Dead famous

by Ben Elton

  ‘Like there was a time,’ he continued, ‘when a toothbrush was a functional item, they was all the same, man, there was different colours, but that was it. Now your toothbrush is a fashion statement, man! We are talking a designer commodity here!’

  ‘Stop waffling and get on with it,’ said David.

  ‘Whose brush is whose?’

  ‘Just setting the scene, guy, just setting the scene.’

  ‘Whose brush is whose? ‘Well, Gazzer’s has gotta be the one like mine. It’s hip, it’s flash, it’s well hard and it’s the business! It’s got shock absorbers, man! It’s got a big soft round aerodynamically palm-friendly handle, rear suspension and a detachable head. It’s got a spring- loaded crumple zone at the front, it looks like a ray gun, and it’s in Chelsea’s away colours. Am I right, Gazz?’

  ‘Fuck me, you’re Sherlock fucking Holmes, Jazz.’

  ‘Yes, I am, guy, because it is el-e-fucking-mentary. Now, Dervo, you got the one with the age-fading stripe, that’s what I reckon.’ Dervla attempted to maintain a poker face.

  ‘Why’s that. Jazz?’

  ‘Cos you are one fastidious lady, OK? You are sweet and clean and you don’t want no dirty old worn-out thing stuck in your mouth.’

  ‘Shame!’ Shouted Gazzer, at which Dervla blushed.

  ‘Shut up, Gazz,’ Jazz admonished.

  ‘Dervo is a fucking lady, so don’t you go making no off-colour comments implying no blow jobs, all right? Anyway, the point is, am I right, girl? When you was in the chemist and you was buying a brush for your perfect pearly toothypegs, did you choose a basic bristle or did you choose the one what tells you when it’s time to buy a new one?’ Dervla blushed again.

  ‘All right, I did, you swine!’ Dervla laughed, perhaps a little too loudly.

  ‘All right then, Jason.’ David still insisted on referring to Jazz by his full name.

  ‘Which one’s mine?’

  ‘Easy, man, piece of piss. You’re the blue one, the one without nothing on it at all, no spring-loaded bit in the middle, no go- faster stripe, just a plain basic brush.’

  ‘Well, as it happens, you’re right,’ said David, slightly resentfully.

  ‘I must say that I’m rather flattered that you understood that I was the sort of person who was unlikely to fall for all that marketing rubbish. I want a brush that gets the job done and shuts up about it. A toothbrush is a toothbrush, not a pair of trainers or a sports car.’

  ‘But you’re wrong, guy,’ said Jazz.

  ‘I didn’t pick you for being no down-to-earth geezer, no way. I got you right because you’re a bigger wanker than any of us.’ Jazz was laughing, but David wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, and how is that, then?’ He asked, attempting to maintain his rapidly evaporating air of superiority.

  ‘Because you chose the classic, man! That’s what they call that sort of brush these days. You ain’t got no bog-standard brush in your toothmug, David, no way, guy, what you got’s a Wisdom classic. And they’re not easy to find these days either, not every chemist stocks them, and you got to search your way through all the pink spongy ones and the transparent bendy ones to find them. Because you see, David, it’s the flash gimmicky brushes that are the norm these days. They’re the bog-standard brushes, the ones ordinary people buy. What you got is the designer item, the retro classic, which you have to seek out, like you obviously did. Just like you must have looked high and low to get that retro- looking pair of old-style trainers you got on, and they’re called ‘classics’ too. Made just for that bit of the market that reckons it’s got style and class and would never be a part of a trend, oh no, not them, they favour classic styles, or to put it another way, David, they’re wankers.’ It was a good performance and everybody laughed loudly. David obviously felt he had better laugh along too, but he did not do a very convincing job of it. In fact he looked furious. Livid. And also astonished. Jazz had caught him out. David had obviously never expected any intellectual threat from Jazz’s direction and yet this loudmouthed, conceited trainee chef had made him look a fool. What was more, it would probably be broadcast on national television. In the back of his mind David kept a little book into which he would put the names of people with whom he intended to get even. Jazz had just reserved himself an entire page.

  DAY EIGHTEEN. 10.00 p.m.

  Kelly announced that it was time to go to bed. She had had a terrific night, she said, but now the room was really beginning to spin. As she got up she fell back down again, straight into Hamish’s lap.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Kelly.

  ‘Fine by me,’ Hamish replied.

  ‘You should do it more often.’ Kelly giggled and put her arms round Hamish’s neck.

  ‘I think I fell on something hard,’ she said, laughing drunkenly.

  ‘Give us a kiss.’ Hamish did not require any further encouragement and so they kissed. Kelly started with puckered lips but Hamish went in mouth open and for a moment or two Kelly responded, her jaw working against his. In the monitoring bunker they cheered. This was the first proper kiss of House Arrest Three. They knew Geraldine would be thrilled.

  ‘If he puts his hand up her top we win the magnum,’ said Pru, Bob Fogarty’s assistant, who was the duty editor that night. Peeping Tom Productions had indeed promised a magnum of vintage Dom Perignon to the crew who were lucky enough to record the first grope. Back in the house, sitting on the green couch. Moon was not impressed.

  ‘Fookin’ hell, Kelly, if you’re not careful you’ll suck his fookin’ head off. What do his tonsils taste like?’ But Kelly was enjoying herself. She was drunk and feeling naughty, and Hamish was a lovely-looking boy.

  ‘Very nice,’ she said, getting up unsteadily, ‘and now I’m going to bed.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said Hamish, leaping up to great cheers from the rest of the group.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ Kelly replied, giggling.

  ‘Don’t forget. Peeping Tom is peeping,’ Dervla warned.

  ‘I don’t care,’ Kelly replied, and she didn’t. Quite suddenly she had decided that she was not ready for bed yet. Why not sneak off with Hamish for a little while? Who knows, she might even kiss him again. Why not, it was a party, wasn’t it? And so together they staggered off towards the girls’ bedroom, leaving the other six housemates to further boozing.

  ‘Don’t hurry back!’ Shouted Jazz.

  ‘Yeah, not until we’ve drunk the rest of the booze, anyway,’ Garry added. In the monitoring bunker they were keeping their fingers crossed. This was certainly the most sexually promising development so far. Breathlessly, the editors, assistant editors and Pas watched as the drunken couple staggered from camera to camera, spinning across through each screen in turn. Halfway to the bedroom they altered course. It was Kelly’s idea. She grabbed Hamish’s shirt and steered him out through the big sliding doors and out into the warm night. Together they staggered towards the pool and for a moment the watchers wondered whether they might luck out with a bit of skinny dipping.

  ‘Camera four, under the pool, double quick!’ Pru barked into her intercom, and down in the camera runs around the house a black draped dalek-like shape began to glide along the corridor, down the ramp and into the spying position under the pool’s glass bottom. But although the drunken couple teetered on the edge, kissing deep and laughing loud, they did not fall in.

  ‘Oh my God! I think they’re making for Copulation Cabin!’ Pru could scarcely contain her excitement.

  ‘Somebody ring Geraldine.’ Copulation Cabin was a wooden hut that had been placed beyond the swimming pool and filled with cushions and draped lamps. It looked like somebody had attempted to create an Arabian love tent in a garden shed, which was exactly what had happened. Peeping Tom had put it there in the transparent hope that if they supplied a place where people could get away from the prying eyes of the other housemates they might have sex. It was hoped that the existence of no fewer than five cameras covering this tiny space would not dampen the ardour. Kelly led Hamish
into the cabin and they collapsed together in a laughing boozy heap on the cushions. Hamish had fancied Kelly from the start, and for him the cameras were a turn-on. Quite apart from the terrific thrill of the idea of bedding Kelly while millions of jealous men looked on, he felt that it would be a wonderful starting point towards presenting his own quasi-medical sex show on the television, which in his fantasies was called Dr Nookie Talks. The kissing was becoming more intense, long, passionate, drunken kisses. Showy, chewy, gurgling kisses. Kisses that were in fact more about exhibitionism than passion, because if there was one thing that both Kelly and Hamish knew for sure, even in their drunken state, it was that this moment would make the cut of the following night’s show and also that it would be in the papers the following morning. What a wildly exciting thought that was! That simply by clamping their mouths together they were making themselves into stars! Hamish boldly chanced a hand, spurred on by genuine lust and pure vainglorious exhibitionism. Gently he slipped it under the hem of the baggy vest that Kelly was wearing. It had been clear to him all evening and to the four million viewers who would later be watching on television that Kelly was not wearing a bra.

  ‘Uh-oh, that’s second base,’ Kelly breathed, and removed his hand. In the bunker they were on the edge of their seats.

  ‘Did he touch a tit? Did we win the magnum?’

  ‘I don’t think so, she stopped him.’

  ‘Cow! Let him have a squeeze, girl, go on. Think of England!’

  ‘I think he might have touched it, I really do.’

  ‘We’ll have to wait for the replay.’

  ‘Plenty of time yet, anyway. Look at them.’ In Copulation Cabin Hamish’s disappointment over the failed grope was already forgotten. Kelly seemed to be turning hot again.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s sleep here tonight, eh? Then we can be really famous: Hamish and Kelly sleep together in poolside love nest! Ha ha!’ Then she pulled off her jeans.

  ‘Yes!’ They cried in the monitoring bunker, punching the air with their fists as Kelly’s gorgeous bottom, clad (if ‘clad’ could be considered the word) in a tiny G-string, was revealed.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ They shouted once more, their fingers positively quivering over their editing controls.

  ‘Come on,’ Kelly breathed, ‘get your kecks off, you ain’t sleeping in my love nest in dirty stinky boy trousers.’ Hamish did not need asking twice and immediately began pulling down his immaculate chinos. As he struggled to get them off over his shoes, which he had neglected to remove, the full erection struggling within his underpants was plain for all to see.

  ‘Naughty,’ said Kelly.

  ‘Did you make that for me?’ And with that she pulled the rugs up and over them.

  ‘Damn,’ they said in the bunker.

  ‘We never should have given them anything to cover themselves with.’ In the darkness under the blankets Kelly put her hand over her microphone and whispered.

  ‘That’ll give ‘em something to think about, eh?’ Kelly had reached her limit. Quickly, Hamish tried to push her on.

  ‘Why don’t we really give them something to think about, Kelly?’

  ‘What sort of girl do you think I am?’ Kelly giggled. She was already drifting off to sleep.

  ‘I’m tired.’ She whispered it so quietly that even Hamish had trouble hearing her. And her hand was over her microphone. Nobody would have heard it but him. The booze and the soft cushions were taking their toll. Kelly was losing consciousness. Inwardly Hamish cursed. Hamish kissed her. He kissed her again, whispering in her ear, trying to revive a mood, which had never really been the mood he thought it was anyway.

  ‘No,’ Kelly murmured.

  ‘Don’t be silly. Too tired, too drunk, too comfy.’ Or at least that’s what it sounded like. She was so far away by this time that she wasn’t speaking clearly. Hamish held Kelly close. Her arms were still around him, exactly where she had placed them before she had fallen asleep. His body was pressing up against her, his whole bursting, desperate body. He slipped his hand back under Kelly’s shirt, the hand that she had only recently removed. This time she did not remove it. She was asleep. Hamish held her breast. In the bunker there were no celebrations. The crew did not realize that they had won their magnum. They could not see. They did not know.

  ‘What are they doing under there?’ Pru asked.

  ‘Not very much, I’m afraid,’ said the PA.

  ‘Too bloody pissed. I know the feeling.’ � Under the blankets Hamish gave Kelly’s breast a little squeeze. Gently and then more boldly he allowed his fingertips to play with the glorious, sexy little nipple ring. He pulled at it a little. Kelly did not even stir. Hamish was a doctor and he knew that Kelly was not asleep. She was unconscious. Hamish’s head was swimming in the darkness. The darkness! Hamish suddenly realized how dark it was. They were completely concealed. It was black as coal beneath the thick, heavy, musky blankets. Slowly, being careful not to move the blanket that covered them, Hamish began to edge his hand down Kelly’s body. Down across her ribs, which rose and fell so deeply, and so regularly, across her smooth, flat tummy, until finally slipping it beneath the tiny triangle of her G-string. Hamish was blind with excitement. The prospect of touching such forbidden fruit had completely intoxicated his already drunken mind. Now Kelly let out a deep snore. In the bunker they heard Kelly’s snore and, noting that the blanket beneath which Hamish and Kelly lay was scarcely moving, they concluded ruefully that the excitement of the night was over. But the excitement wasn’t over: it was reaching fever pitch. Hamish had his hand between Kelly’s legs now, he was touching her, discovering her, discovering to his surprise that Kelly had a little secret…Her labia was pierced. This she had not revealed to the group; her nipple rings she had mentioned often, but this most private piece of jewellery she had kept to herself. Until now. As Hamish gently explored, a phrase suddenly appeared in his fuddled consciousness, a phrase which he remembered from his class on forensic medicine. The phrase was digital penetration. That’s what he was doing now. That was what it would be called if anybody ever knew. Suddenly Hamish became aware of the appalling risk that he was running. He was committing a serious crime. This crazy drunken improvisation, this sex prank, was assault. He could go to prison. Hamish began to remove his hand, but reluctantly, very reluctantly. And as he did so, for a moment he pulled aside the thin, damp gusset of Kelly’s G-string and in that moment, in that one blinding moment of lust, he seriously considered taking his straining, aching erection from inside his own underpants and with it entering Kelly’s unconscious body. The thought lasted only for a moment. Drunk as he was, the terrible, life-changing risks that he had already run were clear to him. In fact it was the momentary contemplation of this even greater abuse that truly brought home to Hamish the gravity of what he had already done. Digital penetration. That was serious enough, for God’s sake, leave it. Leave it. Quickly, gently, with the practised and steady hand of a doctor, Hamish rearranged Kelly’s gusset in an impression of how he had found it, pushing the warm wet string into the crease of her vagina and then threading it up between her buttocks. All the while he was deadly careful to avoid moving the heavy blankets and rugs that covered them. It was imperative that the people whom he knew were watching thought that he, like Kelly, had been asleep. Having removed his hand, Hamish began to pretend to snore a little, not too much, just the occasional little noise to accompany Kelly’s deep, drunken slumber. Reaching down to feel himself, Hamish realized that his pants were wet. Unwittingly he must have ejaculated or at least leaked considerably during his excitement. Had he stained the cushions? Or, worse still, her knickers? If he had, could he pass it off as an embarrassing accident? Tense with fear, he felt about to discover if any evidence of his shame had escaped. It seemed not. He had been lucky. Kelly was unconscious and he had left no sign. The blankets were thick and they had scarcely moved. He was safe. He truly believed that he was safe. But the risk. The risk he had run! It made him
cold to even think of it. Now Hamish let his body twitch a little, as if he had been sleeping and had startled himself awake. Kelly did not stir as he pulled back the rug, scratching his head, rubbing his eyes and looking around as if to say ‘Where am I?’ Then he feigned a smile and winked at the camera.

  ‘Nearly, eh?’ He whispered up at the little red pin light.

  ‘I can’t believe it, and it was me that fell asleep first. For God’s sake, don’t show this on the telly. My mates will never ever let me live it down.’ With that he got up from the cushions, put his trousers back on, gently rearranged the rug over Kelly’s unconscious form and returned to the party. He was greeted with a chorus of leery cheers.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you people,’ said Hamish, ‘but we both nodded off. I think I went first, if you can believe that.’ Hamish desperately hoped that they could. Then he retreated to his bed and to a very troubled night, as over and over again he asked himself if there was any way that Peeping Tom could have known the terrible thing he had done. Digital penetration. Silently in the darkness he thanked God for stopping him before he had done something even worse.

  DAY NINETEEN. 7.00 a.m.

  Kelly groaned once and she was awake.

  ‘What the f…?’ Then she remembered. She was in Copulation Cabin. The Shag Shack, Bonkham Towers, Haveitoff House. Even before the show had started, when Peeping Tom had announced this refinement to the house structure, the press had had about fifty names for it. And now she was in it, in front of the nation. What must she look like? ‘Don’t worry,’ she said to the camera that hung directly overhead.

  ‘Nothing happened.’ She reached out from under the rug for her jeans, grinning sheepishly. Like Hamish before her, she felt obliged to address the camera.

  ‘Was I arseholed last night…? Still you have it to do, eh?’ Kelly’s shapely legs emerged now and she donned her jeans with considerable elegance considering her hangover.