“I don’t hear anything,” he said through the toilet door.
“Don’t you?” I tried to sound surprised, but I wasn’t. No matter how much I pushed, nothing was coming out.
“I knew you were screwing with me.”
“I’m not a robot! I can’t just go on command, and certainly not with you standing right outside the door. Haven’t you ever heard of stage fright? I bet you can’t just pee in front of strangers.”
“I have to stand here, or you might escape out the window,” he replied.
I looked up at the window and then laughed. “God, you clearly haven’t seen my ass properly yet, because, if you had, you would know I am not squeezing through that window in a hurry.” I said it in jest, but, the second the words were out of my mouth, I suddenly remembered his hands all over it and sweat prickled on my forehead. I heard an awkward throat clearing and a shuffle of feet.
I looked at the sink and saw a small glass on it. I rolled my eyes and reached for it, filling it up with water. I then, very carefully and gently, poured it into the toilet bowl. But I clearly underestimated the amount that would come out, and there was a short, too-loudsplash.
“Really? Really?” I heard him say sarcastically.
“Okay, whatever!” I pulled my pants up—the large tracksuit pants that I had changed into—and flung the door open. “You got me. I didn’t need the toilet. You happy now?”
“Happy?” he asked, looking somewhat angrily at me. “Do you think arresting someone that I quite like makes me happy?”
“You quite like me?” I asked, stunned.
He looked down at his feet now, as if feeling coy. “Well, yeah! Wasn’t it obvious? Despite what you probably thought, I don’t just do that with women all the time. In fact . . .” He paused. “I just don’t.”
“Oh!” I was stunned by this sudden confession. For a moment, I felt my mouth opening, and I felt the wordsI quite like you toobubbling to the surface. But I didn’t let the words come out. Instead, I shrugged. “Could have fooled me,” I said, and strode back down the corridor, towards my jail cell.
