Lori Devoti: Amazon Ink

There were four applications inside, each with a time noted in the margin. My first was in ten minutes, a recent high school graduate with nothing more exciting to offer than a couple of art classes-and he was male. I shuffled his application to the side. I hadn’t told Mandy about my gender preference for employees. I could do what I wanted, but I couldn’t be obvious about it, which meant I’d have to interview any men who looked qualified. And while I didn’t have to give them serious consideration, it had to look as if I did.

The next two were also male. One had twenty years of experience in one of the top shops in Miami. I frowned. Not hiring him would be hard to justify. Tapping my pencil against the table, I said a silent prayer to Artemis that he arrived reeking of booze.

Number three had only a couple years of tattoo experience. The woman could surely beat that.

Thankfully, she did-ten years of experience, numerous awards, and recommendations out of this world. Ding, ding, ding. We had a winner; now all I had to do was get through the other interviews as quickly as possible, making note of all the men’s failings, and I’d be suitably protected from any potential legal problems.

At twelve thirty on the nose, my first interview arrived. He looked around nervously, obviously taking note when Mother stopped behind the reception desk dressed in Lycra shorts and a snug-fitting sport top. The old school’s full-size gym was in a second building next door, but Mother had claimed a room in the basement for her weights. She was down there more often than not and had a better body than most twenty-year-old human aerobics instructors. The artist I was interviewing noticed. He was also young, cute, and easy to mark off my list without a trace of guilt.

The second, Mr. Experienced from Miami, seemed to have as many issues with working for a woman as I did hiring a man.

“I thought your name was Mel,” he grumbled, reaching up to grab a cigarette he had stashed behind one ear.

“It is.” I didn’t bother explaining I was named for one of the original Amazons, Melanippe, a direct descendent of Ares and Otrera. Somehow I didn’t think he would be all that impressed.

“It all women here?” He leaned to the side to see around my office door out into the shop.

I folded my arms over my breasts and smiled. Tattooing is a sacred business for Amazons-one exclusively performed by women, for obvious reasons. Men just don’t have the same spiritual depth. I found it endlessly funny that in the modern world men had come to dominate the art. Of course, it also explained why most tattoos today no longer possessed the power they should.

“You have a problem with that?” I shifted my snake bracelet a little higher on my wrist, making sure the ruby eyes were pointed directly at my applicant, then smiled. I wasn’t putting the mojo on him or anything, but I was thinking about it-hard.

He shivered. “No, I guess not-just weird, s’all.”

“Yes, weird.”

I was suddenly bored and antsy to get things moving. I still had one more fake interview to complete before the woman/ real applicant arrived.

“Well, it’s been nice. We’ll call you.” Or not. I ushered him out of my office.

A wave of surprise washed over his face, but he left. I followed him to the front, just to make sure. When he trudged down the steps to the front door, I wiped my hands together. Two down, one to go. Gotta love efficiency.

A man in his midthirties stepped inside as the second candidate left. He had dark hair and brows that drew attention to chocolatey eyes. He also had some impressive art on one arm, a quarter sleeve of mountains and stars. However, it was the portfolio tucked under said arm that led me to the ingenious assumption that he was applicant number three.

Kind of old for only a couple years of experience. I pegged him as a tattoo addict who thought he could do it himself.

This would be easy. I waved Mandy back to her spot behind the reception desk and held out a hand in greeting.

“You must be here for the interview.”

He stopped two steps from the top, analyzing me from the tips of my well-used hikers to the top of my baseball-cap-covered head. I felt an insane urge to yank the hat off and run my fingers through my shoulder-length auburn hair.

Primping was not a usual Amazon urge. Irritated, I jerked my hand back and scowled.

“I’m here to see Mel,” he announced.

Another one. “I’m Mel.” I waited for the shock and outrage that he had been scammed by my masculine name.

“Really?” Confusion flitted through his dark eyes. “I was expecting someone…”

My scowl transformed into a smirk. I was starting to enjoy this; it was amusing and it kept my mind off the deaths…well, somewhat. “Yes, you were expecting someone…” I prompted.

He finished climbing the last two steps, stopping just inches from me. With the confusion still apparent on his face, he looked down at me.

“Taller. I thought you’d be taller.”

Well, hell.

I was a measly five eight. My mother was six foot two. I’d never met my father, but I suspected he was a midget. My outspoken interviewee had to be pushing six four. He had over half a foot on me. Strangely enough, it did not endear him to me.

“You have a height requirement for interviews?” Yeah, I was bitter. Yeah, it showed.

Busy studying the top of my Wisconsin Badger cap, it took him a while to answer. When he did, he seemed at least somewhat embarrassed by his prior declaration.

“No, it’s just, what with…” He stopped, switching his attention to Mandy, who was eyeballing him like a cat that’s just spied the last bowl of cream. I half expected her to lick her lips in anticipation.

This time I did yank off my cap and slapped it down on the reception desk. “Mandy, why don’t you order some more bandages? Janet said she was running low.”

My office manager didn’t seem in any big hurry to get back to work, so I picked my cap up and strode around the counter. “My office is back here. Might as well get on with it.”

Mr. Six Four, Peter Arpada, according to his application, managed to tear himself away from the reception desk and followed.

By the time we reached my private space, I’d regained a sense of calm. It wasn’t that I was sensitive about being short, for an Amazon anyway. It was just that not many people pointed it out. Which, come to think of it, brought a question to mind. He didn’t know I was an Amazon.

“Why did you expect me to be tall?” I blurted the question out before he had a chance to sit in the chair recently deserted by bad candidate number two.

“Oh, I don’t know.” He unzipped his portfolio and began flipping through pages. “The name, I guess, and the tattoo thing. I just expected someone different.”

He smiled, and I tried hard to keep my face stern. There was an insult in there somewhere, but it was hard to focus on it under the full power of his pearly whites. I decided to let the whole height thing go and just work on marking him off my list as fast as I could.

“Let’s see what you got.” I held out my hand.

I should have been warned by the confident tilt his head took as he slapped the leather case into my hand, but I wasn’t. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw inside.

“These are…nice,” I murmured. Nice my ass, these were killer. Not to be completely egotistical, but I hadn’t seen anything this good outside of my own shop, created by me. I flipped to a wolf head, done in portrait style, then quickly moved to the more abstract stuff. The colors were especially good choices; pausing on the image of a woman’s arm with a Celtic dragon wrapped around it, I frowned.

“What’s your story?” I asked.