 Content warning for the following adult content. Sexual references. Dick jokes. So, so many dick jokes. Year 2056. Dewberch Jewish Temple approximately 20 miles from site 17. He inspired me to start sucking dick. Sobbed Draven Kondraki in the front pew of the funeral service. His boyfriend reached out a hand and patted his leg comfortably, nodding solemnly in response to the sentiment. He could confirm that the child of the deceased was an incredible bottom. He was so good at breathing. Wimpered alto clef tearfully from beside them, the staffers around the widow were nodded. Benjamin Kondraki had been good at breathing. One seep punched me in the face for the last donut. Cried the newly appointed director moose. Jesus Christ, I'm gonna miss him so much. This is a Jewish service, Tilda. Director whispered in her ear from the proceeding pew. As if to clarify, Dr. Wright's elbowed him sharply in the ribs in response. As the rabbi finished the sermon and walked to the casket, the small group of assembled family and friends fell silent. Some final words were said, something about the power of love and God. And then called the pallbearers up to the altar, intending to carry the casket to the small cemetery outside. Solemnly, the attending began to close the lid. There was a brief moment of confusion among the occupants of the temple at the sound. Plastic and rough. The casket lid would not close. It was held aloft by an empty two-liter pop bottle affixed to the penis of the deceased. The med team couldn't get it off, wailed Draven. 55-year-old foundation director Benjamin Kondraki awoke from the very specific but not quite unlikely nightmare in a cold sweat in his home in the present day, very much alive, with four hours to his shift. Fumbling for the switch, he turned on his lamp and yanked up his boxers to double-check. All that remained of the incident was a bag of frozen peas to numb the soreness. He breathed a sigh of relief. The newly-purchased Tenga egg pocket-pussy on his nightstand lost its balance and fell to the floor with a sad and lonely thud. Okay, listen, says Kondraki from inside the bathroom door. I just want you to understand that this is not my proudest moment. It's hemorrhoids, thinks Alto Clef from where he's standing outside the bathroom door in Benjamin Kondraki's apartment. I'm calling it right fucking now. He canceled our day because of hemorrhoids. It's gonna be a wasteland in there, just fucking decimated, like the scene in Psycho with the bloodbath. Completely understandable, says Clef. I don't. This doesn't happen to me regularly, says Kondraki. Like seriously, if I thought I could drive like this I would, but it kinda hits a certain point where your body's structural integrity is kinda negligible, you know? He's gonna have ass-stitches, thinks Alto Clef. He seems like the kind of guy who will be constipated to the point of ass-stitches. Of course, says Clef. Don't laugh, says Kondraki after a long, thoughtful pause. I bet he's just constipated, thinks Clef. Like he's been holding in one massive ship for the entire time he's been director, and it's time to give birth to that stress-based monstrosity. I won't laugh, says Clef. We've been friends for what, 20 years, 30? Says Kondraki. I met you in 89. You watched me raise my son and everything, even like, you know, I trust you. And you know, as we discussed recently, I do have feelings for you, but it really is kind of a delicate situation here. Connie, says Clef, I've seen you half-dead three whole separate times. No state I can possibly see you in at this point will surprise me, okay? So to reiterate the plan here. Continues Kondraki seamlessly, nervously brushing over Clef's response. You don't have to look at it, seriously, just drive me to the infirmary. If we can get there without anyone seeing us, I'll consider it a victory. And we're not telling Draven about this either. Okay, yeah, understandable. Do you need help like, God, I don't know, getting up? Maybe a little. Okay. The door's unlocked. All right. Really, I didn't mean for this to happen. No one ever does. Okay. Okay, I'm coming in. The Kondraki household is an apartment situated a short walking distance from site. It's an overall happy and comfortable living space adorned with books, manuscripts, and scratches on the walls. There's a bedroom for Kondraki and a now empty bedroom where his son grew up. There's a kitchen and a living room, an office, and a currently occupied bathroom. Clef has been there many times over the years and has been here more often since the onset of Kondraki's surprisingly potent empty nest syndrome several years back, beginning with Draven's moving out into the task force barracks for training and onward. He'd gauged easily when they'd met up again for the first time after several years of working on separate sites that he was feeling a little lonely, a destroyed marriage now a little over 20 years in the past, a kid out of the house, moving through middle age in a strange and alien stupor. Clef himself was more acquainted to living on his own, but it didn't mean he wasn't prone to under-fulfillment himself. They'd been close for years. This elevation of their relationship from strictly friends to testing the waters of a potential partnership was a very recent one, but not one that was necessarily unwelcome at all. There was an element of trust that wasn't there before, an element of strange security and even something like affection, admiration, love. But Kondraki was lonely. Being asexual himself, this was an element that he admittedly may have underestimated in his newfound partner. He wasn't quite sure why he didn't consider it. Kondraki had been notorious for his sex campaigns in his grad student years before the foundation and a child had tied him down, but Clef had really just assumed that he had it, for the most part, under control, and had therefore ignored his partner's impulsivity and stupidity when it came to mundane decision-making skills. It was impressive he had been able to keep himself alive and a downright miracle that he'd been able to successfully raise a child. Kondraki was brilliant. They wouldn't have made him a director if they hadn't been sure of his capability, his grasp of spontaneity, his mental agility under pressure. And this is what he thinks about in defense of Kondraki when he reflects on the next thirty seconds of events unfolding at the Kondraki household, which are recorded as follows. Clef opens the door. He sees Ben there, pantless, which he expected. He sees him also without underwear, which he didn't quite expect but wasn't out of the question. Ben isn't making eye contact and Clef opens his mouth to say something along the lines of, do you need help pushing? Or some equally snarky response when he sees a plastic cylinder between his legs and it dawns on him that Kondraki is a fifty-five-year-old foundation administrator with a water bottle stuck on his penis. And he feels that thought curl up and die in his mind more quickly than anything he has ever experienced in his life. He feels his brain short circuit, then leans forward from the door to make sure that he's seeing it right. And he is. It's stuck. That's the problem here. His dick is stuck in an aquafina-brand water bottle. The bottom of the bottle is rested on the toilet seat like a display case for an unfurled flag of surrender. So you're probably wondering how I ended up like this, says Kondraki. And I just want you to understand that the main problem here is really the aerodynamics of the thing. I kind of underestimated, like, when I was starting out here a couple hours ago. Clef leaves the bathroom. He leaves the apartment, actually, and stands in the hallway. He has surpassed laughter into tears. He takes out a cell phone and dials. Draven, he says, kiddo, you're not gonna fucking believe this. There's a bottle on his penis. There's a bottle on his penis, Clef confirmed. The voice on the other end of the line was silent. Then with a low exasperated sigh, it asked the one question that any reasonable or not so reasonable person could ask in this situation. Wow. Beats me. Hey, Drackey, how the fuck did you manage to get a bottle on your dick anyway? Clef asked. Fuck you. Kondraki grumbled. He doesn't say. Clef said into the phone. Anyway, I was just wondering, is this a regular thing with your dad? Is there a procedure for this sort of thing? Like do you guys have a bottle dick remover on call or something? Some guy usually call in this sort of situation. Alto. Look, I figure bottle dick remover is kind of like a plumber. You don't want to call someone else if you already know a guy, because the second guy will kind of fuck things up because they won't do it the same way as your usual guy. And he just hung up on me. Your son is fucking rude, Ben. I swear to God, if you don't do something about this now, I will not only kill you, I will make sure it's painful. Kondraki snarled. Hey, don't worry about it, Clef said. It's no big deal. We'll just get you to site 69 and we'll have that medic cut that bottle off your dick and what the hell is that fucking noise? It sounds like a fire alarm. It's the fucking fire alarm. Kondraki confirmed. Clef carefully went to the apartment door and stuck his head out the door. Every door on the floor was open and all of Kondraki's neighbors were walking out into the hallway, grumbling to themselves as they filed down the hall to the stairs. Hey, Clef asked. You know what this is about? Not exactly. An older woman in a blue flower print knighty said. I think it might just be a false alarm. There was a cry of alarm from the end of the hallway as the door to the stairs opened, revealing a cloud of thick white smoke. Or not. Holy shit. The old woman cried. Let's get the hell out of here. Clef carefully closed the door and turned to his boyfriend, who had somehow managed to go green with nausea, white with fear, and red with rage all at once. Your apartment building's on fire, he said unnecessarily. He looked down at the aquafina bottle on his dick, then over at his apartment door, then back at the windows and finally back down at his dick. Leave me to die, he moaned. Save yourself. Bullshit. Clef replied curtly. We ride together. We die together. You're coming with me if I have to knock you out and carry you on my back. You couldn't knock me out if you tried, Kondraki retorted. I'll kill you first. Oh god, there we go again with the killing and the stabbing. God, Ben, you got such a one-track mind. Just suck it up and throw on a trench coat or something. No one'll know. Kondraki rushed back into his bedroom. There was the sound of some rummaging around in the closet. He came out wearing a black trench coat with a gigantic, tense-shaped bulge in the front at crotch level. Wow. He said flatly. This sure did help a lot. No one will notice anything wrong now, yes, Suri Bob. Fuck. Clef glanced out the door. The smoke was starting to build up a bit, and the last few neighbors were quickly making their way down the stairs, heads lowered and wet rags placed over their faces. All right, Clef said. I didn't want to do this, but we have no choice. He took a deep breath. Where's your pantry? Wow, holy shit. Captain Buchanan said, that's not great. The fire was largely contained to a single unit on the northern side of the apartment building. Clear from the flames looking the curtains and the lurid, orange-red glow that could be seen through the window that this was no mere trash can fire, affects further evident to the dozens of glum-looking people in nightdress standing on the sidewalk nearby. All right, he said into the radio, let's get these bystanders out of the way first. I want Buchanan's voice trailed off. There were two men walking down the sidewalk, both of them wearing scarves around their heads and wide-brimmed hats. Only scarves around their heads and wide-brimmed hats. And one other thing, water bottles. Each of the two men in question had a water bottle on the end of their dicks. Captain Buchanan's radio handset fell from his nervous fingers. He felt his world collapse inward. The fire, his waiting firefighters, the bystanders standing on the sidewalk. It all fell away, leaving behind only himself, his eyes, and two stark-naked middle-aged men merrily walking down the street with hats on their heads, scarves on their faces, and water bottles on their dingalings. The two men skipped into a car. One of them turned, made eye contact, and shot Captain Buchanan the finger guns. The car started up and drove away. The cold, unforgiving silence that always filled the auditorium at Site-19, regardless of the number of people present, was broken only by the soft click of dress shoes moving across the stage. An assembly was never good. It meant one of three things. A major change in initiative of some sort, an announcement of some imminent threat that was inimical to all life on Earth, or possibly the worst, a new initiative from the O5 Council designed to help the common workers of the site. Most often, these ended up causing more long-term harm than short-term improvement, a fact that was exacerbated by the fact that it was Dr. Gears slowly moving across the stage. He moved with the normal, shuffling gait of a man who had progressed in years, though he held his back straight and even. He stepped up to the podium, then shifted a three-ring binder of pre-prepared notes out from under his arm, opening it and then pressing one of the controls along the edge of the lectern to dim the lights and start the projector in the back of the room. I am here to announce a new O5 initiative. Gears said, his voice flat and even, at once the air seemed to go out of the room. The collective assholes of approximately 600 personnel clenched, most of them lowering their heads in resignation as Gears pressed the button for the projector, bringing up the first slide. This is a standard Class 3 plastic liquid containment vessel. Gears began, turning and gesturing toward the wall behind him, then looking down at his paperwork again. Recently, there have been a rash of incidents caused by the improper use of these devices in the line of work, and we are making efforts to correct these misconceptions. Please note that these devices can be used to contain any number of approved substances. A memo has been distributed site-wide which lists the correct form of... There was a soft cough from the front row, a hand raised slightly, faces turned and looked at the man sitting there, most of them somewhere between shock that someone was interrupting Gears and relief that, for the moment at least, the new initiative seemed to be on hold. The man stood, brushing at nothing on the front of his lab coat and shirt. Dr. Gears, sorry to interrupt. My name is Dr. Bridge. Sir, I just want to be entirely clear. That... That's just a bottle, right? Gears' expressionless face regarded Bridge for a moment, and then he nodded slowly. Yes, Doctor, this is a standard Class 3 plastic liquid containment vessel. Yes! Agreed, Bridge. But that is just a bottle, right? There's no special structure to contain Euclid threats or something weird like that, Gears paused a moment, turning to look at the slide, then back to Bridge. In layman's terms, yes. So, we're being called here because there's a misuse of... bottles? He continued. Gears didn't frown. He never did, as far as anyone knew. But he might have narrowed his eyes in a method that anyone not close to him would have called imperceptible. Yes, Gears said. Bridge nodded slightly. Sir, and again, I apologize. But before we cover the proper use of the bottles, could you perhaps address the improper usage of the bottles? Gears looked down at his notes again, then back to Bridge. I assure you, Doctor, that by going over the proper procedure for using the device that the problem will be alleviated. Yes, Bridge agreed. But I think, as an object lesson, it might be a good idea to address this. If I may, if I may suggest I mean, he said, sorry. Gears paused for a moment, then looked out at the crowd. There were a few nods of agreement, and after a few seconds, he shuffled his papers around, looking down at them again, then pressing the button several times, moving through slides labeled proper substances, filling and emptying, funnels and you, until he stopped at the final one. There was a soft swear from somewhere to the side of the auditorium. Dr. Kendraki, previously unseen and sunken slightly in his seat, had leaned up again as eyes darted from the slide to Dr. Kendraki to back toward the slide again. It's not the first time most of you've seen it. Kendraki muttered, turning toward the wall. Please, Gears began. Remember that inserting non-specific objects or substances into the bottle can cause unexpected results. Specifically, placing an object capable of expanding in size may result in great difficulty in removing the object at a later time. In this particular case, medical intervention was necessary. Thankfully, no long-term damage was caused with the subject. People were shifting uncomfortably. Half were deeply concerned, and the rest were too afraid to laugh. The silence thickened, and then after a moment, Gears pressed the button on the lectern again. From this angle, you could see the pressure being applied. Gears continued, pressing the button again, and from this angle, you'll notice that there seems to be a small amount of tension in the lower back, which can lead to a number of medical concerns. Gears added, a pamphlet has been completed by the site's seven medical staff, which will outline the risks involved with such incidents. Each of you will receive a copy of this in the intracite mail tomorrow. Oh, god damn it. Kendraki muttered, those bastards. Clef elbowed him slightly. Hey, it's not like it can get worse, he said. And now, Gears finished, an instructional video on what to do if you... He narrowed his eyes at the pre-written notes, reading it twice to be certain. Get your dick stuck in a bottle. Kendraki was mortified. Bad enough that his one-off impulsive decision ended in disaster, again as usual. Worse was the fact that everyone had to know about it. And know about it with visual aids, from an O5-sanctioned presentation. Kendraki wasn't too much more paranoid than any other reasonable adult on the site, but he could swear that he felt people's eyes on him leaving the meeting. The wound to his pride was too fresh. He decided to seclude himself to his work for the day and hoped no smartass came by with a bottle themed Get Well basket. The distraction was mostly sufficient if completely soul-suckingly boring. So a pretty normal day doing paperwork. Aside from the occasional dull ache from his lower half, Kendraki was able to mostly put the incident out of his mind. No more issues or lingering embarrassment, just reams of paperwork to be filled out. Not glamorous, but necessary. It was going great, actually. He was making good progress and a decent dent in some of the work he'd been totally not putting off. And it might have given him a little free time on his day off instead of having to take work home again. Then disaster struck. As Kendraki lifted his coffee cup to his lips once more, he realized that he'd sipped it dry. His stomach sank as he realized that meant he'd have to get up and actually go get more. Absolutely no way around that. He just hoped that no one got between him and his source of endless power. Or that he didn't hear the telltale sound of crinkling plastic. After a minute or two of grumbling to himself, he finally got the nerve to head down the hall to refill. He didn't walk with his head down. He didn't want to see him ashamed. After everything he'd already pulled, there wouldn't be a point anyway. Just a chip to his pride. Just before rounding the corner to where the coffee pot awaited him, Kendraki overheard a conversation. Alright, okay, you remember the thing with the Pringles can? Began the first voice, sounding a little exasperated. Yeah? Came the reply. I still have the scar on the back of my hand from where the scissors slipped trying to get me out. Okay, so imagine that, but instead of it being your hand, it's your dick. It is just fucking slice of big gash in your front. Dear God, that hurts just thinking about it, shut up. Great, fantastic. Maybe if he kept his head down, Kendraki would be able to get his coffee and go without the two noticing. I get what you're saying. The second voice added, closer now. But why would he do it in the first place? Sometimes people just do things, man. The first voice answered simply, like you haven't done something stupid before. Like, remember Ryan? Great and I got his arm stuck in the plastic tubing in art class because he wanted to see if he could make himself a robot suit out of PVC pipe. Isn't that the guy who drank so much Red Bull that the company sent him a laptop? Yeah, that's the one. They had to call an ambulance to get him cut out of the pipe because if we tried to use the pipe cutters, we could have got his arm. Same principle. Okay, but Ryan was a complete dumbass. Yeah, but everyone's a bit of a dumbass. Like, you can be a highly intelligent person and still be a dumbass. At that point, Kendraki routed the corner and made a beeline for the coffee pot. The small half room wasn't very big, so it wasn't very far at all. But he was able to move quietly towards his warm, holy grail. He had made eye contact with one of the two voices. They were both young researchers, hadn't been at the site long. Or at least he assumed judging by their age. He didn't really recognize anyone unless they did something noteworthy, and even then it was pretty hit or miss. The first voice, belonging to a short young man who now wore a barely suppressed look of fear on his face, stopped in its tracks when Kendraki made eye contact on his way to the pot. The second individual, taller but just as young, had his back to Kendraki when he walked in and hadn't seen him. Like, I can get that the idea came to him. Started the second man, who ignored his colleague that had begun shaking his head frantically in favor for eyeing up the vending machine. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought of something like that before, but to actually go through with it, Kendraki poured himself a cup and didn't turn to look at either of the two. What can I say? Seemed like a good idea at the time. The silence that followed was almost unnatural. The only sound of the room came from coffee being poured. Even the vending machine seemed to stop its endless quiet hum, if only for a few seconds. That was followed by some frantic shuffling, and the sound of two sets of footsteps retreating down the hall. Kendraki half chuckled to himself. Seems they were more embarrassed than he was. He finished fixing his coffee and began his return trip back to his desk to finish both his paperwork and his self-isolation over the incident. So things maybe weren't as bad as they seemed. Just like any big mistake, people would eventually talk about it for a few days and then be over it when the next fresh gossip came out. It was just how people were. They might work with dangerous, impossible, and generally horrifying objects and entities every day, but thankfully most of them were still pretty human. Sometimes humans did amazing and noble work for the good of mankind. Sometimes humans got their dicks stuck in water bottles. Kendraki mused on this quietly as he took a sip of coffee, finally returning to his desk on which sat an unopened water bottle tied with red ribbon to a balloon reading Get Well Soon. Thank you for listening. Site 42 studios and its staff are funded by viewers like you. Please become a patron or visit our merch store at the link in our bio to support our work. Secure. Contain. Protect.