“Would you mind dragging me to the bathroom?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, picked up my leg and dragged me toward the gents.
“Need help getting on the toilet?”
I nodded with as much dignity as I could muster. This was met with another shrug before her foot slammed open the toilet door. I was dragged across the urine-soaked floor, watching the dirty ceiling pass me by. Men — hundreds of them — stood at the urinal, noticed the female intruder, hurriedly tucked their weeping dicks into their trousers and made for the door. All of the cubicles were occupied by what sounded like anal orchestras. My insides were clenching and relaxing in rapid succession.
“Just leave me here,” I said. “Someone will be out soon.”
“I’m not leaving you on the toilet floor. I’ll get you in one of those there bogs.”
The woman dropped my leg and approached a cubicle at random. She raised her foot to her mouth, gave it a kiss and kicked at the door. The occupant inside the cubicle moaned in fear as the door began to splinter and break away. When a sufficient amount of damage had been caused, she reached inside, plucked the poor ankle-panted man by the collar and threw him out. A fecal tail hung from his arse and broke away in mid-flight.
I was then retrieved from the floor and dropped onto the un-flushed toilet. She pulled down my diaper before reaching over me and flushing the previous occupant’s waste away. The tumultuous whirl of the toilet water lapped at me, as did my feelings of shame. Before leaving me be, the woman sat herself on my lap, fished a handful of mobile phones from within her cleavage and snapped a photo of the two of us.
“It was nice meeting you,” said the woman, tipping an invisible hat.
I pulled what was left of the toilet door closed and embraced the tenuous privacy it provided. With the coast clear, men started trickling back inside. We pretended not to notice each other. Instead, I focused my breathing, trying to infuse my body with calm. Strength was beginning to rush back to my legs, but I wasn’t in the mood to stand yet. I let whatever was inside me drip into the toilet bowl and shut my eyes.
I blindly reached for a cigarette. I was running low and wondered if perhaps I should make them last. Running out wouldn’t be pleasant — especially when my particular brand of chemically enhanced cigarettes were only available via Fiona. Unsurprisingly, I capitulated to the cigarettes and had one wedged between my lips within seconds. My body gobbled on the smoke and my tumours purred. The purring grew louder and more intense, the sensation of which massaged me internally. My hips began to spasm and my stomach rattled. The purr evolved into a deep hum that filled the toilet bowl with pink light. I shut my eyes again — tighter. The hum began altering in pitch and mutating into attempted language. Then, from between my legs, an unmistakable word formed. “Thank you.” My eyes blinked open and remained that way. Holy shit! My tumours can talk.
Fiona was going to be floored. I couldn’t wait to tell her. Strength flowed through my body. The desire to celebrate was strong. My confidence levels were soaring.
“Hey there buddies,” I whispered, trying to inspire more communication. I repeated these words a few more times, eventually eliciting a confused burp. This was a start. Fiona would train me to communicate better. I had glimpses of my tumours giving speeches and wooing women. Most of all, I had glimpses of the adulation I was bound to receive for growing such an advanced disease.
“You in here, Brucey?”
Jerry’s voice interrupted my indulgent train of thought. I poked my head through the broken toilet door. “Jerry, over here,” I yelled, summoning with twinkling fingers.
“You okay, bud? You’ve been in here for a while.”
“I’m more than okay. I’m ecstatic! My tumours can fucking talk!”
Jerry folded his arms so tight his elbows popped off and cocked an eyebrow. ‘You don’t say, huh?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll convince you. I just need to get better at making them talk. Right now, though, I want to party.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” he said with an assured laugh. ‘Good timing too. It looks like your tent girl has arrived.”
I stood up straight, spat in my hands and slicked back my hair. “How do I look?”
“Pull up your strides and I’d introduce you to my mother,” he replied.
“My mother!” I yelled. “I haven’t seen her in weeks. Tomorrow I’m going to take her out for a day on the town.”
“That’s nice, man,” he said dismissively. “For now, though, there’s a lot of booze that needs drinking and pussy that needs fucking. You coming?”
I nodded and stepped forward, tripping on my dropped pants. Jerry laughed, helped me up and wriggled my pants up, jokingly telling my genitals to breathe in.
The strength that now coursed through me was unparalleled. I didn’t walk as much as I skipped out of the men’s room. Bony M’s ‘Babylon’ thumped from the speakers and moved my body in something resembling rhythm. On my way to the bar I embraced random women and swayed against them like a sex matador. A few returned the sway, most pushed me away. My spirits couldn’t be dampened.
And finally I saw her. My precious tent girl. She was huffing at the uncooperative hair that dangled in her eyes while trying to pour a drink. It floated up only to waft back down. She didn’t look happy. The tent she wore looked bigger this time, more constrictive. She knocked into bottles, glasses and other tent-trapped staff members. I spat a wad of pink-tinged slime into my hands and ran it through my hair, making sure I looked presentable. My mid-section humped at the air in time with the music. I moved toward her — imagined I could smell her over the combined scent of everyone else. Her line of sight speared me. Our heads cocked in unison as I allowed possible recognition to sink in. I moved closer until there could be no doubt in her mind that I was approaching. She tried to busy herself with customers and fumbled her way through a few orders. Glasses broke. Faces were cut. Alcohol soaked into the sticky carpet. I slowly mounted a barstool, squishing my hardening genitalia into the seat. She tried to avoid me, but I remained. Eventually she stood before me.
“Can I get you anything?”
I didn’t respond. All of my energy had been wasted on the approach. I sat like a dolt, feeling my confidence ooze out of me like sweat.
“Can I get you anything?” she repeated.
I nodded.
“And what would you like?”
I rubbed at my eyes and filled with nervous wind. I pointed toward the man next to me.
She slowed down her speech, like she was talking to a developmentally challenged child. “You…want…what…he’s…having…?”
I nodded once more. I watched as tent girl reached toward a shelf full of bricks. She cautiously removed one and dropped it into a metallic machine that looked like a food processor. The machine chewed into the brick and howled mechanically before spitting out some dark, grainy liquid into a glass waiting below a spout. She sat the glass in front of me.
“One glass of liquid bricks. That’ll be $11.50.”
“Look,” I said, before my anxiety had a chance to prevent me. “Do you remember me?”
She glanced over her shoulder with caution.
“Of course I remember you,” she whispered. “You didn’t make yourself easy to forget.”
Now that I’d made contact, I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. The woman who stood before me, the bar that stood around me, were relics of a prior, less interesting self. The person who tent girl had been introduced to was a deeply pathetic man. The new me was infinitely superior and I just knew that I could win her over. I just had to play it cool.