lovely.'
Nick moved the computer into the bedroom. He downloaded images of a man who had cut off his penis and was now hammering nails through his testicles. The man had posted it himself, with an e-mail address for responses. Nick giggled. 'More like an e-nail. I mean that one would let you do anything to him, anything at all.' Nick's eyes burned with a tiny pin-prick light and his high greasy forehead gleamed like an icefloe.
Michael would be reading a book in bed and Nick would call, 'Here, you got to see this.' Michael looked up wearily. 'Look at this fat old whore. She loves being made fat. Look, she's got a progress chart here, she's fattening herself up like a goose. She says she wants someone to keep her in a dungeon, and force-feed her and then cook her and eat her!' This struck Nick as being wildly funny. 'I mean she actually wants to be cooked!'
Michael looked at the woman's face. She was smiling, bright and intelligent. She looked like someone who might work for him. He felt sick. 'I want that stuff off my hard disk. I want you to go and empty the cache and make sure it stays empty.'
Nick laughed at him. 'Oh-ho-ho man, you don't know the half of it. You really don't.'
'And I don't need to. That stuff is illegal and it's criminal.'
'No, it's not, they do it to themselves.'
'They do it to themselves because… because their imaginations have been corrupted.'
'Oh-ho man, listen to you. You sound like someone's maiden auntie.'
'People just do not naturally cut off their cocks. They do it because it has a social meaning. That's why they want people to send them e-mail. That means there has to be a social system for it to have meaning in the first place. And people like you are creating it.'
Nick was still roaring. 'Ah-ha-all right. I'll get the stuff off your bleeding hard disk. I'll bring it in on video instead!' This struck him as particularly funny.
And sure enough, Michael came home the next day to find a video from Russia playing on his television. A soldier was being lifted up and lowered onto a waiting cock. He winced from pain. He glanced directly at the camera, hoping for it to stop. Then he threw his head back in pain. The two men who bounced him up and down glanced nervously at each other. Was this right?
Michael punched off the power. 'What would have happened if I'd brought a colleague home with me?'
'You'd have changed channels.' Nick giggled.
'I would have turned you off.'
'That's what I meant.' Nick's laughter subsided. 'You really wouldn't have the right to do that, you know.'
Nick stood up to face Michael. He was smiling with some kind of catlike satisfaction. His voice started out silky, but roughened as he spoke. 'Whatever I am, Michael, I am a living, thinking, feeling being. You have no more right to switch me off or send me back than a mother has a right to throttle her own child. You got that? You think about it, Michael. While you're being so high and bloody moral about everything.'
Michael had no answer.
'I'm not one of your bleeding little chickens. You called me up. Now you're responsible for me. What am I supposed to do, eh? Run around and pick up your shit-stained underwear and wash it just so you'll let me stay alive? Am I supposed to go back to my trade? Which incidentally I was doing very well at. Don't you think people might notice, Michael, if two Nick Dodders showed up in the same business in the same town? I'm here because of you, mate, and you're stuck with me.'
Michael was caught completely off guard. 'You could get a job.'
'Oh cheers, thanks, charming. Without any papers, without anything to prove who I am, except someone else who lives with his wife in Vauxhall. Yeah, a job, right. So we're agreed then, are we?'
Michael was lost. 'Agreed about what?'
'I get to stay here until I find a job and can support myself?'
'I need to think about that.'
'Well you better think about it, Michael, because I don't have anywhere else to go.' Nick's voice rose, extremely effectively, to a bellowing roar of outrage. 'And I am fed up with you threatening to kill me every time I do something you don't like! Got that?'
Michael found he was shaking.
'Sorry to shout,' said Nick, deflating.
I'm stuck with him, my God, he's right, I'm stuck with him.
And after dinner, Nick slid next to him under the sheets and said, 'I'm sorry, Mike. I lost my temper, all right? It's just this whole thing gets on my nerves. I'm an active guy, no pun intended, and this hanging around the house just isn't good for me. Look. I've got an idea. See us both out of a hole, all right?'
'What is it?' Michael said, knowing he wasn't going to like it.
'There's no point me applying for ordinary jobs, I got no skills, and even if I could prove who I was, all it would do is show I got my education in the slammer. So, I've got to work for myself, right? Now I got an idea for a bit of what's called basket-weave marketing.'
'It's porn, right?' said Michael.
'It's better than that, mate. Picture this. You're a retired Bengali millionaire, right? You're fat, you're old, you're rich, and you're staying in a posh hotel. You go on line, and you see a lovely bit of video, and it's got this beautiful blond hunk, hung like a horse. Well you're as black as the ace of spades and you got a kink for blonds. And it says, no money upfront. You can have this beautiful blond hunk. Just pay us when he shows up. Well, you're a bit suspicious, but you done something similar before, so you have a go. And five minutes later, shall we say, miraculously, there is an Angel on your doorstep. With a big blond dick and orders to shoot. And he doesn't do nothing until we receive your securely encrypted credit card number.' Nick's eyes were glazed; he seemed to be staring into some kind of paradise. 'Huh. You can even download the video as a souvenir.'
Michael wanted this not to work. 'There would be no video, it would disappear when they did.'
Nick cuddled up to him. 'Well. Part of the idea is that our Angels wouldn't disappear. No offence, but the way you treat us is a bit exploitative. Tuh. You send us packing as soon as you've used us. Now. We'd keep our Angels. And that would be good for business. Cos, you see, you never really take off as a business if you stay a takeaway. You got to have premises. People like to eat out sometimes; sometimes it's a bit inconvenient with the in-laws staying. People like to see a real address in the real world; they won't pay the bill otherwise. So we'd keep 'em all in a hotel, all our Angels. Maybe lots of hotels, once we got going, all around the world. And that would be the pitch: see the video, have the hunks. Eat in, eat out.'
Michael was caught off guard. 'That would cost a fortune.'
Nick lolled his head on Michael's chest. 'Not as much as you think. You see, normally you got to pay a living wage. I mean, your staff have to eat, right? Wrong.' Nick groaned to himself with genuine pleasure. 'We wouldn't even have to feed them. Angels don't need to eat. Did you know that?'
Michael looked blank.
'You haven't been watching. I've been going without food. I don't even feel hungry. I don't even need to wash. Haven't you noticed I stopped doing that? But I still smell of roses. I don't need to buy clothes. I just call up one of my old suits. Naw. We just keep 'em, hundreds of them, as long as we want them. In basements until we get going.'
Michael didn't have to think. He just said, 'It sounds like hell.'
'Well, not once we get enough dosh to fix the places up.'
Michael was certain of one thing. 'I'm not going to do this.'
Nick fell coldly back onto the bed. 'Well. What are we going to do then?' He looked back at Michael. Perhaps he saw something gather in Michael's eyes. His own went soft and begging.
'Please don't kill me, Michael. All right, I'm inconvenient. I didn't ask to be born. You brought me here in case I was a good fuck. And I was. I don't like being fucked, Michael. But I let myself be fucked, because the alternative was not being here at all. And that is why I say, what are we going to do about this? Hmm? You have to be part of the solution, Michael. You got to take some responsibility.'
Michael was cold all over, and sweaty. He ran a hand over his forehead. This was always coming, he realized. Sooner or later I would call something like this up.
I either kill him or I let him live.
I've never stood for anything in my life; I never marched in protest, I never turned down a job because it was immoral. I guess I thought I was a good person because I paid my bills and hadn't actually killed anyone. And that
