by John King
The rest of the lads took their time digesting the story. Even Will was impressed. They tried to imagine the possibilities such a woman offered. It was like something from an old black-and-white sci-fi film, where space travellers land on a distant planet and find it populated by brainy Scandinavian beauty queens ready to treat the new arrivals as though they’re kings. Fighting off the dinosaur population and then feeding them with cold bottled lager and the finest burgers.
‘A single point was a bonus,’ Carter admitted. ‘Thing was, I woke up next morning and she was still beautiful. Seeing her in action like that, fucking deadly so you wouldn’t get on the wrong side of her, but somehow it didn’t make her any less a woman. It wasn’t like she was cocky and going on about how fucking hard she was. She did it because it had to be done and maybe that’s what a strong bird is all about. A strong bloke as well when you stop and think about it. Did what was necessary.’
The Sex Division sat in respectful silence for a while sipping their drinks and contemplating the wonders of the world. All of them were running the scene through their minds, a mild dose of confusion easily swamped by honest admiration. Will thought harder than most, shifting images through his head and matching them with the argument he’d had with Karen, her words and tears, and Karen off to see her dad leaving him to go down the pub alone and think about the news that she was pregnant and planning an abortion.
The thing that got him was that she didn’t even ask what he thought. She announced she was pregnant and then hardly stopped for breath before telling him she was going to get rid of it. All that bollocks about talking to each other was just that—bollocks. It was her body, her life, her decision. Will was expected to do the decent thing and behave himself, say nothing and nod his head in time to the music, a eunuch without an opinion, a toy dog in the back of a Ford Cortina, head banging up and down. He didn’t have a chance to think about the thing before she was telling him what she was going to do. He knew all the logic—women suppressed for thousands of years, the right to choose, bodies turned into intensive factory farms, the pill the great liberator giving women a stake in their own destiny, that men thought with their pricks and were incapable of emotion and feeling, that men were monsters and rapists and the scum of creation.
Thing was, he agreed with the bit about women being treated like shit, but where did that leave him? He didn’t see why he had to pay the penalty for long-dead politicians who refused to let women vote and the sick bastards who raped women. It wasn’t his fault. Sitting in the pub with his mates Will had time to go over it all, and the more he drank the more angry he became. He was being treated like shit. All that stuff about seeing the other person’s point of view. Karen didn’t give a toss what he thought. She was one more con-artist. When it came down to it, a bloke was supposed to behave according to a certain agenda and listen to a woman’s problems and worries, but when it came to a bit of give they didn’t want to know.
He started imagining himself as a dad and how it would mean giving up things, freedom and that, but he knew you got something in return. It would be a laugh. There wasn’t one bloke he knew with a kid who didn’t love it and put it up there on a pedestal and think the world of the little snot machine. They said it was hard work but worth the effort. Something to focus on and love without the complications that came along after a while with a woman. All that history and posturing. The endless need to justify and assert independence. It would be something pure and new, and while he would never be able to plan something like a kid, if it came along then maybe it was meant to be. Like fate or chance. He didn’t know all the answers. Didn’t pretend he did.
‘What would you do if that bird with the black belt turned out to be a two-pointer, and then she got you in a neck lock a few weeks later and told you she was in the club?’ Will asked.
Carter almost choked on his lager and everyone turned to the silent one in the corner. Birds you picked up in Blues didn’t get pregnant. They were pumped full of chemicals and knew the score, and anyway, it wasn’t their role in life. Women you pulled in Blues and shagged an hour or two later were different to mothers. After all, nobody wanted a kid off some old slapper who’d been servicing three or four different blokes a week for the last ten years. If you were planting a seed you wanted to know that the soil was in topnotch condition. It was nature’s way.
‘You’re still with us then?’ Carter replied. ‘I thought you’d died over there and your right hand was on remote control, lifting the glass to your mouth every twenty seconds. What made you think of that one?’
‘I was just wondering. What would you do?’
‘It would just be a bit of sex. Nothing serious. Anyway, she’d be on the pill so there’s no need to worry, and I’d have a condom massala on the end of my knob.’
‘Suppose the spices burnt a hole in the rubber and she’d forgotten to take her pill. Or gone to pop it in her mouth and seen the face of Mango winking up at her. What then?’
Will was getting all serious on them and it made the rest of the Sex Division nervous. They came down the pub for a laugh, not a serious discussion on the state of the universe. The miserable cunt was in one of those moods. Every now and then all that common sense came crashing down.
‘She’d have to get rid of it, wouldn’t she,’ Carter laughed. ‘Give it the old coat hanger treatment. Either that or I’d have to take a loan and get it seen to so the NHS don’t mess up.’
As Carter made his joke, Will understood why fundamentalists were able to get away with labelling blokes like him, why your ordinary herbert ended up tarred and feathered by the thought police. Thing was, it was a knee-jerk reaction, and Carter wasn’t getting off so easy. It was the same kind of approach that Karen had used. It wasn’t good enough. No fucking way. The lager was going to his head, exaggerating his thoughts, just like pills with Buddha, Mango and every other takeaway king decorating the surface, but bollocks anyway. He was narked.
‘Seriously though,’ Will said, keeping his voice level. ‘You go out and shag a bird, any one of us, not just you, and what’s it all about? What’s the reason? I mean, I know we don’t waste as much time talking about them as they do about us, because we have more important things in life like football, drink, curries, music and all that. But why do we go after them at all? What’s it all about?’
‘What do you mean?’ Balti asked, confused.
‘Stop and think about it,’ Will continued. ‘Look at the mechanics of the situation. It’s like those toys you have when you’re a kid. Plastic shapes and holes to put them in. Something’s empty and then it’s filled, but what makes you do it? I mean, sex is all about having kids, isn’t it? That’s the real function when you turn on the lights and switch off the music. It’s just about kids.’
‘Course it fucking isn’t,’ Carter laughed. ‘Sex is about getting your end away. That’s all sex is. A bit of fun.’
‘But why? What’s the point.’
‘What do you mean what’s the point? You going queer on us or something,’ Carter asked, puzzled, looking to the others for support. ‘Birds are there for blokes like me to service. I’m here for their enjoyment. It feels good. They’re happy and I’m happy. A simple business transaction. A bit of give and take. That’s what it’s about you dozy cunt. Fuck me, Will, you should give the blow a rest. What do you reckon Harry, has he been touching your leg under the table?’
The rest of the Sex Division laughed and Will knew he wasn’t getting his ideas across. They were coming out wrong. That’s what too much spliff, too much lager, too much anything did to you. Made you talk gibberish like some sad case wandering the streets. Everyone was laughing except Harry, who’d clicked back to last night’s dream.
Harry had been minding his own business on the seafront in Blackpool—watching the waves crash in as a storm built up, jagged lightning far away on the horizon, eating chips from a polystyrene plate—when he’d found half a pill in his ketchup. There was enough of the embossed image left to tel
l him what was coming next, the face of Michael Portillo leering up at him. It was too late to do anything about it, though, and he was hungry, so he finished the chips and went back to the hotel where he’d arranged to meet that scouse bird. He was looking forward to seeing her again and went to his room, waving to Terry McDermott behind the bar. He noticed Kevin Keegan sitting at the counter with his head in his hands mourning a lost championship. Harry opened the door and was hit by a bright light, suddenly finding himself in an operating theatre. He was in the wrong room and tried to turn back, but a steel door had slammed tight behind him.
He went to a sink and washed his hands, then put on surgical gloves and a mask. He was on automatic and watching his actions as though they belonged to someone else. The Portillo had flooded his brain and for a few seconds he wanted to stand on a stage and point a finger at the sponging single mothers who were single-handedly responsible for the decline of the British Empire. Thankfully he’d only had half the stated dose and was able to fight against the righteous indignation threatening to destroy his soul. It was a battle against superior odds. An expensive education had given the politician the vocabulary and arrogance to effectively deliver his message, hope anaesthetised as the light turned and focused on a scrawny teenage girl strapped down to an operating table. Her accent was pure St-Mary-le-Bow cockney and she was clearly terrified, the skin on her face broken by acne and an Income Support diet. Harry fought against the influence and understood the sickness of such a bitter pill. He knew what was coming. He recognised the wickedness of the Portillo.
He heard the whispered mantra from the pulpit—all drugs are evil, all drugs are evil … except those that we tax—and he saw the posters in the spectator’s gallery promoting family values. He wanted nothing to do with the operation that was about to take place and battled harder, relieved to find himself joining the spectators. His personal resistance was too strong for the chemicals, pride replaced by disgust when he realised that he had somehow been tricked and was strapped to a padded chair. He was surrounded by various royals and upright members of the establishment. Hooded sadists and shaven-headed child molesters were well represented, the faces of the latter rotting and leering and pointed towards the operating table with unconcealed excitement.
A deep, official voice filled the room. Single mothers were ruining the nation. They conceived so that they could claim extra benefits. Family life was being eradicated by their antics. It was disgusting. Worse than this, some were prepared to abort their children rather than bring them up in poverty and sickness. They didn’t want the stigma and sense of shame the government was imposing. They understood that they were wicked and wasting finite resources. Abortion was evil. But necessary. Sorry—he shouldn’t have said that, it went against the Christian ethics of the shire electorate. But it just showed how depraved these little girls were and how the Conservatives loved small children, how they wanted the best for the little ones, and Harry was shouting out that it was the poverty and fear of poor mothers that led to their kids being terminated, but his accent was strange and common like the girl on the table and nobody could understand what he was saying. The hand of a liberal baroness reached out to pat his head. He was a quirk of nature who might one day be allowed to work with the terrier men, if he behaved himself and came to her boudoir that same night. He must perform, though, and satisfy her darkest desires. She wanted him to fuck her in front of The Baron. Very hard, please, young man. Otherwise he was ignored. Like a woman. Like a lump of meat.
The grey-haired surgeon wore a plastic Portillo mask. He moved towards the girl on the table. Her legs were secured in stirrups and she had been sedated. Her hands were nailed to the table, stretched above her head. The blood running from childlike palms was thin and anaemic. Cables had been attached to her ears. A tape relayed messages and created a climate of terror in the core of her brain. The scientists knew best. They would save the girl the misery of child birth and the tax-payer many tens of thousands of pounds. Another hungry mouth to feed. And then the surgeon was plugging in an old industrial vacuum cleaner and positioning it in front of his groin, strapping it into position before moving forward to push the tube attachment into the girl’s vagina. He tried several times but without success. Finally a gentleman in a Peter Lilley mask had to move forward from the shadows and place his hand over the girl’s mouth to stifle the agonised screams, smiling as he administered the sacred amyl nitrate. A mysterious figure disguised as Michael Howard stepped forward, greasing the nozzle with lubricant and helping the surgeon insert the tube. The girl fainted and the crowd cheered. Harry tried to shout out, but was unable. At first he thought he was pissed, but then realised that his lips had been stapled together. He was struggling, unable to break free.
A junior civil servant plugged the vacuum in and the surgeon switched the machine on. There was a screen on the far wall and a miniature camera had been inserted in the tip of the nozzle. Harry tried to shut his eyes on what was about to happen, but his eyelids had been sewn open. His heart was pumping and he felt sick. The heartbeat of the foetus became a throbbing pain in the side of his head. He had to hold back the bile rising in his throat otherwise he would drown in his own vomit. He could see the foetus stretching and struggling to hold on to the walls of its mother’s womb. It was screaming. It was fucking screaming. He couldn’t believe what was happening. It was screaming that it was alive and didn’t want to die, that it wanted its mother, but only Harry could understand what it was saying and then the screen turned a dark red and there was a scientist’s face superimposed over the gore explaining that life only began when he and other scientists decreed, that there was no God apart from the God of science. The abortionists were nodding their heads in sad agreement and, although they swore hatred for the Tory politicians and their men of the cloth, they were in total agreement, because, after all, they were two sides of the same materialistic coin.
Harry wanted to feel what the foetus felt. He wanted to know the truth. How could a lump of meat feel pain? It didn’t make sense and yet he had seen it with his own eyes. All he really understood was that the kid was dead and the girl on the table was haemorrhaging and there was some kind of debate going on as to whether such a worthless creature deserved hospital treatment. Because anyone who aborted their children like that was below sympathy and NHS resources were better spent on educating doctors for the private health sector. Harry saw the foetus floating in a corner of the room waiting for some kind of ceremony. He looked at the partially formed features and wondered what it would have become, all that potential, and then there were other spirits around it, one with a clipped accent explaining that mother was big in advertising with a sparkling career ahead of her and wasn’t ready yet … give it another few years and then she would have a family and a nanny … when she was good and ready … on her own terms thank you very much, darling … and the foetus said that it understood but Harry knew it didn’t, not really, and the newly dead foetus, baby, child was alone again, watching its blood and guts being popped into a jar and handed over to a paedophile who passed back a thick brown envelope in return for the chance to fulfil his fantasies.
It seemed like hours and Harry understood that it was merely seconds as the girl left her body and the machine next to the bed showed that her heartbeat was finished. He saw the spirit of the girl with the child, but there was no happy ending because he was waking up and realising it was a dream, all that emotional blackmail, fucking pile of shit, a fucking nightmare, and he pushed himself to forget. There’d been nothing lucid about that one. A fucking horror show. The last image was of the surgeons and spectators leaving by a neon-lit back exit as the nurses were allowed in to mourn the dead and clean up the mess. He watched the politicians and upright citizens vanish down an alleyway lined by private-sector abortionists who cheered and shouted and slapped their fellow businessmen on the back, applauding the promotion of cottage-industry terminations and the continued state of mental siege that drove customers into their welco
ming arms. Freedom of choice. That was the crux.
Harry sat up in bed feeling sick. The sun filled the room but it didn’t make any difference. He wanted to erase the dream, though this time it wouldn’t fade away. He went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. Nothing happened.
‘I dreamt of this kid having an abortion last night,’ Harry volunteered. ‘It wasn’t funny. It was the worst dream I’ve ever had. Or at least since I was a kid. Will’s right when you think about it. That’s what sex was originally invented for, to have babies. It’s not just coincidence, is it? That’s why you get morals and everything. I suppose if you were religious in the old days then that was the nearest you ever got to playing God. It’s creation pure and simple.’
‘Creating havoc more like,’ Carter said. ‘Forget all that. It’s fun. Nothing more, nothing less. You get in there, do the business, spill your beans, notch up a few points, and that’s the end of the story. You’ve got to be a mug to end up getting a bird up the duff these days.’
‘Harry knows what I was trying to say,’ Will said. ‘You wouldn’t ever plan to have a kid, or at least most people wouldn’t in their right mind. But then whatever invented men and women saw that logically the race wasn’t going to continue so they built in the pleasure side of things. Orgasms and everything. That way you forget the reality, a screaming brat shitting itself and dribbling all over the place, and just look to get your leg over. Then you end up planting your seed.’