Sudden Lockdown

by Amos Talshir

  “What else is he going to do?” the father spat out from the corner of his mouth, staring at Brigitte slamming the door of a small cream-colored sports convertible.

  “How about studying?” Charlie’s mother would protest in reply.

  “He can study pretty girls,” the father said, tracking Brigitte as she retrieved a wicker basket from her sports car for a picnic in the adjacent forest.

  “Robert, the boy will stay a fisherman like you,” the mother complained.

  “No chance, he’s not smart enough,” the father decreed and laughed, his eyes mesmerized by the wiggling buttocks of Brigitte Bardot as she made her way down a slope to the bank of the river.

  “Just look at that, a girl walking to a picnic in high heels,” the mother said dismissively.

  “You could learn a lot from her,” the fisherman said. “Right, Charlie?” He turned to his son, who had been praying the argument would end, leaving behind only the creaking of the chair, while the movie continued to flicker against the background of the massive sea, darkening into the horizon, and Brigitte planted three light kisses on both cheeks of the three young men waiting for her on the bank of the river.

  Charlie loved his father and mother and Brigitte Bardot, and these were pretty much the people he met regularly at the isolated house on the bluff over the sea, until he began to meet Clara regularly on the beach. This was the first pleasurable thought that had gone through his body since the stadium was locked down and heads began to explode. The seatmate walking ahead of him was wearing layers of formfitting shirts and sweatshirts, some apparently belonging to her partner. They were intended to protect her from the invasive chill in the stadium. She complained of backaches caused by sleeping in her seat, inviting him to see for himself by touching her aching muscles. Charlie was not tempted. He was done with that school of seduction ending in rejection. The French-Spanish woman looked back often, taking care not to lose Charlie. She was very frightened. He walked very close behind her, gently guiding her waist with his arm along the short path to the tunnel that would lead them to the restrooms. Her proximity infused his nostrils with the scent of her body from the days that had gone by without bathing, in the same clothes, sleeping hunched in her seat. He thought about the Spanish woman’s bladder, unemptied for two days now due to her fear of budging from her seat—fear of the snipers. He thought about Clara, who needed to pee constantly. They would run into the sea and she would take off her bikini bottom and tell him to feel how much pee she had, and he would place his hand between her legs in the cool water and feel her warm urine streaming into his palm and she would laugh.

  “Isn’t that a lot of pee?” she would demand that he confirm, saying that he was driving her crazy since he liked her pee. She’d laugh and kiss him and say, God, I was so full of pee. And always, always, after she peed in the sea, his entire body would be enveloped with her warm urine, his thoughts swimming toward the warm place from which the urine had emerged. He would penetrate her in the cold water. Slowly, very slowly, as the seawater made the friction challenging until it surrendered to his organ, conquering its spot inside her. Clara’s bathing suit was clutched between her teeth, since she needed both hands in order to hold on to the back of his neck. Charlie’s head was under her as he held his breath underwater, and he shook her body upon his waist, her legs locked behind his back and her head thrown back, her throat stretching toward the darkness over the water. Oh God—oh God, she’d roar into the salty breeze wafting from the water into her open mouth. Charlie would hear her God underwater and surface in order to breathe. Only after she had talked with God in the deep water would he lay her out, limp, on the warm sand, shaking her more and more for his own sake. While she repeatedly murmured God, he got off as well and she would stroke the back of his neck until he fell asleep on the beach, his head on her breasts, gleaming all night in the moonlight.

  After Simon was born came those panicked drives to hospitals, so as not to be late, heaven forbid, for the tests monitoring his spine. By then he could no longer bear her peeing. Minutes after they’d get into the car late, because of her, she’d ask him to stop because she had to pee. The doctors, the child starved before his CT imaging, nothing would sway her. She needed to stop and pee on the way. And not just once. How he hated the pee he had once so loved.

  13.

  The French-Spanish woman slowed her steps, obviously frightened of going in the tunnel. Charlie grew convinced that she was not pretending, banishing his suspicion that she might be an informer for the Others. Charlie’s self-confidence was dwindling. One moment, he suspected her of being their agent, trying to find out details about the streaker. She happened to have a Spanish accent but made sure to say she was of French origin, so he wouldn’t suspect she was one of them, while also saying she couldn’t find her place, like in the poems. A moment later, he no longer suspected her, perhaps because of her muscular body, or the scent mingling perfume and unwashed nights rising from her body. Or perhaps because he realized that she and he would be stuck together for a long time in this stadium. His eyes continued to track the muscular steps of his neighbor who needed to pee. Just like many years ago on the beach, he still knew how to recognize an opportunity. His arm wrapped lightly around her waist and he walked beside her, soothing her with words that he did not believe were coming out of his mouth. Soft words resulting from his constant desire to be liked by women. There was that thing they would tell him on the upward slope of the relationship, that he was so “gentle,” while when things were going downhill they said he lacked “gentleness.” Mainly Clara, who after all the blazing sun and abrasive sand and stinging salt he had brought into her life, demanded this “gentleness” from him, driving him insane.

  The Spanish woman thanked him, telling him she wouldn’t have dared come down from the stand without his help. The fact was, for days now, she hadn’t budged from her chair, and it felt as if she had thrown out her entire body. She was an aerobics instructor, she told him. Actually, she taught fitness and dance as well, and she was used to regular physical activity; the last few days had been killing her. She didn’t know if she’d been close to dying because of her fear or because of the ache throughout her body. She told him it was amazing how a person could suddenly not go to the bathroom for a few days due to fear or a sudden change in life.

  Charlie thought of her innocence, the direct and even silly manner of speaking of this woman who was his seatmate on the stand. She couldn’t even pee on her own, he thought, while he continued telling her everything would be fine and that she could soon use the restroom. She thanked him, confessing that she was terrified and was certain that the fear would actually stop her from going, because the worst might happen inside the restroom facility.

  Charlie blathered out soothing words and she talked about the fear of getting locked in the restroom stall and was already giving up on going to the bathroom and suggesting they go back to the stand, since there everything was out in the open, which gave her a feeling of security. But now she was scared to return by herself, but she didn’t dare ask him to return her to her seat, since she understood that he himself needed to use the facilities. He told her nothing bad would happen, because it was logical that she needed to pee. She asked what kind of logic he was talking about, and he recounted the explanation his son had given him, as if he, Charlie, had come up with it, or at least believed in it. He asked her whether it wasn’t that way in her poems, and she asked which way. Charlie explained the logic of it, that if what you were doing made sense to everyone, then nothing bad would happen to you, and wanting to pee would make sense to anyone, and therefore nothing bad would happen to her. She said it wasn’t like that in poems, and that was what was nice about them. He asked what exactly was nice about that, and she said that in poems, development was not always logical. Love and wrongs and jealousy and joy did not always make sense. He asked what, then, were they governed by, and she said that was the secret of the
magic of poetry.

  Charlie admitted to himself that he felt the need to impress her with his clever perception of the situation. It appeared as if he was only truly trying to help her, but he was no longer at an age where he lied to himself. She really did evoke a desire in him to impress her, or at least to feel masculine and in control of the situation. For two days now, he had felt like a limp rag, huddled in his seat and waiting for someone he didn’t know to allow him to go home.

  “The game that’s going on here has its own internal rules, and if you’re not hurting anyone, and you’re sure you’re not the only one who feels that way, but that the other person will feel the same, then there’s no problem. That’s the logic,” he explained to her.

  She was gazing at him as if he was talking about life being discovered on the moon, while he felt his bladder exploding. “It could be explained better,” he said and promised he’d ask his son to explain it to her soon, but right now, they should go ahead and pee.

  “I’m afraid to go into the stall. You go, and I’ll wait. Be quick, please.”

  Charlie drifted away from her toward one of the stalls and she leaped up suddenly and said she was afraid to stay by herself. He said he was about to piss his pants, and she begged him to let her go into the stall with him because she was afraid of staying outside on her own. The corridor was nearly empty, but the restroom facilities were dim, and occasionally, one of the doors of the dozens of stalls slammed, the sound echoing through the exposed concrete walls. Rapid steps sounded when someone using the facilities went by and exited into the corridor, disappearing into the dark tunnel leading to the stands.

  “Don’t leave me alone,” she begged.

  Charlie wasn’t certain he would have time to undo his pants before the urine erupted, wetting all of him with smelly shame. Holding his breath, he managed to whip out his dick and the stream began to hit the water in the toilet before he could aim for the porcelain walls. She stood behind his back in the narrow stall, looking down at his rear end. He felt her breath on the back of his neck and heard her accelerated heartbeat, a result of her fear. The first flow pinched the tip as it broke free and he began to relax, examining the too-yellow stream that continued to splash into the toilet bowl. I haven’t been drinking enough, he thought. The smell of the constantly flowing urine mingled with the scent of her body, hovering just behind his body. The quiet could not overcome the ringing of the stream meeting water at the bottom of the toilet bowl. She cleared her throat awkwardly and apologized in a hushed voice. He finally managed to aim at the toilet-bowl wall, and her breath emerged from the quiet zone beyond his shoulder. For some reason, he recalled the creaking of his father’s rocking chair. He continued to piss, feeling his stomach muscles relax and the oppressive tension leaving his body. The stream continued to flow with a muffled splash on the toilet-bowl walls. A strangled moan escaped his throat, and he tried to camouflage it by clearing his throat, which was answered by a throat-clearing from her, also intended to muffle the murmur of fluid dripping from the toilet bowl into the water. All these muffling attempts were useless, and the flow of urine shook the narrow space of the stall in which he stood over the toilet while she clung to him from behind. He now envisioned Brigitte Bardot’s high heels, pattering down the slope to the picnic.

  He felt relief. He finished expelling an immense amount of urine, straining his pelvis muscles to release the final stream. He gave up on shaking, fearing he would splash her. Packing himself into his pants, he buttoned them up and turned toward her. She whispered that she couldn’t hold it back anymore due to the sounds of his peeing.

  “It’s your fault,” she said, smiling shyly.

  Charlie said he would leave the stall and watch over her from outside and she cried out in fright and said she was scared and wouldn’t be able to go out of fear if he left her, but then she wouldn’t be able to go if he stayed next to her, either. They switched places, shuffling in the tight space, and she asked him to close his eyes. He did, but not tightly. She kneeled slightly, extracting her behind and legs from her tights.

  “Did you wipe the seat off with toilet paper first?” she asked in a breathless rush.

  “I didn’t have time. Want me to wipe it for you?”

  “I can’t hold it back,” she said and sat down on the toilet seat, covering the space between her legs with her hands.

  He stood above her, trying not to lose his patience. Yes, he had already lost his mind countless times because he could not understand female behavior. Get out, because I can’t do it when you’re here, but if you leave, I’ll be scared here alone. It was actually a female specialty. Clara was the same way. “Did you wipe the seat off?” “No, should I?” “No, ’cause I can’t hold it back.” “Then why did you ask if I wiped it?” “Just so I feel better. Calm down,” Clara would say, “not everything has a reason and logic and a solution. Sometimes things just are the way they are and we’ll never know why.” But Charlie would not calm down, and his thoughts would swirl around until he came to an internal conclusion that he would never manage to understand Clara. And it wasn’t just her.

  Charlie waited a long time for the sound of his seatmate’s urine to meet the water at the bottom of the toilet bowl. He did not know the name of the woman with whom he had squeezed into a restroom stall, and who was not finishing up in there. He began to consider the possibility that his son had returned to his seat and had not found him where he should be. She looked up at him, her gaze apologetic, as if telling him his presence was blocking the flow. He asked whether he should leave the stall. She said the fear would paralyze her if she were alone in the stall. Right, he was familiar with that. The Double, he called it. She wanted the other thing because she just couldn’t this way, but she couldn’t the other way, either, so it might as well stay the way it was. The Double. Brigitte Bardot had countless Doubles in her movies, with all the guys who wanted her, while she was unable to decide which of them was worthier.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Charlie.”

  “Nice to meet you—Veronica,” she said. “It’s actually Veronique in French, but I changed it to Veronica when we moved to the Spanish Coalition.”

  “Veronica is a very pretty name,” he said. “And so is Veronique.” He extended his hand and she apologized with a glance for being unable to dislodge her hands from concealing her private parts.

  “Can you psssshhhhh for me, please?”

  He didn’t understand.

  “It can help me go. Usually, when I’m under pressure, I turn on the faucet next to me, and the whisper of the water flowing encourages the pee to come out.”

  “I can go out and turn on the faucet.”

  “Don’t you dare leave even for a moment.”

  Charlie let out a long psssshhhhh sound for her, simulating a stream of urine, and she stared at him with a focused gaze and a forced smile, which gradually grew wider until it became an ecstatic expression taking over her face. “Así me gusta a mí,” she said. “That’s the way I like it,” she said, translating the peak of her happiness for him. “When I’m really having a good time, I speak Spanish. I don’t know why, but I write poems in French.”

  He looked at her and saw that she was a pretty woman, even beautiful. She was sitting on the toilet like a little girl who had received all that she had ever dreamed of. Así me gusta a mí, she continued to mumble, again and again, until her lips were moving soundlessly, loosely. Charlie could hear the rustle of her breath. The fatigue of a sleepless night and the lack of hygiene were leaving marks of neglect on her face and hair, but she was very pretty, Charlie thought. Even truly beautiful. Her pupils, dilated with gratification, met his gaze and the sound of her flow stopped briefly. He smiled at her and the stream renewed. Veronica apologized for the embarrassing sound she was making and asked his permission to moan. He said it just wasn’t right without a good moan and she let out a moan, te
ars flooding her eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” he asked.

  “I’m embarrassed.” She tore off a bit of toilet paper, wiped between her legs and cried. Tore off more paper and wiped her teary eyes.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, cry. You look like Brigitte Bardot when you cry.”

  “I’d stroke you, but I haven’t washed my hands after peeing,” she apologized.

  “That’s not the worst thing you could do,” Charlie consoled her.

  “I’m so ashamed to be doing this to you.”

  “Come wash your hands,” he suggested.

  “I don’t know how I got to this situation where I’m asking a stranger to help me pee. It’s so humiliating. I’m not clean and I’m ashamed of myself.” Now she was truly weeping.

  “You don’t have to be ashamed because of me,” Charlie did his best. “We’re neighbors.”

  “But I’m ashamed that they’ll see us getting out of the same stall,” she said, still sobbing and using up the toilet paper to blow her nose, which was running now.

  “Then maybe we’ll just never leave?” Charlie said, using the “Double” trick, which worked.

  Veronica burst out in laughter, which mingled with her tears, and finished dressing. They left the restroom stall and he suggested she bathe at the sink, using one of her sweatshirts as a towel. She hesitated, and he encouraged her with a smile.