Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 01

Seven retreated, and allowed Thirteen the out. She laughed again, and said, "Yeah, that's pretty much it. You're not, technically, supposed to abuse the mailgirls like that."

"Technically?"

"I mean, it's frowned upon. Frowned upon sternly? But, from what I've seen -- on both sides of the locker room -- it's not enforced as strictly as the 'no touching' rule. Touch a girl? Grab at her? Do anything overtly sexual? The hammer falls. But, call her a slut? A whore? Things like that? Rag on her body? Get used to that, because you're going to be getting a lot of it."

"That's...unpleasant."

"You've got to let it roll off of you. Or, you know, lean into it. Just accept it for what it is. You're shoving your naked breasts in people's faces. You're waving your hoo-ha around out in the open. You get the 'slut' thrown at you? I don't know. It's not as if there's nothing to that..."

"I'm not a slut," Thirteen defended herself.

"No, no. No, I'm sorry. That's not what I..."

"I'm not a slut," Thirteen insisted.

"No, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I'm not accusing you of anything. All I mean is that, from their point of view, knowing only that you volunteered for this, without knowing any of what got you in to this, they're going to think it. And they're going to say it. So, assholes like Master Hooper? They're going to be assholes. There's not much more to it. There's not a lot of we can do about it, as mailgirls."

"I guess..."

"Speaking of assholes..." Seven giggled. She was asking about the bleach.

Thirteen couldn't help herself. She laughed. She squeezed Seven's hand. "Honestly? The sweat dripping down my crack kind of helps. It's not burning quite so much."

Seven laughed, too. They were having a moment. A weird moment, to be sure. But there was a connection there, and Thirteen appreciated Seven for taking her under her wing.

"Thank you, by the way," Thirteen said. "For this morning. Just knowing what was to come."

"Don't thank me yet," Seven replied. "That cost me two demerits. Between that, and the -- fuck! -- seven demerits we just picked up, we're on the wrong side of twenty-five. You and me, that is, given that we're synched up."

Thirteen exhaled. "It's fine. It's okay. I took your advice. First one to bench!"

Seven leaned back, and glanced down at Thirteen's backside.

"She did a number on you, huh? Don't worry about those welts. She knows what she's doing. Those are going to be gone by tomorrow morning."

"Great," Thirteen sighed. "Just in time for another round."

"I've got to say, the paddle's my choice. When she does it with her bare hand...it's just...icky. And...intimate. And the paddle gives your ass that nice, healthy red glow."

"Ha! Yeah, no. I haven't sat down since this morning. I'm not entirely looking forward to cab ride home."

"Subway," Seven coached her. "And don't let anyone give up their seat for you!"

Thirteen laughed again. As she did so, she felt a pang in her bladder.

"Do you think...how do we go about...I kind of need to use the bathroom, if that's possible?"

"Already?" Seven asked. She didn't mean it in any sort of judgmental way, but Thirteen felt judged all the same. She might have said, "You need to use the potty? Can't you hold it like a big girl?"

Thirteen cringed, and shrugged. "I've got a small bladder. Nerves."

"Okay," Seven said. "Let's pick our moment, though. Let's find the right chaperone. But you've got to figure that out, and figure it out quick. Half the girls downstairs have had an accident at least once. Usually in their first week. Either because they were too scared to ask, or they waited too long and there wasn't anyone around."

"Ugh," Thirteen said, recoiling from the thought. Of all the indignities she'd suffered today, that one was one too far. It was simply beyond humiliating.

Thirteen felt her smartphone buzz, and she immediately wondered what she'd done wrong. How had she earned another demerit just sitting here with Seven? Were there cameras looking down on her? Was Mistress Zero upset at her for holding Seven's hand?

But, no. The smartphone was signaling a pick-up, and so Thirteen and Seven -- grateful for their few moments of rest -- headed back to the stairs, and jogged up to the 26th Floor.

"Pick-up" turned out to be an electronic message, one that the sender had to lean in and transfer over to Seven by "bumping" his phone against hers. Thirteen wondered about the utility of such a system; certainly, a simple email, sent from one computer to another, would have made more sense. But she recalled that some of the earliest mailgirl programs had adopted the concept for this very thing. An email was easy to overlook or ignore. Doing so was considerably harder when it was delivered by a beautiful girl, naked from head to toe.

The sender was a youngish gentleman whom Seven called, "Mr. Wertz," despite the fact that Seven likely had a year or two on him. He made no effort to conceal the fact that he was looking at their breasts, and even went so far as to comment upon the fact that both girls' nipples were hard.

"It must be cold in here..." he offered. The big, shit-eating grin plastered across his face told them exactly what he was insinuating.

The restriction against eye contact, in the case of Mr. Wertz, was moot. Thirteen couldn't have looked him in the eye, even if she'd wanted to. Wertz was simply too focused on her chest. His concentration didn't even break when he had to lean in and bump his phone against Seven's, and he lingered just a little too long a little too closely for Thirteen's comfort.

"Yeah," Seven said, as they exited Wertz's office. "Not him."

As if to drive home just how ridiculous ferrying an electronic message from one person to another really was, the recipient of Wertz's communication was literally next door.

"Fucking Wertz," Nick Pagliaro said when Seven and Thirteen appeared in his doorway. He leaned back in his chair, banged the wall, and shouted, "Cut this shit out!"

To Seven and Thirteen, he looked sheepish and apologetic. "He did this last time, too. When we had new mailgirls. Called them one by one."

"Yes, sir," Seven said. "This mailgirl remembers."

Pagliaro did a double-take, and placed Seven. "Right. Last week, right?"

"Yes, sir," Seven answered.

"Sorry," he apologized. "He's a power user."

"Sir, you're not supposed to apologize to a mailgirl."

Pagliaro seemed exhausted by the whole thing. "Sure," he said, resignedly. "Right."

He leaned in, quickly tapped his phone against Seven's quickly, and pulled back right away. He took a glance at the phone, sighed, and held it up to Seven and Thirteen could both read the screen.

"Check out the new mailgirl!!!" Wertz had written.

"I'm still not allowed to say I'm sorry?" Pagliaro asked flatly.

"You're supposed to issue me a demerit if I don't correct you," Seven answered. The tone in her voice, however, suggested that she recognized Pagliaro would find this as ridiculous as Seven did, herself.

Pagliaro rolled his eyes.

But Seven saw her opening. He couldn't apologize, but there was something else he could do.

"Sir? May these mailgirls have permission to use the bathroom?"

An annoyed look flashed across Pagliaro's face, but it was only partly in their direction. It wasn't so much that they were asking to use the bathroom. The restrooms, as it turned out, were diagonally across the corridor. No, Pagliaro was further annoyed with Wertz, for putting him in this position in the first place. He seemed sympathetic to the girls' need, as if he understood that they weren't doing this to him, so much as this was being done them.

"Alright," he sighed. "Let me log you both out, and I'll take you."

He was about their age. Well, Seven's, at least. Good-looking, well-dressed, professional. No, he wasn't just good-looking - Nick Pagliaro was gorgeous. Brown hair that was a little bit floppy, strong jawline with a five o'clock shadow. Tall. Muscular build. Thirteen's imagination ran away from her the moment he approached, in a way that it hadn't when in the presence of Wertz or Hooper or Craig Nagle or Alan Bagby or Chad Ostermueller or any of the other men she'd interacted with that day. Maybe only Will Barrow himself had left such an impression. This - this person - was someone she could see herself with.

Her heart fluttered. Her pussy throbbed.

Pagliaro punched his employee ID into Seven's smartphone, registered the start of the bathroom break, and then leaned in -- close -- to Thirteen to do the same. Thirteen held her breath. However, as it turned out, this was an unnecessary step on Pagliaro's part. He looked confused when he went to go repeat the act on Thirteen's arm.

"We're synched," Seven explained, shrugging. Even their bathroom breaks were synched.

Pagliaro led the two girls across the hall, poked his head into the men's room to announce himself, and beckoned them in behind. For the second time today, Thirteen was in the bathroom of the opposite gender. She hadn't yet used a ladies' room here at the Plaza.

Thirteen would have preferred their chaperone have been a woman. Bathroom breaks were supposed to be heavily monitored. Stall doors were to be left open, and chaperones were directed watch. Mailgirls weren't allowed even a few quick moments of privacy to pee. Thirteen was already dreading having to pee in front of this Adonis.

But there'd been a reason Seven hadn't waited to ask a woman, just as there'd been a reason she hadn't asked Wertz. There was a kindness to Nick Pagliaro that she'd sensed. Thirteen sensed it, too. Just based on the limited interaction the two girls had had with him now, Pagliaro had made clear he wasn't entirely on board with the more contemptible aspects of USF's mailgirl program. He'd felt bad for them, in the way Wertz had just used them, and rolled his eyes when Seven had explained she wasn't allowed to let him apologize to them for Wertz's behavior. Similarly, he didn't follow the rules once they entered the men's room. Instead of watching them relieve themselves, he took up position by the door, and gestured past the urinals to pair of stalls beyond. He'd give them this.

Seven took the first stall, and had begun to sit down without daring to close the door, however. Thirteen took the handicapped stall, and left her door open, as well. Pagliaro couldn't see in, but Seven had -- apparently -- decided not to tempt fate, and risk being caught with a closed stall door.

Just as Thirteen was about to pee, though, Pagliaro cleared his throat and started talking. What was it with the men at USF? First Ostermueller, now Pagliaro. Couldn't Thirteen simply pee in peace?

"Can you pass a message for me?" the man asked. "To Amanda Dobson? Mailgirl Number Three? I don't know if she's checking her cell phone. I don't know what the rules are, in terms of talking to me, of talking to employees outside of the program. Beyond all the pidgin stuff. I know they shut off her email."

"Sure," Seven agreed.

"It's Rachel," Pagliaro went on. "My girlfriend. She's still pissed at me. She wants me to quit. She doesn't understood why I haven't yet."

"She wants you to quit?" Seven asked over the partition. "Why?"

"Because of you all. She's not, like, a super militant feminist or anything. She's not part of the camp outside. But she's pissed at me, for even working here. Like I have something to do with it."

"For cashing USF's checks?"

"Something like that," Pagliaro sighed.

Thirteen still hadn't peed. She was having performance anxiety, with Pagliaro listening. She found herself disappointed to learn that he had a girlfriend, as if there'd been some chance of anything actually happening between them. Relationships between mailgirls and regular employees were strictly, strictly forbidden -- even after hours, even away from the Plaza. But Thirteen could still fantasize, and "Rachel" had thrown a wrench into her daydream.

"If Amanda could talk to her, maybe? If she could explain? Maybe Rachel would listen. You know, that the money was just too good to pass up. Or that...I don't know...that this was something Amanda really wanted to do. Maybe, like, that she'd always wanted to do something like this? It might...land better."

Seven didn't bother correcting Pagliaro for using Mailgirl Number Three's real name. She let it slide. Thirteen wondered if her mentor was testing her. Was Thirteen supposed to jump in here?

"I'll tell her," Seven assured him. "But, you know that you could call her up, right? You can put in a request for a specific mailgirl, if you've got a few chits. You could talk to her yourself?"

"No," Pagliaro answered. "I can't. It's too...awkward. She came around this morning, with headlines from our boss. From her old boss, that is. He makes her do it every morning, and...it's just not really possible to talk to her. I tried, last week. But she's too much in character, so it's the 'yes, sir' and 'yes, Mr. Pagliaro' stuff."

Seven flushed, and padded out towards the sinks. As the water began to run, with Seven washing her hands, Thirteen's bladder finally cooperated, and she was able to go.

"I'm sure it's weird for her," Seven assured Pagliaro, echoing the conversation she and Thirteen had shared earlier. "It's easier sometimes to just play the part. For her to just divorce herself from whatever relationship you guys had before."

"I guess."

"A lot of girls just aren't coming back. They're just going to ride out their contracts and split. It's too uncomfortable, the thought of maintaining anything with their former colleagues."

"There's a rumor," Pagliaro began cautiously, "that Amanda was promised a Portfolio Manager's job. Some of the analysts are already pissed, if that's true. Maybe I will be, too, if that's how this plays out. Like -- and I'm not saying what the company is having you all do is easy -- it's a shortcut. Like -- and I'm not saying that this is what's actually happening -- she's throwing sex around to get to the top."

"She's not sleeping with anyone," Seven interrupted. "That's not what this is."

"No, no," Pagliaro caught himself. "Sorry. Sorry! That's not what I meant. Just...she made it sound like she was coming back, is all. That's all I was saying."

Thirteen wrapped up, and joined the pair by the sinks.

"I'll let her know," Seven promised him. "She's got your phone number? She could call you after hours?"

"She does."

To Fourteen, the two girls were supposed to express Craig Nagle's guilt and condolences. To Three, they were inform her Pagliaro needed to talk, that he was hoping for a favor out of her. They were delivering messages amongst the mailgirls themselves, above and beyond their normal message-carrying responsibilities for the rest of the building.

"Sorry for this," Seven apologized to Pagliaro. Cupping water from the sink in her hand, she splashed some under one arm, and then the other. "I just don't want to fail an inspection."

"It's...it's fine," Pagliaro responded uncomfortably, and looked away.

Seven used this as an opportunity to make eye contact with Thirteen, signaling that Thirteen should do the same.

Thirteen followed suit. She washed her hands, and then her pits, quickly. Seven took it a step further, doing the same between her legs. And then, without hesitation, at the top of her ass crack, as well. The cool water felt undeniably refreshing on the heat of Thirteen's sex. And, embarrassed though she was -- Pagliaro couldn't help but watch, even out of the corner of his eye -- she did the same between her buttocks. She even went so far as to quickly rinse her asshole, wishing she had more time and more privacy better attend to her still-burning bum.

"Thank you," Thirteen said, after washing and drying her hands. She meant it, too. Pagliaro had been kind to them, in a day otherwise defined by cruelties and humiliations. It was a simple thing, just letting them use the bathroom without actually watching. But it was a kindness all the same.

"Of course," Pagliaro shrugged. He couldn't help himself, though -- his eyes wandered, and ran up and down her body. Casually. Unthinking.

Thirteen hoped he liked what he saw.

They were still in the men's room when Pagliaro re-entered his employee ID into the phone on Seven's arm, registering that their bathroom break was over. And, immediately, both of their smartphones sprung to life, calling them up to the 34th Floor. They said their goodbyes. They both thanked Pagliaro again. And then they were off.

"Men," Seven said, as they began climbing the stairs.

"What?"

"Men," she repeated. "Women are the goddamned worst. They'll watch you use the bathroom every time. The younger ones, especially, for fear that they might be called down to Human Capital to explain themselves. And they're all such bitches about it, too. They're going to treat you worse than the men will. You'll see."

It didn't taken long for Seven to be proven correct. Their next pick-up was an interoffice envelope, to be ferried between the 34th Floor and the 32nd, and given to them be a chubby, bespectacled woman in her fifties. She was having a bad day, apparently. Or, she was angry at her whole life, in general, and saw an opportunity to take it out on the two young, attractive mailgirls who showed up at her cubicle in their birthday suits.

"Look at you two," she said, disgusted. "Sluts. How can you look at yourselves in the mirror?"

If she were so put off by them, Thirteen wondered, why had she scheduled called them in the first place?

"I bet they keep you busy upstairs," she went on. "How many dicks do you suck a day?"

"Ma'am," Seven replied, "a mailgirl is prohibited from any sexual activity with a superior."

"Sure you are," the woman sneered. "But those rules don't apply to executives, do they? I'm sure they're passing you little tarts around up there. I'm surprised you can even walk around to do your job afterwards."

Seven chose not to reply. Instead, she said only, "We're here for a pick-up, ma'am?"

It wasn't, Thirteen supposed, an entirely unreasonable assumption on the woman's part. Given their state of dress, given the things they allowed themselves to be subjected to. No matter how many program directors swore up and down that their company's mailgirls were not prostitutes, that they weren't to be touched or fondled or fucked, most people still assumed mailgirls were servicing someone there. It was just that maybe such things were restricted, based on job title or salary grade. There were some companies, in fact, at which "providing relief" was part and parcel with a mailgirl's more standard duties. So many, in fact, that the term had become part of the parlance of the times. From Thirteen's research, these were one-offs. They were smaller companies, able to fly more under the radar, able to get away with things that companies like DDE or FinderSpyder or US Financial could never dream of.

What concerned Thirteen most, though, were the number of companies who'd started out on the straight-and-narrow (relatively speaking), only to succumb to will of the masses and turn their girls into full-on and full-out whores. Or the number of times she'd seen a company champion the "look-but-don't-touch" policy publicly, but look away when reports of abuses and violations began to pile up. Audrey had been of the opinion that even USF would likely go this route, eventually. Thirteen had to put her faith in Gillian's relationship with Barrow, and Barrow's reassurances that such a thing wouldn't occur on his watch. She wondered how much sway he actually held over Executive Management, however, and hoped -- if that descent were as inevitable at Audrey believed it to be -- that it'd happen after her thirteen weeks were up, and she was safely back in New Haven.