Ben Elton - Blast From The Past

Jack sucked at his beer and laughed. “So you guys are planning a party?” he said.

“Didn’t you hear?” Dipstick replied. “Life’s a party.”

It was decision time. Jack wondered what he wanted. What he wanted, of course, was Polly but he couldn’t have her, so perhaps he wanted Mitti. He was drunk and she was getting more attractive by the minute. Maybe he should go along with it. Have a few laughs. He was so hard on himself most of the time; perhaps it would be fun. He looked at Mitti and her eyes were welcoming.

“Well hey, no rush,” said Dipstick. “We’ll just all sit here getting old while you think about it.”

Jack pulled himself together. He was dreaming. Orgies were not for him. It was a strange thing, but Polly, or at least the memory of Polly, had come to act as a sort of censor on Jack’s life. He often found himself wondering what she would make of the things he said and the things he did. Of one thing he was sure: she would not think much of his cavorting at the Hotel American with drunken girls. It was almost as if having betrayed her utterly he was trying to make it up by not betraying her memory.

“No thanks. I’m going to get something to eat,” Jack said, rising from the table.

“Hey, come on, Jack,” Dipstick protested. “You can’t break up the party.”

“You don’t need me, Dip,” Jack laughed, and as he did so he caught Mitti’s eye and the disappointment there. He could not help but smile at her and that was enough. Mitti got up too.

“I’m coming with you,” she said boldly.

“ Nein, Mitti,” Helga said.

“Yeah, nein,” Dipstick added.

Helga and Dipstick could both see the ratio of the sexes changing from six:two to five:one and neither of them liked it.

“C’mon, Jack. You and Mitti have gotta stay.”

“Mitti can do what she likes, Dipstick, but if you think I want to see your white hairy ass in a spa bath you’ve been in the army too long,” Jack said, putting on his coat.

“I don’t think I’ll bother either, guys,” said Schultz. “I have an early appointment at the chiropodist tomorrow and I’d hate to be all bleary for it. Thanks, anyway.”

Dipstick ignored Schultz.

“Who said anything about a spa bath, Jack?” he protested. “We’re just going to get some booze.”

“Yeah, sure, Dip. Absolutely,” Jack replied and, nodding his farewell to the table, he turned and headed for the door, but not before casting a questioning glance at Mitti. There followed a brief exchange between Mitti and Helga in German, the gist of which was Mitti asking Helga if Helga minded being left. Helga was not particularly delighted about it, but she was a grown-up girl and it was a well-established rule that in such pickup situations it was every woman for herself. Helga told Mitti that if she wanted to go with Jack then she should do it, but she was to be sure to phone her in the morning and give her a full report.

“You too,” Mitti replied in English, “but not too early.”

Jack was waiting at the door. Mitti grabbed her jacket and the two of them left. Outside Mitti put her arm through Jack’s and they walked together through the snowy streets. She was shivering, her little ra-ra dress and wetlook leather jacket being little protection from the cold. Jack put his arm around her. Most places were shut, but after a while they found a small Moroccan restaurant in a basement called the Kasbah. The only other clientele were North Africans, economic immigrants, the subject of much resentment in the town.

That night, however, everything was smiles between the nervous black men and their unexpected guests, and Jack and Mitti sat down to couscous, lamb stew and beer.

“So you really did want to eat,” Mitti enquired.

“Sure, what else?”

They both knew what else. Mitti did not reply, but glanced coyly down at her food and then up again at Jack, which was reply enough. She did in fact have lovely eyes and without her ridiculous jacket she seemed much less hard and aggressive; even the huge hair appeared to be getting softer and less assertive.

They finished their meal and went to a small hotel where they made love. Even as they began, Jack wished that he had not. He liked Mitti; she was a nice girl and very pretty underneath the make-up, but the truth was that she was not his type. It was partly the smell. There was no part of Mitti’s person that was not scented and treated with anti-perspirant. She could have fucked for a year and not broken into a sweat. Every inch of her both reeked and tasted of chemicals, her scratchy, brittle hair, her sour-tasting neck, the soapy gloss on her lips, the all-over body spray on her breasts, even her crotch had been deodorized, her natural sexual scent bludgeoned into submission by some cloud of musky napalm. Merely undressing Mitti had given Jack a headache and a blocked-up nose. It was like trying to have sex on the cosmetic counter at Macy’s. His throat hurt and he felt sick for a day afterwards, like he had swallowed a bottle of aftershave.

Jack was a gentleman and he did his best, but they both knew that his heart wasn’t in it.

After a while they gave up, got dressed and Jack took Mitti home in a cab.

He kissed her goodnight and headed back to base feeling lonely and sad.

At about lunchtime the next day Mitti rang Helga to find out how her night had gone.

Helga said it had been fine, but she had sounded strange. After that Mitti did not see Helga for a week, by which time Helga had been to the police to report having been raped.

There were two stories of what happened to Helga after Jack and Mitti had left the bar that night.

Nobody disputed that Dipstick, Rod, Brad, Karl and Helga had all left the bierkeller in Bad Nauheim together, leaving Captain Schultz to his sauerkraut. Likewise, there was general agreement that the party had removed itself to the Hotel American where Dipstick had taken the best rooms available, a suite that boasted its own bar and a whirlpool bath. After this the stories begin to diverge. Helga admitted that they had all stripped off and squeezed into the hot bath together. Also she admitted, under police questioning, that she had then voluntarily had sex in the spa with Dipstick while the other men looked on. She also conceded that she had briefly masturbated certainly one other man, Rod, she thought, and possibly one of the others, too. After this Helga claimed that Rod had suggested that she now have sex with him and then also with the two younger officers. Helga said that at this point she had become nervous, as the men were beginning to get noisy and raucous. She declined Rod’s request for sex, saying that she had now had enough, and attempted to leave the spa bath. After this she claimed that Rod and Brad had raped her in turn while Karl and Dipstick sat by and continued to drink.

The men, on the other hand, all swore under oath that Helga had consented to all the sexual acts that had happened that night. They swore that there had been no difference at all between Helga’s attitude to having sex with Dipstick and then having sex with the other two men. They pointed out that Helga had not cried out and that afterwards she had not left the hotel until the following morning, even accepting a cup of coffee from Karl. Everyone admitted to having been very drunk.

Helga could not explain why she had not cried out, except to say that she thought she might have been too scared. She was also not entirely sure why she had remained in the hotel for some hours after the incident, apart from the fact that she had felt weak and sick and upset. When asked why it had taken her five days to report the alleged attack, she said that she had prevaricated because she knew very well how the whole incident would look. The only thing of which Helga was absolutely certain was that the last two men who had had sex with her had known that she was no longer a willing participant.