Annalise found that it happened every now and then. A bloke couldn’t accept that a woman was running the warehouse.
Poppy had just headed back upstairs after getting her failed night with Will off her chest. Most of the delivery guys knew Annalise and, just like her staff, she had their respect, because she demanded it from them, she forced it out of them. The truth was, Annalise had actually lied on her resume to get this job. She loved being the boss of a bunch of men and she loved that some of them were in fact more qualified than she was. Besides, in her opinion, considering how many unqualified men held jobs above more capable women, Annalise was simply balancing the scales.
It was the larger, beefier blokey-blokes who accepted her the most readily. They were the ones who were quickest to guess she was stronger than she looked. They were the ones who didn’t offer to lift the boxes down off the truck for her because ‘she wouldn’t want to break a nail, would she?’
But it was inevitable that a man who didn’t so easily accept Annalise’s position would show up once in a while.
The new delivery guy was weedy. A short, skinny man in a baseball cap with a pinched face and a dirty, dirty pornstar mo. As soon as he spotted Annalise walking out of the office towards him he started giving her the once-over. Eyes scanning up and down.
‘What have you got for me?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I got plenty for you.’ He said it low and under his breath. Enough that he could pretend she wasn’t meant to hear it, but loud enough that she could. Annalise glared at him and his tone switched.
‘You want to get your boss for me, love.’
‘I’m the boss down here, love. What’s the delivery?’
He snorted. ‘No, sweetheart, I need the warehouse manager. Off you go and find him.’ He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and tapped the bottom to feed one out, and stuck it to his lower lip while he fished in his pocket for a lighter.
There were days when Annalise was in the perfect frame of mind for someone like this. Days when she could say all the right things. When she could sass his arse from here to Far North Queensland and back. And there were other days – far less frequent ones, but they existed nonetheless – where she just wasn’t in the mood for this kind of shit.
She stepped forward and snatched the cigarette out of his mouth. ‘I’m the fucking manager down here and there’s no smoking in my warehouse,’ she snapped.
A couple of her staff were sitting on top of some crates having a smoko break just a few metres away and the delivery guy scowled as he reached out for his cigarette.
‘Oh yeah, and what are those boys doing over there? Playing the fucken flute? On the rag are you?’ he added, a glint in his eye as though he was pleased with his slight. ‘Gimme me ciggie back, sweetheart, before I start to get eye-rate.’
Annalise squeezed her fist tight, crumbling the cigarette in her hand and letting the tobacco sprinkle to the concrete floor. She watched as his face hardened and his hands twitched by his side. He leaned in even closer.
‘You better stop playing, girl.’
‘Why?’ Annalise whispered. ‘You the type of man who likes to hit women? You the type of man who feels big if he can make a woman cry? The type of big man who only thinks a woman is worth anything if she’s on her knees?’
She could feel the eyes of her staff on the two of them, watching as the hostility continued to grow. They knew Annalise liked to deal with dickheads like this on her own, but something about this guy was making the hairs on her arms stand up. She’d read once that goose bumps were a leftover reflex from when humans used to have fur all over their bodies. When you were scared and that fight or flight instinct started to kick in, the goose bumps caused the hairs all over your body to stand on end, to make you appear bigger to your attacker.
His voice became a low growl. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are? I’m startin’ to think someone needs to pull you and that tight little arse of yours in line.’ As he spoke his arm snaked around her waist to grab at her backside and he squeezed, hard, fingernails digging into flesh. It was meant as a demonstration of dominance and it caused bile to rise up in her throat. In a flash her knee was up, striking him sharply in the balls. In the meantime, the warehouse guys had jumped to their feet and were on their way over to step in, but the bloke was already doubled over in pain by the time her would-be saviours were around her.
‘She’s fucken crazy,’ he gasped, his hands pressed between his legs as he looked around at the guys and waited for their sympathy.
‘She was easier on you than I would have been,’ said Bruce, one of the forklift drivers who was built like a boxer. ‘You all good?’ he added to Annalise.
‘Fine,’ she said.
‘I could have you up on assault charges,’ the driver said.
Annalise looked around at the others. ‘You blokes see me assault this nice gentleman here?’ she asked.
‘Nope. Saw this grub put his hands on property that doesn’t belong to him though,’ said Bruce. The others all nodded in agreement.
Then Annalise heard footsteps and she turned around to see Lawrence walking swiftly towards them. He’d been texting her all morning, making crude jokes about last night and trying to get her to agree to another tryst this evening. She’d ignored them. She wasn’t doing it to be cruel, she was just trying to keep things low-key. He must have grown tired of waiting and decided to come and charm her face to face.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘This dickhead tried to give her shit,’ said Bruce.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Annalise said before Bruce could answer again. ‘Bruce, deal with this delivery for me, would you?’
Annalise grabbed Lawrence by the hand and started leading him through the warehouse stacks, past the spot where she and Poppy had hidden out that morning and all the way to a rarely used back storeroom.
‘What happened?’ Lawrence asked again. ‘Did he try to hurt you? Do I need to do something about that guy?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Annalise replied. ‘It was nothing, I can take care of myself.’
‘So what exactly are you dragging me back here for?’
‘What do you think?’ Annalise asked as she pulled Lawrence into the storeroom, closed the door behind them and shoved some boxes up against the door.
‘Here?’ he asked.
‘Yes, here,’ she replied.
She knew it was weird to drag him away like that in the middle of the day, right in front of her staff when they could easily guess what she might be up to. Yes, it was her style to be sexually aggressive, but this was taking things one step further. All she knew was that the incident had put her on edge. She might have joked to the other guys that she had it all under control, she might have acted cool and calm and confident. She might have told them all she could take care of herself. But when that guy had invaded her space, for just a moment before he’d reached around to grope at her body, she’d thought he was about to do something else. And she’d seen another man’s face, in another time. She’d seen the back of a meaty hand as it was lifted into the air, watched it as it swung down towards her. And it felt like an injection of adrenalin had coursed through her body.
Now Annalise was restless and full of pent-up energy and aggression, and Lawrence was going to help her let it all go.