End of Women: Part Four

Initiation

Three young men sat together in the common room of their college dormitory. Their names were Damian, Mark and Wilbur, and they were the three remaining of the original six occupants of their dormitory block. In many respects their lives were quite normal, at least as far as the rest of the world was concerned. There was a varsity football flag pinned to the wall, a predictable pile of unwashed dishes beside the sink and textbooks and study aids on every other available surface. 

They sat together in silent study. Damian, the tallest of the three who had a slow, quiet but dominant way about him, read from a book about engineering. Mark, the worst student but the best of friends, scratched his mousey-haired head with a look of painful consternation on his face as he mouthed out the words in his French textbook. Wilbur, who had moved over from Somalia two years before, had already mastered several languages, and so was quietly flicking through his own notes. He was the first to speak.

'It is too big a risk.'

Mark looked up from his work, seeming relieved to have an excuse to do so. Damian rolled his eyes and let out a long stream of air from his nostrils.

'We've gone over this, guys.'

'We should go over it again.' Wilbur insisted. 'You know how much trouble we would be in if we were caught?'

'Yeah, I do know.'

'Come on, though, man.' Mark looked at Wilbur with a wistful twinkle in his eye. 'Its a lot of fun, right?'

'I am not questioning that.' Wilbur inclined his head. 'I enjoy it as much as either of you. But it is risky. Very, very risky.'

'You say that,' Damian retorted, still perusing his textbook, 'but every time I bring one in, you lap it up. You can't get enough of them, Will. And you!' He pointed at Mark.

'Yeah, but I dunno...' Mark shrugged and looked at the floor. 'Seems like we'd be in a lot of shit if anyone found out.'

'Nobody is going to find out if you two do as I say.'

'We always do.' Wilbur said with no small amount of resentment. 'But what if one of them escapes?'

Damian finally put his book down.

'You want me to check on them?'

Wilbur froze, looking uncertain. Damian swept out of the room without waiting for anything more from either of them.

The first door he passed led to his room, and then Mark's and then Wilbur's. After that were three doors to three rooms which had been emptied nearly two years ago. Damian remembered that day as vividly as he remembered anything in his life so far.

The Female Control Act was passed only the week before. Colleges had stopped admitting female students and those who remained on Campus were given academic suspension and told to remain in their dorms. The three girls who had lived with Damian, Mark and Wilbur did so, and kept themselves as isolated as possible. They saw the signs that were being put up by Bluenorth supporters, heard the chants and slogans and heard what happened to girls who protested, fought back or even so much as left their dorms. Beatings, rapings and even lynchings were happening constantly. Bluenorth vans arrived every day and male students cheered as Female Control Officers stormed onto campus, arresting any female who was anywhere but securely locked inside her dorm. Every time Damian had walked through Campus he saw more girls hanging naked by their thumbs, tits, ankles or necks from the walls, their groans and cries of anguish making a pleasant orchestra for his morning routine. As the classes shrank in size (and grew in intelligence) thanks to the absence of females, the average grades shot up considerably. 'Women's Studies', banned as a subject for over ten years, now returned, but drastically changed. Now it was 'Control of Women'. Damian had chosen it as a minor so that he could learn all about proper caging techniques, electroshock control, pacification and essential female biology. He noticed how, unlike before, they now properly referred to women as a species, not as a sex; they spoke about the inferiority of that species, the mistakes of the past having treated them as people. Every moment of it spoke to him on a level he had not previously known existed.