A Trip to the Loo
Tess looked at the clock on the car radio, clutching her stomach and crying out. Minutes seemed like hours. Tess laughed internally at the thought of that. Whenever she had seen that phrase in prose she found it funny, as if she doubted it could happen. And now, here she was, writing in pain in the backseat of the car.
"Jeez, Tess, be quiet. You sound like you're in labor back there." Tess' older brother yelled back to her. He was driving her home. The male fennec was 22 and in college, and he often drove his little sister to theme parks at her request. The two were close, the six-year age difference removing all sibling rivalry between them. He probably remembered her birth, Tess thought.
"Can't you just stop at the side of the road or something?" Tess shook her legs, painfully straining to keep everything together.
"Tess, we're on a freeway. Come on. We can't stop for anything. Look the next off ramp is only a mile and three quarters away. That's like two minutes. After that we can pull into a Wal-Mart or something."
It only took five minutes to get to the nearest Wal-Mart and park, but it was agony for Tess. Her desperation for a bathroom tore up her insides, it felt. She wanted to die and probably would have shot herself had a gun been in the car. But, after all the five minutes of driving, they made it.
Tess had been diagnosed of Irritable Bowel Syndrome years earlier. In short, whenever she was nervous about something, she would either get constipation or diarrhea, in combination with extreme stomach cramping. Ironically, she often got nervous about not making it to a bathroom in time, which made her have to get to a bathroom as quickly as possible. This gave her severe agoraphobia.
Tess jumped out of the car, trying to sprint but just walking as running put too much pressure on her lower body. She made it inside, quickly finding someone in a Wal-Mart vest and asking the location of the nearest toilet. He pointed behind her to her right and she shuffled towards it.
The young fennec stepped into the bathroom, looking about. No one else was inside. Oddly enough there were only two stalls, where there was probably room for four due to the size of the bathroom. Tess immediately picked out the handicapped stall and locked the door. There was no crack at the lock or the hinges, luckily for her. Even with the anxiety of having a crack, though, she'd have no trouble using the bathroom.
Tess pulled down her pants and panties, kicking them off and hanging them on the hook on the door. She felt most comfortable being able to spread her legs when she used the toilet for a bowel movement. It just made everything easier on her. She kept her shoes on for sanitary reasons.
She lifted her tail and sat down on the toilet. It was dry and clean, a safe haven. Tess pressed her legs together, leaning forward and holding her breath a bit. She relaxed, exhaling, as a powerful stream of urine was expelled from her person. The flow kept up for about five seconds, slowed to a trickle, and stopped entirely. Tess spread her legs as wide as she could, leaning back on the toilet, and unclenched her buttocks for the first time in two hours.
The effect was immediate. Her bowels gave way and her brown starfish opened to let out a continuous chain of feces. To Tess it felt like defecating normally, only that she had much less control in the matter. The fox shuddered as relief washed over her. Pounds of feces hit the water below. Tess was glad no one else was in the bathroom, because she would have died if she knew someone could hear her.
The first two log shad been easy. They had simply slid out. Now, Tess was actually struggling. She squeezed out about an inch of her third loaf, stopped to take a breath, and began squeezing again. She couldn't pinch it off, though the temptation was strong. If she pinched, shit would get stuck to her fur. If that happened, some of it would dry and she'd need to shave the fur off. She wondered what she'd do and how she'd feel if her anus were free of fur.
She finally gave in and squeezed her buttocks together, cutting off the piece of shit and letting it fall to the water below. Immediately afterwards she farted a few times, all totally silent but making her suddenly aware of one thing. It reeked in that stall. Her defecation below her was creating the most unpleasant of smells, one she couldn't bare.
After four logs had fallen from her tailhole, she dared standing up. She turned around, looking into the toilet with disgust. "Abraham Lincoln built a house out of those," she thought to herself, her nose wrinkling. The lumps of her shit were in every way vile and disgusting, complete with corn kernels from dinner the night before. Almost immediately she felt her bowels acting up again, as if going back for an encore.
She squatted, her bum only just touching the toilet seat, and she pulled her nether cheeks apart with both paws. No more logs, just balls of fennec shit. She sighed once or twice, making sure her lungs still worked. The fennec stretched her back, having been sitting on the toilet for a good ten minutes. "Oh, Lord, that felt good," she thought, completely relieved.
She went for the toilet paper, immediately discovering it was empty. The young fox reached into the adjacent stall, unable to reach the toilet paper in that one, either. What could she do? Not bother to wipe up? She was repulsed by the very idea of it. Alternative sources for t.p. were few. Her panties? No, she had to wear them home.
Tess took off her shoes and peeled off her socks. They were fancy socks, lacy and made of silk. It pained Tess greatly, but she balled up a sock and lifted one foot off the ground, dragging it between her legs from front to back. She could always wash it later. For now, she stuffed that sock inside her other one and put them both in her left pocket.
Tess reached into her right pocket, drawing from it her cell phone. She was going to simply flush the toilet, call up her brother, and be on her way. She wasn't sure how it happened, but she only grabbed the tip of her phone and it slipped from her grasp. The whole thing happened in slow motion, and her cell phone fell directly into the unflushed toilet.
Tess spent a few minutes trying to decide what to do. It was a fifty dollar phone, so she should go for it. Then again, it was probably broken, so she should leave it. Someone could use it to link it to her, so she should go for it. It would probably damage something on the path feces and urine takes, whatever it may be, so she should go for it. She'd be reaching her paw into a toilet filled with her own shit, so she should DEFINITELY not go for it.
In the end cost outweighed benefits for leaving, and she rolled up her sleeve, closing her eyes. It wasn't that gross, really, as she plunged her paw into the water. It was room temperature, slightly murky, and her phone was resting on top of one of the loaves. She grabbed it, and pulled it free. The fennec dried and pocketed her cell, not bothering to check if it worked.
Tess tried to flush the toilet, but nothing happened. She tried holding down the handle. Still nothing. She had to assume the toilet was broken. She suddenly felt desperate again, wondering what she would do, and what someone would do if they found this much fennec shit waiting in a toilet for them. Her only chance was to run out of the bathroom before someone came in. Tess waited until all was silent and stepped outside the stall, walking to the door. Just before she could open it, someone else did from outside.
It was Rick, a stag Tess knew. He lived a few doors down from her, on the same street. The fact that he had just wandered into her bathroom caught her totally off guard, and she voiced her surprise. "What the hell are you doing in here!?"
Rick stepped inside, merely pointing to two urinals side by side on one of the walls. The reality of the situation hit Tess like a wrecking ball.
"Looks to me like you've just been using the wrong bathroom." Rick's tone was matter-of-fact but Tess couldn't have been more embarrassed.
"Uh... yeah. Looks like I did... Bye!" Tess pushed Rick out of the way sprinting away from the restrooms.
Tess found her brother in the lingerie section of the clothing department, and the pair drove home. Tess knew he knew she was upset but he didn't ask about it and Tess wouldn't answer anyway. They got home, and Tess went to bed.
The doorbell rang the next day, waking Tess up. The fennec quickly dressed, running down the stairs and getting the door. It was a close friend of hers, Amy. She held up one finger as Tess beckoned her to come inside, getting out her mobile phone. "Tess, check this out! Is this... YOURS?"
Tess grabbed the tiny mobile phone, horrified to find a picture of her waist in the toilet she had used the night before. "Ohmigod, so it IS!" Amy laughed. "I've gotta call all my friends and tell them. Rick took the picture last night from his cell phone and forwarded it to like everyone, saying he saw you coming out of the bathroom. Said it reeked too. Jeez, girl, you really had to drop the load. You should do it more often if that's how much you get out each time. Hold on, texting my-"
The door slammed, leaving Amy standing on the front porch.
***
I, Ranko, author of this story, have IBS or irritable bowl syndrome. This is something of a compilation of many events in my life in which I've been in this situation. I've always been afraid of this; it's something of a "worst-case scenario" for me. Hope I've raised your awareness, or at least turned you on a bit.