THE ALL DAY GIRLS
Chapter 15: ANNETTE'S JOURNEY (F hold-it, touching on desp)
By Paul Tester

Annette stared glumly at the litre carton of fruit juice; then at a 
two pint milk carton and then looked down at her slender body and 
flat stomach.  How on earth could she find room for something the 
size of those cartons inside her?  It seemed impossible, but somehow 
she was going to have to soon, when she went shopping in London with 
Emma and her mother after taking a quarter of one of Geraldine's 
diuretic pills.  Not for the first time since she had been forced 
into this, she regretted upsetting the other All Day Girls with her 
pedantic logic.  She wasn't the first person to find that having an 
IQ of genius level did not make her popular, even in such an 
academically orientated school at Elmdene.  Too many things came too 
easy for her, even when she didn't want them.  Last summer's holiday 
in Spain, for instance; a plain skinny girl, she had been expected to 
be a flop with the boys, but her fluent Spanish had made her a hit 
with the local studs, and she could drink all night without having to 
queue to squat in the disco's filthy loos.  Never mind how much her 
bladder ached at the end of the evening, or that her boyfriend had 
been a lousy lover, the other girls had still despised her.

Was there any way she could make the task easier?  If she was so 
bright, why couldn't she come up with some original idea to help her 
wait?  

The 'cork up the cunt' that girls so often joked about was no good.  
She had tried it and it simply did not press in the right place to do 
any good at all.  Nor did pulling a strip of cloth tight between her 
legs, that didn't press in the right place either.  Anyway, logic 
(there she was again) said that blocking her pee hole was not going 
to help her sphincter hold out, though enough girls seemed to think 
it did.  Nor could she think of any way that she could let her pee 
out without it being noticed.  Emma had already selected a well-
fitting pair of faded blue jeans for her to wear, together with the 
skimpiest of knickers.

She searched the Internet, and the medical sections of Elmdene and 
Pacton libraries to see if there was any antidote for diuretics, or 
any drug that would inhibit the production of urine.  She learned a 
lot about diuretics, but nothing that would help her.   She was not 
even sure that the effect was proportional to the dose, which made 
her test even more worrying.  Depressed by this latest thought, she 
welcomed a visit from Erica, who wanted help with some maths 
problems.  She could solve these in her head, and over coffee 
afterwards she confessed how worried she was about the coming 
journey, and her failure at finding a way to help her wait.

"You're getting all worked up about nothing," consoled Erica.  "The 
only thing you need to remember is that you have a much bigger than 
normal bladder, and that in these situations you can always manage 
somehow to wait just that little bit longer.  Don't ask me how, but I 
know that your body can always find that bit more strength, your 
bladder stretch that tiny bit more, and you can hold on.  It's 
entirely a mental thing, will-power, confidence, you just have to 
make yourself hold it."

"But what about Geraldine?  She completely lost control on the train.  
And Pauline? Twice she wet herself in the final.  Logically, there 
has to be a limit to what you can hold."

Erica shrugged off these protests.  "Geraldine was drugged, a massive 
overdose compared to you next week.  Pauline admits that in the 
contest she knew it didn't really matter if she wet her pants, and 
that she thought she had been holding more, and more desperate, on 
that rugby coach, when she simply could not contemplate wetting 
herself in public."

Annette had to admit that Erica was making sense.  

"So what do you suggest I do?" she asked.

"You should be really stretching you bladder to bursting point at 
least once a day, just to get it used to being full, to tone up your 
holding muscles.  Think positive.   Convince yourself that you can 
wait.  Its going to be a lot easier than any waiting contest.  All 
the desperate time is going to be on the train, so you can sit on 
your heel, and with a bit of ingenuity you should be able to hold 
yourself in an emergency without anyone noticing.  You are allowed to 
go when you get to Oxford Street, so you haven't got to walk about 
for ages, which would be the real killer."

Annette followed Erica's advice.  She drank glasses of water before 
and after breakfast, and throughout the morning, so by lunchtime her 
bladder was bursting; then forced herself to wait until the end of 
lessons at four o'clock.  She would be sitting on her heel all the 
afternoon, trying to conceal her desperation, so by the end of the 
week she knew every trick for getting the maximum help from this 
without revealing her need.  She had even worked out that the best 
shoes to wear were her trainers with thick heels that pressed right 
into her, just where she needed the most pressure.  She stretched her 
bladder like she never had before, and as her capacity seemed to 
increase, so did her confidence.  

The other girls decided that instead of taking her tablet before she 
left the school, she could delay until they had a 'coffee stop' 
halfway to London.  Emma said her mother normally stopped there, and 
as long as she had a full cup of coffee, Annette could even go to the 
loo when Emma and her mother did. At first she thought this was a 
bonus, but then realised that is was a hidden trap.  She had to drink 
more coffee, and she was losing her only escape route.  Once they had 
left the service area, there were no more loos until Oxford Street; 
it would be wait or wet herself.

Not leaving anything to chance, since she was a scientist, Annette 
went back to the Internet and the libraries, to get details of each 
London Underground station. There was a public loo at Oxford Circus, 
but she could not find a plan to show exactly where.  By then she 
expected that every second would be vital, and knowing where to go 
might make the difference between dry and wet jeans.  

Erica dismissed these fears.  "If there's a loo there, it will be 
sign-posted," she said.  "Keep calm, don't panic.  Stop still, twist 
your legs in a knot, and assess the situation.  It's a busy station, 
there'll be porters to ask.  Hold your crutch if it's really bad, if 
people notice, so what?  Don't make a move until you know where the 
loo is, running about like a headless chicken is the worst thing you 
could do."

It all made sense, Annette admitted, and she tried to ignore her 
fears that by then she would already be so desperate she would be 
wetting herself.  Alison and Tracy had joined Erica in trying to 
encourage her, and did their best to build her confidence.  They all 
knew that there was nothing like worrying about wanting to go to make 
you want to, and if Annette went into this anxious, then she was 
going to fail.  Finally, as they left her study on Friday evening, 
after a last attempt at building her confidence, they agreed that 
there was nothing more they could do.  Annette was on her own, facing 
the stark choice, wait or wet, she had no other option.

Watched by half the All Day Girls, Annette had drunk exactly what she 
had to, not a single drop more, during the last 24 hours, and was 
dressed exactly as specified.  Thin little knickers and jeans tight 
between her legs, to show any leak as soon as it happened.  In a show 
of confidence, Annette didn't take spare knickers with her, saying 
they would not be needed, though, as Caroline bluntly said, there was 
no point in having dry knickers to wear under soaking jeans. 

Emma's mother was easy-going and friendly, insisting that Annette 
called her Deborah, 'Please not Mrs. Halley-Parker or Debbie.'   
Annette was surprised how quickly they reached the service area, 
where, without any encouragement from the girls, Deborah stopped and 
went straight to the loo, walking rather more quickly that was 
dignified.

This gave Emma the chance to witness Annette taking her quarter 
tablet, though Annette would have much preferred to have put this off 
until they left the café.  In the loo, as she tried to squeeze every 
last drop of pee out of her bladder, she tried not to think how badly 
she might want to go before she saw the inside of another loo.  

For the rest of the journey Annette did her utmost to keep a lively 
conversation going, hoping that this would keep her mind off her 
bladder, and the ordeal to come.  It worked at first, but slowly, 
inexorably, she began to feel the first warnings from her bladder.  
At first she could ignore them, persuade herself it was imagination, 
nerves, anything but a need to pee, but when they reached the station 
she most definitely wanted to go.  Standing up, then walking, 
increased this need to a level when any sensible person would have 
been actively looking for a loo.  Annette tried not to worry about 
this, but in her plans for the day, she had not even been wanting to 
go at this stage.

It was a terminus station, there was a train waiting, so Annette 
tried to hurry Emma and her mother to make sure they caught it.  
Instead, Deborah decided she wanted a loo first.  Annette needed 
neither to be reminded about loos, nor risk missing the train, 
becoming more worried as they looked all round the station, and then 
in the adjacent shopping arcade without success. 

At first Emma had been enjoying the extra stress that this delay was 
causing Annette, but not wanting make her task impossible, finally 
told her mother it was obvious there wasn't a loo there, and she 
would just have to cross her legs until the reached Oxford Street.  
Looking far from happy, Deborah gave up the search, and to Annette's 
relief, they just got on the train before it left.

Walking, and the talk of loos, had not helped Annette one bit.  
Getting on the train she classified her state as 'bursting' and even 
when she was sitting down with her legs tightly crossed she was not 
much better.  She had hoped that a few minutes really clenching 
herself shut inside, forcing her pee back into her body was how she 
imagined it, she would feel better, but no.  She tried so hard that 
she shuddered slightly with the effort, attracting a strange look 
from Deborah, and a more knowing nod from Emma, but nothing she did 
reduced her need to pee very much, and as soon as she relaxed she was 
a bad as ever.  She had estimated a hour for the train journey, and 
that seemed an impossibly long time to wait if her need to pee kept 
increasing at the rate it had been.  She tried not to think about 
that.  Maybe it was a fast train, maybe the drug had already done its 
worst, and she would not fill up much more, maybe....

The train stopped at the next two stations, destroying her first 
hope.  Eleven minutes since they had started, ten more stations, that 
made the journey over an hour she calculated. Please no!  The 
stations must be closer as they got into town.  And there was no 
escaping that she already wanted to pee significantly more badly, 
even with her legs plaited tightly, than when she had been walking.  
She could not cross them any tighter, even as she was it was making 
it pretty obvious she was dying for a loo, nobody would cross their 
legs so hard for any other reason. She uncrossed her legs, trying to 
sit normally for a time, but even knocking her knees together and 
squeezing her thighs, she wanted to pee far too badly to be able to 
sit still.  Choosing a moment when she thought Deborah wasn't 
looking, she tucked her right leg up on the seat under her, so the 
heel of her shoe was pressing into her crutch.  That was so much 
better; she had her pee under control again, her need down to just 
'bursting' instead of creeping up to 'desperate' level.  'Stay like 
this and you will be OK' she told herself, and tried to believe it.

Emma didn't miss Annette sitting on her heel, and sooner that she had 
expected.  Pointedly, she lounged back on the seat and sat casually 
with her knees apart, reminding Annette that she was just fine, no 
bladder problems at all.  Annette tried to ignore her.  Another two 
stations gone, and still 45 minutes to go.  Mentally calculating the 
journey time was too easy to be a distraction from her bladder 
pressure, and the result was worrying.  The benefit of sitting on her 
heel had worn off already, and by the next station she was most 
definitely 'desperate.'  No actual danger of losing it yet, but far 
too uncomfortable to want to have to wait any longer. 

She tried to stir up a discussion to stop herself thinking about her 
bladder, to make time pass quicker, grateful that Emma was helping 
when she could so easily have been talking about rivers, waterfalls, 
floods, .. having a pee.  She snapped her mind back to Emma who was 
talking about her holiday in Florida.  Concentrate on that, being 
hot, parched, dying for a drink not a pee.  It was no good.  More 
that half an hour to go, and she was 'seriously desperate.'  Her 
bladder was beginning to hurt, she could not ignore it, it was 
already dominating her thoughts.  She had to get mind off her bladder 
pressure, she had to find someway of making time pass more quickly.  
The thought of another half hour wanting to go this badly was 
dreadful, but if she kept on getting worse.. No! it could not happen, 
the diuretic must be wearing off, there couldn't be much more pee to 
come.  She tried to find something to occupy her mind.  Mentally 
listing all the prime numbers seemed a good idea, but it was so 
difficult to concentrate.  She closed her eyes, focused her mind, 
managed to get to 101, then Deborah interrupted, asking if she was 
tired or just day-dreaming.

"Penny for your thoughts," said Deborah. 

Emma was smirking, knowing what Annette would use the penny for, 
guessing that her thoughts were mainly centred in her knickers.  
Annette tried to compose herself, get back in control of her bladder.  
Deborah was waiting for her to answer.  Her pee was getting worse all 
the time.  In five minutes she had gone up from 'seriously' to 
'absolutely desperate,' and that was when sitting on her heel.  She 
didn't want to think what it would be like if she had to stand up.  

 "Three of us at school are setting up a web site.  I was trying to 
compose HMTL code in my head."  Something as technical as that would 
shut Deborah up, she hoped, because suddenly she didn't want to talk 
any more.  It was too much effort to hold in her pee to want to 
bother with anything else.  Instead Deborah wanted to know what it 
was about, how it would be used, details that Annette could hardly 
concentrate on, nor, as it was the All Day Girls web site, could she 
reveal.  Eventually Emma, who hated anything to do with computers, 
interrupted and saved her, then stabbing her in the back by asking 
her mother how her bladder was bearing up.

"I shall be very relieved when we reach Oxford Street," she replied, 
"I'm already sitting with her legs crossed all the time."

"I think I will need to go as well," said Annette, trying to speak 
normally, making the biggest understatement of her life.  The only 
reason she would not need to go would be if she had already peed in 
her jeans.  

They were stopping at another station, so she allowed herself to look 
at her watch again.  Only three minutes since the last stop, it had 
seemed like at least ten.  In that time she had gone from 'absolutely 
desperate' to 'frantic' and even beyond, almost to 'absolutely 
frantic,' her highest classification.  She was clenching herself shut 
inside constantly now, even with her heel pressing hard into her 
crutch.  The slightest relaxation and she would pee, she dare not let 
up for a second.  She had never been this bad before, not in actual 
danger of losing it when on her heel.  Ten minutes at least still to 
go!  She could hold on if it didn't get any worse, or if her bladder 
didn't get tired, but she didn't have much in reserve.  If only she 
could switch off her kidneys until she was in the loo.  The terrible 
thing about the journey had been the remorseless way her bladder had 
filled, the ever-rising desperation level, until she was off the 
scale at the top of 'absolutely frantic', and still three stations to 
go.

Another station, she could not believe it had only taken three 
minutes, it had seemed like an age, and she was worse.  She had not 
thought it possible, but her bladder was hurting more, and the 
pressure!  It was taking every ounce of her strength to hold it back.  
She could not possibly hold on for long in such a state, she could 
already feel herself tiring.  She could not stand it any longer, she 
might as well give up the struggle and pee now, she would never make 
it to the loo, so why suffer any longer?

This, she recognised afterwards, was the crisis of the journey.  As 
if to emphasise the moment, the train was waiting in the station with 
the doors open.  She had virtually given up mentally, but her body 
was still hanging on.  All her life she had been taught that big 
girls did not wet their knickers, they waited until they got to a 
loo.  She remembered Erica's encouragement, 'somehow, you can always 
make yourself wait a bit longer, stretch your bladder a bit more' and 
her more practical advice, 'hold your crutch if you have to, it won't 
notice half as much as if you wet yourself.'

She jammed her hand between her legs, forcing three fingers between 
her heel and her pee hole, crushing the soft flesh round her vagina 
hard against her pubic bone.  She had always maintained that there 
was no logical reason why blocking a hole between her legs could stop 
pee escaping from her bladder several inches inside her, but, thank 
goodness, logic was defied, and holding herself reduced her from 
'about to go' to 'screaming to go' which five minutes ago she had 
though to be the absolute limit of her endurance.

There were only two more stations to go, she just had to hold out 
somehow.  If she kept holding herself, she thought she had a chance.  
It was making her desperation obvious, but that was better than wet 
jeans.  Emma had been watching her all the journey, trying to gauge 
her desperation level, and had noted when she had sat on her heel, 
and then the increasingly worried, strained look, the squirming, 
biting her lip, shuddering as she made an extra effort, and finally, 
the hand between her legs.  She had always been shy about admitting 
she wanted a loo, so she could imagine how desperate Annette must be 
to hold herself openly, and moved her bag and coat to screen her from 
the rest of the passengers.  

Annette had thought 'if it does not get any worse, I think I can make 
it,' but her kidneys were still in a drug induced frenzy, forcing 
more pee into her bladder that was already filled beyond bursting 
point.  

'I can't stand it any longer,' she thought, 'if I don't go I'm going 
to kill myself, my bladder will explode any second.'  It was agony, 
and felt enormous, like a football inside her, and she could not 
believe her stomach wasn't sticking out about six inches.  Her left 
hand was resting on her abdomen, trying to cover the hand between her 
legs, and she could feel that she was swollen, and so hard, the 
pressure in her bladder must be enormous.  If she had been in a 
competition, she would have given up now, but she could not even do 
that.  She had no choice but to make herself wait, somehow she had to 
hold her pee a few more minutes.  She closed her eyes and fought with 
all her strength to hold it, pressing as hard as she could, bearing 
down on her heel, clenching herself shut, one last supreme effort to 
wait that she could just keep up until the train was stopping and 
Deborah was saying "Here at last, come on girls, get a move on, I've 
got an urgent appointment at the nearest loo."

'Don't get any worse! please don't get worse, I won't be able to hold 
it.  Somehow I must hang on, only a few more seconds.' Annette 
thought, keeping right behind Deborah, hobbling because she was still 
holding herself, and because she had cramp in her right leg after 
sitting on her heel for so long.  By the time they reached the 
escalator Annette thought she really had reached the end.  She could 
feel her pee beginning to leak out of her bladder, almost reaching 
her knickers, and she simply did not have the strength any more to 
stop it.  She was saved by the crowd on the escalator, which stopped 
Deborah walking up, and allowed her to twist her legs together, bend 
forward against Emma, and hold herself with both hands.  Pressing 
with all her might, gritting her teeth, forcing her poor tired 
bladder muscles to clench shut one more time, she clamped off the 
leak, making such a mighty effort that before they reached the top 
she felt she was in control again.  

Walking was almost too much to bear.  She was holding herself with 
both hands now, as Emma later said, making sure everyone knew she was 
frantic to pee.  She didn't care about that any more, her only 
concern was to try and press harder between her legs, to contain the 
enormous pressure in her bladder.  How could she have ever thought 
that holding didn't do any good?  Logic meant nothing to her any 
more, the only possible chance she had of not wetting herself was to 
hold her crutch with both hands.  If only there was some way she 
could press harder.  After only five yards she could feel the leak 
starting again, but a queue at the ticket barrier gave her another 
chance to get control again.  

"Look for the loos Emma," she pleaded, "Please, please help me, I 
can't wait any longer."

Emma was supposed to observe only, neither help nor hinder her 
finding a loo, but she had never seen anyone as desperate as Annette 
was, in such a state that she could hardly feed her ticket into the 
machine, and she couldn't just stand by and watch her piss herself.  
Deborah, who obviously wanted to go badly, was already through the 
ticket barrier and was asking a porter where the nearest ladies was.  

"Quick Emma, look for the Ladies, he said it was round to the right."  
Deborah was suffering a sudden agonisingly sharp need to pee, and was 
so embarrassed by being in such a state that she didn't want to look 
at the girls, and so didn't see how frantic Annette was.  Openly 
holding between her legs with both hands, Annette didn't care about 
anything except somehow keeping her pee back until she reached the 
loo.  Her whole world was reduced to one little spot between her 
legs.  If she could press there hard enough she might just manage to 
wait.  Following her mother who had seen the 'Ladies' sign and was 
almost running, Emma was guiding her, getting some money ready, 
because every second was vital for Annette now.  

Annette was whimpering "I want to pee, oh quick! I want to pee so 
much," as Emma jammed money into the turnstile and pushed her 
through.  So near, she was right on the brink, she could feel the pee 
starting to leak out.  She could not press any harder, even with both 
hands between her legs, but her last despairing effort was just 
enough to hold it until she was in the cubicle and kicking the door 
shut.

Doubled over, legs plaited, she had to release one hand to bolt the 
door, undo her jeans, then in one frantic move, let go of her crutch, 
rip her jeans and knickers down to her knees and drop onto the loo 
just as the first spurt of pee escaped, splashing the seat.  At last 
she could release the full force of her pent-up pee.  

The pressure!  Nothing she had ever seen or heard came close to the 
force she was peeing with.  It was as if there was a fire hose at 
full bore aimed into the loo, a stream of pee that seemed about 2 ins 
diameter blasting into the pan so hard it was going to crack it, then 
easing off to her more normal stream once the enormous pressure had 
been released, and going on and on, draining the contents of a 
bladder stretched to the absolute limit.  The relief was so wonderful 
that even when she had finished she  didn't get up, continuing to try 
to squeeze some more drops out, savouring the release, massaging her 
bladder which still ached from the strain it had been under.  

Only when she found Deborah and Emma waiting for her did she realise 
how long she had been in the loo, and wish she had timed herself, 
because it must have been a school record.  Inside the first shop she 
stood with her legs apart, something that had been impossible for the 
last hour, so Emma could see her jeans were still dry between the 
legs. In fact, the gusset of her knickers was wet, sometime during 
the last frantic rush across the station some pee had leaked past her 
fingers, so technically she had wet herself, but not enough to get to 
her jeans.  Only when the day's events were analysed at the next All 
Day Girls meeting did she admit to that.