Falling in the plastic recycling bin

 

by Daniel Guy. 

Steve is happy to be spending time with George again. They were close friends for ten years, but then Steve left the town to go to university, and hasn’t been back for three years. George is a very cute 25 year old, who has a permanent smile that Steve has always found very appealing. There’s something about George that makes him very likeable, an innocence maybe, and the willingness to have fun. 

‘So why have you brought us here?’ he says, as George stops the car in a country lay-by, ‘I thought we were going back to your place for a nightcap?’

George turns and grins. They get out of the car and look down a hilly slope to an industrial park, a massive complex of old factory units and warehouses, mostly vacant,  lit up by floodlights, and it’s where the two of them used to hang out at night when they were younger.  

‘Come on Steve. For old time’s sake. The hole in the perimeter fence is still there.’ 

‘What? But it’s dark!’

‘It’s ok,’ says George, reaching into the back of his car for a large rucksack, ‘I packed a torch and a few beers. Just like the old days.’

So Steve follows George down the track, and George shines the torch to illuminate the way. They crawl through the hole they had cut in the wire fence years before, and make their way across scrubland to the side of an old warehouse. They turn down a passageway, then up an iron staircase running up the side of the building to a steel door leading to the top floor. 

Steve is amazed that George can remember the route. It feels strange being back here in this creepy old place after all these years. Finally, after moving along several corridors and up a dark concrete staircase, they reach the roof. They sit on the edge and look out over the other buildings. 

They drink beer and chat about the adventures they used have there as youths, stealing paint from the storeroom, riding fork-lift trucks around the yard, and throwing stones up at the windows, to see how many they could break. They used to bring mates down here, and even a few girlfriends. 

George rolls a joint, and then he says,

‘You remember that time when I fell into that huge waste-bin full of plastic?’

Steve remembers it well. 

‘Yeah. I pissed myself laughing.’ 

‘We were so fucking drunk’ says George. 

‘I saw you fall, and then as soon as you dropped into the bin, the lid flopped down, and all I could hear was you inside, trying to climb up the sides and get out.’

‘I’ll never forget that. It was pitch black, and I found myself lying in a container full of clear soft plastic sheeting, and sticky pallet wrap, and the more I tried to get out, the more the plastic started wrapping itself around my body.’

‘I got you out in the end. ‘ 

George inhales a long puff and then adds, 

‘The container is still there.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yep. Just behind that wall over there. Remember?’

George gets up. 

‘Come on. I’ll show you.’

So Steve follows George over to a door, leading out to a narrow ledge. 

George shines his torch down onto a row of large green refuse containers, 2 metres deep, stacked against the side of the building. The one immediately below them is the only one open, with its lid propped up against the wall. 

‘See?’

Steve peers down cautiously over the ledge. The container is filled to the brim, just as it was all those years ago, with soft plastic sheeting and sticky pallet wrap. It glistens in the moonlight. 

They sit on the ledge. 

‘How long do you think I was I in there, before you got me out?’

‘I don’t know, about ten minutes.  I couldn’t find a way down there, and when I did, I couldn’t work out which you had fallen into. They’re all the same. It was only when I heard your faint muffled cries that I found it, and then I couldn’t get the lid off.’

‘It was more like half an hour. I was suffocating. I ended up being completely cocooned in the stuff, like some kind of plastic mummy..’

‘I know. I remember having to tear it all off.’ 

‘I thought I was going to die.’

‘You passed out I think, but only for a few seconds.’

’It freaked me out. Stayed in my mind ever since, that feeling..…’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The sensation of being wrapped up tight in something so soft and smooth, and tight and warm, something that is winding itself around you, like a spiderweb, and the more you struggle, the more the plastic pulls itself tighter round your body, your face, like you’re drowning in plastic…’

They sit and smoke their joint and look out on the view of scrubland and wire fences, lit by floodlight. George turns to Steve and continues. 

‘It gave me nightmares. I used to re-imagine it happening to me, dropping down, falling into the bin, suddenly swamped in soft plastic, then complete darkness, and then the feeling of being sucked down, and the more I twisted and struggled…’ 

Steve turns and as they grin at each other, he says,

‘Yeah, well I’m not stupid enough to fall into a recycling bin, so I wouldn’t know.’ 

After a few moments of silence, George says, ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ 

‘What?

‘I’ve been coming here on my own and jumping into that bin ever since.’

Steve turns to George. 

‘You what?’

‘Yeah. It’s true. And every time I do it the lid drops down. It’s all right. I’ve worked out how to get out of it on my own. I take a stick now, so I can climb out.’ 

‘Are you serious?’

Steve looks at George, and he’s looking down at the bin, still smiling, still that charming, innocent smile.

‘Yeah.  I’m not afraid of it any more. In fact I love it. It turns me on. I can’t stop thinking about it. And the thing I think about most is how you could stop someone from getting out. And now I’ve worked it out. You need glue.’ 

Steve is now unsettled by the weird things George is saying, and he’s guessing it’s the weed.

‘You’re talking complete bollocks now, George…’

George grins and winks and says, ‘Stand up. I’ll show you.’

George stands up and as Steve gets to his feet beside him, George steps behind him and pushes him over the ledge. Steve drops ten metres down into the bin. This time the lid stays up. George has propped it up with a stick.  He shines his torch down on the piles of plastic sheeting till he locates Steve, half-buried. He’s shouting. He’s angry and distressed. 

‘You fucking idiot - get me out!’ screams Steve, and his voice echoes from inside the bin. George reaches into his rucksack and fetches out two large tubes of thick white glue. He rips off the lid of the first tube and tips it upside down so the glue pours out, down onto the plastic sheets. 

He watches Steve struggling, twisting, drowning, trying to scramble up the sides. Bit by bit he’s sinking deeper, and the trails of sticky pallet wrap all mixed up in the thin transparent plastic sheeting are slowly wrapping themselves around his torso. 

George directs the thick stream of glue down onto Steve’s head. 

‘See what I mean, Steve? The glue makes all the difference!’

Steve shouts some more but then he slides down, out of sight, beneath the surface of the piles of discarded dust-sheet, and when his head reappears, it is wrapped in several sheets of clear plastic. 

This is just the perfect sight to make George horny. 

Once the second bottle is empty he cannot resist opening his fly and rubbing his cock. He holds the torchlight steady, so he can see the struggle below. He watches Steve being mummified slowly as he twists and turns, as the sticky plastic wraps itself ever tighter around his body. It looks like he’s turning into a shiny wriggling worm, his cries for help are now being gradually muffled by more layers of plastic. 

He watches till he shoots out his jizz, letting it splatter down into the container, adding just a little more stickiness to the contents of the bin. 

Soon the thrashing inside it slows down, the pile of plastic sheeting stops shaking about so violently and Steve’s moans become ever more faint and muffled, till he is hardly audible at all. George smiles. It’s clear he’s pleased with himself. 

He puts his cock away and makes his way down to the bins. He fetches a small ladder, which he keeps hidden beside the containers, and climbs up with his torch, so he can peer over the edge and into the plastic waste bin. 

The plastic cocoon is still. 

The torchlight lands on Steve’s face, half buried, his eyes staring out frozen from beneath the layers of sticky clear plastic, and his mouth frozen wide open. 

‘Now you know how it feels’ says George. Then he taps the stick that props up the lid so it drops down shut, and then he turns to make his way back to the hole in the perimeter fence.  

When he gets home, his mum is still up. 

‘Was it good to see Steve again? It’s been a while.’

‘Yeah, it was. But I won’t be seeing him again. He’s got himself all wrapped up in some recycling scheme..’

‘Oh, what a shame!’ 

George gives his mum his cutest of smiles before saying,

‘Goodnight mom.’ 

Daniel Guy