Book 2: Chapter 2 (1/2)

“Are you ready?” Brooke asked.

“No, how could I be?” I sighed, putting my hand on the doorframe to the mansion.

I could barely count the number of times I had left this mansion in my fifteen years of life on one hand. Yet, here I was now, ready to leave my home for the next four years. Perhaps I was being a little melodramatic. The University was barely a thirty-minute drive away. I could come back any time I wanted to. This was just a matter of the dorms. I’d be living off campus for four years. It was a new direction in my life.

“You’ll be fine, Cly,” Rose awkwardly kissed me on the cheek while shuffling a baby in each arm.

I kissed her back and then leaned down and kissed the top of my daughters’ heads too. For a second, I felt an urge to cry. Leaving family was very difficult. It was even more difficult for a momma’s boy like me. I would be lying if I didn’t say I felt a great deal of anxiety right now. However, this was a necessary thing. I needed to be able to learn more about this world, find and bring Madison back, and leave my comfort zone. I also wanted to do something most men in University didn’t do.

I was going to study. I wanted to become smart enough to get a good job. I didn’t want to be handed a job in this world. I didn’t want to be forced to sell my body or my seed. I wanted to be in control of my own destiny, and for that, I needed a proper education. I had shared this idea with Rose. As an educated woman herself, her eyes flashed excitedly at the thought of a smart man. She did warn me the push back would be great. Men were often relegated to fields where they stayed out of the way. Secretaries, assistants, minor news journalists, male teachers, actors, advisers… the list of male-type jobs weren’t small, but men certainly existed within their own box.

As to what I wanted to become, that was still something I hadn’t decided. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to be a middle management businessman again. I had earned an MBA in business because I thought there was a real future there. The result was a life that was fairly unremarkable. I didn’t know what I wanted to be in this life, but I knew I wanted something different. At the very least, I didn’t think I would struggle through my education in this world as much as I did in my old world. This was a world that focused on the technical aspects of workforce education, rather than the academic merit. They had no such thing as graduate programs. Once a person went to school for 4 years, they had 2 years of apprenticeship. Afterward, the ways to advance were time based and unique for any given field.

I walked out to the car that had served to limousine me around on the few trips I had taken since I had been to this world. I had nodded to the driver, a young woman named Meg whom I was starting to become familiar with. At least, she had seen several of my secrets in the back of this car, and still chose to work for my family. She was one of the ten women who worked for our family. We had three maids, five in security, a cook, and the driver. Brooke was an exception. One day, I planned for her to become family.

As to how my family afforded to live in a mansion with a staff, I had only looked at the finances recently to gain an idea of how this worked out. The answer was quite simple. The mansion was fathers, and mother inherited it when father died along with a couple million. She collected a roughly $30,000 a year stipend for two years from Madison and Hannah, and a $50,000 a year stipend from me for the span of sixteen years. Combined with the yearly earnings on interest, and mom’s incredibly isolated lifestyle, and the mansion could continue to sustain itself for another twenty years before her funds run out, never-mind the additional income from Rose and Morgan’s children.

“You going to be okay, kid?” Brooke asked after we bid our final goodbyes and the car took off down the road, exiting the Bornholdt property.

“You’re going to the academy the same as I am…” I let out a sigh. “When are you going to stop calling me kid?”

Brooke stared out the window as she spoke. “I’d rather you stayed a kid.”

“Why is that?”

“Because as long as you’re a kid, I won’t have to see you as a man.” Her voice came off almost like she was speaking to herself.

I returned a wry smile. “But… I am a man. Just because you like girls doesn’t mean you can’t depend on a man once in a while.”

“It’s not that…” Brooke’s voice nearly came out in a pout. “If I accepted you as a man, then…”

I raised an eyebrow, but Brooke turned more so I could only see the back of her head. She covered herself with her coat and mumbled something about getting some shuteye before we got there. I could only frown at her back as she deliberately didn’t finish what she was going to say. I didn’t really get it. Brooke was a lesbian, so I presumed her desire to call me a kid must have something to do with not liking men. However, any answers to her strange behavior weren’t forthcoming.

Therefore, my only option was to turn and look out the other window. I watched the floating islands, the magically enhanced landscapes that floated above the city of Amaryllis. One of them contained the University. The engineering of this world didn’t see to be at the level where skyscrapers were common. Rather, in a world with magic, things developed differently here. While this world might seem futuristic in some respects, it also seemed strangely behind in others. Healthcare was probably around the level of the 1960s from my old world. However, with healing magic, the populace remained healthier than my old world, at least for citizens. The discrepancy between the rich and the poor was much vaster than my old world, and that was saying something. Those that had a baby were often lower middle class at the least, while those that didn’t were poor more often than not.

Engineering was weak in this world, so was their understanding of biology. However, because magic substituted limitations in science, things like floating cars and flying airships were considered the norm. As to learning magic, you’d only be taught at sixteen. I asked both Morgan and Rose to show me magic. Both woman had magic classes in their youth. My mother had laughed and waved my suggestion away, saying she didn’t remember any spells any more. Meanwhile, Rose had to reread her high school textbook and then after fifteen minutes of stumbling managed to produce a single flame from her finger that I could have made with a lighter.

Suffice it to say, magic in this world wasn’t flashy. Anyone could learn magic, but the kind of magic that went boom just didn’t seem to exist. In a world where magic existed, it became less a modern marvel and more the equivalent of learning a language or perhaps taking a programming course. Both women said that magic involved a lot of math calculations, and thus was something only really nerdy girls did, the kind that weren’t interested in having babies. Magical science was a very real thing in this world, and like space travel, sounded way cooler than it actually was. The world of people having magic battles in the streets was just a fairytale regulated to fiction.

In a few of the movies I’ve gotten to watch since mom left, people would chuck fireballs at each other or suddenly shoot out an electric bolt. It was actually jarring the first time I saw this in what was essentially a romantic comedy. But in this world, those kinds of things weren’t supernatural. However, the idea of them occurring in reality was similar to the idea of a car exploding after being hit by a bullet or people being safely knocked unconscious with a small hit to the back of the had.

That’s to say, it’s just a movie trick that people tolerate, even though reality is far more mundane. However, I still was really excited to learn magic. How could I not be excited? It was magic! Even though Rose had produced a little lighter flame, I was so excited that I nearly jumped. Rose thought it was very cute and we ended up having sex in celebration. Overall, it was a good day.

“We’re here.” Meg spoke up, stepping out of the car and opening my door.

Brooke got out on her own on the other side, stretching casually. She was supposedly my guard, but she always looked casually disinterested. If I hadn’t been training with her for a year, I wouldn’t have realized she was stretching in a spot where she could see the entire area, and that she kept one eye open, surveying the area as she pretended to stretch. She may seem like just a girl heading to the University, but she was always looking out for me. she was such a professional. I smiled gently at the thought.

“Stop giving me creepy looks, kid.” Brooke snorted, causing me to readjust my attention.

I looked up, the massive island casting a shadow over the entire area. It looked way more massive now that it was right in front of us. We were in a parking lot now, and there was a building which looked like a trolley station complete with a parked trolley being loaded. The trolley ran up several long wires. They went up and up until they reached the island overhead. This was our basic transport to and from the floating islands.

“Master’s stuff has been brought ahead of time. You’ll find it in your dorm.” Meg gave a light nod.

“Men…” Brooke sniffed as she walked over carrying what looked like six bags of luggage. “I have to carry my stuff up by hand to the dorms and unpack. That’s if I have time. We have to go to orientation, the welcoming ceremony, and something called a special homeroom.”

“Mm…” I looked down at my slip. “According to this I’m exempt. I just have to go to something called men’s homeroom.”

“You… haaa…”  Brooke sighed, lowering her shoulders. “Already, the unfairness is apparent.”

I decided to keep my mouth shut. In a world of all women, there was no such thing as a feminist movement. However, there was still gender problems in this world despite the obvious female majority. The issue of how to treat men was a hot topic, from those who wanted to treat men like cum dispensers to those who wanted to treat men like idols. At the moment, many felt men were given way too much support, while others pointed to certain signs of population growth as definitive proof that it was working. As to how I felt about the issue, Morgan had spent her entire life keeping me from this kind of stuff. It was only since she went to prison that I was even able to get a newspaper to be delivered to the mansion.

The pair of us went up to board the trolley. When the woman behind the counter saw me, she almost gasped.

“Ah… sir, a man, uh…”

I furrowed my brow while I suddenly heard excited muttering around me. I realized that the trolley station was full of hundreds of women. Few had noticed me in the hustle and bustle, but the woman’s words were like a bell. The entire room all turned to me. Every girl was in high school and wore a school uniform like the one I had seen on Madison. It had a green blouse and a skirt. It was very cute, and to the 35 year old me very erotic and indicative of youth.

“It’s a boy…”

“Here, already?”

“He’s cute…”

“Do you think he’s looking for sex?”

“Maybe he could impregnate me on the trolley ride?”

“Don’t be such a slut!”

I cleared my throat, mentally blocking out the voices of all of the women around me. The comments were incredibly bold, and even my three years so far in this world hadn’t prepared me for them. I also found myself somewhat uncertain. There were at least forty men attending this school. The school had a class size of 5000, but I was hardly the only man. Thus, I was taken aback at how excited everyone was to see me.

“Ahem… did I, by chance, do something wrong?” I asked.

The woman blinked twice before she shook her head too enthusiastically. “No! No! Not at all! It’s just… the men usually take a special Trolley. It leaves in… oh, you won’t have time to get over there! You’ll miss it!”

“Eh?” I hadn’t heard anything about a men’s only trolley. “Well, it’s fine, I can just take this one, right?”

“Ah! But sir, the women are really backed up here.”

“Huh? I’m just one guy? I don’t take up a lot of room?” I still didn’t quite get why she was so hesitant.

“Sir… sending you up on the trolley I’d need to send you alone…” The girl blushed as she said this. “It’s for… ahem… male safety.”

I broke into a cough while I heard a couple of women muttering to themselves. A few of the girls seemed amused by the suggestion I’d be in danger, while a few others seemed indignant, like they were being looked down on.