My Restroom Your Restroom

The day was overcast, not so rainy as it was cloudy and cool. I pulled my car into the rest stop off Interstate 40, on the way to Nashville, Tennessee. I needed to get out and stretch my legs as much as I needed to use the facilities.

What made this somewhat challenging is the fact that I was a born a biological male and I was in the process of transitioning to a more female form, which was the motivation for my early morning trip, one of many over the last few months. Now, something which had always been simple, going to a public restroom, had now become an obstacle requiring a certain amount of mental gymnastics to navigate depending on the situation. Ideally, I just needed to pee, look myself over and make sure my bandage from my latest facial surgery looked presentable and of course, wash and dry my hands. Being tall, somewhat non-passable, and dressed the way I was, made this a bigger dilemma than what I was typically comfortable with. I was dressed in a short skirt, simple blouse, pantyhose, to help reduce the rubbing of my toes on the straps of my new heels, and a new pair of strappy kitten heels, the kind I really love. Fortunately, I was thin and still in fairly good shape, and I hope somewhat attractive regardless of what I might be wearing or how I was presenting.

Parking and getting out of my car, biting my lower lip as I did so, I saw that a group of four or five bikers who had passed me a few miles back had elected to stop at this rest location. I saw their bikes parked several spaces away with one or two bikers making their way to the restroom and one or two stretching their legs. The others, not sure where they were. Their look was in-between in terms of the quintessential biker look. They didn’t look like Hell’s Angels, but they also didn’t look like your corporate execs on a road trip. Some wore leathers, leather chaps and vests, and one who looked taller than me was bald, but attractive in several ways. He looked like he was trying to decide if he was going to use the restroom or not. He looked my way, as did some of the other bikers. I quickly looked away, not wanting to engage in eye-contact, feeling vulnerable, and more so due to my recent surgery, one in a series. My poor nose was the latest to have significant work done, and the external splint was still attached with a few steri-strips.

As I made my way to the restroom, the tall biker was loitering at the door of the building housing the facilities, standing just a few feet outside the doors. I made my way silently past him, eyes down, noting he was slightly taller than me. I felt a slight, momentary attraction, he looked strong and capable, but I didn’t hesitate to get an eyeful as I made my way into the building.

Walking through the door, I quickly ascertained the situation, this was an older rest stop and there weren’t any family specific restrooms, just a men’s and a women’s restroom. The women’s restroom had a mop bucket holding open the door and looked like it was being cleaned. Hmm. I decided to choose the men’s restroom, even though I was dressed femininely. I still wasn’t comfortable with using the women’s restroom in many circumstances, and there was also the minor legal matter of which one I was “allowed” to use by state law. I began losing myself momentarily in my thoughts.

At times like this, I imagine what our Founding Fathers, or any sane reasonable person, might think or say with respect to passing laws as to which restrooms that people of different sexes, genders, races, etc., should use. It seems like the legal system has been used, intentionally or not, to mandate behavior in ways and areas that it was never intended for, and definitely not in the support of the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness… for all. The desire for certain groups of people to control how other people live their lives and behave hasn’t shrunk over time but has continued to flourish. I suppose we all have a bit of this desire; we know what’s best for everyone else, and we really can’t help expressing it, or forcing everyone else to abide by our judgements on life. What we don’t realize is that the technological changes that continue at an unprecedented rate will force changes to the social and cultural structures and ideologies that many try and cling to. Things will change culturally and socially as we continue to embrace the technological advances that push how we think about ourselves, each other, and the world we find ourselves living in. In a forward-leaning society, and we hope it’s forward-leaning; the old ways of thinking must give way to new.

“Miss, miss”, I heard a voice say, breaking me out of my ponderings. “Miss, the women’s restroom is open.” I heard the voice continue as I began making my way through the open door of the men’s restroom. I stopped and turned around to look to see who was speaking and if they were speaking to me. Sure enough, they were speaking to me, and they turned out to be an older black gentleman, dressed in his custodial outfit, with trimmed facial hair and old eyes looking out from under a set of bushy brows. He was coming out of the office next to the restroom.

“Miss, the women’s restroom is open, if you’d like to use that”, he repeated. I responded, “Sure, I can do that”, I said, and not thinking much about it, started toward the women’s restroom. He looked at me further, more closely, as I began moving, and asked, “Are you a woman or a man?” I continued to stand there, in the doorway of the men’s restroom, feeling very self-conscious, wondering how best to respond. After a couple of seconds, I said, “I am fine, I’ll just use the men’s restroom here.” I turned around, after seeing his somewhat confused expression and made my way into the men’s restroom. Finally, I thought, feeling more awkward than ever.

During the brief conversation with the custodian, the tall biker, the one with the leather chaps and vest, had made his way past me into the men’s restroom. As I entered, I saw him at one of the urinals and went to stand beside him at the adjacent urinal. How romantic, I laughed internally to myself. I discretely pulled down my skirt band, my pantyhose and underwear and stood there, hoping things would happen quickly.

He looked over at me, but I didn’t look back. “You sure you’re in the right place, honey?” he half joked. I didn’t move, or look his way, and I didn’t say anything, not sure how best to respond. I know I didn’t want to make a big deal out of trying to pee. He refocused on his business, and I heard his urine splatter on the rubber mat at the bottom of the porcelain he was using. In the meantime, my own plumbing didn’t want to move at all, and having been in the car for the last 2 hours didn’t seem to be in a hurry to loosen up. It remained firmly clenched. Great.

As he finished, he looked at me again, “Having trouble darling?”, he smirked. “I bet you are, looks like you need a seat to take care of business, let me know if I can help”, he finished and flushed his urinal and stepped over to the sinks to wash his hands. I blushed crimson and again didn’t know what to say. As I continued to hope that I would be able to pee sometime soon, another biker came in and engaged with a urinal located a couple of places down from where I stood. He looked in my direction and then looked over at the other biker, the tall one, who had finished washing his hands and was standing over at the hand dryer, drying his hands. As the tall biker finished drying his hands, I saw that he continued to stand at the dryer and stare at me. So now, both bikers were looking at me. I began to feel that I wasn’t going to be able to have a successful bathroom trip, and so I pulled up my underwear and skirt and flushed, even though I had not been able to void my bladder. Not a single drop.

I made my way over to the sink to wash my hands and I did so quickly. At the sink, I looked at my bandaged nose. The external splint was still attached, and I was looking forward to getting it off later in the morning at the doctor’s office. I made my way over to the hand dryer where the tall biker was still standing, watching me. I couldn’t get close enough to the dryer to use it, as he was standing in the way. “Sir, I need to use the dryer to dry my hands, please”, I spoke looking at him and making eye contact briefly.

“Sure thing, sweetheart, don’t let me stand in your way”, and he moved just enough to let me get my hands close enough to start the dryer. He stood over me, looking at me, as I hastened to dry my hands. I was starting to feel somewhat uncomfortable and strangely turned on at the same time. I wasn’t sure what to make of these conflicting feelings and wondered if I was misunderstanding what was going on. He moved closer to me, and I started to back away from him. As I did so, I bumped into the other biker who had finished doing his business. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me as I was using the dryer. “Oh, excuse me Sir, I didn’t see you there, um…”. This biker was slightly shorter and as I tried to move away from him, he grabbed me by my wrists and pulled my arms behind me, not harshly, but firmly and I knew I would not be able to break his grip if I tried to use force. The tall biker stepped in close and used his right hand to grab my chin and force my head up, so I had to look into his eyes. He had pretty, brown eyes. I was now very anxious, and a growing sense of dread began to rise within me. “Are you sure you washed your hands thoroughly miss, ma’am, or is it mister?”, he dryly asked, still holding onto my chin, he moved his thumb up to my bottom lip as I kept my mouth firmly closed. Both men pressed close to me and the tall biker began to force his thumb between my lips and took his other hand and began to lift my skirt, his hand lightly caressing my legs as he did so. “Don’t you just have the nicest legs, honey, I am sure you don’t mind me getting a closer look, do you”, the tall biker whispered as he leaned in.

“Sir, please, I am just trying to get on my way, please don’t”, I said hoarsely barely able to get the words out as I was now afraid that things were getting out of control. I tried to pull my wrists away from the man holding me from behind, but he tightened his grip and grabbed both wrists in one hand, and used his other arm to wrap around my arms just above my elbows, pulling my torso backwards awkwardly, as he shoved his knee into my backend, immobilizing me further. “Sir, if you don’t stop, I am going to scr...”, I tried to say in a garbled fashion as the tall biker pushed his thumb all the way into my mouth and to the back of my throat. I was now entering full panic mode, and between the panic, the thumb being forced down my throat, and the man behind me wrenching my arms in a rather painful way, tears began to well up and trickle down my face. I launched a kick as best as I could aiming for the tall biker’s balls, unfortunately he seemed to be expecting something of the sort and caught my leg between his knees. I was now truly in a predicament and terrified. The tall biker laughed and smirked at me, “Nice try, but no cigar baby, the family jewels remain unscathed. Now what are you going to do, darling?”

I began to bite down on his thumb, knowing that this would surely get a reaction, and might be my last option before things were completely out of my control. Before I could get past the thought, the elderly custodian came in unexpectedly, pushing his mop bucket in front of him, mumbling, eyes looking down at the bathroom floor, shaking his head. Instantaneously, both bikers let go of me but remained close by. The tall biker removed his thumb from my mouth. The custodian looked at the three of us, and shook his head, “You need to take your partying somewhere else, this is a public restroom for travelers, especially you miss, er, mister…” he said, “not on my watch”, he further muttered. Shaken, but grateful and free, I pushed my way past the tall biker and out the restroom door, pulling down my skirt. I couldn’t believe what just happened, as tears streamed down my face. “Fuckers!”, I exclaimed under my breath.

As I was making my way to the door I realized I had to pee very badly now. I made a beeline to the women’s restroom, not thinking altogether straight after what had just happened, and entered. Upon entering I saw a woman, with what appeared to be her teenage daughter at the sinks and mirror, touching up their makeup after no doubt hours of traveling. I started to make my way to one of the stalls not wanting to have any further interaction with anyone, when the woman spoke out.

“Sir, what do you think you are doing, you know that this is a woman’s restroom don’t you. You need to turn right around and walk right on back out, now”, she spoke hostilely.

“I am sorry ma’am, but I won’t be just a moment, and I just really need to pee”, I spoke in a hurried and hurt tone. “I promise I will hurry”.

“I don’t really care what your situation is, or what excuse you think you have for dressing the way you do or for pretending to be a woman, but I won’t allow you to invade my space and my daughter’s space. This is a safe place for us, for women, for me and my daughter, and this space doesn’t include room for you.”

Not wanting any further incident as what had happened moments before was already too much to process, I spoke, “Ma’am, I am just going to grab some toilet paper, and I’ll be on my way. I am sorry, I don’t mean to trouble you or your daughter.” I made my way past them to one of the stalls and grabbed a handful of toilet paper and headed back towards the bathroom door. The mother glared at me disdainfully, her arms crossed, mouth half open. As I left, I heard the teenage daughter laughingly say, “Nice legs miss, do those go all the way up?” I heard her mother burst out laughing.

God. I made my way out of the back of the building, careful to note that there weren’t any signs of the bikers, they seemed to have left the premises. Good. As with most rest stops there was a forested group of trees behind it, and so I made my way to what seemed to be a private area, out of the view of the rest of the stop’s travelers and squatted down to pee. Finally, I was able to relieve myself, as the yellow liquid pooled on the ground beneath me. I looked at my lovely new heels, sinking into the damp forest floor and underbrush.

“Ow!”, I exclaimed, something was biting me on my feet and ankles. Looking down, I saw a number of little red ants crawling on my feet and legs and some of the little pests had made their way through my hosiery and were now biting me. Little bastards with their microscopic mandibles. Damn it! Not even mother nature will let me pee in peace!