Standing just outside the door I wait under the buzzing fluorescent lights, ear trained and listening. On the other side there’s footsteps against the vinyl floor. The sudden scraping of his jacket being hung on the hook somewhat startles me. It’s followed by clothes shuffling. I can imagine him grabbing at his fly…then block it out of my mind. No. Concentrate.
There—the purring of his zipper. I lean in a bit, anticipating. I can hear him breathing. It’s tense, almost panicky. I’m thinking that he’s beginning to perspire and is fidgeting. Maybe his hand is shaking. I’ve done this so many times I swear I can see through the door.
Again, there’s the soft sound of the zipper then clothing swooshing. His jacket buttons click against the door. I straighten up and get ready for him. The toilet flushes. I don’t hide. I stay right here, waiting.
The doorknob wiggles as he unlocks and then twists it. The snick of the latch separating from the strike plate does not break my focus. A sliver of light escapes the opening, gets larger and wedges onto the floor in front of me. His lanky fingers hand me the specimen bottle.
“Son, you think I’d fall for this crap?”
I pitch the sample in the washroom’s trashcan and hand him another bottle.
“Now piss in that thing and if it ain’t warm this time we’ll declare you dead.”
Mary Anne Griffiths (she/her) is a poet and fiction writer living in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada. She shares space with a husband, a tortie and tuxie and an ever evolving manuscript. Some of her work can be found in DarkWinter Lit Mag, The Lothlorien and Macrame Literary Journal.
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