The sharp knock on my door at this ungodly hour was truly annoying. It was a fucking Saturday morning, after all. Who the hell would need to call on me at this time....what was it...seven am? Holy smokes! Who knocked on my fucking door at seven am. I did my best not to wake up my recent girlfriend or was that quasi-girlfriend, whatever, my latest, as I got up in my boxers and white undershirt to answer the door. I wanted to let her rest, as one of her less charming quirks was extreme grouchiness when awakened too early. It was part of why I hadn't committed to anything more serious yet, but far from the only motive.
I saw a tall, very cute Latina in a brown UPS uniform with some kind of very large parcel that I definitely didn't order at all. What the hell? I could only guess what this might be, but I played along, just in case. The delivery girl was easy on the eyes in the classic Tejana manner, anyway, her long curls having just enough blonde and red highlights to be fascinating. Her bust wasn't that large or small, somewhere in between, and her legs were frankly to die for in my estimation. Melinda, my latest flame, or whatever, would be green with envy to match her green eyes.
"Are you...Franco De Marco?" she asked me, her name tag reading Yadira, clearly her given name.
"I am. How may I assist you?" I was surprisingly cordial under the circumstances, not wishing to take things out on this girl who was just doing her job.
"Um...well, I got this delivery for you. Please sign for it," Yadira told me, a shy smile crossing her face that yes, reached her soft brown eyes.
"Alright, though I didn't order anything. You're positive that this is a delivery for me?" I wondered now if Melinda had used my name to order something...and maybe my card.
I would have to change some information and confront her if that happened. Then again, it could be my estranged wife Antonia, better known as "Toni," instead. I still hadn't forgiven her for running up so much credit card debt and hiding it from me. This financial dispute was one of a number of flare-ups that ended our three-year marriage before it produced any issue. I wouldn't put anything past her for sure. Our divorce wouldn't be final for another six weeks and that already felt like an eternity.
"Very much so. It's addressed to Mr. Franco De Marco, Esquire. Does that mean that you're a lawyer? That's what I've heard, anyway," Yadira inquired somewhat nosily.
"Yes, I practice various forms of law. Long story on that. I run my own firm, have a few associates, I don't have any partners, and I like it that way. I'm the boss. De Marco and Associates. Any form of law particularly impact your life?" I waxed curious now.
"Um...immigration law? I'm an American, but two of my sisters are Dreamers. You can imagine how that goes. What are your thoughts on that?" Yadira dared to ask me.
"Look, I'm somewhat more reasonable than the wing-nuts on both sides of that issue and others. We have to have a border and that requires some enforcement, and yes, some deportations. At the same time, Dreamers like your sisters only know this country. They are American in all ways but one. There is plenty of room for nuance and middle ground, a happy medium between the extremes. Slogans and soundbites don't generally make for good public policy. Anyway, let's look into it and see what we can do. Now, how about this package?" I now wondered, even as she brought up the first of three large boxes.
"Voila!" Yadira winked at me.
"Oh, my God...three parcels...what the hell?" I was about ready to fucking kill Melanie if this was her doing here.
I signed for the packages and that was when Yadira took out a box-cutter, opening the first package to reveal....a cage. Then I looked inside the cage and there was a woman. What the hell? She had a barcode on her neck, indicating her status as a slave under the new slavery laws. Yeah, the politicians had found an end run around the Thirteenth Amendment, of course. How typical of them, right?
Why wouldn't they? As long as it wasn't racially based, permanent, involuntary, or not based on a criminal conviction or something similar, so far, it held up to challenges in court. I had a sneaking suspicion that some of this was due to conflicts of interest, but I couldn't exactly prove it. I was halfway surprised that someone didn't push to make it gynocentric or a reverse-racist kind of thing in the name of "equity." Then again, I suppose that the greed of the elites dwarfed their woke, identity politics bullshit that was never more than a virtual signal and a smokescreen for their hypocrisy. Also, again, those kinds of distinctions would have led to legal headaches, anyway.
I just never planned on or expected to be a slaveholder myself, even if it was really a kind of indentured servitude. People colloquially labeled it "slavery," because it was very open-ended as to the timetable, no guarantees of release, was often for debt or criminal acts, and was easier to say than "indentured servitude" or "debt-bondage." I waited with baited breath to see who this was...and who sent her to me. This was truly wild, after all.
"So...someone gifted me...a slave, and those other packages are what, equipment to take care of the slave?" I queried, making Yadira giggle a bit.
"Not...exactly," she told me as she cut the next box open and showed me a second cage.
"What the fuck?" I reacted as I saw that there was another girl in that new cage.