After the ordeal of his interview Dick decided he needed a stiff drink. On opening the fridge he found the term was relative; all he found in it was a bottle of full fat milk and some lime cordial. Dick mixed the cordial, drained a whole glass, then slumped down on the couch. He needed company — and fast — and the best solution to take his mind off the situation seemed to be the television. Trying to find something to catch his attention Dick channel-hopped. The problem was there was only one government-run TV channel, so channel hopping was actually limited to turning the TV on and off. The novelty soon wore thin and Dick decided that watching what was on was preferable to watching what was off. That afternoon he saw programmes about canal construction, iron ore mining, locomotive pioneers and embroidery. Unable to keep his eyes open, a combination of general tiredness and the soporific programme content, Dick took himself to his bed and fell into a deep sleep.
He was rudely awoken to the sounds of the Leader addressing him. Well not him personally, but all of the population. He reached over to his small bedside table and looked at his pocket watch, one of his new fashion accessories, to see it was 6am. Dick rubbed his eyes and looked again. It was still six am. Dick had heard rumours that there were actually two six o’clocks in each day, but he hadn’t been able to verify this. Now he could, and he didn’t like it, especially since it was a Saturday. The stress of the interview must have really taken its toll; he rarely woke this early or slept this long. The appearance of the Leader was pre-empted by very loud music emanating from the TV. Dick liked jazz, R & B, soul, pop, garage, rock, rap and hip hop. In fact there were only two styles of music he absolutely couldn’t bear. One was world music and the other was brass bands. The good news was that the New Victorians weren’t into nose flutes and making clicking noises at the back of their throats. The bad news was that they seemed to have a real affection for tubas, euphoniums and trombones.
The other bad news was that when the Leader spoke to the nation it wasn’t possible to turn the volume down, or in fact, the TV off (Dick would later discover that the television would automatically turn itself on at six in the morning every day). After the music died down Dick had to sit through various messages and proclamations from the Leader about increased coal mining and hovercar production statistics that were mind-numbingly tedious. The only thing that kept his attention was the leader himself. He was a reasonably handsome man with full beard and moustache and a very smart three-piece suit. Dick thought he looked familiar. He racked his brain trying to think whom he reminded him of, narrowing it down to one of the security guards at the Ministry of Information or a man he saw presenting the programme on canals the previous night. Then Dick realised that most New Victorian men looked the same; this was a society where to be different was to be dissident.
The Leader’s dull announcements were followed by boring pronouncements. These in turn were followed by more strident brass band music. Dick went to take a shower, only to find the loudspeakers in the bathroom, and in fact every room in his apartment, were all broadcasting the Leader’s proclamations. To block out the din Dick tried to shower with his hands over his ears only to find this was impractical, especially when it came to trying to wash his hair. He worked out how to control the water pressure and temperature with his elbows but when it came to applying the shampoo and massaging it into his scalp, well, no matter how hard he tried, he had to remove his hands from his ears. With the sound of massed trumpets and flugelhorns still ringing in his head, Dick dried himself.
He was contemplating how he would spend the day when the TV announced that it was time for the monthly bromide injection. He was instructed (or rather, commanded) by a severe voice to place his fist through a rubber-sealed hole in the bathroom wall. The Resistance had briefed Dick all about this and he remembered having a giggling fit when Taylor first told him the name of the process: fisting. Although it resembled one, Dick fully understood that this opening in the wall was not a ‘glory hole’. Inserting his penis, Taylor stressed, would not only be ‘wrong’, it could also be incredibly and exceedingly painful. Inside was a device that injected the correct dose of sexual repressants into a vein in the back of your hand. Anyone not subjecting themselves to the monthly injection would be identified and then investigated. The severe voice increased in severity and Dick did as he was ordered, first placing his flat palm on the scan plate next to the opening. There as a bleep and a light flashed green as his ID chip was read. Dick then gingerly inserted his clenched fist through the rubber seal. Two more sounds followed. One was a buzz and the other was a yelp as the injection took Dick by surprise.
Although the Resistance’s efforts at creating pornography were at best extremely soft-core and at worst, complete shit, what they were good at — or so Dick was told — was technology, and this included developing an antidote to the repressants. Taylor had told him that a member with a pharmaceutical background had managed to create pills that neutralised the chemical injections. They lasted for about a month, were completely undetectable, and quite amazingly, worked. Resistance members took their dosage when they were at the headquarters; it was far too dangerous for pills to be kept anywhere else. Dick had been told that it was not uncommon for the security forces to enter homes when they were unoccupied and conduct random searches for pills, party criticism, pornography or anything else deemed ‘anti-constitutional’, whether it began with a ‘p’ or not.
This impulsive thought about porn made Dick feel very aroused all of a sudden. Usually this was good but at this particular time it meant he had an itch he couldn’t scratch. There was nothing remotely pornographic in his apartment, not even old copies of National Geographic or that edition of Reader’s Digest with the feature ‘I Am Jane’s Breast’ which would always do in an emergency. Then Dick had a thought. Or to put it more accurately, he thought the unthinkable. He went to his jacket pocket and took out his wallet. He carefully unfolded one of the banknotes provided to him by the Resistance and examined it. There was a depiction of the Clifton Suspension Bridge on one side. He turned it over. He couldn’t… could he? Would he? He had to.
His trousers were straining under his bulge and he had to find relief in some shape or form. The form was Queen Victoria whose portrait graced the other side of the currency, an indication that the Party still held her in very high esteem. In the privacy of the bathroom Dick dropped his trousers and looked longingly at the banknote. He was sure Victoria had been young and attractive once. The problem was that the engraving that had been used showed her in her dotage and it took every single ounce of Dick’s imagination to make her appear even slightly alluring. It wasn’t long though before Dick got into the swing of things.
‘That’s it queenie! You know you want it!’, Dick thought to himself. ‘Kneel on that throne and take it all, you filthy monarch whore! I’m going to fuck you, you sovereign slut! That’s it. Hold on to your crown Vicky! Take my sceptre! That’s it baby, you dirty royal bitch! Take it! Take it all! I’m going to fuck your imperial brains out. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! YES!’
A combination of Dick’s great imagination and even greater desperation meant the banknote did the trick. It was a much more relaxed Dick who shortly afterwards left his apartment ready to face the day and explore his new surroundings for the first time.
CHAPTER 9
Dick was worried about meeting any of his new neighbours since he knew they’d be curious about the newbie on the block. His plan was to try and avoid them for as long as possible. ‘As long as possible’, of course, is open to interpretation. Given Dick’s situation it could have been half a day, a day, a few days or a week. It could also have been fifty-four seconds and that is the precise length of time it took from Dick locking his apartment door to bumping into the pleasant thirty-something couple that were waiting for the elevator.