Elspeth hadn’t made any announcements of ending the small break that James would have expected from a teacher; as a child, his time at recess was always kept track of by the of his schoolmaster, who would call out “five minutes left” before blowing his whistle after that time had passed.
Though he doubted this strange and ancient woman was on the same playing field as a human, he figured that she had acted enough like a “normal” teacher throughout the lesson for her giving the class a ‘heads up’ to be within the realms of plausibility.
The time spent with the girls, especially with Melanie, has made him lose all pretense of time, so he figured that he shouldn’t leave it up to assumption in case there was actually less than a minute left to show the next- and last - girl that he had an interest in them.
As James began to leave the rock, he was confronted by Morgan, who was scowling in a way that made all the warmth that Melanie had imbued James with fall away.
“So”, she began, bitterly. “You’re going around checking us out like prize cuts of meat, you sexist pig?” She didn’t even give James a chance to explain himself before she continued. “And you don’t even apologize for what you did with Carly and Maria and I?”
James wanted to explain it was an accident, and that she had left before he could apologize (though he wasn’t sure she had earned that given how she had been acting throughout the class), but again she cut him off.
“And I guess you weren’t even going to take the time to pick me,” she said with a slight tone of sadness in her voice. She composed herself quickly, and shot James a dirty glare.
“Whatever. You know what? Don’t pick me. But you know what else? Let me make things a bit interesting for you.....”
As she began to raise her arm, James froze in place, unable to say anything or move out of panic, and prepared himself for the worst. However, as quickly as she had lifted it up, Morgan lowered her hand, smirking.
James didn’t feel any different. Had she forgiven him? No, that wasn’t it. Why was she smiling so mischievously then? Had she done something to his appearance? Was he-?
A sudden and unbearable pressure in his lower section began to build, causing James to wince and cross his legs instinctively. Morgan chuckled, and the familiar sensation made the situation become clear to James: he had to take a piss, and bad. It felt as though he had downed an entire bottle of water five hours ago and never let it loose.
Morgan crosses her arms, satisfied at the apparent result of her work, and taunted James one more time. “Good luck talking with anyone with that on your mind. Or finding a place outside the water to go in private. OR going in the water, with all those pretty, pretty girls watching you the second you go in.”
With a sarcastic “take care”, Morgan walked off towards Abigail in the distance. James panicked, looking around. It was true. The articulations beach didn’t have any dense tropical forest he could sneak into to relieve himself, and if he went into the water to drain his lizard the girls in there would either watch his every move or go right over to him to talk, which wasn’t exactly the easiest of circumstances to go to the bathroom under. Besides, he wanted to see what the other proposal Elspeth had up her sleeve was with him keeping the soot on his body.
As if by some cruel twist of fate, James heard Elspeth call out “five minutes left, girls”, and the situation became fully evident: if he was going to talk to another girl, he had to do so in his current status.
Or, if he wanted, he could ask someone if they knew any magic to help dissipate the urinary discomfort similar to how Elspeth had relieved him of his itchy penis earlier on.
However, the idea of either left him feeling embarrassed for just thinking about them, and he couldn’t begin to imagine how humiliating either would actually be.
Summing up all his courage, James made his decision and...