"Good morning!"
Ashley skipped into the Gutter canteen, visibly happy after last night's success. The spring in her step was so pronounced, in fact, that it was developing into a summer.
Harvey greeted her with a nod, but barely looked up from his paper. Today, it was the Post. Seen as less prestigious than the Mail, they usually avoided the tabloid. Today, however, Harvey had made an exception. The headline must have been unavoidable.
He was certainly engrossed in a story. Rather than disturb him further, Ashley grabbed some breakfast, and took her seat on his left. She was distracted from her meal by a glossy magazine, which lay on the surface in front of her. Pink letters screamed from its cover: 'ALRIGHT?' Ashley deduced that this was its name, and that it must have come with the paper.
As Harvey wasn't in the mood to entertain, she decided to give it a try. She'd only been flicking through it for a moment, however, when she let out a loud sigh.
This got Harvey's attention.
"What is it?" he demanded, craning to see. Unusually for her laid-back colleague, he seemed anxious. "What does it say?"
"I know the superheroines in comics get objectified all of the time, so I should probably have seen it coming, but this soon?"
Ashley showed him the page. "100% JET," blared the gaudy pink font, "0% JUMBO - how fighting crime can help YOU lose weight!"
"I mean, there have only been a couple of news reports," she continued. "I'm really not that famous."
Harvey scanned the report, and chuckled to himself.
"Why are you complaining?" he asked, teasingly. "They've been very nice about you." It was true. The article had been full of compliments, and Ashley's slim frame had been professionally admired. Still, that wasn't the point.
"Oh, you wouldn't understand," she replied.
"Ouch!"
"Not you personally, I mean as a man."
"Male superheroes are always bulging with muscles, what do you call that?" Harvey seemed even more willing to joke this morning, if that were possible. Ashley wondered why.
“I don’t just mean superheroes, I mean real people, like celebrities. You can’t do anything as a woman without ending up in one of these magazines.”
“Ah, so you're saying the middle pages of that same magazine aren't fawning over some sexy actor or musician?”
She checked. They were.
"Lucky guess."
"Hah."
"You get my point, though?"
"I think so, yeah," Harvey conceded. "It was you who chose the costume, though."
“What do you mean?”
"It's very, well, figure hugging."
"So?"
"That's meant to be part of the objectification, isn't it? Superheroines are always shoehorned into tight, impractical outfits that allow this sort of ogling to happen in the first place!"
"You're saying I should have chosen an old, baggy jumper?"
"It works for me," he winked. Or did he? Ashley could never be sure.
"I don't understand the 'impractical' bit, though," she said. "How are tight clothes impractical? Athletes who need to be fast or flexible wear skin-tight outfits, and very little of them! Superheroines, if that's what I am, need the exact same things.”
YOU ARE READING
Masks
Mystery / ThrillerAshley Cox, failed magician, has never been the least bit magical. However, when she becomes involved in a sinister plot centred around her workplace, she needs a miracle to escape. She must succeed where she has always failed, and become completely...
