Chapter Thirteen: LOUISE, ANOTHER NEW MEMBER
Among the girls of Elmdene school, none was more interested in desperation, both holding her own pee and seeing others have to hold theirs, than Louise. As a close friend of Pauline, they had noticed their mutual interest when they were 15, and it was their subsequent attempts to see how long they could hold their pee, and how other girls compared, that led to the formation of the All Day Girls.
Louise was slightly above average height, with shoulder length dark hair, and about average build. Her mother always said that Louise had child-bearing hips, but to Louise, according to her theory, they signified a larger than average bladder, with plenty of space in her pelvic cavity for it to expand to an exceptional capacity. For Louise, the tragedy was that she could not translate this theoretical capacity into reality so as to become an All Day Girl, though as Pauline’s closest friend, she was aware of many of their activities, and was as keen as anyone in assessing bladder capacities.
She had pleaded with Pauline and Tamzin that she be allowed to watch some of the Champion Bladder contests, and to attend the meetings of the newly formed Water Conservation Group, and they had briefly considered making her some sort of honouree member, because of her passionate interest in their activities. This idea had been rejected by the group as a whole because they were simply the All Day Girls, and had to prove this once every term. To have a member who could not wait this long would destroy the whole concept of the group. Regretfully, Pauline told her friend that there was only one way that she could become a member, hold her pee all day. Louise had already attempted and failed to do this five times, and was bitterly disappointed with her inability to hold out, particularly when such slim or tiny girls as Michelle, Tamzin and Rachel were 24 hour girls, and the smallest of them all, Erica, was the Champion bladder.
Reluctant to give up her theory that wide hips equalled a big bladder, and after hearing from Pauline the stories that all of these girls had been forced to train their bladders from an early ages for various reasons, as well as the bladder training that went on during the finals of the Champion Bladder competition, and how this had improved the capacity of both Erica and Pauline, she began her own training routine. The increased activities of the All Day Girls made her so desperate to join that she resolved that this time she would, somehow, make herself wait the required time, even if it half killed her doing so.
She was studying 19th Century English literature, and reading between the lines of some novels, she guessed just how much women of that period had had to suffer desperation, given the stark choice of wait or wet and the disgrace that would follow a public wetting, and told herself that she had to be capable of waiting if she forced herself to do so. There was no shortage of advice about training her bladder from her friends.
“Stretch your bladder at least once a day,” said Tracy, “if you are not holding your crutch under the desk when the lesson ends, you are not trying hard enough.”
“Drink gallons of water, so your body gets used to both absorbing and holding it. You should get so that bursting is almost your normal condition,” was Erica’s advice.
“Put yourself in situations where you simply cannot pee unless you wet yourself in public,” suggested Tamzin, remembering her desperate coach ride with her boyfriend.
“If you really have to wait, then somehow you can always manage to hold on a bit longer that you think possible,” said Rebecca. “When I was younger, I had some absolutely desperate times, but somehow always just managed to hold it until I could get to a loo.”
“Wilkins Home Brewing Supplies in Market Street sell a whole range of corks for bottles and demi-johns. You might be able to get some help there.” This was Susan’s half serious advice. She could wait 24 hours, and had little patience with those less able than herself.
With grim determination, Louise began a training routine that most girls would have considered little short of torture, endeavouring to combine all their advice, except Susan’s, in the hope of a quick and spectacular increase in bladder capacity. Every morning before lessons she drank 2 pints of water on top of her normal breakfast coffee and juice, so by break time she was twisting her legs in knots and gritting her teeth with desperation. After a week of this, she increased her intake to three pints, or she did not pee when she got up, with the result that she then had to hold herself with both hands to be able to survive until to break, when some of the All Day Girls would be waiting to see her panic-stricken rush to the nearest loo. She would often be holding her crutch as she almost ran down the corridor, and twice, to her horror, when she could not hold herself, she could not avoid a spurt of pee escaping into her knickers. Then a glass of milk or iced coffee would ensure she was desperate again at lunch-time, when she would drink more water to ensure another bursting bladder by the end of lessons.
At weekends, when she went shopping in Packton, she would wear a tight pair of faded jeans and fasten the zip to her belt with a miniature padlock, leaving the key in her room, so it would be impossible to pull her jeans down to pee until she returned. Three pints of water before she left, and at least one coffee in Packton would fill her bladder to absolute bursting point, and she still had to endure the bus ride back to school, then walk normally up the driveway and to her room. The first time she tried this she was holding her crutch on the bus, covering her hands with her shopping bag, and had to repeatedly double over, hand jammed between her knotted legs, as she walked up the drive. She was lucky that no-one saw her doing this, but faced with the choice of either almost certainly wetting herself, or holding her crutch for a time, she decided that holding was the better option. If she had been seen, she might have been able to claim she was adjusting the fit of her jeans, whereas a wet patch between her legs would mean only one thing. Even so, climbing the stairs to her room was too much, even holding herself, and she had leaked a bit before she reached the loo.
Disgusted at her weakness, the next week she took a friend, who did not know what she was trying to do, with her, so she had to hold out while still acting fairly normally. She had never had to try so hard to hold back her pee as she did that morning, clenching herself shut with every ounce of her strength, but she managed it. The surge of relief when she could finally let go a great blast of pee was such a wonderful feeling that it was almost worth the agony she had suffered.
The next day her parents came to visit her, and when they went out to lunch she was already bursting, with another pint of water she had just drunk, still to reach her bladder. She had intended wearing her locked jeans, but they were going to a smart restaurant which would not admit women in trousers. By the time they served coffee she was sitting on her heel, struggling to maintain a normal conversation with her parents without groaning as surges of extreme desperation hit her. Her bladder was hurting so much, and felt so distended that she could hardly believe that there was only the slightest of bulges visible. She had hoped that three glasses of liqueurs would have deadened the pain and made her desperation bearable, but when they finally left she could hardly stand up, and knew she could not possible manage the mile walk back to school. She had to join her mother in the ladies, where she produced a torrent of pee, blasting out under tremendous pressure and going on for ages, even though she was doing her best to control it and make it sound like a normal pee. When she finally emerged from the cubicle, her mother looked intently at her, but said nothing, so Louise did her best to act as if a five minute torrent was a normal way to pee.
After a month when she had tried every method of bladder training that had been recommended to her except using a cork, and when, as Erica had suggested, bursting had become her normal state, she felt she was ready to take another All Day Girl test, her sixth attempt at joining. In the history of the All Day Girls, nobody had ever tried harder than Louise to become a member, and no girl had ever undergone such a rigorous training program. Much of the desperation resulting from this program had been watched by the All Day Girls, providing them with nearly as much excitement as the Champion Bladder contests. So many of them were wanting to offer support and encouragement when she finally made to attempt to join that she was afraid that continual enquiries into the state of her bladder would only make her want to go more. Only her close friends Pauline and Tamzin, who were to act as judges, knew the day when she was trying, the remaining members being told only that it was one day that week, and not to do anything that might hinder her attempt.
Despite this promise, they could not resist watching Louise from a distance, trying to detect any signs of exceptional desperation or even her wetting herself if she was to fail again, because this time she had vowed that whatever happened, she was not entering a loo until the day was up, and if she failed she would have to suffer the disgrace of publicly wetting herself. Unfortunately, all this build up for her test only served to make Louise so anxious, when the great day arrived, that her nerves affected her bladder and kidneys, and, despite all her training, by lunch time she was bursting. To offer her support, Tamzin had invited her to her room for her afternoon mug of coffee, but by then Louise was almost in tears because she was already so desperate she could not walk far without having to stop and twist her legs together to keep control of her bursting bladder. Collapsing in Tamzin’s armchair, she doubled over with both hands pressed between her legs, pressing with all her strength right against her pee-hole, hoping that somehow she could make this need to pee go away, so she could wait another six hours.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Tam,” she groaned, “I’ve been legs crossed bursting since before lunch, and sitting on my heel in all the afternoon classes. I’ve never been this bad in all my all day attempts. All that training, and it’s turned out to be a disastrous failure.”
“It’s a bladder incompetence,” replied Tamzin sagely, “it can happen to anyone, and usually does when it’s most inconvenient, nature’s way of reminding you not to get too blase about your ability to wait. You are also over anxious about being able to wait, and too tense. If only we were allowed drink in school, a quadruple Cointreau would seen you OK for the rest of the day.”
“Have you ever know a real urge to pee go away? You know as well as I do, it only ever gets worse, it never gets better until you go.” Despite what she was saying, Louise had recovered sufficiently to be able to sit with just one hand between her legs, though every so often she would tense and press harder as an extra surge of desperation hit her.
“Has any contestant ever given up before dinner before? This is an absolute disaster and I had such high hopes of making it this time.”
“Who says you are giving up?” rejoined Tamzin. “Remember you were saying that this time you were going to make it or die, that no way you were going to the loo before ten tonight. You might be faltering, but Pauline and I are going to be true friends, and help you keep your word.”
She tossed a pair of jeans towards Louise. “Put those on, they are your special Saturday pair, then I am going to lock you in them, and not let out until ten o’clock. If you don’t make it, you’ll have to walk about the school in pissed jeans. I have signed all three of us out of dinner on the pretext that we are working on a computer project on my new notebook, so you are allowed to change out of uniform now. If you really, really, have to wait, then somehow you can manage it.”
Tamzin was conveniently forgetting about Geraldine and her morning train ride, an episode known only to the All Day Girls. Pauline’s arrival added weight to Tamzin’s instructions, so Louise stepped out of her skirt and pulled on the jeans, hopping about, crossing her legs and grabbing her crutch as she pulled up the zip, and then wincing as Pauline fastened zipper, top button and belt together with a padlock, and put the key in her pocket.
“What am I going to do?” pleaded Louise, “I can’t possibly hold myself for six hours.”
“Change hands every hour,” replied Pauline heartlessly, “and think about something else. Write up you chemistry lab notes, do those English Lit essays we were set last Monday, memorise the first three acts of King Lear, we’ve been given plenty of term work to keep you busy, take your mind off your bladder, make time pass quicker, you ought to know all the techniques for waiting.” When Louise began to protest, she continued, “If you don’t want to make a serious attempt here, then we will take you to the library and you can sit there and wait. God knows what the punishment is for pissing yourself on one of those leather chairs. This is known as being cruel to be kind. At five past ten, when you are an All Day Girl, you’ll thank us for doing this.”
If the truth were told, Pauline and Tamzin had planned to do something like this, to force Louise to hold out if she was really desperate, but had not expected to have to implement the plan until much later in the day, maybe to help her through the last hour. Neither of them thought she had any chance of holding out nearly six hours, but they could not resist seeing how long she would be able to last.
Accepting the inevitable, Louise sat at the desk and began her evening’s prep, tightly crossing her legs and keeping one hand pressed between them. When she had to start writing, she first tried changing to using her left hand to hold, then, needing this to steady the paper, reverted to sitting on her heel. Her tense expression showed how much effort she was making to hold her pee, and despite squirming about to get maximum pressure from her heel, every time she stopped writing she would take the chance to press her hand between her legs. Pauline was laying on the bed reading, Tamzin working at her computer, and both were frequently glancing at Louise to see how she was holding out.
At Six o’Clock they stopped work and Tamzin went to get their take-out dinners. Louise who was getting cramp from having one leg folded under her to sit on her heel, stood up, then quickly crossed her legs and held her crutch with both hands, leaning forward and groaning as she did so.
“I don’t think I can bear it for another 4 hours, Oh God, I’m so desperate, I might as well go now as suffer longer until I have to pee.”
Pauline moved next to Louise and motioned her to move her hands clear of her body. Thinking she was going to unlock her zip, Louise willing complied, then winced and shied away as Pauline began to feel her abdomen.
“Your bladder is nowhere near full, you really can’t want to pee that badly, or if you do, then its imagination, some sort of psychological problem. You have just got to grit your teeth and make yourself hold on. One thing the competition showed was that, without exception, when we were really, really, desperate, we all had a hard, swollen bulging abdomen where our bladders were distended with pee. You have not got that yet, so your bladder is not full, therefore you can make yourself wait longer, all it takes is will-power and determination. That’s what the 24 hour girls, and Champion Bladder was all about.”
Tamzin returned, and also assessed Louise’s bladder as not being at all full, and confirmed that they had no intention of releasing her. She had taken away Louise’s uniform blazer and skirt, and pointed out that if she did wet herself, she would have to walk all the way to her own room, in a different residence building, in wet jeans.
“I know you are having a small bladder attack, but just think, if you can qualify in spite of that, you will be a worthy All Day Girl, and it will be so much easier next time.”
“How badly does it hurt?” asked Pauline. “Is your stomach ache starting to build up?”
“It doesn’t really hurt at all yet,” replied Louise, “I just want to pee so urgently, sharply, intensely, so bad, that I’m not sure I could keep control with just crossed legs, I need a heel or a hand to help hold it back”
“Well, that’s allowable, so just hold it in girl. You are actually due to drink another glass of water in the next 20 minutes, and then your final cup of tea before 7 o’clock, so you had better try and sort your bladder out before that gets to your kidneys.”
Tamzin tried not to appear sadistic, but she really was quite enjoying making someone wait until they were absolutely desperate, and even wet themselves. It would have been more fun if it was an attractive bloke, but this was better than nothing. She suddenly wondered if St Omunds, the nearest boys public boarding school, had an All Day Boys group, and how they could make contact with it. Forced to accept that she was not going to get to a loo until after ten o’clock, Louise had not choice but to grit her teeth and force herself to hold on as best she could. At least while she was sitting, legs twisted tightly together, and either holding herself or with her heel pressed hard against her wee hole, she could still contain herself.
By the time they had finished eating, and she was cautiously sipping her tea, not wanting to drink it until the last possible moment, it did seem as if she did not want to go quite so urgently, the sharpness of her need giving way to a dull ache in her stomach, uncomfortable, but controllable. She hoped that this signified that her bladder was stretching to hold the extra pee, and a slightly bulging abdomen seemed to confirm this.
By eight o’clock most of her dinner-time drinks had reached her bladder, and she was truly desperate again, with a throbbing, bursting bladder to contend with as well as an urgent need to pee. For a time she had been able to manage with just knotted legs, but now she had to sit on her heel again, and even then it was becoming a struggle to wait. Her abdomen was definitely bulging, and Tamzin undid her padlock so she could unzip her jeans, easing the pressure on her bladder. She was too desperate to be able to concentrate on essay writing any more, and even copying physics experiment notes from Pauline’s lab book it was difficult to write neatly, but she had to do something to try and make the time pass.
Another hour and writing was impossible, all she could think about was containing the pressure in her bladder, which was now genuinely full, confirmed by the painful swelling of her abdomen, and she knew it was going to take every ounce of her will-power to be able to last another hour. Now they could see she was resolved to wait, Pauline and Tamzin were doing everything they could to help her, letting her take her jeans off so there was no extra pressure on her bladder. Louise, who felt she was absolutely at bursting point, her bladder unable to contain even another tea-spoonful of pee, was willing to try anything that might help her wait. She had been suffering for so long she could hardly remember what it was like to be able to relax and sit normally, but with only forty minutes to wait, she was determined to hold out. There was no pretence of doing any work, the only thing that mattered was holding back her pee, and she was doubled over on the edge of the bed, legs knotted and both hands pressed hard into her crutch.
“I must wait! I must wait! If I can keep pressing like this, I must be able to make it, I don’t think it’s possible for any pee to leak out, I’m pressing so hard.” She was encouraging herself, speaking through clenched teeth as she fought with all her strength to hold back her pee.
Pauline, who had been through similar agony in the Champion Bladder competition, was encouraging her to hang on, advising her to try different positions, do anything that might ease her desperation. Louise had never been so desperate in her life, she had never thought it was possible to want to pee so badly, for her stomach to hurt so much, but somehow she had to hold on a bit longer. She simply could not press any harder between her legs, but frantic to do something more to control her pee, she tried first moving her fingers round in small circles, pressing on her wee hole, then standing up and joining her hands between her legs, pressing the edge of her hand against her and sawing back and forward against her crutch. Nothing she could do seemed to have any affect on her desperation for very long, but each change of position did seem to help for a bit. She still felt she was about a minute away from wetting herself, but somehow that minute never quite happened, and she was able to last out until the magic hour of ten o’clock.
Anticipating that the situation might be critical if Louise did manage to wait, Tamzin had a bucket ready for her, so the second that Pauline announced that it was ten o’clock, she cut the seal that showed that Louise had not taken her knickers off all day, and Louise tore down her knickers and crouched over the bucket, releasing a blast of pee before settling into a steady powerful stream that lasted 48 seconds, followed by a couple of short spurts.
“I have never, ever, in my whole life, wanted to pee so badly as I did then,” gasped a very relieved Louise, “nor have I ever enjoyed a pee so much as this one. You could say it was worth waiting for, but I am not sure it really did compensate for the suffering I have been through.”
“The main thing,” said Tamzin, “is that you have done it, proved that you can wait all day, and even manage it when your bladder was playing up. Next time it will be easier. Honestly, when you came in here at four o’clock, and I saw the state you were in, I didn’t think you had a chance of holding out for another six hours. It just shows what the bladder can be forced to do.”
“Undoubtedly an effort worthy of an All Day Girls,” added Pauline, “I don’t think that anyone has ever tried so hard to join as you have, and we are all delighted you have finally made it.” Her pee was measured at 0.92 litres, which Louise considered a disappointingly small volume, as she had hoped to become a member of the `One Litre’ club, after suffering such desperation. That Pauline and Erica could hold more than half as much again as she had managed was a sobering thought, and she wondered how much they had suffered to wait like that. She had just managed to scrape in as an All Day Girl, and now she would have to continue her bladder training, albeit less intensely, to increase her capacity and control to a level where the next term’s qualification would be easier.