An agonizing screech pierced Dean's ears but didn't appear to faze the crowd around him. Even Melody was unaffected.
The old rusty electric train pulled into the station and a dense crowd of passengers migrated to the predicted resting place of the nearest carriage entry. The platform was filled with mostly male labourers of various professions who could not afford taxi car or their own vehicle.
Melody and Dean were making their afternoon trip home from campus. Despite having different timetables Melody would often find an excuse to catch the same train as him.
Many of the males carried bags full of tools and protective equipment. Working as a labourer in a factory or construction site was considered an ideal occupation for a boy after graduating high school. It was becoming increasingly difficult for them to compete with femme for more affluent professions. And most femme would consider a job as a simple labourer beneath them.
A couple of middle-aged men who were closest to the entrance of the carriage combined their efforts to help the automatic door open all the way. Dean looked to Melody and was about to ask if this was a common issue with the train system but she was distracted by the sight of a shirtless young man. Dean decided to forget the question and pretend that he didn't notice her cliché distraction.
"So how is that new job?" he asked while looking away.
Melody shook herself from a daydream, "Eh um... yeah it's great! The ladies there are really lovely. The manager likes that I am studying business and would like to hear my ideas regarding their new expansion. She says that there could be a real future for me in management."
"Wow, that's fantastic!" Dean smiled, doing his best to hide his envy. He would just about kill to get his foot in the door somewhere before graduating.
They entered the train and a man in his thirties gave up his seat for Melody. She smiled to him and sat without a second thought. This was perfectly normal on the train. It was not unheard of for the government to administer fines to every male on a carriage simply because a femme was left standing. Melody felt obliged to take the offer to ensure that such an incident would not occur. Dean gave an uneasy glance to the camera attached to the ceiling.
Looking down the carriage he saw that only standing room remained and three other young femme from the college were sitting as males stood in the aisle. Those femme were the exception. Most young femme who went to college could afford more comfortable transport than the old train.
"What expansions?" he asked as he settled into a standing position next to Melody, "You said that the club is expanding?"
"They are opening up the gym to males!" she said with a surprised tone.
Dean was equally shocked, "That's awfully strange for a lady's lifestyle club."
"Yea, I know, right. They are actually much more egalitarian than I imagined. The manager said that it's good for business and that's all that matters," she said. "You should join, Dean! It's free!"
Her eyes were wide with excitement.
"Free? I don't wanna sound like a capitalist but I'm pretty sure that nothing is free," he frowned.
"Well," she replied. "Only for a limited time. They are taking free male members just to get the numbers up. Then they will start charging newcomers, you should get in now. They have special change rooms for boys with total privacy, state-of-the-art facilities and everything."
Dean wished that he still had access to a gym. His mother had revoked his membership when she kicked him out of the house. Finding time to workout was nearly impossible for him now. He had been running near Melody's place but Mansfield was not a safe neighbourhood.
"I really need a gym," he admitted. "I got an email from the university last week. I need to come up with five thousand credits in a month or I can't enrol next semester."
"Oh yeah," Melody replied. "That's no problem, you can apply for an equity consideration and defer the payment to your loan account. You are living outside of home and are unemployed. It should be easy for you, I get an equity consideration every semester."
Dean frowned, "I did apply; it was denied. Apparently I don't qualify. Perhaps my situation isn't desperate enough."
"What the fuck!? You are practically homeless! Your situation is way worse than mine," Melody said louder than Dean would prefer. "No Dean, the real reason is that you are male."
He stared out the window and watched office buildings fly by. All he could do was grimace. He hoped for another explanation, some problem or mistake that he could fix but nothing came to mind.
--
Friday afternoon.
Dean had jumped on the train and travelled past only three stations before arriving in a parallel universe. Century-old skyscrapers of glass and steel towered over him in every direction and they looked as elegant as the day they were built. The streets were clean and free from homeless males. The business district of Gynohale was a monument to the new femme supremacy in the business world.
The district had been recently renamed by the local municipality and even Dean had to admit that 'Gynohale' was an appropriate change.
There was only one male for every ten femme on the street. Some of the males that he saw were dressed as janitors or other lowly occupations and others were dressed up in more formal attire. The one common feature for all of them was their form-fitting fabrics and trousers that left little to the feminine imagination. Such provocative outfits were becoming more popular for males in office environments.
Dean stood outside a pair of glass doors for a moment. Above them was a black banner with pink calligraphy that read "Nova Femme: Your lifestyle, your way".
He looked around, for a moment and felt out of place. Lavishly dressed business ladies passed him on the street, with finely decorated hats that were more ornamental than protective. Their high heels could be heard but not seen under their long modest dresses as they strode by with purpose. He could feel the eyes of some of the ladies wash over his body like a wave of appraisal.
Dean checked himself in the reflection of the glass door.
"You'll be fine. It's just a place to workout," he murmured under his breath before walking in.
Melody was quick to greet him at reception and was obviously excited to give him the full tour of the gym.
The moment that they walked into the gym, Dean was startled by an enormous crash of a squat rack hitting floor. It was accompanied by the aggressive groan of a femme. He turned to see an enormous Polynesian lady in her fifties.
"That's Rita, one of our regulars. She might seem intimidating but she's actually quite lovely," Melody commented.
He knew that most femme liked to be strong, but this lady was a monster. She stood almost two feet taller than him and wore a loose-fitting black Gi. Dean could tell that there was a lot of fat and muscle underneath it. Her shoulders seemed almost twice the width of his and her waist was even wider.
The gym was a single large room that mostly contained weight lifting equipment. A row of brand-new treadmills and stair climbers lined the back wall.
A male around Dean's age was pumping away on a stair climber at a steady pace. He leaned forward with his elbows on the handles causing his ass to stick out lewdly in his tiny black hot-pants.
