Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 01

Maybe it explained why Mrs. Lowrie had just called Thirteen a whore, and maybe it was why -- beyond the more immediate and obvious reasons -- she seemed so disgusted with Thirteen and Thirteen's choices. Thirteen's willingness to sign a contract and run naked through the Plaza was a direct affront to Mrs. Lowrie and the fight she'd put up to keep that very thing from occurring at USF. By agreeing to the terms set out and by being so "eager" to prostitute herself out as a mailgirl, she'd undercut Mrs. Lowrie's attempts to keep USF from subjugating and sexualizing its female employees.

Explained, but didn't excuse. Thirteen wasn't an activist. She wasn't one of Grace Burgmeier's Actioneers. She wasn't one of the outraged Whitestocking girls camped out in front of the Plaza. The fight wasn't hers. And while, yes, it was fair to question Thirteen's decision-making and the choices that had led her to this point, it didn't give Mrs. Lowrie the right to call her a slut and belittle her so. Thirteen wasn't even a true mailgirl -- not really. She was an outside party, neutral and non-judgmental, interested in mailgirls and the culture around them in the abstract, from an academic standpoint.

And so, in that moment, Thirteen hated Mrs. Lowrie for making her feel so small. Wasn't it enough that she was blindfolded, collared, and on her knees? Wasn't it enough that she'd already been humiliated and "put in her place"? She had to talk like an idiot in the third person, and was forced to call herself "stupid" and "lazy" for things entirely out of her control. Did Mrs. Lowrie really need to pile on?

She hated Barrow, too. She felt the bile build inside of her. She was a slut in his eyes, hot-to-trot and champing at the bit to take off her clothes that morning. He'd basically accused her of being a closeted exhibitionist and an unknowing submissive, suggesting that the collar was going to turn her on. It was Barrow who was responsible for all this, Barrow who'd made himself the face of the mailgirls initiative at USF, Barrow who'd written the policies and recruited the girls. He'd kept her in her panties just to fuck with her, and then kept her panties to hang in the hall and fuck with her all the more. He'd rifled through her purse to get a rise out of her. He'd tsk-tsked the fact that she'd taken it upon herself to get waxed, rather than waiting to shave in front of an audience in the locker room.

And then, Gillian. The antipathy she felt for Gillian was nothing new; she'd resented her, on-and-off, for months. This was Gillian's doing. Gillian Schang, the single foremost academic authority on modern Feminism - from a sociocultural anthropology standpoint, at least -- had sold her out and sold her off to a New York megabank. It had been Thirteen who'd brought the mailgirl topic to her professor, but Gillian had wrested control of the research's direction and dismissed Thirteen's proposed methodology as timid and humdrum. Thirteen's initial unwillingness to become a mailgirl herself had led to Gillian attempting to steal the whole thing out from under her, going so far as to threaten to hand it off to Deepa Chaudhri or Liz Smith, and hand off Thirteen to another professor in the department. Thirteen hadn't so much volunteered for field study among the mailgirls as she'd been strong-armed into it, press-ganged into naked servitude by the woman she looked up to as a mentor and advisor.

But she hated herself most of all. She could finger Gillian, or Barrow, or the world at-large for doing this to her -- but the truth of it was that Thirteen bore her share of responsibility for ending up in this situation. It was Thirteen who'd been weirdly fascinated with that clickbait article oh so long ago. It was Thirteen who'd decided that the mailgirl phenomenon fell neatly into her little sliver of academia. It was Thirteen who'd first proposed studying the social and cultural anthropology elements of mailgirls, and it was Thirteen who'd volunteered -- however reluctantly -- to conduct field research among them. Thirteen had signed the contract Barrow offered her. Thirteen had surrendered her clothes, her name, and her dignity. She was as culpable for her current situation as anyone. More so. Whatever horrors and humiliations awaited her, she'd done this to herself.

She was mortified and terrified. She was nervous about what was to come. She was ashamed of herself, ashamed of her choices, ashamed at how she'd sold out her self-respect and her self-worth in pursuit of making a name for herself. She's submitted to Barrow. She'd surrendered her clothes. She'd put her body on display -- tits and ass and everything between her legs. She felt degraded and disgraced, and hated herself for the lead role that she'd played in getting here.

...and yet...

And yet the butterflies in Thirteen's stomach weren't all just fear and nerves. There was excitement there, too. And not just the sort of excitement one would feel at the outset of any new experience or new adventure. If she had felt betrayed by Gillian, she felt betrayed by her own body doubly so. She could look away if she wanted to. Shou could pretend that this morning wasn't affecting her on some deep, base, sexual level, that she wasn't turned on by the anticipation of what was to come next. But her nipples were at-attention, and she knew - without touching herself to confirm -- that she was wet. As much as Barrow had been teasing her and Gillian both about certain "predilections" when introducing her to her new collar, there was something powerful and primitive and primal in the way it made her feel. She was an animal -- a sexual animal -- and her current state of dress kept her from hiding from that fact.

"A mailgirl is prohibited from pleasuring herself outside of the locker room," read the line in USF's handbook. Thirteen had scoffed at the restriction the first time she'd read it, laughing out loud at the need for such a thing to be spelled out in black and white. Not only did it suggest that the mailgirls were all wanton tramps who'd be otherwise incapable of diddling themselves whenever and wherever they were given the opportunity, the permission to do so on the 2nd Floor suggested that USF was incapable of stopping them altogether and granting them a window of opportunity to "slut it up" while off the clock. Thirteen had thought the idea ridiculous, just as she'd thought it ridiculous that day back at Pepperdine when Valerie Plympton had pointed out how common public masturbation was among Japan's mailgirl population.

She hadn't understood.

She hadn't felt it, herself.

She hadn't walked in these girls (entirely metaphorical) shoes.

She felt it now, though.

Thirteen would have been lying if she had tried to suggest there hadn't been something there, undressing in front of Barrow. As academic as all this was, as routine and mundane as all this must have been to Barrow, Thirteen had wanted him to want her. She'd wanted him to find her attractive. She'd wanted him to be turned on as she slipped out of her clothes. She'd wanted to please him, to get him hard, to make him happy. And the more that Thirteen had reduced herself to a sexual object, the more she'd wanted she'd wanted to be that sexual object. He'd called her a goddess. He'd told her she belonged naked in the pages of a men's magazine. That sort of affirmation had acted as something of a feedback loop, emboldening her at the outset of her grand, nude adventure.

Along the way, Barrow had corrected her posture, criticized her for not better taking direction, questioned her intelligence, and forced Thirteen herself to whine about how "stupid" she was. None of that should have turned her on. None of that should have affected her as much as it had. Getting wet while being belittled and humiliated? There had to be something wrong with her. He'd made her small. He'd "put her in her place." Why had she reacted as she had? Why did that serve only to charge her up that much more?

The mailgirls of the Blackstocking movement - the former mailgirls who'd gone in one side and come out the other -- often spoke of intense self-discovery and a radical sort of honesty with oneself. She had been a mailgirl for less than hour, and she was already scared about what she was learning about Sarah Jane Scott, about Mailgirl Number Thirteen.

***

It was an eternity before another mailgirl was sent for Thirteen.

Alone in the dark, Thirteen waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. Thirteen was sure Mrs. Lowrie would have more for her, that she'd whisper nasty comments and condescension in her direction. But, after her initial salvo, Mrs. Lowrie had simply ignored her, and pretended she wasn't there. Thirteen could hear her working -- typing away, answering phone calls, shuffling papers. She could feel her presence, looming over her a few feet away. The secretary left her desk a few times, to fetch something from the printer or to use the bathroom, and Thirteen used those moments to stretch and to shift. Her knees didn't hurt as much as she'd expected them to, but her muscles began to cramp up every so often, and Thirteen simply couldn't hold the "arched back, chest out" posture the entire time. She knew she was probably slouching, and she knew she wasn't doing "Knees" with the exact precision she was supposed to, but Mrs. Lowrie offered no further corrections.

There were no more "Yowzas" or "Wows" from the Human Capital staff; they, too, mostly ignored the naked girl kneeling outside their boss's office. This sort of thing had probably become normal to the Alan Bagbys and the Chad Ostermuellers charged with tracking and monitoring the girls. What was Thirteen to them but just another naked ass in their face? Thirteen had mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, she wanted to be left alone and to be paid no mind, escaping their objectification and their remarks. On the other, a part of her wanted to be acknowledged -- this may have been routine to them, but it was a big deal to her, and she wanted her sacrifice to be appreciated. She wanted them to want her. She wanted the reassurances that they found her attractive.

She heard the other mailgirl arrive behind her, padding quickly down the hallway. The girl's bare feet sounded different against the carpet than the rest of the staff's shoes. Her pace was quicker, and carried less obvious weight. And, though she wasn't running, she was breathing heavily, the rapid inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale signified she might have been before arriving in Human Capital. Or, perhaps, that she'd just climbed some number of stairs to get here.

"Yes?" Mrs. Lowrie asked, when the footfalls came to a stop at her desk.

"Pick-up, Mrs. Lowrie," the mailgirl explained. "Mistress Zero sent me for Mailgirl Number Thirteen. And her things."

"Finally," Mrs. Lowrie sighed.

The girl hesitated, as if searching for the right response, and offered, finally, "This mailgirl apologizes it took so long."

Mrs. Lowrie groaned. "Save it," she warned the girl. "Like you had any say in it."

"Yes, Mrs. Lowrie. Thank you, Mrs. Lowrie."

Thirteen could practically hear the secretary's eyes rolling. They both, clearly, hated this drill. But the mailgirl faithfully executed her end of the exchange, standing outside the door of the Director of Human Capital.

"Take her," Mrs. Lowrie instructed. "Her clothes, her purse, her shoes -- they're on Mr. Barrow's desk."

"Yes, ma'am."

The door opened, and the mailgirl retrieved Thirteen's things before returning to Thirteen. Without bothering to loosen the knot at the back of Thirteen's head, she tugged it up and off, and Thirteen could see again.

"Come on," the mailgirl told her. "Up. Let's get you down to the locker room."

"Yes, ma'am," Thirteen croaked. Her mouth was dry. She got to her feet slowly, sorely, steadying herself with a hand against the wall.

"Nuh-uh," came the response. "No ma'ams. No misses. None of that between us girls."

Thirteen apologized. "Sorry."

"It's alright. Now, let's go. I've got a deadline."

Thirteen turned and blinked. Her eyes readjusted to the light. Before her was another naked girl, the very same girl she'd witnessed Mistress Zero inspecting that morning when she and Gillian had first arrived.

Mailgirl Number Seven was a mystery to Mailgirl Number Thirteen. She had files on all the others. She knew their real names. She knew what they'd been doing prior, for their "real" jobs. The profile Barrow had sent over on Mailgirl Number Seven -- which had included pictures, both clothed and unclothed -- had her as a brunette. A little taller than this girl. A little thinner. A little more endowed in the chest. Roughly the same age, but that didn't say all that much. All of USF's mailgirls were clustered around thirty years old -- some a little younger, some a little older. But this wasn't Jennfier Beckett from Consumer Products.

This Mailgirl Number Seven hadn't been the most attractive girl in that morning's line-up. That honor probably belonged, rightfully, to Mailgirl Number One. Or Mailgirl Number Three. Or Mailgirl Number Eleven, if you were into that sort of cosmopolitan/exotic sort of biracial look that defied easy categorization. But this Mailgirl Number Seven was by no means unattractive; she belonged on that roster as much as any of them, and her body immediately made Thirteen self-conscious about her own.

Seven was of average height and possessed a thin -- almost too thin -- spritely build. Thirteen may or may not have had a cup size on her, but Seven was smaller about the hips and tighter from behind. She was blonde, like Thirteen, with her hair done up in a bun. She had a sharp chin and a prominent nose. She had a big, wide, welcoming smile, and a brightness in her eyes that spoke to the smile's sincerity. She was adorned with - as Thirteen was - a thick metal collar and her mailroom number scrawled across her right hip. But she also wore a black lycra armband around her left bicep, holding her company-assigned smartphone in place, the last remaining elements of the standard mailgirl uniform which Thirteen hadn't yet been issued. Even dressed as she was, even mewing pathetically in front of Mrs. Lowrie, there was an intelligence and a warmth to this girl that USF hadn't yet been able to strip from her.

Once again, Thirteen thought that there was something familiar about her. Thirteen hadn't seen her before; her pictures hadn't been included in the file dump Gillian and Thirteen had been provided. But Thirteen recognized her, or was half-remembering someone who looked like her. A minor celebrity, maybe. An actress in a commercial. A local newscaster. Thirteen could picture Mailgirl Number Seven, wearing a nice, form-fitting dress, delivering the weather report or reading out last night's scores from around Major League Baseball.

Nodding once to confirm she understood, Thirteen followed Seven back up the hall through Human Capital, past the offices of Barrow's analysts and technicians, and out into the "Hall of Panties." That there were two Number Sevens, displaying a red lace tanga in one and a pair of skin-tone bikini panties in the other, signified that this Number Seven had replaced the previous Number Seven sometime within the last few weeks. Thirteen wondered just how long her escort had been a mailgirl, but that was a conversation for another time. Instead, she kept fixed on the girl's bare back, between her shoulders, and hustled along behind her as they made their way back to 18th Floor proper.

They weren't running full-out, but Seven was still jogging at a good pace, and they breezed past occupied cubicles on either side without attracting much attention. At one point, as they crossed through the reception area, they were greeted by the smiles and the appreciative eyes of two men in suits engaged in a conversation with the receptionist. Neither said anything, but they both tracked her naked body as she passed, drinking it in as her breasts bounced this way and that out in the open.

Around another corner, down another hall, and into some sort of service corridor. Women's room. Men's room. Server room. Janitor's closet. They stopped, momentarily, at the service elevator, and Seven impatiently jabbed at the "down" button a handful of times. A beat or two passed. Seven groaned audibly, glanced at the timer on her smartphone that was ticking ever towards zero, and then looked up at Thirteen.

"Let's do the stairs," she said apologetically. Without waiting for a response, without letting Thirteen have any say in the matter, she crossed the corridor, pushed open the door to the stairwell, and began to descend all the way to the 2nd Floor.

Elevators, for the most part, were a strict "no-no" for mailgirls worldwide. Though it seemed like an unnecessary and arbitrary cruelty to inflict upon the girls, it was a cruelty that was near-universal throughout Asia, Europe, and now in North America. There were exceptions, of course, and allowances were made for factors like carrying a heavy package or delivering a message when speed was an absolute necessity. Mailgirls made their livings on the stairs, though -- up and down, down and up, day-in and day-out -- and it sculpted girls already gifted in figure to a divine degree.

At US Financial Plaza in downtown Manhattan, such restrictions were simply unworkable. The Plaza rose forty-eight stories into the sky, and there were six more levels below ground. Not only would a climb from the mailroom on B2 to the Executive Offices on the 47th and 48th Floors have been impractical, from the standpoint of time it would have taken, it would also have been have been utterly inhumane to the mailgirls themselves. USF, then, had rolled out a compromise solution: the girls were allowed to utilize the service elevators when a delivery required them to go more than ten floors. Otherwise, it was the stairs. It was up to Barrow and his staff to figure out a way of clustering deliveries within those ten floors as much as possible, with deliveries assigned to the mailgirl closest to the pick-up point instead of managers being able to request a specific girl. When the program had rolled out in April with just six girls, elevators were the norm. With the May class joining, and now Thirteen and her cohort group in June, Human Capital would be able to distribute the girls better throughout the building. Though the addition of more girls meant that the workload would be better divided, it also meant that a girl was more likely to be summoned from just six or seven floors away. Which, in turn, meant more time on the stairs for all of them.

18-to-2, by Thirteen's count, was fifteen flights of stairs, meaning that Seven's decision to forego the elevator was a curious one. The impatience Seven had demonstrated in calling the elevator, however, suggested a cost-benefit analysis. They could wait on the 18th Floor, tapping their toes while the deadline on Seven's left arm got closer and closer to being upon them. Or, they could opt for the stairs, their fate more firmly in their own hands. Fifteen floors down wasn't fifteen floors up, and so Thirteen followed behind without complaint.

Seven, though, had an ulterior motive. A few flights down, between the 13th and 14th Floors, she came to a sudden stop -- so sudden that Thirteen nearly crashed into her and could have sent them both tumbling all the way down. The girl turned around to face her, took Thirteen's hands in her own, and caught her breath. She was two stairs in front of Thirteen, and standing a little too close for Thirteen's comfort. Given Thirteen's current state of dress, Seven's face was at the same level as Thirteen's chest. As Seven began to speak, Thirteen could feel the other girl's hot breath on her breasts.

"Listen, this may cost me a demerit or two," Seven began. "But I just went through all of this last week, and I wanted to take a minute. I know you're scared. I know you're feeling overwhelmed. But you'll get through it. I promise."