Winslow Industries was a weird place for a young guy to work his first job as an electrician, or at least that's what I was thinking after two weeks working there. I was twenty-two and had just finished a four-year stint in the US Airforce as an Electrical Systems Specialist.
The products Winslow Industries made weren't the weird part. They were just small carburetors used in small engines, like chain saws, weed trimmers, and some small outboard motors. The weird part was the people who worked there.
Winslow's employees were mostly women. They were a mix of women in their sixties who had made parts for WWII fighter planes, machine guns, and generators, women who were in their thirties and either divorced or trying to make the family budget match the bills, and women in their twenties who were just entering the workforce. The few male hourly employees in the plant worked the diecast shop and set up the machines in the machining department. The machining and the assembly areas were supervised and operated by mostly women.
Age wasn't the only thing that I thought was weird. Everybody wanted to fill in the "new guy", that being me, on who'd done what in the past and how they were today. The stories I heard from the other maintenance guys were about what you'd expect and I didn't believe most of them.
I found it hard to believe Sally, a white haired woman of about sixty, would fuck anything with two mostly good legs and a cock. Sally looked and acted like everybody's grandmother, though it was easy to see that in her younger years she'd probably attracted a lot of guys. She was still a pretty woman, and unlike a lot of older women, she'd kept her figure pretty well.
Rita didn't seem cold as a carp to me like Benny claimed, but then if I'd been a woman and Benny, one of the millwrights, was hitting on me, I'd have been pretty cold too. Benny took a shower about once a month and shaved almost as often. Rita was in her thirties and looked great. She wouldn't have had any problem attracting a boyfriend if she wanted one. I figured she'd just set her sights a little higher then Benny.
There were stories about the rest of the women too, at least one for each. I didn't believe most of them because the women just didn't seem to be like the guys described. The one I did believe was about Judy and Sarah. According to at least three guys, Judy and Sarah were lesbians and seemed like they probably were. Both were in their late forties or so, and neither one was married.
Judy ran a milling machine and always dressed like a man. Her jeans were cut for a man and if her ass hadn't been as wide as it was, they'd have slipped down to her knees. Her shirts were men's shirts she left unbuttoned three buttons from the neck because they were too tight to fit around her big breasts otherwise. Judy wasn't ugly by any means, but she didn't use any makeup and her hair was cut really short so she wasn't exactly feminine either.
Sarah was just the opposite. Sarah worked in assembly and always wore snug jeans and soft, clingy tops. Her breasts weren't especially big, or at least they didn't look that way. Her face was beautiful and her long blonde hair fell in golden waves over her shoulders.
Judy and Sarah always ate lunch together, and rumor had it they lived together too, although none of the guys could say for sure. The women had the same opinion of Judy and Sarah because Judy and Sarah never really tried to make friends with any of them.
Because about everything in the plant was run by electricity, I saw almost all the women at least once a month. Most of our machining equipment was pretty old, some dating back to before WWII, and electrical problems were pretty common. Insulation on old wiring gets brittle and cracks from the vibration of the machine, and sometimes a hot wire touches something it isn't supposed to touch. At best, that means a blown fuse. At worst it means ripping out the burnt wires and rewiring the machine.
The assembly area wasn't quite as bad since Winslow had recently replaced all the old pneumatic screwdrivers with electronic torque-sensing drivers. I'd have to replace a cord once in a while that had gotten frayed from rubbing over a fixture, but other than that and changing fluorescent tubes over the assembly tables, I didn't do much in assembly.
I'd been there about six months when everybody figured out I knew what I was doing and they started calling for me when they had an electrical problem. The two other electricians were OK guys, but they were more skilled in power distribution, so they took care of the plant electrical system. Once I got there, they were more than happy to give me all the machining and assembly calls.
It was then I started learning that all the rumors had some basis in fact even though they weren't totally true. That was brought home to me the day Sally's drill press stopped running. I was leaning over the table looking at the motor when somebody pinched my left ass cheek. When I turned around, Sally was standing there grinning.
"Ronny, I couldn't resist", she giggled. "Wanna pinch me back?"
I said I didn't think that would be a good idea, and Sally grinned again.
"Guys used to pinch my ass and boobs all the time. 'Course, my ass and boobs weren't as fat then."
Being as how I was new and still trying to get along with everybody, I smiled and said "Sally, you're not fat. I'd call you sensuous."
She patted my ass then.
"If you really think that, how about you come home with me when the shift's over and sensuous me until I cum."
I was still trying to be nice.
"I imagine your husband would have something to say about that."
Sally smiled.
"If he could get it up anymore, he might, but since he can't I can do what I want to do. He works second shift anyway, so he wouldn't be there. You think about it, OK? I promise you wouldn't be sorry. I've been told I'm really good."
Sally blew me a kiss then, and that pretty much blew my image of Sally standing in her kitchen baking cookies for her grandkids and replaced it with the vision of Sally lying naked on a bed and holding out her arms to me. If she hadn't had white hair that made her look as old as my own grandmother...
After I'd talked to Rita a couple of times, I concluded she wasn't cold at all. She just wasn't over her divorce yet and didn't want to get involved with another man until she figured out what had gone wrong the first time. She was still struggling with that.
"I don't know why he left me. I made dinner every night and never refused him in bed. I guess he liked what his girlfriend did in bed more than he liked my cooking and what we did together. I thought I was doing what he wanted me to do. I did draw the line at...well, that just wasn't natural, so maybe that was it."
I'd heard the story about Judy and Sarah before I met Judy, and I was a little leery about them both. I'd never met a lesbian that I knew of and didn't know what I could say to a lesbian that wouldn't piss them off. With the other women, I'd usually say something like they looked hot or that I'd bet their husband couldn't wait until they came home. It was just my way of making friends with them. They'd usually grin and say something like I was just saying that to tease them and didn't really mean it, but I could tell it made them feel good.
I didn't have to worry about saying either thing to Judy the day her milling machine stopped working because she was anything but hot. When I walked up and asked her what the problem was, she frowned.
"The darned thing just stopped in the middle of the cut and started to make this humming sound. It was working fine, and then just quit doing anything. Now, I've got a scrap piece and I'm behind my rate."
"Well, let's have a look. Maybe it isn't too bad and I can get you up and running in a few minutes."
By saying "let's", I was just talking. I didn't mean for Judy to look with me, but that's what she did. I opened the electrical panel on the side of the machine and started checking voltages with my Fluke. I'd checked the lugs on the top of the disconnect and had the right voltages there. The disconnect was still in the "ON" position, so I checked the voltage at the bottom lugs and then after the main fuses. Everything was OK, so it had to be in the motor or somewhere in the motor control circuit.
It was then I felt Judy put her hand on my back so she could lean around my left side and see inside the panel.
"Wow. There's a lot of stuff in here. How do you know where to look?"
"Well, I know what's suppose to happen, so I just check from the main switch in until I find the problem."
Judy started to point to something inside the cabinet, but I grabbed her hand before she got very close.
"You can look, Judy, but don't touch. The reason I'm wearing rubber gloves and a face shield is because the voltage is high enough to knock us both on our butts if you touched something."
