder, and I took it from her, grateful.
“Now lay on the floor,” I heard her voice say, coaching me through it. “Put your knees up, and just slowly put it in.”
I did as commanded, laying out my plush AVAC towel and trying to put the tampon in what I thought was my vagina. “It’s too big,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s too big.”
“Let me in.”
I unlocked the door. She came in, like the straight man in a screwball comedy.
“Where are you trying to put it?” she asked.
I was trying to put a tampon in my urethra.
“Um, that’s not your vagina,” Big D explained, slowly.