Even from the corridor, I could hear the bustle and business of the busy Crewing department - loud, strident female telephone voices hectoring uncooperative cabin crewmen to compliance. I looked across the passage to the sky-blue door signed 'Personnel' - my next port of call. They sounded swamped with work there, too. Their recruitment programme for a hundred new air hostesses to replace the hundred or so cabin crewmen who had resigned on the spot on Monday rather than sign their revised contract would be in full swing. And so would be their trickier, heavy-vetting search for thirty new Subservience to Stewardesses directive-compatible cabin crewmen to achieve our COO Ms Gina Summers' new optimal par of one flunky per flight to do the lackey work for the air hostesses and then massage their feet post-flight on their kneeling mats.
Janice, the Head of Crewing, opened the door. Janice, in her mid-twenties, was dark-haired, slim, and she was taller than me at about five foot ten. Janice had a lot going for her, and that was for sure - but she was what some people might call 'handsome' rather than beautiful; her long face and big teeth did give her a slightly horse-faced appearance. The dress code was informal in the Crewing department. But as supervisor, Janice wore a suit of light grey jacket and trousers to the office, and for the power-pumps effect, she had wangled a pair of the free-issue uniform black leather pumps worn by the air hostesses.
Generally, the Crewing department is off-limits to non-Crewing staff - the girls in Crewing would usually contact air hostesses and cabin crewmen about any work schedule issues over the phone. But, as had happened to me a year ago, new cabin crewmen were sometimes 'invited' to the Crewing department for an 'informal' visit. My call had come from Janice. Janice had wanted to 'assess' me in person. To gauge my pliability - my manipulability - to determine just how far she could push me when she might want to alter my roster adversely or at very late notice. I had later suspected that it had been Penny in Personnel, who had tipped off Janice that I might be a bit of a pushover - a Crewing girl's go-to guy for difficult times. And, having received my surprise call and been 'invited' to the Crewing department for a one-time 'getting-to-know-you' visit by the supervisor Janice, I had at the same time made the acquaintance of the other five girls working in Crewing: Sharon, Jill, Alice, Olivia - and Suzy, who had made the biggest impression on me because her catty attitude had belied her cute looks. And so I concluded that to be the reason Janice or one of the other girls in Crewing would 'invite' a new cabin crewman to the office to see him in person and introduce him to her colleagues on their home turf: to sound him out. To try and cow the impressionable new male employee with their force of personality; to put a daunting face to the hectoring voice, that afterwards would contact him over the phone with their unreasonable roster altering demands. In cahoots with the girls in Personnel, I believed it to be their tried and trusted ploy, their sly interdepartmental scheme that was a victory of teamwork because it provided the girls in Crewing with a steady supply of likely lads.
Janice said, "Hello, um... Mason, isn't it? Cabin Crewman Mason Mallard? What is it? We are manic in here. We are all on the phones, trying to maximise the hours and minimise the rest periods, of you, revised-contracted cabin crewmen during our current staff shortage. It is testing our creative rostering talents to the limit!" said Janice, showing me her great teeth as she laughed at Crewing's little in-joke at the expense of their susceptible string of 'likely lads'. "But at least I have drawn a long straw with your cabin crewman colleague Terry - a like-minded crony of yours, or so I am given to understand. I have just been updating Terry, whose weekly roster I am now responsible for preparing. Terry is in your crew room. He is dutifully massaging returned air hostesses' feet before he flies out to Ibiza under Senior Stewardess Jasmine on the second leg of his double-shift of short-hop flight duties that I have put him on today to Holland and Spain. Anyway, we are all up to our necks here, so what can I do for you, Mason? If it's about your new weekly roster, Suzy has already done it. It should be in its usual place in your crew room."
"Hello, Janice. It's very nice to see you again after more than a year," I said. "It was thoughtful of you to invite me here to your office back then for our introductory chat, and I enjoyed meeting the other five pleasant and personable young ladies who work here with you in Crewing. I remember each of you playing your parts in helping me to settle in - you were all most instructive. And, of course, I always enjoy hearing from you all to discuss my roster changes over the phone. But actually, I am here as instructed by Senior Stewardess Camilla Cameron. Camilla has told me to report to Suzy to collect my weekly roster and massage her feet."
Suzy appeared at the door. Suzy was in her early twenties, svelte at five foot six and slightly built. Suzy wore a short-sleeved white shirt, a nicely faded above-the-knee blue denim skirt and a pair of well-used black leather flats. And she had a new hairstyle that suited her - long wisps of her blonde hair hung down each side of her face to give her a deceptively coquettish look.
"Hello, Miss Suzy. I'm here," I said, indicating my regulation-issue corporate colour sky-blue one-foot square, one-inch thick foam-rubber kneeling mat. "Um... your hair looks nice, Miss Suzy."
"Glad you like it," Suzy sniped caustically.
She hadn't changed: she was the same, old Suzy, I thought as her demure image dissolved, fragmented like the fragile facade it was. Her tone made it plain that she didn't care a jot whether I liked her coy coiffeured affectation or not and that clumsy compliments or blatant flattery would not work with her but would backfire on me.
"It's very nice to see you again after so long, Miss Suzy," I said, lying through my teeth. I remembered what it had been like a year ago, the only time I had been in Suzy's vixenish presence. I had been lulled by her lovely looks, only to be surprised and subdued by her sniping personality.
"Jan, it's okay," Suzy said. "I'm expecting Mason. Let him in. That kneeling mat is his ticket into here. Neat, isn't it? See how they are personalised? Mason's name is on it, in the BlueSky Holidays font."
Janice said, "Hang on a sec, Suzy. Cabin Crewman Mason is here to massage your feet? On the orders of Senior Stewardess Camilla?"
Suzy said, "Yes. That's right, Jan. I know what you are thinking: cabin crewman-provided foot massage is the new after-flight perk of the air hostesses and the destination-airport turnaround interlude treat of the female flight deck officers. But Senior Stewardess Camilla has instructed Mason to report to me in person in future for his weekly rosters - and to massage my feet. Later, when I dismiss Mason and on every Thursday in future, I will send him across the corridor to my friend Penny in Personnel. As a friend of Camilla's, I have almost equal authority over Mason. And as a friend of mine, Penny has similar authority over Mason, conferred by me. So Penny can also use Mason and lend him out to her friends. So, would you like Mason to massage your feet too, Jan? After me? Go on, Jan - treat yourself! Camilla has told me that Mason is quite good at foot massage. He is learning very quickly, coached by his female counterparts. And some extra practise for him every Thursday for the six of us here in Crewing and then later for our four colleagues across the corridor in Personnel will undoubtedly improve him further. So, how about it, Jan? Hmm? Would you like Cabin Crewman Mason to massage your feet?"
Janice said, "Um... I don't know, Suzy. It is highly irregular. But, well, yes, I suppose that would be rather nice. That is if Mason wouldn't mind."
Suzy said, "Whether Mason minds or not doesn't enter into it, Jan. I will order him to massage your feet. Mason will do whatever I tell him. I am a friend of Camilla, so Mason will obey and revere me as he would Camilla herself. That is the extent to which Camilla has Mason under her spell."
Janice said, "Oh! Well, in that case, why not? And what about the rest of the girls here in Crewing? What if they all want a foot massage too?"
Suzy said, "Well then, Jan, they shall all have one - simple as that. Camilla has sent Mason here to me - so he will submit to me and obey me on Camilla's say so. It is just simply unthinkable to Mason to do otherwise. Jan, you have to understand Mason's mindset, his peculiar desire to sacrifice his very self to Camilla's every whim. Camilla has given me the gist. But here's how I see it, Jan. Mason's obedient bondage to Camilla is his pitiful weakness - all the more pathetic because it is purely self-imposed and self-enforced. Camilla did not deliberately cast her spell on Mason - her only interest in him was to use him to needle her longtime antagonist, Mason's girlfriend, Gemma. But Camilla is not the sort of girl to spurn such a fortuitous benefit - why should she miss out on the many life-improving usefulnesses of such a devotee? Camilla tells me that Mason has been her fawning puppy dog since their days at secondary school. He carried her school satchel, toted her textbooks, even spent his pocket money to top up her phone credit - to the great indignity and high dudgeon of his then-girlfriend and now fiancee Gemma! True, Mason would hate to give up his job and leave us now - but the only reason why Mason applied for his cabin crewman job at BlueSky Holidays in the first place was that Camilla worked here as an air hostess. Mason's helpless vulnerability is common knowledge among the air hostesses. Many of them benefit from it, too, as a friend of Camilla - especially her close coterie of cronies, who delight in exploiting Mason's moronic mindset at their every opportunity. And now, Mason's hardwired slavish imperative to serve Camilla - and, to attend any of her friends at her behest - will be apparent to all of us here in Crewing. And then later, when I send Mason across the corridor to my friend Penny, the extraordinary extents of Mason's seemingly unalterable allegiance and undiminishing devotion to Camilla will also be revealed to our colleagues over there in Personnel."
