Hey everyone, starting off my first story here so let me know what you think. I think this complies with all the guidelines, but definitely let me know if I should change anything.
Also, because this is the Internet, I feel the need to add:
DISCLAIMER. Nothing in this story should be taken as constituting medical information or advice. If you need a doctor, you should see one. I am not responsible for anything that happens to anybody who makes any medical decision based off of the contents of this story.
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Part 1: The Prescription
John, a robust man in his forties, navigated life with a sense of vitality that matched his prime health. Though his sturdy frame from his college football days had begun to soften, his strength built from years of training and clashes on the gridiron still rippled through his arms as he shook the doctor's hand, and as he stood up after taking off his shoes, his glutes flexed visibly through his faded, well-worn blue jeans. That afternoon, the annual physical with his long-trusted physician was mostly unremarkable.
"You're in excellent shape for forty-three, John."
"Well thanks!" John replied modestly, chuckling in surprise.
"No, thank you," replied Dr. Schmidt. "Patients like you make my job easy. Ah, there is one thing ..."
John, who had been briskly dressing himself, paused to face his doctor. "What do you mean?" he asked, furrowing his brow as he absent-mindedly adjusted his white briefs at the seams.
"Your blood pressure. It's a bit high. Anything we should talk about?"
John searched his mind. "Uhh, nothin' I can think of, Doc. I've been cutting back on the coffee, just one cup a day like you said ..." Suddenly, it came to him. "Oh! I guess I never told ya about the new job," pointing to Dr. Schmidt with a snap of his fingers.
"Congratulations!"
"Yeah!" said John, smiling. "I landed a superintendent role with another firm. Transportation engineering, like the last job, but I'm meeting with clients, planning projects from start to finish. Highways, parking lots — stuff like that."
"Sounds like a real step-up for you ..."
"Yeah, no kidding. Nothing like being a rookie with a fresh civil-engineering degree," he sighed. "Some of these clients, when they want something now, it's now, y'know? Having to talk them past that ... it takes some getting used to."
"Sounds stressful ... ?" Dr. Schmidt offered, looking John in the eyes. He had been John's physician for the better part of a decade now, and knew he wasn't the type to fret or worry about his lot in life. (It was a trait he frankly admired, and felt that more of his patients could use.) On occasion, however, John could be stubborn. He sometimes needed Dr. Schmidt to point out health concerns to him carefully, and with a light touch.
"Ahh, y'know," he began, immediately dismissing the notion with a wave of his hand. "Work's work, right?"
"Work is work," Dr. Schmidt affirmed, no longer facing his patient. "But it's best to get ahead of these things if we can," as he scrawled briskly on a prescription pad. "Believe me," now addressing John again, "you're much better off knocking off a few units from your blood pressure now than having to come see me about heart problems in another three years."
"I see it every day, John," the doctor said, softly but firmly, arching his eyebrows.
"Do ya."
Dr. Schmidt nodded solemnly. "This should take care of it," he said, handing John the prescription. "You can get that filled down the block before you head home today," the doctor announced, with finality. They said their goodbyes, and John headed to the elevator bank letting out into the lobby.
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Dr. Schmidt had started John on a light dose of beta blockers. At first, John was skeptical. Did he really need pills for some new-job jitters, he wondered to himself. Growing up in athletics, injuries running the gamut from scrapes and bruises all the way to muscle cramps and the occasional sprain or broken bone were all par for the course. So long as he could continue to move unimpeded, he was more apt to walk it off than to bother going to his coach or the sports medicine clinic. Regardless, he followed his doctor's orders and took the medication as prescribed.
And there was no arguing with results. John's blood pressure, which Dr. Schmidt had asked John to begin measuring at home, stabilized. He even felt the undercurrent of anxiety that had seized him upon starting as a project manager begin to recede. His heart no longer raced unexpectedly as he worked to meet deadlines, and he seemed to handle tense meetings between the firm and their clients with a newfound ease.
There was just one thing that was bothering him. Nothing, really. For all he knew, it was his mind playing tricks on him.
John had been a creature of habit all his life. He got up in the morning to use the bathroom, and get showered and dressed. Then during lunch, or afterwards just before a meeting, he would stop by the men's room. Getting home, after parking his car in the driveway next to his house, he would make a beeline to the toilet before changing out of his office clothes and relaxing for the rest of the day. Finally, he would pee before going to bed, a habit which had become especially helpful in recent years if he wanted to avoid waking up in the middle of the night.
Lately, however, John had started to feel the familiar need between his usual pit stops. Once on a Thursday, while trying to bang out the first draft of a project proposal so that he could take it easy the next day, he drained his water bottle only to find, ten minutes later, that he had rewritten the same sentence five or six times. Unable to think straight, he got up from his desk, taking a break to empty his bladder. Another time, as he walked up to his car on the 2nd story of the parking garage down the street from his place of work, the run-down bathrooms at the end of the garage opposite the road caught his eye, for no reason he could place. He had never noticed them before. He wasn't even sure he'd known that the garage had bathrooms. Nevertheless, he popped in for a quick piss, his dress shoes clattering rhythmically against the damp tile. He approached the steel urinal fixture carefully to avoid stepping on some previous visitor's careless dribbles, heaving a sigh of unexpected relief as he began to urinate.
Three weeks into the new medication, John found himself going to the toilet two to three more times a day than normal. He figured it must have just been all the water he drank. Old habits die hard, he laughed to himself, thinking back to his brief stint playing college football at the national level, when their coach was so insistent on keeping his athletes well-hydrated that he would have the entire team break at regular intervals as he ordered them all to finish their water bottles. The hot midday sun shone against dozens of Nalgenes in assorted blues and greens as the young men drank eagerly, panting between gulps and wiping the sweat from their brows. They mostly sweated it back out during exercising and scrimmages, though every once in a while he'd notice a teammate standing at the edge of the field, the flaps of his untied belt dangling to his sides as he unlaced his fly and fished himself out of his jockstrap to piss in the bushes. They were all guys there, and they knew Coach didn't mind. Hell, he'd even seen Coach do it while he had the team running drills.
Despite his casual dismissal of his situation, John's increased urinary frequency led one day to a scene at the office which still bothered him to think about. It happened one Tuesday at around 4pm, while he and a coworker Miguel were on a conference call with a large government client. John and his colleague were seated in a conference room, talking into a speakerphone with the client, who had dialed in remotely. They were discussing a proposal for the design of a municipal parking lot which was to fit 150 - 200 cars, and the call had run over by about ten minutes. John's proposal, which he had written up under the guidance of another project manager at the firm, Chris, offered three alternatives for the location of the parking lot.
It had proven unexpectedly difficult to find a suitable location. The first choice which John suggested, an otherwise vacant lot of paved ground, was the perfect size, but the environmental assessment would likely conclude that surrounding drainage would be inadequate to cope with the wastewater during the southeastern town's seasonal rainstorms, which had grown increasingly frequent in recent years. He had managed to locate a second spot, nearer to a shopping plaza with various stores and restaurants, that had permeable surfaces to reduce runoff and an excellent supply of drains. Unfortunately, in order for the layout of parking spots to include sufficient maneuvering space and proper turning radii, the perimeter would have to come closer to the allotted area of an adjacent gas station than the city's zoning would permit. John nodded eagerly, responding politely and in depth to the client team's concerns about groundwater contamination, though one of the client's sidebars about the impact of fluid stagnation during especially bad downpours caused him to wince, sucking his teeth as he squeezed his thighs together. Thankfully, Miguel was busy typing down notes at the computer, and missed John's pained reflex as he fought against a sudden twinge of his bladder.
At last, John seemed to have found a location that would satisfy all of the client's requirements. It was an overgrown plot of land, the grass trampled in the middle from foot traffic, as pedestrians often used it as a shortcut. The two long sides of the rectangular plot formed a sort of corridor between the road and the small cluster of storefronts that it opened out on. Along those edges, Bermuda grass and even a few patches of reeds had grown lanky, and the pieces of rundown fencing which survived were nearly covered in vines. The size was adequate for the stipulated parking capacity, while the lush soil and dense vegetation surrounding the area would absorb even the heaviest runoff with ease. John thought he had checked off every box with this location, but there was one detail which had slipped his notice.
"Where will the comfort station go?" asked a junior urban planner who had been shadowing the client team until that point.
"... huh?" John replied.
"That's typical with these government contracts, John," Miguel cut in. "There's health codes and mandated accessibility requirements with a lot of these municipal designs. If there aren't bathrooms available then the city could face a lawsuit, or even have to shut the facility down."
"Oh, got it," John nodded, thinking desperately of a polite way to finally bring the meeting to an end.
"Yeah man," said Bruce, an intern with the client team who was still on his first month with the organization. He was getting used to the norms of office communication, but still had a streak of the frat boy about him. "You or I could go over to the weeds and start whizzin', but it's not so easy for the ladies," he smirked, chuckling slightly.
"We've got somewhere to run to unfortunately, but we'll give it some thought and make sure to get back to you by end of day. Sorry about the oversight," John said, addressing the speakerphone. The client team wrapped up their call with the contractors, thanking them for spending a bit longer to hammer out the details. As John tapped a button to hang up the call, he got up and exhaled sharply, muttering a hurried "'scuse me" to Miguel as he nearly jogged out of the conference room.
The conference room was one of several, laid out along three sides of a modestly sized open-plan office with about 30 desks. John swiftly walked through the center of the office space, exiting it through a doorway opening onto a hallway. Safely out of view of his colleagues, he stuck his right hand down the pocket of his beige khakis, pinching himself as he turned and cut a brisk path to the men's room, all the way at the end of the corridor to his left, and just next to an emergency stairwell. As he pushed open the swing door to the bathroom, he marched up to a urinal, pausing to suck in his breath as he tensed his sphincter shut to hold himself in during the final stretch. Bobbing up and down as he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his fly, he finally managed to free himself from his underwear as he aimed a forceful stream against the back of the porcelain.
"Close call there, eh, buddy?" a voice called out. John startled, turning to face a coworker standing to his right. In his haste to use the toilet, he didn't notice that Chris was there.
"You got that right," John smiled, his left hand on his hip as he continued to aim himself with his right. He carried himself casually, but a moment later he blushed slightly. Chris was like a mentor to John, and he felt awkward about Chris noticing how badly he had to pee. He wondered if he had even seen him squirming in front of the urinal, with a hint of embarrassment.
What's with me lately, anyway, John thought to himself as he walked back to his desk, his underclothes mercifully remaining dry. I'm out here doin' a potty dance in front of the pisser like a sophomore standing in line for the bathroom at his first kegger. He drifted away from this train of thought, sighing as he returned to his desk. In what little remained of his work day, he set his mind to figuring out where the vacant plot of land could fit men's and women's bathrooms that would comply with the local zoning laws.
It wasn't until a fishing trip with his old buddy Jake that he decided he might be in need of some medical attention. That Saturday morning, they set out to the lake making excellent time. John wore a pair of dusty white sneakers, some light tan fishing shorts with plenty of pockets, a worn t-shirt branded with the logo of a state park he'd visited in his twenties, and a gray baseball cap that was beginning to fray at the brim, as he drove on to the highway, then turned onto a road that got slightly bumpier as they approached the lake. About forty minutes into the drive, Jake noticed John tapping his left foot nonstop, with the occasional squirm as he pursed his lips and dug his pelvis into the driver's seat. Looks kinda like my nephew on our road trip to Alabama last year after one too many cans of Coke, Jake thought to himself.
"D'you wanna pull over, dude?" he asked John.
"Pull over for what?" he replied, hardly listening as he stared down the road in front of him. He had no clue what Jake was suggesting.
"So you can — ah, never mind," dropping the subject. They were nearly there, anyway.
Eventually they made it out onto the lake, where the chill of being out on the water seemed to make John's need worse. His fidgeting got so bad that it caused the lightweight aluminum boat to rock, John seated on the edge while Jake sat beside the cockpit, his legs dangling down into the well of the vessel as he tried to hook some bait. As a sudden breeze caused John to bolt upright and shudder, the boat pitched in John's direction, causing Jake to nearly prick his thumb.
"Why dontcha sit still, man," Jake shot at John, exasperated.
"Aw fuck. I'm sorry." John sighed deeply, staring out at the water. "My back teeth are floatin' out here," he muttered, shaking his head as he turned away from Jake and started pissing off the stern, a few drops landing on the deck before he managed to direct a full-bore jet into the lake.
Jake paused what he was doing, staring for a moment as it registered what was happening. Then he began to laugh heartily, deep belly laughs with pauses to breathe. John used his free hand to flip off his friend from over his shoulder.
"So much for your steel bladder," Jake said, getting up to do the same. He fished himself out and pointed over the port. His stream was relaxed and unhurried as he stared down and watched ragged concentric circles rippling out from where he aimed. "Usually I'm the one whizzing in the lake," he mused distantly. "Maybe you gotta get that prostate checked out."
John scoffed. "What am I, some fuckin' boomer?" His stream was still as loud as it was when he started urinating.
"All right, take it easy! I'm just sayin'," Jake relented. He was done already, forcing out another few spurts before he shook himself dry with two quick, firm squeezes down his hose before zipping back up. "Sometimes the forties is when it starts." Jake was right, John thought. This wasn't like him at all.
A few weeks later, John found himself seated in the urologist's office, as unsure how he'd gotten into this situation as he was whether Dr. Harris would help him.
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John disliked the idea of having to go to the urologist, and now that he was sitting in Dr. Harris' lobby he liked it even less. So he was pissing like a racehorse now and again. Wasn't that good? Wasn't that how stuff was supposed to work down there? Healthy kidneys, healthy bladder. Everything else seemed to be in working order. Certainly no complaints from the missus, he smirked with private satisfaction, reveling in his undiminished potency. He was interrupted from this train of thought by the receptionist, who poked her head above the counter to address John.
"Sir, Dr. Harris will see you now."
John went in and shook hands with Dr. Harris. John had simply skimmed the directory of his insurer's in-network doctors and went with the urologist that was closest for him to get to. He didn't know anything else about Dr. Harris except his name.
"Will you tell me what brings you here today," he said, riffling through John's medical chart in no apparent order.
"Well," John said, taking a deep breath, "I dunno but lately ..." John paused to gather his thoughts. What was his problem? Did he have a problem? He thought back to his close call at the office urinals, and cringed. "I think something's wrong with how I'm peeing."
"What do you mean 'you think.'" It was a question, but Dr. Harris spoke it with the prosody of a statement.
John looked down at the floor, scratching his crewcut reddish-brown hair near his left temple as he started over. "I mean, it's coming out — I'm having no problem with the flow, is what I'm saying. But. Out of nowhere I'll get these urges. And then I gotta hold on as I'm getting to the bathroom. Like, the other day —"
"Are you experiencing increased urgency, or increased frequency," Dr. Harris cut him off. John thought for a moment, his arms now folded across his chest.
"Uhh, both, actually. I can get to the pis— the bathroom just fine. That's not the problem. But I'll be in a work meeting, or out on a trip somewhere, and I'll get that urge to go so strong that it makes me think, shoot, I gotta find a bathroom somewhere."
"I see," the urologist replied. He had just finished reading the page summarizing John's most recent physical. He had not turned to face John once, since they shook hands. He now put down the chart, and cleared his throat.
"Well, your physician just did your physical and he didn't spot anything out of the ordinary there. So there's not much use in doing a prostate exam today. It never hurts to take a urine sample, so I'll order some labs for you on the way out today."
Dr. Harris now leaned back in his chair slightly and looked John in the eyes, holding his gaze briefly. John wasn't sure what he was thinking.
"Do you urinate outside the bathroom at all, John?"
John was slightly taken aback by the question, though he didn't show it. What man doesn't, he couldn't help thinking. John curled his lips and began to smile, laughing politely under his breath. Dr. Harris was unwavering.
"Not usually, Doc ..." John began to search backward in time mentally. "Like, if I'm out on a boat and there's no bathroom, I'll go over the side of the boat sometimes. If I really gotta." John paused, his hands folded in his lap. "We've got a really big backyard and if I'm pulling weeds or mowing the grass, sometimes I'll stop and just go in a corner somewhere, y'know. Faster than having to walk inside. That way I don't get the floor dirty." Dr. Harris nodded, remaining silent.
"Why," John said, breaking the silence. "Something wrong?"
Dr. Harris hemmed, not really answering John. "I see this a lot in men your age. We're just going to have to deal with this once and for all," he proclaimed, grabbing some pamphlets from a drawer by his desk. He handed them to John, looking him in the eyes again.
"I'm going to recommend a course of bladder training. It'll help you regain control over your bladder and improve your overall urinary health."
John furrowed his brow at the thought of such a regimen. "Bladder training? Training to do what?"
Dr. Harris explained, "You'll keep a log of your bathroom visits, and we'll work on gradually reducing the frequency over time. It's about retraining the muscles and nerves of your bladder, so that you can cope with the urge to urinate better, and build better habits."
Just hearing the urologist say that gave John a twinge. He pressed his thighs together, he hoped imperceptibly. John gulped with anxiety, but nodded, mustering his resolve.
"Better habits?"
Dr. Harris nodded. "This urinating-in-your-backyard business can't continue. You don't want to be like those men in their sixties who can't go anywhere without knowing the location of every bathroom in advance, do you?"
That was what John thought the doctor meant, but hearing him say it out loud made him feel judged. His warning even echoed his retort to his friend Jake on the fishing boat to an uncomfortably close degree. Thoughts of a shot bladder in a decade or two's time lingered in his mind. John was used to being in charge of his own life and his routine. The thought of having to alter his schedule so that he could always take a potty break if he needed one felt like a social death to him. His mind recoiled from the very idea of it.
"I guess not."
"No, you don't. So give those a read and come back to me in a month. I want to see your log filled out every day. Understood?"
"Alright, Doc. Let's give it a shot."
Roadside Rebellion
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SoakdBrute
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Roadside Rebellion
Last edited by SoakdBrute on 31 Dec 2023, 05:49, edited 1 time in total.
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bodgyuk
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
Looking forward to part 2
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Brian
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
This is an absorbing read. It's very well written indeed. You're also going into a subject which has only very rarely been touched on with our interest, namely the medical side.
I, too, am really looking forward to part 2.
I, too, am really looking forward to part 2.
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Fred
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
It's quite true that some blood pressure meds are diuretic,for some powerfully so. A friend had his doctor change his med because a couple of hours after taking his pill he would have to pee urgently, sometimes when a toilet wasn't immediately available. (I must admit I enjoyed his descriptions of trying to hold it in until he got to a toilet.) I see that potential in this story!
Although most urologists might discourage holding pee too long, bladder training helps those who pee more often than necessary. There are doubtless urologists who must balance the welfare of their patients with a (perhaps subconscious) interest in omorashi.
Although most urologists might discourage holding pee too long, bladder training helps those who pee more often than necessary. There are doubtless urologists who must balance the welfare of their patients with a (perhaps subconscious) interest in omorashi.
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BottleBlaze
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
Very well written! I really enjoyed how you were able to weave in and capture memories and the multiple incidents into the overall narrative (the times with the coach and the team, the time with the coworker, the fishing trip) It felt very natural to read from one to another.
It was fun to read that this guy has encountered so many interesting (and hot!) incidents
It was fun to read that this guy has encountered so many interesting (and hot!) incidents
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SoakdBrute
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
Thanks everyone, glad to hear you're enjoying the story so far!
To anybody out celebrating this NYE: cheers, and best of luck finding a quiet corner or dark alley after a night out drinking
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Part 2: The Training
The first day that John was to start his bladder training, he awoke half an hour before his alarm clock. He turned in his bed once or twice, feeling somehow out of joint with the usual rhythm of his morning routine until he realized what time it was. Finally, he gave up on trying to steal another few minutes of rest. Rubbing his eyes, he stepped into his slippers and scratched lazily at the bulge in his gray fleece sweatpants, the only article of clothing he wore to bed. Automatically, working on muscle memory more than sight, he walked from his bedroom to the bathroom, the only other room on the second story of his home. His wife liked to use the bathroom downstairs, a larger room with the standard toilet and shower, as well as a sink and medicine cabinet wide enough to hold Angie's array of perfumes, liquid and bar soaps, and combs of every size and shape. The mirror panes lining the outer doors of the medicine cabinet reflected back shelves filled with fresh linens, a small ficus plant, and one or two tasteful antique botanical illustrations, framed and hung.
The interior design of John's bathroom was more utilitarian. As he flicked on the light, he strode hastily to the toilet, lifting the seat. Aiming right down the center of the bowl, his morning piss thundered through the clear pool of water, echoing through the door which he had left ajar. John yawned, scratching his overnight beard growth with his free hand. Once he finished, he flushed, hitching his sweatpants back up before stretching indulgently.
Having completed the first of his morning rituals, he then stepped out of his slippers onto a nondescript, navy blue bathroom rug, barefoot on the somewhat coarse threads. Stripping his sweatpants off his body, he stepped out of those too, standing nude in the undecorated tiled room as he tested the warmth of the shower with his hand. Once it was warm enough, he got in, washed up and brushed his teeth.
His last order of business was to shave, a task which he carried out with his towel tied around his waist, a disposable razor resting on the bare surface of his bathroom counter during the pauses which John took to assess his work in the mirror. After wiping stray bits of shaving foam and facial hair from the sink with a paper towel, he opened his medicine cabinet to retrieve his bottle of prescription beta blockers, dutifully popping a pill in his mouth which he washed down with a quick gulp of tap water, before setting the bottle back.
Later, after having his coffee and a couple pieces of toast, he got dressed in front of his bedroom mirror, looking his reflection in the eyes as he cinched his belt closed. He was going to go about his day exactly as usual, with just two changes to his habits.
One: the first time that he felt the urge to urinate during the day, he would deny himself a bathroom break, simply contracting the muscles at the base of his pelvis that he had learned about doing Kegel exercises. He usually performed them quietly while seated in wait, like at the auto mechanic, or in traffic at a red light. Every once in a while, on a lazy weekend afternoon, he caught himself performing the maneuver while standing at the toilet. As his ass cheeks flexed visibly through his white briefs, John's bladder delivered several bursts of piss that broke the surface of the water and splashed a few drops on the tile floor, before he relaxed altogether and let his bladder rip to the last drop.
Two: every time he went to use the bathroom, without fail, he would record it in a running tally for the day. If he didn't have his notebook with him, he could simply make a note on his smartphone, then add the count to the daily total once he was home. That's all I gotta do, he thought to himself as he tucked his light blue cotton dress shirt into his black jeans. Nothing to sweat over.
He lingered momentarily at the top of the stairwell, casting an inquisitive glance at the bathroom. Then he went in, peeing once more before his drive to the office, his dick poking out from the fly of his jeans as he urinated only a brief, three-second trickle. Better write that one down, he sighed, and headed downstairs to the driveway.
In the initial days of bladder training, John approached the challenge with optimism. Armed with a meticulous log of his bathroom visits, he did his best to adhere to the recommended maximum that the urologist set, five visits a day. The telltale signs of his internal struggle emerged subtly. Crossing his legs more often when he sat during meetings. Standing straighter as he waited at the printer for his documents. Engaging his core muscles and pelvic floor to ignore the urges whenever his third or fourth water bottle of the day made its presence felt in his bladder.
During trips to the grocery store, John found that so long as he was moving, he hardly felt the urge at all. It was only when he came to a rest before a shelf of goods, looking for a specific flavor of cereal or comparing the price of two different brands, that a careful observer would notice as he subtly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a measured dance of restraint. While going out in his residential neighborhood during the evening to walk the dog, he found himself strategically planning routes near public restrooms, just in case. The persistent countdown to his next scheduled bathroom break became a constant preoccupation.
Still, John's attitude at this point was mostly positive. "This isn't so bad," he'd reassure himself. "Just some small adjustments, and soon, I'll have this under control."
One evening around 6pm, Angie exited her bathroom on the first story of their home, her facial mask alabaster white against the slightly flushed pink hue of her skin after a luxurious warm shower, only to find her husband standing outside, breathing a little more heavily than usual. He had been staring at the bathroom door expectantly.
"John? Is something the matter?"
"No," he exhaled. He was bobbing up and down slightly, his hands poised expectantly at his belt buckle. "I just gotta — I didn't want to make the walk all the way up the stairs. Can I use your bathroom?" Angie had never seen her husband in this state before. He must have arrived home from work so desperate to pee that he was worried the strain of flexing his thighs and glutes as he stepped up the stairs might cause him to leak.
She regarded him with a look of sympathy, and confusion. "Why didn't you just go in the yard?"
John winced at the suggestion, inhaling sharply as he now bent forward slightly from the waist. "Bladder doc says I'm not s'posed to. Sorry," he interrupted, pointing at the bathroom as he began to undo his belt. "I really gotta —"
"All right," she barely managed to finish saying before John darted in, shutting the door behind him. Not supposed to go in the yard ... she remembered waging that fight with her husband early on in their marriage, to no avail. Oh, he'd promise to quit doing it. He might even curb the gratuitous walks out back after having a few beers on the living room couch, walking right past a perfectly good bathroom to urinate in the corner of their property where John's rectangular shed stood, filled with power tools, lawn-care supplies, and a four-wheeler. But sooner or later, whether she was downstairs in the kitchen sipping a glass of water at night as he walked back inside, or even in broad daylight on a Sunday morning, visible through the kitchen window as he set down the garden hose for a break so he could cheerfully water the grass himself, John would slip back to old habits. Eventually they settled into a détente. Angie's prized roses, azaleas and daylilies, decking the outdoor area where they received guests at low tables surrounded with wooden lawn chairs, were off-limits for John to use as his urinal. In return, the hardy vegetation behind their house which lined the fence for ground cover and privacy, an assortment of maiden grasses and evergreen shrubs, were fine for John to pee in, so long as he remained out of view of the street.
Although Angie used to find her husband's outdoor bladder habits disgusting, she relented over time. She even learned to appreciate this quirk of John's in a droll, detached manner. In the blinding midday July sun, she might glimpse John standing by the shed with his back turned to the kitchen windows, wearing nothing but sandals and a loose pair of red gym shorts, the farmer's tan on his back fully bared. Sweat dripping down the traps of his broad shoulders, he would yank down the elastic waistband on his shorts in front of him, lazily aiming a trickle with his other hand which landed on the lawn in beads. It was a scene of rustic pleasure, cutting an earthy figure in the otherwise manicured suburb. One evening, she saw her husband pull into the driveway, his face creased with professional anxiety, and march over to the tall grass out back. By the time he walked in the front door, his shoulders had relaxed, his blue eyes shining with a quiet contentment. As she spread out her arms inviting him in for a hug, he approached, his arms wrapped around the small of her back as he kissed her. Affectionately scratching the five-o'-clock shadow on the side of his face, she could no longer recognize the stressed-out white-collar worker from outside in her husband's dopey smile. It's not hurting anyone, she concluded at length, and it's a damn sight cheaper than couple's therapy.
For John to give that up, Angie figured that the urologist must have put the fear of God in him. As she walked to her bedroom to finish making herself comfortable, she hoped he wouldn't miss the bowl.
For his part, John felt relieved, but embarrassed about having asked to use his wife's bathroom. He made up his mind that next time he got home bursting that badly, he would take a deep breath, brace himself, and climb the steps to his own bathroom even if it meant he had to grab himself in the crotch to hold it in. It was something he hated to do ever since one of his college teammates Rob, a quarterback with a haughty attitude, had called him out for doing it on the bus back from a championship game. It was during the second half of a three-hour bus ride, and though John had decided to pass up using the men's room in order to keep the line shorter and help get everyone back to campus sooner, he was starting to wish he hadn't.
"Hey everyone," Rob brayed, turning around in his bus seat and shouting at no one in particular, "Johnny here's pinchin' on his dick like he's about to go peepee in his drawers!" Rob snorted with laughter, totally amused with himself. In the event, his remark didn't lead to a pile-on, or garner any response from the tired athletes besides someone lazily muttering "oh shit," and another faceless teammate responding, "you better hold it dude," in a tone of mock menace. But he still resented Rob for homing in on his moment of need and rubbing it in his face.
In the privacy of his own home, John decided it was worth resorting to that measure, even if it meant having to revisit the memory. He wanted to show Dr. Harris that he was taking the bladder training seriously, even if it meant behaving in ways he thought he'd outgrown.
As the training progressed, so did the challenges. A week arrived when the program demanded a reduction to just three daily toilet visits — once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. Anxiety crept into John's thoughts. His optimistic outlook began to waver. John struggled outwardly as well. The grocery store trips turned into strategic missions, John mentally sorting his shopping list in order of what aisle each item would appear in, so that he never had to visit any aisle more than once. As he embarked on his optimized path through the store, he would clutch the shopping cart, squeezing his thighs shut whenever he had to come to a stop. The dog walks became brisker, with his canine companion struggling to keep up as John hastened his steps toward home. At his standing desk at the office, he often started to shuffle around on his feet slightly from 4:30pm onward, occasionally even bobbing up and down, three to four quick pulses of movement from the crotch as he sucked his teeth and waited for a twinge to subside, before going back to typing.
There was one Tuesday afternoon at the office which proved brutal for John. It was the closest he had come to wetting himself since the start of his training. He had walked back from lunch with his colleagues, engaged in conversation, and returned to his desk only to realize that he was already five minutes late for a 1pm design sync with Miguel. To make matters worse, it was just the first of three back-to-back meetings on his calendar, each an hour long. John hoped that he might have a chance to slip away to the men's room, but he wasn't counting on it. Stiffening his posture as he stood up and pumped his pelvic floor muscles, he was able to nip one twinge in the bud as he walked to the first meeting room. But with time, he was unable to help from fidgeting in his seat, tapping first one foot then the other as he fanned his legs open and shut, occasionally pursing his lips in full view of staff and senior colleagues during moments when the muscular pouch of fluid he was trying to will shut complained, in two- to three-second signals that began as faint twitches before swelling into a dull ache, finally abating as John's ongoing struggle to tie a knot in it left him with a leaden fullness there.
At last, there was the conference call to follow up with the government client about the new parking lot. It was just him and Miguel, talking into a speakerphone with the client team on the other end of the line. John by now was grabbing on to the head of his member under the desk, through the pocket of his gray slacks. He no longer cared if Miguel noticed. The client had agreed that paving over the wild plot of land which John proposed would be the best way forward, and was now going over the details of the comfort station.
"The place I've chosen for the bathrooms is at the opposite end from the road, where the lot opens out into the commercial plaza," John declared purposefully. He was bracing his core so firmly that he could no longer breathe from the diaphragm, causing his voice to creak slightly. "It'll be well lit from the lamps that are already installed around the plaza, to illuminate the walkways and storefronts."
"Looks great to me," said Ilya, the urban planner. He backed away from the screen where he was examining the site drawing with the layout of the parking lot and the adjacent comfort station set down in black outlines, including additional figures for the allotted areas of the commercial plaza and other entities relevant for the zoning of the new construction. He then had an epiphany. "I wonder if it'd even be worth introducing a graywater collection?"
"What do you want gray water for" posed Bruce the intern, his face beginning to curl up with disgust.
Ilya shot Bruce a bemused look, then inhaled, beginning to explain. "The water isn't gray. It's a technical term. All the water that pours down the drains from fixtures like hand sinks, floor drains after mopping, showers — that's called graywater. It doesn't need as much treatment for sanitation as the blackwater that comes from toilets, so it's an ideal candidate for harvesting. Since you can distribute it to surrounding plants and soil pretty much directly, it's a great way to conserve water and lighten the load on treatment facilities."
All this talk of water gurgling down sink drains, floor drains, dripping relentlessly into dark underground cisterns where it sloshed around, awaiting diversion and release, was killing John. He couldn't believe he had to piss this bad.
"Got it," Bruce uttered slowly, a cheeky grin spreading out over his face. "No pissin' in those sinks, everyone!" He failed to get the response from his colleagues that he was hoping for.
"Would it kill you to quit the potty humor, Bruce?" Ilya finally shot back, slamming the pen which he was fiddling with down on his desk. "You might actually learn something for a change ..."
"All right, what's the big deal? We all do it, man. It's just a joke, I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything."
Ilya now digressed from the meeting agenda, attempting to enlighten Bruce on the significance of water conservation. On the other end of the call, Miguel noticed beads of sweat beginning to form on John's forehead, and muted the receiver on their speakerphone.
"You all right, John? You don't look so good right now."
John regretted landing in such a dire state that a work colleague felt moved to comment, but could not bring himself to deny it. He shook his head. "I've been in meetings all day," he said, sitting up straight. "My bladder is killing me," he whispered through grit teeth.
"Go to the bathroom," said Miguel. "I can take the meeting from here."
John smiled weakly as he rose immediately, continuing to grip himself through his pants in self-reassurance as he left the conference room. His jog through the open office was stiff from the waist up, John not daring to articulate too much about his torso lest he weaken the grip on his urinary sphincter. A senior civil drafter and another client, from private industry, continued chatting while their gaze followed John out of the office and into the hallway, perplexed at his pained sprint through the common space. John was now unbuckling his belt as he jogged, his fingers perched by his pants button, preparing mentally to open up his pants as soon as he was in the men's room, where he wouldn't be indecent. Finally he got there, zooming over to the first urinal he saw as he unbuttoned and unzipped in one fell swoop. He barely decelerated as he approached the porcelain fixture, assuming the position with such speed that he arrived on tip-toe, and had to defray his impact against the bathroom wall with the forearm that he wasn't using to aim himself.
He moaned, half in relief and half in acknowledgment of the secret pain he could not politely express in mixed company, but could now vocalize here, in the resonant tiled chamber provided for everything a man had to eject from himself. His shoulders now heaved in self-pacifying pants as he drained himself, the hiss of his stream against the deodorizing urinal cake sounding together with the glugs from the drain that lay under it. John rested his head against his forehead.
"Jeeesus, kid," said a voice. "You're doin' the hundred-yard dash over here."
John removed his head from his forearm, reorienting himself in time and space as he turned to the source of the voice. It was Chris again, standing three urinals down from him, his stance neat and orderly where John's was wide and disheveled. Chris stood with his feet nearly parallel and pointing forward, his legs straight and his torso perfectly upright as he held himself between the index and middle fingers of his left hand. He tinkled placidly down the back of the urinal, his right hand resting on his hip. Chris was about eight years John's senior, paunchier and with patches of gray starting to show where John had only stray hairs fading in color. Chris let out a brief sigh, his upper lip shifting momentarily under his bushy mustache.
"I'm sorry. Fuck," John whispered. "I really had to go."
"Nah," Chris dismissed, briefly waving away John's apology with his free hand before replacing it on his hip. "I been there, man." A brief silence intervened, both gentlemen's trickles of urine the only sound in the bathroom. Then, tilting his head slightly in the direction of John's crotch: "You better get someone to look at that."
"Ohh," said John, realizing what Chris meant. "Oh, no I don't— I mean I'm already—"
"C'mon, man." Chris' brow rose as he cut off John's attempt at evasion. "I seen you sprintin' to the head like it's the last chopper out of 'Nam." Chris' beer gut heaved as he inhaled. "We're not gettin' any younger. If you think a guy like you can't have prostate trouble, think again."
So Chris had noticed, John realized. He blushed to think just how many of his emergency bathroom visits Chris had witnessed. He was now the second person that spring to recommend to John that he see a specialist about his male plumbing, a thought which filled him with a quiet sense of dread.
"Yeah, I hear ya. I'm already seeing a urologist," he hated to admit, but volunteered in the hopes that it might cut this conversation short. Chris grunted.
"Y'know what did it for me?" Chris paused, waiting for John to ask what. John said nothing. He was now staring down into the urinal before him as he continued to piss. "Saw palmetto," Chris intoned, almost conspiratorially. "I was goin' maybe 9, 10 times a day before that. Once every night, minimum. Comin' out in dribbles. So my doc got me started on that supplement. I've been on it maybe 5 months now. These days" — Chris sighed and forced out two last, brief squirts, his upper lip curling to one side in a sneer of satisfaction " — "I'm pissin' like a champ." The urinal in front of Chris roared with a flush as he walked away. "The things you take for granted in life ..." he mused distantly.
John continued to splash the porcelain for another fifteen seconds before finally finishing himself. Once Chris had left the bathroom and he was safely out of view, he looked down to inspect his gray boxer briefs, on which he now registered a feeling of dampness that was previously blocked out by his painful urge to urinate. He gasped, now stricken with fear for the first time during his bladder training. Had it happened? Did he piss himself in the office? He looked around, testing spots of fabric around his bulge and at the seams with his fingertips. Beyond the usual stray drops from not shaking all the way, he couldn't feel anything. At last it hit him that the dampness was mostly sweat, the absorbency of his cotton undies nearly saturated in parts, so that a few beads of sweat had begun to form a slick layer of moisture between his briefs and the smooth, clammy skin of his buttocks. Finally convinced that he hadn't pissed his pants that day, he went to wash his hands, and walked back to his desk slowly, an unshakable dark feeling lingering at the edge of his consciousness. By the time he returned to his desk, he felt utterly depleted.
Totally against custom for John, he left the office ten minutes early that day.
John wished that would be the end of his toilet emergencies, but it soon became clear that it wasn't. One early evening drive home, he nearly panicked during an especially dense surge of traffic that turned what was normally a ten-minute segment of his drive into a stop-and-start war of inches that took over twice as long. He bore down with his ass into the driver's seat, and exhaled sharply in pain. Where he normally would have continued driving once the traffic jam cleared up, he spotted a moderately sized layby with a brutalist structure at the very end, in the shape of a rectangular prism. "Man, fuck this," he grumbled, resigning himself to going one notch over the daily limit in his bladder-training log as he parked at the layby, hoping that the structure had toilets as he shut the car door and jogged over to it. The characteristic pong of cleaning solution, a chemical parody of forest pines, mingled with the gritty, elemental scent of rust, and the ammoniac whiff of stale piss, hit his nose at once as he ran up to a foul, discolored trough urinal. The wall-mounted, stainless steel fixture trickled with several narrow streams of running water that perpetually flushed it as they dribbled down the back surface, pooling at their resting place in the base of the receptacle and diffusing out in a thin shimmer of fluid that rippled around the drains. John stood at the urinal with feet splayed out shoulder-width apart, swearing to himself as his stream landed with a metallic thwack and rang against the trough, an industrial-strength toilet for an emergency piss.
These pit stops at the layby, one which he had always driven past without noticing, but discovered about three weeks into his bladder-training program, were John tapping out under the sheer urge to drain the snake. They now happened about twice a week on his way home from work, three times on especially bad weeks. John felt those episodes come on elsewhere in his body, before he could recognize it as the need to pee. He would get a sinking feeling in his chest. He would begin tugging at his shirt collar, trying to cool down, or start gulping every ten to fifteen minutes. Eventually the association became so consistent that by the time he caught himself fidgeting like this, behind a slow vehicle or a red light, he simply sighed and made a mental note to go to the layby. Every time he shook off and zipped up, the relief that John felt as he walked out from the public toilet was marred by the knowledge that on his log, the unfailing record of his progress, he would once more have to admit defeat.
His internal monologue shifted, confusion tainting his initial positivity. "Three times a day? How am I supposed to manage that? It's like my bladder's become a ticking time bomb, and I'm counting down to the next explosion."
On one particularly challenging day, as his dog Spike sniffed around the base of a tree trunk, John found himself having to face away from his furry friend. He couldn't help but envy the carefree ease with which Spike nonchalantly lifted a rear leg, cocked proudly in the air as he casually did what John only wished he could.
"You ain't got no schedule to piss," he mused, holding the leash with his right hand while he surreptitiously pinched his dick through the pocket of a pair of old gym shorts with the other. "You do it whenever you want and you don't care who sees."
Seeing this only intensified his urges, making the struggle even more visceral. As he turned away from the sight of Spike marking his territory, his eyes involuntarily scanned his surroundings as he considered whether any stray visitors to that bushy corner of the park would mind, or even notice, if he watered the vegetation along with the canine. It was an idle question to pass the time, rather than a practical assessment of risk. He had no intention of giving Dr. Harris the satisfaction.
At last, one Wednesday afternoon, a month after John's initial consult with Dr. Harris, the fateful day arrived. He found himself sitting once again in the urologist's lobby, now holding a pocket-sized notebook with the first dozen or so pages used up, its light gray paperback cover beginning to absorb the clammy sheen of flop sweat that leaked from his palms. His right foot was tapping away, whether from nerves or from need John wasn't sure. It was time for the urologist to review his work.
To anybody out celebrating this NYE: cheers, and best of luck finding a quiet corner or dark alley after a night out drinking
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Part 2: The Training
The first day that John was to start his bladder training, he awoke half an hour before his alarm clock. He turned in his bed once or twice, feeling somehow out of joint with the usual rhythm of his morning routine until he realized what time it was. Finally, he gave up on trying to steal another few minutes of rest. Rubbing his eyes, he stepped into his slippers and scratched lazily at the bulge in his gray fleece sweatpants, the only article of clothing he wore to bed. Automatically, working on muscle memory more than sight, he walked from his bedroom to the bathroom, the only other room on the second story of his home. His wife liked to use the bathroom downstairs, a larger room with the standard toilet and shower, as well as a sink and medicine cabinet wide enough to hold Angie's array of perfumes, liquid and bar soaps, and combs of every size and shape. The mirror panes lining the outer doors of the medicine cabinet reflected back shelves filled with fresh linens, a small ficus plant, and one or two tasteful antique botanical illustrations, framed and hung.
The interior design of John's bathroom was more utilitarian. As he flicked on the light, he strode hastily to the toilet, lifting the seat. Aiming right down the center of the bowl, his morning piss thundered through the clear pool of water, echoing through the door which he had left ajar. John yawned, scratching his overnight beard growth with his free hand. Once he finished, he flushed, hitching his sweatpants back up before stretching indulgently.
Having completed the first of his morning rituals, he then stepped out of his slippers onto a nondescript, navy blue bathroom rug, barefoot on the somewhat coarse threads. Stripping his sweatpants off his body, he stepped out of those too, standing nude in the undecorated tiled room as he tested the warmth of the shower with his hand. Once it was warm enough, he got in, washed up and brushed his teeth.
His last order of business was to shave, a task which he carried out with his towel tied around his waist, a disposable razor resting on the bare surface of his bathroom counter during the pauses which John took to assess his work in the mirror. After wiping stray bits of shaving foam and facial hair from the sink with a paper towel, he opened his medicine cabinet to retrieve his bottle of prescription beta blockers, dutifully popping a pill in his mouth which he washed down with a quick gulp of tap water, before setting the bottle back.
Later, after having his coffee and a couple pieces of toast, he got dressed in front of his bedroom mirror, looking his reflection in the eyes as he cinched his belt closed. He was going to go about his day exactly as usual, with just two changes to his habits.
One: the first time that he felt the urge to urinate during the day, he would deny himself a bathroom break, simply contracting the muscles at the base of his pelvis that he had learned about doing Kegel exercises. He usually performed them quietly while seated in wait, like at the auto mechanic, or in traffic at a red light. Every once in a while, on a lazy weekend afternoon, he caught himself performing the maneuver while standing at the toilet. As his ass cheeks flexed visibly through his white briefs, John's bladder delivered several bursts of piss that broke the surface of the water and splashed a few drops on the tile floor, before he relaxed altogether and let his bladder rip to the last drop.
Two: every time he went to use the bathroom, without fail, he would record it in a running tally for the day. If he didn't have his notebook with him, he could simply make a note on his smartphone, then add the count to the daily total once he was home. That's all I gotta do, he thought to himself as he tucked his light blue cotton dress shirt into his black jeans. Nothing to sweat over.
He lingered momentarily at the top of the stairwell, casting an inquisitive glance at the bathroom. Then he went in, peeing once more before his drive to the office, his dick poking out from the fly of his jeans as he urinated only a brief, three-second trickle. Better write that one down, he sighed, and headed downstairs to the driveway.
In the initial days of bladder training, John approached the challenge with optimism. Armed with a meticulous log of his bathroom visits, he did his best to adhere to the recommended maximum that the urologist set, five visits a day. The telltale signs of his internal struggle emerged subtly. Crossing his legs more often when he sat during meetings. Standing straighter as he waited at the printer for his documents. Engaging his core muscles and pelvic floor to ignore the urges whenever his third or fourth water bottle of the day made its presence felt in his bladder.
During trips to the grocery store, John found that so long as he was moving, he hardly felt the urge at all. It was only when he came to a rest before a shelf of goods, looking for a specific flavor of cereal or comparing the price of two different brands, that a careful observer would notice as he subtly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a measured dance of restraint. While going out in his residential neighborhood during the evening to walk the dog, he found himself strategically planning routes near public restrooms, just in case. The persistent countdown to his next scheduled bathroom break became a constant preoccupation.
Still, John's attitude at this point was mostly positive. "This isn't so bad," he'd reassure himself. "Just some small adjustments, and soon, I'll have this under control."
One evening around 6pm, Angie exited her bathroom on the first story of their home, her facial mask alabaster white against the slightly flushed pink hue of her skin after a luxurious warm shower, only to find her husband standing outside, breathing a little more heavily than usual. He had been staring at the bathroom door expectantly.
"John? Is something the matter?"
"No," he exhaled. He was bobbing up and down slightly, his hands poised expectantly at his belt buckle. "I just gotta — I didn't want to make the walk all the way up the stairs. Can I use your bathroom?" Angie had never seen her husband in this state before. He must have arrived home from work so desperate to pee that he was worried the strain of flexing his thighs and glutes as he stepped up the stairs might cause him to leak.
She regarded him with a look of sympathy, and confusion. "Why didn't you just go in the yard?"
John winced at the suggestion, inhaling sharply as he now bent forward slightly from the waist. "Bladder doc says I'm not s'posed to. Sorry," he interrupted, pointing at the bathroom as he began to undo his belt. "I really gotta —"
"All right," she barely managed to finish saying before John darted in, shutting the door behind him. Not supposed to go in the yard ... she remembered waging that fight with her husband early on in their marriage, to no avail. Oh, he'd promise to quit doing it. He might even curb the gratuitous walks out back after having a few beers on the living room couch, walking right past a perfectly good bathroom to urinate in the corner of their property where John's rectangular shed stood, filled with power tools, lawn-care supplies, and a four-wheeler. But sooner or later, whether she was downstairs in the kitchen sipping a glass of water at night as he walked back inside, or even in broad daylight on a Sunday morning, visible through the kitchen window as he set down the garden hose for a break so he could cheerfully water the grass himself, John would slip back to old habits. Eventually they settled into a détente. Angie's prized roses, azaleas and daylilies, decking the outdoor area where they received guests at low tables surrounded with wooden lawn chairs, were off-limits for John to use as his urinal. In return, the hardy vegetation behind their house which lined the fence for ground cover and privacy, an assortment of maiden grasses and evergreen shrubs, were fine for John to pee in, so long as he remained out of view of the street.
Although Angie used to find her husband's outdoor bladder habits disgusting, she relented over time. She even learned to appreciate this quirk of John's in a droll, detached manner. In the blinding midday July sun, she might glimpse John standing by the shed with his back turned to the kitchen windows, wearing nothing but sandals and a loose pair of red gym shorts, the farmer's tan on his back fully bared. Sweat dripping down the traps of his broad shoulders, he would yank down the elastic waistband on his shorts in front of him, lazily aiming a trickle with his other hand which landed on the lawn in beads. It was a scene of rustic pleasure, cutting an earthy figure in the otherwise manicured suburb. One evening, she saw her husband pull into the driveway, his face creased with professional anxiety, and march over to the tall grass out back. By the time he walked in the front door, his shoulders had relaxed, his blue eyes shining with a quiet contentment. As she spread out her arms inviting him in for a hug, he approached, his arms wrapped around the small of her back as he kissed her. Affectionately scratching the five-o'-clock shadow on the side of his face, she could no longer recognize the stressed-out white-collar worker from outside in her husband's dopey smile. It's not hurting anyone, she concluded at length, and it's a damn sight cheaper than couple's therapy.
For John to give that up, Angie figured that the urologist must have put the fear of God in him. As she walked to her bedroom to finish making herself comfortable, she hoped he wouldn't miss the bowl.
For his part, John felt relieved, but embarrassed about having asked to use his wife's bathroom. He made up his mind that next time he got home bursting that badly, he would take a deep breath, brace himself, and climb the steps to his own bathroom even if it meant he had to grab himself in the crotch to hold it in. It was something he hated to do ever since one of his college teammates Rob, a quarterback with a haughty attitude, had called him out for doing it on the bus back from a championship game. It was during the second half of a three-hour bus ride, and though John had decided to pass up using the men's room in order to keep the line shorter and help get everyone back to campus sooner, he was starting to wish he hadn't.
"Hey everyone," Rob brayed, turning around in his bus seat and shouting at no one in particular, "Johnny here's pinchin' on his dick like he's about to go peepee in his drawers!" Rob snorted with laughter, totally amused with himself. In the event, his remark didn't lead to a pile-on, or garner any response from the tired athletes besides someone lazily muttering "oh shit," and another faceless teammate responding, "you better hold it dude," in a tone of mock menace. But he still resented Rob for homing in on his moment of need and rubbing it in his face.
In the privacy of his own home, John decided it was worth resorting to that measure, even if it meant having to revisit the memory. He wanted to show Dr. Harris that he was taking the bladder training seriously, even if it meant behaving in ways he thought he'd outgrown.
As the training progressed, so did the challenges. A week arrived when the program demanded a reduction to just three daily toilet visits — once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. Anxiety crept into John's thoughts. His optimistic outlook began to waver. John struggled outwardly as well. The grocery store trips turned into strategic missions, John mentally sorting his shopping list in order of what aisle each item would appear in, so that he never had to visit any aisle more than once. As he embarked on his optimized path through the store, he would clutch the shopping cart, squeezing his thighs shut whenever he had to come to a stop. The dog walks became brisker, with his canine companion struggling to keep up as John hastened his steps toward home. At his standing desk at the office, he often started to shuffle around on his feet slightly from 4:30pm onward, occasionally even bobbing up and down, three to four quick pulses of movement from the crotch as he sucked his teeth and waited for a twinge to subside, before going back to typing.
There was one Tuesday afternoon at the office which proved brutal for John. It was the closest he had come to wetting himself since the start of his training. He had walked back from lunch with his colleagues, engaged in conversation, and returned to his desk only to realize that he was already five minutes late for a 1pm design sync with Miguel. To make matters worse, it was just the first of three back-to-back meetings on his calendar, each an hour long. John hoped that he might have a chance to slip away to the men's room, but he wasn't counting on it. Stiffening his posture as he stood up and pumped his pelvic floor muscles, he was able to nip one twinge in the bud as he walked to the first meeting room. But with time, he was unable to help from fidgeting in his seat, tapping first one foot then the other as he fanned his legs open and shut, occasionally pursing his lips in full view of staff and senior colleagues during moments when the muscular pouch of fluid he was trying to will shut complained, in two- to three-second signals that began as faint twitches before swelling into a dull ache, finally abating as John's ongoing struggle to tie a knot in it left him with a leaden fullness there.
At last, there was the conference call to follow up with the government client about the new parking lot. It was just him and Miguel, talking into a speakerphone with the client team on the other end of the line. John by now was grabbing on to the head of his member under the desk, through the pocket of his gray slacks. He no longer cared if Miguel noticed. The client had agreed that paving over the wild plot of land which John proposed would be the best way forward, and was now going over the details of the comfort station.
"The place I've chosen for the bathrooms is at the opposite end from the road, where the lot opens out into the commercial plaza," John declared purposefully. He was bracing his core so firmly that he could no longer breathe from the diaphragm, causing his voice to creak slightly. "It'll be well lit from the lamps that are already installed around the plaza, to illuminate the walkways and storefronts."
"Looks great to me," said Ilya, the urban planner. He backed away from the screen where he was examining the site drawing with the layout of the parking lot and the adjacent comfort station set down in black outlines, including additional figures for the allotted areas of the commercial plaza and other entities relevant for the zoning of the new construction. He then had an epiphany. "I wonder if it'd even be worth introducing a graywater collection?"
"What do you want gray water for" posed Bruce the intern, his face beginning to curl up with disgust.
Ilya shot Bruce a bemused look, then inhaled, beginning to explain. "The water isn't gray. It's a technical term. All the water that pours down the drains from fixtures like hand sinks, floor drains after mopping, showers — that's called graywater. It doesn't need as much treatment for sanitation as the blackwater that comes from toilets, so it's an ideal candidate for harvesting. Since you can distribute it to surrounding plants and soil pretty much directly, it's a great way to conserve water and lighten the load on treatment facilities."
All this talk of water gurgling down sink drains, floor drains, dripping relentlessly into dark underground cisterns where it sloshed around, awaiting diversion and release, was killing John. He couldn't believe he had to piss this bad.
"Got it," Bruce uttered slowly, a cheeky grin spreading out over his face. "No pissin' in those sinks, everyone!" He failed to get the response from his colleagues that he was hoping for.
"Would it kill you to quit the potty humor, Bruce?" Ilya finally shot back, slamming the pen which he was fiddling with down on his desk. "You might actually learn something for a change ..."
"All right, what's the big deal? We all do it, man. It's just a joke, I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything."
Ilya now digressed from the meeting agenda, attempting to enlighten Bruce on the significance of water conservation. On the other end of the call, Miguel noticed beads of sweat beginning to form on John's forehead, and muted the receiver on their speakerphone.
"You all right, John? You don't look so good right now."
John regretted landing in such a dire state that a work colleague felt moved to comment, but could not bring himself to deny it. He shook his head. "I've been in meetings all day," he said, sitting up straight. "My bladder is killing me," he whispered through grit teeth.
"Go to the bathroom," said Miguel. "I can take the meeting from here."
John smiled weakly as he rose immediately, continuing to grip himself through his pants in self-reassurance as he left the conference room. His jog through the open office was stiff from the waist up, John not daring to articulate too much about his torso lest he weaken the grip on his urinary sphincter. A senior civil drafter and another client, from private industry, continued chatting while their gaze followed John out of the office and into the hallway, perplexed at his pained sprint through the common space. John was now unbuckling his belt as he jogged, his fingers perched by his pants button, preparing mentally to open up his pants as soon as he was in the men's room, where he wouldn't be indecent. Finally he got there, zooming over to the first urinal he saw as he unbuttoned and unzipped in one fell swoop. He barely decelerated as he approached the porcelain fixture, assuming the position with such speed that he arrived on tip-toe, and had to defray his impact against the bathroom wall with the forearm that he wasn't using to aim himself.
He moaned, half in relief and half in acknowledgment of the secret pain he could not politely express in mixed company, but could now vocalize here, in the resonant tiled chamber provided for everything a man had to eject from himself. His shoulders now heaved in self-pacifying pants as he drained himself, the hiss of his stream against the deodorizing urinal cake sounding together with the glugs from the drain that lay under it. John rested his head against his forehead.
"Jeeesus, kid," said a voice. "You're doin' the hundred-yard dash over here."
John removed his head from his forearm, reorienting himself in time and space as he turned to the source of the voice. It was Chris again, standing three urinals down from him, his stance neat and orderly where John's was wide and disheveled. Chris stood with his feet nearly parallel and pointing forward, his legs straight and his torso perfectly upright as he held himself between the index and middle fingers of his left hand. He tinkled placidly down the back of the urinal, his right hand resting on his hip. Chris was about eight years John's senior, paunchier and with patches of gray starting to show where John had only stray hairs fading in color. Chris let out a brief sigh, his upper lip shifting momentarily under his bushy mustache.
"I'm sorry. Fuck," John whispered. "I really had to go."
"Nah," Chris dismissed, briefly waving away John's apology with his free hand before replacing it on his hip. "I been there, man." A brief silence intervened, both gentlemen's trickles of urine the only sound in the bathroom. Then, tilting his head slightly in the direction of John's crotch: "You better get someone to look at that."
"Ohh," said John, realizing what Chris meant. "Oh, no I don't— I mean I'm already—"
"C'mon, man." Chris' brow rose as he cut off John's attempt at evasion. "I seen you sprintin' to the head like it's the last chopper out of 'Nam." Chris' beer gut heaved as he inhaled. "We're not gettin' any younger. If you think a guy like you can't have prostate trouble, think again."
So Chris had noticed, John realized. He blushed to think just how many of his emergency bathroom visits Chris had witnessed. He was now the second person that spring to recommend to John that he see a specialist about his male plumbing, a thought which filled him with a quiet sense of dread.
"Yeah, I hear ya. I'm already seeing a urologist," he hated to admit, but volunteered in the hopes that it might cut this conversation short. Chris grunted.
"Y'know what did it for me?" Chris paused, waiting for John to ask what. John said nothing. He was now staring down into the urinal before him as he continued to piss. "Saw palmetto," Chris intoned, almost conspiratorially. "I was goin' maybe 9, 10 times a day before that. Once every night, minimum. Comin' out in dribbles. So my doc got me started on that supplement. I've been on it maybe 5 months now. These days" — Chris sighed and forced out two last, brief squirts, his upper lip curling to one side in a sneer of satisfaction " — "I'm pissin' like a champ." The urinal in front of Chris roared with a flush as he walked away. "The things you take for granted in life ..." he mused distantly.
John continued to splash the porcelain for another fifteen seconds before finally finishing himself. Once Chris had left the bathroom and he was safely out of view, he looked down to inspect his gray boxer briefs, on which he now registered a feeling of dampness that was previously blocked out by his painful urge to urinate. He gasped, now stricken with fear for the first time during his bladder training. Had it happened? Did he piss himself in the office? He looked around, testing spots of fabric around his bulge and at the seams with his fingertips. Beyond the usual stray drops from not shaking all the way, he couldn't feel anything. At last it hit him that the dampness was mostly sweat, the absorbency of his cotton undies nearly saturated in parts, so that a few beads of sweat had begun to form a slick layer of moisture between his briefs and the smooth, clammy skin of his buttocks. Finally convinced that he hadn't pissed his pants that day, he went to wash his hands, and walked back to his desk slowly, an unshakable dark feeling lingering at the edge of his consciousness. By the time he returned to his desk, he felt utterly depleted.
Totally against custom for John, he left the office ten minutes early that day.
John wished that would be the end of his toilet emergencies, but it soon became clear that it wasn't. One early evening drive home, he nearly panicked during an especially dense surge of traffic that turned what was normally a ten-minute segment of his drive into a stop-and-start war of inches that took over twice as long. He bore down with his ass into the driver's seat, and exhaled sharply in pain. Where he normally would have continued driving once the traffic jam cleared up, he spotted a moderately sized layby with a brutalist structure at the very end, in the shape of a rectangular prism. "Man, fuck this," he grumbled, resigning himself to going one notch over the daily limit in his bladder-training log as he parked at the layby, hoping that the structure had toilets as he shut the car door and jogged over to it. The characteristic pong of cleaning solution, a chemical parody of forest pines, mingled with the gritty, elemental scent of rust, and the ammoniac whiff of stale piss, hit his nose at once as he ran up to a foul, discolored trough urinal. The wall-mounted, stainless steel fixture trickled with several narrow streams of running water that perpetually flushed it as they dribbled down the back surface, pooling at their resting place in the base of the receptacle and diffusing out in a thin shimmer of fluid that rippled around the drains. John stood at the urinal with feet splayed out shoulder-width apart, swearing to himself as his stream landed with a metallic thwack and rang against the trough, an industrial-strength toilet for an emergency piss.
These pit stops at the layby, one which he had always driven past without noticing, but discovered about three weeks into his bladder-training program, were John tapping out under the sheer urge to drain the snake. They now happened about twice a week on his way home from work, three times on especially bad weeks. John felt those episodes come on elsewhere in his body, before he could recognize it as the need to pee. He would get a sinking feeling in his chest. He would begin tugging at his shirt collar, trying to cool down, or start gulping every ten to fifteen minutes. Eventually the association became so consistent that by the time he caught himself fidgeting like this, behind a slow vehicle or a red light, he simply sighed and made a mental note to go to the layby. Every time he shook off and zipped up, the relief that John felt as he walked out from the public toilet was marred by the knowledge that on his log, the unfailing record of his progress, he would once more have to admit defeat.
His internal monologue shifted, confusion tainting his initial positivity. "Three times a day? How am I supposed to manage that? It's like my bladder's become a ticking time bomb, and I'm counting down to the next explosion."
On one particularly challenging day, as his dog Spike sniffed around the base of a tree trunk, John found himself having to face away from his furry friend. He couldn't help but envy the carefree ease with which Spike nonchalantly lifted a rear leg, cocked proudly in the air as he casually did what John only wished he could.
"You ain't got no schedule to piss," he mused, holding the leash with his right hand while he surreptitiously pinched his dick through the pocket of a pair of old gym shorts with the other. "You do it whenever you want and you don't care who sees."
Seeing this only intensified his urges, making the struggle even more visceral. As he turned away from the sight of Spike marking his territory, his eyes involuntarily scanned his surroundings as he considered whether any stray visitors to that bushy corner of the park would mind, or even notice, if he watered the vegetation along with the canine. It was an idle question to pass the time, rather than a practical assessment of risk. He had no intention of giving Dr. Harris the satisfaction.
At last, one Wednesday afternoon, a month after John's initial consult with Dr. Harris, the fateful day arrived. He found himself sitting once again in the urologist's lobby, now holding a pocket-sized notebook with the first dozen or so pages used up, its light gray paperback cover beginning to absorb the clammy sheen of flop sweat that leaked from his palms. His right foot was tapping away, whether from nerves or from need John wasn't sure. It was time for the urologist to review his work.
Last edited by SoakdBrute on 01 Jan 2024, 16:06, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
That’s wonderful! Enjoyed the story so much and anticipating poor John disgracing himself…
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SoakdBrute
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
Part 3: The Review
John smiled curtly at the receptionist as she informed him that the urologist would see him now, attempting to pull out a few wrinkles from his heather-gray t-shirt, branded with the logo of the Panthers football team from his college days. He had taken some time away from the office that afternoon, hoping to give his check-in with Dr. Harris his undivided attention rather than having to rush over from the office and then back home once more. Nevertheless, John’s foot steadily tapped away, a nervous movement starting from the right side of his fleshy haunches, as his muscular thigh pulsed visibly through the denim of his well-filled 501 button-fly jeans. He had arrived half an hour early. The idle stretch of time as he sat there, unsure when he would be called, caused his mind to wander.
What would the doctor have to say about his progress? Sure, he had occasionally gone over the maximum a few times a week, but otherwise he was managing to stick to three trips to the toilet a day, as much as it bothered him at times to hold it in. By now he had caught himself a few times, whistling as he began walking to the office men’s room, or shutting the car door after putting in his bag to scan that level of the parking garage for the nearest toilet, only to remember that it wasn’t time yet. The realization stopped him in his tracks, sometimes causing him to suck his teeth, before he reluctantly abandoned the course of action and returned to his day. He was cautiously proud of the progress he had made in coming back to the John he had always known, the man whose piss breaks you could set your watch by.
John walked through the door that the receptionist had digitally unlocked for him, stepping into a modest labyrinth of examination rooms, doctor’s offices, and computer stations. John turned left, then right, his footsteps landing with a dull thud on the vinyl flooring of the corridors, which shone with an antiseptic polish. Counting to the third door on the right of the dead-end hallway now before him, he recognized the urologist’s name on the nameplate, and walked in.
“Hey doc,” John offered.
“Hi. Your log, please?”
John frowned slightly, placing the notebook in Dr. Harris’ outstretched hand. He held the item, regarding it with curiosity and a hint of disgust before producing a white handkerchief from his slack pocket, which he used to wipe John’s sweat from the covers before flipping through the pages carefully.
Both men said nothing, John waiting to be offered a seat before taking the liberty himself. He chose the exam table, lined with disposable crepe paper that crinkled as he sat down.
“What happened here?”, Dr. Harris said, pointing at the tally for April 7th.
John followed the doctor’s finger to a tally of 5 marks. “Oh, well one of those was at work before a kick-off meeting with a big client. I didn’t wanna be pinchin’ myself under the desk the whole time, y’know?” He chuckled, winking at Dr. Harris with an easygoing smile. The doctor was unmoved. “And then the other one was just from me kickin’ back with a few beers on our patio. But don’t worry, I went inside to pee that time.”
“That time?” Dr. Harris asked, quizzically.
“Yeah …” John looked down at the floor. His right leg was now jiggling fully. Dr. Harris continued to examine the log.
“On April 11th your tally seems to be missing entirely.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry, doc. See, it was really hot that day, and I was just hydrating non-stop. I swear I must’ve drank 7 or 8 water bottles. Sometimes I just keep the running total in my head and write it down after, but that day I just gave up,” John shrugged. “I had to use every bathroom I passed by that day. I just lost count.”
Dr. Harris set the log down on his table brazenly, removing his spectacles as he turned to stare at his patient. John didn’t like where this was going. He sat up sharply on the exam table, bracing himself in his pelvis.
“… what are we doing here today, John.” He didn’t know what to say. It seemed unlikely that any response would satisfy him.
“I know my log isn’t perfect, but I’m having some really good days. I’m starting to get back to—“
“—get back where?” Dr. Harris laughed ironically. “Voiding helplessly off the deck of fishing boats? Micturating wherever the urge takes you?”
John experienced a flash of intimidation, his pulse rising slightly as the memory of the incident of the lake gave him the urge on the spot. “C’mon, I’m trying here. You don’t think I’m trying?”
“Who is this for, John, me? Or yourself? I’m not the one who came to you with bladder problems.” Dr. Harris paused. “What do you plan to do, anyway, if you don’t get this under control?”
John raised his brows at Dr. Harris, awaiting further explanation.
“On long flights when the seatbelt sign goes on during turbulence? On road trips with your in-laws?"
"Oh! I mean, It's not as bad as all that. I think that I could hold it in if I had no choice, y'know? And we all get emergencies from time to time."
"... Emergencies?"
"Hey, when you gotta go, right?" John laughed heartily. "I'm not above asking the chauffeur to pull over, if you know what I mean," he said with a wink.
Dr. Harris was earnest, like a confessor exhorting his penitent. "What kind of impression do you think that must leave, John. Really."
John began to speak, but found himself at a loss for words. What kind of impression? He had taken his share of good-natured ribbing over it, but nothing more serious than that. Surely they didn't think ...
"I’m afraid you’re missing the whole point of the training.”
“I’m going to the bathroom less than before, Doc! I’m not gonna lie to you, when I do go, I really gotta go sometimes, but … when am I gonna be cured? When is it going to be okay, and, we can stop doing this? All this … training.”
Dr. Harris now folded his arms across his chest, staring John in the eyes. “When you are in charge of your bladder, not your bladder in charge of you.”
John’s heart sank through his stomach. As John searched his mind for what to say next, a twinge of need caused him to suck his teeth and wince. Dr. Harris noticed, and began to get up from his chair.
“You don’t need to urinate right now, do you?”
"N- no, no," John said, waving a hand in denial. "I can hold it. I don't gotta—"
Dr. Harris opened the door, through which he stuck his head and called out, “Phyllis? Will you get me a graduated pitcher?” John stared at the open door with trepidation, taking the opportunity of being out of Dr. Harris’ sight to give himself a reassuring squeeze, reaching a hand into his husky loins to sneak in one quick overhand pump at the base of his cock. Dr. Harris re-entered with a polypropylene pitcher for measuring fluids. Up the side of the vessel, labeled volumes counted up by the hundreds to a maximum of 2000 mL, with unlabeled tick marks spaced apart in 10 ml increments. Dr. Harris now addressed John.
“I need to know how much volume we’re working with here. In order to assess your capacity at the first desire to void, would you fill this receptacle for me,” he said, proffering the receptacle to John.
John took it and stood up, instinctually popping open the top button of his fly. “Uhh, okay. Ah, do you got a bathroom around here or …?”
“The restrooms are on the other side of the floor. Can’t you just fill it here?”
John hesitated, glancing past Dr. Harris at the door, which was left ajar. He bobbed slightly under Dr. Harris' gaze as he raised an eyebrow at John, anticipating his patient's reply.
“Uhh. I guess …” John felt he had inconvenienced the urologist enough already, and didn’t want to make this follow-up appointment any longer than it had already been. John turned his back to Dr. Harris for modesty. Taking a deep breath, he unbuttoned his fly with his free hand, reaching through the opening of his tighty-whities as he flopped out his member and, holding out the pitcher underneath it, aimed it there with his thumb and index finger.
Silence.
John cleared his throat after a few moments, then stepped into a more deliberate stance. Flexing the muscles around his taint once or twice in an effort to start the flow, he tugged lightly at his dick, giving it a few encouraging shakes as he tried to relax and begin urinating.
The pitcher remained bone-dry. The hairs at the nape of John’s crew-cut neck stood up. The clock felt like it was ticking right in his ear. John looked up from the pitcher, furrowed his brow and gulped.
John had never been piss-shy in his life. From the moment he first encountered the standard-issue porcelain urinal, wall mounted in a row opposite the stalls in the men's restrooms at sports stadiums and other public settings, he used them with ease, alone or thronged with other visitors. He never skipped a beat when he and a friend both needed to go, chatting away as they pissed into the white fixtures. But John was aware that not every dude could perform while exposed at the open plan toilets. Once, during halftime at an away game on another college campus, the athletes formed separate lines behind each pisser, their surfaces glistening with beads of condensation and errant sprays of urine as each man waited to relieve himself. It was almost John's turn, but his line had ground to a halt. The sounds of lockers slamming shut and the roar of flushing toilets rang in the football players' ears as they struggled to contain themselves.
“Yo! Hurry up!” John shouted at the head of the line, where an athlete was struggling to get a stream started. John shifted his weight anxiously from his left to his right foot and back. The cleats of his sneakers made a damp grinding sound against the dirt, tracked in from the field, which now soiled the concrete floor. As the man John had heckled flushed a urinal he hadn’t used and hastily walked away, unrelieved, John lost no time in replacing him, stomping into place and hiking down his compression pants and jock. As he started pissing away, he hollered in relief, a rowdy “Whoo!” reverberating against the walls of the latrines. “I been holding that since the kickoff,” he boasted to his neighbor, grinning with open satisfaction.
Yet in that moment, as John stood there about a yard away from the urologist, his dick held uselessly in his hand, the pitcher stayed empty. He couldn’t piss a drop.
He turned his head around to face Dr. Harris. “I dunno what’s happenin’, Doc,” he chuckled. “Usually I can piss with an audience.”
“It seemed you rather took pride in doing so.”
“Can I just go fill it up in the bathroom?”, John said, wincing again. His bladder felt no less full, for being so bashful.
“Hold on,” Dr. Harris replied, walking over to the door of a small supply closet, which he opened. Standing nearly unused under several shelves stocked with disposable exam gloves, tongue depressors, cotton balls and other medical supplies was a sturdy utility sink, old-fashioned with separate valves for hot and cold water. “This usually does the trick,” he said, and turned a valve, causing the sink to emit a low rumble before the faucet dribbled, then gushed with a stream of cold tap water.
John pointed himself into the pitcher once more, and upon hearing the faucet run, unclenched at the sphincter and began to fill it, sighing with relief. The doctor closed the valve shut again, leaving only the sound of the tap water gurgling away, and John's urine rattling against the side of the flimsy measuring device.
After what had felt like an eternity, John pissed a few final spurts before shaking off carefully into the pitcher, setting it down next to him on the exam table as he tucked himself away and buttoned his jeans back up. He handed the pitcher back to the doctor, who was now wearing a pair of exam gloves.
“270 milliliters …” Dr. Harris declared.
"Is that bad?"
Dr. Harris sighed. "I suppose any man in your shoes would be struggling to keep up with the program. But you're simply not going to improve until we can get that volume up."
"I'm doing the best I can, doc."
"Of course. But I'm still going to need you to try. 3 bathroom visits a day, maximum. And the log must be filled out daily, without exception. I'm sure this is embarrassing for you, but that's no excuse."
With any hope of impressing the urologist with his progress now dashed, John agreed to come back in another month's time. Dr. Harris handed John a pamphlet with dietary advice for avoiding bladder irritation, then sent him on his way.
John smiled curtly at the receptionist as she informed him that the urologist would see him now, attempting to pull out a few wrinkles from his heather-gray t-shirt, branded with the logo of the Panthers football team from his college days. He had taken some time away from the office that afternoon, hoping to give his check-in with Dr. Harris his undivided attention rather than having to rush over from the office and then back home once more. Nevertheless, John’s foot steadily tapped away, a nervous movement starting from the right side of his fleshy haunches, as his muscular thigh pulsed visibly through the denim of his well-filled 501 button-fly jeans. He had arrived half an hour early. The idle stretch of time as he sat there, unsure when he would be called, caused his mind to wander.
What would the doctor have to say about his progress? Sure, he had occasionally gone over the maximum a few times a week, but otherwise he was managing to stick to three trips to the toilet a day, as much as it bothered him at times to hold it in. By now he had caught himself a few times, whistling as he began walking to the office men’s room, or shutting the car door after putting in his bag to scan that level of the parking garage for the nearest toilet, only to remember that it wasn’t time yet. The realization stopped him in his tracks, sometimes causing him to suck his teeth, before he reluctantly abandoned the course of action and returned to his day. He was cautiously proud of the progress he had made in coming back to the John he had always known, the man whose piss breaks you could set your watch by.
John walked through the door that the receptionist had digitally unlocked for him, stepping into a modest labyrinth of examination rooms, doctor’s offices, and computer stations. John turned left, then right, his footsteps landing with a dull thud on the vinyl flooring of the corridors, which shone with an antiseptic polish. Counting to the third door on the right of the dead-end hallway now before him, he recognized the urologist’s name on the nameplate, and walked in.
“Hey doc,” John offered.
“Hi. Your log, please?”
John frowned slightly, placing the notebook in Dr. Harris’ outstretched hand. He held the item, regarding it with curiosity and a hint of disgust before producing a white handkerchief from his slack pocket, which he used to wipe John’s sweat from the covers before flipping through the pages carefully.
Both men said nothing, John waiting to be offered a seat before taking the liberty himself. He chose the exam table, lined with disposable crepe paper that crinkled as he sat down.
“What happened here?”, Dr. Harris said, pointing at the tally for April 7th.
John followed the doctor’s finger to a tally of 5 marks. “Oh, well one of those was at work before a kick-off meeting with a big client. I didn’t wanna be pinchin’ myself under the desk the whole time, y’know?” He chuckled, winking at Dr. Harris with an easygoing smile. The doctor was unmoved. “And then the other one was just from me kickin’ back with a few beers on our patio. But don’t worry, I went inside to pee that time.”
“That time?” Dr. Harris asked, quizzically.
“Yeah …” John looked down at the floor. His right leg was now jiggling fully. Dr. Harris continued to examine the log.
“On April 11th your tally seems to be missing entirely.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry, doc. See, it was really hot that day, and I was just hydrating non-stop. I swear I must’ve drank 7 or 8 water bottles. Sometimes I just keep the running total in my head and write it down after, but that day I just gave up,” John shrugged. “I had to use every bathroom I passed by that day. I just lost count.”
Dr. Harris set the log down on his table brazenly, removing his spectacles as he turned to stare at his patient. John didn’t like where this was going. He sat up sharply on the exam table, bracing himself in his pelvis.
“… what are we doing here today, John.” He didn’t know what to say. It seemed unlikely that any response would satisfy him.
“I know my log isn’t perfect, but I’m having some really good days. I’m starting to get back to—“
“—get back where?” Dr. Harris laughed ironically. “Voiding helplessly off the deck of fishing boats? Micturating wherever the urge takes you?”
John experienced a flash of intimidation, his pulse rising slightly as the memory of the incident of the lake gave him the urge on the spot. “C’mon, I’m trying here. You don’t think I’m trying?”
“Who is this for, John, me? Or yourself? I’m not the one who came to you with bladder problems.” Dr. Harris paused. “What do you plan to do, anyway, if you don’t get this under control?”
John raised his brows at Dr. Harris, awaiting further explanation.
“On long flights when the seatbelt sign goes on during turbulence? On road trips with your in-laws?"
"Oh! I mean, It's not as bad as all that. I think that I could hold it in if I had no choice, y'know? And we all get emergencies from time to time."
"... Emergencies?"
"Hey, when you gotta go, right?" John laughed heartily. "I'm not above asking the chauffeur to pull over, if you know what I mean," he said with a wink.
Dr. Harris was earnest, like a confessor exhorting his penitent. "What kind of impression do you think that must leave, John. Really."
John began to speak, but found himself at a loss for words. What kind of impression? He had taken his share of good-natured ribbing over it, but nothing more serious than that. Surely they didn't think ...
"I’m afraid you’re missing the whole point of the training.”
“I’m going to the bathroom less than before, Doc! I’m not gonna lie to you, when I do go, I really gotta go sometimes, but … when am I gonna be cured? When is it going to be okay, and, we can stop doing this? All this … training.”
Dr. Harris now folded his arms across his chest, staring John in the eyes. “When you are in charge of your bladder, not your bladder in charge of you.”
John’s heart sank through his stomach. As John searched his mind for what to say next, a twinge of need caused him to suck his teeth and wince. Dr. Harris noticed, and began to get up from his chair.
“You don’t need to urinate right now, do you?”
"N- no, no," John said, waving a hand in denial. "I can hold it. I don't gotta—"
Dr. Harris opened the door, through which he stuck his head and called out, “Phyllis? Will you get me a graduated pitcher?” John stared at the open door with trepidation, taking the opportunity of being out of Dr. Harris’ sight to give himself a reassuring squeeze, reaching a hand into his husky loins to sneak in one quick overhand pump at the base of his cock. Dr. Harris re-entered with a polypropylene pitcher for measuring fluids. Up the side of the vessel, labeled volumes counted up by the hundreds to a maximum of 2000 mL, with unlabeled tick marks spaced apart in 10 ml increments. Dr. Harris now addressed John.
“I need to know how much volume we’re working with here. In order to assess your capacity at the first desire to void, would you fill this receptacle for me,” he said, proffering the receptacle to John.
John took it and stood up, instinctually popping open the top button of his fly. “Uhh, okay. Ah, do you got a bathroom around here or …?”
“The restrooms are on the other side of the floor. Can’t you just fill it here?”
John hesitated, glancing past Dr. Harris at the door, which was left ajar. He bobbed slightly under Dr. Harris' gaze as he raised an eyebrow at John, anticipating his patient's reply.
“Uhh. I guess …” John felt he had inconvenienced the urologist enough already, and didn’t want to make this follow-up appointment any longer than it had already been. John turned his back to Dr. Harris for modesty. Taking a deep breath, he unbuttoned his fly with his free hand, reaching through the opening of his tighty-whities as he flopped out his member and, holding out the pitcher underneath it, aimed it there with his thumb and index finger.
Silence.
John cleared his throat after a few moments, then stepped into a more deliberate stance. Flexing the muscles around his taint once or twice in an effort to start the flow, he tugged lightly at his dick, giving it a few encouraging shakes as he tried to relax and begin urinating.
The pitcher remained bone-dry. The hairs at the nape of John’s crew-cut neck stood up. The clock felt like it was ticking right in his ear. John looked up from the pitcher, furrowed his brow and gulped.
John had never been piss-shy in his life. From the moment he first encountered the standard-issue porcelain urinal, wall mounted in a row opposite the stalls in the men's restrooms at sports stadiums and other public settings, he used them with ease, alone or thronged with other visitors. He never skipped a beat when he and a friend both needed to go, chatting away as they pissed into the white fixtures. But John was aware that not every dude could perform while exposed at the open plan toilets. Once, during halftime at an away game on another college campus, the athletes formed separate lines behind each pisser, their surfaces glistening with beads of condensation and errant sprays of urine as each man waited to relieve himself. It was almost John's turn, but his line had ground to a halt. The sounds of lockers slamming shut and the roar of flushing toilets rang in the football players' ears as they struggled to contain themselves.
“Yo! Hurry up!” John shouted at the head of the line, where an athlete was struggling to get a stream started. John shifted his weight anxiously from his left to his right foot and back. The cleats of his sneakers made a damp grinding sound against the dirt, tracked in from the field, which now soiled the concrete floor. As the man John had heckled flushed a urinal he hadn’t used and hastily walked away, unrelieved, John lost no time in replacing him, stomping into place and hiking down his compression pants and jock. As he started pissing away, he hollered in relief, a rowdy “Whoo!” reverberating against the walls of the latrines. “I been holding that since the kickoff,” he boasted to his neighbor, grinning with open satisfaction.
Yet in that moment, as John stood there about a yard away from the urologist, his dick held uselessly in his hand, the pitcher stayed empty. He couldn’t piss a drop.
He turned his head around to face Dr. Harris. “I dunno what’s happenin’, Doc,” he chuckled. “Usually I can piss with an audience.”
“It seemed you rather took pride in doing so.”
“Can I just go fill it up in the bathroom?”, John said, wincing again. His bladder felt no less full, for being so bashful.
“Hold on,” Dr. Harris replied, walking over to the door of a small supply closet, which he opened. Standing nearly unused under several shelves stocked with disposable exam gloves, tongue depressors, cotton balls and other medical supplies was a sturdy utility sink, old-fashioned with separate valves for hot and cold water. “This usually does the trick,” he said, and turned a valve, causing the sink to emit a low rumble before the faucet dribbled, then gushed with a stream of cold tap water.
John pointed himself into the pitcher once more, and upon hearing the faucet run, unclenched at the sphincter and began to fill it, sighing with relief. The doctor closed the valve shut again, leaving only the sound of the tap water gurgling away, and John's urine rattling against the side of the flimsy measuring device.
After what had felt like an eternity, John pissed a few final spurts before shaking off carefully into the pitcher, setting it down next to him on the exam table as he tucked himself away and buttoned his jeans back up. He handed the pitcher back to the doctor, who was now wearing a pair of exam gloves.
“270 milliliters …” Dr. Harris declared.
"Is that bad?"
Dr. Harris sighed. "I suppose any man in your shoes would be struggling to keep up with the program. But you're simply not going to improve until we can get that volume up."
"I'm doing the best I can, doc."
"Of course. But I'm still going to need you to try. 3 bathroom visits a day, maximum. And the log must be filled out daily, without exception. I'm sure this is embarrassing for you, but that's no excuse."
With any hope of impressing the urologist with his progress now dashed, John agreed to come back in another month's time. Dr. Harris handed John a pamphlet with dietary advice for avoiding bladder irritation, then sent him on his way.
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Brian
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
You're managing to pack every male bladder issue into your writing, certainly every one that I have ever thought of and more that I haven't besides. It's wonderful.
If I ever visit a urologist, I think I'll avoid Dr. Harris though. Not the over-sympathetic type, is he?
If I ever visit a urologist, I think I'll avoid Dr. Harris though. Not the over-sympathetic type, is he?
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Fred
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Re: Roadside Rebellion
I'm hoping for the next chapter. I also have some thoughts about Dr. Harris that could be developed.