The scent and smoke and sweat of a whorehouse are intoxicating at three in the afternoon. James Bond, agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service, sexual provocateur and explorer extraordinaire, was just finishing off a bloated hooker with a vibradildo when he was overcome by a sense of nostalgia. Although, since he couldn't quite recall what he was nostalgic about, it was more like deja vu - a ephemeral epiphany of lost loves, card hands and cocktails.
"Oooh, James," the prostitute cooed. "Mmmmmm."
"Quiet," he replied in his unmistakable Scottish lisp. "If I'd expected you to talk, I'd have paid you for it."
She grinned and writhed a little on the bed. He'd have loved to have porked her himself, but £700 gets you very shagged out in Soho these days, and his old chap looked like a dead elephant's trunk.
She was coming a few seconds later anyway. He pulled the dildo out, walked to the sink and washed it off. He had promised to get it back to Q Branch in one piece, after all.
"James... James... come back and do it to me again..."
"Do you think I'm made of money, woman?"
"...No charge... James...For youuu..."
Feeling very empty and frustrated, Bond left the chubby sow fudding with herself on the sheets. On the way into the hallway he was greeted by several average-looking women in transparent silk dressing gowns. They were on him like flies on dead meat, stroking his faded muscles and twisting his thinning hair in their fingers. He smiled like they expected, but hadn't the time or the inclination to go any further. Half of them couldn't even speak English, for god's sake. He called Cristu over.
"Yes, Mister Bond?" the Serb pimp said, brushing the girls off.
"Have you seen Felix, Cristu?"
"Mister Leiter left forty minutes ago, Mister Bond. He told me to tell you something had come up. Angel was most dissatisfied. I wonder if you might...?"
"Not today, Cristu. Just the bill if you wouldn't mind."
"Certainly, sir."
"Oh, and book me in with Camille for next Wednesday."
"Camille? Ah, the connoisseur's choice, if I might say so."
"You might."
"Although..."
"Although what?" Bond asked impatiently.
"Although, Ms Camille does have certain preferences. That are not entirely in line with your... usual requests."
"She doesn't like being teabagged?"
"It's not that, Mr Bond. She prefers if her client... wore contraception. You know we do our best here, Mr Bond. We have our own abortionist upstairs, and we trust your famous constitution against illness. But Camille simply won't hear of it."
"I see. Book me in anyway, Cristu, and we'll see what I can do."
"Very good, Mr Bond."
It began to rain just as Bond stepped out into the alleyway. It created a shimmering effect all down Great Windmill Street, as if cleansing him of the smell of fresh sex as he walked down it. He stopped and bought the Telegraph from a Paki shop, if only to cover his Saville Row suit from the downpour.
It had been a strange time for Bond. The business over Fort Knox last year had made him into something of a celebrity, and thus fairly unsuitable as a field agent. He was more and more called upon to make public appearances - meeting a prominent member of the Royals, for instance, or inspecting a line of pubescents in navy uniforms. There had been books, interviews on Parky, and even talk of a film adaptation of his exploits. Although at first he'd had no trouble, a few months ago the pussy had inexplicably dried up, which is how he came to be a regular at Cristu's. It was that or chatting up middle-aged wives of the civil servants he met down the Athenaeum, which he was not adverse to. But he desired something a little more risky, a little more adventureous.
Not that he was terribly missing being a field agent. The whole damned Fort Knox affair had been fun in places, but, in retrospect, mostly luck had seen him through. And it wasn't like the good old days, where you just had to keep your wits about you, fuck a few Eastern European women for information and be home in time for the cricket. These days MI6 wanted you to look like Charles Atlas and know all kinds of chinky martial arts. God knows why. Put judo up against a Walther and see which wins, why don't you.
Bond was deep in thought when a large black Lincoln pulled up in front of him. Original, he thought. The window wound down and there was a svelte young woman within, wearing the sort of large hat you only usually see at the races.
"Mr Bond?" she asked. Her accent was quite upper crust.
"And who might you be, my dear?"
"My name is Ms LaRochelle," she said. "I have have a business proposition for you. Please..."
Her bodyguard, a large Negro in a black suit, walked round and opened the door for Bond to enter. Curious enough, he did so, after instinctively checking his surroundings to see if he was being watched or followed, and immediately felt the inclination to stretch out on the Corinthian leather. His upbringing prevented him.
"Where did you find that one?" he asked of the spade. "Armwrestling rhinos in Southern Rhodesia?"
"Green Berets. Zach's mother and my mother were very good friends, Mr Bond."
"I've known a few darkies in my time," Bond said. "Ran into a spot of bother in Harlem once..."
"Drink?" she asked, once they had driven off, gesturing to the drinks cabinet built into the seat in front.
"Dry martini. Shaken, not stirred."
"At..." she looked at her watch, "half three in the afternoon?"
"They have it for lunch in America. I'm practically teetotal by comparison."
She duly made him his drink and handed it over. He raised it to the light, ostensibly to take in its finer aesthetic qualities, but instead checking for the extra fizz that might emit from a poison tablet. He smiled and took a sip.
"I have to hand it to you. You know what to do with your Vermouth."
"Shall we get down to business?" she asked
He acquiesed with a tilt of the head and another winning grin. She reached for a briefcase and began to talk as she rummaged through it.
"You remember the Stonewall riots?"
"June earlier this year," he recalled. "Clashes between organised nancy boys and American police over one's treatment of the other. I forget which was which."
"Very good, Mr Bond. What you might not know is that it didn't end there. Gay rights factions formed, some more militant than others. One such group was the Pinkerton Parade. A splinter faction had already relocated to this country, in an attempt to provoke similar civil unrest."
She handed him a photo of a very cold looking 20 something male with short black hair. He looked like the sort Bond used to have fag for him at Eton. They'd have taken three or four of his sort, bent them over and used them as toastracks at breakfast.
"This is Michel Wagner. An American of Swiss and German parentage, he leads the PP splinter group known as S.P.A.R.T.A.N."
"What does this have to do with me?"
"Our intelligence suggests Wagner intends to strike at the Royal family sometime in the next three months, possibly the Queen herself, as retalliation for the British government's treatment of Alan Turing in the 40s and 50s. We want you to infiltrate his group and stop him by any means necessary."
"'We'?" Bond inquired. "'Our' intelligence?"
"I represent a group of private individuals working in tandem with MI5. Gays having rights in this country, or even gaining transparency, would be distinctly against our interests."
"I'm already spoken for," Bond said.
"I know a lot about you, Mr Bond. I know M won't touch you after the Fort Knox incident. This is your chance to be a field agent again, without any of the heavy lifting. We'll also reward you with a handsome financial sum."
"Wagner would spot me a mile off. Anyone would."
"It's a double bluff. The last person Wagner would expect to be a spy would be the world's most famous spy. Especially with your... curriculum vitae. The Lindsay report last year reckoned that 76% of males with sexually promiscuous reputations were closet homosexuals. That information was surpressed by the US government; Wagner will have it hanging on his wall."
Bond took a long drag of martini and mulled it over, flipping through a few confidential documents LaRochelle had handed him.
"Who is this?" he asked, tapping a photograph of the most beautiful woman he'd laid eyes on for at least a couple of hours.
"That's Alice Lockwood, Wagner's right hand woman."
"Dyke, I suppose."
"Far from it. Lockwood was a prominent romance novelist before she became a feminist campaigner. She went underground and re-emerged at one of Wagner's rallies last year. Then they both disappeared."
Bond nodded, weighing up the pros and cons in his mind. On the one hand was his sense of duty to MI6. Who was he to say retirement wasn't the best thing for him? He was where M, and the government, needed him. A figurehead was as important as a solider, wasn't it? Where would the lads in no man's land have been without Churchill puffing away on his cigars? On the other hand was his unfading loyalty to Queen and country above all, and his love of a challenge. And Lockwood would definitely be a challenge.
He could also picture a world where Lockwood and Wagner got what they wanted. Men marrying other men, women prime ministers. And then what? People having sex with farmyard animals, no doubt in public. It would mean the end of Britain as we know it.
"All right," he said. "I'm in."
"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking," LaRochelle said, becoming more stern, "Going after Lockwood would be a very bad idea. It would compromise the whole mission."
"Whatever else you might have heard, Miss LaRochelle, I'm a professional. I get the job done."
"Hmm."
The car pulled over and Zach opened the door for Bond. He drained his drink and, pleased it had stopped raining, stepped out.
"Gather whatever you need," she said. "We'll contact you."
"Don't leave me waiting, my dear."