Chapter 4: Get With The Programme
"Julia have you got a minute?" Sylvia Atterbury called from the door of her office. Julia Fain sat down at Sylvia's invitation. "I need to talk to you about something. It's a little bit embarrassing."
Julia felt she knew what was coming.
"I wondered if you had got any further on regarding taking on a sponsorship? You know how important the Party see sponsorship as a way of delivering a stable society where men have the appropriate supervision. It's not their fault that their decision making is weaker than women's but you know the Party feels that women have a duty to step up and make things easier for them if possible."
Julia sighed. It wasn't that she was opposed to the idea. It was more that she hadn't felt the need and she hadn't got around to it.
"The PM has asked for a review of all senior staff, identifying their sponsorship status and while I know you're fully on board with what we are trying to do, there's always a worry about the Civil Service these days. I mean all that trouble over Brexit when it turned out some departmental staff were actively going behind the Government's back to Brussels....". Sylvia turned towards Julia with a 'please take this as an instruction' look on her face. "It really would be helpful if you could see your way to putting a sponsorship arrangement in place before I have to let the PM have my response."
"Well, Minister," Julia thought she had better be formal. "To be honest, I haven't had a live-in relationship with a man -- or anyone else, come to that - for a while and I haven't felt the need. I mean the tax break would be good of course and some help around the house would be useful but I quite like having the place to myself and I don't want to have to spend time managing a sponsored male when there's so much here that needs doing here in the Department."
"That's admirable Julia, but it
will
cause a problem. There's no point in being highly effective at what you do if people are wondering whether you're really on their side or not. I'd like to be able to tell the Cabinet Office that at least you have it in hand and there's some prospect that you'll have a sponsored male by the end of the year. Sometimes, when we are ambitious, we have to take on things that don't fit exactly with our plans."
The most annoying thing about what Sylvia had to say was, thought Julia, that she was right. If you wanted to get on in Government once upon a time you only had to show you were dedicated to following the rules and providing absolutely impartial advice to Ministers. These days, though, the expectation was that you were there to get what the Minister wanted to be done, done. Even so, it was all very well for Sylvia, what with all the work going on around the Department, Julia just felt that she didn't have time to find a man to take into sponsorship.
After she had finished with Sylvia, Julia went looking for Henry. He, she knew, would be able to pull together the things she needed. "Can you dig me out a DOSA Sponsorship Introductory Folder? I need to have a look at it."
Henry nodded. The Department of Sponsors Affairs had a lot of problems but they were good at the bureaucracy. The information pack that they had produced to introduce potential sponsors to the processes and benefits of sponsorship was comprehensive. He knew where to find one. In fact, he'd been looking at one during a quiet morning a week or so back, thinking life would be easier if he could find someone that would take him on. He had tried raising the idea with one of the administrative team leaders who had just started in the Department. She had started off uninterested, until she had realised that he was serious about it, at which point she had been quite scornful. He wondered why she wanted it. She'd always been rather dismissive of the idea of sponsorships in conversations around the office. "Why should we throw of the yoke of the patriarchy in order to have them hanging around our ankles," he had overheard her saying only a week or so before. It was a shame, Henry, thought, she would make an excellent sponsor. In the days before New Order he had known many women who he knew were well able to take the lead in a relationship. Sadly most of them had been women that took the lead on a professional basis but Henry fancied that he knew a naturally assertive woman when he met one and Julia seemed to combine a clear sense of knowing what she wanted and expecting others to help her get it.
Henry pushed thoughts about Julia to the back of his mind. Day-dreaming about her as a sponsor would not, however, Henry told himself, get her the things she had asked for
The information pack Julia had asked for was quite detailed. There was a colourful leaflet outlining the main features of the sponsorship program and its benefits to the sponsor and to wider society. The tone was rather chatty but then it was targetted at individual sponsors rather than anything more 'corporate'. Then there was a detailed list of the items that could be claimed for under the programme including structural work for accommodation, security measures if needed and the costs of training for the sponsor. There was a long schedule spelling out the sponsor's responsibilities, including reporting requirements to Government. The last piece of paper, besides the ten page application form, was an explanation of how it was possible to transfer a sponsored male to another sponsor; something Henry hadn't realised was allowed. Henry looked at the pile of papers. There was a wide array of colours, sizes, fonts and designs. It wasn't any wonder that sponsors got confused, Henry thought, but he wasn't about to propose that DOSA consider a branding programme. One thing he had learnt over the last few months was that nobody in the management of the Department was in the least interested in unsolicited suggestions from any man, himself included.
Chapter 5: Borough or Burrow?
Henry was heading to Southwark. It was the first time in a very long time that he had been to this part of London. He was on his way to the appointment that Julia and Jane had arranged for him with Raven Courten and she hadn't changed her place of business from the one that he was already familiar with.
In his dark suit, white shirt and tie, he looked like so many other businessmen in this part of London would once have done. These days though, dark suit, white shirt and tie was more likely to be the dress of a businesswoman and he felt rather conspicuous. He was carrying a briefcase. Once it would have held important papers; these days it rarely held anything more interesting than his lunch but he carried it just the same. Today though, it was carrying something that he guessed none of the other pedestrians had; the leather rabbit face mask that he had always worn for his sessions with Mistress Raven. Jane hadn't suggested that he bring it but somehow, to Henry, it seemed the right thing to do.
He knew where he was going but even so, he paid close attention to the streets. It wasn't uncommon for a street to be re-designated "Women Only" or "Males Only If Accompanied" overnight and he didn't want to attract the attention of a patrolling Male Control Force officer. They seemed to appear by magic as soon as the slightest transgression was committed! A group of five women were coming towards him. He stepped back to let them pass. They took no notice of him.
Not far from Borough Market, Henry found the familiar door. Raven's dungeon was in the basement of a Victorian office block. The building was served by an old-fashioned metal cage lift. On previous visits, Henry had felt that sliding the metal barred doors shut to allow him to descend was a fitting precursor of what was so often experienced below. This time the clank of the closing doors reminded Henry of the sound of the padlocks closing on heavy iron fetters.
The lift stopped and he got out. Turning to the right he saw the blank door that led to Raven's rooms. He rang the bell on the door. A buzz from the lock indicated he could enter and he found himself in the reception area that he had so often entered with a dry mouth and racing pulse in the past. Jane was sitting behind the desk, looking out from behind a computer screen, neat and business-like in appearance apart from the vivid orange streak in her dark hair. "Bunny," she said with a smile. "How nice to see you again." She gestured towards a glass panelled door. "If you could go through, Mistress is expecting you."
Raven Courten's room -- a parlour, I suppose you might call it, Henry thought -- was comfortably furnished; a place where she could both work and relax. She was lounging on a couch in a black silk dressing gown, a pile of papers beside her on the floor, a fine porcelain tea cup balanced on the arm of the couch. From somewhere in the room, Henry couldn't tell where, the recorded sound of a live performance from some avant-garde jazz pianist tried to compete with the hum of the building's air-conditioning.
As on every one of their previous encounters, Henry said nothing but instead waited for Raven to acknowledge his presence. He wasn't sure what of the protocol. This wasn't a professional appointment with a dominatrix but, given who he was meeting, it didn't feel like a normal business meeting either.
