Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Oh, uh…I can see how that would be.” Penny nodded. “I’d be upset too.”
“Well, now that we’ve got that all settled, just excuse me a minute, hon,” Shurla said. She made a face. “I started down the hall in the first place ‘cause I had to use the ladies and now I’m just about to burst!”
“Of course.” Penny nodded and started to turn her head as the triple-breasted woman entered one of the stalls. She was prepared to look away and give Shurla privacy, but it turned out there was no need. The minute the stall door closed, it went from transparent to completely opaque.
Oh, so that was how it worked! It occurred to Penny that she really had to go too. It had been hours since she’d been to the bathroom and even though she hadn’t had anything to drink during her long, weary trek, she still had to pee.
Going into a stall a few doors down from Shurla’s, she closed the door firmly, waited until it became opaque, and then began trying to figure out how to use the alien toilet.
It had a square hole with no seat and there was no water or liquid of any kind inside it, Penny saw. There was just that weird spout sticking up out of it.
At first she thought the spout was a bidet of some kind. But instead of spraying water at her, the moment she got her bottom near the square-shaped hole in the toilet, the spout suddenly sprouted a round, hollow suction cup looking thing which inflated until it was about as big as her head.
“What in the world?” Penny backed away from the toilet and the suction cup—which had appeared to blow itself up like a balloon—suddenly deflated and was sucked back into the spout as though it had never been there in the first place.
Penny stared at the alien toilet in consternation. What was going on?
“Everything okay over there, honey?” Shurla called from the other stall. “You sound like you might be having problems.”
“Oh, uh…” Penny cleared her throat. “This is embarrassing, but I’ve never seen this kind of toilet before,” she admitted. “And I don’t exactly, er, know how to use it.”
“What? You’ve never used a suck-all before?” Shurla sounded amused. “Why, you just wait until the suction cup forms and stick your bottom right up against it. Whatever you have to do will be sucked clean away—no muss, no fuss.”
“Oh,” Penny said. “Um, thanks. But is it…I mean, is it sanitary? How many people use it every day—do you know?”
“Don’t worry about that, honey,” Shurla assured her. “Every time the cup goes back in, it gets bathed in sterilizer foam. So it’s clean and fresh for everybody, every time.”
“It is? That sounds great.”
Penny had to admit it was certainly better than public toilets back home. Although it was kind of awkward backing up and squatting down to get in contact with the suction cup. It took a little doing to get things lined up just right and when she finally did, she felt a sudden tightness in the area connected to the lip of the cup.
“Oh!” she gasped as what felt like a really strong suction began tugging at her. Penny’s inner muscles tightened up instinctively, but the suction was so strong, she couldn’t prevail—it felt like the pee was being pulled out of her. It was like relieving yourself into an industrial strength vacuum, she thought.
“You okay, honey?” Shurla asked again.
“I…I think so,” Penny gasped. “It’s just really strong. The suction, I mean.”
“Has to be,” Shurla sounded like she was shrugging. “Has to carry everything over to the waste field out on the underside of the station.”
“Waste field?” Penny asked. She was getting more used to having the pee pulled out of her now, but it was still an extremely strange experience.
“Sure. See, when Hell’s Gate was first designed, they meant for everybody’s leavings to get shot out into space. But then a giant slow-time suck formed around the exit waste port and it just stayed there. So now, instead of going every-which-way into space, it’s all collected in one area. None of it even freezes, either,” she went on. “Since the slow-time keeps it fresh, if you know what I mean.”
“So it’s just floating there, right outside the station? A big bubble of…of…”
“Of shit,” Shurla said matter-of-factly. “Yup, you bet. But it actually works really well. Hell’s Gate was originally built to be a temporary station so shooting the waste out into space was a temporary solution. But the station kept growing and folks kept adding and building onto it and look at us now! Just imagine the mess we’d all be in if there was a frozen shit cloud orbiting around and around us! It sure as hell would make docking a lot more difficult,” she added.