Growing Up.

This is a fictional essay I wrote in college. The assignment was to write a piece that had a distinct voice. So I tried to have the voice convey the deep confusion and ambivalence of the character's sexuality. Enjoy.

All I see is red, a stream of red gushing out and washing a part of me away.

Where is it going?

I am not a child anymore.

Mom told me that I'm supposed to wash the white clothes in one load and the colored clothes in another load, but I'm confused. The red is making my white underwear color; the red is still pouring out while pouring me into womanhood.

Thanks kandyjaxx!

I am not confused anymore. I'll wash this with the colored clothes because it is not white anymore; it's haunted with a shade of crimson that is slowly revealing that I am turning from a little girl into something...not yet a woman, but something else.

I am in a state of limbo, so I guess I'll just wash this stained underwear with the colored clothes and see what happens. Maybe if I wash it good enough I can make it stop: stop bleeding, stop ruining, stop changing me into the slut I couldn't help from being. I am making my debut into a society where sex sells. Yes! I blame you for everything, you not only soiled my underwear, you soiled my innocence and virginity, you spoiled my reputation and all I have left is a raped image of myself. Because my white underwear was never white again. There was always a faint outline of where the blood left it's mark and morphed me into a sluttier version of a "me" I didn't recognize.

I thought I could still play with the boys like I always did because they were my friends (but little did I know, I was their "friend" who was becoming a young lady). I could have acted like a lady, but I chose to play the role of a slut. And that is when my true self emerged as a product of my generation. A generation where the media, models, and magazines tell girls what to wear and what not to wear, when you're ready to have sex and when you should wait because he's not "the one,' whom to be attracted to and how to shed those unattractive pounds. They created the image and I obeyed.

Thanks spookygonk!

Those boys weren't my friends who innocently wanted to see the underwear that mysteriously changed color; they wanted the slut who was wearing the underwear when it was blessed with a stench that bled me into their sexual creature. I purposely didn't wash it good enough, I didn't really want to hide it, because little did they know I wanted them to see the slut in me. And guess what those boys saw?! They saw Temptation reincarnated as an image of Woman that they couldn't say no to. Their mouths were salivating and their tongues were teasing the forbidden lips; lips that spoke of promises, lips that revealed a state of ecstasy, lips that once tasted can never be ignored. I want to be the epitome of sin. I want to live up to my duty. I want to experience my sex. The boys didn't want to honor and respect a young lady; they wanted to take advantage of the girl who was slut before she became a woman. So I let them and in doing so I got what I wanted.

I'm confused. How could this surge of blood make me a slut? I am a slut because the boiling blood erupted and my private self exploded into the public announcing; I am ready to take my place in society as a woman. And because of that I have to suffer the consequences; I have to see a doctor to get rid of my child before it even becomes a child. My Child. My unborn child.

Do you have an unborn child, Mom?

Thanks amayita!

I do. And now I understand what it means to be a woman. I've felt both pleasure and pain. I am forever changed. My worst nightmare has come true: I was with child, I do not have a three year old child, I will not forget. I will not forget that it was because of your weakness, your inability to resist the outside forces that I am forced to have this image of myself. I am assuming the role society has created for me and in doing so I've created a version of a "me" that failed to embrace these changes and instead exploited my body; my womanhood.