Instructions
by Emily Fontenot
After three years of having a period, I know it’s time to use a tampon. People have been telling me it’s easier. You’re not as scared of bleeding through. But to stick such a foreign object into your most secret place…
I’m old enough to do it. Eliza said her mom taught her how. Marie said her sister taught her. My mom is awkward, and my sister’s already given me enough grief about not yet using them. I’ve read through the instructions at least seven times.
I can do this.
The instructions are good. They give you options—whatever makes you most comfortable. They remind you to relax.
The illustrations make me nauseous though, so I pick up my pants, still tamponless, and cut them off. I return to the bathroom.
I rewash my hands. The instructions say to choose a position. You can start by standing with one leg up on the toilet seat or sit with your knees spread. I’ve tried both plenty of times, but I try again anyway. As I stand with my foot up, bending and deciding if I’m comfortable, I see the several discarded tampons from my failed attempts blossoming out of the trashcan. I throw some toilet paper over them, attempt to hide them.
Seated it is.
I take a few deep breaths and widen my legs. Wrapping removed, held in the correct directions—that was the most helpful illustration, I remember. I move on to step two. I touch the tip of the tampon to the tip of my ____ (I can’t even force myself to think the work) and take two deep breaths, forcing my body to relax.
As I feel the ____ opening, I go for it. I insert the applicator slowly, until my thumb reaches my body, as the instructions indicate.
I open my eyes. Then I proceed to step three and use my index finger to push the “plunger” into the barrel. The tampon is now securely in place.
Step four. I remove the applicator and throw it in the trash can among the rest.
I breathe again. The instructions say if I’ve inserted it far enough, it will feel comfortable. This does feel almost normal—it doesn’t hurt like the previously removed ones did.
I pull up my pants and stand. I feel the tampon shift a bit and slightly pinch. But I guess when there’s something gouged in your vagina it can’t feel completely normal. So I shift my weight as I walk to try and shift it back into its more comfortable spot.
I steel myself. This is what adult periods feel like and I’ll just have to get used to it.
I walk out of the bathroom.
“Why’re you walking like that?” my sister asks.
“I put in a tampon,” I say and lift my head. “But it kinda hurts a little.”
“Then you didn’t put it in right.” She walks off.
“But I followed the instructions,” I call after her.
Emily Fontenot is a writer from south Louisiana. She is currently working on her PhD in Creative Writing at Illinois State University. Her fiction has been published in Children, Churches and Daddies, Quail Bell Magazine, Gone Lawn, The Southwestern Review, and others. Her poetry has appeared in Antenna::Signals and in Buddy, a lit zine, where her poem, debris, won their first annual poetry contest. You can follow her on Twitter as @EmilyReece16.