The Secretary Who had to Pee Ch. 01

As Area Manager of a Regional Water Authority in Britain, I was responsible not only for the quality of water in reservoirs of the region I liked to call "my patch", but also for all the sewage treatment works in that area.

When the Authority created my position, it was in advance of suitable offices being built at a number of locations throughout the county. The situation on my patch was no different, and for the first year in the job, I had to work out of a large portacabin.

The portacabin was not as grim as it might sound. It was well appointed, with reasonable office furniture, plenty of heat, microwave and kettle, and so on. The only questionable thing about this mobile office was that the powers that be decided it should be located close to the centre of my patch (logically enough)... on a sewage works. This gave me pause. Did I really want to try forging ahead with my career in such a smelly, unhygienic place? Imagine entertaining visitors from head office, or even members of the public? We would surely look askance at one another every time a questionable smell arose, wondering if either of us was responsible or if the offending odour had penetrated from outside.

As it turned out, the situation was not nearly as bad as I anticipated. Sewage treatment has come a long way, and there is seldom any smell at all these days. Still, the stigma attached to a sewage treatment plant is hard to dispel, and I fully expected plenty of trouble when trying to engage support staff to help me manage a workforce of more than forty men.

An advertisement was placed in local newspapers. Only three people applied: Mark Henshaw, Eric Tindale and Katherine Bond. It wasn't a lot to choose from, and I fully anticipated having to re-advertise farther afield.

I interviewed the two male applicants several weeks before seeing Katherine. She had departed for a long-arranged vacation in Sicily soon after receiving the letter of invitation to attend an interview, amid a barrage of apologies for inconveniencing me. The holiday, she explained, had been paid for in advance and the money was not refundable. I assured her it was alright with me and told her to enjoy herself.

It soon became clear after meeting Eric, a man in his early twenties, that he found personal hygiene something of a challenge. He might have been able to get away with this, working on a sewage treatment plant, but there were other issues. He didn't have a clue about purchase requisitions and simple accounting, despite suggesting on his curriculum vitae that he possessed experience in these areas; add to this a surly telephone manner and a propensity to argue over every facet of the job, and I knew he would not work out. Acutely aware that my own job would become very demanding in time, I really wanted someone who would be reasonably self-sufficient and motivated, and came across as friendly to other Authority staff and the general public. The incumbent of this position would, after all, be the first point of contact for most people.

The second interviewee, Mark, was smartly turned out in an incongruous blue business suit. He was slick, capable of talking all four legs off a donkey, and clearly ambitious. He made no secret of the fact that he would be after my job in a couple of years, and I suspected that he would have no qualms about insinuating himself deep inside the Regional Director's rectum in order to realize that ambition. Unwilling to play in this tiresome arena, I decided before the interview was half over that Mark would not be joining me in my malodorous kingdom.

That just left Katherine. Having spoken to her on the telephone once, and noting that she sounded quite sophisticated, I could not see how she would be likely to take the job, even if she turned out to be ideally qualified and it was offered to her. I very nearly dismissed her out of hand and set the advertising ball rolling again. It would have been a calamitous mistake, one I'm so glad I didn't make.

Katherine turned out to be a brunette in her mid-twenties. Of course, I already knew how old she was from her CV. For the interview, she chose to dress rather informally, which surprised me a little. She sported a short denim skirt and black tights, along with a black top that showed off her midriff. As nice as she looked, my first concern was how the men working on the plant would react to her. I didn't really want a situation where they were continually trooping into the office to have a look at her; quite apart from the disruptive aspect of this, it would mean that nothing would ever get done!

Setting this reservation aside, I showed Katherine into my office and told her to take a seat. She sat down and immediately crossed her right leg over her left, the sound of her tights rasping audibly as she did so. It was a struggle for me not to look at her slim legs, now exposed almost to the tops of her thighs. I almost wished she had worn jeans or something less provocative so that I could get on with the interview without undue distraction.

Almost at once, she surprised me by saying, "I am sorry, Mr. Denes, but I'm wondering if you have a loo in here somewhere. I need to go, but I can't see a door marked Ladies."

"Um," I replied. "No, there are no lavatories in here. This is just an office portacabin, a temporary arrangement until the Authority renovates the brick buildings on the site. We expect to be able to move into proper offices later this year."

"I see," she said, her brow puckered slightly by a frown of concern. "Are you saying there are no toilets here at all?"

"Oh, of course we have a lavatory. I'm sure it would be completely illegal to not have such a facility. The problem is that there's only one, and it's not in the best repair. Until now, there have only been men working on the site who really don't care much about such niceties, so it has never been a problem in the past. Naturally, as a newly-formed Authority, we plan to rectify such deficiencies, but like everything else, it's going to take a little time."

"How much time?"

I hesitated, and then admitted, "Not until late summer at the earliest." That was three or four months away. "In the interim, I could arrange to have a portaloo on-site for you to use, assuming you were offered the job and you accepted it."

"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed. "I don't like using those things. The chemicals smell worse than the odours they're meant to control, and they make me feel a little sick."

"Oh dear," I said, already beginning to think that even offering her the job might be a mistake. I was trawling my mind for an alternative solution when she spoke again.

"Well, I only live about five miles away, so I suppose I could hold it until lunchtime if I needed to go, or until five-thirty if it was the afternoon, and then go at home."

At this point, she uncrossed her legs and crossed them again, this time folding the left over the right. I glanced down as she did this, and when I looked up at her face again, I found her smiling at me. Her proposed solution had flustered me, although I'm not quite sure why. Part of me rather liked the idea of having her working with me and holding a full bladder until lunch or until it was time to go home, but then again, I was the Area Manager and it was incumbent upon me to ensure that my staff were treated fairly and properly. It was certainly improper to accept a situation where she would be forced to suffer because the Authority could not offer her the facilities she needed to do her job. I voiced my concerns, and she merely shrugged.

"As long as it is only temporary," she said, "I don't mind doing it. I understand that this place is very old, and that change doesn't happen overnight, especially not with a government body."

"That's very accommodating of you, Miss Bond, but I still don't feel comfortable with the idea."

She grinned at this. "Surely I would be the one who wasn't comfortable."

"True," I conceded, "but-."

"Look, Mr. Denes," she rescued me, "I'll be blunt with you. I'm extremely well qualified to do the job, and I would at least like the opportunity to compete for it. Did any other women apply?"

It was a breach of protocol, but I shook my head. "No, the others are males."

"Right, so on the basis of this lack of facilities for a woman, I could lose my chance of being selected if I make an issue out of it. Right?"

"No," I corrected quickly. "I certainly wouldn't discriminate against you like that." I was about to add more, then realized that I'd been about to do just that a few minutes earlier.

"Honestly, I don't mind dealing with the situation if it will give me a fair chance of getting the job. And... I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I badly need it."

"Oh?" I said, noncommittally, inviting more detail.

"The last company I worked for went bankrupt and I lost several months' pay. I'm behind with my rent and my credit cards are at maximum. I really need to start earning again or I'll be going bankrupt myself."

"I see," I said, admiring her candour. "Alright, let's get on with the interview and we'll deal with these matters if the need arises." I was acutely aware that the need had already arisen, because she was sitting there will a full bladder and literally nowhere to go.

I asked her all the usual questions: why did she apply; what skills could she bring to the job; how much experience did she have working in local government, and so on. It all took about half an hour, and I noticed as the time passed that she re-crossed her legs with increasing frequency, and that her knees were bobbing up and down as she battled the urge to pee. Finally, I said, "Would you like a tour of the plant before you go?" It was cruel, but then I had conducted the other two applicants around and shown them how everything works - the storage tanks, filters, commutators, and even the building where methane from the incinerated waste was harnessed to power lorries which went out to collect more waste from septic tanks, a self-perpetuating task!

Katherine looked at me doubtfully, then her expression hardened with fresh resolve. "Yes please," she said brightly, and promptly stood up. I ushered her out and took her around, showing her the inflow where several million gallons of effluent entered the plant every day. She stood at the guardrail looking down at the flowing grey liquid, while I had to shout in order to be heard over the roar of the flow. The sound must have been sheer torture to someone struggling with a full bladder, but apart from standing with her legs crossed, she gave every appearance of listening to what I was saying.

We moved on to the commutators which chop up the solids prior to sending the effluent through the filter beds, then onto the holding tanks, where hundreds of thousands of gallons await the final stages of aeration and purification before being discharged into a nearby river. Here, Katherine had to climb a metal ladder to reach the walkway around the perimeter of one of the tanks, and while a more chivalrous man might not have looked up as she climbed, I couldn't help taking a quick glimpse beneath her short denim skirt.

Up on the rim of the tank, she no longer seemed quite so much in control of herself, and stood beside me tapping the heels of her boots as I explained the rest of the treatment process to her. When I paused for a few moments, she interjected, "Oh, I wish I could add just a little too all this effluent. I badly need to use a loo now."

Feigning forgetfulness, I said, "Oh yes, of course. I'm sorry. I'm sure you'd like to get back to the office."

"Yes," she agreed without hesitation, and began climbing back down the ladder. I saw several of the men working on the adjacent holding tank pause to watch her descent. When they caught my eye, I made a signal for them to get on with their work.

As we approached the office, Katherine stopped for a moment to double over and cross her legs. "Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Denes, but I have to get to a loo as soon as possible. Is there much more to do?"

"Well, no," I admitted with a trace of reluctance. "I think we're pretty much finished. I'll be in touch in a few days with my decision."

She straightened up and held out a hand to shake mine. "Thank you for the opportunity of the interview, Mr. Denes, but I suppose my present predicament only highlights the fact that me working here would create problems for you. I will understand if I don't get the job."

With that, she hurried away to a battered-looking Ford Escort, almost the same shade of blue as her skirt. She danced around as she inserted the key into the lock, then opened the door and slid quickly in. A minute later, she was passing through the main gates and vanished from view. That would probably have been the last I would ever have seen of her... had I not given the job.

Katherine started work two weeks later, on a warm, sunny morning in late March. This time, she turned up all in black (sweater, skirt, tights and heels) and I teased her about looking so funereal on her first day.

"I like wearing black," she announced as she brewed a pot of coffee, then poured a mug full for me and for her. The first task I gave her was to organize a filing system so that I could finally put an end to scrabbling around looking for scraps of paper upon which I'd scribbled important notes. She started by getting several of the men on the site to carry bookcases from a storage room in one of the dilapidated brick buildings, then unpacked several dozen box files and folders I'd had delivered the previous week in preparation for this very event.

My morning was mostly filled with phone calls from and to head office, and dealing with a safety inspector who needed a tour of the entire site to discuss what needed to be done in order to bring the sewage plant up to snuff. Returning soon after eleven thirty, I went through to Katherine's office with the intention of pouring myself some more coffee, only to find the carafe empty. Katherine swiveled her chair around in time to see where I was looking.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Denes," she said. "I finished it off about half an hour ago. Do you want me to brew some more?"

I hesitated, and could not help noticing that Katherine had her legs crossed and that her raised foot was swinging back and forth in rapid little movements, suggesting that she probably needed to pee. I considered: if she'd drunk two mugs of coffee that morning, and she clearly had, then surely she must be coping with a full bladder by this time.

As if reading my thoughts, she said, "Actually, I wish I hadn't finished it, because now I'm dying to go to the loo."

"Of course, yes. I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay," she said. "I'll just have to learn to be more careful."

"Well, it will soon be lunch time," I added by way of encouragement. I was about to decline the offer of more coffee when the devil got hold of me. "Actually, more coffee would be great. My throat's parched after yakking to that inspector for the past hour and a half."

"Okay," Katherine agreed, smiling as she rose and retrieved the empty carafe.

She carried it to the portacabin's tiny sink and began to rinse it out. Almost at once, I saw her body spasm and she bent her right leg, her foot coming right off the floor. She didn't say anything, but the running water had to be making her situation infinitely worse. I made a play of looking everywhere except at her legs, but I could see her moving in the periphery of my vision.

"Oh!" she gave a little gasp. "Isn't it funny how just the sound of water can make you need the loo even more?"

"The power of suggestion?" I ventured.

"I suppose," she said. She drew in a sharp breath through her teeth. "I wish it would stop suggesting it to me." As if to make the point, she performed a little curtsy before carrying the carafe back to the coffee maker and pouring in the water.

"So how are you finding it on your first day?" I asked, changing the subject.

Her desire to pee must have been uppermost on her mind, however, because she replied, "Apart from screaming for the loo, it's been fine. No phone calls so far."

"That's unusual," I pointed out somberly. "Some days the phone never stops ringing."

"Which is why you need me, right?"

"Right."

She ground up some coffee beans and poured the resulting grains into the filter, closed the tray and flipped the switch to start the machine brewing, just as the formerly quiet telephone started to trill.

"Speak of the devil," I said.

I headed for my own office as she picked up the receiver and delivered the standard greeting. "Downland Water Authority - Southbrook Regional Office."

I sat down and began working my way through the two-inch-deep pile of correspondence on my desk, but I'd only read through the top paragraph of the first letter before the phone rang. It was Katherine's extension. "Yup," I said into the mouthpiece.

"Mr. Denes, there's a Mr. Trent on the line who says you were supposed to meet him at Welton Bridge at eleven thirty to discuss the possible contamination of river water running through the village."

"Oh shit, I'd forgotten all about that," I said, jumping up from my seat. "Tell him I'm extremely sorry and that I'm on my way."

As I hurried through the outer office, sliding my arms into the sleeves of my jacket, I said, "Look after things until I get back."

As I stepped outside and closed the door, I heard her start to say, "But-." I didn't hear any more.

I was several miles down the road before my mind turned back to Katherine's predicament, and I realized I'd left the poor girl in charge of the office in my absence, which meant she couldn't go to lunch, or do anything about her full bladder. Feeling guilty, I grabbed my cellphone and called her. "Katherine. Look, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. You need the loo, so you'd better head off for lunch. You can lock up the office for a while; I'm sure it will be alright."

The line was silent, and I was just beginning to wonder if I had lost the signal when she said, "Okay. I thought you... well..."

When I realized she planned to leave this comment unfinished, I prompted, "You thought what?"

"Oh... nothing really."

"Well it's obviously something. What is it?"

"It's just that...I thought you might have planned it."

It was my turn to stay silent for a few moments as I tried to grasp her meaning. I was about to ask her to explain when she resumed, "I'm sorry. I'm just being silly. Please forget I said anything."

"Now you've got me worried. Whatever is the matter Katherine? This is your first day on the job, and I want to know if there's something wrong."

"Oh no, there's nothing wrong, Mr. Denes. I just...misinterpreted something, that's all. Please forget it."

"Tell me," I insisted. "And whatever it is, I promise I will sort it out."

"But it's...?"

"What?"

"Well, embarrassing."

I was totally lost by this time. I suppressed a sigh and tried to think of some way to coax the information out of her without pulling rank. I didn't have to worry; she apparently wanted to tell me anyway.

"I thought you had arranged this on purpose," she added at last.

"Arranged what?"

"You clearly didn't, so I'd rather you just forgot about it."

That was when the penny dropped. "Wait. You thought I'd set this up so that you would be stuck there and unable to get to the loo?"

She paused briefly, then said, "Yes. I mean, you seemed to... notice what I was doing when I was making the coffee, and I assumed... well, that you..."

"Katherine," I cut in. "If you want me to be completely honest with you, then yes, it does sort of turn me on knowing that you need to pee and have to wait, but I promise you I didn't engineer this situation."

"No, okay. But you are interested, right?"

"Yes."