Swapping Secretaries

Miranda just finished lunch with Gloria in Gloria's office. The two of them sat there with their legs crossed, picking at plates they'd barely touched, talking shit like it was their hobby. Naomi stood off to the side, quiet, holding Gloria's empty coffee cup. The kind of woman who doesn't make a sound until told. "What kind of idiot would wear that to a pitch meeting?" Miranda asked, running her finger around the rim of a wineglass. "They'll never take her seriously in that skirt." Gloria smirked. "Trust you to notice the skirt. You're still bitter about that deal, aren't you?" Miranda waved her off. "At least my assistant isn't walking around the office like some fuck-me librarian trying to make a name for herself." Gloria's smile sharpened. "Naomi is docile. That's why she's still employed." They glanced over at Naomi, then went right back to it, like she wasn't even breathing the same air. Talking like she wasn't ten feet away, silent as a shadow, fingertips white around the porcelain. It didn't sting less just because she was used to it. They moved on—movie they'd both seen twice. Then hit a snag. Miranda said the main actress looked too young, too pretty, to have pulled off the ending like that. Gloria said Miranda was dead wrong, and would she like to prove it with a hundred bucks and a girl? Miranda laughed once. "Fine. Your bitch stays at my place for a night if I'm right." Gloria's eyebrow lifted. "Mine for the day if you're wrong." Naomi blinked, locked in the middle of it, heart twitching under her shirt, too spun to decide whether she hated the words or felt something filthy coil low in her gut at the thought of being claimed. She had nothing to say, so she said nothing. A pretty little belonging, already won and lost before anyone called the shot.