Patience and Prudence: An Introduction

My name is Patience and my twin sister is called Prudence. They’re rather old–fashioned names; they came from a 1950s singing duo that my grandmother was very fond of. Usually we abbreviate them to “Prue” and “Paish”. But in one very important aspect of our lives – our toilet habits – they turned out to be prophetic.
Prudence and I look very similar – tall, dark hair, nice figures and legs, and we tend to have similar attitudes and interests. We even go for the same type of boyfriends. But on the all–important question of emptying our bladders, we are very different.
We live with our Mum in North London. And since she gets a bit of criticism in this story, let me just say she has been a wonderful Mum. Dad disappeared very early on, and she made an excellent job of raising us. But once or twice she got things wrong. I don’t really remember the difference appearing much when we were kids. It all really started not long after our eighteenth birthday. We were going up to Scotland for a few days holiday, and we set off quite early in the morning on the motorway. Mum was driving. We made good progress for a couple of hours, and then stopped at a service station. Mum had a cup of coffee and Prue and I had enormous milk shakes.
Mum was having an argument with me. I was thinking of getting a new job, and Mum was dead against it. Prue got a bit bored with all this so she drained her drink, and wandered off to play a video game.
Mum and I finished our drinks and went to the Ladies’. When we came out, Prue was still engrossed in the video game, and we practically had to drag her into the car. Mum and I sat in the front, as the argument was still going on, and Prue was in the back.
When we’d been going for about three–quarters of an hour Prue, who I thought was sulking because she wasn’t interested in the argument Mum and I were having, suddenly called out: “There’s a service station in five miles. Can we stop? I’m bursting for the toilet.”
“What, again?” snapped Mum.
“I didn’t go at the service station,” said Prue, apologetically, “I forgot”.
Mum was quite bad–tempered because she hadn’t won the argument with me. “Listen,” she said, “ I’ve had eighteen years of you two needing a wee–wee when it wasn’t convenient. Now you’re supposed to be adults. Adults think ahead and go to the toilet. And if they forget they take the consequences. I’m not stopping again till lunch time.” And despite Prue’s protest that that would be a couple of hours, and that she couldn’t possibly hang on that long, Mum pulled out into the fast lane and sped past the service station.
Prue went quiet for a time, until we saw the signs for the next service station. Then she started up again: “Please, Mum, please stop. I’m sorry and I’ll be careful in future. But I’m absolutely desperate. I just can’t wait any longer.”
But Mum wouldn’t be persuaded. “You’re eighteen now,” she said, “you’re old enough to vote. You’re old enough to join the army. You think if you’re a soldier marching into battle you can just say: ‘Excuse me a minute, I need to spend a penny’? Adults have to hold it. Cross your legs and remember to take precautions next time.”
This was a bit unfair, as Prue and I had never shown the slightest inclination of wanting to join the army. As Mum drove past the service station without stopping I heard Prue make a little choking sound. I turned round and looked at her. She was curled up in a ball, swaying to and fro, sitting on her foot and clutching her crotch with both hands. And she was crying quietly.
This shocked me. I hadn’t realised just how desperate she must have been. Mum, of course, couldn’t see any of this. So I said: “Mum, Prue really is desperate. Please stop. We’ll both be more careful in future.” There was a bit of self–interest in this. The milk shake was making its way through, and I was getting quite uncomfortable, although it was nothing like the agony that Prue was in.
Mum isn’t a cruel person, and she rather grudgingly agreed that she would stop at the next service station. But that was a good half an hour’s drive away. “Please, Mum, “ squealed Prue, “Couldn’t you pull on to the hard shoulder? I’ll go by the roadside.” But Mum had been reading in the paper about a woman who had stopped for a pee on the hard shoulder, and had been fined two hundred pounds; the magistrate had said it was not a legitimate reason for stopping. “The next service station was what I said. Don’t push your luck. I’m not paying a fine because you can’t take precautions. Just cross your legs. “As I could see by glancing round, Prue was well past the leg–crossing stage. She was holding on with both hands and the tears were flooding down her face. I think it was the embarrassment as much as the pure pain, but she was in a terrible state. It made my own need to relieve myself more acute just looking at her.
On we went for about ten minutes. Then I heard Prue give a gasp, and she muttered: “No! No! No!” and started crying much more loudly. I turned round and saw to my horror what was happening. Prue was wearing pale pink trousers, but now a huge dark patch was spreading across her lap, and then I could hear the sound of water falling onto the floor of the car. She must have had a full five hours’ piss bottled up and now it was coming out, every last drop of it. And she was making a terrible noise, sobbing and swearing.
Mum couldn’t see any of this, of course, and it took a minute or two for her to realise what had happened. At first she seemed furious, but then I think she felt a bit guilty, and calmed down. We were only about fifteen minutes from the service station, so we stopped there. Mum got some clean clothes for her out of our luggage in the boot, and they went off to the Ladies’ so she could change and clean up. She carried a newspaper in front of her to try and cover up the huge stain, but I think a few people noticed. Prue was just sobbing away, oblivious to everything. I tagged along and went into a cubicle for a pee I now needed very badly. As it gushed out of me I thought of Prue’s disaster and reflected: “There but for the grace of God go I.”
The rest of the journey was pretty miserable. Prue was obviously very upset and said nothing, while Mum was clearly contemplating the bill for cleaning the car. Prue cheered up by the next day, so it didn’t spoil our holiday. But when I tried to talk to her about it, she just muttered “never again” over and over.
And so it turned out. From then on Prue became absolutely neurotic about taking precautions. If she were going to be out of reach of a toilet for more than five minutes, she would rush off for a pee “just in case”. She turned into one of the most prudent women I have ever known.
My little adventure came a few months later. I was going out with a young man called Colin. It was nothing serious, but Mum was always anxious to encourage young love, and one Saturday when we were due to go the cinema, she insisted that I get Colin to come round for tea. She was really friendly to him – a bit too friendly for my liking, as I didn’t want anyone, least of all Colin, to get the impression we were on the verge of getting engaged. She baked a rather nice cake specially, and kept offering more cake and more tea to Colin and me.
Then, shortly before we were due to leave, she broke off from her cheery chatter about the weather and Colin’s family to look at me and say: “Better go to the toilet before you set out, Patience; you don’t want to be uncomfortable during the film.”
What a bombshell! Here I was, eighteen and thinking myself to be a very sophisticated young lady, off for an evening out with my boyfriend, and my Mum was telling me to go to the toilet! I must have blushed bright red and hoped that Colin didn’t notice. I just gave a very forced little smile and said: “I’m fine, thanks Mum”, and tried to change the subject quickly.
The irony was that I had been fully intending to run upstairs and have a pee before we got into the car. I’m not at all shy about that sort of thing, and it would indeed have been a good idea. It was about four hours since I had last spent a penny, and I’d had two large cups of tea. I didn’t actually need but if I thought about it I could feel the first twinges in my bladder. A toilet visit at that point would have been quite natural for any sensible girl.
But now how could I? I would appear to my boyfriend as a silly little schoolgirl who needed her Mummy to tell her when to got to the toilet. So we left the house with my bladder still full. And the more I thought about it the more I realised I did need to go.
It was about half an hour’s drive to the cinema and by the time we got there I really did need to pee. I’d been looking forward to a quick trip to the Ladies’ as soon as we got to the cinema. But just as we parked a thought hit me. If I nipped off to the loo as soon as we arrived, then Colin would think that my Mum had been right and that I should have listened to her advice. Of course, he would say nothing, and I couldn’t know what he was thinking, but I was convinced it would be humiliating for me to have to admit that I needed to go. So I walked straight into the cinema as though I hadn’t a care in the world, despite the nagging ache in my lower body.
It was, of course, a long movie, about two and a half hours. And by half way through I was desperate. We were near the end of a row and the cinema wasn’t very full, so I did consider just getting up and walking out. But the only people going out were school kids, and I felt it would have been beneath my dignity to join them. And of course if I had gone out it would have been a clear admission that Mum had been right. So I grinned and bore it – actually not much grinning and a lot of bearing.
There was another problem. It wasn’t the first time I’d been desperate in a movie – I think it happens to most women, to judge by the anguished fidgeting queues you generally find in cinema toilets at the end of films. But normally I would cross my legs and wriggle about – it does help a bit, though I’ve never been quite sure why. But of course if I did that Colin would notice – or I imagined he would. So I just sat very still and squeezed my sphincter very tight. At least Colin couldn’t see the movement of my eyeballs as I kept glancing at the clock as time moved on slowly, oh so very slowly. I really couldn’t remember ever having been so desperate to pee. I thought of Prue, and wondered if it had hurt like this the day she wet herself. And I seriously considered the possibility that I too might have an accident. It was a pretty tedious film – or so I thought, though I’ve seen it again on television since, with an empty bladder, and it was a lot better. I was just praying for the end so I could run off to the Ladies’. And then, just as the happy couple were rejoicing that all their problems were solved and promising to love each other for eternity, another thought hit me. If I went leaping off to the lavatory as soon as the film finished, then I would confirm that Mum had been right, that I was a silly girl who should have gone for a pee when her Mum told her to. Of course, Mum had been right, but I couldn’t admit that. The sickening realisation hit me that I was going to have to hold it for a bit longer.
At last the film ended. Colin said he was going to the Gents’, but of course he had nothing to prove. So I just gave a superior smile, as if to say: you men are always peeing, but we girls can wait much longer. While he was having his piss, I did allow myself to hop from foot to foot a little, which made things down below feel slightly better for about ten seconds. But as soon as I saw him returning, I was standing still and looking, I hoped, quite demure, apparently a little impatient that he had kept me waiting for a bodily function, which I was not troubled by.
I just wanted to go home, but when Colin suggested going for some coffee I could hardly refuse. So I sat at a table in a nearby coffee bar with him, and tried to discuss the film – what I could remember of it through a haze of lower body pain – in a calm and cheery fashion, slowly sipping the diuretic coffee as I did so. I sat quite still, my legs together but not clenched tightly, or not visibly so, I hoped. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to cross my legs, or better sit on my foot, or even better, stand up and do the pee–pee dance. But my internal muscles had to take all the strain – and all the pain. I didn’t even dare let my eyes stray round the room to see where the Ladies’ was.
Colin was hoping that I would go back to his place, but I made it clear that there was no chance of that this particular night. He was a nice boy, and accepted this without too much difficulty. He was prepared to wait for my favours. To be fair, waiting wasn’t anything like as painful for him as it was for me.
As we chattered about the film, life and everything under the sun, I was conducting a fierce internal debate. Should I slip to the lavatory before we left or not? By now part of me was quite convinced that if I went at all it would look like a humiliating admission that Mum had been right. On the other hand, the pain in my gut was putting up a powerful argument for the other side. Eventually I convinced myself that if I made it sound really casual, as though I wasn’t in any serious need, I could allow myself to say something of the order of: “I think perhaps I’ll just pop to the Ladies’ before we go.”
I was about to say this when he looked at me and said: “Do you want to powder your nose before we set off back?” I was horrified. Had I been fidgeting so much that he had got the impression I was in need of a pee? Did he think I was the sort of airhead who was too shy to ask to go to the toilet? Whatever his motivation, I felt it would have been thoroughly humiliating to say “Yes”. When I went to the toilet was my concern, and mine only. I didn’t need anyone, Mum or boyfriend or anybody else, to tell me when to pee. So we walked to the car and got in. As I stood their waiting for him to open the door, I permitted myself a miniature version of the pee–pee dance, hoping he could see nothing.
There was a lot of traffic on the road and the journey took well over half an hour. It was pure unmitigated agony. Twice I had a wave of awful pain and thought I was about to lose control, but I remembered Prue’s accident and hung on like grim death. When we got to my door, I gave him a big hug, though my mind was filled with the horrible thought that I might actually piss all over him.
He drove off immediately, and so as I fumbled for my keys, I was able to jump from foot to foot in sheer total desperation. I had been planning to run straight upstairs – my feet would scarcely have touched the ground. Indeed I had been savouring the anticipation during that long painful drive. All other ambitions in life – job, marriage etc – seemed trivial beside the thought of parking my bum on the toilet seat and letting the water flow.
But as my key finally turned in the lock, yet another thought hit me like a bludgeon. If I ran straight up to the bathroom, Mum, who was in the sitting–room watching television, would immediately realise what had happened. And indeed, she would probably comment on it, to my further humiliation. Whereas Colin was bound by the codes of convention for nice young men, Mum was quite capable of some vulgar remark like “Nearly wet yourself, young lady? I told you to go before you went out.”
So, squeezing my lower muscles, as they had never been squeezed before, I strolled casually into the sitting room. Mum was watching some rubbish, but she turned it down as soon as I came in. She was alone – Prue was still out somewhere or other – and she immediately offered me a cup of tea. Tea isn’t as diuretic as coffee, but it’s bad enough, and I could feel every drop running directly to my overfull bladder.
Mum wanted to talk – about the movie, about Colin, about anything and everything. Meanwhile waves of pain were running through my stomach at ever decreasing intervals. The vision of poor piss–sodden Prudence kept appearing before my eyes. If I let go now it would far more humiliating. To wet yourself in a car, after having asked to stop, was bad enough. To wet your own sofa in your own sitting room would be the ultimate humiliation.
I gave it a full half hour before saying to Mum that I felt really tired and was going to bed. I got to the foot of the stairs, and had to discipline myself to walk up and not run. But at last this was it. I always went to the toilet before going to bed, so Mum would think nothing of hearing the flush. And she had turned the television up again, so she probably wouldn’t actually hear me peeing; in any case, if she wasn’t using a stopwatch she wouldn’t realise there was something special about this particular piss.
And special it was. I sat on the toilet and let go, noticing with some self–satisfaction that my knickers were completely dry. It took a second or two to relax the muscles that had done such sterling service, but then it started – and went on, and on, and on, and on. It was like a never–ending cascade – how could a human body contain so much? Waves of pleasure spread through my body – it was better than any sex I had had thus far in life – though admittedly I hadn’t had that much.
As the last drops oozed out I glanced at my watch. It was well over ten hours since my last visit to the toilet. I felt enormously proud of myself. The suffering faded from my memory in face of the sense of achievement. Nobody, but nobody, needed to tell me when to use the toilet. I resolved that in future I would go only when I felt the need. No more obsessive precautions, as Prue was always taking. I would go when I needed to, and not unless, and if I had to wait, so be it. I would not be prudent; I would be patient.
By: Jay–Gee