Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

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 so far is the meaning of my life. No harm done.

'I don't like…' Nick bit his lip and looked pained. He shrugged his eyebrows as if to say, it's best to use the honest word: '…blackmailing people. But this could get really nasty. I can be nasty sometimes, I just can't help it, there's too much gone on in the past. Look, I was on the game for a while, all right? I got kicked out of the house, and my house was a house of professional thieves. I was too much even for them. There's nothing I haven't done. I don't trust myself staying here with you. I advise you to get rid of me. Strongly. So, that's why I'm asking now… what alternatives do we have?'

That was exactly what Michael was thinking. I could give you money, but that would mean I would always be giving you money. I could get rid of you, and tell myself you were never real. But unfortunately, you are right. You are a thinking, feeling being and I do not have the right to destroy you. And I could let you do what you want to do, which… which I think is some kind of betrayal of what all of this is about.

Nick pressed his advantage. 'You could give me money to make a film. That might do it. Do you have a spare fifty k? Or, I suppose, I could go and talk to my opposite number. By which I mean, Nick. I suppose I call him Nick.'

The Guard gave a little wave with his fingertips and mimed a cute embarrassed hello. 'Do you think he'd be pleased to see me, Michael? It might take some explaining. But it would also prove that I wasn't lying about the man in Camden Town who can call up Angels. And at the end of it I think he might be just as interested as me in the commercial possibilities. Only, the real Nick Dodder wouldn't be in your thrall, would he? And that Nick isn't one bit nicer than this one.'

Michael thought: I'm being threatened. He still held Nick in his arms.

'Or we maybe could go ahead with my takeaway idea. You provide the cheap, raw materials and I do the rest. If you were smart, Michael, that's what you'd do. Because if you did that you would be rich.'

It was as if the crumpled bed were a plain. They were looking down on it in the dark, in a Camden bedroom, and they could see an entire world. It was a world in which mankind finally had what it wanted: an inexhaustible supply of whores who were, at last, actually subhuman. Torture, bondage, snuff, all of it. And no harm done.

Nick chuckled. 'We could mix and match. You know, build the perfect man. A bit of Brad there, a bit of a buck porn star where it counts. Pretty little boys with holes just above their cocks, so you could fuck them frontwise. People could pay to sleep with Elvis Presley or President Kennedy. Or Marilyn just after she snuffed it. We could offer hot or cold running Marilyn.'