Women of the South Vales - Part 3

I Mona's Plea

I think that’s been were the seed was planted, Alice. I think it should be done properly, without causing complications. Vera and I trained as nurses and I went on to become a midwife. In these parts most boys and many girls are circumcised and we came across quite a few botched jobs, trying to help as best as we could, but not really knowing enough. Mostly, the damage was done.

When your brother was born I knew dad would take care of him eventually. But what if I had a girl? Where was I going to take you, Alice? Fathers cut their sons, it’s an easy enough procedure, even if most are too queasy nowadays. Through my contacts with parents I learned that the botched jobs could be traced back to two independently working women. They had no training or knowledge whatsoever; it was simply handed down from generation to generation.

The better work, at least to those days’ standards, was done by one local family doctor. I ingratiated myself with him, did his administration, his odd jobs and first aid cases. In time, dr. Samuels agreed to let me assist on circumcisions, an extra pair of hands to keep the patient down is always handy. In the end, I learned most basic techniques from him. Improving them, of course. In time, dr. Samuels let me take over that part of his practice.

The parents preferred it too, especially for their girls. Dr. Samuels main fault, was that he cut too deep. It all comes down to removing the clitoral glans, sealing it over and trimming back the little lips. Whatever technique you choose. More is too much. The clitoral shaft is to be stimulated from within the vagina, during intercourse, by a penile glans allowed to develop properly by means of male circumcision. Then you get textbook good sex for both partners.

A great many women around here between your and my generation have too little or no clitoral sensation thanks to Dr. Samuels knife. I think it came down to indifference. He was an avid horticulturist, medicine was just the job. His training assistant, dr, Stephen Navaron, had a passion for it and went on to become a surgeon. We worked together and became friends. He taught me most of what I know.

II Tina

One day, I went to do a circumcision on a girl who turned out to have a huge clitoris. To tell the truth, I daren’t cut her for fear of causing massive if not lethal bleeding. Understandably, I don’t have much fate in cauterization and in this case it would have been quite pointless. At the time, Stephen was just beginning his final dissertation on intersex surgery. I reckoned the case might be of interest to him and he would help me find an adequate solution too.

The parents agreed to bring her into hospital. By now, the girl knew only too well what we had in mind for her and wasn’t very cooperative. Stephen fixed that by putting her into a restraining jacket. He examined her and also did some chromosome research on her blood but she was no transgender case. The parents were relieved to hear they would have grandchildren one day. That left my predicament to be sorted.

Stephen is a brilliant mind and came up with the answer. The girl, Tina, I remember her name for she was, after all, a special case, was brought into theatre. She was shouting her head off and you just can’t have that in a hospital. So we gagged her. We bound her down on the operating table, in much the same way you were tied down, Alice. Stretched out torso, splayed wide from the hips and lower legs down. to this day, I think it is the ideal position.

With a pair of pincers, Stephen probed to free the big clitoris from under the large hood. This hood was probably why the anomaly wasn’t detected before. I put two clamps on it to hold it back after the clitoris was fully exposed. Tina started to hyperventilate behind her gag. As we had only just begun, we allowed her a mild sedative. It didn’t put her out but mainly relaxed her respiratory and nervous system.

Stephen continued to detach the clitoral glans from the surrounding tissue. There was a lot of bleeding at this point and I had to wipe it away frequently. Tina had begun to emit low, repetitive moans and she kept that up throughout the next phase of the process. With a third, bigger clamp, Stephen pulled the glans out and up a bit. He made me hold it in this position, while he introduced some unorthodox but extremely useful attributes.

He put a small noose from some nylon thread around the base of the clitoral gland; it might have been genuine fishing equipment for all I know. A metal ruler was inserted in the loop and used as a tourniquet. Turning it around steadily, the thread tightened gradually around the protruding bit of flesh. Tina started a fresh tantrum by straining against the straps, but the clitoris was in no danger of being torn off.

Each time, after three turns of the ruler, he left it alone for a minute, only very gradually cutting off the blood flow. The constricted, crushed flesh prevented a severe arterial bleeding. Unfortunately for Tina, it took considerably longer this way. When the wire had finally bitten through, the clitoral shaft retreated intact and Stephen only had to cauterize a very small area.

His inventiveness had produced an excellent result.

Tina wheezed as Stephen snipped out a V-shaped piece of her clitoral hood. It was far too big for what remained and really needed to be reduced. With only three neat little stitches he rejoined it over the cauterized spot, removing it conveniently out of sight. I still think it was one of the best jobs he ever did. Tina had no fight left in her when her little lips were quickly seared off and after nearly fifty minutes in theatre, we could take her through to recovery.

It was not the last time we would work together and there has always been a satisfactory outcome. I am very grateful for his guidance and the insights he freely shares with me. It also helped me establish a trustworthy reputation among the mothers that needed to have their daughters cut. To those girls’ good fortune, the competition rapidly went out of business. It left me with a lot of extra work, though.

A child being born won’t wait for anything or anyone. Fortunately, circumcision can be done by appointment. And be rescheduled, if need be. But right now, there is nobody else. The boys can be taken to hospital if the fathers fail in their responsibilities, Alice, but who is going to see to the girls? If somebody doesn’t take over, the mothers and opportunists will take over again and the crude butchering will start all over again.’

III Sun Mee

As my mother and I drove across town, we passed by Dan’s Car Lot. It had always been there, since long before I was born anyway. Huge windows had been put in the front showroom and the place looked altogether classier than I remembered. I commented on this and was not a little surprised by my mother’s answer. ‘That’s Sun Mee’s input for sure.’

‘Sun Mee works there now?’ I remembered Sun Mee all right. A few years older than me she was the only Asian War Adoptee in town, so she stood out, but that wasn’t the only reason.

‘She did better than that. She married Dan,’ my mother went on. You were engaged to Rod when Dan’s wife was killed in that train collision, I recall. Dan grieved but he had his business to run and three young boys to raise. After a stint at the drycleaner’s and the grocery store, Sun Mee’s mom suggested that she take care of the boys after school and on Saturdays.

Sun Mee was no dim wit, but mute. Well, sort of. She had always been shy and soft spoken, but at some point during childhood she stopped speaking altogether. She was allowed to graduate from high school through written exams only but she attempted no further education. She went through some ill fated shop assistant jobs. Then I left town and never thought of Sun Mee again. ‘So how did she go from nanny to wife?’ I wanted to know.

‘Dan’s business boomed during those golden years so Sun Mee stayed over whenever he had to work late or start early. Sun Mee flourished. Taking care of the kids suited her and they really took to her too. Of course, Dan didn’t fail to notice he had an Asian beauty fifteen years his junior on the premises. And his blood started to stir. So he asked her mother and me if it was all right,’ ma added cryptically.

‘What did you have to do with anything?’ I challenged my mother. But it had already started to dawn on me. ‘Unless…’

‘That’s right, I circumcised her and it didn’t just change her as it does all the girls, she went mute as a result of it,’ ma sighed.

I knew that could happen from shock if you gagged someone, just like you may go psychologically blind if blindfolded during some ordeal. ‘Did you gag her, ma?’ I had to ask her.

‘I almost wish I did, but that’s not how it went and that’s why Johanna never blamed me. It was just a strange coincidence and we never really got to the bottom of it. But let me tell you the full story from the start.’

‘Bill and Johanna were childless and after his tour of duty in the East, they decided to adopt a child from over there. Sun Mee was a four year old orphan who lost her family during a raid, or so Bill was told when he went to collect her. She was shy and withdrawn at first but soon she bloomed under Johanna’s doting care.

Johanna insisted that Sun Mee be circumcised according family tradition, although Bill opposed it. I was called in and together we went over the pro’s and con’s and in the end Bill gave in; to his later regret, I daresay. Sun Mee had grown strong and healthy, her initial bashfulness had subsided somewhat but clearly it was simply her disposition in life.

On my arrival, Johanna took Sun Mee for a shower. I set up shop in the basement where Bill had a heavy working table and good light above. Sun Mee came down a little later, wrapped in her bathrobe and her black hair still dripping. She looked at me questioningly when I told her to get on the table but she obeyed all the same. Johanna spoke up when I moved to tie her down. ‘No need of that, Mona. Sun Mee has a very high pain threshold I’ve noticed. She’ll keep still, don’t worry. Ropes make her very apprehensive, though.’

I expressed my doubts and insisted Johanna stay nearby to hold her daughter down as she was in danger of injuring herself. On my indications, Sun Mee obediently straddled the table and lay down. She looked at her mother nervously and her hands gripped the side of the table. I inspected Sun Mee’s sex thoroughly as I cleaned it with a disinfectant. ‘You did make her pee, didn’t you, Johanna?’ I checked. Both nodded.

I remember thinking this was going to be easy. The girl had no inner lips to speak of, so no need to take any thing off. The clit was very tiny but deeply imbedded. In that case, you have two options. You can bore it out, a lengthy, bloody procedure, obviously not ideal if the patient isn’t held down properly. The other possibility is to snip of the part you can get a grip on and insert a red hot needle. Then you don’t even need to cauterize most of the time.

.

So that’s how I decided to go. With a fine pair of tweezers I got hold of the upper part of the little clitoris. Sun Mee gasped in pain with the pressure exerted on the sensitive bud. When I cut it off, it was almost a relief. As a needle was being heated by Johanna, I wiped the copious blood flow that threatened to impair my vision of the area. Sun Mee never even moved, she had quite extraordinary endurance indeed.

After a last swipe, I steadily inserted the glowing needle for a depth up to half an inch into the remainder of her clitoral glans. This time Sun Mee did flinch and arched her back off the table. Her face contracted in a gaping grimace of pain but she never made a sound. Johanna took her hand as much to encourage herself as her brave girl. She shuddered as I stitched her hood in place. All done in no time. And quite uneventful, or so we thought.

Johanna praised Sun Mee as she helped her off the table and helped her dress. Sun Mee was quietly snivelling now and hugged her mother for comfort. She was taken upstairs and put to bed. It only became clear during the next few days that she had stopped talking and not out of spite or stubbornness.

Bill even took her to a psychologist who also ran a physical check up. The outcome of her observations was inconclusive but pointed in one direction. “Sun Mee no longer had a hymen and had been genitally mutilated; she didn’t elaborate on that. She most probably was a rape victim around the time she lost her family and was kept still forcibly. Something in the recent past triggered her memories and caused her to go into mute shock.” Drawing and playing therapy didn’t help and in the end Johanna insisted that Sun Mee simply be left alone.

So Sun Mee went on to high school and did a few unsuccessful stints as a shop assistant before looking after Dan’s boys. She combined it with a librarian’ s course in the mornings. Anyway, Dan wanted to know whether he could make a move on the girl. We told him her story and asked him to proceed very carefully. Surprisingly, Sun Mee wasn’t at all adverse to Dan’s overtures.

Sun Mee had never even had a boyfriend before. She loved the attention, the cuddles that Dan bestowed on her. He didn’t rush the sex with her and it proved to be just what she needed. Occasionally she talks again; not much, only statements she considers worthy the effort or so it seems. And if she is crossed, she won’t speak for ages! Dan can testify to that, she exasperates him sometimes, but they love each other dearly none the less.

Two occasions where she didn’t speak for months on end again spring to mind. When Dan’s sons were nearing puberty he took all three of them on a fishing trip to a remote cabin in the woods. It was a ‘becoming of age’ trip popular in the region, but Sun Mee hadn’t caught on. Dan circumcised each of his boys in turn and looked after them for the better part of a week. Sun Mee was absolutely livid and cried even though she isn’t normally given to strong emotional displays.

The boys wouldn’t let her bathe or mother them as before and she started pining. It was time she had some kids of her own. She gave birth to three girls in short succession. She cried some more and it became obvious that she would have preferred boys. But even with a prospering business, Dan found eight mouths quite enough to feed!

Only four months ago, Sun Mee went through another catharsis. A man from the Far East got in contact, claiming to be looking for his long lost little sister. After exchanging all known information it turned out he had indeed to be her sole surviving family member. Understandably, she wanted to meet with him. Dan arranged for the both of them to fly over there and get to know the brother and the country. Sun Mee was ever so thankful and exited!

The boys were old enough to stay at the house with only a little daily supervision from Bill but the girls went to stay at their grandparents’ house. Dan and Johanna agreed that I had better cut the girls during Sun Mee’s extended absence. It would only upset her and the worst would be over when she got back. So, some twenty years on, I found myself in that same basement with Johanna again, and three pretty half castes.

All three girls looked more or less the same as their mother between their legs. Nowadays, I have more and better equipment than all those years ago, of course, so I decided to bore this time. One by one, the girls were brought down and strapped to the table. I made Johanna hold back the little hood with a pair of pliers as I pushed down on a hollow bore positioned around the tiny clitoris. I have a suction device these days not unlike that of a dentist, and it came in quite handy, as all three of them bled copiously.

When I judged to have gone deep enough, I squeezed shut the pincers at the end of the bore, thus severing the clitoris. Much to my relief all three girls shouted their heads off during the whole procedure. Sun Mee going mute had been quite traumatic to me. I cauterized the wound, which made the girls gag with the stench. I also had to trim back the hoods a little before they would fit snugly in to place. Worn out, they let themselves be put to bed by their grandmother. We shared coffee afterwards and something stronger too, we both needed it.

Dan and Sun Mee called once or twice, but she never got the girls on the phone. We worried that the girls would cry or upset her otherwise. Sun Mee was so caught up in meeting her brother and getting to know her roots that she didn’t insist. But when she got off that plane, we could no longer hide the truth from her. The girls had sufficiently recovered to welcome their mother at the airport.

She knew right away something had changed. Her daughters threw themselves in her arms and clung to her wordlessly. Sun Mee looked at Johanna questioningly and then it dawned on her. She threw a fit right there and hasn’t spoken again since. She’ll accept it in time and be glad of it. It's the way things are done around here.