Chapter 5 – Bin Cursed
There are so many reasons I shouldn’t agree to sleeping with this ghost.
Reason one: he is literally a bin-dwelling spirit man.
Reason two: he is, without a doubt, the most insufferable, smug cunt I have ever met.
Reason three: I cannot control my erection around him.
Reason four: The curse would be sleeping with him, not me, and that makes me feel disgusting.
Reason five: I literally melt when he calls me Janitor Boy or Handsome. And–nope. I don’t have the time or the strength anymore for those kinds of feelings.
But ultimately none of these reasons matter. As I stack them up, the rational side of my trash-and-dickmatised brain gives a counterargument I can’t refuse or argue my way out of. I need this curse to be broken. Maybe a therapist too. Probably both.
But, how can I break the curse when I can’t even say anything to him?
Here I am, sitting across from him in the janitor’s closet, blanketed by fluorescent lights.
He had joined me, sitting on the floor. His legs are crossed, resting on his boots.
They’re a pair of grimy, steel-capped workers boots, but through the grime and muck I can make out a faint tan colour. The kind tradies would wear.
The bin behind him had not yet been emptied by me–I planned on dealing with it tomorrow. I push down the thoughts of me sticking something in the trashcan. Right now, I need to deal with this, whatever this is.
I can’t handle our silence. It’s the most uncomfortable silence between two people–sorry, one person and one spirit–who are one hundred percent not on a date.
This is not a date; I keep telling myself. We’re just… hanging out.
We had talked at length about what specifically triggered my curse.
When I told him that all forms of trash did, it had me fucked up.
Because how can you tell someone what turns you on when that someone also turns you on?
He’s the manifestation of the perfect bin-juice scented sex doll I could ever dream of.
“So…” he says, his eyes focusing on me, like he’s trying to see more of me. “How did it occur?”
Déjà vu. My conversation with Claudia comes to mind, but I dismiss the thought. “I figure it was my witchy ex and his funny way of getting revenge.”
Silence. Then, he bursts out laughing–a genuine belly laugh.
“OK, wow. Fuckin’ relatable. What did you do to your ex to deserve this?”
I wince, and my brow furrows. “Nothing. Don’t laugh; it’s not funny.”
“It kind of is. Must have been something big for him to do this to you.”
I shake my head. “He said I didn’t value him. Said I treated him like garbage. Said he would make me finally respect the discarded objects of the world.”
He inspects me. He sees me, and that brief flick of validation and genuine interest in me makes words fall out.
“So now my body—well mostly my dick—reacts to trash. The worse it smells and looks, the harder I get.”
He looks at himself–the grime covering his skin and looks back at me with a grin. “I must be a walking filthy sex doll for you then or something, ha-ha!”
He laughs, obviously joking around, but little does he know…
I changed the subject. “I would rather not think about that right now.”
He doesn’t skip a beat. His eyes trail down me, and he chuckles. “You might not, but he is positively about to burst through your pants.” He points at my crotch, and I look down. My throbbing erection flexes upward.
I shove it down with my hands and try to think of something else. I change the topic, again.
“So, you’re a…?”
“A Grouch,” he instantly says back to me. “For the longest time, I didn’t remember my name. It was discarded along with my corporeal body when I passed over.”
My stomach rumbles, making him laugh. And my hard-on still hasn’t gone down. My eyes flick over to a nearby cupboard. Good, I have an idea. “I haven’t eaten all day. Do you mind if I make something?”
“Go right ahead.”
I head to the cupboard, grab a pack of instant noodles, and head to the office’s kitchen. I leave these at work for shifts where I am stuck behind cleaning and don’t make it back to my apartment in time for proper dinner. Being away from him also helps my cock go down to a softer semi.
Using the filtered hot water faucet, I stir the cup with more force than necessary, and some of the boiling broth spills over the lip. I shake my hand as the burning liquid drops on me and head back to him, where he awaits, slightly happy to see me return.
“So, how exactly does this deal work?” I ask as I swirl some noodles on my fork and take in a mouthful.
His gaze falls to his lap. “Simple. We know your trigger. Now we shut it down. You’ll stop getting hot over trash, and I—”
He looks up, and he finally meets my gaze, and something in his smirk wavers for just a second. “I stop being what I am.”
I pause, fork mid-air. “You stop being a Grouch?”
He shrugs way too casually, as if he didn’t just wish to stop existing.
“Maybe?” he says simply. “I have never really done this before, only heard about it from others who…” he pauses, his eyes glistening.
“I don’t see anymore… Either way, I get to help someone out in dire need, and I also get to step out of the bin for more than a few hours at a time. ”
Oh, so it doesn’t cause him to stop existing. He just gains freedom. “Is that something you want?”
He tilts his head and answers in a way that completely stumps me. “Would you want to live for an eternity defined by what everyone else threw away?”
He leans forward, and I bump my noodle cup, gasping slightly as boiling water pours over my thumb again.
“Ah!” It stings, and I pull back, but The Grouch pulls my hand toward him in a way I can’t even fathom. He is translucent and see-through but also not. Like a poltergeist, but not as annoying.
He blows on it, and that cools it down almost instantly. “So, enough about me, let’s go back to you.”
“I’d rather we didn’t” I turn away from him, but he pulls me back by the chin with his finger. Surprisingly, my dick doesn’t twitch, and for a moment I think I may have been cured, but then my curse activates, and it flexes in my pants once again. I do my best to ignore it.
“Come on. You can trust me. What was the first memory you have of the curse being triggered?”
I groan, which only makes him grin at me. You’d think that a man who dwells in a bin would have rotten teeth, but his were pure white.
“I don’t know if I can say it… it’s so embarrassing.” I say. He gives me a look that urges me on. “OK, fine… it was a sandwich.” And my cheeks flush bright red.
He perks up. “What kind?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!” He is way too eager to know more. “I need to know what type of trash your type is. We’re building a profile here.”
I bury my face in my hands.
“You are so fucking cute when you are embarrassed, do you know that?”
Thank fuck I had already felt embarrassed, because now he will never know my cheeks are blushing because he called me cute. And not just cute, but fucking cute.
I look up and peer between my fingers. “It was a turkey and cranberry baguette.”
Without a beat, he whistles. “Great choice!”
In this moment, I want the floor to open and swallow me whole, but something compels me to continue. Like I’m possessed to tell him more.
“It even had a little toothpick flag. I… uhhh… kept it.”
“Oh, my!” He looks at me with sheer delight. “You are worse than I thought.”
“Weren’t we meant to be finding out how to shut the trigger down?” I beg.
And as if I offended him, he pulls back and scoffs. “Fine.” He then smiles again. “We need to perform some experiments.”
“Experiments?”
He leans forward again; eyes glistening and licks his lips. He is clearly enjoying this.
“I think I know a way that could stop it. But it involves you giving in to your desires. Trust me, I won’t ask you to kiss me again; there are other things to test.”
There’s a quick sense of relief I feel. Because I know damn well if he asked me to kiss him, I don’t think I would have stopped him.
But my ears wilt at ‘other things’. And if it involves doing what I did to that baguette, hell no.
I have only ever done that in the privacy of my apartment, especially not involving anyone.
OK, besides all the times I had been caught at other jobs when the curse-arousal took over.
When I was literally fucking a discarded ham and cheese sandwich, using the leftover mayo as lube to glide through the… I shake my head. I need to stop thinking about it.
But besides that, I have been careful not to bring anyone into my drama. And here is a solution handed to me on a trash-covered platter, and I am hesitant. I wish I could allow myself to let people help me instead of pushing them away.
But I’ve been cursed for years now. Nothing I’ve done myself has worked. I need his help more than I care to admit.
The conversation continues, and we arrange to meet back here on the weekend when there would be no risk of being caught by coworkers. He leaves the logistics to me. Which now means I need an excuse to come here on the weekend, of which I’m not usually rostered on because the office shuts then.
Today being Thursday means tomorrow is Friday, and Saturday comes afterwards. Thanks, Rebecca Black, for confirming that for an entire generation. It gave me a day to figure it all out. Just one day… what could go wrong?