Robert Rankin - Web Site Story

'Oh no,' said Derek. 'Because you'll know and I'll know you know.'

‘I’ll give you money,' said Kelly.

'No,' said Derek.

Kelly chewed upon her Cupid's bow. 'I'll er…'

'Er?' said Derek.

'I'll give you a blow job,' said Kelly.

'You'll what?'

'I will,' said Kelly. 'If you let me play.'

Derek dithered, but it did have to be said, although only to himself and only to himself when alone in his room, that Derek had never actually had a blow job.

'Well…' said Derek.

'You'll have to wear a condom,' said Kelly. 'But I will give you a blow job.'

'Right here and now?'

'Afterwards,' said Kelly. 'After I've played the game.'

'And what if it doesn't work?'

Kelly looked at Derek. It would be so easy. And so so cruel.

'Whether it works or not,' she said.

Derek looked at Kelly. Here she was, one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life. And she was here in his bedroom and she was prepared to give him a blow job, if he let her play one of his video games. This was heaven, wasn't it? This was joy, joy, happyjoy.

Happy Happy Joy.

But.

Damn it. But.

But this was his game. This was his Holy Grail of games and this game, owning this game, owning the very concept of owning this game, this was his. It was something of value. Something that mattered, something that he cared about. Not everyone could understand a principle like that. Most men would just say, 'Go for the blow job, are you mad?' But collecting games was Derek's life. And things that mattered, things that had value, that deserved to be respected, that deserved respect, you didn't mess with things like that, you didn't devalue them. Not if you really cared. You didn't sell them out.

Derek looked once more upon Kelly. That body, those breasts, that face, that mouth.

'No,' said Derek, shaking his head. 'I won't do it. No.'

Kelly looked at Derek, and then she slowly smiled. 'Derek,' she said. 'You have just passed up the blowjob of a lifetime.'

Derek sadly nodded his head. 'Yes, I know,' he said.

'But,' said Kelly. 'In doing so, you have made a friend for life.' And she put out her hand to Derek. And Derek shook that hand.

Derek didn't know quite why he shook it. Well, perhaps he did, but he smiled with some relief as he shook it, and shook it firmly, did he.

So to speak.

'Well,' said Derek, when all the shaking was done. 'That was very stressful. And I'm glad it's over. Would you, er, care for a game of pong?'

'Oh God yes!' said Kelly.

'Then be prepared to have your arse most well and truly kicked.'

'Boy, by the time I'm finished with you, you won't be able to sit on yours for a week.'

'You reckon?'

'I reckon.'

'Let's play.'

As Kelly didn't get back to her digs until after five in the morning, she lay rather longer in bed than normally she would have done.

She didn't raise her blondie head until half past ten, which didn't give her much time to get showered and dressed and breakfasted before she met up with Derek at eleven.

She had arranged to meet him in the saloon bar of a Brentford pub called the Shrunken Head.

Starting off the day in a pub might not have seemed to many people the right and proper thing to do. But then many people wouldn't have known, as Derek did, and as Derek told Kelly, that in the corner of the saloon bar of the Shrunken Head there was an original Space Invaders machine in fully working order.

And, as they'd come up even in the previous night's playing of pong, a decider would have to be played. So why not play it out upon this very machine?

'Why indeed not?' Kelly had said.

Kelly's breakfast plate was puce, as was the tablecloth it sat upon. Kelly's landlady, Mrs Gormenghast (daughter of the remarkable Zed and sister to Zardoz, the ornamental hermit, who lived all alone in a tree), stoked up the fire in the front sitter, where Kelly sat late-breakfasting. Mrs Gormenghast wore a pucely hued jumpsuit of a type which has happily gone the way of the split-knee loon pant and the Beatle wig. Not to mention the stylophone.

As if anybody would.

Kelly wore a simple summer frock of turquoise blue. It had no buttons to loosen, which given the fire's heat and all the closed windows, didn't help in the ever-warming atmosphere.

'Is that fire really necessary?' Kelly asked, as she mopped at her brow with a puce napkin.

'It keeps the Devil out,' said Mrs Gormenghast. 'Always keep a fire in your hearth and you'll never have to fear the Devil. My late husband used to say that. He knew what he was talking about.'

'Was he a preacher man?' Kelly asked.

'No, he was a coalman.'

'How do you get your fried eggs so puce?' Kelly asked.

'It's an old Indian trick, taught to me by an old Indian woman trickster. Puce is the colour of at-oneness. Did you know that if you take every single colour there is, about an ounce of each and mix them all together in a big pot, a very big pot obviously, the end result will be puce. Explain that if you will.'

'I can't,' said Kelly. 'But I suppose that…'

'You can split light with a prism, can't you?' asked Mrs Gormenghast.

'As far as I know,' said Kelly.

'Invisible light, it contains all the colours of the rainbow.'

Kelly nodded.

'So how come, if you mix all colours together in a pot they don't end up as an invisible transparent liquid?'

'Well…' said Kelly.

'Yes, that's easy for you to say. Well, well, I'll tell you why, well. Because prisms don't tell all of the truth. Nothing tells all of the truth. Nothing and nobody. The ultimate colour of the universe is puce. Mrs Charker down the road is of the mistaken belief that it is pink. Naturally, I respect her opinions, even if I know they are wrong.'

'Ah,' said Kelly. 'That would be Mrs Minky Charker, wife of Big Bob Charker who was in the bus crash.'

'That's her,' said Mrs Gormenghast. 'Her husband was carried off in The Rapture, I've heard. Not that it makes any sense to me, I've been keeping the Devil out of my fireplace and painting my house puce for years. If The Rapture's on the go, I should have been amongst the first of the blessed to be carried off to glory.'

'Perhaps it's happening in shifts,' said Kelly.

'Probably,' said Mrs G. 'God knows his own business best. The world can all go to pot at a moment's notice, my late husband used to say, but as long as you're all stocked up in nutty slack, you'll always have a welcome in your hearth. That man was a saint. It was a shame the way he met his end.'

Kelly didn't ask.

'Don't ask,' said Mrs Gormenghast. 'By the way, did you hear what happened to that nice Dr Druid at the cottage hospital, last night?'

'No,' said Kelly. 'What?'

'Raptured,' said Mrs Gormenghast. 'One moment he was giving an internal examination to a young woman suffering from verrucas, the next up and gone. I'm going to keep this fire well stoked today. I don't want the Antichrist coming down my chimney. And I shall be keeping this jumpsuit on indefinitely now. I want to look my best when my turn to be Raptured comes.'

'Dr Druid too?' said Derek. 'You really have to be joking.'

He was, as now was Kelly, in the saloon bar of the Shrunken Head. Derek had been there since half past ten, practising on the Space Invaders machine. He was chums with the barman. The barman had let him in early.

'I'm not joking,' said Kelly. 'I just heard. Dr Druid's vanished too. A young woman with verrucas saw it happen.'

Derek scratched at his head. 'There is something strange going on, isn't there?' he said.

'I really think there is,' said Kelly.

Derek now scratched at his chin. 'All right,' he said. 'I am supposed to be covering the annual over-eighties backwards walk between Kew and Richmond along the Thames towpath today. But I think it's a foregone conclusion, that old sod who had me with the Runese the night before last always wins it. I suggest we go to the cottage hospital and follow this thing up.'