Bethany had been in the old downtown city library for hours. She loved the vibe of the place, with its long labyrinthine hallways and ornate woodwork. After being closed for decades, the city decided to renovate the library last year, and the main wing recently opened to great fanfare. It had become her regular haunt for the last few weeks.
She sat in her favorite study room, the one where the evening sunlight streamed in through the tall, arched windows, bringing a warm, comforting feeling. The ambiance helped her be more creative and relaxed, she had decided.
But right now, Bethany wasn’t relaxed—at all. Her fingers flew across the keyboard of her laptop as if possessed by some supernatural force, tapping out words with an almost feverish intensity.
She had been pouring her heart and soul into her latest book for the past few months—Stellar Fates. “It’s a sci-fi romance novel about two star-crossed lovers,” she had joked to her friends, pun intended. She'd spent months crafting the adventures of her two protagonists in outer space and writing about the obstacles they faced in trying to be together.
And now the looming deadline for the first draft of the book was only days away.
“I love ya, Beth, but no more extensions on this one,” her editor Kara had told her over the phone last week, “If you can’t get it done by next week, we’ll have to revisit our relationship.”
Bethany knew “revisit our relationship,” was a euphemism for her publisher canceling the whole contract and leaving her with nothing to show for the last 8 months of work except the measly $10k advance check. If she didn’t finish the book on time, she was going to have a hard time making ends meet in the next couple months.
One chapter. That’s all she had left. But she had been working on that one chapter all month. In fact, she had lost count of how many times she had started over. A cloud of anxiety, dread, and stress seemed to follow Bethany around now as she constantly worried about how the hell she was going to finish this damn book.
The keyboard clicked and clacked as she tapped out a line into her laptop. "He looked into her eyes and knew he'd do anything to protect her"—before quickly jamming the backspace button. "Fuck, that's not right either," she mumbled.
Bethany snapped the laptop shut and closed her eyes, leaning back in her chair with a sigh of frustration. Her shoulders were tight from the hours of being hunched over the laptop. She reached up to massage her neck, feeling the knots of tension in the muscles.
She should probably take a break. Get some fresh air, maybe get something to eat.
She felt a vague feeling of discomfort permeating the edges of her consciousness. It slowly creeped in, tugging at her attention, like a fly buzzing around her head. Uh oh. What had she forgotten?
She checked in with her body, and the vague discomfort turned into a dull ache in what she realized was her bladder. She had to pee.
Bethany opened her eyes and looked around the room. Twilight gleamed through the arched windows and the room around her was dark and silent. "When was the last time I took a break?" she wondered.
Bethany looked at the empty Poland Springs bottle and it seemed to look back at her mockingly. "At least I did a good job of staying hydrated," she thought, with a bemused smirk.
The dull ache in her bladder grew sharper and more insistent and Bethany realized she would need to do something about it pretty fast. She quickly gathered her things and stuffed them into her bag, irrationally feeling guilty for taking a bathroom break with her deadline looming. She zipped up her bag and headed out of the room, tossing the empty water bottle into the trash on the way out.
The hallway outside the study room was completely empty and eerily silent. All that could be heard was the sound of Bethany's own footsteps echoing off the marble floors as she rushed towards the women's restroom, sweat beading on her brow as the feeling of urgency in her bladder intensified. But she felt a chill go up her spine as she reached the door.
It was firmly locked. Bright yellow 'Do Not Enter' tape stretched across it, seeming to mock Bethany's predicament. "What kind of place would close off a bathroom when people were still using the library?" she thought, more than a little annoyed.
Bethany hurried around the corner to the men's restroom, feeling justified in using it given her urgent need. But it was firmly locked as well.
"Ok, this is not great," she thought. Maybe she could get one of the staff to open it up for her?
The staff? Bethany stopped in her tracks, a cold dread prickling her skin as realization slowly dawned on her. She hadn't seen a single soul since she had gotten up—no staff members, no patrons, not even a cleaning person.
Bethany finally checked her watch. 9:03 PM. But didn’t the library close at…
”Shit,” she muttered, as it dawned on her how badly she had screwed up: in her feverish obsession with finishing the book, she had not only lost track of time (and her bodily functions), she had completely failed to notice that the whole damn library must have closed hours ago. Everyone had gone home. Bethany groaned inwardly, berating herself for not paying more attention.
"No. This is fine. There's a Starbucks on 4th Street, just a couple blocks from the library. Just walk out the exit and you're halfway there," she thought, giving herself a pep talk. But she could feel her control over her emotions slipping. Hoping that she wasn't locked in, she turned right and quickly walked towards what she thought was the exit, before realizing she was going the wrong way and doubling back. She followed a few turns before realizing with a sickening feeling that she had no idea where she was.
Dammit! The maze of long marble corridors that had endeared her to this place initially now seemed to be taunting her. She wandered around the empty building for another few minutes, before realizing she was thoroughly lost.
Bethany felt panic settle in as the stress of the past few weeks combined with her current predicament started to weigh her down with an almost overwhelming feeling of helplessness. Her breath came quick and shallow now as despair slowly started to overtake her.
"Ok, you're fine. Just relax," she said, trying to self-soothe her nerves. "Where are you now?" She took a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings, trying to push the cloud of pain out of her mind for a second so she could focus.
The hallway she found herself in was completely unfamiliar to her. The walls were covered in dust and cobwebs, and the floor was littered with construction debris. Scaffolding lined one wall. A tarp hung from it, seeming to billow in an unseen draft. Apparently, she had somehow wandered her way into some currently-being-renovated wing of the library.
"Ok, Beth, if there’s construction, there must be construction guys working here. Construction workers need bathrooms, right?" she asked herself hopefully. But as she started walking, she felt the dread creep back in as each hallway seemed to be filled with nothing but random construction equipment and boarded-up doors.
Bethany felt a searing pain in her lower abdomen that only seemed to grow more intense with each step. Her legs trembled as her bladder struggled to contain the mounting pressure inside of it, and she swore she could feel a warm liquid slowly trickling down her thigh despite all of her attempts to hold it in.
She was running out of time.
She started to run frantically, hoping against hope that she would find a bathroom, an exit, a janitor's closet—hell even an empty bucket would do at this point.
Her hopes grew as she turned a corner and found herself staring down a long dusty corridor lined with ornately carved doors—and none of them were boarded up. Elated, she ran to the first door—a crooked placard labeled "Staff" hung off it—and twisted the knob. But it didn’t budge; locked.
"Shit," she whimpered, fighting back the tears that were threatening to well up in her eyes.
Bethany's heart raced as she tried the second door, and then the third, locked and locked. Finally, she reached the end of the corridor.
Bethany's mind was now a jumble of chaotic thoughts as she stumbled towards the final door. The desperation and urgency that had taken hold of her body were overwhelming, and if it weren't for the pain stabbing her bladder, Bethany would have thought this entire experience was just an incredibly vivid nightmare.
With trembling hands, Bethany grabbed hold of the tarnished brass knob, twisting it with all her strength; and to her amazement, the rusty locking mechanism relented with a loud “clunk.” She couldn't help but squeal with excitement as she shoved open the door, its hinges groaning with displeasure at being disturbed from their slumber.
Bethany burst inside and eagerly scanned the room, but as her eyes adjusted to the moonlight that streamed in through a pair of large grimy windows on the opposite side of the room, her heart sank.
The room was just filled with more junk and random detritus: a few metal folding chairs—strangely sitting unfolded in a semi-circle in the corner, a pile of old electronics stacked precariously on a couple of decaying shelves, a large wooden table with several empty milk-crates piled on top of it. But nothing that was suitable for the business Bethany had in mind.
Then Bethany spotted it.
In the far corner of the room, an ancient-looking armchair sat, illuminated by a beam of moonlight. The upholstery was faded and worn, with patches of stuffing peeking through the dark velvet fabric. The seat cushion was threadbare and frayed around the edges, but it was very large and very plush—and to Bethany’s frazzled mind, it looked very absorbent.
Bethany didn't have time to think. Didn't have time to process what she was about to do. She wasted no time as she dropped her bag to the ground and feverishly kicked off her flip-flops, hopping on one foot, then the other as she stripped off her jeans. She rushed over to the armchair, her hair flying behind her in a wild mess, droplets of sweat rolling down the sides of her face. She shoved her panties to her feet and backed up to the chair, hovering her butt over the cushion.
As she precariously perched over the chair, completely bare-assed, like some kind of peculiar gargoyle, she hesitated for a split second. The thought that what she was about to do was completely fucking ridiculous flitted through her mind. But before she could even process this doubt, her bladder completely let go.
A hot stream of piss gushed out of her onto the chair cushion below.
Bethany's embarrassment at what she was doing vanished as soon as she felt the clenched fist of her bladder start to relax. An involuntary "fuuuuck" escaped her lips as she finally got the release she was looking for. This was a good idea, she decided.
As her bladder emptied, a tiny spark of curiosity lit up in her mind. Bethany chanced a look down between her legs and watched with fascination as the stream of liquid that exited her body pitter-pattered onto the cushion beneath her. The threadbare fabric seemed to swallow it up hungrily. And yet, a damp circle slowly began to form on the cushion as she filled it with more piss. Her pee spread out like an oil spill, seeping into the cushion and leaving behind a dark stain that seemed to glow in the dim light of the room. It was mesmerizing, like watching ink slowly bleed out into water.
As if under a hypnotic spell, Bethany felt her body loosen as an intense feeling of relaxation washed over it. It was as if all the stress and anxiety from the past few days drained out of her body with the liquid exiting her bladder. Her breathing slowed and her eyelids grew heavy.
Without consciously realizing she was doing it, Bethany slowly relaxed down into the chair. She closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh as her body continued its release. The liquid created a pool of warmth between her legs with little rivulets winding their way down around her bare ass and thighs. It was an oddly comforting sensation, and she felt herself melting further and further into the cushion. The warmth seemed to soothe her tired muscles and caress her skin all at once, making it feel like the golden elixir was washing away the remaining stress and fatigue in her body.
