Slave for 5p

It’s Sunday. And after yesterday’s troubles with an atom bomb (which ended up in their kitchen by accident), the guys are pretty knackered.

There is a heavenly silence over the breakfast table. Breakfast consists of Lentils With Bits In It, because Neil picked them all up from the floor overnight.

And nobody has thanked him for it.

He looks up from his plate gloomily. “Today”, he says, “would be the day that you would have to be my slave, Rick. All day. If you weren’t such an uncool cheater.” He says the word with the utmost disgust.

“Neil, what are you talking about?” inquires Mike and looks up from his dirty magazine.

“Nothing.” Rick chortles. “He’s a bit of a spazzie, that’s all.”

“Slave?” asks Vyv, who finds it hardest to dislodge his head from his food bowl. But now he’s taking interest.

“He promised me”, says Neil, who finally has all the attention to himself, “he promised me he’d be my slave all day if I give him 5p.”

Vyvyan lifts his head to an almost vertical position and starts to grin when the whole prospect becomes clear in his head. “That’d be fun!”

“Yeah, Vyvyan, I bet you’d find that funny, fascist that you are”, mocks Rick. “Unfortunately, slavery is abolished, thanks to humanist values!”

“So give me my 5p back”, demands Neil.

“I used them on a telegram to Margaret Thatcher. You should be proud that your money is used for the sake of your country! What would you have done with the money anyway, huh?”

“Since you’re asking, I was not quite sure yet”, says Neil.

Rick doesn’t listen. “Probably saving up for a new mandala, or another one of those horrible things that make noise, what are they called…”

“Sociology students?” volunteers Vyv.

“Guitars.” Rick snaps his fingers. “Anyway, nobody’s going to be anybody’s slave here.”

“Oh yes, you are, Rick”, says Mike.

“What? Excuse me, Michael, you must be out of your mind!”

Vyvyan’s mode of thinking goes from Gloating Over Neil’s Misery to the much, much superior Watching Rick Get Himself In The Shit, and the day suddenly seems much brighter.

Mike puts on a serious face. “No, Rick, you made a promise.”

“I had my fingers crossed!”

“Still. In this house, we should keep up at least some trustworthiness! Unless it’s promises towards ladies, of course. You promised, so you’re Neil’s slave for today.”

“But… but… but…”

“Anyway, if you get paid and it’s only temporary, it’s not slavery, it’s servitude”, says Vyv.

“It doesn’t matter what you say, it’s not going to happen, understand?!” Rick gets up and puts his hands on the table. “You can’t force me!”

“Oh, I think we can”, says Neil darkly.

“Trust us on that”, says Mike and looks up very coolly.

“No you can’t!” sneers Rick. “You can break my body, but you can never break my freedom!”

“Well, that’s 50 percent, and that’s not half bad”, says Vyvyan and goes up to his room to fetch the cricket bat.

“Rick, you’re going to do what you promised Neil”, says Mike. “Or we’ll have to take drastic measures.”

“You’re trying to enforce totalitarian ideas on this household, is that it?” asks Rick sharply. Tears are stinging him behind his eyelids, but he won’t cry. Not in front of these bastards!

“No!” says Vyv, who has just reappeared with the bat. “We just wanna see you get humiliated, that’s all!”

“He’s right”, confirms Mike. “You have to do everything Neil says, until bedtime. In return, Neil isn’t allowed to damage you. Not much, at least.”

“But be sure to tell me when you’re damaging him a little, will you?” asks Vyv.

“Oh yeah, sure, Vyv. Sure.” Neil is glowing with gratefulness and malice.

“I’m not…” Rick gulps and fights the tears. The threat of beatings is imminent, and he has no idea how to get out of this slavery thing.

“Oh yes, you are, Rick.” Mike gets up and adjusts his tie. “Well, give him some orders, Neil, why don’t you?”

“Well”, scowls Neil, “first of all I need my room cleaned up.”

“Off you go, Ricky.”

“You… you… you will be sorry!” hisses Rick between his teeth.

“In your dress!” calls Neil.

“I beg your pardon?” Rick freezes in horror before he has reached the stairs.

“Your dress. The blue-and-white one. The one that’s, like, yours, you know. I want you to put it on.”

Rick’s lip trembles. He can’t take this, but he’s totally outnumbered. He can’t think of any way to get out of this.

“That’s what you get for messing with me”, says Neil gloomily.

Yesterday, he was on top of the world, blackmailing Margaret Thatcher to do something for The Kids. Now he’s being ordered around by Neil, the lowliest of all incompetent surrogate mothers. (By definition, Neil doesn’t count as part of The Kids.)

He looks around one last time, for support, for mercy, for someone who takes his side. But Mike is reclining with his arms folded and looking strict, Vyvyan is nodding continuously and sweating joy from every pore, and Neil looks satisfied.

Nobody to help him.

He swallows, tries to think of what Cliff Richard would do in his situation, and begins to climb the stairs.

Two hours later, he is on his knees on the floor in Neil’s room. In his dress. Which, when worn over long periods of time, is unpleasantly tight around his ribs.

Rick never even knew that water could get so dirty you can’t see the bottom of the bucket, but Neil’s floor has managed just that. Rick has scrubbed and rubbed out the corners and gone into the really tiny spaces with an old toothbrush, and now he’s done with the floor. He sighs.

Neil is sitting on the bed, his guitar mute on his lap. “Are you done?”

“Yes, I’m done. Now what other humiliating task have you come up with for me?”

“I want you to go to the shops. But you don’t have to do it in the dress. Unless you want to.”

Rick sighs. “Alright. Might as well get some fresh air, after two hours in your smelly room.” He gets up and brushes non-existent specks of dust off his shoulders.

“Here’s your shopping list. Don’t forget anything.”

“Oooh. Or else, hippy?”

“I’ll give you to Vyvyan”, says Neil coolly.

Rick grins. “Well, as long as you don’t give me to Mike. My virtue would be in danger if he saw me in a dress. Alright, I’ll just go change.”

“You can do that here”, says Neil.

Rick tries to force the grin back on his face. “No, thank you, I think I’m undressing in my own room.”

“No, Rick, you’re doing it here, or not at all”, says Neil, and nonchalantly walks to the door. He’s quite a tall guy, and despite his lanky frame, he doesn’t look like someone you can easily get past.

“I’ll get you for that”, hisses Rick between his teeth. “I swear, I’m gonna get you, you bloody hippy!” And then he slowly pulls the dress over his head, his back to Neil, so that Neil can see as little as possible.

When Rick is back in his boy clothes, Neil steps away from the door. “And I’m gonna need you to be back by one, to make lunch.”

“Huh. I can’t cook.”

“Well, you’re gonna learn it really fast then, aren’t you?” For the first time today, Neil raises his voice.

Rick is just happy to get out of there. There’s something very wrong here. This isn’t the Neil he knows. He has never seen him so snappy, so superior, so… strong. Neil really likes being in command a bit too much, and that’s not a nice trait of character.

On the other hand… this is intriguing. One thing Rick didn’t like about Neil is that he’s usually a pushover, and now he’s not. He’s a lot less annoying that way.

Down the road, Rick realizes that this is the first time he’s seeing the shops from the inside. Wow. Interesting out here. All the variations of cheese you can buy, for example. This is truly a day of new discoveries.

He returns well before one o’clock and is awaited by Vyvyan in the kitchen. “Oh, back from the shop, Millie?” he grins.

“Shut up”, hisses Rick.

“I’m just saying, you know. You know what happens to innocent virginal servant girls in stories. Just beware of Neil.” If Vyvyan would grin any wider, the top of his head would fall off. “I’m just trying to prevent you from having to leave any babies on doorsteps.”

“Neil? He wouldn’t get it up in the first place”, snorts Rick haughtily.

“Yeah, right. Now put your dress back on and make lunch”, says Neil darkly. He has just appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hah. This is my chance to show you all what cooking really IS”, babbles Rick. “Not just lentils boiled into mush, without any salt or... anyway, I’ll show you!”

Neil sits down by the table and crosses his arms. Rick begins to sweat. There are sausages. Now what does he do with them? Put them in a pot? Do they need water? Do you put the lid on, or will that choke them? Do you put salt into the sausage water?

“Well?” says Neil. “Get on with it.”

Rick desperately throws two sausages into the pot.

“Not the big pot for the sausages!” calls Neil and rolls his eyes. “The big pot is for the broccoli. You just need a small pot for the sausages!”

“And I want more than one sausage!” protests Vyvyan. “Make it three!”

“And then you make scrambled eggs”, instructs Neil. “Five eggs, that’s how much we usually eat.”

Pots, pots, eggs. Rick’s head is swimming. He puts the sausages in one pot, the broccoli into the other, and takes five eggs. How the hell do you make scrambled eggs?

Should be easy. Just shake them really well, so that the white and the yellow mix, and then… uhm… bake them. Yes. Bake them.

Rick shakes the eggs, puts them in the oven and turns it on. Vyvyan sits with his mouth open and is about to protest, but Neil puts a hand on his arm.

Rick turns on the gas. Things are going pretty well so far. Hah. He’s a naturally born bachelor boy. He should be doing the cooking, not Neil. He’s good at this. On the other hand, it’s comfortable to let Neil do it…

This is when the eggs explode. Rick stares at the egg-smeared glass pane in the oven door in amazement, while the smell of burning meat slowly rises into his nostrils.

“Ah no, Rick, you can’t boil eggs like that”, says Neil with faux meekness. “And by the way, you really should pour water in the pots with the sausages and the broccoli.”

“Bloody hell”, says Vyvyan in a very stagey tone, “I hope he’s at least good at… other things!”

“I sure hope he is”, scowls Neil, “I just haven’t found out what they are!”

TBC.