The Power of Plastic

by Daniel Guy

1.

‘….and at the heart of Project Earth is a belief that we are all bothers and sisters of one planet, and the vast majority of us want to live peacefully and in harmony with our neighbours, to love and to be loved, and to protect the earth for our children. For this to be achieved Project Earth needs you, to join our party!

Only when we unite will we have a chance to rise up and challenge the elite, the corrupt power hungry politicians, bankers and international institutions who will otherwise continue plunder the earth and enslave its citizens!’

The moment Sam Kinski finishes his speech his entire audience, ten thousand people packed into a Manchester football stadium, stand and applaud, many with tears in their eyes. Sam dips his head modestly in gratitude and waves at the jubilant crowd, without smiling. He stands behind the microphones, tall, lean and dressed in black jeans, white tee-shirt, with a thick silver ring pierced through the lobe of his left ear.  His long black hair, just beginning to go grey, is tied in a ponytail. The applause and cheers continue long after Sam is escorted from the platform by three senior members of the Project Earth Party. Within a minute they are in a cab, driving away quickly, to escape reporters and photographers.

They head for the station to catch a train for London, to attend the anti war demo taking place that afternoon.  In the taxi the other party members chatter away, delighted with Sam’s speech and with the huge numbers of people who came to hear him speak.  Sam though is quiet.  He looks exhausted, worn out by a frantic schedule and by the events of the last few months that have suddenly transformed his tiny revolutionary party into a serious political force. 

2.

In her large warehouse apartment in Shoreditch, East London, Rosie Hyde-White watches a video of Sam’s speech at the Project Earth Rally.

She’s tall, with short blond hair and elegant features, she’s wearing a fashionable silk summer dress, and she’s eating a cake her brother has just fetched from the café in the street outside. Rosie graduated from Cambridge six months before and has now landed a job as a journalist for a national newspaper. 

‘Is this the guy?’ asks the brother.

‘Yes…’

‘What a wanker.’

Rosie smiles but continues to make notes in her notebook.  Two days before her boss, an overweight, chain-smoking hack, called her into his office and said he wanted her to dig up all the dirt she could find on Sam Kinski.

‘This guy has come from nowhere and now everyone is talking about him and his Project Earth crap.  I even caught my daughter wearing one of their fucking badges the other day.  He acts like he’s Ghandi, so I’m thinking Sam Kinski has got to be hiding something. He never gives personal interviews and no one knows who he really is. So you’re going to have to go undercover, join the PEP and try to get as close to him as you can. We think he might have a few dark secrets. He’s single and we’ve not been able to track down anyone who’s ever had a relationship with him, certainly no one who’s prepared to talk about his private life. Six months ago we interviewed a woman called Sheena Gray, who said her sister had a brief relationship with him, and said he’s into weird fetish stuff, loves putting plastic bags over his head, that sort of thing. The sister has since denied this, but so far that’s all we’ve got. You can take your time on this one, Rosie, but I want you to come up with something within four months’

Rosie is delighted to get her first serious assignment. She wants to prove herself because she’s ambitious, so she’s very determined to find out everything she can about Sam Kinski.

3.

Three months later and thousands more have joined the PE Party.  The country has descended further into chaos, with strikes and violent demonstrations taking place every few days.  The government has resigned and the police and army patrol the streets.

On a sultry June night, while demonstrators burn cars in the city streets, Sam is sitting miles away, alone in his shabby narrow boat, moored along a quiet river in Suffolk, typing out a draft of his next speech.  Only a few of the party members know about this obscure hideout.  There are times when Sam feels he has to get away. He’s not

a man who courted attention.  For years he was just another harmless anarchist, a fighter for peoples’ rights and for the environment.  Now he’s famous, he can’t go out without being mobbed by people either wanting to hug him or scream obscenities in his face, or by journalists and freaks. At one am he finishes the speech and emails it to the other PE Party leaders. He rolls a joint and sat back in his chair.  He’s tired but doesn’t want to sleep just yet.  He finishes his joint, deep in thought. He glances at his computer screen, at a small icon on his desktop.  He becomes temped. He clicks and on his screen there is a photo of a woman dressed in black rubber, staring at him. She smokes a cigarette. Her cruel confident eyes stare out at him.

He stares back at her and begins to allow himself to slip away into a state of relaxation and arousal.  It’s a private ritual he’s been doing for years. He unzips his fly.  He opens a drawer in his desk and fetches out a large clear plastic bag and a long piece of blue ribbon. He opens the bag up slowly, pulls it down over his head, and then ties the ribbon around his neck.  He breathes in slowly, enjoying the feel of the soft crackly plastic against his skin and over his mouth. Then he exhales to savour the sensation of the squeezed warm, trapped air around his head.  He empties his head of all thinking and slowly he masturbates mindlessly, staring through the plastic at the face on the screen till finally he hears her in his head, whispering to him to come for her, and then he ejaculates into a grubby red towel.   

He wipes the punk away. Now this ritual is over, at last he can sleep. Just as he is about to climb into the tiny bunk bed beside his desk, his laptop beeps.  He leans over to read a message from Lara Tibbet, his best friend and co-leader of the PEP.

‘Sam, this is great. I’ve forwarded it to Sanjay and Frederico.  I have a few questions about the bit on the CIA conspiracy, but we can talk about that tomorrow when we meet in Leicester.

One other thing… There’s someone I think you should meet. She’s new. Joined the party three months ago. She’s very bright and she’s been working hard at the London office, producing really good stuff for the website.  She’s passionate, she’s got good ideas and great writing skills and she really wants to help draft the new manifesto.  I think you’ll like her. Shall I invite her to the meeting?  Her name’s Rosie Hyde-White.

X Lara’

4.

 ‘What do you think?’

Rosie poses in front of her brother, wearing a short black leather jacket, black top, short black leather skirt, black tights and boots.

‘You look ridiculous. Is this supposed to be your urban revolutionary look?’

‘Yes, with a hint of s & m.’

‘You’ll never get away with it.’

Rosie ignores him. She packs her computer into a rucksack and heads off. She’s excited. She’s been invited to join a PEP executive committee meeting, to discuss her suggestions for the new manifesto, and this means she’s finally going to be introduced to Sam Kinski.

The meeting takes place in a large crumbling old Victorian house on the outskirts of Leeds.  The ten committee members welcome her and are all very friendly and immediately Rosie is invited to sit down and eat with them.  Half way through the meal, she hears a motorbike pulling up outside. Moments later Sam is standing in the doorway. He puts down his helmet, peels off his leathers and joins them, siting at the centre of the long wooden dining table. Food is placed in front of him. The constant lively, animated discussion continues around the table, focussed entirely on the current social turmoil, and the various PEP social action campaigns taking place up and down the country. Rosie acts well, joins in the debate, pretending to be as passionate about the party and it’s romantic ideals as everyone else, though privately she’s thinking they’re just a bunch of naïve, self-righteous bores. When the plates are cleared, Lara Tibbet takes Rosie over to meet Sam.

‘Hi. I’m Rosie. Delighted to meet you at last.’

He seems quiet, very serious, shy and guarded, reluctant to look her in the eye.  Immediately he wants to discuss her manifesto proposals.  Sam asks her many questions.  After an hour they end up sitting alone in the garden. He needs a cigarette.  She tries to lighten him up, make jokes. She even tries teasing him a bit.

‘You know when you came in earlier and sat down at the table, I looked at the scene and instantly that painting of Jesus at the last supper sprang to mind.’

He seems to cringe a little and tells her he’s uneasy about being in the public eye, and Rosie nudges his arm playfully and tells him she’s sure he secretly really loves it.  Sam doesn’t rise to the bait and instead they return to the task of saving the planet. Rosie is serious again. She knows she has to play the game, keep up with him, and convince him she is now a loyal disciple.

5.

Three weeks later another bomb goes off in the centre of the capital and in the days that follow, the nation is gripped by a frenzied hysteria.  It’s August and hot and London is bubbling with unease and anger. Armed police and troops patrol every street. Sam has spent the afternoon in Soho, being interviewed for a foreign news organisation. He hates cities. He wants to get on his bike and drive out, back to his boat. He’s exhausted again by the packed schedule of speeches, interviews, and party meetings, but he has to stay in town because the following morning there’s a PEP rally in Trafalgar Square.  So that night he’s agreed to stay at Rosie’s place. She says she’s plenty of room and it will be a chance for them to proof read the new manifesto together. And of course he’s warmed to her a bit. She’s bright and funny and now they’ve met a few times they seem to get on.  

When they meet at her door, he’s wearing his bike leathers and she’s wearing a bright red rubber skirt and a cream silk top.

She grins and says,

‘Jesus, anyone would think we were going out to a fetish party. Come in. Welcome to my pad.’

Sam pretends to ignore the comment. He steps out from his boots and takes off his leather jacket.

‘Sorry about the state of the place.  My brother is about to decorate. That’s why there’s all that clear plastic sheeting piled up in the corner over there. I’ll just open a bottle of red. Make yourself comfortable.’

Sam looks around. It’s a huge bright room with bare brick walls, high ceilings, and shafts of warm evening sunlight shining though the impressive industrial windows along one side. He clocks the pile of plastic dustsheets, and then the PEP posters on the walls, the large photo of Che Guevara, steel table and chair, black leather sofa, and only one large steel framed bed in the corner. 

She stands beside him with two large glasses of wine and says,

‘Now before you start wondering how a starving revolutionary like myself can afford to live in an expensive warehouse apartment in London’s fashionable East End, let me assure you that I’m just looking after the place for my brother, who’s out working as a doctor in Africa.’

They chit and chat, but Sam clearly doesn’t do small talk well. Sam feels just a little uneasy though he’s not sure why. They sit at the table and work. She orders a pizza. They finish the bottle of wine.

They finish late in the evening. He leans back, yawns, stretches out his arms and then reaches into his pocket for his tobacco.

‘Do you mind if I smoke some weed?’

Rosie is not prepared for this. She freezes for a second before saying,

‘Sure.’

She watches him roll a joint, notices his long thin fingers, his old-fashioned watch, silver-rimmed reading glasses.  She finds him attractive. Her heart is beating fast. Everything is going well so far.  The video camera is concealed on a high shelf on the wall facing the bed. She’s spent days preparing for this evening, planning every single detail.  She has never done anything like this before and has no idea what will happen, but right now the thrill of it all is almost overwhelming her.

He stands up and she notices him wince, and then arch his back for a moment.

‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine. I came off the bike last week and I think I pulled a muscle in my back.’

She watches him walk over to the window. She watches him light the joint and lean out, to gaze down onto the street below.

She gets up and walks over. She’s never smoked weed before, but she cannot stop herself wanting to stay close to him.

‘May I?’

She holds out her hand. Sam is surprised.

‘Sorry. I assumed….’

She takes the joint inhales, tries desperately not to cough and splutter, not to look like the novice. She takes a second drag. This time she copies what he was doing, holds the smoke in her lungs before she exhales, and then she hands the joint back.

Her head spins. She cannot think of anything to say.  He’s just looking out of the window and she knows she must not let him alone to think too much.

They smoke in silence. She goes to fetch an ashtray but as she passes the bed she feels dizzy and strange, she has to lie down for a second. Her entire body slips down into a state of relaxation she’s never experienced before and she has the strange sensation that her vagina has dropped two inches. She feels hot.  She thinks she must take off the rubber dress but cannot work out how because her brain Is racing through a thousand other thoughts. Sam walks over and sits on the edge of the bed. 

‘You OK?’

She turns, looks up and smiles.

She sits up, puts her arm around his neck and kisses him. She doesn’t know what she is doing. She doesn’t care anymore.

So they make love, slowly and gently at first. She’s hardly ever had sex before. She’s rarely been in a relationship. The men she likes prefer shorter girlfriends. She lets herself be undressed, she watches him pull off his leather trousers, she gazes up at his pale smooth sinewy body, she doesn’t care, she doesn’t want to listen to all those voices in her head, telling her to be cautious. But Sam licks and caresses and she cannot resist it. Sam knows how to please. Sam likes to please.

He’s not had sex with a woman for months and this he feels has been handed to him on a plate, and right now he too cannot be bothered to be cautious…

6.

She is woken by the early morning sunshine.  Now she remembers the ecstasy the night before, her first orgasm, the sublime sensations she’d never felt before, and then afterwards, being somewhere else, a million miles away, a heavenly serene place, weightless and overwhelmingly content.  Now in the early morning her body still hums and apart from a little fuzziness in her head, she feels joyful and radiant.  

She looks over at Sam. He’s sitting naked at the table, typing at his laptop, lost in concentration. She notices for the first time that he has ornate black wings tattooed on his back. She wonders whether she has fallen in love with him. She remembers the camera. The memory card was six hours long. It must have captured everything. 

‘Morning comrade.’

He stops, looks over, smiles and says,

‘How are you feeling?’

She thinks for a moment and says,

‘Incredible.  Do you want a shower? I’ll get up and make some coffee. You don’t need to leave before eleven, right? So I’ll go out and get us some croissants for our breakfast, OK? There’s a great place round the corner.’

Already Sam is staring back at his computer screen.

‘ O.K?’ she repeats.

He looks up and hesitates for a moment.  He glances at his watch like he’s in a corner.

‘Or are croissants a bit too middle class for you? I can muster a bit of stale toast if you prefer.’

His face breaks into a rare smile.  

‘Sure.’

‘Great. Go and have a shower.  You’re welcome to have a bath if you prefer.  Just move that big box of clear plastic sacks out of the way. I don’t know what they’re doing in the bath.  They belong to my brother. Don’t ask me why.  I don’t know where to put them. Towels are on he shelf behind the door.’

She watches Sam get up and walk over to the bathroom. She waits. She hears the bathroom door close and the shower go on.  She goes to a desk fetches out a fresh memory card, goes to the shelf, reaches up for the camera, replaces the memory card, restarts the camera, places it back in its hiding position between two hat boxes, and then walks swiftly over to the kitchen area to switch on the kettle.  

They sit facing each other at the table, draped in large white towels, drinking coffee. Sam asks her to tell him truthfully why she’s working for the PEP. 

‘Because I’m sick of what’s happening out there. The injustice and the greed. We have to do something.  I’m 24 years old, Sam.  I have a life ahead of me, and people like me have to try to turn things round now, otherwise we have no future worth hoping for.’ she lies. Then she slurps her coffee and grins and adds, 

‘But right now, I want to you to roll me a little joint, while I take a shower. Do you mind?’

She senses Sam is a little hesitant, but he obliges silently.

She showers. Her mind is spinning around and she’s feeling reckless again, more impetuous than she’s ever felt before. 

Sam returns to his screen and then a few minutes later she passes him, wet and naked, picks up the joint he’s made her and goes over to the window to smoke it. She turns and watches him, sitting there, working again, being the conscientious revolutionary. She tries to start a conversation but he hardly looks up. He’s back in his shell again. She’s met men like that. You have to work hard to stop them slipping back to their own private world. She feels horny again. She wants more of him. She wants to push harder. She wants to crack him open. She wants to see what’s inside him and she wants it recorded.

She wanders over to the pile of clear plastic sheets in the far corner of the room. She picks one up and ties it around her waist. She picks up another and drapes it around her shoulders like a cape. She starts to giggle.  She looks across the room at him. He’s watching a news bulletin about some anti-government riots in Liverpool the night before. She starts to walk across the room towards him, softly humming ‘Here Comes The Bride..’  As she approaches she watches him, waiting till he looks up and sees her.

So he does look up, when he feels the soft plastic against his arm, and sees her naked body draped in sheets of soft clear plastic. She’s stoned. She’s grinning at him mischievously.

‘When we’ve defeated capitalism, would I be allowed to wear this on my wedding day?’

He stares at her, giving nothing away. He wants to catch the news bulletin. He’s thinking now that Rosie might be a distraction to him now, or in the future, a liability. He can’t manage irrational people very well. And yet… 

He wants to please her.  He loved the sex the night before.  He stares momentarily at her naked form, her lovely breasts, long elegant legs, all loosely wrapped in soft clear plastic. He turns back to the screen.

‘There’s been a riot in Bradford…’

She twists him round in the chair and sits on his lap.

‘Sam… I honestly don’t think we need to worry about that right now.’

She caresses his cheek with the plastic, he chest, his nipples.

He sits passive, his body a little stiff. She senses he’s not keen. She is desperate to get him back to the bed. 

‘I’m going to give you a massage. I’m qualified. It’ll sort out your back. It’ll take fifteen minutes…’

She can sense he’s nervous and not thrilled by the idea but this is probably her best chance. She gets up and lays a plastic sheet over the bed. She goes off into the bathroom and comes back with a large bottle of oil. She fetches the other sheets and drops them at the side of the bed. Sam watches.

‘I don’t want to get the sheets greasy..’ she says.

Sam gives in.

 ‘As long as I am out of here by eleven.’ he says, allowing her to take his hand and lead him to the bed. She makes him lie face down in the centre of the plastic sheet. She dribbles large amounts of oil along his back. She starts to massage. She climbs on top of him. She pours more oil onto his buttocks and then massages them deep with her fingers. She works her oily fingers up his spine, around his neck, circling with her thumb around his vertebrae, not having any real idea what she is doing. She rubs his neck, kisses his oily back and then when she has run out of things to do, she climbs off.

‘Turn round’

Despite sticking to the soft plastic beneath him, Sam manages to turn onto his back. She dribbles more oil over his chest, his belly, and cock. She starts with his toes and works her way up with her oily fingers.  By the time she reaches his cock, it’s very erect, and as her hands pass by they stop for a while to caresses the thick shaft.  As this is taking place, Sam gets a message on his phone, which sits on the table beside his laptop.

Rosie Hyde-White is a reporter. Just done new security check. She started working for News International 2 months ago. Stay away from her, Sam. She’s a spy. Call me x Frederico’

Sam has heard the faint message beep but forgets about it when Rosie takes a second sheet of clear plastic, shakes it open and then lets it float down over his oily body. Once the shimmering blanket has rested over him, she kneels astride him once again, pours oil over her body, allowing it to drip down over her breasts and down her belly.  She pulls another sheet over her head and now they’re inside a transparent tent. She’s gone crazy. She has no idea what she is doing, she is free-falling, lost in some strange stream of consciousness…

She starts to stroke him through the plastic, her fingers sliding over his shiny skin. She feels his dick hard between her legs. She reaches down and squeezes the oily plastic till it sticks tight around his shaft. She works his plastic covered cock into her cunt. She works it in gently. It feels big, bigger than the night before.  She pushes down as gently as she can. She gasps. She looks down at him. His eyes are closed. He’s smiling. Lost in his world again. She gradually slides the plastic over his face. He opens his eyes, and then in turn he lifts his hands pulls the sheet down over her head, over her face. Together they slowly pull the plastic tight over each other’s faces.  She rides him up and down, pushing down harder each time. They hold the plastic tight, and gaze through the film into each other’s faces, now contorted by the tight shiny transparent masks.  Their mouths are open. Their gazes fixed. They fuck harder inside the oily plastic tent.  Their gagged cries and groans are barely audible over the crinkling of soft plastic and the tick-tock squeak of the rocking bed.

Both are desperate for air and close to coming. Rosie’s fists grip tight the plastic around Sam’s head, till the surface of his face is as smooth as a ball. They fuck faster and harder, bucking, twisting and writhing, both now aching for air and then in a final frenzy of fucking they come. 

7.

They release their grips and tear the plastic sheeting away from their heads.. Rosie collapses beside him. Both lie still, gasping for air.  Their bodies and faces drip with sweat and oil. Once again she has been catapulted back onto that cloud of ecstatic bliss.

They wait to get their breath back and then Sam gently lifts Rosie’s arm off his chest and slips out. She hears the shower. She looks over to the shelf. Fuck! She notices now that she did not put the camera back in exactly the same place. The lens can clearly be seen between two hatboxes.  She starts to climb out of bed to go over and conceal the camera but now he’s finished his shower and she doesn’t get to the shelf in time before he steps out from the bathroom. She turns suddenly to look over to him and she can’t help herself blush.

‘Ah. That was quick. OK. I’ll rush in the shower and then get those croissants. Ten minutes. You’ve still got plenty of time.’  

She walks past him and into the bathroom.  She showers quickly and when she walks back into the room, Sam is back in his leather trousers and white tee-shirt. He’s watching the news report again.

She dresses quickly. 

‘OK. Five minutes. You make some more coffee.’

She picks up her keys from the sideboard and leaves.

There’s a long queue at the café for croissants and when finally she gets back she’s shocked to see his motorbike is gone from the warehouse entrance.

She rushes up the steps to her apartment.  She opens the door and sees his bike helmet and jacket are no longer on the floor by the mat.  She looks around but it’s obvious he’s gone. She stands by the window and looks out across the car park and out onto the street.  ‘Damn!’ she mutters. She goes to the bathroom. She sees his yellow piss in the toilet and then notices something dark and square lying at the bottom of the pan. She looks closer, through the pissy water and sees it’s a memory card.

She goes to the shelf opposite the bed and reaches up. The camera is not there, between the hatboxes. She looks around till she notices it on the floor by a pot plant.

She sits on the floor and cannot stop herself from crying.  

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ she mumbles between sobs.

Meanwhile, Sam rides out of the city as fast as he can, back to the countryside he loves, and to his boat.    

 Daniel Guy.