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It is seven o’clock on a Saturday night, but the residents of 15 Credibility Street are staying in. As they have zero money and even fewer friends, they’re spending their weekend doing what they always do: Neil is stirring his pot of lentils, Mike is reading The Bog Standard, and Vyvyan is watching his favorite programme, the dot on the telly.
Suddenly Rick bursts through the front door with his usual flair.
“Attention evewyone!” he bellows. “Gather wound, gather wound. I have something to say! An announcement, if you will.”
“I will not!” shouts Vyvyan from his perch on the sofa.
“Oh, but you will,” Rick objects with a self-satisfied smirk. “You must. For the glad tidings I come beawing fwom the Kingdom of Wick are mandatowy listening.”
“Well spit it out, Rick,” says Mike. “An’ I don’t mean the chewing tobacco.”
Rick looks nauseatingly triumphant.
“I… have got a girlfwiend.”
Vyvyan spits on the floor.
“Bollocks!”
“I do! And she’s on her way over here as we speak.”
“Oh yeah?” Vyvyan laughs. “How will she be arriving? In the back of a hearse?”
“Oh hee haw, Vyvyan! Vewy funny. Hilaaawious. No, she’ll be awwiving vewy much alive, thank you vewy much. And in a flash car, as well, no doubt.”
“Oh yeah?” asks Mike. “How’s that?”
“She is quite wealthy, and of good stock.”
Vyvyan nods.
“Of good stock, right, right… does she have long, lean legs?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, she does.”
“A glistening mane?”
Rick looks somewhat confused now, but nevertheless he takes the bait.
“Well, yes.”
“Strong fetlocks?”
“Ye— Vyvyan you knob gob, she’s not a bloody horse!”
Mike saunters up, stopping a burgeoning fistfight in its tracks.
“‘Orse or no ‘orse, Rick, ‘ere is my only concern: Does she have a friend?”
“A fwiend?”
“A friend, ya know… of the fairer sex variety.”
“Eh?”
“Well, no reason for it to not be drippin’ on Mike when it’s rainin’ on Rick, if you catch my drift. And I don’t mean the whiff of yesterday’s Lentil Surprise. Which — no offense, Neil — left much to be desired in the way of surprises. As it is the same bland, tasteless lentil casserole ya cook every day.”
Neil’s shoulders slump over the pot.
“Well, I’m sorry that I skimped on the saffron and samphire, Mike,” he replies sardonically. “Maybe next time right, maybe spot me a few more quid for some truffle oil, yeah?”
“Awright awright!!!” Rick screeches. “Evwybody just shut! Up!!! Now listen here, you sad bags of pus — not you, Mike, you’re gweat — my vewy weal, vewy alive girlfwiend is coming. And I don’t need any of you messing up my chances. So evwybody just pwetend to be normal, alwight?!”
Neil and Mike nod and murmur their consent, whereas Vyvyan just gives him the two-finger salute.
“Oh, she’s here!” Rick whispers. “I can hear someone pulling up.”
Vyvyan snorts.
“You mean you can hear hooves clopping along the cobblestones?”
Ignoring his housemate’s infantile jibes, Rick opens the door to greet his lady love. In strolls an attractive, yet tired looking young woman with bushy auburn hair, baggy black clothes, equally baggy eyes done up like Siouxie Sioux, a lit fag swinging from her bottom lip, and a distinct air of ‘I was told to be here, but I would much rather be at the cemetery right now.’
“Ahh! Sandwa!” Rick coos as he moves in to give her a kiss on both cheeks, which makes her recoil somewhat. “There you are, my darling! Looking absolutely wavishing, looking… just tops! Ahaha.”
“Yeah awrite, Rick,” she replies, wiping his slime off her cheeks with her overlong sleeves.
Taking a sudden keen interest, Vyvyan gets up off the sofa and stands unreasonably close to her, looking her up and down with narrowed, discerning eyes.
“Is that… a real bird?” he asks.
“No, Vyvyan,” Rick scoffs. “It’s a human woman. Ever seen one before?”
The punk then yanks at a lock of Sandra’s bushy hair, earning him a cigarette burn on his arm.
“Paws off, stinker!” Sandra hisses while his skin sizzles.
“It’s not a wig!” Vyvyan exclaims, incredulous. “That’s a real bird! It’s not just a cardboard cutout this time!”
Rick rolls his eyes.
“Yes, Vyvyan. She’s in 3D, with bweasts and evewything.” He turns to Mike briefly and whispers, “And if I play my cards wight tonight, she might even let me cop a feel!”
“Shoot for the stars, Rick,” Mike replies.
*~*~*~*
Two glittery felt stars with googly eyes twinkle in the distance. One of them exclaims:
“He better not shoot at me! I’ve got a family!”
The other star gives his neighbor the googly sideeye.
“Stop bloody lying, Theodore. Everyone knows you’re a deadbeat dad.”
*~*~*~*
Meanwhile, back at the house:
“Well, anywaaay…” Rick drawls, putting his arm around a reluctant Sandra. “We’re going on a sexy date now, so—”
“Alright, you so-called bird,” Vyvyan barks, getting right up in the girl’s face. “How much he pay you?”
Sandra looks to Rick. She receives a pointed look in return.
“He didn’t pay me anyfing!” she rebutts, sticking her chin out. “You calling me a prostitute, are ya?”
“Well…”
Sandra shows Vyvyan her brass knuckled fist, and he takes a few steps back — wary, however not unimpressed.
“Bloody hell, Prick, where did you find a corker like this, eh? Down the race tracks?”
Ignoring him once again, Rick leans in close to whisper in Sandra’s ear:
“Well done, Sandwa! And now, for what we discussed.”
The poor girl braces herself, then grabs Rick by his stupid little braids and plants a big ol’ kiss on his chapped lips. After a couple seconds she lets him up for air with a loud, wet, smacking pop.
“Blimey!” Rick exclaims, laughing hysterically. “She’s fwiendly, isn’t she?!”
Everyone in the room is stunned; they’d thought they’d never see the day. Even Rick himself had been unsure whether or not Sandra would actually go through with it (seeing as he hadn’t paid up front).
Vyvyan, now looking sufficiently shaken, breaks the spell by loudly clearing his throat.
“Pardon me a moment.”
The punk goes about his next moves very matter-of-factly: He walks over to Neil and his lentil casserole, vomits in it; moves over to Rick, punches him in the balls; pulls a molotov cocktail from his pocket, sets it alight, smashes it on the sofa; lastly, he takes a running start at the window and throws himself through the glass, screaming.
His housemates all stick their heads out of the smashed up window and watch him as he goes screeching and wailing and sobbing down the street.
“Bloody heeell,” Rick huffs. “Well, that was a bit of an oveweaction, wasn’t it?”
Mike and Neil shrug in unison.
Rick suddenly remembers his previous engagement, and turns to Sandra.
“Ahahaah,” he laughs awkwardly, clapping his hands together. “Sandy, my dear… would you be so kind as to wait outside for me? I fear the fumes of the sofa fire may be detwimental to your delicate constitution. Wouldn’t want you to catch the black lung.”
“Awrite,” she grumbles, lighting up her next cigarette on the roaring fire. “Don’t take too bloody long, grease stain.”
Rick ushers her out the door.
“Shan’t, my sweet! Won’t be a ‘mo, just… having a quick emergency house meeting, ahahah.”
As soon as the door clicks shut, Rick spins around to interrogate his housemates.
“Now. What the bloody hell was that?”
“I know, right?” Neil replies. “I mean that was a real human womaaan. In our house. And it wasn’t even one of Mike’s.”
“No, no, not that. Vyvyan!”
“What about ‘im?” asks Mike. “E’s always vomiting and setting our furniture on fire and punchin’ you in the grapes, Rick. What’s new?”
“No, I mean the… the water that was sort of… wolling down his face! And that dweadful wailing sound, I’ve never heard anything like that come out of him before. Is he ill, d’you think?”
“I fink those are called ‘tears’ and ‘crying’, Rick.”
“Tears?” Rick echoes, thoroughly perplexed. “Why, I didn’t think his tear ducts were capable of expelling any liquid at all! I thought they’d been sort of just… melted shut, fwom all the explosions he’s taken to the face. Honestly this is all wather unsettling, if you ask me.”
“Well, ‘e has obviously been possessed by the green eyed monsta.”
“Yes well, of course he’s jealous,” the poet smirks. “I’ve got this smashing bird on my arm, whereas on his arm there’s nought but chemical burns and hickeys that he’s made on himself for pwactice! Hah! Pathetic.”
Mike tuts and shakes his head.
“I fink you’re in a bit of a fog, Rick, and I don’t mean from the sofa fumes.”
“Eh?”
“Speaking of the fire,” Neil pipes up, standing by the sofa with a now empty pot swinging from one hand. “I’ve just put it out with my lentil casserole… which, you know, you can thank me for later. Because it’s not like I spent all day making it or anything—”
“Oh do shut up, Neil!” Rick spits. “Vyvyan puked in it anyway.”
“Yeah well, it’s still food. Waste not, want not, right?”
Retching a bit now, Rick fights the urge to knock that filthy hippie senseless with his own cookware. He turns his attention back to his much cooler, much wiser housemate:
“What ever are you talking about, Mike? How am I in a fog?”
“Vyv’s not jealous of you. ’E’s jealous of that bird.”
Rick can’t believe his ears — although they are good ears — great ears, in fact. Best in all of England. But now they seem to have malfunctioned on him.
“Whaaat?” he laughs nervously. “No, no… whaaat? Haha. Don’t be silly.”
“Listen ‘ere, my son. I’ve seen the pair of ya when you’re in the ring — in fact, I’ve had money on one of yas once or twice… well. I’ve had money on Vyvyan, as he’s far more manly and afletic, and you’re sort of a weedy lil’ Goldilocks type fella—”
“Yes, yes, thank you, Mike! Now get to the wuddy point!”
“And well, I can’t help noticin’, ya know, that Vyvyan’s always… ya know… sportin’.”
“Sporting?”
“Ya know. Pitchin’ a tent.”
Rick’s face scrunches up in confusion.
“What do you mean, is he going camping?”
“Nah, nah, nah…”
“Well, out with it, man! I don’t have the time nor patience for widdles!”
Neil finally comes to Mike’s rescue:
“He’s trying to say that, when you guys are fighting and that… Vyvyan’s got like, an erectioooon.”
“A… an ewection?”
“You know… like when your penis fills with bl—”
“Fank you Neil,” Mike cuts in, “I fink ‘e knows what an erection is. Well, I ‘ope.”
It’s a stunning blow. White-faced, Rick turns to his housemates; from Neil to Mike, then back to Neil, then back to Mike, now whipping his head back-and-forth, looking for any hint of jest or jape on either of their faces. But the lads just look sheepish and uncomfortable, as if they’ve been in the know this entire time, as if it was all so terribly obvious and that Rick should have known about it, too, if he wasn’t such a blasted oblivious halfwit.
—
“It’s not like you’ve never thought about it, you dirty little pervert,” says Rick’s conscience, floating above him as a talking head in a cloud. “I know the kind of thoughts you’ve had in bed late at night, thinking about how good it would feel if Vyvyan—”
“Shut up!” Rick screams back at his conscience, “Or I’ll call the filth on you for, er… twespassing!”
“Twat,” says his conscience, before disappearing with a pop.
—
“Who was that guy?” asks Neil.
“An annoying bastard,” Rick mumbles.
“Listen, my boy,” Mike sighs, slapping a hand on the anarchist’s shoulder. “Vyvyan’s a bit bent for ya, and that’s that on that. There’s no use denyin’ it. Not when that one-eyed snake is starin’ right at ya like that.”
“No,” Rick shakes his head in defiance and denial. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m afraid it’s true, Rick,” Neil adds. “I’ve seen it too, and like… well, I hate to be crass on national television or whatever, but once you notice it, man… the image is rather jarring and just impossible to shake. But at the same time your eyes are sort of drawn to it, like a car craaaash…”
“It’s ‘ard to take your eyes off somefing that’s like Dracula risin’ from ‘is grave.”
“Yeaaah, his trousers are like a canvas sheet draped over the leaning tower of Pisaaa.”
“It’s like an angry cat tied up in a pair of blue jeans, strugglin’ to get free. Thrashin’ about inside there.”
“It’s like a denim ghost, going wooooo…”
“Alwight, thank you both!!” Rick yells, shoving his fingers into his ears and shaking his head. “But no. No. No. No. Vyvyan hates me.”
“What’s ‘ate got ta do widdit?” Mike inquires.
Rick shrugs; he can’t argue with that kind of inverse Tina Turner logic — but no, this must be a mistake. Or a cruel joke.
“You… you two are having me on,” Rick laughs, wagging his finger at them. “Yes, haa haa! Is it Apwil Fools’ Day alweady? Vewy funny, guys, but you can stop pulling my leg now!”
“The only fings getting pulled ‘ere, my friend, are your pigtails. And it’s Vyv pullin’ on ‘em.”
Rick’s hands immediately shoot up to his silly little braids.
“Pulling my…”
“You seem ta be completely in the dark on this, but not ta worry. Mike the Cool Person will shine a light, akay?”
He crooks a finger at Rick, who leans in and gets a paternal arm slung around his weedy shoulders.
“Ya see, Rick… Vyvyan’s got the mind of a five-year-old. ‘E doesn’t know how to get your attention, so he chooses violence. That, or devastatin’ ‘umiliation. And ‘e don’t like it when other people touch ‘is toys. But nobody ever touched ya besides ‘im — until now, that is. So I fink you broke his brain a bit there. Hence the tear-soaked tantrum. Ya understand?”
During a musical interlude courtesy of Madness playing ‘It Must Be Love’, Rick is suddenly confronted with a flood of memories of all the times when Vyvyan had said or done something that could perhaps or even definitely be interpreted a certain way. Soon the stream of flashbacks turn from a flood into a veritable tsunami, and the anarchist is shaken to his core.
“Oh good lord.”
“Did ya get a flashback montage swirlin’ around in your ‘ead, did ya?” asks Mike.
Rick pulls at his own hair.
“God, why didn’t you warn me before?! What sort of mates are you anyway?!”
“We’re your ‘ousemates, Rick. The word ‘ouse’ at the start there sorta negates the ‘mates’ bit.”
Rick’s face scrunches up again.
“Does it?”
Mike shrugs.
“Anyway sod that, you could’ve bloody well told me!”
“I fought you already knew!”
“How the wuddy bloody hell was I supposed to— nevermind. Nevermind. Vyvyan can go walk off a cliff for all I care. None of this matters.”
Composing himself, Rick straightens out his stupid little jacket and rakes a hand through his greasy hair.
“I have a date now,” he declares. “So long, farewell, aufwiedersehen, goodbye!”
The anarchist turns on his heel and steps out the door, where he finds Sandra still waiting for him. He’d been sort of hoping she’d lose interest and go away, but there she is.
“Oh. You’re still here, are you?”
“Yeah, pissant. And I ain’t going ‘till I get the five quid you promised me.”
“Oh. Well.” Rick wrings his hands. “Ahahaah… I’m tewwibly sorry, but it just so happens that I only have two P on me at the moment—”
Sandra grabs him by his overly bebuttoned lapel, and treats him to a close-up of her brass knuckles.
“Turn out ya pockets, slimer.”
Rick only just now realizes that these brass knuckles would leave an indentation that says ‘I WEAR NAPPIES’ on his forehead if he ever were to court an intimate relation with them. Best to just cough up.
“Fine, alwight, you bloodsucker!” he hisses, turning his pockets inside-out and letting all his loose change spill out on the steps.
“Pick it up.”
Rick begrudgingly gets on his hands and knees, and starts picking up coins. When he is finished, Sandra makes him count it all out into her palm.
“…Four sixty, four eighty, five pounds. There! Have it all! You, you… you bloody twaffic warden! I suppose you’d happily watch me starve to death, wouldn’t you?!”
“With great pleasure,” Sandra replies as she walks down the steps.
“Fascist!” Rick yells after her. “That was a sub-standard snog anyway! And I bet I’ve now got all sorts of hitherto unknown veneweal diseases!”
He watches her walk down the street. Now that Sandra and her brass knuckles are much further away, she somehow seems less intimidating. So he shoots his shot:
“Fancy going on a weal date?” he calls after her. “For fwee, mind you!”
Without even stopping and turning around, Sandra flips him the bird.
“Piss off, povvo!”
“Capitalist pig,” Rick mutters to himself, chewing on his fingernails. “Well, I can’t go back inside, can I? The guys think I’m on a date… suppose I better go find Vyvyan. Make sure he hasn’t wuddy well topped himself over losing a catch like me.”
It doesn’t take him long to track down his volatile housemate. Vyvyan always goes to the sewers when he’s in a foul mood, Rick knows, so of course that’s where he finds him now. The surly punk is crouching down by a pool of sewer water, poking at a dead rat with a stick.
“So here you are,” Rick says. “Visiting family, are we? Your colony?”
Vyvyan doesn’t look up, just rolls his eyes and keeps playing with the rat carcass.
“How did ya find me, knob cheese?”
“Used my nose!” Rick snorts. “Even down here, I could follow your stink twail.”
“So you know what I smell like, do ya? That’s pretty bleedin’ gay.”
While Rick splutters a feeble comeback about wishful thinking, Vyvyan stabs the putrid rat corpse with his stick and levels it at his annoying housemate’s face.
“Wanna snog, little poufter?!” he squeaks, using the rat as a ventriloquist dummy.
“Vyvyan!” yells Rick, swatting it away. “Get! That! Thing! Out of my face!”
The punk holds his grotesque puppet up to his ear.
“What’s that, Ratty? Rick’s a good name for him because it rhymes with prick? Haha! I know!”
Vyvyan soon looses interest and tosses it back into the sewage, stick and all.
“So how the date go, then?” he inquires with an air of schadenfreude. “Not very well, I reckon, since you’re down here in the sewers with me?”
Rick starts sweating bullets.
“She, er… she got ill.”
“Hah! I’d be getting ill, too, if I had to snog your slimy gob!”
As Vyvyan goes back to playing with the various hobo treasures in the scummy runoff, Rick adopts his signature smug stance; bum sticking out and hands resting defiantly on his hips. He is ready now. He’s got a veritable arsenal of information, and he has every intention of using it. And Vyvyan has just served him up the opportunity on a silver platter.
“Well, it’s very intewesting that you should say that, Vyvyan… considewing what I just heard from Mike and Neil.”
“What have you heard?” Vyvyan hastens to ask, struck by a brief moment of panic before he remembers to play it cool. “Nevermind, it’s probably all dreadfully boring.”
“It’s not bowing at all, Vyvyan,” Rick smirks. “It’s actually weeeally intewesting.”
Vyvyan throws a used condom at him.
“Well, if it’s something that you would find interesting then it’s probably pretty bloody boring!”
Grimacing, Rick plucks the nasty rubber johnny from out of his hair. This isn’t going at all as he’d intended.
But he soon has another idea:
“Fight me.”
“You wot?”
“Fight me,” Rick insists, sticking his chin out. “Come on!”
“Nah mate, I don’t fight on command.”
“Come on, fight me! Make me bleed, Vyvyan!”
The punk scoffs in disbelief.
“Why? You got a death wish now, have ya?”
“I want to see if you’ll pop a stiffy again.”
Vyvyan shoots up.
“I beg your bloody pardon?!” he shouts in Rick’s face.
Rick doesn’t flinch, he just grins triumphantly.
“Yeah, the lads said you’ve got a big ol’ poufy chub on for me when we fight.”
“Piss off!”
“Methinks the lady doth pwotest too much!”
“Who are you calling lady?!” Vyvyan bellows, his spittle flying hither and yon. “Anyway, it’s just adrenaline! I can’t help it!”
“Oh come on, Vyvyan, admit it. Youuuu fancyyyy meeee!”
“Get stuffed!”
Vyvyan proceeds to slam his annoying housemate against a wall and start wailing on him. But it doesn’t take long at all for Rick’s point to be proven:
“Ahahaha!” he laughs, pointing to Vyvyan’s crotch. “Look!”
The punk peers down, finding his pants straining something fierce to contain the rabid beast inside.
“Bastard!”
“Who’s the pouf now, then?” Rick sneers.
“You are!”
“I am?! I’m not the one who’s cwacking a fatty here, buster!”
“I’m sure you are, it’s probably just too bloody tiny for anyone to see it without a microscope, even when it’s hard!”
“Well, I guess that’s just going to have to be a Schwödinger’s ewection then, isn’t it?”
Vyvyan gives his smirking housemate a good thump in the gut, and Rick doubles over.
“Look here,” Vyvyan starts, wagging his index finger in Rick’s face. “If you weren’t so bloody girly to begin with I probably wouldn’t have had this problem at all!”
“Oh, so it’s my fault, is it?” Rick croaks. “Yes, yes, blame the victim! Fascist!”
“Yes! Prancing around in your stupid bloody girly Y-fronts and wearing dresses, braiding your hair and being all poufy in general… what’s a hot-blooded man to do?”
Suddenly the lightbulb hanging over Vyvyan’s head starts glowing.
“As a matter of fact,” he adds, with his matter-of-fact index finger in the air, “precisely because you’re such a big bloody girlie, me craking a fatty actually means that I’m a perfectly normal heterosexual!”
Rick is fuming now. In an act of defiance, he unscrews Vyvyan’s epiphany lightbulb and smashes it on the concrete.
“Well, for your information, Vyvyan, I wear dwesses because they’re vewy comfortable!”
“Why, ‘cos you can’t fit your so-called horse cock into a pair of trousers?”
“Pwecisely! Now you’ve got it!”
“Don’t make me bloody laugh!”
“My massive willie is no laughing matter, Vyvyan. If you laid eyes it, you would go mad. It would turn you to stone!”
“Awright then, big britches,” the punk says, moving to grab at Rick’s pants. “Let’s have a look, then, shall we?
“No, Vyvyan—!”
With a single forceful yank, Vyvyan tears Rick’s trousers clean off.
“Bloody hell!” Rick wails at the audience. “Was I weawing teawaways this whole time? I shall have to have words with the costume department!”
“Er, yeah I think you do.”
The anarchist looks down at the pink silk ensemble hiding his shame. He will definitely have to have words!
When he finally dares to look up again, Rick finds his housemate staring intently at his girly underpants, an unreadable look on his face. It’s all rather unnerving.
And he is standing really rather terribly close.
“Vyvyan?”
“Shut up, Rick,” the punk says, his voice eerily calm. “I am having a moment. And you’re ruining it.”
What sort of moment? Rick wonders, dread setting in. Wuining it how? Should I be wunning away?
He reaches out for his frenemy’s arm.
“Vyvyan, please—”
Suddenly Vyvyan shudders, his eyes rolling back so far into his head that he can see his own brain. He stumbles backwards, as if he’s been dealt a killing blow, and almost falls over into the fetid sewer water. But Rick catches him by his vest at the last second, saving him, surprising both of them in the process.
“Vyvyan! Wh-what happened? Evewything okay?”
Rick realizes he is actually worried about him now. The whole world’s gone all topsy-turvy.
“Not sure,” Vyvyan replies breathlessly, looking down at the front of his trousers, which is now sporting a big wet splotch. “My todger seems to have… I dunno, vomited or something.”
Rick can feel the heat rising to his cheeks now. Is he to understand that his tough-as-nails housemate has just creamed his bloody pants right in front of him? And perhaps not in spite of him, but because of him? And that Vyvyan doesn’t quite understand what has happened here? Has he never ejaculated before? Doesn’t he know what wanking is? Sure, the punk is immature and somewhat childlike in a lot of ways, but surely he must have wanked before. Surely. He mimics the action often enough — usually whenever he’s making fun of Rick — so surely he knows what it means. Unless he has absolutely no idea and has just been pretending this entire time? But Vyvyan is a med student, for goodness’ sake, he must be aware what ejaculate is? Does he even know where babies come from?
Best not to dwell on it.
“Well,” Rick begins, “I shan’t tell the guys, as long as you don’t tell them about…” he gestures to his silk-clad nethers, “…this.”
Vyvyan, looking a bit shellshocked, merely nods.
“That’s… that’s a fair deal, I reckon.”
“Could I put my twousers back on now, please?”
“Oh! Yes. Allow me.”
Vyvyan scrambles to pick up his housemate’s discarded jeans and hands them over. Rick attempts to get them back on, without much success; they’ve been torn to shreds.
“Damn! They’re completely useless now. Well, thanks a bloody blinkin’ lot, Vyvyan! That’s just bwilliant!”
“Never fear, my dear,” Vyvyan proclaims, “I’ve got plenty of safety pins.”
‘My dear’? Rick is taken aback at the pet name; did Vyvyan hit his head on the way down here? He’s being all funny.
The punk grabs a bunch of safety pins from his denim vest and his earlobes, and gets to work. Rick prays to every deity he’s heard of that Vyvyan won’t notice how flustered he is by having him at such close proximity, fiddling around down there. Jesus, Mawy and Joseph, whines his internal monologue. Get on with it, Vyv, or my todger will vomit, too!
Thankfully, Vyvyan makes quick work of it. In just a few minutes, he has somehow succeeded in putting Rick’s pants back together (somewhat).
“Tadaa!” Vyvyan exclaims. “Good as new. Well, not really but… when we get home I can mend them for ya if you like?”
Rick narrows his eyes at him. What could he be playing at? he wonders. Is this part of some sort of elabowate plan to kill me?
“You quite alwight, Vyv?”
“I feel a bit weird to be honest,” Vyvyan replies, rubbing at his temples. “I feel like I wanna… pet kittens and donate to charity.”
Oh dear.
“Perhaps we should go back to the house now, Vyvyan,” Rick starts, tentatively leading his housemate out of the sewers, as if dealing with a demented grandmother who’s run away from the nursing home.
Vyvyan smiles — an actual, genuine, soft, kind smile — and it startles Rick to see just how cute his frenemy can be when he’s not hissing and spitting like a snake.
“I’d like that very much, Rick.”
It’s a very long, very awkward walk back to the house on Credibility Street. They don’t talk about what just happened — or anything, really — but when Rick almost steps in a puddle, Vyv lays his jeans vest out over it for him to step on. And when Rick tries to open the door to the house, Vyvyan rushes to open the door.
“Allow me!”
“Er… thank you, Vyvyan,” Rick replies, stepping over the threshold with great care, in case of any booby traps.
“My pleasure, heh…”
Neither of them say hi to Mike and Neil — who are in more or less the exact same spot doing more or less exactly what they were doing when we left them — Vyvyan because he’s in his own little post-orgasm world now, and Rick because he’s trying to ignore their blasted rubbernecking.
“Well. Goodnight then, Vyvyan.”
“Yeah, er… goodnight.”
The anarchist is halfway up the stairs when he turns around to find Vyvyan standing there forlornly, tugging at the hem of his sopping wet, putrid denim vest.
This is all too Kafkaesque for Rick’s liking. Time to put a stop to it.
“Say, Vyv..?” Rick starts, walking back down a couple steps.
The punk’s face lights up.
“Yes, Rick?”
“Why are you being all weird and… nice? Do you have some kind of ulterior motive or something?”
“No! I don’t know!” Vyvyan whinges. “I don’t feel right! When you showed me your girlie undies and my willie spewed—”
“Sh-sh-sh!” Rick hisses as he charges down the stairs to cover Vyvyan’s mouth with his hand. “Wemember how we wouldn’t talk about that in fwont of the others?”
When Vyvyan starts sobbing and pulling at his own hair, Rick shushes him and puts an arm around his shoulder — very carefully, of course, the way one might put one’s arm around the shoulder of a scorpion. If scorpions had shoulders, that is.
“I just don’t feel right!” the punk sobs. “I don’t even feel like punching ya like I normally do! I just wanna… spoon ya and give ya big, stupid, girly kisses!”
Special Patrol Group chimes in: “Yer gayer than a maypole, ya wee cretin!”
“Shut ya gob, ya hairy git!” Vyvyan yells back. “Or I’ll send ya back to the lab!”
A thought then strikes Rick: If just a tiny bit of jizzing is enough to turn Vyvyan from a vicious rottweiler into a gentle kitten, perhaps keeping him sated is worth looking into. Yes, keeping the punk in orgasms might turn this decrepit shithole into a halfway bearable place to live.
And perhaps more importantly: Rick will finally be able to know what heavy petting feels like. Sure, it won’t be with a real girlie, but at this point he’ll take what he can get. And anyway, as his conscience had tried to remind him, it’s not like he hasn’t had a cheeky wank about Vyvyan a few dozen times.
“Listen,” Rick starts, “Would you like to come up to mine, we could… bash each other over the head with a big bat with a wusty nail thwough it? How does that sound, eh?”
Wiping his tears, Vyvyan glances up at him.
“D-do ya really mean that?”
Rick does his signature coquettish little shimmy.
“Well. Or we could, you know… do other things.”
Vyvyan’s spotty face lights up, but he’s quick to conceal his enthusiasm; not very punk rock to be so damn horny for it.
“Let’s start with the rusty nail bat,” he replies, “and we’ll see where the night takes us, eh?”
Neil and Mike watch in confusion and abject horror, respectively, as Rick grabs Vyvyan by the arm and they run up the stairs together. They can hear the punk saying something like “You still got that saucy little dress?” and the door to Rick’s room slamming shut. Soon enough, there can be heard a bunch of infernal noises that could be indicative of either fighting or fornication (or more likely both).
A solemn frown marring his face, Mike turns to his hippie housemate.
“Good gravy, Neil… do ya know what this all means?”
“What, Mike?”
“They’re finally done dancin’ around the issue, so now they’re doin’ another type of dance altogetha!”
“What dance? Are they forming a conga line?”
“Nah, my fine feathered friend… they’ll be doin’ the ‘orizontal tango. And you know these walls are made out of cardboard — literally! Look.”
Mike punches the wall, and his fist goes straight through it. He sticks his head in the hole and addresses the audience:
“The BBC didn’t wanna be liable for any ‘ead injuries,” he adds.
“Wait,” Neil cuts in, smashing his head through the wall too, so he can talk to Mike. “So you mean—”
“Yes, Neil. I do mean.”
Neil smashes both his hands through the wall and starts nervously tugging at his long, greasy hair.
“Oh nooo…”
“And you know we’re gonna have ta put up with those ungodly noises for the rest of the semesta!”
“Oh noo! Oh heavyyy!”
Then a massive chip butty from outer space falls on the house and levels it to the ground, because the writer didn’t know how else to end the scene.
ROLL CREDITS