It's only the Result that Counts

As the only girl in the asset management group of an international financial company in London, a savagely competitive environment where being female was rarely an advantage, Loraine had to continually tread the thin line between being ‘one of the team’ and becoming too familiar with the other men, some of whom were not above trying to take advantage of her. In her late twenties, just above average height, with what she considered a ‘good figure’ she took great care to always maintain a business–like appearance with smart clothes and formal hair styles, and matched this with a formal and business–like attitude to her colleagues. She had acute hearing and could lip–read tolerably well, so she knew much of what was said about her. The men might speculate, but they weren’t going to find out what she wore under her skirts.
One lunchtime they were celebrating winning a major new contract, due at least in part to the client liking to see Loraine in tight skirts, something she was happy to indulge, though he wasn’t going to get any further. Loraine celebrated as well as any of the team, drinking her 3 pints, her limit for lunchtimes, with the best of them. She was one of the first to finish and head back to the office, as she had a teleconference with New York set up for after lunch. Two of the men left with her, and as they got the in the lift Loraine checked her watch. Ten minutes before her conference, not much time to spare, and she hated being rushed. Then the lift stopped suddenly and the emergency lighting came on, but nothing else happened. Loraine glared at the lift controls, willing it to get moving again.
In the lift with Loraine were colleagues Roger and Adam, a middle–aged man from personnel, and two executive PA’s, ultra–efficient women about 50. All looked mildly concerned, and one PA began trying to call someone on the emergency phone. Eventually she got through, and then announced, “They’re looking into it. It will be five or ten minutes before they know what’s wrong.”
“Who’s got meetings due?” she continued. “I’ll get someone to contact your departments and get them re–scheduled.”
Reluctantly Loraine suggested that Justin and her secretary could try to deal with New York until she was free. She was fuming at the delay, because she did not want to lose control of this project, and knew that Justin would jump at the chance to get involved. Another, minor, annoyance was that she wanted a pee. Nothing desperate, but after all that beer she would absolutely have to go before starting the conference, which would be more time wasted.
Peeing was another thing she was defensive about; even if she were bursting she would never leave a meeting or presentation for a pee, though the men often did.
Ten minutes later everyone had passed on instructions to their assistants. There was still no news about the lift except that ‘they were working on it,’ and Loraine had nothing more to do except they to resign herself to the situation. She tried to ignore that she wanted to pee quite badly, a lot worse than when the lift had stopped. Unconsciously she had started shifting her weight from foot to foot, both in general frustration and to try to ease her need to pee. Realizing what she was doing, she forced herself to stop, leaning against the wall of the lift with her legs crossed, trying hard to look relaxed and unconcerned.
She analyzed her situation; three pints of beer in an hour, ending about 15 minutes ago, when she was already swimming with coffee after the morning presentation. Her kidneys would be working at maximum rate now, pumping pee into her bladder which was already rather full, to say the least. There was nothing she could do except hold on for the few more minutes it would take the to fix the lift, and not think about wanting a loo, which would only make it worse. Keep her legs crossed, take as much strain as possible off her bladder, which, she could not delude herself any longer, was already bursting. She wished she had something to do to make the time pass more quickly, and take her mind off wanting a loo.
‘Don’t think about loos,’ she told herself firmly. It had to be imagination, but she seemed to want to go more badly already. How long were they going to take to fix the lift? She wanted to phone and ask, but she knew really it would not do any good, and only draw attention to her anxiety. Management training had taught her that ‘there are no problems, only opportunities,’ so this was a bad situation that she had to turn to her advantage. The only thing she could do was to not give the slightest sign she wanted a loo and show what control she had, so they would talk about her in awe: “Remember the lunchtime when Loraine was trapped in the lift after drinking three pints, and she never needed to pee? What a girl! I don’t know how she managed it.”
Except…she had only been stuck for half an hour and she was bursting, seriously bursting. Much longer and she was going to be desperate, really desperate, perhaps even worse, if there was a worse state than desperate. She didn’t want to have to wait that long. She would rather be released now and just give them something to speculate about: “Wonder what Loraine would have done if lift had been stuck all afternoon? How long before she had to pee? Then what would she have done?”
Her speculation was stopped by one of the Exec PA’s phoning to demand a progress report. The news wasn’t good; they were still working on it, so another 15 or 20 minutes at least. The questions, ‘How long before she had to pee? Then what would she have done?’ might become horribly relevant. The best thing she could do was to take as much strain off her bladder as possible by sitting down. Pity the lift didn’t have a carpet, but it looked clean, and sitting in the corner, legs straight in front of her, thighs and knees pressed together, was a lot easier on her bladder. The others copied her, resigned to the situation. Loraine tried to think of the work she should be doing, but the need for a loo soon made it difficult to concentrate. It was getting serious; no, it was serious. She could not remember wanting to go as badly as this, and she would have given an awful lot to get to a loo right away.
If only there was some way she could make it easier to wait. She couldn’t help thinking about holding between her legs; but to do that would be an admission of absolute desperation, of being about to wet herself. She had never done that when anyone might see, not even when she was a little girl. The only alternative was to sit on her heel, but could she manage that on the floor of a lift? She surreptitiously kicked off her high–heeled shoes and twisted round until she could fold her legs back under her. Having to keep her knees together, and her skirt pulled down, it wasn’t as good as she had hoped. Her skirt was too tight, and she could not get her foot at the right angle for the heel to press really hard up between her legs. She tried shifting her position this way and that, but nothing was much better. All she was doing was drawing attention to herself, and worse, making her skirt tighter across her stomach, putting more, and very unwelcome, pressure on her bladder. When she did manage to get her heel pressing where she needed it, she was sitting bolt upright, a most unnatural position that she was horribly afraid made it very obvious what she was doing. She tried relaxing, leaning back against the side of the lift, but then her heel wasn’t pressing where she wanted it to press. The few minutes she had been properly on her heel had felt so good that she just had to get back to that, however odd it looked. She consoled herself that none of the men in the lift would recognize her position for what it was, and if the women did, they would keep quiet and thankful that they were not in the same situation.
Ten minutes passed. Her need to pee had not got much worse, thanks to the pressure from her heel. She was starting to get cramp in her leg from sitting in such an awkward position, but she willed herself to bear this a bit longer, frightened of how badly she might want to pee if she was off her heel for any time. Her tight, knee length, skirt, such an advantage in the morning’s meeting, was now a real liability, making sitting on her heel so difficult. Her bladder area was aching really badly, much worse than five minutes ago, not helped by her skirt being so tight there. She risked pulling her skirt up a couple of inches, which let her move enough to both ease the cramp in her foot and bear down harder on her heel. She was going to have to wait a bit longer, bladder ache or not. That was a warning of just how full of pee she was getting, as if she didn’t know that already.
Everyone in the lift had adopted a typically British attitude of staring at the floor in front of them, avoiding eye contact with their companions. This, Loraine hoped, meant that none of them would realize how badly she wanted a loo, how much she was struggling to wait. It was also getting darker in the lift as the emergency lighting ran down, another welcome development. Loraine would have been happy for it to be pitch dark, when she could have held herself without anyone seeing.
“Can you ask how much longer they are likely to be?” Roger asked the PA who had taken charge of the telephone.
She passed his question on, adding that it was getting darker and hotter in the lift. They all waited expectantly for the answer.
“The first thing they tried hasn’t worked,” she relayed the news, “so it’s going to be another 15 minutes or so. They can reconnect the power now, so we will get some ventilation.”
As she spoke the lights came on and the fan started, blowing cool air round the lift. None of this was good news for Loraine. There went her dream of being able to hold her crutch in the dark. She wasn’t kidding herself any more that adults didn’t hold themselves; if she had been alone her hand would have been firmly between her legs, fingers holding back her pee as hard as she could. Now she would have to survive on her heel, however uncomfortable that was getting. She didn’t need the air conditioning either. The hotter it was the more she would sweat, which would mean less pee, and the way the situation was looking, anything that meant even one drop less pee in her bladder would be a help.
Another ten minutes, which seemed more like an hour. She wanted to pee really, really, badly, and her bladder was hurting more. This was getting beyond a joke, and Loraine tried not to think what it would be like if they were not released soon. She would just have to go on waiting; there was nothing else she could do. It might hurt, but she was a big girl, and could bear a bit of pain. Wrapped up in her own misery, she had not noticed that Roger had been shuffling about until he took a deep breath and said– “I’m awfully sorry about this, but I have simply got to have a pee. I really can’t wait another second.”
He faced the corner of the lift and unzipped his trousers, seeming to release a spurt of pee immediately, not giving anyone time to comment. “There’s no drain hole, so I think some of you might have to stand up or get flooded,” he continued. “I am really a sorry about this, but I could not have held out any longer.”
A puddle was already spreading from his corner of the lift, and his stream of pee was showing no sign of stopping. Loraine scrambled to her feet, any sympathy she might have had for Roger vanishing as a desperate need to pee hit her when she didn’t have the pressure of her heel between her legs. Pretending to look away in disgust, facing the wall, she had to hold herself until she managed to summon up enough bladder control to survive standing up. How on earth was she going to wait without sitting on her heel? She was leaning in a corner of the lift, legs crossed as tightly as she could, thighs pressed hard together, clenching her bladder shut, struggling to contain what had suddenly become a desperately urgent need to pee. Sitting on her heel she had been desperate, hurting, but at least in control. Now the need to go, to let her pee pour out, was overwhelming, almost uncontrollable. Loraine shuddered with the effort she was making to hold in her pee, pressing her legs harder together, her hands clenched and pressing between her legs, tortured by the sound of Roger’s pee, but at least it gave her an excuse to turn away and hide that she was holding her crutch. By the time he stopped she had regained enough control over her bladder to be able to turn round, her hands gripping her skirt, which somehow, she didn’t know or care why, seemed to help her wait.
Half the lift floor was flooded, but there was just enough space left for her to sit down again. It might be obvious why she had to sit, but Loraine was beyond caring about that, just so long as she could sit on her heel, do something to ease her terrible need to pee. But before she could move, Adam moved to the corner. “It’s no good, I’ve got to go as well. Sorry, but I’m absolutely breaking my neck, I’ve got no choice,” he said, facing into the corner and almost immediately releasing a torrent of pee. With pretend modesty Loraine turned to the wall again, grasping at any chance to hold her crutch, fighting to overcome new waves of urgency as her body begged to be able to copy Adam and just let her pee go. At least his torrent didn’t last long, but he had completely flooded the floor, and there was no chance of getting on her heel any more. Loraine had never, ever, wanted to go so badly; this wasn’t the aching, bursting feeling she had coped with in meetings, it was a frantic, urgent, need to pee that very instant. An urge that she was fighting by clenching her bladder outlet shut as hard as she could. If she relaxed this for an instant, she thought, she would start to pee, to wet herself, which was unthinkable; she just had to hold on. Except that she wasn’t sure she had the strength to hold it for long.
‘I’ll have to squat down and pee,’ she thought, ‘it’s no disgrace, both men have been, and I’ve drunk as much as they have.’ Oh what a relief it would be, to let her pee come pouring out. Then she began to think what peeing like that would actually entail. She would have to pull her skirt right up round her waist then pull her tights and knickers down to her knees, before she could squat. That would mean showing ‘everything,’ tights, scarlet knickers, neatly trimmed pubic hair. She was so desperate she would be squatting for ages, followed by another show as she pulled her clothes back up. And should she wipe herself or not? Without a doubt Adam and Roger would look. It would be absolutely mortifying, she couldn’t do it while there was any alternative; she just had to make herself wait until…until they were released, there wasn’t any other until. Willpower, determination, self–control, tightly crossed legs, and somehow she would make it.
She leant back into her corner of the lift, legs crossed, thighs and knees pressed hard together, knees slightly bent so her back was pushing against the wall. Every muscle from her waist to her knees seemed to be tensed, her hands clenched and gripping her skirt, as she fought to hold back a need to pee worse than she had ever known. She wished she could bend forward, legs twisted into a knot, but that would make it obvious how desperately she wanted to pee. Instead, all she could do was change from bent knees to straight legs and an arched back, then knock her thighs together, and keep repeating that. The movement did something to help her wait, and she had reached to stage of trying almost anything.
She couldn’t stop herself thinking ‘If it gets much worse I won’t be able to hold it,’ and after less that five minutes of frantic muscle clenching she was seriously wondering how much longer she could last. The pressure in her bladder, which was already at bursting point, could only get worse, and her muscles were tiring. Somehow, her pee felt closer to coming out, an inexorable tide that would soon be running down her legs. She could not, must not, let that happen, she just had to stop it. She had never wet herself; it would be the ultimate disgrace if she did now, and she just knew that if it did happen her skirt would be soaked, so everyone would know what she had done. Dread of this happening gave her some more strength to push the tide of pee back an inch or so, but that was only delaying the awful moment. She had to admit that there was a limit to how long she could wait, a limit that was getting closer. All she could do was fight to hold it off for as long as possible.
‘Try anything,’ Loraine thought, ‘you must wait.’ She leaned against the wall as if she was tired, and moved her right hand closer to her crutch, covering the action with her left hand as best she could. She pressed just one finger between her legs, reaching as far in as she could; pressing as hard as she could. She hoped nobody would see what she was doing. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of her, and even the pressure from one finger helped her so much. She felt more in control, as if the flood of pee was pushed back into her bladder, so she moved her hand away before anyone could see. Almost immediately the need to pee started to get worse again. She fought it for as long as she could, until she seemed on the brink of wetting herself, then she had to risk holding her crutch again to force the pee back. Still she only used one finger to hold herself, somehow thinking that it wasn’t as noticeable as using her whole hand, so distressed by the situation that she wasn’t capable of logical thought any longer. It took longer to get her pee under control this time, and she could not let go for very long. This time she closed her eyes, partly because it might have helped her wait, but also because she thought it made what she was doing less conspicuous. One finger was hardly enough pressure this time, it wasn’t doing any more than holding her pee just short of her knickers, not forcing it back inside her. She wanted to use both hands, to double over, legs knotted, to somehow get this terrible, frantic urge to pee under control. She was about to abandon all pretence and do this when the phone rang.
The PA relayed the message; “They can’t fix the problem easily, so they are going to let the lift down to the basement by hand, and let us out at last. It might be a bumpy ride, but they say it’s perfectly safe.”
Before she had finished speaking the lift began moving downwards in a series of jerks. Loraine almost cried with joy at the thought of being released at last, then realized that they were on the fifth floor and going down terribly slowly. Her finger was pressing into her crutch with all her strength, she dare not let go for even a second now, the thought of soon being able to pee only making her want to more urgently. She tried not to look at how far they had to go, telling herself that the end of her ordeal was in sight, and she couldn’t give way now. Why did they have to go all the way to the basement? It was only for archives and storage, and she was almost certain there weren’t any loos down there. She dared not waste time looking. It would be safer to get up the stairs and use the loo in reception.
At last they stopped, and as one of the doors was levered open Loraine moved in front of it. “Ladies first,” she said not sure whether that was a request or a statement of where she was going. Expecting a crowd waiting for them, Loraine had stopped holding her crutch, so she was fighting to hold in her pee, unable to stop herself twisting and squirming, almost running on the spot. The urge to pee was overwhelming; she had to fight it with all her strength, to do everything except hold herself to help keep it back. However obvious it made her desperation, wetting herself, which was a real possibility, would be worse. As soon as the door was partly open she just had to squeeze through and push the waiting engineers aside.
“Excuse me, but I’m late for an important appointment,” she muttered through clenched teeth.
Walking as normally as possible to try to preserve the last of her dignity, trying to force herself to take long confident strides and not hobble along with stiff legs, Loraine went straight for the stairs ignoring everything and everybody except the frantic need to pee, and to somehow hold out until she got in the loo upstairs. The clattering of her heels on the hard floor made everyone look at her.
“That’s real dedication to work. Not even time to say ‘thank you.’” She heard a voice behind her, followed by “More likely just desperate for a pee,” from another of the mechanics, and then she was through the fire doors and alone. Abandoning any pretence of decorum, conscious only of the all–consuming urge to pee, Loraine jammed one hand between her legs, pulling up her skirt so she could press with all her fingers, and tried to run up the stairs, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to wait much longer, that every second it took to get to the loo was vital. Everything seemed to be against her. Her high heels and tight skirt would have made it difficult to hurry anywhere, and on the bare concrete of the stairs she could hardly keep her balance. One hand was between her legs, absolutely essential but not helping her hurry, the other pulling her along on the handrail, the three flights of stairs seemed endless.
“I want the loo. I want the loo,” she was repeating to herself like a mantra, and this was the only thing that mattered to her; she had to get to the loo before her bladder gave way and she wet herself.
‘Nearly there,’ she thought as she reached the top of the stairs, only a few yards across reception. Then the realization that reception would be crowded, and that she could not hold her crutch any more. “Don’t run, try to walk normally, casually,” she told herself, both hands now gripping the waist–band of her skirt, every ounce of her strength concentrated on holding her pee for a few more seconds, still repeating “I want the loo” to herself. After two hobbled paces she was sure she was going to lose control any second, and nothing mattered any longer except getting in the loo before she was peeing down her legs. Shamed by the belated realization that the front of her skirt was bunched between her legs where she had been holding her crutch, Loraine flung herself through the door of the ladies’ and into the nearest cubicle. She leant back against the door, doubled over, both hands between her knotted legs, for some illogical reason determined to get herself under control, and to show that by bolting the door and not tearing her knickers down in a panic, she hadn’t really been about to wet herself. Then at last she could pee, perhaps the most glorious pee she had ever had, certainly the one she had wanted the most, and probably the longest she had ever done. She had no idea how long she sat there, savoring the feelings of relief and release and her pee streamed out, but it felt like at least five minutes, and it was almost a shame when she finished. She stayed sitting on the loo, trying to pee some more, not believing that she had actually finished, and that her agony was over.
Then she remembered work, the teleconference with New York, and fighting for her position in the team, and she had to get back to her desk. No time to feel sorry for herself, just quickly wash her hands, comb her hair, get her breath back, smooth down her skirt, thankfully still dry, but it had been a close thing. Her bladder still hurt so much she wondered if she had strained it, but she would have to ignore that.
Somehow, in the confusion in the basement, her last, panic–stricken dash to the loo had not attracted too much attention, and days later she was delighted to overhear Adam saying “I’m sure Loraine didn’t go to the loo in the pub, so I don’t know how she managed to wait all that time in the lift. Then she just walked away, straight back to her desk, too busy to bother with the first aid team or anything. Talk about control; she must have a bladder like iron.”
‘If you only knew how bad it was, how much I suffered, how close I was to losing it,’ thought Loraine. But that didn’t matter; she had waited. They worked in an environment where it was only the result that counted, not how it was achieved.
With thanks to Carly for the comments that provided the inspiration for this story. I hope she enjoys it.
Correspondence and comments welcome. Sorry about the (remove) anti–spam, but after the last stories I have been getting 20 to 30 junk and virus mails a day. It seems that you dare not publish your e–mail address anywhere on the Internet now.
Paul Tester ( Correspondence and non–abusive comments always welcome, just click on my name )