Chapter One

 

Prejudice. It's all around us and all through society. Every society. There's no escaping it. All of us have it. Prejudice means to pre-judge. We see someone from a particular group, and based on what we've seen, heard, and experienced with that group, we pre-judge the individual as having that behavior.

Take me, for example. I'm blonde. I'm tall so have long legs. I have a nice body which I keep fit, and breasts which are, if not large, at least not small for my shape. That, at least, let's me avoid the prejudice people feel toward girls with large breasts. But I can't escape the one about attractive blondes.

You know what we're like. We're all cheap, easy, sluts, attention-seekers, always after other girl's men. Men tend to lick their lips when they see me, while women scowl suspiciously, especially if they've got their guy next to them.

The older women aren't afraid I'll 'steal' their guy, but they eye their partners carefully for any sign they're looking at me. And if they do, they blame me for it, and not their boyfriends or husbands. Somehow it's my fault. For being an attractive blonde.

And, of course, I'm an airhead. Everyone knows that. Attractive blonde girls couldn't possibly be intelligent and well-read. They figure I spend my time reading fashion magazines if I read at all. And maybe cheap romance novels. I probably obsess over my looks, my hair, and what I'm wearing.

That's prejudice. And there's nothing about any of that which resembles the person I am. In fact, my mentality is more that of a tomboy. I'm a cynic, and a pessimist, and have a low tolerance for fools. For entertainment, I like to play tennis, racquetball, volleyball, basketball, and Call of Duty.

I don't watch reality TV. I like science fiction and fantasy.

I don't spend any more time on my hair than I need to keep it out of my face. It's thankfully fairly tame. It hangs down straight and about a third of the way down my back. My one concession to vanity is thick, heavy bangs that cut across my forehead and cover most of it to just above my eyes.

I like leather, though. Leather jackets, pants, vests, coats, skirts, shoes, and boots. I've always had a thing for leather, the feel, and especially the smell of it, of new-bought leather. Which is why I went to work for a leather shop. Wilfred's Leather and Suede was the name. And they hired me right out of high school because it was hard to find staff, and I was a tall, attractive blonde.

Sometimes prejudice works in your favor, after all.

Wilfred's was a high-end shop, and it catered to people who didn't have a problem with spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a fine leather item. Naturally, that didn't include the sales staff. Which was a bit of a problem for Winfred's because it liked the staff to wear its product as a bit of an advertisement to the customers. The usual 10-15% off employee discount just wasn't going to cut it for me, or anyone else who worked there.

But having us wear leather we bought elsewhere just wasn't the thing, especially since discerning customers would soon notice we weren't wearing anything from the shop. Or worse, would like what we wore and ask about it, then go buy it at a cheaper shop.

What they arranged for me to buy were leather boots and skirts. In particular, I really loved the over-the-knee highland Nappa leather boots they virtually gave me. They retailed for sixteen hundred, but they let me have them for only two hundred - deducted from my check over a period of months.

I was a bit leery of wearing them all day since they had four-inch stiletto heels and I had to stand up the whole time, but they were amazingly comfortable. When combined with a short, leather skirt, though, they made me look disturbingly sexy.

I say that because looking sexy (except on dates or when I'm trying to impress someone) was not something I ever tried to accomplish. All it brought me after all were more suspicious glares from women, and more come-ons from guys I didn't know and had no interest in.

There were times to look sexy. Work wasn't one of them. Especially when most of the people I saw at work were people two to three times older than me. Wilfred was not exactly a popular choice for teenagers. And I would remain one for almost a full year.

But Mister Larocque, the manager, wanted me to be a 'walking advertisement' for their products.

"All the women who come in will see this skirt and these boots on you and want to look like you do," he said with a kind of greasy smile.

He was always fawning over the customers. You know the kind. And I guess it kind of bled into how he dealt with me. Although after a short time working there, I began to suspect he had a kind of thing for seeing my legs in short skirts. I never caught him actually staring, not so I could be completely sure, but I got the idea he appreciated the view.

He was a French guy somewhere in his mid-thirties. He had mid-length dark hair and a short beard with a mustache. You'd almost think he was gay, from the way he acted (there's that prejudice again) except I guess it was just that he was French.

Anyway, I was wearing a navy-blue silk shirt that buttoned down the middle that afternoon. The color worked great with my hair and also the black of the leather. Certainly, Monsieur Larocque seemed to appreciate the ensemble.

When the door opened, I naturally looked up from where I was cataloging new products on a tablet behind the counter. A large, beefy-looking white man came through, his eyes narrow as he glanced around the store. A second large, beefy-looking guy followed. Then a third man followed. The third was cut from a different cloth, though. He wasn't as tall, wasn't as beefy, and was way more casual as he looked around. He was also black.

As a retail store clerk, you get to categorizing people when they walk in because of your previous experiences with those who looked like them (there's more prejudice). Older women were fussy. Overweight women resented me. Well-dressed men who were maybe a little effete were gay - or French. Black guys... we didn't get a lot of those. Black girls, yes.

And given the socioeconomic realities here in New York, and given the statistics on who tends to do most of the shoplifting, well, needless to say, we tend to keep a close eye on Black customers. Prejudice? Absolutely.

This guy, though, did not, from the start, look like a potential shoplifter. Just to start, the clothes he had on were quality. I could recognize that by now. I'd worked here six months, after all. That suit he was wearing was tailored, and worth thousands.

As a general rule, rich people didn't shoplift. Not because they were more moral but just because they didn't need to. This guy wasn't even looking at the discretely placed price tags. This guy had money.

As for the two beefy white guys. They puzzled me for long moments. One stood in the corner by the door watching it and the other stayed behind the Black dude. They did not converse, though. His eyes didn't even look at the goods the Black dude was checking. Instead, they moved over the store, and over me - repeatedly.

Well, I was used to guys checking me out, of course. No big deal. But while I got the idea he liked my looks he wasn't paying me any special attention. The three were together but not even talking, and that made me curious. After a minute, I realized they were like bodyguards.

For some reason that sent a strange thrill through me. Well, my life is boring, so seeing a guy with bodyguards, who likely had guns on them was kind of exciting. I wondered who he was. He didn't look big enough or strong enough to be a star athlete. He was athletic enough but not like these guys.

Nor was he a celebrity I was familiar with, a movie star or singer. Then again, I had odd tastes in movies, TV, and music. Curious, I came out from behind the counter. Both the beefy white guys looked at me at once but didn't say anything as I approached the Black guy.

"Hello," I said in my most professional, yet welcoming voice. "Is there anything I can help you with, Sir?"

He looked at me casually, then did a discrete double-take. I was used to that, but he did cover himself quite well. Not that he seemed to do it out of politeness. His eyes were dark and cold. He did not give me the impression of being a nice man. At all.

"I want a warm coat," he said.

"Yes, sir, we have a lovely selection. Do you have a preferred type of leather or brand?"

He gave a careless shrug as I led him to the coats and jackets section.

"Were you looking for a longer coat or a jacket?"

"Something warm. Fall is here, after all."

"Certainly, sir," I said. "Were you thinking leather or suede?"

"Suede is leather," he said.

Which was pedantic. Of course, I knew that. But everyone identified suede as different. And unless he was from another culture - and his English was perfect - he knew that too. Which meant he was being a superior asshole.

I deal with people acting like superior assholes a lot, though. It's in the nature of the job where almost all the customers were way, way better off than me and knew it.

"Do you have a preference for a softer or smoother leather?" I asked.

He reached past me and examined a long suede sheepskin coat, then pulled it from the hanger to look further. The price for that coat was eight thousand dollars but he gave no sign of noticing or caring. He ran his fingers along the threading, which demonstrated a certain knowledge.

"This is from Spain, sir, made by Prada and is 100% lambskin."

"I can read," he said brusquely.

Asshole.

I smiled to avoid scowling at him.

He reached up and pulled aside a few more of the same coat, checking sizes, then pulled another down and tossed the first one to me. I caught it, slightly startled, and he thrust the hanger at me then tried on the one he'd taken down.

He turned and looked at himself in a nearby mirror.

"You do alterations, I presume."

"Yes, of course, sir. That seems to fit you quite well."

"Quite well isn't perfect. The sleeves are slightly long."

"Yes, sir. Would you like me to take measurements?"

He nodded and I quickly got the measuring tape while he looked at other items. Before I could return, he'd lifted a pair of Gucci leather pants off a display table and held them before himself. They were fifty-four hundred dollars a pair.

I measured his arm length while he largely ignored me. His head turned from side to side, then, spotting the fitting room, headed over there. The nearest bodyguard moved quickly to precede him, opened the door to the fitting room, checked inside, then stepped back as the Black guy glared at him.

He went inside and I glanced furtively at the bodyguards (as I had identified them). They were silent and still, their eyes roaming the room and the windows. Both certainly noticed me but didn't pay a lot of attention. I checked my watch, wondering when Mister Larocque would return.

We weren't on commission here so I wasn't terribly excited at a potentially large sale.

The Black guy came out of the fitting room wearing the Gucci pants and snapped his fingers at me.

"Come and measure these for alterations, girl," he said.

Asshole.

I smiled slightly and went over to him, tape and pad in hand.

"This is lambskin, as well, from Northern Italy," I said.

I took his measurements. First, the waist, which had me wrap my arms around him to get the tape around. Which was closer than I wanted to get to the asshole. Then I had to get on my knees before him and measure his inseam. That, of course, meant my face was at crotch level, and that I had to measure from crotch level.

And while the leather pants weren't particularly tight they bulged there. And I don't mean he had an erection. I mean, it was quite obvious he dressed to the left, and to my not entirely expert eye he was awfully... long.

Well, there was that other cliché about Black men, right? Only perhaps this time it was true.

"What's your name, girl?"

None of your fucking business, I wanted to say with a smile.

"I'm Mallory, sir," I said with a polite smile, looking up at him.

He was looking down at me. And this was a not unfamiliar thing from my work here, but it was also not unfamiliar from... well, let's face it, sex. And given I'd just been eyeing his uhm, size, well, it was putting odd and uncomfortable thoughts into my head.

"Is that your first or last name?"

"My first name."

I measured the cuffs of the trousers, turning them up a bit, but not putting any pins in to hold them in place. You didn't do that here. I measured the amount to be turned up, feeling his eyes still on me from above.

I got up and went back to the counter. He followed behind as I took out an order sheet.

"Could I have your name, address, and phone number, sir?" I asked pleasantly.

"Mitchell Hornsby."

It had a name. How about that?

He gave me an address in Brooklyn Heights, on Bridge Park Road, which I knew to be those super fancy condos overlooking the East Rover.

"How much do you make here?"

I looked up at him in surprise. Talk about a rude question!

I forced a smile. "That's confidential, sir."

Meaning none of your fucking business.

"Given the times, the difficulty of obtaining staff, the caliber of people they'd want here, and that you seem to be reasonably knowledgeable about your job I'm guessing forty-five a year."

I was kind of confused about where he was going with this. I looked towards the nearest bodyguard but he had his back to us.

"I need someone to maintain my leather goods, and also be an assistant to my assistant. I'll double your salary."

I looked at him in astonishment. He had seemed coolly disapproving of me the whole time we'd been in contact.

"Why?" I blurted.

"Because you have the knowledge to do what I require."

"Maintaining leather goods isn't a complex endeavor, sir," I said.

"There are other reasons."

Yeah, like there's another cliché. That Black guys have the hots for blondes.

"I appreciate fine leather. I want someone who treats it with respect. It's obvious you appreciate fine leather, as well, just from the way you handle it and the way you wear it. You'd also fit in with the look of the team.

"Your team is tall and blonde?" I asked dryly.

"No, refined and elegant."

I blinked in confusion. Refined? Elegant? I'd been given lots of compliments in my life but not those.

"I don't know that - ."

"This job has no future and you know it. And you're too smart for it. If you last one year in the position I'm offering I'll bump your salary up to three times what you're making now."

I barely avoided gaping at him. I still had some suspicion he was just mocking me, the poor girl, you know. But I couldn't come up with a reasonable motive for him going to much effort with that.

"I make forty-eight," I said, which was a lie. I made forty-five.

He shrugged again as if this number was insignificant. And I guess for a guy who was spending fifteen thousand dollars on a coat and pants it probably was.

He turned to leave. "I'll send someone to discuss your duties," he said over his shoulder.

I hadn't accepted yet! But I didn't say that as he and his two bodyguards left.

What the fuck?