Wetlands. Charlotte Roche
me on the street, it makes me sick to my stomach. No matter how subtle it is. What is she hiding? Women spray perfume in public toilets after they’ve taken a shit, too. They think it makes everything smell pleasant again. But I still smell the shit. For me, the smell of plain old shit or piss is better than the disgusting perfumes people buy.
Even worse than women spraying perfume in public toilets is a new invention that seems to be spreading fast.
You go to the bathroom at a restaurant or train station and as you pull the stall door closed behind you, you’re misted from above. The first time it happened I was really horrified. I thought someone had flicked water on me from another stall. But then I looked up and saw a dispenser attached above the top of the door. It’s actually designed to spray innocent bathroom users with sickeningly sweet disinfectant as soon as they close the door. On your hair, on your clothes, on your face. If that doesn’t constitute rape by hygiene fanatics I don’t know what does.
I use my smegma the way others use their vials of perfume. I dip my finger into my pussy and dab a little slime behind my earlobes. It works wonders from the moment you greet someone with a kiss on each cheek. Another rule my mother had about pussies was that they get infected much more easily than penises. That they’re much more vulnerable to fungus and mold and whatnot. Which is why girls should never sit down on an unfamiliar or public toilet seat. I was taught to piss in an upright crouch, hovering above the rim, never touching the icky pee-pee basin at all. But I’ve figured out that a lot of the things I was taught aren’t true.
I’ve turned myself into a walking laboratory of pussy hygiene. I enjoy plopping myself down on any dirty toilet seat anywhere. That’s not all. I rub the entire seat with my pussy before I sit down, going once around with a graceful gyration of my hips. When I press my pussy onto the seat it makes a smacking noise and then it sucks up all the pubic hairs, droplets, splotches, and puddles of various shades and consistencies. I’ve been doing this on every sort of toilet for four years now. My favorites are the ones at highway rest stops where there’s just one toilet shared by men and women. And I’ve never had a single infection. My gynecologist, Dr. Broekert, can confirm that.
Once there was a time when I did think my pussy was infected. Whenever I went to the bathroom, sat down, and let my sphincter muscles relax so the piss could come out, I would notice afterward when I looked down—which I like to do—that there was a lovely, big, soft, white clump of slime in the water. With strings of champagne bubbles rising from it.
I have to admit that I’m very wet all day long—I could change my underwear several times a day. But I don’t. I like to let it collect. Back to the clump of slime. Was it possible that I’d been sick all along, and that this slimy gunk was the result of a fungal infection of the pussy I’d contracted from all my toilet experiments?
Dr. Broekert was able to allay my fears. It was the result of a healthy, very-active slime-producing mucous membrane. That’s not how he put it. But that’s what he meant.
I keep close track of my bodily secretions. The whole active mucous-membrane thing used to make me proud when I was younger, hooking up with boys. They might have barely touched my labia with a finger, but inside there was a Slip ’N Slide ready to go.
One boyfriend always sang while we were messing around: “By the rivers of Babylon…” These days I could make a business out of it, filling little containers for dry women who have problems producing mucus. It’s definitely better to get the real thing than to use some artificial lube. That way it smells like pussy, too! But maybe women would only be willing to do this with someone they knew—some might be grossed out by a stranger’s slime. You could always try it out. Maybe with a dry friend.
I really like to smell and eat my smegma. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with my pussy’s creases. All the things you can find in there. I have long hair—on my head—and sometimes I’ll find a stray hair lodged between the folds of my pussy. It’s exciting to pull the hair out very slowly and to feel it moving in the various places it has twisted its way into. It annoys me when this sensation is over; I wish I had even longer hair so the feeling would last longer.
It’s a rare pleasure. Like another thing I get a kick out of: when I’m alone in the bathtub and I have to fart, I try to get the air bubbles to glide up between my pussy lips. It doesn’t happen very often—even less often than with the long hairs—but when it does, the bubbles feel like hard balls trying to bore their way between my warm, squishy lips. When it happens—let’s say once a month—my whole abdomen tingles and my pussy itches so much I have to scratch it with my long fingernails until I come. When my pussy itches I have to scratch it real hard. I scratch up and down between the inner labia—which I call the dewlaps—and the outer labia—which I call the ladyfingers—and at some point I fold back the dewlaps to the right and left so I can scratch right down the middle. I spread my legs wide, until the hip joints crack, so the warm bathwater can flow into my hole. Right as I’m about to come, I pinch my clit—which I call my snail tail. That makes me come so much harder. Yep, that’s how it’s done.
Back to smegma. I looked up in the dictionary exactly what smegma is. My best friend Corrina told me one time that only men have smegma.
So what’s this between my lips and in my underwear?
That’s what I thought, but not what I said. I was afraid to say it. But there in the dictionary was a long explanation of what smegma is. That’s what it’s called in women, too, by the way. So ha! One sentence has stuck with me to this day: “Only through inadequate hygiene can smegma accumulate to a level visible to the naked eye.”
Excuse me? That’s outrageous. An accumulation of smegma is definitely visible to me with the naked eye at the end of the day no matter how thoroughly I rinse the folds of my pussy with soapy water in the morning.
So what do they mean? Are you supposed to wash yourself multiple times during the day? Anyway, it’s good to have a juicy pussy. It’s extremely helpful for certain things. The concept of “inadequate hygiene” is flexible—like a pussy. So there.
I take one of the adult diapers out of the translucent-plastic container. Oh man, they’re huge. They’ve got a big, thick square pad in the middle and four thin, plastic tabs to secure at the waist. They’d easily fit around a fat old man—that’s how big they are. It’s not something I want to need so early in life. Please. There’s a knock at the door.
In comes a smiling nurse with his hair sticking up like a cockatoo. “Hello, Miss Memel. My name is Robin. I can see you’re already getting familiar with the supplies you’ll need during the next few days. You’re going to have surgery on your anus, an unhygienic area—the most unhygienic part of the body, in fact. With the items in the container you’ll be able to tend to your wound all by yourself after the operation. We recommend that at least once a day you get in the shower and use the showerhead to rinse out the wound. It’s best to make sure you spray water up inside. With a little practice, it’s easy. It’ll be a lot less painful for you to clean the wound that way than to wipe it with towels. After you’ve rinsed, just pat it dry with a washcloth. I’ve also got a sedative here. You can take it now. It makes the transition to general anesthesia easier. We’re just about ready—it should be some ride.”
None of this sounds like a problem. I certainly know my way around a showerhead. And I know just how to get the spray inside. As Robin pushes me through the hallways on my rolling bed and I watch the long fluorescent lightbulbs pass overhead, I discreetly reach down under the sheet and put my hand on my pubic mound to settle myself down before the operation. I divert my attention from the fear by thinking of how I would get myself off with the showerhead when I was younger.
At first I’d just aim the streams of water at my pussy; later I’d hold the ladyfingers aside so the water would hit the dewlaps and snail tail. The harder the better. It should really sting. At some point a few jets of water actually shot up inside my pussy. And I realized this was my thing. To let it fill up and—just as nice—to let it all run out again.
I sit cross-legged in the tub, leaning back with my butt slightly raised. Then I push all the lips to the side, where they belong, and