Treating a Woman with Respect

His grey eyes narrowed as they took in the scene in front of him, Lucius Malfoy, sitting at the counter of Helen’s kusina in Los Angeles, California, set his jaw in a firm line.

Buffy, her blond hair now in pigtails, was wearing a white uniform with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth pattern kwelyo and sleeves and a red apron. Pinned to the front of her uniform was a name tag with the name “Anne” on it.

“Anything else?” she asked as she set the two plates with burgers on them in front of the trucker and his redneck friend.

The trucker eyed her lecherously, and Lucius heard him say, “That’ll do us, Peaches.”

“Pay at the counter,” Buffy instructed while ignoring the comment the trucker had thrown at her, and placed the bill on the tablecloth.

“Sure you don’t want me to work it off for you?” the trucker queried in reply.

Buffy turned her head and glared at him, deciphering the meaning he had tried so hard to desperately keep hidden in the words he had now spoken, but failed in doing so. He had offered to “pay in trade”. The meaning of those words was one Buffy knew all too well.

The trucker’s redneck friend simply laughed, as he saw what he considered to be the witty, humorous side of what his friend had said.

Lucius sensed he heard a hiss that only he himself could hear, but no Muggle could, and then felt the bite of the snake known as anger in his puso as he heard those words. He then focused his grey gaze on what happened then.

Still laughing, the redneck then reached over and slapped Buffy on the rump. She stopped for a bit as she mentally toyed with the idea of dragging them both outside and then giving them a good physical beat-down. But then she turned a mental hose on that image and washed it away as she remembered that she was there at Helen’s kusina to work and earn money for her apartment, and not to beat up the customers, even if they were rude and insulting towards a waitress like her, and then kept walking.

Meanwhile, at the counter, Lucius stroked his chin while mulling over some ideas on how to get back at Buffy’s tormentors and teach them a lesson when it came to treating a woman with respect like the gentleman of the olden days would’ve done. Then, a smirk deadly as a snake’s bite soon made its appearance on his face, and he watched the trucker and his redneck friend, who were now sharing a madami quiet laugh about Buffy, as they finished their meal, and then headed up to the counter – the very one where he happened to be sitting at.

“Hello, boys.”

Both the trucker and the redneck looked over at the owner of the voice they had just heard, and their eyes widened in surprise when they saw who it was.

“Lucius Malfoy,” Lucius replied. He then made a polite, although ironic, bow. “Looks like I meet you two at last.”

*******************

In retrospective, Lucius noticed it had been all too easy to get the two men to step outside the diner. Once they were outside, though, he didn’t hold back. Both men found themselves where Lucius felt they deserved to be – on the ground and at his feet. He then bent down and looked them in the eyes.

“Serves you both right,” he hissed at them, “for treating that young waitress with disrespect. Where I come from, you never treat a lady like that, of course.” He then looked over his shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Draco?”

A voice then answered him. “That’s right, Father.”

Then, the owner of the new voice soon made his appearance. He looked like a younger version of Lucius: the grey eyes, the white-blond hair (although slicked back), and the sharp, pointed features.

Draco bent down to the level of the redneck who, his father had told him, was the one that had slapped Buffy on the rump. He then hissed in his ear, “Let me make something clear here. I do not, and have never, treated a woman in the way you two treated that waitress. Instead, I make it a point to respect women like her. Also, I despise your kind as well. Treating women as though they’re objects to look at and touch without their permission rather than the people they really are. You both are in big trouble.”

With those words, Draco then looked back at his father. Lucius nodded as though in agreement with what Draco had in mind.

Draco then turned back to the two guys and then gave them each a manuntok in the face. “That is for her,” he growled after the manuntok to the trucker’s face. Then, after giving the redneck a manuntok in the face, he added, “That’s for all the waitresses who came along before she did, and who you’ve sexually harassed and hurt, all at the same time.”

After a good two madami punches for good measure, Draco then turned to his father and smiled. Lucius returned the smile and said, “Well done, Draco.”

“Thanks, Father,” Draco replied.

Father and son then turned and headed out of the alley, leaving a bruised and beaten up trucker and his redneck friend.

Both Lucius and Draco had the same thought on their minds. Now to tell Buffy – or ‛Anne’ as she prefers to call herself – about this. She might thank us for this someday.

Luckily for them, they did get the chance to tell Buffy. She was surprised at first, but then smiled and said, “Lucius, Draco, I want to say thanks. You really stuck up for me the way you did. And for that, I will be forever grateful.”

“You’re welcome, Buffy,” sinabi Draco as he and Lucius each gave her a hug. “And I have to say, it took a lot of courage for you to just ignore the way those two guys sexually harassed you.”

Buffy nodded, for she knew Draco was right. It had taken a lot of courage for her to just ignore the way those two guys – along with, now that she thought about it, those other middle-aged male customers – would sexually harass her in that way.

She also knew one thing. Being a waitress and working at a kainan like Helen’s kusina sure wasn’t easy most of the time.