The Feminist Queendom Charlie’s War 41

© Beverly Taff.

List of Characters.

Charlie Sage Maths and electronics genius.
Shirley Sage Charlies elderly mother
Chloe Charlie’s one time early school friend.
Josephine Flint Surgeon and associate of Chloe’s.
Mrs Jane Anston Director of Anston Aerospace.
Ronnie Garage mechanic at top of lane
Pauline Garage owner, Ronnie’s sister.
Briony Pauline’s teenaged daughter.
Billy Pauline’s middle son.
Abigail (Abby) Pauline’s youngest daughter.
‘Poppy’ Charlie’s little micro-runabout.
‘Doris’ The armoured mobile home.
‘Lady’ Chloe’s Sports Car.
Dawn Charlie’s armoured spaceship.
Colonel Wilson Vindictive misanthropist doctor.
Margaret Thomas ‘Failed’ police security guard.
Sally. 1st Oz Special forces trooper
Jacky 2nd Oz Special forces trooper.

Chapter 42

Margaret awoke the following morning to hear noises in the garden so she opened her bedroom window to look. Chloe was picking apples with Charlotte while two ‘nannies were attending to the triplets.

As Chloe heard the window being opened, she looked up and grinned.

“Morning sleepy-head, what time d’you call this?”

“It’s only seven o’clock for god’s sake. Where’s Charlie?”
“In his study checking out the green paper. He’s been up since four.”

“Jeeze!” Margaret muttered to herself as she rushed to shower and dress.

Eventually, she appeared in the kitchen as Chloe was returning with some ripe, fresh apples. Being familiar with the house layout, Margaret offered Chloe some coffee.

“Yes please, and Charlotte would like some fruit juice.”

They settled around the table while Charlotte rooted through the apples to select a particularly ripe specimen. Soon the sound of crunching apple matched the sound of Margaret’s toast. Chloe just sipped what was her third coffee since getting up at six.

“How long will he be in his study?” Margaret asked.

“Go and ask him, he doesn’t mind people interrupting him. Charlotte does it all the time. I’ll get on with these apples.”

“She finished her toast then did as advised and tapped softly on Charlie’s open study door.”

“Come in Marge.” Charlie responded.

“How did you know it was me?” Margaret asked Charlie’s back.

He turned to face her and chuckled.

“None of the family knock and all the nannies are either out with the triplets at this time so unless we’ve had a visitor I don’t know about, you’re the only one left.”

“Most people I know who’ve got studies, use them as some sort of sanctuary.”

“If I needed sanctuary Marge, I’d bugger off to Antarctica in Dawn. At home, I’m husband and father first then scientist very much second. This is not a sanctuary, look at that shelf.”

Margaret turned to see an untidy bottom shelf stuffed full of old and tattered but well used children’s books.

“That’s Charlotte’s shelf. I’m sure it will spill over as she grows, but that will be when we build the extension.”

“You still use books!” Margaret frowned.

“Yes, those are old books of mine from childhood. Mummy got them for me from various nefarious sources before the great suppression.

Hundreds of books; - no, thousands of books were banned or denied to little boys, but my mummy managed to obtain and hide some old stuff. Charlotte’s books are tantamount to museum pieces. Charlotte learned to read from them on my knee or Chloe’s. It’s called parenting.”

“But doesn’t she use a tablet?”

“She does now. We’re saving those for when the triplets start to read. Nothing nicer for a child than sitting on their parent’s knee curled up with a pretty picture book.”

“They look pretty tattered to me.”

“We call that ‘dog-eared’; those books have been well read and they’re very old. Most of the stuff in them has disappeared from feminista history. Anything with princes in the plot, or damsels in distress. All gone.”

“Can I look at one?”

“Be my guest. Treat them gently though, they’re pretty battered and old.”

“These must be worth a fortune. A museum would pay thousands to have these.”

“Yes. Stuck in some display cabinet with some obscene note about abusive, historical, patriarchal exploitation. No, these particular books are for reading, children’s enjoyment and education. My children’s enjoyment! Well, Chloe’s and mine.”

“What’s this book?” Margaret asked as she tried to read the title.

“That’s Struwwelpeter, or Straw Peter in English. It’s a very old book designed to try and teach children to be good. It came from what used to be Germany in Europe but all that’s changed.”

“It’s gruesome!” Margaret gasped as she flicked through the pages.

“Yes, a nineteenth century horror book look at the fly!”

Margaret had already glanced through the book and noted the horrific fates of children presumed to have been naughty. Thumbs cut off, starved to death, burned to cinders, drowned, dipped in black ink dye, and several more gruesome endings, all accompanied by ‘pen and ink’ sketches of such events.

Then she read the introductory fly sheet and gasped.

“Pretty picture book! Is that what it calls itself?! A pretty picture book.”

“Yeah, those eighteenth-century Victorian moralists had a weird sense of order and righteousness. Talk about cruel and unusual punishments! The crazy thing is that kids love it. My mother read it to me and I loved it. Today Charlotte loves it and constantly asks me to read one of the poems. That’s a first edition mind. You’ll note though that the majority of the gruesome fates are more consequential than remedial.”

“Yes, that’s a good point actually.” Margaret concurred. Anyway; -
“You didn’t come to discuss nineteenth century children’s books.” Charlie finished for her.

“No I was about to ask you about the green paper.”

“Here it is.” Charlie offered. “I’m just annotating a couple of points. Not sure if they’ll consider them but, well; - it’s a carrot and stick process. If they want to have functional spaceships, they’ll have to negotiate with me.”

“Can I look?”

“Sure! It’s a public document as far as I’m concerned. The pages are numbered, please don’t mix them up.”

For the rest of the morning, Margaret studied the annotated papers while Charlie ploughed on with the document. Occasionally, Chloe popped in with coffee and exchanged a few words before getting on with the tribulations of motherhood. By late afternoon, Charlie had completed about a quarter of the green paper and he slumped back in his chair.

“Eeeh! That’s enough, I think. Time for a spot of lunch.”

“It’s five p.m., Charlie, don’t you eat? Proper meals’ that is?”

“Well, dinner then.” Charlie conceded. “That’s the time when we sit with the kids, around the table; family hour.”

ooo000ooo

Margaret ended up spending the week with Charlie and his family. As commanded of the security squad, it was part of her duty so nothing untoward was interpreted from her decision. Each day she reported the situation and received any messages concerning potential threats.
Every member of the security squad was well vetted and fully acquainted with the family so there was little scope to infiltrate the tight knit community.
Finally, Charlie got a message from Juliet, his mal assistant engineer in Woomera, stating that Second Dawn was ready for travelling into space. He showed Chloe the message and shrugged apologetically.

“Duty calls darling. I’ll be back by Saturday if the trials are satisfactory.”

“What’s this Juliet like?” Chloe asked as Charlie prepared to leave. “You work with her a lot so I’d like to meet her.”

“He’s a typical mal. Badly treated by the Feminista academia but a brilliant practical engineer. Not allowed to use female pronouns of course. He would have been destined for the cesspit of feminista exploitation had I not spotted his potential. He was working as a night shift, canteen cleaner in the executive canteen when they had a problem with some equipment in the kitchens.

The feminista maintenance engineer couldn’t sort it and Juliet fixed it during her night shift.

I was working late one night, as I often do, and as I entered the canteen with my special pass, late at night and alone, I found this pretty pair of legs under the giant microwave cooker.

There were some grunts and curses coming from under the cooker, then a sigh of satisfaction as the legs scrabbled out from under the cooker and emerged as the compulsory skirt rode up his thighs to expose the prettiest panties I’d ever seen. He suddenly realised I was there and let out a squeak of fear.

His hair was filthy and there was dirty grease all the way up the back of his tights to his panties then up the back of his pretty dress. I couldn’t resist making a joke as he emerged filthy from the job. Because his panties were up into his crotch, I couldn’t help but notice he still had his penis but no testicles.

He was a typical mal, a victim of the evil feminista process that does not completed feminisation until the special boys have graduated. They remove the testicles and administer female hormones during puberty so the poor bastards grow up totally feminised except for the penis. Pretty little girlies who only get the final surgery if they graduate.

If they fail their final exams they are relegated to domestic drudgery and servitude or worse, slaves to some viciously exploitative dominatrix.

I never knew anything about this until I met the defence minister one evening and she revealed all. I soon realised there were dozens of mals suffering for their academic failures. Juliet was one of them.”

“You said he was pretty.” Chloe pressed.

“He was, under all the filthy grease that had spilled onto him as he worked under the cooker. As his head finally emerged he wiped his eyes and finally realised I was standing there. His tight-fitting uniform dress had ridden up over his curvy hips and he was exposed for all to see. I could not help noticing he was a mal. His little penis was evident under his panties and he quickly tugged his dress down as fear filled his eyes.”

“Fear?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah. Mals, especially pretty ones, go in dread of males. All too often they are treated as nothing more that sex toys because they have even less rights than fully male men. The feminista reasoning is that if they failed academically, they were too lazy to make the effort to go the whole hog. Consequently they get dumped from the professional career paths and left to do the drudgery. Juliet was training to be an electrical engineer but he just failed to pass his maths exams.

When he saw me standing there, he had no idea who I was. He was the canteen assistant for the night shift at Woomera, and he’d never seen me before. He was frozen with fear because he was alone with a male, at night. I’m afraid I did a bad thing then.”

“What!!” demanded Chloe. “You didn’t. –“
“Good god no! Nooo! Nothing like that. I just smiled and asked him if he’d lost something.”

“Meaning?” Chloe frowned.

“Well Poor Juliet’s a mal, don’t you understand? He lost his balls at thirteen or fourteen.”

Chloe let out an involuntary snort of amusement before recovering her sense of propriety.

“Oh you cruel bugger! What did he do?”

“He burst into tears and rushed to the locker room. I realised then that he was obviously a wounded, sensitive mal so I made some coffee and waited for him to emerge.”

“And?” Chloe glared.

“When he came out, I apologised then offered him the coffee and biscuits. He was very tense and guarded at first but relaxed when I explained I was only there to grab a coffee and a sandwich as I was working late.”

“Then what?”

“He asked who I was because all the scientific executive staff were women and he didn’t know of any men who had access the managerial canteen. He knew of me but he had never met me and genuinely thought that the infamous Charlie Sage was some sort of ‘high-up’ who obviously dined in the rarefied realms of the board room restaurant.”

“But you do; - dine in the board room restaurant that is.” Chloe observed.

“Not at two or three in the morning love; it’s closed.” Charlie replied. “I was hungry, I’d missed dinner and supper, so I just popped in for a snack. That’s why poor Juliet was doubly shocked to see a man, and an executive to boot, gain access to his modest night-shift canteen.”

“So what was the outcome?”

“Well after I’d apologised and helped him dry his tears, I asked him why he was crying. Then I got the whole story. He was a bright boy but he never really wanted to be a girl. His teachers told him a pack of feminista bullshit about once a boy was feminised he would not miss being a boy. Well, I for one know that’s complete tosh! The defence minister put me right on that one. She misses not being able to be a parent every day of her life and she resents it.

The problem was, for Juliet that his castration was the cruellest cut of all. He had a penis that was sensitive but could not get erect or ejaculate. Every day and night, he was reminded of his loss and failure; then I turn up one night and make some cruel joke asking him if he’d lost something.”

“It’s no wonder he burst into tears!”

“Exactly. After I’d actually helped him dry his tears and we shared our coffees he was shocked to learn who I was. I asked him about the maths and he told me he’d only just missed the mark, but you know how vicious feminista rules can be.”

“So how did he end up as your personal assistant?”

“I looked at the broken component he’d extracted from under the cooker and I asked him what was wrong with it. He gave me chapter and verse so I told him to come and see me after his shift and I took the component with me. I wasn’t expecting him to turn up after seven o’clock when he’d locked up the night canteen but fair play, there he was in a smart clean lady’s overall and keen as all hell to show me he could repair it.

“Well it’s a very complex microwave magnetron generator with assorted automatic controls but fair play; he mended it in front of my eyes on my own bench. He even did the check readings and put them through the equations. When I ran through them to check his figures, he was spot on.

After that eye-opener, I had him do some jobs that were outstanding on my schedule and he did each one correctly. I know that the executive, female, spanner monkeys who work at Woomera could not do those repairs and that’s why they had brought them to me.

After a long reassuring chat, I told him that I would tell the HR people I wanted him transferred to my lab as my personal assistant.

The rest, as they say is history. Juliet is my assistant engineer and a very good one.

“Do the female execs resent her?” Chloe asked.

“Some do, some are sympathetic. They had their noses put out of joint when he retook his maths exams and passed them while working with me.”

“With your help I suppose.”

“Nope. You know better than anybody that my maths is nothing but hieroglyphs and gobbledygook to others; and long it shall remain so.”

ooo000ooo