I Went Back for My Cellphone and Found Him in the Bathroom

Hi. This is the first time I’ve worked up the nerve to write something like this, and I don’t know if I’ll do it again. My name is Renata, I’m twenty years old, and I study at a college downtown. A few days ago something happened to me that I can’t get out of my head, and I needed to tell it in a place where nobody knows me.

To make everything make sense, I have to confess a quirk. I can’t stand public restrooms. It disgusts me terribly to sit on a toilet that isn’t mine, whether it’s at the movies, in a mall, or especially at school. They tell me it’s psychological. All I know is I’d rather hold it.

And I do hold it. I spend whole classes with my legs crossed just to avoid setting foot in those stalls. The few times I have no choice, I clean the seat, line the whole rim with toilet paper, and check twice before I let my skin touch the surface. In the whole year, I must have used the college bathrooms four times, no more.

That day was one of those times.

I was in class when suddenly I felt that pressure in my belly that I know all too well, the one that tells me I’m not going to make it home. There were still twenty minutes left before we got out, and after that almost an hour of transit. I wasn’t going to hold out. I started shifting in my chair, clenching my thighs, praying the clock would move faster.

“Go to the bathroom already,” Sofía, my best friend, whispered to me. She was sitting next to me and had noticed my face.

“You know I don’t like it. It grosses me out,” I answered through clenched teeth.

“It’ll be grosser if you pee yourself right here in front of everyone,” she said, and laughed so softly it almost made me pee from laughing.

“You’re an idiot,” I replied, but a cramp bent me over inside and I understood there was no point arguing.

I had to ask permission. Even the professor raised his eyebrows, because I never interrupted. I almost ran out through the empty hallway, with my short uniform skirt riding up with every step. Honestly, at that moment I didn’t care if anyone saw anything; I just wanted to get there.

I hate those bathrooms. The stained tiles, the echo of drops falling, the idea of other people’s germs sticking to my body. But the pain was stronger than the disgust. I pushed open the girls’ bathroom door and ran straight into a wall.

It was Don Ernesto, the janitor. He was standing at the entrance with the bucket and mop, blocking the way. A gray-haired man, about fifty-something, with big rough hands from so many years of work.

“No entry, miss,” he grunted in his hoarse voice, wiping his forehead. “I’m cleaning.”

“Please, I need to get in now,” I begged, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “It’s an emergency, really. It hurts so much.”

“Can’t you hold it a little while? Classes are almost over and I’m not done yet.”

“I can’t anymore, Don Ernesto. Please,” I pleaded, and I could feel tears filling my eyes from sheer desperation. “Let me through, I’m asking you.”

He looked me up and down for a beat too long, and finally stepped aside.

“Quickly,” he said only.

I didn’t wait. I went past him almost knocking him over and ducked into the first stall. The door slammed shut behind me. I jerked up my skirt and pulled my underwear down to my ankles without thinking. They were white panties with little kitten designs, which that day seemed like the most ridiculous thing in the world.

I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even clean the seat or line it with paper. I sat down directly, my skin against the cold surface, and for once I didn’t care about anything. There was no time to be disgusted.

Relief hit me like a wave. I closed my eyes and let everything go, and the sound hitting the water was scandalous, embarrassing. All that’s missing is for something worse to slip out, I thought, and I almost laughed at myself from nerves.

Then I realized Don Ernesto was still outside. I could hear him: the mop brushing over the tiles, the clink of the bucket, his breathing. And heat rushed to my face when I realized he was hearing everything, every second, silently, just a few feet from the door. I squeezed my thighs together, uncomfortable, trying to focus only on finishing.

I took my phone out of my skirt pocket to distract myself. I had a message from Sofía.

“Did you make it?” she asked.

“Yeah, by a hair,” I answered, already feeling the pressure gone.

“Send me a photo, come on,” she wrote, teasing me as always.

“Shut up, idiot,” I replied, and I couldn’t help smiling.

I sighed, took some toilet paper, and wiped carefully. The roll was that rough, cheap kind that hurts. I crumpled the paper, tossed it in the bin, pulled my clothes back up, straightened my skirt, and flushed. I walked out of the stall with my cheeks still hot.

Don Ernesto was right there, leaning on the mop. His serious face broke into a smile I didn’t know how to read.

“Done?” he said, and my name or my presence in his mouth sounded strange, too familiar for a man old enough to be my grandfather.

“Yes, thank you,” I murmured as best I could, and almost ran back out into the hallway.

***

I was halfway down the corridor when panic hit me. My phone. I had left it on top of the water tank, inside the stall. I spun around and ran back without thinking, and pushed the bathroom door open again.

The stall door was ajar. And there he was.

Don Ernesto, bent over, one hand holding the crumpled paper I had thrown away against his nose, inhaling slowly, as if it were the best thing he had ever smelled. He was smelling my dirty paper. With his other hand he was gripping his sex and moving with a desperation I didn’t have time to process.

He froze when he saw me. His eyes went wide, but it was too late. His body jerked and he finished right there, staining the wall of the stall, with the paper still pressed to his face.

“You’re sick!” I managed to say, my stomach turning with disgust, but I needed my phone.

There it was, sitting calmly on top of the water tank, inches from his hand. I lunged forward into that narrow space. I don’t even know how, but as I passed I brushed against him, and I felt something warm and sticky stick to the fabric of my skirt.

“That’s disgusting, please,” I thought, and I actually gagged.

But then something else happened that I still can’t explain. The heat of it seeped through the fabric to my skin, and I felt a jolt in the deepest part of me, something I hadn’t asked for, didn’t want, and that left me more confused than disgusted itself. His rough hand grazed my arm when he tried to cover himself, I grabbed my phone, and I got out of there.

“Wait…” he started to say, his voice low and trembling.

I was already in the hallway, running, with my skirt stuck to my leg and my heart pounding like crazy. A mix of anger and something darker was swirling inside me.

***

That afternoon, back in my room, I couldn’t stop reliving it. His wrinkled hand moving, the way he smelled that paper of mine like it was a treasure, the brush of his body against mine, and that warm thing left on my skirt. I saw it over and over, unable to shut it off.

I felt weird. Disturbed. Way beyond the normal disgust public bathrooms give me.

I’m no saint. I’ve watched videos on my phone, I know how it works, but I had never had it so close, so real, so raw. And besides… getting turned on by dirty paper? Is that normal? I understand it smelled like me, like my body, but it seems like the dirtiest thing that has ever happened to me in my life.

Especially because he was old enough to be my father, or more. Honestly, if it had been a classmate, a guy my age, I might even have used it to touch myself later, remembering it. But not with Don Ernesto. With him I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know if it’s disgust, curiosity, or what.

I don’t want to think it could be something else. I don’t consider myself so weird that I’d get turned on by something so grotesque, much less by such an old man.

But that night, when I changed, my underwear was wetter than when I left the bathroom. I’m sure of that. And that’s what won’t leave me alone.

I don’t even know what to think anymore. I haven’t told Sofía about this either. That’s why I’m writing it here, in this anonymous corner, to see if letting it out finally stops me from turning it over in my head.

And well, that’s what happened to me. I hope I didn’t bore you with my confession. Bye for now.