/* After far too long an interval here is the penultimate segment of this story. As noted before you need to have read (and remember) at least part one (published nearly !five! years ago) for this to make any sense at all. With one week to go before the big race.... */
Chapter Twenty
Friday began with Megan at the MARC station waiting to pick up Maria. She was getting tired of providing a taxi service for mailgirls, but then that led to guilty feelings of not wanting to help fellow mailgirls, but how much was too much and then finally she spotted the tall brunette striding towards her little hatchback.
"You know if you weren't here waiting for me I'd just call an Uber and go right back to college. I know that I said brave words about finishing what I started, but really."
"And I was feeling aggrieved about having to pick you up. Just today and next week and then if you tell me after the race that you're not coming back I might feel good about that. The only thing that stops me from cheering you on is the fear of what Ms Barnes would mete out to the other twenty-three who can't afford to walk away. We are a pair.
"We're going to run an 8k time trial tomorrow to let you experience a race situation instead of the endless training. I've recruited some of the women from the Roadrunners Club to provide some competition. It won't be the same as racing against hundreds of others, but lack of race experience is our weakness. Today is Fifteen's last day, tomorrow she'll run as Amanda Peterson. Also the new Mailgirl Thirteen will run tomorrow, she was a high school track star."
Megan had a productive day and she firmly put away all thoughts of mailgirls - well, she did notice that Fifteen was on punishment detail, on her last day, even - until Jeremy called late in the afternoon.
"Megan, there's been a change to the schedule of the Corporate Challenge."
"They haven't changed the date have they?"
"No. Due to the unprecedented number of entries we'll be running two races. The men go off at 8:30 a.m. next Sunday followed by the women at ten. Just about every firm and entity that has fielded a team some time in the past will be here next week, plus nearly as many first time entries. Also, the teams from some of the larger firms and agencies will be huge. The inclusion of mailgirls stirred up a lot of interest. We're making plans to have off-site parking at the industrial park down the road with shuttles to bring the runners here. It's a little crazy."
"How much of this is due to mailgirls and how much to the likelihood of camera crews? Well, we can credit mailgirls for bringing those in as well. A separate women's race should cut down on the amount of mid-race molestation we can expect. I was wondering how many men would be tempted to cop a feel as they catch up to a naked woman. I do expect most of our mailgirls to be faster than a substantial number of the men, especially those lured out to run by the promise of female nudity."
"Abercrombie, the Chief of Security, was pleased to hear about the split. He was worried about protecting the girls in the mob. This will make his folks' job easier. We'll have County and Park Police doing traffic and crowd control along the paths and road through the park. It will cost everyone a few more hours of overtime."
"Well, it's certainly driving up name recognition for SG&T, but do we really want to flaunt our reputation as the bank with naked women?"
"That question is above our pay grade. I haven't heard any rumblings from the fifth floor or the Board, so it would seem they still believe that mailgirls are a positive investment."
Megan met Amanda - previously known as Mailgirl Fifteen -- in the lobby shortly after 6 p.m. The stocky blonde was standing by the rail overlooking the stairway down the the lower ground floor and the glass walls of the Mailgirl Locker Room. She had a suitcase beside her and a garment bag draped over the railing.
"How does it feel and how did you manage to earn your way into Punishment Detail today?"
"It's surreal. Even after that week at MIT, I'm not sure that I really believe it - standing here looking down at them" gesturing to the several naked women visible through the glass walls. "As for my final 'six of the best' that was inevitable after my send-off last night. Being teased to orgasm for multiple hours with no way to escape leaves you exhausted in the morning after. I'm sure you remember."
"I do, which is why the ritual is usually practiced Friday or Saturday night, but with you jetting off last week..."
"I never made a single delivery on time this morning and never spent more than thirty seconds on a mat between runs. I'm sure that was not a coincidence."
"Well, let's get you out of here and look forward to a relaxing evening and a good night's sleep before tomorrow's run. Then you'll have a week to rest up before the race. We need to stop at a running store on the way to my condo to pick up shoes for Thirteen. And if you don't have running clothes in your suitcase, something for you to wear unless you plan to go with your mailgirl persona tomorrow."
Amanda settled into Megan's spare room after a pleasant dinner together. She emerged to join her hostess in front of the television to watch Fox 5's Special Report. It was being aired in two parts straddling the ten o'clock newscast.
The broadcast opened with an artful shot of the pack of mailgirls starting off in the time trial, shown from behind thus avoiding full frontal nudity on the airwaves. Tiffany Ambergris, thin, blonde, improbably busty - 'perfect mailgirl material' Amanda commented - began, "Next Sunday we will see the collision of two worlds. The Corporate Challenge is a little known local competition between joggers representing various local companies and agencies. It has never gotten any notice in the media and most of the employees in the companies that field teams have never heard of it. This year, however, is different as Sloan Guaranty and Trust, notorious for employing naked women as in-house messengers known as mailgirls will be represented by some of those naked women in the race. These are their entries" - the screen switched to a grid of headshots - "known only as Two, Three, Four, Five, Twelve, Fourteen, Fifteen, Twenty-two, and Twenty-three.
Megan and Amanda both gasped upon seeing their faces on the screen. "Those are cropped from our ID photos, how did they get those? And Sarah?"
"To take part in this race these women venture out of the SG&T building onto a course that runs from the bank passing through the nearby county park." The background now showed the start of that time trial in August, segued to a shot of the line of women running along the park road, and then Mailgirl Four striding into the finish to the cheers of the crowd of spectators. The clip ended as Megan and Fourteen approached the finish. The video had been artistically blurred to obscure the appropriate parts of the nude women's bodies. "SG&T is hosting this year's race and is responsible for laying out the course. We asked both the County and the Parks Commission about this and received only a written reply that the proper permit had been issued for the event on 12 October.
"We interviewed the leader of SG&T's women's team just before this run" and once again they aired Tiffany's brief interview with Megan. "SG&T has declined to make Ms Brooks available for a follow-up interview. Further investigation turned up a Megan Brooks listed in the results of some local races over the past few months including last weekend when she was representing the Montgomery County Road Runners. We have been unable to confirm that this is the Megan Brooks working with the nude mailgirls at SG&T."
The rest of the first half hour included interviews with representatives of multiple local running groups answering questions about their reaction to the inclusion of nude women into the upcoming race as well as community activists. The one overriding response was that there was much more interest in participating in the Corporate Challenge. Jeremy
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