Chapter 2

Sex, Guns, Poison.

To pee, or not to pee: that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the pangs and strains of outrageous pressure, or to let loose and make a sea of... troubles?

Mmm. Half-not-there thoughts bumbled through my mind, trying to decide whether to exist or not. The light was bright enough for my eyelids to glow red on the inside, but the air was cool, and no warmth hinted at the sun touching me. My body was under some cover, probably the rough sheet I could feel under my arms. I noticed all this in the fraction of a second before my bladder started screaming for attention, that funhouse-mirror reflection of the point just before orgasm driving a lance up my torso. There was no way I’d be able to move, even onto such as a bedpan. Nevertheless, I would have to pee, and I hoped I was grown up enough to recognise the occasional necessity of doing what had to be done. But first, I’d make a valiant effort to hold it in and move far enough I could drop down over the bedpan, which I guessed at random would probably be on the right. I shifted my hips, just a little, and felt a tug in the relevant area. I had been catheterised.

Well, that was all right, then. I relaxed, and let things take their course with a clear conscience.

“Yo, dude, you awake, or is that just your body on autopilot again?” James was sounding a little more chipper than I felt.

“Hmn?”

“Oh, cool. Professor said he’s got us on something to help our body flush stuff out, that’s why we need to piss so much.”

“Indignity after indignity.”

James snickered a little, and I drifted off for a while. I’m not that good at sleeping on my back, but I was feeling in the mood to let the world slip past me. I guess James was too, because he didn’t say anything more either. An hour or two passed me by completely.