Ben Elton - Dead Famous

On the screens Kelly straightened herself up. Her naked body was gleaming and dripping with sweat.

“Very nice,” whispered Geraldine, tense with excitement. “Very, very, very nice.”

Kelly seemed to be in a hurry. She did not bother to take up one of the great long sheets that Peeping Tom had thoughtfully provided for such eventualities, but simply ran naked out of the boys’ bedroom, across the living area and into the sole lavatory, which served the needs of the whole group.

“Beautiful!” Geraldine exclaimed. “I never thought they’d use the cover-up sheets once they got amped up. Except maybe that snotty cow Dervla. Moon was right, I only put them there to make it look like I’m not a total perv, which of course I am, along with the rest of the population, I might add.”

Kelly’s run had certainly been thrilling for the watchers in the monitoring bunker. The show’s first moment of absolute, in-focus, full-frontal nudity.

“Minge and all,” as Geraldine delightedly put it. “Now we won’t have to keep running that same tired old shot of her tit coming out in the pool.”

“Superb image quality, too,” commented Fogarty.

“The body or the pictures?” Geraldine enquired.

“I’m a techy, I don’t do aesthetics,” Fogarty replied with angry embarrassment.

He was right about the quality, though. This was no grainy-blue sneaky night-shot like the ones they occasionally caught in the bedrooms. Kelly had run right through the living area, which was permanently neon lit, and although the lights had been dimmed to avoid light intruding into the boys’ bedroom when the door was open, it was still a glorious shot.

“Nice one, Larry,” Geraldine called into the microphone, addressing the one live cameraman on duty. “Glad we decided to keep you on.”

Geraldine was referring to the fact that there had only the previous day been a debate about dispensing with night operators altogether, because so little ever actually happened in the house at night, and seeing as how the entire environment was covered by remotes anyway. Geraldine had, however, insisted on retaining at least one person in the camera runs at night for just such an eventuality as had occurred. A naked girl running right across the room needed the personal touch. The coverage from the hotheads not only came from above but also encompassed three different arcs of vision, and would have had to be cut up accordingly. On the other hand Larry, the live cameraman, had got one long beautiful, tit-bouncing, thigh-wobbling, tummy-stretching, full-frontal shot with pubic hair in full and constant focus. A shot that would play absolutely beautifully in slow motion.

“Terrific work, out of the blue like that,” Geraldine continued, giving credit where it was due. “Looks like there’s still a role for you human beings in making television. Stick with her at the toilet door, Larry, and get her again when she comes out.”

Inside the toilet, of course, there was only remote coverage, a single camera mounted high in a corner above the door. This camera was looking down now on Kelly as she sat on the seat of the lavatory, her head in her hands.

In the monitoring box there was a slightly embarrassed silence. None of the production team had ever quite got used to this bit of their job. Listening to people pee and poop. In the daytime at least there were other things going on, something else to look at and listen to, but not at night. When any of the housemates went at night it was just them and the six people watching and listening from the box. This was always a strangely intense and rather degrading experience for the editing team. They felt like the most awful perverts.

On this occasion, of course, there should have been plenty of distraction coming from inside the translucent plastic box, but suddenly the party seemed to have arrived at something of a lull. The high hilarity, grunting and giggling of the touching game had rather abruptly died down into what sounded like something approaching a drunken stupor. Murmured conversations and giggles could be made out, but nothing very clear. Nothing distracting enough to take the team’s minds off the girl on the toilet.

And so they sat there, grown-up, educated, professional people, waiting to watch a young woman empty her bladder and very possibly also her bowel. They all felt very stupid.

“Get on with it then, darling,” said Geraldine. “You can’t have stage fright after three weeks. We’ve all heard you piss before.”

“Maybe she’s having a little cry or something,” said Fogarty. “She doesn’t normally hang her head like that when she pees.”

“Somebody in the sweatbox pushed her a bit too far, do you think?” Geraldine replied eagerly. “Well, we shall no doubt hear all about it in the confession box tomorrow.”

“She’s just sitting like that ’cos she’s drunk,” observed Pru, the assistant editor.

“Probably.”

Together they all continued to stare at the girl on the toilet. It was, after all, their job.

“That reminds me,” said Geraldine. “I’m busting.” She had been in the bunker for many hours, drinking coffee almost continuously. “Bet I’m back before she’s been.” Geraldine rather prided herself on the efficiency of her physical functions.

“ And I’m going to have a shit,” she remarked over her shoulder as she left. Geraldine knew how unpleasant her staff found her and she delighted in compounding it, surprising them by going further than even their grim expectations.

“Far, far too much information,” Fogarty said ruefully after Geraldine had left the room.

They waited in silence.

“I think she is upset,” said Pru.

“Who? Geraldine? I doubt it.”

“No, Kelly. She doesn’t want a pee, she’s just gone in there to get away, hasn’t she?”

“Possibly, I suppose.”

“Well, she’s not doing a wee, is she? She’s just sitting there. She just wanted to get out of that sweatbox, but she knows if she does she’ll forfeit the task and Geraldine will fine the group half their budget. The only way she can get a break is by pretending to have a pee.”

Shortly after this Geraldine returned and drew the same conclusion as Pru. “She’s skiving off,” Geraldine sneered. “She’s having a bunk. She’s not having a piss, she’s taking the piss, and I’m not putting up with that. I’m going to give her a Peeping Tom announcement to pee or get off the potty. Where’s my voice? Where’s Sam? I’m going to tell that young slapper to get her lovely body back in that sweatbox or pay the price.”

“Hang on,” said Pru. “Something’s happening.”

The line of numbers at the bottom of the screen of the incident room television showed that it was 11.44. 11.44 and twenty-one seconds, twenty-two seconds, twenty-three seconds.

Coleridge still found it difficult to watch, even after numerous viewings. He had heard that the whole sequence was already available on the Internet and had been downloaded many tens of thousands of times. As long as he lived Coleridge did not believe he would understand how a single race of beings could include both Jesus Christ and the sort of people who would download a video of a young woman being murdered. He rather supposed that had been the Messiah’s point, but that didn’t make it any easier to understand or accept.

He, Hooper and Trish watched as, while Kelly sat naked and unsuspecting on the toilet, at the other end of the house, in the boys’ bedroom, the plastic flaps of the sweatbox moved. There was a sort of flurry of activity as a hidden figure swiftly gathered up one of the sheets that Peeping Tom had allowed for lavatory trips, spread it out to cover the entrance and on leaving the box enveloped his or her self in it. Try as they might, and using the best image-enhancement technology available, the police had been unable to gain any information whatsoever from that blurred bluish image. For a moment a hand was visible, but it was not possible to even tell if it was male or female, or even to say whether it wore a ring.