A Strange Question

I met Emily at a trade–union meeting connected to the company we both worked for. I really liked her and I asked her out to dinner. We went to a very nice restaurant I knew in central London, not too expensive but excellent food. We got on really well; we were clearly on the same wavelength. I had great hopes this might go further.
As we were preparing to pay the bill, Emily looked at me and said: “Shall I go to the Ladies’ here, or hang on till I get home?” I was rather taken aback; I wasn’t used to young women asking such intimate questions. Rather facetiously I mumbled something about not having the necessary information to give an answer.
Emily smiled; there was a twinkle in her eye that showed she could see how ridiculous the situation was. But she was determined to have an answer: “No, go on, tell me.” I glanced at the empty wine bottle on the table; at the nearly empty water–jug and at the quite large coffee–cup she had drained. “Probably a good idea,” I said. Emily promptly stood up and trotted off to the ladies’ lavatory.
When she came back we walked to the tube station. We lived quite near each other in North London, and I was going to see her to her door. What happened then remained to be seen. But the train had only gone a couple of stops when it came to a sudden halt in a tunnel. For a while we were stuck there, then it began to move forward very slowly, jerking about and making a terrible rattling sound. Eventually we got to the next station, and we were all told to get out.
There was quite a crowd on the pavement as we waited for a replacement train. The problem was that the defective train wouldn’t move, and so the track couldn’t be cleared. We were hanging about on the platform for about twenty minutes before the situation was sorted and a new train came for us. As we were standing on the platform Emily suddenly flung her arms round me and kissed me. “Thanks so much for making me go to the toilet,” she said, “I’d have been desperate by now if I hadn’t gone.” I got a sense that this relationship was going to go swimmingly.
The next week we went out again. We had a quick meal and then went to see a film. As we were coming out of the cinema Emily turned to me and said: “Your judgement was spot on last time. Shall I go to the Ladies’ before we get the tube?” I had wondered if it would happen again, and so I was better prepared. “You’d better,” I said, “You haven’t been all evening.”
Immediately she went to join the quite long queue outside the door of the ladies’ room. I went to wait for her on the pavement outside. After a few minutes she reappeared. Again I got the hug and kiss treatment. “Thanks so much,” she said, “you were right again. I wasn’t really feeling the need to go at all until I was in the queue, but then all of a sudden I really needed to go quite badly. And when I finally got there I did a really long one. If it wasn’t for you I’d have been bursting by the time I got home.”
I wasn’t used to this sort of post mortem analysis after a woman’s toilet visit, but I found it quite stimulating. I’ve always been fascinated by female urination, so I wasn’t grumbling. On top of all Emily’s other qualities this was just the icing on the cake.
Emily and I were soon an “item”; but we didn’t move in together. I would have liked to, but Emily was being a bit more cautious about it. But for some months it was a wonderful relationship. We had such a lot in common, and really enjoyed each other’s company.
And Emily continued to seek my advice on visiting the toilet. Not always. Sometimes she was obviously in no doubt, and would stride off for a pee as soon as the opportunity arose. But frequently, before a film or a play or a tube journey, she would look at me and ask my advice. As we got to know each other better, she dropped the rather prim reference to “going to the Ladies’.” Instead she would simply ask “to pee or not to pee.”
It was an endearing habit, and I loved her doing it. But I was intrigued as to why she did so. I asked her once, and she explained. When she had been young her mother had instilled an ultra–cautious attitude into her. If she was going to be out of range of a toilet for more than ten minutes, her Mum had always warned her to go “just in case.” That had got to be something of a habit. But then her first major boy friend, Ben, who she had been with for a couple of years, had had a very different attitude. He used to get very impatient and irritable with her if she needed time to go to the toilet, and he could be quite nasty about it. So she started to get into the habit of putting it off until the last minute, and she had had a few very desperate moments.
So when she had met me she had been in a very confused state, and often had difficulty in making up her mind whether to go or not. Also, she told me with a smile, she was testing me out. If, on that first date, I had shown impatience with her, if it had looked like I was going to be another Ben, then things would have gone no further. “I couldn’t take that all over again,” she told me.
All this suited me fine. I’ve always found the idea of women peeing very exciting. But Emily also gave me a sense of power. The thought that not only was she going off for a pee, but that she was doing so “on my orders”, gave me a peculiar gratification. Perhaps you may think there was something perverted and sadistic about this. Perhaps so. But it was all an innocent bit of fun, and we both enjoyed it as a sort of private joke.
But there was one problem. Whenever Emily sought my “advice”, I always answered “yes”. As I’ve said, I enjoyed the sense of power, of sending her off to pee. And generally the advice I gave was good, as she often acknowledged. So it became a sort of secret ritual between us.
But one thought haunted me. What would happen if I said “no”? Perhaps she would just giggle and go anyway. Or would she trust my advice – and perhaps get into difficulties as a result? I couldn’t help being fascinated by this possibility. That was what led to disaster.
One Sunday we had agreed to go for a walk in Epping Forest. I knew the area well, but Emily, who had only recently moved to London, didn’t. We met at the bus station. I noticed Emily looking round rather anxiously when she arrived, but there was a bus in and we jumped straight on to it. It was quite a long ride out to the outskirts of the city – at least an hour.
I noticed that Emily was a bit quieter than usual. She was sitting with her legs crossed, and about half way through the journey she was beginning to fidget quite a lot. I asked her if she was all right. “Not really”, she replied. “I’m absolutely bursting to go to the toilet. I forgot to go before I came out. It’s a pity you weren’t there to remind me.” Was it a hint she was beginning to change her mind about living together? I’ll never know now.
Emily got increasingly desperate, and for the last fifteen minutes she was sitting on her foot, but we arrived without disaster. Quickly I led her to a small pub where we were going to have lunch before going into the woods. As soon as we crossed the threshold she spotted the “Ladies” sign and skipped off, leaving me to order the food and drinks.
When she came back, doubtless refreshed by a very long pee, she was in a much more cheerful mood. We had some really nice sandwiches and a couple of halves of lager. As we were preparing to leave she looked at me and asked: “To pee or not to pee?”
I nearly said “Good idea”, as I usually did. But an inner demon was whispering to me, urging me to try an experiment. “Surely not,” I said, “you only went about half an hour ago.” And I added as an afterthought: “If you do need to go later on, it’ll be no problem.”
I fully expected her to disregard me and dance off to the Ladies’. But instead she simply stood up and walked out of the pub with me. Soon we were in the forest. It was a glorious summer day, and we followed the paths, enjoying the sight of so many magnificent trees.
For an hour or more we walked on, chatting of this and that, and thoroughly enjoying our day out. Then Emily turned to me and said: “Are we going to be near any toilets soon? I need to go quite badly.”
“I don’t think so, “ I replied, “you don’t usually find toilets in the middle of a forest.”
Emily looked distinctly alarmed. “But,” she said, “You said it would be no problem if I needed to go. I can’t wait much longer.”
I explained that I had meant it would be no problem because she could always nip into a bush or behind a tree. We had passed a few people but it was a huge forest so it would be easy enough to find a secluded spot to relieve herself.
Emily looked very distressed. She had completely misunderstood me. But when I suggested that she should find somewhere quiet to squat and pee, she responded irritably: “No, I can’t do that. I just hate that. I can’t seem to get it right. I’d sooner hang on.”
We walked on for another ten minutes before Emily said: “I’m sorry, but we’ve just got to go back. I’m bursting and I’ve got to get to a toilet as soon as possible.” I was a bit disappointed that our walk was being curtailed, but I was also mildly excited by the thought of Emily’s desperation. However, I was very fond of her, and didn’t want to see her in pain.
We retraced out steps along the forest path. It was going to take well over an hour to get back to the little town where we had had lunch, and Emily was clearly in a very bad way. From time to time she would stop, do an agitated little dance as a spasm of acute need hit her, and then carry on walking. She was obviously in a hurry, yet her need to pee was clearly slowing her down. For a little while she was actually walking with her hand stuck between her legs. She was biting her lip and looked as though she was on the verge of tears.
Again I suggested that as it was obviously an emergency she might try going in the bushes, but she almost snapped at me that she couldn’t and wouldn’t. So she stumbled on, visibly close to exploding. We were still well over half an hour from civilisation.
Suddenly she stopped and clutched her crotch. I thought it was just another spasm, but she was muttering “No! No! No!” It was clear what had happened – a spurt of pee had obviously escaped into her underclothes. There was no visible mark on her jeans, but I was in no doubt as to what had happened. I was about to risk her wrath by again recommending the bushes, when she made it clear it was too late even for that solution.
She tore down her jeans just where she was on the path, and squatted. Luckily there was nobody else around, but she seemed no longer even to care about her privacy. Fascinated I stared for a moment before realising that it was my gentlemanly duty to turn my back.
Even before she had got her knickers out of the way a huge stream of water leapt out of her orifice. It was like a hosepipe out of control, splashing liquid all around. When I tactfully averted my gaze I could still hear the water flowing – on and on and on. She must have been in the most indescribable agony to hold so much in for so long.
Eventually it stopped, and after a couple of moments I looked back at her. She had got her jeans back on, but they were visibly stained in a few places. She also seemed to have wet her left shoe, for she was furiously dabbing at it with a bunch of leaves. She said nothing; obviously feeling terribly embarrassed and humiliated, but just began to walk. The summer sun soon dried the wet patches on her jeans, but she had obviously been hurt psychologically very badly.
We went back to the pub where we had had lunch. She immediately went to the Ladies’, I imagine to check the damage to her underwear and to tidy herself up again. She drank only a small orange juice, but she went to the toilet again before we went to catch the bus.
I tried to start conversation a few times, but she only spoke a few words. Clearly she blamed me for her humiliation. I tried to offer an apology, but she just snapped at me to “leave it!”
We did go out a couple of times more, and she was reasonably pleasant, but the old intimacy, the old sense of being on the same wavelength, was gone forever. Never again did she seek my advice on going to the toilet; she simply told me she was going, making it clear it was her decision and hers alone.
Obviously things couldn’t go on like this, and we split up. I cursed myself for listening to my demon and pushing my luck. I had destroyed what could have been a beautiful friendship.
By: Jay–Gee