Chapter 76: Retour en SVT
The glass doors swung shut behind them, muffling the echo of the pool. Agathe's feet slapped wet on the tiles of the corridor. Her one-piece still clung to her skin, thin fabric soaked through with chlorinated water that had a darker tint around her thighs. She had rinsed off under the outdoor shower, but the taste of it stayed on her tongue.
"Jesus, you look like you survived a shipwreck," Chloé said, falling into step beside her. She wore a dry pair of track pants and a tank top, her hair already wispy from a rough towel dry. "And by shipwreck I mean you launched a fucking battleship into the deep end."
"Don't."
"I'm just saying. The dimensions of it. The sheer structural integrity. You could've built a pier with that thing."
Léa walked on Agathe's other side, a fresh T-shirt sticking to her damp chest. She was quiet, her eyes fixed on the floor. She had not made a single joke since the pool.
The corridor smelled of bleach and wet concrete. The afternoon sun slanted through the high windows of the administrative wing, long rectangles of light on the linoleum. They passed the row of nettoyage cabins, their plastic doors shut, faint sounds of running water behind a few of them.
"Are you going to be okay?" Léa asked softly.
"Yeah." Agathe flexed her hand against her thigh. The cramp had dulled to a distant ache, a memory of pressure that still made her clench her asshole whenever she thought about it. She had emptied everything into the water. Everything. There was nothing left inside her but hollow space and chlorine. "I'm fine."
"You look pale."
"I'm always pale."
Chloé snorted and draped an arm over Agathe's shoulders. "She's pale because she shat the size of a small dolphin into the pool. Give her a break."
"Mme Marchal is going to make a report to the director," Léa said. "She saw everything."
"She also saw Camille shit herself in lane five," Chloé said. "So we're all in this together."
The biology building loomed ahead, a squat two-story structure with peeling paint and rows of dusty windows. The door to room 204 was open, and a low hum of voices leaked out into the corridor.
"Great," Agathe muttered. "SVT."
"You love SVT."
"I love not smelling like a toilet."
Chloé grinned and pushed through the door first.
The room was as stifling as they remembered. The neon lights flickered overhead, casting a yellowish pall on the metal benches that were bolted to the floor in tight rows. The air was thick with the scent of ammonia and cheap disinfectant that failed to hide the underlying must of a classroom where twenty girls emptied their bladders and bowels on the regular.
Prof at the front, Mme Dubois, a woman in her sixties with steel-grey hair and broad shoulders, was already arranging her materials. A plastic mannequin stood beside the whiteboard, its torso open to reveal the coiled plastic tubes of the digestive tract. She had been doing a lot of demonstrations this term.
"Settle down, settle down," she called out, not looking up from her notes. "Take your seats. We have a lot to cover this afternoon."
Agathe slid into her usual bench in the second row. The plastic seat was smooth and cold. She tried not to think about how many other girls had sat there with full bladders and loosening sphincters. Sofia was already in her seat next to her, hunched forward with her arms wrapped around her stomach. Her face was tight, her lips pressed together.
"You okay?" Agathe asked in a low voice.
Sofia gave a small, jerky nod. "Fine. Just... a lot of water at lunch."
Across the room, Chloé sprawled in her seat, elbows on the plastic desk, watching Mme Dubois with open amusement. Léa sat a row behind her, knees pressed together, one hand flat against her lower belly.
Mme Dubois snapped on a pair of latex gloves. The sound cut through the murmur. She wheeled the mannequin to the center of the room.
"Today we're going to explore the journey of food through the digestive system," she announced. Her voice was the kind that demanded attention, flat and matter-of-fact. "We'll examine the role of each organ, the muscle contractions that move waste along, and, most importantly, the signals your body sends when it needs to eliminate."
The room rustled. A few girls shifted in their seats. Sofia let out a soft, barely audible moan and pressed her hand harder against her belly.