by Mark Leigh
Dick looked at Susan who smiley coyly and licked her lips. And that’s when he found his role change from one of informer to one of educator.
CHAPTER 13
Dick felt uncomfortable standing in front of his ‘class’. Here he was, with no warning, no notes and no visual aids about to give an impromptu Sex Ed lecture. He wondered if he was even qualified to teach sexual techniques, after all, he’d had no formal training. All his knowledge was gained solely on the job. Dick surveyed the room. His pupils, eleven members of the Resistance who were in the building that evening, looked attentive and eager to learn, which was encouraging. Despite this, he still felt nervous about addressing them. Then Dick remembered hearing about a technique to put public speakers’ minds at ease. A way of calming nerves and overcoming anxiety.
It was only a few seconds into imagining his audience in their underwear when Dick realised this might not be such a good technique. He felt his eyes locking on to those of Alice and in that instant she was wearing a provocative black lacy basque and suspenders. Also in that instant he felt his penis wake from its slumber and perform an involuntary impression of an Apollo moon rocket. Dick glanced down and saw a growing bulge that threatened to cause alarm and embarrassment.
‘Houston…’ he thought to himself. ‘We have a problem…’
To maintain the dignity expected of a teacher Dick had to terminate with extreme prejudice, any feelings of sexual arousal. By a process of trial and error Dick had long ago worked out what thoughts would achieve this altered state in the shortest possible time. In quick succession he rapidly conjured up images in his mind that would result in near-instant detumescence: getting his testicles caught in a rusty man-trap, being sodomised by Hulk Hogan, and having to de-lice the matted pubic hair of a swarthy and extremely sweaty, obese, leprous Turkish woman called Yagmur. In a supreme ordeal of mind over member his penis began to achieve, as Dick called it, a ‘soft on’. Inwardly he let out a sigh of relief. Outwardly, however, he let out the same sigh.
‘Is everything all right?’, asked Grace, staring at Dick’s crotch.
‘Sure’, replied Dick, glancing at his crotch to make sure everything was back to normal. ‘I was just thinking about, er, what I would teach you’.
He was sure he caught Grace smiling. The sort of smile you get when a woman absolutely gagging for sex has noticed the onset of a thirteen-inch erection in your pants. Dick decided to move swiftly on.
‘Right. For this inaugural lesson, or as I’ll call it, the Dick S. Longg “Sex Masterclass”, I’m going to teach you about sexual positions. I’m not sure if you’re all aware, but there are many, many more variations than the conventional Party-approved Missionary position that you know about’.
Cue much murmuring from the audience. ‘To show you the wide variety available,’ Dick continued, ‘I’ll need to conduct the lesson with the help of a volunteer’.
Faster than a speeding bullet, three hands immediately shot up in the air. Unfortunately these three hands belonged to Edward, Humphrey and George, a tubby smiling man Dick hadn’t seen before, but who was sitting quietly at the back.
‘Er… that’s not what I meant actually’, Dick said trying to conceal the disgust and horror in his voice. ‘I need to demonstrate the positions with a wom…’
Dick didn’t even have to finish the word (which was ‘woman’, in case you’re wondering. Not ‘wombat’; that would be the subject of his Masterclass on marsupials. Or perversions). Four women in the audience had anticipated this word with almost superhuman reflexes and even now, their eager hands were clawing the air in an attempt to get noticed. The volunteers were Susan, Grace and two other fairly attractive young women who he hadn’t met before, Louise and Charlotte.
‘Is there anyone else who’d like to be considered?’, Dick asked, disappointedly looking at Alice whose hands remained firmly clasped in her lap.
‘Are you sure?’
Susan, Grace, Louise and Charlotte made lots of enthusiastic grunting noises.
‘Last call for volunteers. I know, we could start at the beginning of the alphabet. Is there anyone here whose name begins with an “A”?’
Alice failed to get the hint. Or if she did, she decided she’d rather observe and learn than participate. Dick sighed and gave up. ‘OK then, let’s go with…’ He covered his eyes with one hand (actually he was peeking through his fingers) and waved his other hand around seemingly randomly at the four women. Eventually it stopped. He took his hand from his eyes; he was pointing at Susan. He saw looks of disappointment on the faces of the other women. And, very worryingly, on the face of George.
Susan joined Dick at the front of the room and during the course of the next twenty minutes or so, he demonstrated, fully clothed, as many sexual positions as he could think of. These ranged from the basics such as the Spoon, the Monkey Hump, the Rocking Recliner and Doggy Style, right through the more interesting Cowgirl, Reverse Cowgirl, Sitting Bull, the Wheelbarrow, Sidewinder, Leap Frog, the Lotus Position, the Drive-Thru, the Butterfly, the Backdoor Mailman, Scissors, Hoovering the Floor, the Armchair, Playing the Cello, Sleeping Beauty, Upturned Turtle, the Ballerina, the Diving Bell, the Crab, the Praying Mantis, the Bodyguard, the Hayride, the Little Big Horn, Standing Tiger / Crouching Dragon, Sitting Bull, Prison Guard, Big Brother, the See-Saw, the Matrix, Persuading the Debtor, the Drunken Hillbilly, Bumper Cars, The Jelly Fish, Plumber’s Mate and the Incline Leg Press.
Drawing on all his years of experience Dick also demonstrated some of the far more advanced positions, warning that these required considerable practice and a very high degree of suppleness; positions like the Piledriver, the Rampant Sloth, the Viennese Oyster, the T-Square, Deep Impact, the Flying Karamasovs, the Strap Hanger, the Two Headed Crab, the Incumbent President, the Scream Machine, the Angry Fireman, the Frothy Latte, the Pineapple Harvest, the Triple Lindy and the infamous Oprah Straddle.
Naturally, even after a few seconds of simulating the first position, Dick’s rocket was in full flight again. ‘Fuck it’, he thought, and just continued with the lesson. His students were engrossed watching the positions, making copious notes, and everyone seemed oblivious to what was happening in his trouser department. Everyone, that is, except Susan who reached orgasm at least five times with all the bumping, grinding and dry humping. Setting an exhausted, almost comatose, Susan down Dick received a standing ovation from his class. As the applause died down it was Taylor who, as the spokesperson for the group, thanked Dick profusely for educating them this evening without prior warning. It was also Taylor who then suggested that everyone paired-up and adjourn to the lounge and bedrooms for the next part of their studies; the practical.
Just over an hour later, the lounge and bedrooms resembled the aftermath of a gigantic orgy, mainly because that’s exactly what had taken place. Dick had sex with all the women in the group numerous times in many of the positions he’d just taught. To his pleasant surprise they were all incredibly quick learners (even the Oprah Straddle had posed fewer problems than he had anticipated) and although Dick was still ready, willing and able to continue, everyone else was incredibly weary and very sore from all the action. As he was getting dressed Dick pondered on the fact that all the people he’d met so far in the Resistance demonstrated an astonishing level of camaraderie. All of them except Taylor. Dick had come to this conclusion based on Taylor’s reluctance to share his girlfriend with anyone; the two of them disappeared into one of the bedrooms alone, locked the door and had their sex in private. Dick wasn’t sure if this was due to Alice being coy or Taylor having an embarrassingly small penis, but whatever the reason, Dick felt Taylor was being very selfish.
It was now late and one by one the Resistance members said their goodbyes, thanked Dick profusely and departed. Taylor gave Dick a very strong handshake and slapped him on the back.
‘Thanks for everything Dick’, he said, smiling.
Dick saw Alice buttoning up her dress through a small gap in the open bedroom d
oor. ‘You’re welcome’, he replied through ever-so-slightly gritted teeth.
‘I’ve got something for you’, Taylor continued. ‘A present’.
He handed Dick a small wrapped package that looked and felt exactly like a fountain pen. Dick thanked him and unwrapped what was indeed a fountain pen.
‘But it’s a pen with a difference’, Edward explained, taking it from Dick’s hand. ‘Look’.
He unscrewed the barrel. Concealed under the ink reservoir were a small circuit board, some wiring and a miniature battery.
‘It’s a homing beacon’, Edward explained. ‘Taylor’s an electrical wizard. He’s just developed it’.
They’re not difficult to make, said Taylor modestly. ‘All our members have just been issued with them. They’re concealed in lipsticks for the women and in pens for the men’.
Dick took the pen back and examined it.
‘If you’re captured or in any form of danger, you can activate it by turning the clasp twice counter-clockwise and then once clockwise’. Taylor demonstrated and the pen emitted a barely audible bleep. He switched it off again. ‘It’s got a range of about four miles and will alert other resistance members to your exact location, give or take a few feet’.
Edward continued the explanation. ‘If there’s a member in the vicinity they can hopefully trace the signal and then come to your assistance’.
‘Hopefully?’ Dick enquired. He’d heard that word quite a few times in connection with Resistance activities and it didn’t, well, fill him with hope.
‘Well, yes’. Edward nodded. ‘If we’re able to help a colleague then we will’.
‘And if you can’t?’, Dick enquired.
‘Let’s not worry about that unless it ever happens’, interrupted Taylor. ‘After all, it’s not a problem until it’s a problem!’.
This comment was, Dick thought, as comments went, not a particularly helpful one.
‘The electronics are well concealed in the pen’, Taylor added, quickly changing the subject. ‘But on no account must you ever let this fall into the hands of the Party. As you can imagine, that would have disastrous consequences’.
Dick thanked Taylor again for the device and told him he’d be very, very careful with it. With that he placed it in his inside jacket pocket, shook Taylor’s hand again and said his final goodbyes. George looked particularly disappointed as he left.
Blindfolded once more, Dick was escorted out of the building, this time by Edward who dropped him off a few minutes’ walk from his home. The ride was uneventful; both men lost in their own private thoughts. Dick collapsed into bed and that night, slept the sleep of the dead. Or more accurately, the sleep of the blissfully shagged.
CHAPTER 14
The following two weeks saw Dick working in parallel on a new assignment at the Ministry; a publicity campaign in support of the forthcoming ‘National Hat Week’. When Vera first told him about this project Dick’s instinctive reaction was to exclaim, ‘What the fuck?!’ Fortunately, however, he managed to correct himself in time and what he actually said was, ‘What the fedora?!’. Of course, this didn’t make any sense at all but at least it was hat-related. Just from his observations so far Dick knew that everyone in this society loved hats. The women loved them because they were a fashion item that could be changed according to whim or the season. The men loved them because they could doff them to women and appear courteous. And everyone loved them because they kept them dry(ish) when the weather was inclement.
A small team in Dick’s department was responsible for creating a real buzz about National Hat Week, making it an exciting, stimulating and compelling event. Dick wasn’t sure that this was at all possible as he immersed himself in statistics about hat wearing, hat manufacturing, hat distribution, hat history, hat accessorising, hat care, hat pioneers — in fact anything and everything about hats. He found this a completely unstimulating exercise but threw himself into it like a loyal Party member.
Benjamin was part of this team so there was regular contact between the two of them. Although he hadn’t demonstrated any recent signs of resentment over Dick apparently being lined-up for promotion, Dick still didn’t trust him. He had the distinct feeling that everything he did or said was being scrutinised by his colleague. He wondered how long it would take before Benjamin discovered through his own sources that Dick didn’t actually have a close relative in the Party. And once he found this out, would he delve deeper into Dick’s past and discover that as far as this world went, he didn’t actually have one?
They were the last to leave a particularly dreary bowler hat sub-committee meeting when Benjamin asked Dick how the ‘secret education project’ was coming along, trying with varying degrees of unsubtlety to find out exactly what it was about and why it was so secretive. Dick wasn’t sure if this was because Benjamin wanted to show willingness in trying to help him or whether he was just snooping.
Of course, there might be another reason. Dick didn’t know where this particular idea originated. At first he thought it was just another example of paranoia on his part and he tried to dismiss it but the more he dwelled on it, the more he thought there could be an element of truth about it. It was an alarming thought; that Benjamin might actually also be a member of the Resistance… But if he was, then what was he doing here? Maybe Benjamin had been planted in the Ministry like Dick to find out about Project Gladstone and feed information back to Taylor. But why, Dick pondered, do this if he already had it covered? Was it that Taylor didn’t have enough faith in Dick, and Benjamin was there as a back-up? Did Taylor see Dick as being expendable and if something happened to him — and by that he meant something bad — he’d have another operative in place to take over where Dick had failed? Or, even more alarming, was Taylor actually planning to sacrifice Dick in order to throw the Party off the scent of the Resistance? After all, if Benjamin compromised Dick’s identity and Dick was arrested, it was unlikely the Party would consider there were two people who’d infiltrated the department. And this would mean Benjamin could continue his work virtually above suspicion. The Resistance would never do this, would they? But then again, maybe the end justified the means?
The more Dick thought about this, the more confused he was. He’d been told that he was ‘The One’, but based on what he’d learned, that actually didn’t mean much. Perhaps Benjamin was ‘Another One’. Perhaps there were actually lots of ‘Ones’ and the Resistance purposely kept them apart. Maybe the Oracle had seen them all in her dreams as if she was counting sheep. Is that what all the ‘Ones’ had been. Just sheep; all eventually heading for the slaughter? Dick felt his imagination running away with him. He didn’t like the feeling and was desperately trying to catch it up. The longer he dwelled on it, the more worried Dick became. Given the huge secrecy that Taylor sought to maintain around the Resistance, Dick wouldn’t have put it past him to have a devious plan like this. He was still trying to keep up with his imagination when he felt a strong, manly hand on his shoulder. Dick turned round to see Vera standing next to his desk with a quizzical, yet still stern, look.
‘Mr. Brunel, are you all right?’, she said in her low voice, leaning towards him. ‘You seem lost in your thoughts’.
Dick shuddered in his seat, shaking himself out of the world of paranoia and into the world of his unsightly boss invading his personal space.
‘Yes Miss Darling’, Dick said, quickly composing himself. ‘I was, er, thinking about the Project and possible solutions’.
‘Good show, Mr. Brunel’, said Vera, who’d now moved even more uncomfortably closer, her slightly greasy nose almost nuzzling his ear. ‘I want to discuss that with you after work’.
Part of Dick interpreted this as a work-related request but there was a small, teeny-weeny part of him that interpreted it as a chat-up line (although not a very good one, granted). The last two hours passed very slowly as Dick contemplated spending even more time in the company of Vera. By six thirty only Dick, Vera and Benjamin remained in the departmen
t. Being his normal, toadying self, Benjamin asked Vera if she wanted his assistance that evening. Without raising her head from the pile of files that perpetually covered her desk Vera waved her hand to dismiss him as if she was shooing away a particularly irritating fly. Dick buried his head in his work trying to avoid the inevitable. The thing about the inevitable, however, is that it always happens. In this instance the inevitable was heralded by the sound of a large heavy report being slammed shut. The noise startled him.
‘Right’, said Vera standing up from her desk and rubbing her sweaty hands together. ‘Quality time on Project Gladstone’.
She walked passed him and locked the department door.
‘Can’t take any chances. The Resistance might have spies anywhere’.
She looked at Dick, and from her raised eyebrows, was either expecting a response or was suffering from some form of involuntary eyebrow spasm.
Dick replied with as much naivety as he could muster. ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’
‘Mr. Brunel, as servants of the Party we cannot afford to take any chances whatsoever. The Resistance are an insidious, evil bunch of malcontents who would stop at nothing to frustrate the ambitions of the Party. They could have agents anywhere. An office cleaner or maintenance person for example might walk passed this room or even enter it, cunningly looking for information or just eavesdropping on conversations’.
‘Do you think that’s true. I mean, that members of the Resistance are here among us?’, Dick asked, watching and shuddering inside as Vera dropped the office door key into her ample cleavage like some poor unfortunate victim falling into a dark, bottomless pit.
‘It is highly unlikely given the employee screening processes in place, but that does not make it impossible’, Vera replied, walking towards Meeting Room A. ‘Which is why we cannot afford to take any chances. Bring your documentation in here so we’re further shielded from prying eyes or ears’.
