Or worse—a Sochi hotel during the Olympics.
My mind wanders as I try not to touch anything I’m not required to touch in order to do my job and get out of here. I recall the scent of aftershave and man on Mr. Perfect Blue-Gray Suit from a few minutes ago, instead of the acrid odor of moldy cheese, urine, and chemical deodorizer that smells like poison-ivy pesticide. How would it feel not only to touch a man so put together, so confident, so in control—but to be allowed to?
The overwhelming pleasure of being in a relationship isn’t the actual affection, sex, and companionship. It’s the permission to be casual, to reach out and brush your hand against a pec, to thread your fingers in his hair, to hold hands and snuggle and have access to his abs, his calves, the fine, masculine curve of a forearm when you want.
On your terms.
By mutual agreement. The thought of running my palms from his wrists to his shoulders, then down that fine valley of sculpted marble chest to rest on his waist, to slide around and embrace him, makes my mouth curl up in a seductive smile.
That no one will ever see. So why bother?
Besides, I have toilets to flush.
I check the back of the bathroom door for the cleaning chart. You know those pieces of paper on the backs of the doors, with initials and times written on them to verify that the restroom has been cleaned? Someone verifies that verification.
Me. That’s who. Of course, I have no way to verify that JS (the initials down the line for the past four hours) has actually cleaned the bathroom. Only a video camera would be able to tell for sure.
And while modern society loves to videotape everyone in public, mostly for the purpose of catching Lindsay Lohan in an uncompromising crotch shot, corporations haven’t begun videotaping bathrooms.
Yet.
And thank goodness, not only for privacy reasons, but because cameras put people like me out of a job. As much as my job drives me nuts on days like this, it’s a paycheck. I have health insurance. Paid time off. A retirement plan.
At twenty-four, that’s like being a Nobel Prize winner in today’s economy. Most of my friends from college are working part-time at retail stores in the mall, being evaluated by secret shoppers like…me.
Question number thirteen stops me cold. “Is the bathroom aesthetically pleasing?” Um, what? It still makes me cringe, even for the ninth time. The walls are a pale gray, with tile running halfway up. Chips and stains on the tile make me wonder what men have done in here. How does taking a pee translate into broken tiles? And those yellowed stains. I shudder. Is it really that hard to aim?
Whoosh! Whoosh! I flush both urinals, then rush over to toilet #1. Whoosh! I stand in front of the stall to #2 and get ready to flush that one.
I’m in my own little world and let my guard down to ponder the question. I am also exhausted and most definitely not in top form, because I let a few seconds go by before realizing that someone is coming in the bathroom. Out of the corner of my eye I see a business shoe, and that becomes a blur as I scurry into one of the stalls and shut the door.
Heart pounding, I stare at the dented back of the stall door. Then I look down. Chipped red nail polish peeks up at me from my open-toed navy shoe. Aside from being outed as a transgendered man in here, there’s no plausible reason why any men’s room stall occupant should have red toenails.
I quickly scramble to perch myself on the toilet, feet planted firmly on either side of the rim, squatting over the open bowl like I am giving birth. Because I am genetically incapable of balance—ever—and as my heart slams against my chest so hard it might as well be playing a djembe, I lean carefully forward with one arm against the back of the stall door, the other clutching my phone.
The unmistakable sound of a man taking a whizz echoes through the bathroom. I can’t help myself and look through the tiny crack in the door.
It’s Mr. Sex in a Suit, his back to me. Thank goodness, because if I got a full-frontal shot right now then how would I answer the “aesthetically pleasing” question from a strictly professional standpoint?
The tiny bit of shifting I did to peer through the crack makes my right foot slip, and I make a squeaking sound, then lose my grip on my phone as my arm flails.
Ka-PLUNK!
You know that sound, right? I know, and you know, that I’ve just dropped my smartphone in the toilet, but he thinks the man—he assumes it’s man—in here just delivered something the size of a two-hundred-year-old turtle into the toilet.
I look down. My phone is still glowing, open to the question “Is the bathroom aesthetically pleasing?”
Staying silent, I struggle to remain perched on the toilet and in balance. One palm splays flat against the stall door, one hand curls into a fist as it poises over the toilet water.
Four-hundred-dollar phone
or
Arm in nasty men’s room toilet water.
I have the distinct disadvantage of seeing every dried stain on the inside of the rim that my feet occupy, and I know that launching my hand into that porcelain prison means gangrenous death in three days after male pee germs invade my bloodstream and kill me.
But it’s a $400 phone.
A company phone.
Closing my eyes, I lower my hand into the ice-cold water and pretend I’m Rose in the movie Titanic, bobbing on that miraculous door as my hand fishes blindly around the bottom of the toilet for my phone.
I get it not once, not twice, but three times as it slips and catches, slips and catches, and then—
The stall door opens toward me, sending me backwards with a scream, my arm stuck in the toilet as I fall down slightly, my back pushing against the toilet-flush knob.
Whoosh!
Chapter Three
Mr. Blue-Gray Suit springs into action, jumping into the stall with me and planting nice, big, beautifully-manicured hands under my un-deodorized armpits and lifting me off the toilet. It’s like we’re in a toilet ballet, my body leaping up above his, suspended for a few seconds, and all I can think is My arm is dripping toilet water all over a cashmere suit that costs more than my student loan balance.
My second thought: This will be one hell of a story to tell at our wedding reception.
Our eyes lock as the toilet roars, and if we were anywhere else I could imagine this was a waterfall on a deserted island in the middle of the South Pacific, the two of us the only people inhabiting the island, forced by pure survival to have sex like monkeys and procreate to save the human race.
A sacrifice we both suffer through.
Except I’m not on an island with this man, whose arms don’t even seem to strain under my size-sixteen weight. My br**sts bob as he makes split-second calculations without looking away from me. Somehow, he moves my entire body, which is now on fire from his sure touch and pure, animal strength, and sets me down without either foot falling directly in the toilet.