Taking the Piss: The Beginning

Shawn found an empty urinal and used it. It was an empty restroom, from a quick scan. A soft breath of relief escaped his lips as the trickle echoed against the tiles.

After zipping up he went up to the wash basins and twisted on a faucet.

Suddenly, he felt a hand on his right temple, and he flinched.

That was when his whole life was about change.

Looking at her phone, Tulip discerned that at this rate the day would hopefully go by pretty quickly. She yawned and flushed the toilet, then exited the stall.

She hoped Shawn wasn't already there waiting, but who knew. When a girl had to go, she heeded the call. Tulip let the water rush through her hands, absently studying her mirror reflection while humming a vague pop tune.

Once she had dried her hands and binned the paper towel, she pulled open the door and jounced back to her cart.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Shawn. Shawn Crust."

"How has your loneliness affected you?"

"Sometimes I feel like two different people, or maybe I should say three. Not just the person you see in public and the private one; everyone's got that. I mean inside -- there's this person that is depraved and childish and perverted and selfish and hungry, really, really hungry, and then there's the other one. This one is wracked with constant guilt. He has an immense conscience, sense of right and wrong, shame... but not just that. In the end, he's just like the other one. He just wants to get what he wants... he just wants to make sure people will let him, that by following the rules, he'll get it. He's not afraid of doing the wrong thing... he's afraid of the consequences of doing them. He wants to get better, but..."

"What are these consequences you fear, Shawn?"

"Guilt is one, like I was saying. The second is punishment, not just some little kind, but something with irreversible effects -- like imprisonment, or being shunned by my family, friends, and even strangers. And if I don't get it here, then after I die. In the world after. The third is responsibility."

"Why do you fear responsibility?"

"Well, I know it's wrong to, but I feel like the person I am outside does not reflect these two people duking it out inside of me. I feel like the parent of two children who keep mucking things up for me, and I have to clean up the aftermath."

"Isn't it possible that by splitting yourself into three distinct identities, you have already tried to avoid responsibility for anything wrong you might do?"

"Yes, but, if I honestly am ignorant about something or screw up out of the blue and that came from me trying to do the best I can do, I will gladly admit, even atone for it. But I know everything I'm supposed to do, what would make others happy and like me, but... everything just feels so distant now. It's like I'm a puppet to my own feelings. Sometimes it's like... I'm not even in control of my own mind."

"Do you care about what people think of you?"

"Yes."

"What you in fact fear is, firstly, being judged by a world you consider superior to yourself, and, secondly, losing control. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Do you enjoy the female figure?"

"Yes I do."

"How about the male figure?"

"Even though I'm in a bi-curious phase, their figure doesn't really affect me the same way a woman's does."

"Does any other form please you physically, like, for instance, that of other species?"

"Not really, no. Unless they're anthropomorphic."

"Physically, what arouses you?"

"I like a body that is really fit, or really hot in some way. I don't mean just 'being hot', but by having a quality that stands out -- like tight legs in sweatpants despite everything else being normally clothed, or nice round boobs on a thin, cute body... of course, if they are really hot all around too, it's even better. But for me the fact that a normal-seeming girl, or the girl down the street, the event coordinator at the wedding, can all have hot bodies underneath -- that's more of a turn-on for me than just seeing them flaunt it in public for all to see, or being a porn star, for example. Then when I actually see them naked or half-naked, whatever, it's a lot hotter for me."

"Any parts of the body you'd prioritize over others?"

"Well, like I said, it really depends since at any point I can drool over any of them the same way, since I'm pretty perverted about it. I like it when one part of the body hints to the rest of the body being really healthy, or 'clean', or hot as well. I enjoy the sense of being teased more often than the sense of being given a show I paid for; I guess in spite of myself, I still have a stubborn ego under it all too... I don't want a woman to do something for me because I paid them. I want them do it because they want to. But parts-wise I am probably more a leg and ass man, and the feet too, sometimes. And smooth, soft skin just looks really, really irresistible..."

"So, you are not aroused at the idea of **** a woman?"

"No."

"Even if you could get away with it?"

"Yes, even if I could get away with it."

"Why not?"

"Like you said, I care about what people think of me. This includes during sexual fantasies. I know it's hypocritical. But it's ingrained in me, now. Combine that with the voice in my head drilling the guilt and the self-loathing, it doesn't interest me. I'm not motivated by seeing others hurt or 'take it' -- I guess, in a weird way, I kind of love everybody... but also hate them. But I can't just hate them, or love them, apparently. That's why I got this Jekyll and Hyde thing going on..."

"What you mean is, you can't combine feelings of sexual lust with feelings of hate or anger, because your lust is inextricably linked to the guilt you've been trained to hold throughout your life. Is that right?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

"But you are aroused at the idea of making women enjoy your sexual **** of them?"

"I guess... but it's not really just about the sex. It's like **** in general isn't a thing that attracts me... but if in a local baseball game, with ordinary people, somehow someone spiked the refreshments with **** that loosened the men's inhibitions and these rational, moral people started, for instance, **** their wives and friends' wives... that to me would be a turn-on. The **** itself is there, but it is the abnormal removal of the men's barrier to it that gets me more. In a way, it's both more depraved and more childish, arbitrary, what have you, then the preference for a normal **** or sex fantasy, I know."

"Are you aroused at the idea of making others your slaves?"

"Kind of, but the reason I lust over most women is that they have a quality that I feel inferior to, like you mentioned. My fantasies mostly include keeping that part intact. I want them to have a personality, a quirk, something they believe that links them to society and makes them feel real, developed, 'proper'..."

"Do you enjoy the idea of prudent men and women staying prudent, but being able to change what they do, are willing to do, or consider acceptable?"

"Yes actually, that sounds appealing."

"Do you enjoy the idea of influencing people, no matter how small, if it comes from an impossible ability?"

"...Yes."

"Are you a virgin?"

"Yes, I am."

"Do you like cute things?"

"Um, yes. Even though I would never tell anyone."

"Then you enjoy the idea of women being cute, or innocent, as well?"

"Yes."

"Do you consider yourself a contradiction?"

"Yes."

"How so?"

"I treat small things seriously. I am a man but still a child. I was raised in the faith but am a closet pervert. I always want things my way, and never get it, but in the same time always do. I was a child prodigy when I was younger, but never put in the work and had trouble finishing things during school. I don't want to pay someone to pretend to be happy for me, but I wouldn't mind dishonestly making them happy for me. I love people, but I... I also want to use, control, mistreat, disregard, be above all of them... as long as I was finally safe from all the... bad things. The pressure of living with all of them."

"Is it because you know that even though you like these people and wish for them to like you as well, deep inside, if they were to see you for who you think you truly are, they would never want to associate with you again, and you are alone either outside or inside no matter what you do?"

"...yes. Yes."

"Tell me, Shawn Crust. Do you want power?"

"Yes."

"And you will have it, Shawn Crust. For you are the next inheritor." Finally, the ethereal light and realm washed away in a gentle, tender dissolution, and the woman who had been speaking to Shawn appeared before him, adorned with a battered and ragged cloak. Her eyes seemed filled with a spiral of colors, winding into her pupils for an indistinguishable length. And finally, she spoke again.

"But, first; you must embark on one final objective confined by the limitations of your lowly life. You fear judgement, and what you cannot control. But do you fear blood?"

Awake, Shawn felt his eyes dilate as he stepped back, suddenly reeling. "I... what?" He looked up to see the woman stepping toward him, a dagger in her hand and outstretched in his direction. His head still felt clouded.

"Do you think life is unfair, Shawn? It isn't. Everything everyone experiences is equally significant. Equally important. There is a cosmos beyond, always knowing, always watching. We all put in something, and something is always put out. Even if you don't see it, or can't see it. 2 years, 5 years, a millennium later or across realms, it will have made something. It will have helped push through the static of the manifold. Life is not unfair. It is a balance of imbalance, a panorama of fragments. The impulse of an insignificant life does not have the right to determine what is fair or unfair. But when its insignificance is allowed to thrive, then that is when its significance will be found." The woman's eyes seemed to glow, which somehow caused a tremor bigger than any quake Shawn had known to seize the air, and the young dumbstruck man fell to his knees. "But as an inheritor," the reverberating voice continued, "you will have broken that balance. You are superimposed upon this reality. Instead of giving it what it wants, it gives to you what you want. You become the source of unfairness against which everyone in this reality lavishes their rage, their resentment, their cries. But that was just a non-existent construct. They were only raging at their expectations. Now, you can give them all what they had so wanted all along; an unfair world." She had stopped only inches away from Shawn. With the tip of the dagger now against his head, she continued, "Now, you will be free from it; you will no longer be obligated to anything but to yourself, and reality to your wishes, no matter how big, no matter how small. You can change the color of a single strand of hair, or you can alter the course of history. You no longer need to worry about contingency; reality will no longer need the precision of consistency, or logic, just as your dreams do not. If you desire it, it will make all contradictions cooperate."

"You will now be accepted, idealized, absolved. You have the pass, the freedom, to be as pathetic as you want," she leaned into his ear, "and make the world as pathetic with you." The dagger was lifted from Shawn's head, and transferred to his chest, above his hands, with the flat face of the blade. "All you need to do, is take it from me."

Shawn through all of this was burning with questions, immobilizing horror -- did he really say all of those things he thought he did to some stranger? -- confusion, and yet, he still clung to the strange, otherworldly woman's words. Did she mean..?

The disheveled man looked down at his hands, with the dagger now in it. He breathed out, "You... you want me to... kill you?"

"Yes."

Shawn sat back, shocked. Then finally he shook his head. "That's -- I can't, I can't do it. I... don't even know what's going on, you're -- who even are you? What just happened? How were we up there one second and back here the next and how did you get me to just... tell you things I've told pretty much no one else!?" Heated, Shawn stood up, looked at the dagger and threw it against the door of a stall. "You know what? Forget this! I don't want to kill, or do anything, to anyone. What I got are questions, and now I'm the one that needs answers!"

"You will get none," the woman replied, nonplussed.

"Well, then," Shawn gulped, trying to sound firm, "maybe security will." He made for the door.

"Don't."

But Shawn was already out the door, a strange tingle suddenly coursing through his body.