Back in his office he told Myra that he wasn’t accepting any phone calls that morning and started making plans to put his good idea into practice, to make it work, to get it to turn him into a multi-millionaire, which surely such a good idea would do. He realised that the stumbling block, the fly in the, would be Prime Minister Phil Good, for without his co-operation his good idea would be for nothing. However stumbling blocks could be cleared out of the way, and flies could be removed from ointment, rendering the ointment useable again, it was just a matter of finding a way to remove them.
The problem was that he needed a favour of Phil and Phil just wasn’t the sort of man who did favours. He was a man who accepted favours. To get him on his side Pugh knew he would have to appeal to the Prime Minister’s baser instincts. And as no one’s instincts were baser than Phil Good’s such an approach would be bound to cost him a pretty penny.
A lesson Pugh had absorbed early in his career was that you could get your own way with most people if you gave them enough bullshit. However around the same time he had also learned that you can’t bullshit a bullshitter, and as Phil was a bullshitter par excellence that route to success was not open to him on this occasion.
Fortunately he had also come to appreciate that fifty per cent of something is better than a hundred per cent of nothing, and had adopted this maxim as a guiding principle in life. He now applied it again, bit the bullet and asked Myra to get him the Prime Minister on the line.
****
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rap...rap...rap. Once again Willoughby rapped the dildo on the table top to bring the monthly meeting of Vigilantes Against Sex Toys to order. Once again Miss Preece visibly blanched. Willoughby smiled at her and the rest of the usual suspects, their ranks swelled this evening by a new face. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Before we start tonight’s meeting it is my great pleasure to announce that we have added a new convert to our ranks.” He turned his smile on the new member. “Allow me to introduce Elton Arbuckle.”
All the members turned to look at Arbuckle, who shuffled his feet self-consciously as he returned their smiles of welcome.
“Welcome to our little organisation,” said Mrs Bean. “I am Mrs Bean, Flora Bean. Elton or Mr Arbuckle, which do you prefer?”
Arbuckle would have preferred to be incognito, and preferably somewhere else. He was already beginning to think that maybe it hadn’t been such good idea to join VAST, after all. Not if it was going to be anything like what he’d witnessed in the few minutes since he’d joined. There had already almost been a fight, when a man who looked like a Taliban rebel had told another man he was glad he’d lost his job if it meant he wouldn’t be leaving sex toys on the council tip where his children could get stuck in them. The chairman banging a huge artificial penis on the table to bring the meeting to order didn’t augur well either.
Arbuckle had learned about the activities of VAST quite by accident. In the course of his studies he was in the habit of typing the words ‘Inflatable Rubber Women’ into one or other of the internet search engines from time to time, just to see what came up. Usually it was just the websites of sellers of sex toys, and he’d already explored all those, but if you got beyond the first pages of Google and Ask things began to improve. Websites other than ones solely employed in supplying the nation’s perverted tastes were listed. One night he had chanced upon the website of VAST. Included in the search engine’s brief details were the words ‘...we must not rest in our labours until every last inflatable rubber woman has been removed from the face of the earth....’
He had logged on to VAST’s small website, www.vast.com, and had discovered that the words had been taken from a speech given by Willoughby at one of the group’s meetings.
After quickly browsing through the website Arbuckle had reached the conclusion that VAST seemed to be a fairly innocuous organisation, a bit weird perhaps, but relatively harmless. However as a student of inflatable rubber women he naturally wanted to know everything there was to know about them. Up until then he had only ever met people who were for them, he hadn’t been aware there were any people against them, although when he thought about it he realised that it was more than a probability. For example he couldn’t imagine that sex dolls would be exactly flavour of the month with the wives of the men who owned them.
But some of the members of VAST would be men, he supposed. What had men got against sex dolls? He decided it might not be a bad thing to join VAST in order to find out. It might broaden the scope of his thesis, take it into another area, allow him to go off at a tangent maybe; the more he packed into his dissertation the better his chances would be of obtaining a first class degree with hons, and along with it some first class sex, with or without hons, the fruits that surely such a degree would bring with it.
“Mr Arbuckle is a student,” said Willoughby. “Mathematics I believe you said, Mr Arbuckle?”
“Pure and Applied,” lied Arbuckle, secure in the knowledge that if there were any maths wizards amongst them who started asking awkward questions he would be more than able to cope, having an ‘A’ level in each of the disciplines.
“Excellent, smiled Willoughby. He addressed the meeting. “Now before we start the meeting proper I would like you all to listen to this.” He produced a pocket tape recorder, placed it on the desk and switched it on. Seconds later it began to play.
“Will you, Anne Marie, take this man to be thy lawful wedded wife?”
“I will.”
“That was you.”
“It wasn’t, it was Anne Marie.”
“It was you, Mr Perkins. I was watching you. You said ‘I will’ out of the corner of your mouth.”
“No, I was sucking my tooth. And while you were watching me sucking my tooth my bride....my future bride....said ‘I Will’. ”
“It is not a bride, Mr Perkins, it is an inflatable rubber woman.”
“What? No you’ve got it all wrong Vicar, it’s my bride-to-be Anne Marie.”
“It is an inflatable rubber woman, Mr Perkins. If you were let go of its hand it would float away.”
“Now let’s not be silly.”
“It already has floated away once. It took us twenty minutes to get it down from the belfry.”
“Please continue with the wedding ceremony, Vicar, you’re keeping all the guests waiting.”
“I am not marrying you to an inflatable rubber woman, Mr Perkins. And that is my final word on the matter!”
“Anne Marie is not an inflatable rubber woman. An inflatable rubber woman in a wedding dress? Don’t make me laugh.”
“She’s not wearing a wedding dress, she’s wearing a bra and G-string.”
“Now she is. She lost her wedding dress when she floated up to the belfry and got it caught on the bells....”
Willoughby switched off the tape. “Yes well I think we’ve all heard enough of that rubbish.”
“What was it?” queried Mrs Wisbech.
“An extract from a so-called radio comedy series.” He snorted. “That’s right, they’re making jokes about sex toys on the radio now. Lord Reith would turn in his grave.”
“Absolutely disgraceful.”
“My sentiments entirely, Mrs Wisbech. I came across it quite by accident. The Willoughby radio is usually permanently set on Radio Four, with the odd excursion into Classic FM, but Mildred must have been listening to something or other on one of the other channels. When I switched on at my usual time what you have just been listening to came on. You can imagine my horror, I was expecting ‘Gardener’s Question Time’.”
“Oh you poor thing,” sympathised Mrs Bean.
Willoughby looked around. “I can see from your faces that it sits as uneasily with the rest of you as it did with me.”
A few of the members made noises of agreement.
Whether it sat uneasily with Flannery or not, the priest didn’t indicate. However Flannery himself was sitting very uneasily as, unable to readily come by a spiked suit as worn
by the priest in The Da Vinci Code, he had stuffed his vest and underpants with crushed walnut shells. A piece of sharp shell that had lodged in his bum cleavage was now threatening to enter his anus, causing him to squirm in discomfort.
Willoughby noticed this. “I notice that you are particularly uncomfortable, Father Flannery.”
“Oh indeed,” said Flannery, wishing he’d gone along with his original inclination to leave the walnut shells whole.
“I hope the trauma of hearing that tripe on the radio didn’t leave you too upset, Mr Willoughby?” said Seal, concerned.
“I shall write to the Director General of the BBC about it, copy to the Head of Radio.” said Mrs Wisbech.
“Write?” Cleaver spat out, suddenly taking a keener interest in the proceedings. “Write? What good is that going to do? We’re always writing to people; and what happens? I’ll tell you what happens. Nothing. Sod all.”
“I’m afraid Mr Cleaver is right,” said Grimshaw, nodding his agreement. He turned to Mrs Wisbech. “Which reminds me, what happened about that barber’s pole business?”
“I wrote to them again.”
“And?”
Mrs Wisbech, obviously embarrassed, looked at Willoughby.
The chairman came to her support. “They said they were considering adding a pair of bollocks to it; if you’ll pardon my French.”
Grimshaw shrugged. “Need I say more?”
“What we want is action,” said Cleaver. “We won’t get anywhere until we start taking action.”
“And what precise action are you suggesting we should take?” said Willoughby, guardedly.
Cleaver didn’t need a second invitation. “Militant action. Physical action. Up and at ‘em in their perverted faces action.”
While being all for a more positive approach Seal felt that a degree of caution should be exercised. “The policeman in me is telling me that we shouldn’t rush into something we might later regret,” he warned.
“Thank you, Mr Seal.”
Cleaver was unabashed. “I mean take this inflatable rubber women business. What we should be doing is targeting a firm that makes them. Making an example of them.”
“And how might we do that?”
“We could chain ourselves to their railings,” offered Mrs Bean, dramatically.
“Chain ourselves to their railings?” Cleaver scoffed. “What good would that do?”
Mrs Wisbech defended her sister-in-arms. “It got women the vote, I seem to recall.”
“It would certainly make them sit up and take notice,” added Miss Preece.
“Perhaps just the ladies could chain themselves to the railings?” suggested Willoughby, warming a little to the idea of a more militant stance. “But as far as the men are concerned.....?” In the hope of getting practical suggestions he left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air.
Cleaver eagerly grabbed hold of it. “Sabotage. Sabotage their factory, that’s what we need to do. Wreck their machines. Put them out of action for a month or two. Stop them manufacturing the fucking things.”
“Language, please, Mr Cleaver,” said Mrs Wisbech.
“Technically he’s right though,” offered Mrs Bean. “They are fu....what Mr Cleaver said they were.”
“And he’s right about what we should do about it,” added Grimshaw, a man with just as much cause to hate inflatable rubber women as Cleaver.
“And in what way do you suggest we sabotage them?” said Willoughby.
Cleaver was in no doubt. “Set fire to their factory. Burn the place. Raze it to the ground. Gut the bloody place.”
Mrs Wisbech stepped in. “Need I remind you that you have just spent a month at Her Majesty’s pleasure for setting fire to things, Mr Cleaver.”
“Yes, I really don’t think we should consider fire as an option,” said Willoughby. “In fact we won’t be doing.”
Khan suddenly leapt to his feet, his eyes gleaming with blood lust. “Go for their joculars!” He raised his hook high in the air. “Wouldn’t make disgusting rubber women if they got this though their joculars,” he continued, bringing his arm down in a flashing arc of metal.
While Willoughby appreciated this approach could well be very effective he doubted the practicality of it. “No doubt, Mr Khan, but we can’t go about piercing people’s jugular veins just because they’re manufacturing something we don’t like.”
“No, but we can pierce the things we don’t like that they are manufacturing,” said Miss Preece. “We can pierce holes in the inflatable rubber women so that the perverts who buy them can’t blow them up.”
“Yes, that would slow them down a bit,” agreed Willoughby. He warmed to the idea. “Yes, that would seem to be a capital suggestion, Miss Preece.” He looked around the meeting. There were no signs of dissent, so he continued. “All those in favour say ‘Aye’.” He looked at them in turn, inviting their votes.
“Aye,” said Mr Grimshaw.
“Aye,” said Mr Seal.
“Aye,” said Fr Flannery.
“Aye,” said Mr Cleaver.
“Aye,” said Mrs Wisbech.
“Aye,” said Mrs Bean.
“Aye,” said Miss Preece.
“Aye,” said Mr Khan.
“Fuck me”, said Arbuckle, though fortunately only to himself. “Just who the hell are these weirdos?”
“I can see you haven’t quite made your mind up, Mr Arbuckle,” said Willoughby, on failing to elicit an ‘Aye’ from him. He brushed it off. “We can understand, I assure you, your being new to all this. We won’t be at all offended if you choose not to join us when we mount our operation.”
“No.” Arbuckle quickly assured him. “Of course I’ll come.” If he were to stop these mad people carrying out their plan the last thing he wanted was to be left out. “Please, count me in.”
Willoughby smiled. “That’s settled then.” He put on a sterner expression before continuing, to the group in general. “However I feel that the sort of action we have decided upon is only suitable for the men to undertake. One never knows, we may clash with security guards or the like. There could quite possibly be violence.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” said Mrs Wisbech. “However it is my wish to take an active part in the strike. And I’m sure I speak for the other ladies.” She looked at Mrs Bean and Miss Preece, who both eagerly nodded their agreement. “Very well then, I vote that the three ladies chain themselves to their railings.”
Willoughby concurred. “Excellent. Such a dramatic action is bound to bring them adverse publicity. All that remains is for us to select a target. So which manufacturer of inflatable rubber women shall we attack?”
“An Hour In Bed”, said Cleaver, Grimshaw, Flannery, Seal, Mrs Wisbech, Mrs Bean and Miss Preece at once, in unison, and with great feeling.
“An Whore In Bed,” said Khan. Not having had the same recent and unfortunate contact with the products of An Hour In Bed as the others the Afghan wouldn’t have known the firm from Adam, or maybe Allah, but there was no way he was going to be left out.
Willoughby felt Khan’s slight error with the name of the company to be quite apposite and hardly worth correcting. He smiled. “That appears to be settled then.”
The meeting then went into detail about how the strike on the An Hour In Bed factory might be realised. Arbuckle, taken completely by surprise at the turn of events, and still more than a little in awe of these mad men and women that fate had brought him into contact with, sat quietly and took in every detail. He could scarcely comprehend it. These people, these morons – one of them was an ex-copper, one a Justice of the Peace and another a vicar for God’s sake - were actually going to mount an attack on An Hour in Bed; on his benefactors, on the firm who only days ago had generously taken him under its wing with the gift of a month’s work experience.
In the eight days he’d owned Bouncy Beyonce, during which time he’d had sex with her at least once every day, Arbuckle had come to fully appreciate the benefit of having enjoyable
sex on tap. He wanted as many men as possible to have the same benefit. Which they wouldn’t be having if the country’s largest supplier of inflatable rubber women was sabotaged by a bunch of lunatics.
He couldn’t let them get away with it of course. He wouldn’t. But how to stop them?
****
CHAPTER NINETEEN
On the wall behind the 10 Downing Street desk of Phil Good MP, Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, was a large banner which bore a photograph of the smiling Good along with the slogan ‘Get the Phil Good Factor.’ The words were a clever if rather obvious play on the expression ‘feel good factor’, the slogan dreamt up by the advertising firm of Clough and Bonham (known throughout the profession as Bluff and Con ’em), that had swept the Labour Leader to power at the last general election with a majority of a hundred and ten. The fact that Phil Good had never in his entire political career done a single thing which might cause people to feel good had been completely lost on the electorate. However the fact that he’d done nothing to make them feel good since he’d been elected Prime Minister had not been lost on them, and was why he stood about as much chance of being voted back into Number 10 in the forthcoming election as Osama bin Laden.
On the opposite wall were another seventeen photographs. Each of them was of the Prime Minister glad-handing visiting foreign Heads of State. Good jokingly referred to the photographs as ‘The Rogues Gallery’. On seeing them many other people did likewise, but they weren’t joking, especially with regard to Phil Good.
Taking pride of place on the walls was a cartoon of the Prime Minister, a present from the political cartoonist Dirk, from whom Good had requested the original after seeing it in a newspaper. It depicted a caricature of the smiling Prime Minister with what purported to be the Good coat of arms, along with the family motto ‘trickier than a barrelful of monkeys’, which the cartoonist had meant as a slight on Good’s character but which Good had taken as a compliment.
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