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Excerpted from WETLANDS © 2009 by Charlotte Roche, translated by Tim Mohr, and reprinted with the permission of the Grove Press, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Hooksexup is proud to present an exclusive excerpt from Wetlands, the controversial German novel that's sold a million copies worldwide. Click here for our interview with author Charlotte Roche.

Click here for Part One.

Click here for Part Two.

I wake
up in the recovery room. People are always a bit out of sorts when they wake up
from general anesthesia. I think recovery rooms were created to spare relatives
from witnessing this.

I'm
awoken by my own babbling. What was I saying? Don't know. My whole body is
shaking. Slowly the gears in my mind begin to turn. What am I doing here? Did
something happen to me? I want to smile to try to hide my sense of helplessness
even though there's nobody else in the room. My lips are so dry that the corner
of my mouth cracks when I do smile. My asshole! That's why I'm here. It had
cracked, too. My hand fumbles for my bum. I feel a huge bandage stretched
across both ass cheeks. Through that I feel a thick knob. Oh man, I hope that
knob isn't part of my body. Hopefully it's something that will come off with
the rest of the bandaging. I'm in one of those embarrassing, apron-like
hospital gowns. They love these gowns in hospitals.

It has
sleeves and from the front makes you look like a tree-top angel. But it's
completely backless except for a little bow tied back there. Why does this
piece of clothing even exist? I mean, sure, if you're lying down they can put
one on you without having to lift you. But I was lying on my stomach for the
operation so they could get at my ass. Does that mean I was essentially naked
for the duration of the operation? That's not good. I'm sure they talk about
the way you look. And you hear it and remember it subconsciously even though
you're knocked out — maybe someday down the road you'll go nuts as a result
of the comments and nobody will understand why.

This
airy feeling on my backside reminds me of a recurring nightmare I had as a
child. Elementary school.

I'm waiting at the bus stop. Just as I often forgot
to take my pajamas off before putting on my jeans, today I've forgotten to put
underwear on beneath my skirt. You don't notice that kind of thing at home as a
kid. But you'd rather

die
than have people discover in public that you're bareassed under your skirt. And
this was at exactly the age when the boys think it's funny to lift girls'
skirts.

Robin
walks in. He speaks very deliberately, saying everything went smoothly. He
pushes my gurney into an elevator and then along hallways, always slamming his
fist on the game-show buttons that open the automatic doors. Oh, Robin. The
lingering effects of the anesthesia make for a hypnotic ride. I use the time to
find out about my asshole. It's a funny feeling that Robin knows more about it
than I do. He's got a clipboard with every detail about me and my ass on it.
I'm feeling talkative and all kinds of jokes about bum surgery occur to me. He
says I'm so relaxed and funny because the anesthesia's still affecting me. He
parks my bed back in my room and says he could talk to me for ages but that he
has other patients he needs to check on. Too bad.

"If
you need pain medication, just press the call button."

"Where's
the skirt and underwear I had on before the operation?"

He
walks to the foot of my bed and lifts the sheet. The skirt is carefully folded
there with my underpants on top of it.

This
is the situation my mother always feared. The underwear is folded with the
crotch facing up. Right side in, not inside out. But I can still see a shiny
stain where pussy juice has soaked through and dried. My mom thinks the single
most important thing for a woman going to the hospital to do is to wear clean
underwear. Her primary justification for her ridiculously obsessive approach to
clean undies: If you get run over and end up in the hospital, they take your
clothes off. Including your underwear. Oh my God. And if they see any evidence
of your pussy's totally normal discharge — oh my, can you imagine?

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