I am sitting at my workbench when I feel the familiar cramp.

Cramp is such a bad description for it. It feels like the bowl of my hips has been filled with hot lead and it's pulling me to the ground.

I go to the bathroom and check. Sure enough, the bleeding has started, and it's a bad one. I check my purse, my coat pockets. I had forgotten to restock my emergency pads. I am out.

I ask the two other women in the shop. Neither has anything. I text my friend in the shop down the road, and get a text back: "You should keep a package of pads in your tool bag."

I can't argue, but it doesn't help me now.

~

The bathroom makes me angry. The ceiling is a shotgun blast of mould. The caulking is so poorly done, I think maybe a monkey has done it. A monkey with no arms. And brain damage.

"The bathroom needs recaulking," I tell the roommate who communicates with the landlord. He shrugs.

"Landlord is supposed to do it," he tells me, "but last guy she sent was awful. He did a terrible job."

"Yeah, I can see that," I say dryly. Everything leaks. The floor is rippled with moisture. The grout is giving way. Mould is on everything.

I am not supposed to be living there, in the box room above the foyer, so I can't call the landlord myself.

Instead I go to the hardware store around the corner and buy four tubes of mould-resistant caulking.

~

I'm bleeding. I've stuffed toilet paper in my underwear, but I'm desperate for a pad. I'll even accept a tampon if I can find one.

I go to the nearest bathroom, the one closest to the offices.

No dispenser. Only a sad rectangle on the wall where one used to be.

I go to another, and another.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I'm bleeding, bleeding.

~

There are deep pockets of shadow between the tube station and my house. A scant two blocks.

I walk it, one headphone out, alert to anyone approaching from behind.

Don't let tonight be the night I die--

I ball my fist in my pocket, around my wad of house keys, my rape whistle.

The outline of a man, his gait strong and regular, back-lit by a distant street light.

I watch him, brazenly. Better they know you see them.

Better to fight.

He passes through the thick dark and into the copper pool of light.

"Oh!" he says, "Hey Rosie."

It's my housemate, the one with the smiling moustache and the patch of thinning hair that looks like the whirl of a galaxy.

"Hey," I say, and my fist relaxes on my keys.

~

I stop the toilet cleaning lady, Mariola, as she trudges along with a roll of hand towel under her arm. She's tiny, with blousy blonde hair that may or may not be bleached. She has a face that is all deep shadows and sharp angles, with cheekbones highlighted by rosacea.

She treads the ground a little uneasily, unused to being stopped in her daily patterns.

"Are there any bathrooms with pad or tampon dispensers?" I ask her. I'm bleeding.

It takes a second for my question to sink in, then she gives a tiny cough, and shakes her head.

I am desperate.

~

The two office girls wheel into the bathroom, laughing. I'm by the mirror again, picking, picking at my face.

"I don't see why you're so frightened of him!" one of them is teasing as they both tumble into stalls. I catch a glimpse of black and white hems and black tights, thick soled fashionable shoes.

The doors lock.

"You're a grown ass women, dammit!" the one continues, still laughing. "You're not afraid of spiders!"

"I know," the other laughs. "And he's a grown man!" There's a barely perceptible pause, the barest edge on the laughter, and she adds: "And he can kill me!"

~

I duck out of the shop and don't tell anywhere where I'm going. I'm bleeding. When I sneeze or cough or talk or stand or sit or move I can feel it, but I don't know where it's going.

Is it showing on my outer clothes yet?

I go to the store, the one store on the studio lot.

I scan the shelves:

Tools.

Paint.

Tea.

Salt.

Man-size kleenex.

Chocolate.

Pain killers.

Fabric dye.

Rope.

Chain.

Gloves.

Safety glasses.

Instand noodles.

Fake grass.

I am desperate. I am bleeding.

I am embarrassed to ask, but I know I shouldn't be, so I step to the counter.

"Do you have any pads or tampons?" I ask. There is desperation on my face. I can feel it.

The two men at the counter smile apologetically and tell me they don't.

"That's stupid," I tell them.

"Yes," they agree. "We know it's a necessity. We're very sorry."

The next nearest shop is a minimum half hour walk from the studio. I would never make it.

~

The Big Boss blazes through the shop like a battleship, my supervisor wheeling in his wake like a seagull.

He waves his hand at some slats I've just painted white for the electricians. I rip off my ear protectors and headphones in time to hear him say: "--these to workshop 23. ASAP."

My supervisor grabs a stack, my coworker grabs a stack. I find the last batch, still laid out to dry, and I stack them quickly and balance them on my shoulder.

They're heavy -- almost a full sheet of goddamned half-inch MDF -- but the slats are narrow enough to balance comfortably on my shoulder, and I handle it alright.

"In here, in here," my supervisor holds open the door to workshop 23, and I manoeuvre through.

"Oi! Watch out, watch out!"

I look around. I'm walking into a mostly empty workshop. There is literally nothing around me. I look to the voice.

Electricians are all lined up in a row at a workbench, stripping wires, assembling units. One of them is watching me with that smile.

That fucking smile. Working class smirk. Does he really think he's flirting?

I move the whole pile of slats over my shoulder, safely, and drop them on the floor, letting the end slap against the concrete perhaps a little sharper than necessary.

"Did you say that to the boys, as well?" I ask, in my most unamused voice.

This gives him pause. "No," he says. "But I shoulda!"

"Yes," I agree thinly, and go to leave.

"You know," he says, "you carried more than they did."

I smile, a narrow and brittle thing.

"I know," I say, and walk out to their laughter.

~

I'm bleeding, bleeding.

I stuff my underwear with toilet paper. I duck out of the shop every half hour to clean and refresh and check the blood hasn't seeped through my outer pants.

I can't think about anything else.

I remember nothing else about that day.

~

Am I imagining it all?

I don't even know anymore.

The term 'gaslighting' floats in my conscious, like an oil slick, only visible from certain angles.

Even that I'm not certain of.

.

Rosie

Before&After