Spermbank Tower

Baroness Warsi knocked back the rest of the gin, swallowed, and belched loudly. I did the same. When I meet with people from other cultures, I try to observe their traditions. She snatched a fat rollup from the desk, and lit it with a clicky lighter. She took a deep drag.

“Aaaahhh”, she said. “’at’s the stuff, that is”.

She exhaled, and blew a thick fog of smoke into my face.

“As I were sayin”, the Baroness continued. “David’s finally gone and given me something. He says I’m Minister fer pretzels, homophobia and student sex-bloggers. Ee’s very keen on you bloggers. Says ee’s keen to encourage entrepreneurship like what you’re doing. You’re the engines of the recovery, some such shite. I couldn’t give two myself, but I get paid the same whatever.”

“You’re minister for pretzels? Isn’t that a bit pointless?”

“P’raps. But could it be more useless than Minister Without Portfolio? Fuck.” I caught a glimpse of her laptop screen in the window – “BigDog94” had pulled a flush on the river. Sayeeda (“call me Sy”) pulled out a credit card and started tapping.

She sniffed. “Anyway, ere’s yer grand. Just stick in a few more Coalition plugs. Say t’Big Society twatted a rapist, Milliband looks a nonce in that jacket, EMA shrinks yer cock. Anything really. When you need the other grand, go in’t Swan and ask for Big Billy.” She picked up another cigarette, lit and breathed. The smoke flooded all the corners of the room.

“Can I open a window?”

“S’a free country, duck.”

I did, and more smoke poured in through the windows.

“Well, fuck me backwards”.

A klaxon sounded; shrill screams rang through the air. The sounds of shattering glass. From Sy’s office five floors up, we could see twenty thousand students, all armed with fire extinguishers, using them to batter the two defenceless policemen below. Blood flew from the stricken figures. Hateful students dived in, claiming fingers or legs as trophies. Flecks of guts were flung in all directions. One found its way through the window, and onto Sy’s face. She licked her lips.

“It’s on.”

She clattered through the door. Crazed Tories ran up and down the stairs almost at random. One cowered, quivering , in a corner. Two stood by the blinds, as though judging their chances from this height.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a LOCKDOWN!”, the Baroness announced. “Everyone, please! Go back to your offices and await further instructions. These childish protestors will soon realise that direct action never solved anything and is never justified -“

“The Suffragettes?”, a staffer cut in.

“That was different. They weren’t allowed to vote. These 17 year-olds are just id-“

She was cut off by another fire extinguisher crashing through the window. Just as it did, there was an almighty crash against the fire escape doors. Three of the students had flung themselves against it. I noted their pallid skin and dark circles round their eyes. “EDUCATION FOR ALL”, they murmured. “NO CUTS. NO CUTS”. We stared in horror. One munched on the skull of a dead policeman.

Suddenly, another crash, and the door gave way. The students lumbered towards us. The Tories screamed, and threw themselves up the stairs. But I stood, fixated. One of them ran behind, flapping his arms, waving at the others.

“I command you! Stop this at once! By the powers invested in me as the President of the National Union of Students, I demand that you cease immediately! I –"

We both watched in horror as one of the students picked up a small kitten and bit through its spine. “NO TO ARTS CUTS”, he wrote on the wall with its blood.

I grabbed the President’s hand. Together, we ran into Sy’s office, and locked the door.

***

“You know, these aren’t bad people.”

“I know.”

“It’s just… being here. There’s something… it does something to them. To their heads. They…”

“I know! I saw. We just have to stay here, and hope – pray…”

“They don’t realise they’re undermining a largely peaceful protest!”

He sobbed. I took his hand, and gazed into his eyes. Something might have happened, but-

“TOOORIES OUT. TOOOOORIES OUTTTT.”

We gasped, and flung ourselves behind the desk. The only light now was through the cracks in the door. The doorhandle rattled. It kept rattling.

“They’re going to –“

“Ssshhh!”

I reached across, held him as close as I could, and kissed him passionately. He fell silent with surprise. It rattled again, and I gripped his cock. And then… silence.

“One day we’re gonna escape this, okay? We’ll be sat in the sunshine, yeah? Kids’ll be laughing around us. You’ll be drafting a letter to the Independent about library funding, and I’ll be polishing my 2010 Guardian Student Media Award for Digital Journalist of the Year. Just think of that. Just think.”

He looked up. “I love you, Mimi”.

“I know.”

Then a crash. The door was blown from its hinges. Ten of them swarmed in. Twenty. Thirty. Fifty. I swang a flaming Liberal Democrat 2010 manifesto at them, but for every one I hit, five more replaced it. Hands grabbed at me from all sides. I gripped the hands of the man I knew only as the President tighter than ever. Soon we were ripped apart. This is it, I thought. And…

***

“NO MORE FEES! NO MORE FEES”, I yelled. From the roof of the Millbank Tower, I could see for miles around. The glorious fires of student protest burned around me. Big Ben was reduced to rubble. The London Eye was a pool of molten metal. They’d managed to persuade me. How could I have been so wrong?

Nathan - the tallest - had put his lips around my neck. Then he’d kissed me all over, and we’d had sex a few times with the others watching. Then they’d joined in. The sex itself was some of the best I'd ever had. Uninhibited, non-obligatory, just forty-eight people who were happy to have each other. As I came, so too did my revelation. A minute later I had my very own fire extinguisher, and had flung it to the ground below, crushing five policemen and a disabled soldier all holding white flags as their young families watched.

“I’m going to burn some public property that's paid for with taxpayers' money!”, I yelled, and hundreds cheered me on. “We’ll burn it down!”, they yelled. “Anarchy! Anarchy!”

As we cast the limbs of junior Conservative policymakers into the fire, a helicopter rose in front of us. I saw the Baroness. She winked at me, and took off into the sky.