**(Abigail)**
If I had known there’d be eight inches of hot lawyer inside of me before the end of the week, I’d have asked to take Monday off. Instead of making that call, I’m about to walk into a law firm. But first, some context explaining why I’m buried six-feet under a mountain of crap. Gender equality is a fantasy, just like karma.
There I am, two weeks ago. I’m doing my deep breathing after washing off the last of my smudged mascara and runny nose. The right amount of pride and stubbornness held my chin up and rolled my shoulders back as I splashed cold water over my face. I was sure as shit not letting that asshole see that he got to me. Tears were normal, but what happened that day in the store manager’s office was not.
It felt innocent at first – smiles and laughs and an open air for discussion. But big flapping red flags should have been raised when he said, ‘let’s lock the door while we discuss salary.’ Intuition, you have failed me.
I never thought of Brett as a slime ball, which is why telling me to bend over his desk to get my deserved raise was a shock. His hairy sausage fingers cupped my ass but in response I left him in a pile on the floor with four knuckles to the throat and a swift kick to the nether region.
Growing up with two red-blooded brothers, I learned to keep my guard up at all times. Dad thought one step further. My mom believed that a girl learning mix-martial arts was wasteful, but thankfully my dad’s persistent paranoia won that discussion. He was the one who taught me to use my lower center of gravity as an advantage, and it wasn’t long before I was tossing my brothers along with their egos.
My parents raised me under the impression that girls could do anything as good or better than guys, and I believed it every time I threw a man twice my size down on his ass. My dad was my biggest supporter, driving me around competition after competition in a rusted road warrior of a Toyota Tacoma. Before that dented pickup was reduced to scrap it ushered me to eight national gold trophies – as my dad said, ‘If you’re not first, you’re last!’ Blogs were written, articles were printed, and I was a natural in front of a camera. I was expected to be the next Ronda Rousey, and a girl could get used to that kind of attention.
But by the time I was making my way across that stage for my high school diploma, reality hit me. I felt like I was being forced into something, and I don’t say yes to no options. So, I chose to go to university, and though my father wanted me to pursue a career in combat, my university sorority had an incredible group of ladies who turned me onto fashion.
The freshman fifteen was real for me, but instead of gaining fifteen pounds of fat, I lost fifteen in muscle. For the first time I can remember, I had curves like a woman, and I felt amazing dressing that up. Instead of boxing gloves and training bras my wardrobe was now filled with Prada handbags and Burberry trench coats. My inner goddess was finally able to run wild, and I even changed my major from sports science to business – I was going to run my own clothing store. Take on the world. Do something amazing that didn’t give me concussions or broken hands.
After graduation, New York was the place to be so my two closest gals and myself squeezed into a four hundred square-foot one bedroom overlooking Central Park, a place we named “The Bunker”. The dream was alive, but I had to get some experience first.
Starting as a sales associate at Bloomingdale’s, I was underpaid and overworked, but I always showed up on time with my eyebrows plucked and armpits waxed. My decade of training on the mats and a minor in psychology allowed me to read body language and figure out exactly what people wanted. If you look carefully, you’ll see beneath people’s mask, where they show their true selves in fleeting moments. I may take an extra second to respond, but when I do, it’s usually the right words in the right order. Translation: I’m a damn good saleswoman.
I led our store in sales, leveraging that to transition from sales associate to sales manager to executive sales manager in record time, and also went through more heels than I can count – the warranty staff at Brian Atwood even nicknamed me “Frankenstein” because I kept calling back. The money was great, and I’m able to afford my own place in Soho a few minutes from the store, but the real gold mine was the experience.
I thought I knew hustle. Being a sales associate walking ten miles a day in the same twelve hundred square-foot room was tiring, but management positions will kick your ass if you keep it still too long. I was a captive to my emails and a slave to my schedule. Marketing campaigns over dinner. Order spreadsheets over breakfast. Weekends were reserved for follow-up with major clients.
There were several nights behind closed doors crying into pillows with half a pint of Häagen-Dazs, but I never showed my staff that side of me. Mom told me something that I’ll never forget: ‘A successful woman is fierce and respected and powerful, until the moment you let them see you cry.’ Yeah, my mom wore the pants in the relationship.
People and sales are the two most important parts of retail, and I’m good at handling both. Add that to my insatiable desire to solve any problem in front of me and it makes for an aggressive style that sometimes ends in self-neglect. While my besties were settling down with their forever beaus and sparking discussions of tying the knot, I had no time to even consider men.
But so what? This was my dream. I’m tripling down and betting all on black, or red, or whatever is the trendiest color in fashion this month. So what if I can’t catch the latest blockbuster movie or find a week out of the year to travel? I could see the world when I’m retired, and when that time comes, I don’t want to be the old fart telling herself what could have been. I didn’t need a man-child to keep me happy – I was sated with a healthy collection of vibrators powerful enough to beat eggs, and I allowed them to do *just* that.
I worked fast. The day after grope-gate, I found a lawyer who slammed Brett with a sexual harassment lawsuit. Boom. I thought I was playing a game I couldn’t lose. Restore justice to the universe. My name is Abigail May and I’m not going to be another non-reported statistic. Forty-eight hours later, he cut my high horse off at the knees when he slammed me with a counter for defamation. My wimp of a lawyer dropped me when he couldn’t piece together enough evidence, leaving me with a case that he told me I couldn’t win and a counter lawsuit demanding five years of my pay. In short, I was twenty miles up Shit Creek without a paddle, and I was latent with anxiety. Good thing anxiety can be cured with scotch and chocolate rum balls.
A general refusal for failure and an afternoon on Google provided answers. In The Big Apple, there were only three firms that had a reputation for taking on tough cases like mine, and two of them weren’t known for handling sexual harassment. That left me with Brimstone & Associates, a relatively new but rising firm that’s owned by a generation of Brimstone siblings. It’s in a lavish building touching the clouds, one of those places you look up at and say, ‘whoa.’
They’re a family of lawyers, though their name is more known on the west coast. While the siblings all have sterling records, there is only one who has enough experience dealing with cases like mine. So after a box of the best from Macron Mama and about twenty phone calls later to his receptionist, I snuck onto the calendar of Lucas Brimstone with her help under the promise that I would ‘stop my damn calling and let her work.’ Yes ma’am.
In kick-ass Jimmy Choos and a tight two-piece navy business suit, I made my way up to the thirty-first floor, where I was about to meet the man that would determine my future. When the elevator doors opened, I took a second to admire how sexy the shoes looked on my feet, and stepped out of the elevator with an easy smile over my face. It was impossible to tell looking at me, but I felt annoyingly nervous that morning, which is why I went with these heels.
Double the straps meant double the security meant double the confidence. I was never great at math and this wasn’t calculus class, but that sure as shit added up to me.
Next Chapter: https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/70b460/downing_abbey_chapter_2/
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticstories/comments/7m9vg8/downing_abbey_chapter_1