We’re sweating. There’s so much bodily fluid in this room that the two of us together could’ve fixed the millennium drought. He’s in his forties. Or he could be nineteen. Kind of hard to tell with the beard. Big silver cross around his neck, jaw clenched so hard you could cut a security tag on it. I wonder when he’ll let me leave.

There’s not much in this room, aside from the cardboard table that we’re sitting at, rickety fan centre right, groaning with every tick. An unlined plastic bin in the corner, apple core, three cans of energy drink and a servo coffee cup in the bottom. We must be near a loading dock because I can hear voices, the heavy crash of supermarket goods being thrown off the back off trucks.

I look at the form in front of me.

If you collected every form ever printed in the world, including forms that have since been thrown out or shredded, they would probably fill an entire ocean. 1.37 billion cubic kilometres of paperwork that could have been avoided if people spent less time talking and more time getting into fist fights. There wouldn’t be enough space for whales or sharks or jellyfish, which tells you everything you need to know about bureaucracy.

“How are you going with the form?”

“I’m up to name and address.” The first blank field.

He sighs. We’ve been sitting here for maybe ten minutes, maybe ten hours. It’s hard to tell since the room is windowless and there’s no clock. Plus, he’s taken my bag which has my phone in it. I’m stalling, avoiding that dreaded blank field that everyone always wants me to answer. I press the pen into the paper, about to form the loop of the first J in my name.

“Ink’s run out,” I say.

“For fucks sake!”

He slams his hands on the table, denting the corner. If there was an earthquake and you braced yourself underneath it, you’d be dead meat. And even if you survived, there’s probably asbestos in the roof. Reaching into his pocket, he hands me a pen. It’s faintly wet and has bits of tobacco stuck to it. I take it, holding it away.

He’s pacing, hands behind back, body a metal rod. Moving like a lion in a cage, about to be released into a stadium full of Romans. I’m no expert but he seems agitated. Maybe he’s thinking about earthquakes, or the asbestos in the roof.

According to the contents of the bin, he’s had about 340 mg of caffeine. Healthy adults aren’t meant to have more than 400 mg and I reckon this guy is right at his limit.

“Stop looking at me and fill the form.” His right eyelid flickers, just like the fluorescent light overhead. When I worked at a call centre, we did de-escalation training. I never had to use it because the customers were on the phone, so the threat of violence didn’t seem real enough to justify active listening. Maybe now is the time.

“How are you feeling?”

He turns to look at me. The eye twitches so fast it makes me want to turn the lights off, tuck him up with a weighted blanket and take him through a guided meditation. In the training, they said you need to let the agitated express their feelings. What is this twitching really trying to tell me? And is now a good time to mention that he should join his union?

I try again. “What’s your name?”

“Gustave,” he says. “Fill out the form.”

My pen scratches against the paper but all too soon it’s over. Turns out when your name is monosyllabic and your address is made-up, it doesn’t take that long to write.

And there it is. That question.

“Finished?”

I shake my head. He walks over, yanks the pen from my hand and makes a big black tick.

Gender:  Male    ☑           Female     ☐       Self-described (please specify)     ☐    

Last week I was script shopping at a GP that took two trains and a bus to get to. Rainy Monday morning. A3-sized laminated print out of the Virgin Mary, right above the woman at reception who fluttered her fake eyelashes at me.

“Sorry but you haven’t filled the form out properly,” she said. “Gender?”

When someone wants to know about my gender, it’s like being asked what you did on the weekend by an older colleague. Your head fills with images of racking lines off a toilet seat at five am at Sircuit and then vomiting a kebab into your neighbour’s garbage bin which they still haven’t taken in, even though bin night was on Wednesday. You notice your colleague looking at you because an inappropriate length of time has passed. So, you squeak something like – Yeah good! How was yours?

And it’s no surprise that you find yourself eating lunch alone again.

There’s something to be said about people minding their own business. No one should know what is inside my pants. Believe me, I would know.

“I’m sorry they’re so anal here. If it was up to me, you wouldn’t even have to fill out the form,” she said. Her front left incisor was stained pink from her lipstick. I didn’t tell her though. I’m not one to agitate people first thing on a Monday.

She handed me the form again, leaving her hand resting across the page so that when I picked it up, our fingers brushed. Honestly, I was kind of into it.

Gender:  Male    ☑        Female    ☐       Self-described (please specify)     ☐

A panicked choice. Her eyes flicked from my face, down the length of my body and then up to my face again. She sniffed as she shuffled the form behind the counter and with narrowed eyes, motioned for me to take a seat. No wonder I’m chasing GPs around this city, trying to get Valium scripts.

Some weekends, if I wake early enough, I can hear the bells from the Presbyterian church down the road. I don’t believe in god or the good of humanity, but when I hear those bells, I almost feel okay. I never expected to find that feeling in the back room of a supermarket chain.

“I’ll need some ID.”

Uh oh. Just like that, the elation shatters. My small intestine contracts.

“Can I go to the toilet?”

Bro,” he shakes his head slowly. “You think I’m stupid?”

“But I really need to go.”

“Fine,” he sighs. “But I’m coming too.”

The corridor is long, rat traps propped up against the walls. Gustave’s face is drained of colour, the bags under his eyes a deep purple. His hands swing like clubs by his side. He’s close enough that he could punch me if he just reached out a bit.

I walk faster. He speeds up. I speed up too. We’re jogging now, the two of us side by side, me with my legs squeezed tight. As I suspected, his health is not good because even this small exertion is making him pant with effort. Could be the mesothelioma already.

His hand is on my shoulder; I shake him off.

“Hey,” he says. ‘Why are we running?”

I didn’t get far through my call centre de-escalation training but telling someone they might punch you seems like the opposite of de-escalation. I look at him again, trying to listen to his feelings.

“Stop staring and keep walking.”

There are three toilets. Male, female and unisex ambulant. Unisex ambulant is my favourite. I go for the door.

“Not a chance.” He’s so close I can smell the stale guarana on his breath. He points to the door with the stick figure man. “You’re going right where I can see you.”

I take a deep breath. I want to kick down the door to avoid touching the handle, but that is the opposite of capital M male. Like what a sissy might do. I grip the handle, trying not to think of how many unwashed hands have touched it.

It’s worse than I remember. Smells like someone has pissed into a diffuser and it’s being sprayed from the ceiling. Like every attempt has been made to make this space hostile.

Gustave blocks the door with his body, looking me up and down, eyes on my crotch. I put my hands over it. He begins undoing his belt buckle.

“Woah woah woah,” I say. “This is all a bit fast, isn’t it?” He raises an eyebrow and then turns to the urinal.

I take a step towards the stalls. If this man sees what is inside my pants, I’m toast.

“Wait a second,” he says, hands still gripping his cock. I try not to look at it. But it’s really, really hard not to. It’s both purple and red and looks like those gummy lizard toys you buy at the zoo that stick to everything, especially dust.

“You’d better leave that door open.”

“But what about–”

“No funny business, okay?”

I enter the cubicle. Somehow, it’s way worse in here – damp floor, stained walls, toilet paper locked up in a little metal cage. I sit on the seat without taking my pants off.

I tap the toilet door lightly with my foot, except it’s not a light tap because I’ve been working out and it’s paid off or really fucked me because the door slams against the cubicle.

“What are you doing!” He’s standing in front of me now, giving me front row tickets to the inside of his nostrils.

“Uh. Do you mind?” I say. “I’m shy.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Make me!”

This is the opposite of de-escalation. He marches forward, hands stretched in front like he’s a zombie who wants to dack me. I scrabble at the wall. Luckily, I’ve been working out and this guy has reduced lung capacity, because I make it to top of the stall divider. He reaches up, grabbing my ankle. I kick him in the chest.

“Fuck off!” I shout.

Footsteps pound down the corridor. The door opens. Another seccie stands there, also in black uniform. This one is jacked and quite short.

“Everything alright?” He looks between me on top of the cubicle divider and Gustave wild-eyed going for my ankle again.

“He’s trying to make me take my pants off.”

Jesus bro,” he says. “Not again.” The seccie takes Gustave by the arm and ushers him out the door.

“Take your time. We’ll just be waiting outside.”

The right to privacy is a fundamental human right. It’s important for dignity and self-determination. Everyone deserves to pee in private. Everyone, except for people like me.

The back room again, rickety fan still hanging on but only just. It’s hotter in here now because there’s three of us. Me, Gustave and the other seccie.

Gustave unzips the main pocket of my bag and tips the contents out. AAA batteries. Toothbrush heads. Manuka honey. Probiotics. Nicotine patches. Vanilla beans.

He shakes his head in disappointment. “Where did all this come from?”

“I bought it! But not from here.” I spot my ID, that awful VicRoads photo. I inch my hand towards it but Gustave sees it at the same time. We both make a grab for it, but he gets there first. He looks at me uncertainly.

“Thirty? Wait, bro, what the hell, you look like fifteen.”

If this guy is surprised that I’m thirty and on my Ls, he obviously has never met a Northside queer.

“Is this your sister?”

The other seccie comes up behind him and squints at my photo. If I’d known that so many people would be looking this closely at my ID, I would’ve gotten lip fillers.

Something is happening between them. They’re looking between me and the ID and the bag on the table and in the direction of the toilets down that long corridor.

“Um,” squeaks the smaller seccie. “Look. I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding here.” He runs his tongue across his lips, then his hand through his hair.

“Shit shit shit,” mutters Gustave.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” I say.

“Why don’t you go and we never speak about this again?”

This happens to me a lot. At airports, at the post office, at nightclubs. Sometimes it’s a pain to be called matey and asked if you’re travelling alone today. And other times, well. Other times, it’s a fucking blessing.

“Next time,” Gustave says, scrunching up the form. “I’ll call the cops.”

As I walk down the long corridor lined with rat traps, I catch a glimpse of myself in the window. And man do I look like a fifteen-year-old boy today, with my hacked haircut and hoodie up around my neck, a faint trail of hair on my upper lip.

The supermarket floor is peaceful. White strip lights overhead, music designed to chip away at your free will playing on a loop. The lino glistens except for a spot which has already been dirtied by that pigeon who’s always in here and is now pecking at the grapes.

It’s hard to walk since I have a wheel of parmesan cheese stuffed inside my pants, which, judging by the odour, has already started melting. But with this grape-eating pigeon as my witness, I’m going to fit an entire week’s worth of groceries in this bag, and this time, no one’s going to stop me.