Eliza held a bundle of papers in her hand.

‘So, you’ll be the chaperone on the next Michael date, Shirley, which also means you’re Megan’s sidekick in bringing on the revolution for one day. You could also see it as a practical training session in discovering men in a way you don’t learn about in class.’

Shirley looked a bit uneasy by those last words. ‘What if he doesn’t like me? What if he wants something indecent from me?’

Eliza started laughing. ‘Him? Indecent? He only wants the innocent kind of indecent, that shouldn’t be seen as indecent at all.You still don’t understand him at all if you worry about that. He didn’t even try to touch his own fiancee yet after several dates beyond a hug as far as I know.’

‘That’s strange for a man. Do you think he doesn’t really like women?’

Eliza frowned. ‘Hmmm, it’s clear from everything that he likes girls a lot, somehow. But he needs more time, much more time to understand what he wants with that. If he’s lucky he’ll be ready for a first kiss around his retirement age I think… And if you were suggesting he likes boys more, no, it’s clear that that isn’t the case. He’s more of a man-hater than me… And there’s no reason to assume that he’s asexual either. But I wouldn’t worry about any of that, that’s all entirely Megan’s problem, to you he’s just a friendly human being who happens to be male.’

‘Says Eliza the man-hater, who’s always been so clear about being against marriage. Some people even whisper that you are the one who’s asexual here, or only like girls… ’

‘Alas, if only… It would make life much easier, wouldn’t it? I could hook up with a nice girl like you, run away, and start a life somewhere far from this hellhole. Unlike Nation marriages it seems the women couples in the Ghost Towns are something that can work.’

Shirley gave her friend a weird look. ‘A woman needs a man. Even if just for practical reasons, everything is dominated by them. And they can do the things we women can’t do.’

‘It’s not the time for that discussion now, Shirley. But do you need more tips for your upcoming Michael-time?’

‘The chaperone paperwork, how does that work?’

‘Let Megan dictate it. It’s not that they’re going to do the dump-the-chaperone-and-head-straight-to-the-bedroom trick, but they might want to have another version indeed. Or not. It’s not that he’ll want to do anything spectacular.’

Someone knocked hastily on the door. ‘Ah, Eliza, I’ve been looking for you. Here’s a book, and here’s a letter, plus this first version of the Pen Pal pamphlet that should be checked.’ Annabelle from the C-floor barged in and looked from Eliza to Shirley. ‘And my other client for today is here too. Perfect. Only missing Megan then. Here’s your biology handbook, Shirley, and this package is for Megan. And, eh, who asked for another copy of “Basic and advanced techniques of courtship sabotage”?’

Eliza’s eyes lit up when hearing that name. ‘I didn’t. I know it by heart now but I’m afraid Miss Hunter has destroyed my copy. She was quite mad when she read it. Strange that she wasn’t aware of its existence before.’

‘Hmm. None of you two is taken, and Megan famously has a decent taker. Strange.’ Annabelle said.

Shirley looked at the mythical book with awe. Everyone in Seventh City Wife Factory knew about it, but no-one ever admitted to have read, except for Eliza who was famous for quoting from it openly in front of the teachers, including Miss Hunter herself. The whole existence of the book was an anomaly that didn’t fit in the orthodox Wife School worldview. And yet a lot of people let out quotes and references from time to time, which were recognised by a lot of others and functioned a bit as secret passwords, as if most of the girls knew instinctively that there was something to the idea that women needed to know how to defend themselves against men sometimes, even in relationships.

Physical self-defence classes were already controversial but Miss Hemlock had always insisted on teaching the girls some basic fighting techniques. But those were against strangers, the idea that a woman would have to defend herself against her partner was officially unthinkable for some weird reason.

‘But I feel that if no-one needs it now, it might be a good present for Michael in exchange for the extra advanced robotics books. And for his work on project Pen Pal. It’ll be an educational experience.’

Now Anabelle’s confusion was complete. ‘You, Eliza the man-hater, would give the mythical secret book of female defence to a boy?’

‘Why not? He’s seeking to comprehend us. And he has read Miss Hunter’s courses already. Andrea caught him with one. It appears he turned all red and stammered something incoherent about countering male stereotypes.’ Shirley started laughing, but Annabelle was still serious.

‘That one, to a boy? Aren’t you going too far?’ ‘I’m a free woman and I can do what I want. Plus he’s not just a boy, he’s a first communication hub between two previously unconnected worlds. And he’s my friend above all the rest.’ ‘I know that, but still…’ Anabelle said.

‘But since it wasn’t me or Shirley it’s probably Megan who asked for it, so she’ll decide what to do with it. I don’t think you have other clients on the C-floor now?’

Anabelle nodded negatively.

‘Then we’ll keep it. Good value on the black market anyway. We can use it for sure. Project Pen Pal can always use more capital in this phase. I can’t guess what the price would be on the male side, but the value isn’t worth the risk.’

‘You mean, if the typical toxic man can read this?’

‘For example. They better don’t know that it exists indeed. One male co-conspirator doesn’t mean the male world isn’t mostly a congress of sex-crazed baboons.’

‘You should write poetry, Liz.’ Shirley sighed.

Eliza put her stuff away and turned to the visitor again.

‘So how’s life with you Anabelle, still single?’ She smiled.

‘Yup, all the time to study. We still miss you on the C-floor, Eliza. There’s always a lot of new girls who do their best to be taken as soon as possible, but the old guard is mostly there and remembers you. I think they want to see you back sometime. You’re a bit of a legend, did you know that?’

‘I’ll smuggle myself in one of these days. I need to check some things in the office on your floor anyway.’

‘You need what?’ ‘Ah, didn’t you know? Eliza is full on into espionage lately. She’s making herself chaperone of Megan whenever she wants, and now me, but she’s messing with other things too. She secretly controls the whole school probably. And there’s strange outsider noncitizen contacts also.’ Shirley said.

‘Yes, that I know. She’s our most important trader and she has contact with the Ghost Town leadership, completely under the radar of everyone. The outside traders think quite highly of her actually. And she’s only 18…’

‘Wow, a legend among outsiders too?’

‘Oh yes, she and Megan’s boy connected the two black markets for the first time, and apparently she’s been doing some electronics stuff in the Ghost Town too.’

‘So that boy is really that important? He’s big in the male world?’ Shirley looked unsure, as if there were even more reasons to be nervous about meeting him.

‘No, he’s very ordinary and completely under the radar in his world, just like Eliza is here. He’s only connected to both the male black market and the female black market now, and his unsegregation movement is taking hold in cafés and bars around Seventh City and beyond. Now that the season is getting colder most places are making a few unsegregated tables inside. Except for the conservative places that are against such things, you know.’

‘Oh, man, he’s really a dangerous revolutionary. And on top of that he’s a level one male too. I’m really nervous to meet him.’

‘Bwah, level one is not really that much if you’re only a Gamma, even if it still gives certain privileges and can open doors. But it’s clear that he’s going to be a legend one day, you can bet on that.’ Anabelle said. ‘Just think he’s a girl friend, but one who happens to be male. It’s easy to do that with him. Even for me.’ Eliza added. ‘If you say so…’

‘I am Eliza the man-hater; and he’s my good friend. You should trust me on that.’

‘If even Eliza says that, I’d believe it. All other reports on him are favourable too. The black market traders speak highly about him.’ Anabelle added.

‘Anything else that one of you needed to get outside? And new things you want?’ Anabelle asked.

‘Nothing for now.’ Shirley said.

‘You can send that Pen Pal pamphlet back with approval. I’ll discuss the numbers and distribution later. With them. Oh, and here’s a small letter for you-know-who now.’

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Anabelle nodded to Eliza while taking the letter, and Shirley knew asking about the mysterious letter or the mysterious Pen Pal pamphlets wouldn’t yield much answers.

‘Or maybe there is something. Do you have a copy somewhere in our school of the Women Are Human pamphlet?’ ‘I know a girl who might have a copy. I’ll ask around. Do you want me to ask the outsiders too? That’ll be a higher price, you know.’

‘No, I probably can get one straight from the source next time I’m outside with Michael. But I’m not outside this week. Just give me one when it’s easy to find one here inside the building.’

‘Okay. I’m off now. Good luck.’ Anabelle disappeared and Shirley looked at her friend.

‘Wow…’ Eliza just smiled and said nothing.

*

Michael looked nervously at the small package of Project Pen Pal pamphlets that Joe had given him. “Do you want to meet girls before your Ceremony of Choice?” it said in a vintage 21st century font, with an explanation of the whole project, and how it worked. What he had to do now is give copies to all the boys that might be interested, and leave the rest discreetly in places where they could be found by those who would be interested in it. He hoped that mouth to mouth advertisement would do the rest. Apart from talking one-on-one with some of his friends about it he didn’t feel like being very visibly connected to the whole project.

He had been one of the developers himself, but like the unsegrated spot movement it needed to grow organically now as an idea on itself, not one connected to people that could so easily be bullied and intimidated. If the idea was connected to a person the risk would be too big. Real Nation Men were good at picking on those who were weaker than them, but very bad with subtle changes, invisible networks and faceless revolutions without a visible enemy to blame and scapegoat. Let the leaven do its work in the dough, as some old philosopher had once said…

Nonchalantly he strolled to the cafeteria, and very casually he looked at the table with flyers for events and boy school clubs. Film night with a space gladiator movie, a party for beer-drinkers, extra drilling exercises for young patriots, gun night and for some reason the Holy Scripture study group called the Holy Sword… He knew again why he didn’t really attend any student club in this school. He slipped some of his own papers in between the rest, and went to the coffee counter for a Nation-coffee. From the corners of his eye he saw a boy he didn’t know pick up the first pamphlet, look at it, look left and right as if busted, and then put it in his pocket.

He sipped from his coffee and looked at how another boy took the pamphlet and started reading it aloud to his friend, who looked but put one into his pocket too. They started laughing. A whole group assembled around the table, reading it and making fun of it. He sighed. He knew this would have been a possible reaction, but so soon? Hanging around with girls and black market traders had changed his expectations of his fellow boy students already, it seemed. But this brought him back to reality. Wasn’t the whole plan madness at all? Would there be any boy at all who’d dare to join such a subversive and unmanly project?

To make everything worse he saw Don and John entering the cafeteria while the group of boys was laughing with the pamphlet. The boys scattered when Don grabbed the paper out of the hands of the younger boy. He read it to John, cursed, and crumpled it in his hand before tossing it away. He looked furious and threw the rest of the flyers in the trash bin too. So that was the reaction of the Real Men of the higher-rated kind to Project Pen Pal? It has all seemed so simple when making plans with Megan and Eliza, and even with Andrea and Joe who were fraternising easily over the great divide between the sexes, but he should have remembered how much opposition such an idea would have to the actual dominant Alpha and Beta men, like Don who was a Beta-1. And still, he had seen boys put the flyer in their pockets; so maybe it would be able to reach the “oddballs and outliers”?

But it wouldn’t be easy to reach his audience. He should replace the Pen Pal project flyers as often as possible, because it seemed some people would destroy them whenever they encountered them. The good thing was that high-rates didn’t really dominate the black market, but they could keep the potential clients of Project Pen Pal away if they made his attempts at advertisement impossible.

He put some new flyers on the table, which was empty now, and left the cafeteria. He couldn’t rely on this way of advertising since it was a bit too random, but he had a new plan already. It wouldn’t be so difficult to let the traders give every boy who did a trade a Project Pen Pal flyer, or maybe two, one for a friend too. Not everyone was connected to the black market now, but most people knew about it, and he had to rely on mouth to mouth advertisements too.

He looked at one of his flyers again. The print was of a high quality, but Eliza hadn’t disclosed how she had managed to get them printed. School copiers were much cruder than this, and even she wouldn’t be so crazy to use a school printer to print a revolutionary tract like this. He knew that the Ghost Towns sometimes had very advanced technology, but it was unlikely that even she would be able to make people in an all-female alternative society print that for her. Or was he underestimating her again? With Eliza you could never know…

*

Miss Hunter sat behind her desk, and looked a bit tired after half a day of teaching.

‘Ah, Megan. Thank you for bringing me those papers from official Greystone. I don’t like to speak to men directly, you know that.’

Megan hadn’t had much choice about the job, so she just bowed.

‘Come, sit here for a moment.’ Miss hunter said, pointing at a chair. Megan obeyed submissively, but even her teacher could see she was rather absent. ‘I worry about you. You’re so distracted lately, Megan. I fear that Eliza is still having a bad influence on you. Maybe you should sit somewhere else in the classroom.’

‘I’m not thinking about her, but about him.’ Megan said. ‘Hmm, oh yes, you’ve been chosen recently, isn’t it? The Gamma-one boy that everyone is talking about. Congratulations. You should have got your package and you’ll see that the extra classes are beneficial. Did you sign up yet?’

‘I didn’t, Miss Hunter. I’m not sure about everything anymore. And I don’t think it will prepare me for him. He’s not like that.’

‘Ah, well, Every man is different, but we have a good database about special preferences and stuff like that.’ ‘The preferences are everything you never taught us, Miss Hunter. Friendship, open communication, mutual respect, stuff like that.’

Miss Hunter looked at her, puzzled. ‘That would be, eh, particular. But as a woman you have to submit to the man that has chosen you, whatever his preferences, as you know already.’

Megan sighed. Female submission was the last thing Michael had on his mind, and it didn’t even work in the same sentence as his name. But her teacher could be quite dogmatic. ‘And don’t forget, you never know a man until you are married and live together.’ She nodded. That one was true, but she still wasn’t really afraid of terrible surprises in that regard. More of messy bedrooms and a man so immersed in his book or project that he’d forget about his dinner.

‘Can I ask you a personal question, Miss Hunter?’

‘That depends on the question, Megan.’

‘You are a married woman, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am. I alway use my personal experience to teach you, as you know.’

‘We always learn how to please our husband. What about pleasing the Wife? But shouldn’t the wife be happy too? Are there ways to be happy in marriage as a woman.’

Miss Hunter sighed. ‘That’s the wrong way of looking at it, Megan. You’re still young and inexperienced. But over time you’ll learn that it all depends on making your man happy. If your husband is happy, you have more chance of being happy. If he isn’t, your life will be misery. That’s just how it is. A woman has to accept her fate. And your Husband will always be your first priority.’

‘So, we shouldn’t expect anything for ourself in marriage, except that we have a man that can take care for us because women can’t be independent in this country.’

‘More or less so, yes. You’re getting it.’

‘And you never wanted more, Miss Hunter? For yourself, or maybe for you daughter? You do have a daughter younger than us who’s in wife school already, not? Wouldn’t you want her to have a happy life.’

Miss Hunter sighed again. ‘What did I tell you? If you make your man happy you will be happy. I want her to be prepared as well as possible to become a Good Wife. That’s the only chance on happiness a girl has in life.’ ‘And there’s nothing else to hope for as a woman?’

‘What else would there be?’

‘Like I said, being friends, open and honest communication, mutual respect in a relationship, that sort?’

‘What nonsense romance novels have you been reading lately, Megan? I hope you realise that’s only fantasy. You can’t expect any of these things from a man. They aren’t capable of any of that. They have other priorities and a higher calling, that’s why they are our leaders.’

‘I’ve heard other things from my fiancée. He is genuinely interested in friendship.’

‘Like I said, you don’t know a man before you married him and are living together. Don’t let your pretty head be fooled by him, Megan. A man is only a man. Friendship? With a man? That’s a meaningless concept. I expected more of you, Megan.’

‘So you and your husband don’t have anything like that? No friendship, no honest open communication?’

‘Megan, poor child. What weird ideas you have. He’s a man, I said that before. Really girl, those outlandish fantasies that you and Eliza have are outrageous. I can’t contradict your Gamma-one husband-to-be evidently, but I still would ask you to be more realistic. And to take your man seriously.’

Megan stood up. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Miss Hunter.’

When she walked out of the office her head was still dazzling from the clash of worlds that she lived in. And she hadn’t even mentioned the fact that Michael himself had been the instigator of the unsegregation movement, which would certainly be outlandish and outrageous too. Something told him Miss Hunter would like his actual ideas even less than Eliza’s, but as she had said, she as a B-class woman of a Beta-3 husband would never dare to contradict a Gamma-1 boy. So maybe there were moments when his privilege could come in handy after all…

*

‘Is that unsegregated spot on the summer terrace still running?’ The boss asked Tom.

‘Yes, boss. It makes us quite a lot of money even. It’s been full every time the weather wasn’t horrible, and that at this time of year. We've even added some tables and we’ve been opening up some mixed tables inside too in the small drinking room. But some people aren’t really happy with it.’

‘Michael is a Level One Male. He knows what he’s doing. And he’s right, it’s not strictly forbidden, the law says that segregated places should be available for those who need it, but not that everything has to be segregated. I’m thinking of taking my wife and daughter to join me on the terrace on Saturday if we have the late good weather the papers promised. She’s home from school this weekend.’

Tom sighed. ‘Isn’t all of this going too far? I mean, men and women together? What will it all lead to?’ ‘Why not? They’re my family. I should be able to be with them. That young man was right that it’s strange that we have to allow those prostitutes and mistresses in the male section, but we can’t ever sit with our wives or mothers or daughters. That never sat right with me. I know my old mother would have loved drinking a coffee with me here. It’s a pity she isn’t here anymore. She would have liked to see this.’

‘But, it’s indecent. Men and women together.’

‘All my life I’ve allowed things that were much more indecent and no-one ever said anything of it, so why would that stop us now? I feel like the young man is more than right. He should watch out with those Women are Human activists though. They might be dangerous. And we won’t be serving man beer to women or fruit beer to men, evidently, but in basics he’s right. I feel that change will be coming. And it’s better to be on the good side of history!’

‘Yeah, but still…’ Tom mumbled uneasily. He looked at the tables of the Unsegregated spot on the terrace. 5 women and one man were sitting there, relaxed, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He knew none of them.