Chapter 1

I should have known better than to get into an argument with my wife. Past experience has shown that she will go to extremes to win, even if she ends up biting off her nose to spite her face, and that's just what happened here.

Leslie is an outspoken woman and she has an opinion on everything under the sun. Those opinions are strong and forceful and for the sake of peace and harmony I've learned to keep my mouth shut since I have never been able to change her mind on anything. The latest brouhaha came about at a cocktail party that her company was throwing for its customers. We were at a table in the center of the room and I noticed a tall, good looking black man circulating through the crowd and greeting people. I also noticed that while he had visited every table around us he had not even glanced our way. I asked Leslie who he was and she told me that his name was Tony and he was the head of accounting. When I mentioned that he seemed to be avoiding our table she said, "That's not surprising. He knows that I don't care for him."

"Why not" I asked, "He seems to get along with everyone else here."

She glanced in his direction and said, "He is an arrogant son of a bitch and I just don't like him."

I chuckled and said, "You don't like him because he's black" and the minute I said it I knew that I'd fucked up.

"And just what do you mean by that?" she demanded.

Well, once I take Leslie on I won't back off any more than she will so I said, "You know full well what I mean. You have a prejudice against blacks, it shows when you are around them and it makes them uncomfortable so they avoid you." This was a subject that I definitely should have avoided because she immediately got her back up.

"Bull! Give me one instance when I've shown prejudice against blacks," and I began ticking them off one by one on my fingers while she kept interrupting me to "explain" why she had done this, that, and the other.

"Okay" I said, "Go ahead and get Tony and bring him over to the table. Tell him you would like him to meet your husband."

She scowled at me, "No! I don't have to prove anything to you. I am not prejudiced!"

I should have just let it go, but I didn't. There were about six or seven blacks at the party and so I said to her, "Okay, let's go over and sit with them" and I pointed at a table where two black couples were sitting. But she had an excuse why we couldn't go sit with them so I pointed at another couple that was sitting alone. She said no to that to. "Face it Leslie, you are a bigot."

Now she was mad and she practically hissed at me "No I am not!"

"Okay" I said, "Prove to me that you are not."

She asked me how she could do that and I thought for a minute and then I said, " Ask Tony to lunch. Tell him that you sense that the two of you seem to be uncomfortable around each other and you thought that maybe you could sit down and discuss it over lunch. In the interest of work place solidarity and stuff like that."

She took the dare, "Okay, I will!" I sat there watching her and waiting for her to get up and go over to him, but she didn't. Finally she said, "What are you looking at?"

I smiled and said, "Just waiting."

"For what?" she wanted to know.

"For you to go ask him."

She gave me a nasty look; "I am not going to do it tonight. I'll do it at work tomorrow. It will be more natural."

I smiled to myself and made myself a bet that it would never happen.

Next night at dinner I asked Leslie how her lunch with Tony went and she told me that she had gotten so busy that she'd not had a chance to ask him. I kept on her about it for the next two or three weeks, asking her two or three times a week about her lunch with Tony, and I always got the same answer, she was just too busy to get around to it. Finally I said, "Leslie, just admit you are prejudiced against blacks."

"I am not!"

I grinned at her and said, "You are until you prove to me that you're not."

After that I stopped getting on her about Tony and nothing more was said until her company Christmas party. When we arrived I noticed that there were empty seats at the table where Tony was sitting and I pointed to the table and said, "Let's sit there."

She shook her head and said, "No. I don't want to sit there."

I chuckled and said, "I knew you would say that."

She gave me a nasty look and hissed, "Damn you! I am not a bigot!" and then she took me by the arm and led me to a different table. I decided to shut up on the subject and just sit back and enjoy the party, but about an hour and a couple of drinks into it Leslie said, "You still think I'm prejudiced, don't you?"

I shrugged and said, "I know you are."

She looked me right in the eye and said, "What do I have to do to prove you wrong?"

This should be fun, I thought, and I began looking around the room for what I hoped would be there, and there it was, down near the end of the bar. "Tell you what," I said, "There are eight black guys here tonight. You dance with any three of them, or get one of them under the mistletoe" and I pointed to the end of the bar, "and kiss him and I'll never mention it again."

Leslie gave me a look that said as plain as any words could have; "You'll pay for this!" Three or four drinks later Leslie got up and started to circulate and she finally ended up at a table where a black couple and a single black man were sitting. A few minutes later the single man got up and escorted Leslie out onto the dance floor. The band was playing a slow waltz and Leslie moved in close to the man and over his shoulder she shot me a glance that said, "Fuck you!" When the dance was over she went back to the table with the man and sat down and had a drink with them. A few minutes later she got up with the other man and they moved out onto the dance floor. Again, it was a slow one and she moved close to the man and I saw his hand slide down to her ass. This should get interesting I thought, and I waited for her to slap him or at least pull away, but she didn't. I did see her look my way to see if I was watching, and I could tell that she was planning on teaching me a lesson, (I'll teach you to doubt me, damn you).

Back to the table with the man after the dance and another drink with them and then a white guy asked her to dance and then one or two more and then another black guy, which gave her the three I'd challenged her to. But she wasn't through putting me in my place yet. She came over to our table and said, "Come on. Were going to join them." When we got over to their table they had put five tables together and we ended up with twenty-three people sitting there, including two more black men, one of whom was Tony. More drinks and pretty soon Leslie had danced with every guy at the table except Tony. I was being social and I was dancing with the wives and girlfriends of the guys at the table, and outside of an occasional dance with Leslie I wasn't paying much attention to her anymore. She had already danced with every black man there (except Tony) thereby proving to me that she was not a bigot (even though I knew she was - all she'd done was take a dare).

I was dancing with Sylvia, the girl friend of one of the guys at the table, and she said to me, "You seem like a nice guy. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure" I said, "Go ahead."

"What's your wife trying to prove tonight?"

I looked down at her and said, "I don't know what you mean."

Sylvia said, "For three years, as long as I've been with the company, she has gone out of her way to avoid minorities. Tonight all of a sudden, she's dancing with them and has even gotten kissed under the mistletoe by a few."

That surprised me, as I hadn't seen it. "Maybe she is just trying to correct some misconceptions," I said.

"Bull shit!" she fired back. "I've been watching you watch her all night and there is something going on and I'm a curious kitten; I want to know what it is."

I probably should have ignored her question, but I'd had just enough booze in me to loosen me up and I kind of liked Sylvia so I told her. Sylvia said, "How about you? You got any prejudice in you?"

I smiled at her, "None that I am aware of."

She smiled back and said, "Prove it. Dance me over to the mistletoe and kiss me."

I took it as a dare and I waltzed her over to it and bent to give her a brief kiss on the lips, but her hands came up and held my head as she pushed the tip of her tongue in to my mouth and I slipped my tongue into hers. What was supposed to be a brief peck on the lips turned into something very, very steamy. Sylvia broke the kiss and gave me a strange look, "We'd better get back to the table," she said.

"Why? The music is still playing?"

She grinned, "I know, but doing a waltz with you while you have that lump in your pants would be difficult for me" and I suddenly became aware that I did indeed have a stiffy. I think I might have blushed because Sylvia giggled and took my hand and led me back to the group. For the next half-hour or so Sylvia sat next to me talked with me and teased me unmercifully. Finally she reached over and squeezed the lump in my pants (her teasing had kept me hard) and asked, "Have you figured it out yet?"