Bailey Davis
The Menopausal Woman Can’t Understand Why Anyone Would Want to Be a Woman If They Didn’t Have To
Dawn Tasaka Steffler
The Menopausal Woman startles from a dream: a person in drag is tossed from a car, and their limp body tumbles down a ditch. Sweat gushes from her scalp to the backs of her knees, and she kicks the comforter off, turning her husband into a snow drift. She scolds herself for watching the news right before bed; it’s downright scary out there nowadays!
This drenching upon waking is a New Thing for her. She calls them “waking sweats,” not “night sweats,” because she prefers specificity. It sure would’ve been nice if some of the New Things in her life had also been Good Things. But so far, they’ve all been objectively horrible.
Like her first period. Intellectually, she knew what was happening; her sixth-grade PE teacher, who doubled as the sex-ed teacher, had covered the birds and the bees. But all those dry, biology facts didn’t prepare her for how she could feel blood clots slide down her insides the same way she could feel cold, ice water go down her throat while drinking. Or how those gelatinous clots refused to drop from her body into the toilet, no matter how much she jiggled her bottom. Eventually came the dreaded banging on the door—their house had only one bathroom—and her mother yelled, “What the hell is going on in there? Your father needs to go number two!” The Menopausal Woman had whispered that she was having her first period, and her mom replied a couple of times, “What?! I can’t hear you,” before finally sighing in her why-do-I-have-to-do-everything voice, “Jeez Louise, just use one of my pads under the sink.” Well! The Menopausal Woman had no idea back then that her mom kept pads under the sink.
And generally, that’s been The Menopausal Woman’s experience with New Things: she’s going about her life, minding her own business, when—Bam!—she gets punched in the face. She’s heard that in Manhattan, men are punching women in the face for no good reason. Life imitating life.
From under the blankets, her husband snores, producing the same noise a small child might make if you asked them, “What sound does a pig make?” She pushes the heap of blankets, and he quiets. She envies the steadfastness of his body temperature regulating system. Men have no idea how easy they have it, which brings her back to her son, David. Somehow, everything always brings her back to David. He’s taking hormone pills and growing boobs, wearing fake eyelashes and shaving his arms. Sure, women are pretty, but they’re powerless. Yes, women have long, graceful nails, but they can’t type for beans. And although women have boobs, boobs don’t look good unless you’re wearing a supremely uncomfortable underwire bra—she would know. Recently, David asked her to stop saying “my son” and start referring to her as “my daughter, Danielle.”
The Menopausal Woman can’t fathom why anyone would trade being at the top of the food chain for having a bull’s eye on your forehead. She is so worried someone will think David is a woman and grab him, beat him, try to rape him. And when they realize she used to be a he, they’ll stab her, shoot her, try to kill her. Her worst nightmare is that he—she—will be at a nightclub, like the ones in Florida or Colorado, and some sicko will come in, AR-15s blazing.
The Menopausal Woman has so many worries. Sometimes, she wishes there was someone she could talk to.
She used to have a best friend. They met when their sons were in kindergarten. Even though the boys grew apart in high school because her friend’s son was on the football team and David wasn’t, as moms, they were still invested in each other’s boys, commiserating and celebrating: homesickness, graduations, car accidents, first jobs. Until a year ago. The Menopausal Woman finally, after some deliberation, shared the news about her daughter, Danielle, with her friend. Then, the next time they met for their weekly hike, her friend said, “I’m just so proud of David, becoming his most authentic self!” Well! The Menopausal Woman just about fell over. How dare she spout meaningless, Hallmark-word garbage like that! Had her son ever gotten mad because she called him by the wrong name? Did she ever worry her son was depressed and might kill himself? Had she ever stood in front of a mirror and practiced saying penis with a straight face? As in: “I’m okay if you want breast implants, but please don’t cut off your penis.” Well! The Menopausal Woman has! (Though she can’t get herself to have that conversation because even if she could say penis flawlessly, what if Danielle takes it the wrong way? She might develop a grudge like The Menopausal Woman still holds against her own mother over the “pads under the sink” comment. And her mom’s been dead for years.)
More recently, The Menopausal Woman saw her friend’s Facebook announcement about her son’s proposal to his girlfriend. It wasn’t the first time she was tempted to block her friend’s account; in the past, she always talked herself out of it. But this time, she did it. Blocked! It surprised her how good it felt.
Her husband lets out another snore, but this one is disgusting: a flappy, fleshy, gasping for oxygen. And The Menopausal Woman pushes him. Hard! Harder than necessary. He rouses.
“Hey! What was that for?”
“Sorry,” The Menopausal Woman mutters.
“How would you like it if I pushed you like that?” and he pushes her. What’s worse is his halitosis flowing in her direction.
“I said I was sorry!” she snaps. “Go back to sleep.”
Still grumbling, he rolls away from her. And she rolls away from him. She closes her eyes, but her body is thrumming as if she had too much coffee. At least she’s stopped sweating. But now she has to pee. She pushes herself up and trudges to the bathroom.
Dawn Tasaka Steffler is an Asian-American writer from Hawaii who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a Smokelong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow, winner of the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and was selected for both the Wigleaf Top 50 long list and Best Small Fictions. Her stories appear in Pithead Chapel, Flash Frog, Fractured Lit, Moon City Review, The Forge, and more. Find her online at dawntasakasteffler.com and on X, BlueSky, and Instagram.