The little office was cramped and cluttered, and the tall ginger youth who seemed to be in charge had to move a few boxes of disposable coffee cups aside before he could shut the door.
Once we were alone I could tell how nervous he was: he'd clearly never had to deal with a problem like me on one of his shifts. His name badge announced that he was called Elliot and was today's duty manager. I'd only noticed one other employee working in the cafe - a spotty lank-haired girl who looked like she'd just crawled out from a well on someone's TV - so I figured he must be managing her.
He said, with his voice faltering like an adolescent's, "If it was drugs you guys were doing in there, I'd have already called the police."
I nodded and smiled pleasantly at him. "Lucky we weren't then."
"It's a coffee shop bathroom," he went on. "You can't just do the stuff you were doing in a public place like that."
"It's hardly a public place," I countered. "It's private enough for people to defecate in it, so it has to be private enough for what we were doing."
"It's in the middle of the cafe," he argued back. "Little kids could be running in."
"The door was locked," I asserted. "Or at least it was until you unlocked it with your master key. I should point out that it was you, Elliot, who opened it and allowed any little kids who were running about to see what we were doing."
He blushed at that and then, realising I had the upper hand by having read his name badge, stuttered, "Wha... what's... er... your name?"
"Robert," I smirked. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"I'd had a complaint from a couple of customers who'd seen you both going in there," he argued. "I think it was reasonable for me to unlock the door to the toilet."
"You could have warned us by knocking," I quipped cheerfully. "I'm no expert in the law but isn't illegal for a person to deliberately expose the public to a sexual act? I suppose the police will know about that, when you call them, that is..."
He flushed more deeply and muttered, "Look, I don't want to have to involve anyone else in this." His body language betrayed how uncomfortable he was feeling; I noticed a thin film of sweat forming on his forehead.
"You said you had your policies to follow," I reminded him.
"Well... er... yes... I did," he stammered, and then remembering something from his training and hoping to diffuse a problem for which he was clearly feeling at least partly to blame, added, "but we also have anti-homophobia policies and I wouldn't want to... you know... tread on any of those."
I was about to continue toying with him by telling him that we were okay on that score since I don't label myself as gay, when suddenly his greasy-haired colleague poked her head around the office door and asked her duty manager when he'd be coming out to help her deal with the queue.
"I can't come now!" he snapped. "Can't you see, I'm interrogating this guy?!"
She threw him a weary look of exasperation and then disappeared off again, closing the office door behind her.
"Why would you do something like that in a cafe toilet?" he asked, perhaps trying to reassert his authority and get his 'interrogation' off to a more promising start.
"Something like what?" I asked, wondering if he'd seen me with my face planted firmly in my brief acquaintance's backside.
"Something like what the two of you were doing," he said, as if unable to elaborate on the shocking sight he'd witnessed.
"Okay," I said, remaining warm and cordial. "I was about to do a favour for the young man who you saw make such a hasty exit. So in return he was doing a favour for me."
"What favour were you going to do for him?" he asked.
"A favour that was very much between him and me," I returned.
He nodded and hesitated before suggesting, "So let's say I just drop all this, Robert."
I smiled even though I couldn't really see what other option he had.
He tensed up and looked uncomfortable again as he added, almost like he was forcing himself to, "But if I do drop it, that means I'm doing a favour for you, doesn't it?"
I nodded. "I suppose it does, yes."
"So... what do you think you could... er... do for me?"
"What could I do for you?" I chirped. This was suddenly turning out more interesting than I could have hoped.
I'd been wishing I'd followed Curtis out of the bathroom, pushing past the gawky duty manager and following my young conspirator across to HMV, so I could have bought him the game I'd promised him. I might not have achieved exactly what I'd hoped to when I'd had my face pressed into his odorous butt, but since he'd given me his anilingual virginity, if I can call it that, I felt it was only fair that I repaid him in full.
But now I suddenly understood why Elliot had appeared so tense. There was a good deal more in this for him than just giving some pervert he'd caught in flagrante in the cafe bogs a stern telling off.
"Yeah," he nodded, trying to seem like he was the one in control. "Like you and your... er... friend in the loo... doing favours is a two-way thing, isn't it?"
He would sound a lot more convincing, I thought, if he was saying all this with a confident sneer and forcing a more assured cockiness from his body language. As it was, though, he was making it obvious that he was out of his league, with his bunny-in-the-headlights stare and an involuntary fidgetiness that was becoming quite distracting.
"What do you mean, Elliot?" I asked, hoping that some of my relaxed composure might rub off onto him.
"I just mean," he said, swallowing with a noisy gulp, "that if I don't call the cops... that maybe... you could do something for me in return...?"
"Okay," I smiled. "That sounds entirely reasonable. What would you like me to do?"
