38 - The Cult of Quexecostal

THE CUNT OF DON QUIXOTE

It's Saturday evening, and while the rest of the civilized world rejoices at the Viss-Taker salvation of humanity, absolutely no one wants to spend some time with Ben Chatham, even after she's had the dodgy sex-change operation that, technically, makes her a man once more.

Ben sits alone in the ruined lab, sipping an iced tea before projectile vomiting everywhere. Radiohead's 'OK Computer' album provides ironic background music as Ben dry heaves between curses of how dare Katie run off to a transvestite rave party when she should be looking after her and letting her talk about archaeological matters. Then she vomits again, marvelling at how much carrot she's eaten.

After another few hours of pathetically texting Tara, Abby, Karl, Katie and a few figments of her diseased imagination to 'come round, hang out, listen to some music and admire photos of her former body's smoothe chest', only Abby bothers texts back:

Not 2nite.
PS, Im changing
my number
Leamme alon, freek

Ben groans to herself and curses once again how her poor luck in relationships make Trappist monks seem like 24-hour party nymphomaniacs. Idly she watches the InfoDump24 channel and learns that one of the now useless old people's home has been converted to a gay club called Heathens Like Doing It With Blokes.

Ben determines to go out and after a few hours and some Fox Glacier mints, remembers determining to go out and actually gets off the sofa, puts on her most sluttiest of Anna Nicole Smith hand-me-downs, sprays herself with excusive 'Odour a la Alien Sexxe Pheromoan'.

"The Chatham Platter is in town, boys, and it's ALL YOU CAN EAT! Hot, fresh meat, drizzled with gin and tonic!" shouts Ben and sets off into the cool evening air.

Where upon, the fumes from her exclusive spray cause her to projectile vomit everywhere.

Incredibly nauseous, Ben stumbles through the streets and by narratorial convenience ends up at the club and discovers that a crowd of young guys, dressed just in thin white T-shirts and tight jeans are hanging around the entrance. This is the John Barrowman lookalike contest and their buzzy fun is ruined when a vomit-soaked Britney Spears with a suspicious bulge in her miniskirt staggers towards them.

"This club is SO a tad scabby!" she moans at the class divides. "Still," she adds, readjusting her crotch, "needs must."

There follows another piece of copious vomiting... this time from the young guys.

Ben throws herself into the club and immediately throws herself back out again. "ARGH! Loud dance music! How unpleasant! What kind of sophisticated, gay, white Oxford graduates could possibly be held inside that entrance to Hades?! Surely no one would want to be in there?!"

Ben remembers the young guys on the dance floor and, rolling her eyes, wades back in so she can have a good leer and then stalk them home. Ben's not naturally a stalker obsessive, but believes that (on Katie's example) all women are and subconsciously decides to go with the silent majority.

Once inside, Ben orders a double Martini "on the rocks" and is slightly put out when the barmaid empties the glass inside Ben's underpants and charges her five pounds. Baffled, Chatham falls over next to a non-descript girl who happens to be a grey-skinned albino Nebari.

"Hey," she says, helping Ben vomit into a pot plant. "I'm Chiana. You here on your own?"

"WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE ME?" Ben moans, suddenly stricken with depression. "I may look like a talentless pop star, but I'm a man! An educated man with degrees! Yet all men fear my knowledge and beauty, and all women just want to seduce me! Thank GOD you're a lesbian! Don't be puzzled, I am Ben Chatham by the way. I HATE MY LIFE!" Suddenly Ben blinks, over it. "I presume you're with your girlfriends!"

Chiana stares at Ben. "Actually, I'm straight."

"What?!" Ben gasps. "GET OUT!"

"I'm with some gay friends from uni..."

"GET OUT RIGHT NOW!!!"

"Male friends!"

"HOW DARE YOU! JUST GET OUT OF HERE!"

"I do like coming to gay clubs, its less intimidating for a girl in some ways..."

"THAT SOUNDS WIERD TO ME! YOU WON'T PULL A BLOKE IN HERE, JUST ATTRACT FEMALE ATTENTION! FEMALE ATTENTION I SHOULD BE HAVING! OH GOD, I HATE MY LIFE! I... HATE... MY LIFE....!!"

Suddenly, with another complete mood swing, the mellow Ben asks Chiana if she's seen anyone she fancies, since Ben has already bagsied the young guy in the purple HISTORY GRADUATE T-shirt with the hilights in his hair. "I wouldn't mind spending the night with him," Ben admits. "Then we could lose ourselves in each other's arms, and then I could go and meet his parents and discover he's still in the closet because his parents are homophobic morons and then some wierd stuff will happen, and I'll text UNIT and the Doctor and Touchwood and then..."

Laughing very loudly in a desperate attempt to shut Ben the hell up, Chiana explains the object of Ben's lust is a friend of hers called Milo. "I'll introduce you," she offers. "I'm kinda like his pimp."

"No," Ben sneers. "You shall bring him to my place. And bring a lot of Martinis. This place is too noisy and lowbrow, and all the teenagers are camp. I bet the idea of used condoms are amusing and people are having sex through the walls of toilet cubicles!"

"You've only been here a minute."

"LONG ENOUGH!" Ben screams, suffering another inexplicable mood swing. "BRING THAT MEAT PUPPET TO ME IMMEDIATELY AND I SHALL TELL YOU HOW GOOD HE IS IN BED!!!"

"What makes you think I want to know!"

"JUST DO IT!!" Ben roars before projectile vomiting over the dance floor.

"What the fuck is this?" demands Chiana reasonably as Ben vomits again. "Little Britain 3-D?!"

Riot squads suddenly storm Heathens Like Doing It With Blokes while all the patrons are rushed to safety. Ben is shoved in a bin liner marked BIOHAZARD, dumped in a Morris Minor which is then set ablaze and driven off a bridge into the canal.

A sudden attack of vomiting AND explosive incontinence allows Ben to break free from the bin liner and floats to the surface. Naked, soaking, and even more nauseous, Ben stumbles back to the burned out laboratory she pretends is a penthouse apartment. However, even Ben cannot delude herself to the point that a newspaper advert for discount reisling is a well-stocked bar and sucks a small child's sock that had some absinthe spilled on it six years prior.

Suddenly, Milo barges in with three cloaked figures and head for the purple curtain draped over one corner of the room. Ben has never been sober or intelligent enough to check what was behind it, but her meager curiosity is satisfied when Milo draws it back to reveal a gold-coloured statue of Big Bird.

"At last! The ancient totem of Don Quixote has been found!" Milo roars. "The Brotherhood of Evil That Secretly Runs the World may now rejoice!"

"You got any absinthe?" asks Ben hopefully as the cloaked figures drag her from the sofa and forces her to kneel before the statue. "Maybe we could lie across a leather sofa and kiss?"

"Behold the image of Don Quixote! All must kneel to him!" Milo shouts.

"How about a nice chat about Mayan Culture?"

"Bend to the will of Don Quixote!"

"You're from Cambridge too, aren't you? I like ancient history..."

"DON QUIXOTE WANTS YOUR LIFE FORCE TO FEED HIS EVIL SOUL!!!"

"Do you like Bowie?"

The eyes of the Big Bird statue glow purple as it begins to recite its Wikipedia entry, as all aliens do in the presence of Ben Chatham. It's only polite.

"I am Don Quixote, last of the Big Birds, Optimus Prime of Sesame Street, Megatron of the Muppets! Not long ago, after the Andromedan War on Stereotypes, I took refuge on this privite planet from our enemies the Snowy Egrets! They were victorious, you gotta give them that. I mean, they totally handed us our arses in a bag. We sucked. But on Earth, the mighty powers of the Children's Television Workshop rendered me nothing more than a cartoon character! But then I discovered that cosnuming the cellular energy of absinthe drinkers allows me to break free! AND THROUGH YOU I SHALL HAVE POWER THAT WILL SET ME UP AMONGST THE GODS!!"

"And then what?"

"I dunno," Big Bird admits. "I'll think of something. Probably enslave humanity, guest spot on Parkinson, that sort of thing."

"But Parkinson's retired!" Ben protests.

"Has he?!" Big Bird explains. "Oh. Guess it'll be straight to the enslaving humanity bit, then."

Purple light shoots from Big Bird's eyes and engulfs Ben, consuming him. She screams...

...and then is Exorcist-sick.

Vomit drips from the cultists and Big Birds.

"That was fucking disgusting," Big Bird winces.

"I've got to get out of here!" wails Ben unhappily.

Milo laughs diabolically and reminds Ben that all the doors are locked - no one can get in or out!

Suddenly, Chiana smashes through the sky-light.

Milo shrugs philosophically and chalks this one down to experience.

Chiana grabs Ben and hurls him across the room while she kicks Milo and his goons in the bollocks. She then rabbit-punches Big Bird and smashes the only working table lamp over its golden head, decapitating it.

"Oh, how fucking typical!" Big Bird bitches before atomizing into nothingness.

Ben staggers to her feet. "What are you doing here?" he demands of Chiana. "I do not appreciate being followed by women, especially when I'm on the pull. How dare you!"

"I just saved your life, you stupid tralk," Chiana snaps. "It's lucky I worship the Mighty Snuffleupogus of the Holy Sesame Street Syndication and have the intelligence and iniative to defeat Big Bird or you'd be dust!"

"So? You expect me to me to thank you because you can do karate? Just because it's hard for girls..."

"You guys are so funny," Chiana laughs at Ben's grace and tact...

...before RIPPING off Ben's cabonossi manhood.

Ben faints, screaming and Chiana walks off.

In the shocking, thrilling cliffhanger, Ben is massively incontient yet again and by a series of coincidences too ludicrous and long winded to go into in reasonable detail here, actually pisses onto an unused pregnancy test! Two pink lines start to appear...

TO BE CONTINUED...