for you to leave’.
‘And when do you think that will be?’, Dick enquired, looking around again at his strange new surroundings.
‘When you’re acclimatised to our world and trained in your mission’.
‘That would be my mission to overthrow the Party?’, Dick asked.
‘That is correct’, agreed Taylor, very matter-of-factly.
‘And why do you think I’ll be able to help you? I’m sure there are loads of people in the Resistance better and more skilled than me who know this world and what they’re up against’.
‘You flatter us Mr. Longg’, commented Taylor. ‘The Resistance is too small, too inexperienced and too under-equipped to topple the Party however we are constantly trying to frustrate or embarrass it. We break into museums and remove the fig leaves that the Party has added to nude statues. We graffiti public spaces with anti- Party slogans, or just giant penises. We once found a cache of old inflatable sex dolls, filled them with helium, and set these adrift over London’.
Dick smiled at this very juvenile form of terrorism.
‘With your help, however’, Taylor continued, ‘We hope to deal it a serious blow’.
‘But what can I do that you can’t do already? I’ve got no special skills. I’ve already told Alice that I’m a lover, not a fighter’, Dick explained. ‘Sure, I can give you the benefit of all my experience as an award-winning top porn star but I’m sure you didn’t bring me all this way just to give you hints and tips for what makes a good video to jerk off to’.
‘No’, Mr. Longg, ‘The reason you are here is because recent intelligence leads us to believe the Party is planning something big. Very big. We think they are developing some sort of secret weapon to use against us. You’re the one man who can find out what this is and ensure they never get to use it’.
‘And you really believe I can do all of that?’, asked Dick dubiously.
‘Mr. Longg’, Taylor replied, looking him straight in the eye, ‘It really doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is that someone very important in the Resistance believes it’.
‘And that is…’ asked Dick.
‘She’s called The Oracle’, said Taylor with due deference. ‘You’ll meet her shortly. In the meantime let me show you what we do here. I think you’ll be impressed’.
‘Whatever’, Dick muttered under his breath.
As they rose, Taylor turned to Dick and said in a low, conspiratorial voice, ‘Only a few key personnel in the Resistance know who you are and why you’re here. We’re keeping it from the rank and file members’. Dick listened intently. ‘There are sound reasons for this. Firstly, the fewer people who know, the greater the chance of you, and us, remaining undetected. Secrecy, caution and a little luck have meant that the Party hasn’t been able to find this location or identify any of our current members, all of whom lead respectable jobs in society, some even working under the very nose of the Party itself’. Taylor continued, ‘Secondly, if I told the whole membership about you, it might raise their hopes and lull them into a false sense of optimism for the future. Even among those who knew about the plan to bring you here, there is a great expectation. One or two of them are even calling you ‘The Messiah’’.
Dick rather liked that comparison, until he remembered what eventually happened to the original Messiah. Then he became glum again.
CHAPTER 5
Dick followed Taylor out of the room, down an anonymous corridor, through a door and down another featureless corridor that made the first one look positively exciting by comparison. They entered a small room where three resistance members were working. Dick recognised two of them from the lounge when he first appeared; now they were seated at a bank of electronic machines staring at a small screen and inserting and removing small silver discs.
Taylor introduced them, ‘Dick, meet Susan and Edward, two of our senior members’.
‘We’re so glad you’re here’, said Susan, an attractive woman in her early thirties with deep blue eyes and full red lips. ‘I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you’.
Edward, a dapper, serious-looking man of similar age echoed her sentiments. ‘We’ve heard so much about you and I can’t tell you how relieved we are that you’re here to help us’.
Most of the compliments he received in his career were as phoney as his co-stars’ breasts but this time Dick felt the fawning was genuine and refreshing to hear.
Taylor continued, ‘We have quite rudimentary equipment to copy, edit and distribute pornographic films and magazines. We do this to undermine the government but they’re not what you would probably consider particularly erotic. The Party were very thorough at destroying any surviving films or literature from your time that they considered “unsuitable” for society today’.
Edward interjected. ‘We’re having to work with a sixteenth generation copy of Emmanuelle II with no sound, and a version of Debbie Does Dallas with fifty minutes missing’.
‘You don’t have any of my films?’, asked Dick with an obvious air of disappointment. ‘I’ve made hundreds. Surely some must have survived?’
‘There was one’, admitted Edward. ‘An old copy of Titty Slickers’.
‘It was damaged, though’, added Susan, ‘and we could only salvage part of it’.
‘Well even that must be better than what you’re currently using’, said Dick. ‘Let me see what you’ve got’.
Susan looked past Dick to Taylor who nodded his approval. She located this particular disc and inserted it. After a few moments its contents flickered on to the small viewing screen.
‘That’s it?’, asked Dick after less than thirty seconds.
‘That’s it’, confirmed Susan apologetically.
‘You sure?’
Susan nodded.
‘Sure, sure?’
Another nod from Susan, followed by a shrug.
Dick was depressed. His legacy, and the sum total of his whole back catalogue, was just some opening titles and a ten second close-up of his naked butt. Sensing his extreme disappointment, Taylor steered Dick away and introduced him to a woman in her forties on the other side of the room who radiated what could only be described as naive childish enthusiasm. ‘Mr. Longg, this is Grace who’s been working on a pornographic magazine’.
Grace blushed and said hello.
‘I’m sure our guest would love to see it’, prompted Taylor.
Grace hesitantly took what looked like a home-produced fanzine from a stack. ‘We put this together from some photos we found’, she added with a hint of pride in her voice that Dick would soon discover was totally misplaced.
Dick thumbed through it and as pornography went, found it one of the most unarousing things he had ever seen. He thought photos of sawmill accidents or toxic waste would have been sexier. The magazine consisted of some old black and white shots of Bettie Page throwing a beach ball, a photo of Jenna Jameson in a bikini, the Venus di Milo, plus some shots from an old Victoria’s Secrets catalogue and a reproduction of the poster of Raquel Welch from ‘One Million Years BC’.
Grace added, ‘I’d heard that people find the idea of two women together quite sexually arousing so I manipulated the images’.
Dick could see that Grace had understood the principle of the idea but not the detail. For a start, Bettie and Jenna were facing opposite directions and it looked as though Bettie was just four feet tall. And as for the photo of Raquel Welch and the Venus di Milo, well maybe someone who’d been raised in, and hadn’t left a monastery for their entire adult life, might have felt a slight stirring in their groin, but that was about all.
‘Not bad’, said Dick, trying not to let his horror show but failing dismally.
Grace detected this disappointment and blushed. Taylor stepped in to save her from any more
