had to hold it open with one arm while he pushed the trash cart through the doorway with the other. When he got through it, the door closed with a loud click. The push and the click told him this door automatically closes and locks. Thus, the dumpster room is always securely locked against any intruders, intentional or accidental, and very well might be the private trysting place they had been looking for!
But was there anywhere in it where they could do the delightful deed? The passageway is only dimly illuminated, and its cold concrete floor is completely unsuitable for what he and Grace had in mind. Gary pushed the trash cart to the end of the passageway and onto the scaffolding abutting the dumpster. The scaffolding is built of an open mesh metal grating. Its surface is even less inviting for sex than the floor in the passage way. On it, whichever tryster was on the bottom would have his or her own bottom engraved with the grating's mesh pattern.
He looked around the room. Though its ceiling is two stories high, it isn't big otherwise. Just enough room for the dumpster and the scaffolding. The only windows are high on the wall above the garage doors, at the second story level. Only people on a ladder could look in. Even so, they couldn't see anything. The window panes are translucent, not transparent. They let in light but they can't be seen through. So whatever might happens in the dumpster room, remains in the dumpster room. Gary saw a personnel door built into the garage door. Could anybody come through it without warning?
He decided to check out this threat. He climbed along one edge of the dumpster, jumped down onto the floor then stepped over to the personnel door and tried it. It was locked, and a sign on it said it and the garage doors themselves had to be closed and locked when not in use. Gary smiled a big satisfied smile. The dumpster room is securely private.
When he stepped back to the side of the dumpster looking for a way to climb back up to the scaffolding Gary saw something he hadn't noticed before. There is an empty area in back of the dumpster and under the platform. He had assumed the building extended into this area. To investigate he squeezed himself between the dumpster and the side of the room, working his way back into this area. He had to squeeze because the dumpster fits so exactly into the room there is little room for passage.
Once past the dumpster Gary saw that the wall in back of the platform extends below the scaffolding, down to the floor where the dumpster sits. Thus, when the big trash container is in place against the scaffolding there is a small room-like area in back of the dumpster and under the platform. It is dimly, even romantically illuminated by the small amount of light passing through the wire mesh above it. At the end of this little area there is a built in steel bar ladder leading up the wall. Gary climbed it and found that the scaffold immediately above it is hinged, making a trapdoor. He hadn't noticed this ladder and trapdoor when he first stepped onto the platform's metal mesh because they are at its far end, away from where the passage way enters the platform.
This ladder and trapdoor were probably intended as a safety feature, so no one could get trapped behind the dumpster. But whatever they were intended for, they provide ready access to the area under the scaffolding. This area was empty except for a board about three feet square leaning against the back wall. Gary examined it and found it to be a thin plywood sign forbidding parking and threatening violators with a big fine. Apparently it once was attached to the outside of the room's garage doors. It was badly weathered, and around the edges the wood veneers were coming unglued, which suggested why it had been removed. But why it hadn't been discarded was anybody's guess. However, to concern himself with why the sign is where it is would be to look a gift horse in the mouth. For as soon as Gary saw it he knew he had found their trysting place.
He joyfully completed the trash removal job. On his way back to Shipping after returning the cart and key to the head janitor he stopped by Grace's work station to tell her what he had found. She was excited but cautious. The one part of their role models' act she definitely did not want to imitate was getting caught. But Gary assured her the little space behind the dumpster and under the mesh scaffolding was securely private and completely safe.
Only janitorial staff go into the dumpster room, and they work at night. During business hours the room sits empty and locked except for when the truck brings an empty dumpster and removes a full one. And this is done on a regular schedule, a schedule Gary saw posted on a bulletin board in the head janitor's office. It is Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays Grace and Gary could have the room all to themselves.
Grace began to get more excited. But how, she asked, could they get into the always locked room? Gary proudly answered that he had already solved that problem. Before returning the key he had made a photocopy of it. All he had to do was take this picture to a hardware store and have two copies made, one for Grace and one for himself.
Now Grace really began to get excited. She asked about the floor in the little space underneath the scaffolding. Since it was designed to have a big industrial dumpster sit on it, it must be cold concrete, certainly not suitable for the horizontal approach they required. That, he assured her, was not a problem. Then he explained the construction he had in mind.
The essence of his job is to surround the various products he packages with soft and conformable materials so they will not be damaged in shipping. His department has a huge supply of such materials, bubble-wrap, styrofoam boards and air-filled plastic bags of various sizes. A few times every day he planned to steal small amounts of these materials and rolls of tape, things he could hide on his person, sneak them into the dumpster room and hide them in back of the old sign. He wouldn't have time to do anything with them, but he would secretly inform Grace when these materials were in place. Then a few times a day she would sneak into the room to tape them together to form a mattress-like sex-mat. Their partially finished cushion could be kept hidden behind the old sign. Thus, no one could see it on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when dumpsters were exchanged. But when the sex-mat was finished they could satisfy their lust: Repeatedly! And they could enjoy such clandestine copulations every Tuesday and Thursday for as long as they were with the company!
Grace bought the plan! One hundred percent!
V
Over the next weeks the couple brilliantly devised and skillfully executed as excellent a covert operation as any of history's greatest spy agencies. Gary drew up plans for their sex-mat and snuck them to Grace who modified them as she thought necessary. But they never kept any copies of these plans. Instead they committed them to memory as soon as they saw them then immediately ran the hardcopies through the paper shredder. They also devised a secret code. With it, every time Gary snuck any material into their hiding place he would inform her. In turn, she would tell him of what she needed to further the sex-mat's construction. Their code was so ingenious they exchanged these messages using the company's ordinary memo procedures, and no one ever caught on. They even invented a long list of excuses for being away from their work stations as well as a number of plausible reasons to use should either be found near the door to the dumpster room, a place where they had no job related reason for being. And it was well they invented them, for several times over the course of their operation each was found out-of-place, so to speak, and one or another of these preplanned explanations proved invaluable.
Although the old sign they were using to hide their work was indispensable, it wasn't as big as they would have wished. As their sex-mat grew in size it threatened to get so big it couldn't be hidden behind the sign. To solve this problem Gary revised his plan. He invented a kind of hinge which enabled the mat to be folded into a compact form that could be concealed behind the old sign. But when unfolded it would provide a comfortable surface upon which to accomplish their amorous activity.
Finally after several weeks' effort Grace sent Gary a coded memo announcing that everything was in place. The very next Tuesday they could consummate their friendship, perm
anently replacing its platonic character with intense intimacy.
When the appointed day came Gary used one of their pre-concocted excuses to go to Grace's work station. There they synchronized their watches. He returned to Shipping, but when S-hour arrived (S for sex, of course) he left his work station again saying he had to check something out with Billing. But instead he sneakily went to the dumpster door, inserted his key and entered. Their precisely orchestrated schedule called for Grace to join him one minute later, and she was right on time. As soon as the door closed behind her they exchanged a passionate kiss. But while they were kissing they heard muffled voices coming from the area of the dumpster.
They looked at each other in surprise and alarm! Then softly they tiptoed to the end of the passage way and, without stepping onto the wire mesh scaffolding, looked around. They saw nothing, but as they were looking they again heard a muffled voice. Gary immediately recognized it: The head janitor! It came from underneath the platform, from their very own trysting place! Cautiously Gary knelt down so he could look through the mesh. And what he saw gave him the