Curse of the Potency Page 7

  These were all prizes worth having. I had to keep my eye on the prizes, and though it was frustrating, the only way I could see to do that was just to sit tight, do what I was told, and keep on peeing my crazy toxic green stuff into that ridiculous bin-toilet. Keep up my contributions, as it were. My end of the bargain.

  And so my world remained in this closed-off state for what must have been at least a week or so.

  Then Molly announced it was time for me to go on a diet.

  *****

  I arrived at her desk that morning, as usual, haggard and sort of early, at around 9:30-ish sharp.

  “Morning, Dave,” she said. “Oh, you look pale.”

  “Do I?”

  I don’t think I’d bothered looking in the mirror that morning. Or on most mornings. What was the point? I did always shower and brush my teeth though. Molly was a lady after all. She deserved the basics.

  “Yes,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  I thought on that. There were many possible answers. The bare facts were I had been up late watching episode after episode of something or other, munching Doritos and Galaxy Minstrels. Whatever I was watching must have been rubbish since at that moment I couldn’t even recall what it was.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Just up a bit late last night. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “That’s not good,” she said, showing genuine concern, bless her. “I do think you should get out more. Perhaps this new diet you’re going to start will help you do that.”

  “New diet?”

  Here it comes, I thought, dread settling over me like mustard on a hot dog.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling brightly despite what must have been an utter look of fear on my face. “Here.”

  She slid a piece of paper over the desk.

  “What kind of a diet?” I asked without looking at it.

  “Well,” she said. “Let me explain first. My intention is to understand the vagaries of your supercharged urine, what makes your insides tick, as it were, and what has caused this absolutely amazing thing to occur to you. I believe the most obvious, primary and speediest route to an understanding is to begin by experimenting with a counter model of consumption. A polar opposite would be ideal. This should give us instant results, if indeed your diet is connected to what’s going on, and I believe it must be one way or another. The effects of this change on you should at least tell us that much, and it would be a big finding to scientifically prove such a connection. That’s why I would like you to spend the next week or so on a vegan diet.”

  She had spoken so many words in so short a space of time I was having trouble keeping up with her, and so there was a second or two while I processed everything she had just said. The main bit was obviously the last.

  “Vegan diet?”

  I almost had trouble pronouncing the words. It was an idea so alien and utterly abhorrent to me.

  “Yes, Dave,” she said, still with that smile. “A vegan diet. Do you know much about veganism?”

  I held on to the seat and breathed out a deep, deep sigh of apprehension, feeling nauseous just at the bare mention of such a thing.

  “A vegan diet?”

  If it had been anyone else, I might have just told them to fuck off, stormed out of the place there and then, never to return. It could have easily been the last straw. But it was her. I liked her. I fantasized about her naked in the bath. I wanted to please her. Also, she did seem to think it might help us discover what was wrong with me, and I had to agree that it did sort of make sense, and it would certainly be interesting to see what happened to me with such a change. Interesting, yes. But still, a vegan diet? I mean… I was just lost for words.

  “It’s nothing to be afraid of.” She laughed. “It’s really simple, actually. It just means the absence of any animal products, although I am stretching it here to include the absence of any synthetic or processed foods too. As I said, I want a polar opposite model to counter your current consumption. And my thinking really is that your affliction is diet-related. It has to be something to do with the way you eat.”

  “Sorry. I’m just… I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “Of course you can!” She laughed again. “Oh, don’t worry, Dave. It’ll be fine. It might even be fun. You’d be surprised.”

  “Fun?”

  “Yes! Trying something different, you know. Experimenting with new foods. I know I found it hard at first, but it really isn’t all that difficult once you get used to it. Plus, I’ll help you along the way.”

  “You’re a vegan?”

  “Yes. I’ve been one for two years now. It’s the best thing I ever did.”

  “Come on…”

  “I’m serious!” She laughed that laugh again.

  I sighed that sigh again.

  “Look, Dave,” she said. “I’m not going to lie. It won’t be easy for you, especially with the kind of diet you’ve gotten used to. But it’s perfectly possible. And I need you to do this as part of my investigation.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You’ll have me to help, okay? I’ll break it all down for you. There are lots of vegan restaurants around here. We’re in the perfect place. I’ll show you, okay? Take you to them. If you’re lucky, I might even cook for you. I just need you to give it a go. And stick to it. At least for a couple of weeks or so.”

  I shook my head, feeling utterly trapped. The idea of her taking me to restaurants and cooking for me was extremely appealing, I’ll admit. But still, veganism? It sounded worse than anything I could possibly imagine. Worse than Scientology, worse than those weirdos who thought the world was flat, perhaps somewhere on the level of devil worship.

  “Come on, Dave,” she said, giving me an extra special juicy smile peppered with the irresistible flickering of her wonderful eyelashes. “Do it for me?”

  And that, I am sorry to say, was that.

  “Alright…” I said.

  How could I refuse? The woman had me in her claws. For crying out loud, she had me!

  *****

  The more I learned about the vegan diet and what it entailed, the more I became convinced of its utter wrongness. I curse whichever bastards had the nerve to come up with such an unholy idea. No meat, no cheese, no milk products of any kind. NOTHING! I mean, why? Just… why? How could anyone ever conceive that it could possibly be anything but a stupendously bad idea? Not just bad. Unnatural. A man’s gotta eat, right? So let him eat what he wants! And more to the point, let him eat enough so that he can get his basic fill. Good, honest, proper food so that he doesn’t bloody starve to death! Veganism was a colourless, constantly ravenous existence eked out on only hamster nibblings and rabbit snacks. Starvation seemed to be the only possible outcome. Or madness. Or both!

  Well, anyway, these were my private thoughts. I couldn’t ignore Molly when she said that my affliction must be diet-related. Even though it was unbelievable to think that merely eating loads of lovely junk food could do such a thing, going vegan might very well help to reveal something or other about that. Also, I would do it for Molly’s sake, because that was her plan and we were working together to discover the truth about me and because I knew that it was only going to be temporary, and therefore I stood a good chance of surviving the ordeal.

  I kept any negative thoughts I had about the diet private. Mostly. I could never show any enthusiasm for the barren wasteland that my mealtimes became, but I could refrain from mouthing off and displaying my complete revulsion for the fate that was befalling me.

  I would suffer in silence.

  *****

  I was initiated into the new diet that very day when she first laid it down for me. She took me to lunch at a local place called the Vegan Kitchen. Oddly, I hadn’t noticed it before, but I guess that was sort of like when you don’t notice a Jehovah’s Witnesses office, a poster advertising a discount at the local gym, or any other of the many things in this world that you don’t want to notice.

  Anyway, so we went to this place
, and at first I was surprised to see that the menu looked sort of okay. They had lasagne, fried chicken, a grilled cheese sandwich, even mac and cheese and, to my relief, pizza!

  “This doesn’t look so bad.”

  “See, Dave, I told you. It’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  So I went for it, ordering a pizza and thinking that if it didn’t fill me up I had plenty of other options to fall back on. She went to the counter to order, and I noticed her engaging in a very friendly and familiar chat with the tattoo-covered, nose-pierced girl serving there. At one point she pointed in my direction, and they both beamed at me like they were proud parents or something. I’m only doing this because she made me and because I myself am an utter freak of nature with a deranged penis, I wanted to say. I did try to smile back, although despite the surprisingly tasty-looking menu, I was far from confident that the meal itself would meet my standards.

  I wasn’t wrong either.

  “Here you go, love,” said the girl at the counter when she brought my pizza over a few minutes later.

  It looked okay at first: normal, edible at least. Molly was having some kind of a baked thing with lots of what looked like giant cucumbers, as well as other green stuff and mushrooms and things. In short, disgusting.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Ratatouille,” she said, sniffing it and smiling as if it was the most delicious thing in the world. “Want to try?”

  I thought better of asking if it had any actual rats in it and politely declined.

  The pizza looked alright, as I said, and I was by now pretty hungry, so throwing all caution to the wind, I got stuck in.

  Have you ever eaten anything really mouldy before? I know I’ve had my fair share of slightly out-of-date yoghurts, stale bread for sure, and definitely the odd too-tangy cheddar, but this didn’t even come close. The cheese on this monstrosity was how I imagine the nastiest bodily excretions would taste—were they to be carefully extracted and repackaged as a foodstuff. Imagine distilling pure dandruff, earwax, and scraped athlete’s foot, mixing it all up, congealing it with the use of a hardening agent that tastes like cod-liver oil, and then grating the resulting slab of whatever it is onto a soggy, tomato-covered base. Then you might be somewhere near to the taste. I didn’t spit it out exactly, though I definitely gagged and had to work hard not to do that repeatedly. With a lady present, of course, I really wanted to avoid that.

  “Dave, are you okay?” said a concerned-looking Molly.

  I chewed what I had in my mouth, trying not to look like I was sucking on a lemon, and managed to swallow it down with the help of a large glass of water (she wouldn’t even let me have Coke).

  “I’ll survive,” I said. “Can’t eat any more of that though.”

  “Come on—”

  She was going to try to talk me into eating more, but there was simply no way.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll order something else.”

  “It must be the cheese,” she said. “I remember the first time I tried vegan cheese. It’s not for everyone but you do get used to it. I really like it now.”

  “No, I don’t like the cheese. What’s it made from anyway?”

  “Well, there are lots of different ways, but normally it’s based on soy protein mixed with a bunch of other things. Nuts and seeds, I think. And probably flour. The consistency is the hardest thing to get right.”

  Well, she was dead right about that; they certainly hadn’t got the consistency. Or the flavour. Or anything else about it at all!

  I went up to the counter to order something else. I was about to order the lasagne, but then I realised that of course would have cheese in it as well. In fact, nearly all the other things on the menu that looked like my cup of tea would have cheese in them. I was stumped but really hungry, so I went for the “chicken.”

  “Wait,” I said after I’d ordered it. “What’s it made from? The chicken.”

  “We use a blend of soy and pea protein,” said the girl. “It’s pretty good. Sort of like Quorn. Have you ever tried that?”

  “Er, no.”

  “Well, as far as I’m told, it’s pretty close to the real thing, although admittedly, most people who come in here haven’t tasted real chicken in years.”

  She giggled at that. It filled me with concern. Still, I went ahead and ordered. My stomach wouldn’t let me leave without feeding it.

  “Can I ask what you thought of the pizza?” she said as I was about to sit back down. “I noticed you didn’t finish it.”

  “Ah, no,” I said, trying to think of a polite way of telling her how utterly revolting it was. “I, er, didn’t get on with the cheese.”

  “I understand,” she said, tutting to herself. “Never been able to get it quite right. It’s so hard.”

  No, I thought. And that should tell you something, shouldn’t it?

  Chapter 8

  Can you believe that when we finished that first vegan meal in the cafe she dropped another bomb on me, a real whopper? As well as only eating rabbit food and no Coke or any fizzy drinks whatsoever, I was forbidden to consume alcohol!

  “Come on!” I moaned. “Seriously. How am I going to survive?”

  “You’ll find a way.” She laughed. “It’s only a couple of weeks.”

  “But…”

  There was nothing I could say. Veganism and teetotalism. That’s how she wanted it so that’s what I had to do.

  To be honest, boredom was the main result of the whole thing, and I had to admit that, as the days passed, I slept better, swore less, emptied my bowels more regularly, and generally got less wound up. I suppose you could say I felt less grey. Rather, there was more of a dull cardboard colour to me.

  Still, it wasn’t any fun at all, and I promised myself that as soon as the torture was over, I would indulge in an epic bender. I would probably have only myself for company, none of the usual laddish banter, but I entertained the idea that I might be able to convince Molly to join me for a few drinks—to celebrate my success and reward my hard work, as it were. That’s how I was thinking to package it.

  And well, I was spending a lot of quality time with her. She accompanied me to each meal, partly because I winced at almost every vegan dish put in front of me and needed her guidance in ordering appropriate food—at least, that’s what I told her—but also I knew she worried that, without her there to force me, I might go off for a cheeky Macky D’s or a kebab or a pizza or something. She wasn’t wrong in those notions, but yup, I played that card for all it was worth.

  So anyway, I need not go into any more detail about how painful that diet was for me. Each day more so. You get it, I’m sure. For your sake and my sake, let’s just skip the week or so of utter culinary torture I suffered and fast-forward to the most interesting part of that whole diet period: the evening when Molly cooked for me.

  As you might imagine, by that point I was thoroughly fed up with the whole thing.

  “What’s on the menu tonight?” I asked when she arrived at my basement room. She was holding a tinfoil-covered dish and what looked suspiciously like a bottle of red wine.

  “I’m glad you tidied for me,” she said, looking around with raised eyebrows.

  “Well,” I said. “Never had guests before.”

  “Dave, it’s a tip!”

  She was right, of course, though in my defence I had done a little last-minute tidying, chucking the dirty clothes into a corner, stuffing the rubbish in a bin bag, that kind of thing. It was still a pigsty though.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I cleared the table for us. See.”

  I had achieved that by sliding everything that had been on the table into a cardboard box, one of the two or three I still had lying around with things moved from my old flat and as yet unpacked.

  “It’s alright,” she said. “I guess this place isn’t exactly ideal accommodation.”

  “You’ve got that one right. Noisy too, what with the road being right here.” I gestured up to the high windows, the pavem
ent. “I did tell Daryl I wanted to move, but he said it wasn’t possible yet.”

  “You’ll be able to move out once Byron and Marcus have had time to develop the material.”

  “I guess so.”

  That gave me a thought, actually. For the time being, I had accepted Daryl’s explanation for why I had to be in the basement. I more or less made my peace with that, waiting patiently for the day when I could see the proper sunshine again from my living room, hoping it wouldn’t be too long. But actually, why should I take him at his word? The development lab was supposed to be up and running, so perhaps it was high time I saw what they were actually doing rather than just moping around in my dungeon. I made a note to pay a visit the very next day.

  “Well, anyway,” she said, putting on that smile of hers, “I’ve brought you a treat tonight.”

  She placed the dish onto the table and whipped off the tinfoil.

  “Ta-da!”

  I peered inside hesitantly, not really expecting anything much and not being all that impressed by what I saw.

  “Looks like spag-bol.”

  “Yes!” She beamed at me. “Vegan Bolognese. I found this new whole-foods store, and they’re stocking this amazing new ersatz beef from Korea. I’ve been told you can’t tell the difference at all. I’m really excited, actually. One thing I do miss is beef.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. Well, why not just bloody eat real beef then, I thought, but we were way past that.

  “Also,” she put the bottle down on the table next to the dish. “Vegan wine.”