The Three R's Pt. 01

Preamble

In Britain under the New Order government, men have come to accept rule by women. Sponsorship -- a system where a woman takes responsibility for a man in return for attachment of his assets and tax benefits.-- is promoted by the government as a way of establishing social cohesion and gives women unprecedented powers over the men in their lives.

Positive discrimination in favour of women is common in the workplace, with men becoming increasingly marginalised and employed in menial jobs where decisions are not needed. Women seek to avoid the risks of Male Dominated Decision Making that New Order believe led to the current decline in the nation's fortunes. The government's "Respect Agenda" requires men to treat women as their superiors. Women act as sponsors to help improve men's behaviour and the government's Department of Sponsors Affairs (DOSA) exists to help them. Regulations governing men's behaviour are enforced with enthusiasm by a part of the police dedicated to ensuring men comply with rules: the Male Control Force. There are plenty of regulations for men to fall foul of. The concept of enforcing male chastity is gaining ground as a way of reducing what women claim is men's inability to focus on anything except their own sexual gratification, so called SAID ; sexually-driven attention inadequacy disorder.

In spite of their popular following and their substantial majority in parliament, not everyone is on-board with the government's view of how society should function. Some people think that there might be alternatives.

It used to be that the 'Three R's' were reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic but in New Order Britain for some groups, they are coming to have another meaning.

Part of this story is set around the East End of London, near the financial centre at Canary Wharf and London's City Airport. Mudchute, contrary to what you might think, is a real place.

Norm Hailman, who we meet in Chapter One of this tale, originally appears in the story "Year One: A New Order Diary". If you haven't read it yet it won't hurt your enjoyment of this. On the other hand there are a few references in this story to the attempt in May 2022 to blow up the Prime Minister at a meeting in Fordswell. If you'd like to know what happened to that you might be better of reading that story first!

Chapter 1: Exit Strategy

Norm Hailman was an absconder. He had run out on his one-time girlfriend then sponsor, Beth, after he had decided that he couldn't take the bullying any more. He didn't think of himself as a trouble maker but, in New Order Britain, going missing from your sponsor put you on the wrong side of the law. At best, if you were caught, you got returned to your sponsor. If you weren't so lucky it could mean a spell in prison and being assigned to a government run sponsorship scheme. And the word was they were no fun at all. Norm had been dodging Male Control Force officers ever since leaving what had been his home. He was getting used to finding ways of living with hardly any cash and no credit

It was late November. London was sulking through a bleak, grey, day. Streets wet from late afternoon rain reflected the lights from shop windows as peopled scurried by, not wanting to stop in the cold, easterly wind. In London's West End the queues for tickets at shows that evening were shorter than usual as the attraction of bars and restaurants seemed to trump those of standing in line for the hope of an evening's entertainment.

Norm was sitting in The Pig's Tale, a bar in Soho's Old Compton Street, not far from Shaftesbury Avenue, the heart of London's theatre land. He was trying to look inconspicuous.

Twenty or thirty years ago, the Pig's Tale had a fearsome reputation for hard drinking artists and journalists. In its hey-day, writers and painters had rubbed shoulders with prostitutes, perverts and wannabe bohemians, petty crooks and some not so petty ones as well. Now it was just a seedy dive where the table tops were only slightly less sticky than the carpets. Its main attractions were that it was dark and quiet and it didn't have a 'women only' policy. Plus, it had a back entrance.

Norm's efforts at blending into the background were made more difficult by the fact that there were so few other customers. His contact was late. That was making Norm nervous. Any indication that things weren't going as planned made him nervous. But, he told himself, if you were doing what he was, then nervous was a good way to be.

He drank his beer slowly, trying to look as relaxed as possible. Besides, he was short of cash. He had to make it last.

Norm's plan was to get out of the country. As far as he could see it was the only alternative for an absconder to a life constantly looking over his shoulder in case he was detected or betrayed. He knew that it wasn't going to be easy but he'd had friends that had tried to hide out from the MCF after absconding and they had failed. One was back with his sponsor again after being run to ground by a pair of MCF officers that had left him bruised and cowed. He remembered the triumphant crowing of the man's sponsor when she heard that he'd been recaptured. The scornful "he couldn't find his way to the end of the road without a leash on his neck" remarks had been delivered with a triumphant smirk. He was determined Beth wouldn't have the chance to crow about him.

It felt like a lifetime since he had left his home in Fordswell, south west of London. In fact it had been barely a week. Sure he'd been frustrated with the regulations and limitations that the New Order Government had brought in, and he hated the way that every interaction between a man and woman seemed to be politicised now but what had been worse was what Beth had ended up expecting in the bedroom. That had been the final straw.

He wondered how long it had been before Beth had realised that he'd absconded and notified the Department of Sponsors Affairs. It would have been at least a day but DOSA would know by now of course and that meant the MCF would have his name on a list too. He wondered if they were really as efficient as they were supposed to be. So far he'd managed to stay out of their way.

That was more by luck than judgement, he knew. Although he was determined to get out, he didn't really have much idea of what happened after that. But, he told himself, maybe it was better to be flexible, not to be locked in to some predetermined goal. And so far he had managed to stay on the run.

Staying out of the way of the MCF hadn't been easy though and, while he hadn't been happy with the way things had gone with Beth, back then at least he'd had a roof over his head and three meals a day. Now he was having to live off his own resources; what he could scrounge or steal or what he could pay for out of his rapidly diminishing funds.

He hadn't got used to being a fugitive, constantly looking over his shoulder and his surroundings were anything but familiar. He'd lived in London once but it had been a different place then. And, even though Fordswell wasn't far from London, it still felt like it was a thousand miles away. The nearest that Fordswell came to a seedy Soho bar like the one he was in now was the kebab van that parked up just by the village green on Friday evenings.

He looked around, wondering where his contact had got to and worrying about how long he should wait. He caught himself drumming his fingers on the table and stopped -- that just made him look more impatient.

To distract himself, he thought about his walk up to Soho from where he'd dropped off the 'men only' bus near Covent Garden. London was both familiar and strange. He used to live in the east of town but these days, as well as the inevitable problems of a big city, there were all the restrictions on male access and behaviour. Plus there was the constant threat of being stopped by some inquisitive MCF officer looking for a way of making an otherwise boring patrol more interesting. The place was at one and the same time both familiar and strange.

Then there was the fact that, while trying to get out of the country wasn't technically illegal, travelling without the authority (or at least tacit acceptance) of your sponsor was. He'd spent the last week in a state of barely contained panic, worried in case he got stopped by an MCF officer. He knew his ident card would flag him up as an absconder straight away. Just as bad, and even though he knew it was unlikely, he worried about being spotted by one of Beth's friends.

At least in The Pig's Tale he was safe from them, he told himself. He couldn't imagine Beth or any of her friends in a place like this.

The door to the bar opened. A young woman of twenty five or so, wearing a battered trench coat and a knitted woollen hat, came in. She was leading a man behind her on a leash. That was a common enough sight these days; plenty of women interpreted the government advice that sponsors should make sure that their men behaved themselves in public places as meaning they couldn't just be allowed to wander around freely. Somehow, though, this woman managed to make it look as though she was following him from in front. Norm was startled when they approached his table.

"Are you hoping to hear about a truck?" the man asked. The woman stood by, hands in her pockets, looking bored.

"Maybe," Norm said, carefully. He nodded towards the leash. "Is she...?"

The man laughed as the two of them sat down. "Good disguise isn't it? Let's me get where I want to go. I just have to tell her where I want to go, she goes in front and I tag along behind."

Norm was amused. "Not quite as 'female led' as it looks!"

"No. There's a few women like her around who think this whole New Order thing has gone too far and in the wrong direction. She's happier on her back in the bedroom, aren't you luv?"

The woman blushed and nodded shyly. Norm looked at her with curiosity. It had been a long time since he'd been around a woman that would put up with a remark like that, much less go along with it. "You don't mean she does...?"

"Yeah, she's up for prick sex, aren't you luv? Takes it any which way and glad of it. Then gets back in the kitchen afterwards. I'm a lucky bloke!" The words 'prick sex' was the derogatory way New Order zealots spoke about what had once been normal. These days most women favoured alternatives to being penetrated by males. Mostly they were alternatives that didn't involve males at all. Norm looked at the other man enviously. The woman he was with said nothing, apparently quite accepting of having her sexual interests discussed without her involvement. He hadn't imagined that there were any women like that left in London. If he had managed to find one, maybe he wouldn't be thinking about trying to get out of the country.

"Tell me again how it works," he said, reluctantly dragging his thoughts back from the attractive idea of traditional sex with a compliant woman.

"Out the back is a truck, you get in it. That will get you to Liverpool. The driver will see you on to the ferry for Belfast. On the other side you'll be met and got to the border. Once they get you across it you'll have to look after yourself. Have you got friends over there?"

"No, not really."

"Ah, you'll be OK. They don't worry about ident cards and the sort of nonsense we have here. You'll shack up with some accommodating Irish girl and be happy as the day is long."

Norm reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. He passed it across to the man sitting opposite him. He'd taken some risks to to scrape the money together, wondering every day whether Beth would notice the cash going missing. This wasn't any time to be worrying about what happened next, he told himself, but he was pretty sure it wasn't going to be like some re-enactment of "Galway Girl."

He slipped through the back door of the bar, still wondering if the woman in the trench coat had been real. As promised a white panel van was waiting. He was confused for a moment by two things; the Department of Sponsor's Affairs logo on the side and the fact that a woman was sitting in the driver's seat.

"Are you fucking getting in," she said in a gruff voice, "or are you going to stand there gawping at me?"

Norm climbed into the back of the van. "Sorry," he called to the driver. "I wasn't expecting a woman."

"You haven't got one, either," the driver said. "But this'll do unless we're stopped and then you are going to have sprint out of the back before a patrolling police officer compares the details on my ident card with the fact that I've got a sizeable cock under this skirt.

"Right," said Norm, wondering what else this journey was going to serve up in the way of unlikely encounters.

Two days later he was leaving the Six Counties for Eire, crossing Lough Macnean and leaving behind the transvestite trucker, the girl with her man on a leash and he hoped, all the problems of his previous life with Beth.

Norm looked back across the water towards the town of Belcoo. He turned around. It was dark but the first suspicion of the light of dawn was showing in the sky to the east. All the dim dawn did was to make the two balaclava clad men crewing the boat look even more sinister than they already did but at least it looked as if it was going to be dry. It was still bloody cold, though. He'd have to keep moving just to keep warm.

He thought back to Fordswell. Life had been more comfortable there but he knew he'd made the right decision to get out. Especially after what Beth had been trying. She had been all right up until then. He wondered for a moment if she was worried about him. Then, he decided, it was more likely she'd just be thinking how she could her hands on another man's arse to push her strap-on into.

The crossing was less than half a mile. He reckoned it must be one of the most expensive ferry tickets in the world, but at least it was getting him out of reach of those New Order bitches. It had been a long journey.

What the fuck he was going to do once he reached the shore and landed in the Republic of Ireland was another matter, though.

Chapter 2: Phil's Place

Phil's Place was slightly less rough than the Pig's Tale as a drinking venue.

Jack Toven and his friend Ashran Kush, students at the nearby university were deep in discussion.

"You know the thing that really pisses me off?" Jack threw back his second beer like he'd be able to afford a third.

"Let me guess, is the first word 'New' and the second one 'Order'?" Ashran was taking more care with his own drink. His cash wouldn't stretch to too many of these in one evening. He was hoping that Jack wouldn't go on too long about this. Jack's rants were becoming predictable.

"Yeah, well, no, not entirely. I mean you can't blame them for doing what they told everyone they were going to do. I mean they must be the first political party in years that have actually started delivering on their manifesto commitments. And you can't blame the women, 'cos after all it's only what they've had to put up with for years."

"Hey, listen to the new, woke, Jack!"

"No, it's the bloody men that annoy me. Some of them even voted New Order. From the rest there's piss all sign of any resistance. All the government staff seem to have gone along with it quite happily, 'smooth transition of power' and all that. Police don't seem to care what laws they enforce as long as someone else is telling them what to do, although heaven help you if you're a man and you've got any aspirations beyond being a beat copper. The military doesn't seem bothered. Businesses have been happy to sack their male bosses and stick women in to meet quotas as long as it keeps the tax man and the stock market sweet. People like my parents are trying to work out how the hell they can turn over decades of living in a way that now all the media is telling them was like some sort of Neanderthal existence. Even ordinary blokes like us are either desperate for a sponsor or pushing to get on the government scheme. The only sign of anyone desperate enough to do something was that bloke who tried to blow up the Prime Minister and it looks like he was some sort of nutter."

"Well, that's how it got reported anyway."

"How many others do you know that are trying to get by without knuckling under? Who's standing up for the man in the street?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Look at this place! They're all just cramming in here, aren't they?"

Phil's Place was on Woburn Walk, not far from the University College campus, where Jack and Ashran were studying. It was one of the few venues that accepted unaccompanied men these days. It suffered from the consequences. It was almost empty apart from Jack and Ashran. There were only two other customers in the bar -- both men - sitting at a table.

Phil's Place just wasn't the sort of bar that you'd see women and they were the ones with the cash. There were places that catered for them exclusively and plenty of places that let men in only if they had an accompanying female. Jack couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a woman in Phil's Place.

That had some obvious effects. The bar was quiet most evenings and New Order had only been in power for just over a year. It was only going to get worse, Jack thought. Plus you knew there would be at least two visits from Male Control Force officers in any given evening. They'd be checking to see if there were any sponsorship absconders or dissidents in the place. And you knew they'd be waiting outside a minute after curfew time, looking for easy pickings if they were short on their quota of arrests for the week.

Even so, Phil's Place was better than the bar back in college; Jack was sure of that. There you were looking over your shoulder the whole time, in case someone took exception to any remark that questioned the current social orthodoxy. And that was assuming you were prepared to put up with the casual sexism and cat calling from the women. On the other hand the beer was cheaper there.

"There are some people trying to do something." Phil, behind the bar, felt able to join in. He'd got to know Jack and Ashran over the last year or so since they'd started at college. The other customers were regulars too, otherwise he'd have kept quiet. Like any good bar owner he knew that his customer's business was their own affair and his business was running the bar. "It's just that you won't get to hear of it unless you go looking. The government does a pretty good job of keeping a lid on any news it doesn't want to get out. And besides, who's running all the media now?"

"That'll be women."

"Exactly."

"So, what can you do? If you wanted to try and do something about the way the world is right now. Hypothetically."

"Well, you wouldn't expect to find any answers in a run down bar like this, that's for sure. I certainly wouldn't know anything about anything like that. You especially wouldn't expect to find anything like this. Somebody left a few copies in here the other day." He passed over a folded news sheet.

Jack looked at it. It was roughly made; typed and then photocopied, Jack thought, two sheets of low quality, paper folded in half to make an eight page pamphlet.

"You might find it interesting," Phil said. "You didn't get it from here though, if you understand me, and if you take it with you put it somewhere that it won't be found if you get stopped."

Phil went back to sorting out bottles behind the bar. He could honestly say that he didn't know which of his customers had picked up the leaflet but when he looked back it had definitely gone. He remembered to put the remaining copies under the counter. It was just as well. It wasn't the sort of thing that you wanted laying around when the MCF beat officer came in to check the place over later on. That sort of thing could be quite hazardous to your ability to hang on to your liquor license.