Nine Lives

For those of you who’ve been reading with crossed legs and hoping that my heroine gets to the bathroom in time.

Nine Lives by Sinvisigoth

Chapter Three

……….I looked at the metal bucket thoughtfully. Initially I had viewed it as a much needed source of fresh water. After what I surmised was around three hours of being tied to myself and two bouts of enough giggling to ensure I would be hurting tomorrow, the intervals for which I could ignore the urge to pee were becoming shorter. My covetous bladder had mentally planted a small flag on the bucket and proclaimed it a sovereign kingdom.

This had to be planned with military precision. Pee with no regard for thirst later and you have a bucket of greatly diluted unusable waste; think about drinking the water too much and you pee before you get the chance to hover or even remove certain currently dry items of clothing.

This was, I felt, possibly what Aesop was getting at with his story of the chicken, the fox and the bag of grain.

~Chicken?~

“Shut up.” I said to the pair of pricked ears.

~I was helping.~

“OK then, I’ll wait until the alien in the bike helmet has looked through the porthole in the door and then I know I have about ten minutes without voyeurs.”

~Ahem.~

“You will be banished during said ten minute window.”

~But I like sitting on your lap while you pee.~

“One, no-one needs to know that. Ever. Two, you only like it because you’re obsessed with the toilet flush. This is like the Matrix, OK? There is no flush.”

~That’s a bit harsh. I don’t have anyone to play with here. You’re not up to much and the beetles are too stupid to do anything really…tactical.~

“What do you want them to do? Meander up to you and salute with their antennae before helping you invade Birmingham?”

~But couldn’t you just make the noise with your~

“No.”

~Oh.~


I sat in contemplation of my master plan while Boris went off in search of thingies with lots of legs. I think there was some mention of teaching them to play RISK. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d never win Australasia from them.

……….With some rudimentary calculations I devised a pogo, swivel, triangulation formula which should work, where pogo equals no less than the square of the hypotenuse and swivel equals how much more urgent the need to pee became upon nearing the bucket. The triangulation of the legs was paramount and involved a probability of absolute zero when cubed with the difficulty ratio of removing jeans with no hands. This was where an inherent ability to mosh all night on only one bottle of Bacardi came in. That and a promising looking hook on one of the engine turbines.

Reprising my elegant supersquat position to drink what water I could was less uncomfortable than the first time. I think one or two relatively unnecessary tendons may have become unglued, which accounted for my increased flexibility. The numbness seemed to be simply the result of my fervent and continued prayer to forgo pain for as long as possible.

Fat Butt simply cocked his head to the side…and kept on turning until it was upside down enough to look me in the eye. Yup. I knew he’d be impressed. Ha! He thought he was the only one who could get his head down here?

……….I couldn’t manage much more than a litre and a half but as one of the corners of the room looked to be on a tilt I thought that if I tipped the bucket over I might be able to preserve at least some of it. Granted I might end up having to lap it up off the floor, but it was better than drinking out of the bucket après use.

I staggered to a semi standing position, balanced and nudged the bucket over with my foot. A small tidal wave rushed past me and sloshed straight into Boris.

~I. Will. Get. You. For. This.~

Oops. Artificial gravity’s a bitch, huh?

~Oh really, you think?~

Guess I’ll just have to use you as a squeegee like those marathon runners.

~! ~ said his tail as it vanished around a corner.

His disappearance coincided nicely with my glimpse of alien Numero Uno peering at me through the glass in the door. I smiled and waved, hoping that it didn’t mean ‘come eat me’ in his language. Then again, with pecs like those…

Whoa…get your mind back on track, wench.

He tipped his head over like Boris had, wiped a little condensation off the window and then shrugged, withdrawing to wherever it was these guys went when they weren’t harassing me. Honestly, what did I do to deserve being tied up and poked with aliens?

……….My ten minute window had started, though, and I needed to get a wriggle on…literally! First stop, detrousering my nether regions. With some rather eloquent manoeuvring I succeeded in docking my crotch with the jagged little hook on the engine and getting the zip in my jeans halfway down. I had to rub the waistband down a good couple inches against the wall but finally I felt a little give between it and me. I put Drowning Pool’s ‘Bodies’ on the playlist in my head and started bopping up and down for all I was worth.

OK. Mid thigh wasn’t mission objective but it would do. I wasted two minutes unzipping and the song was three and a half long so I only had…four and a half minutes to pee!

Oh god. This was it. I had the bucket in my sights. My bladder knew this and shortened my timeframe somewhat by gripping me from the inside out like a vice. I hitched my breath, tensed my calves and boinged towards the bucket with perfectly calculated precision.

……….This was the worst possible moment to hear the door whoosh open and six large feet traipse through it. Shit; I must have been listening to the extended version. I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder to see as the owners of the feet line up just inside the door to gawp at my sprightly progression across the floor. My formula flew out the window, my feet collided at velocity and my ass twirled 180 degrees with ballerina like grace before depositing itself firmly in the bucket.

I looked at them. They looked at me. Each in turn they took off their helmets.

‘All the better to see you with, my dear.’ an annoying voice from my childhood piped.

Oh fuckeration and jebus in a pink apron. I was wedged in a bucket at the mercy of three predators. Not nice big fluffy hippy free love aliens but the meanest bastards the big bang had managed to produce thus far.

The pee came now.

I was grateful of the bucket if not for the loud tinny noise my pee made as it hit the bottom.


……….The one with the scratch marks on its arms smelt the result of my endeavours as its fragrant aroma drifted toward the three of them and high tailed it out of the room as fast as his legs would carry him. Numeros Uno and Dos simply looked at me in disgust and backed out slowly. I now had all the time in the world to figure out if I was upset that they had left me to deal with this on my own or thankful that they had left me without witnesses to how I was going to deal with it.

I pogo’d a little ways towards the other side of the room until I realised that I’d forgotten to pray for more numbness.

“Ow! Ow! Owow! Whuuuurrp!”

I came to a standstill…or sitstill…on one side in the water that had drenched Boris only minutes earlier. I rolled over for leverage and succeeded only in making both sides of me soaking wet.

I really wanted to go home at this point and could think of only one thing that could possibly cheer me up.

“Hey babe I’m cold. How about you come out here and warm me up with those big thermal butt cheeks of yours?”

An indignant face peeked round from beside a large piece of ductwork.

~How’s about I pee in your hair if you don’t can the personal remarks? Did I laugh when you got your own oversized backside stuck in the bucket like a hippo in a fez?~

“Yes. I heard you.”

~We’ll pretend you didn’t and go straight to the part where you view me with a kind of reverse anorexia. I am slim and sylphlike…your eyes are getting heavy…my sleek silhouette graces the covers of fashion magazines…you are getting sleepier and sleepier…I am broad of vision yet narrow of butt…~

“You are broad of delusion and blocking my view of the entire doorway with your narrow behind.”

~Well as soon as you’ve shoehorned your ass out of that bucket I’ll be sure to run away in terror.~

“We’ll be talking about this more later. For now, though…scoot that pipe over here would you? I either need to break the seal on the vapour lock between me and the bucket or puff air into my ass like a set of bagpipes and blow myself out.”

The door wheezed again and I looked up in horror to see that my captors had returned. With…cushions?

While I attempted to force one end of the pipe into the lip of the bucket, Boris and the three predators settled down on one side of the room to watch the spectacle. I swear the big guys were passing around something that looked a hell of a lot like popcorn.

~Ooh thanks, lads, don’t mind if I do.~