Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 02

She wondered to whom Seven had been assigned last week, and if the "mother hen" routine she was playing out with Thirteen was the continuation of a kindness she'd been shown by a more senior mailgirl when she'd been in Thirteen's (figurative) shoes. Or if the tact Seven had taken with her was a direct reaction to and condemnation of another girl being less supportive, less upbeat, less open and encouraging. Maybe it was just who Seven was, as a person? Whatever the reason, Thirteen appreciated Seven. As terrible yesterday could have been, it would have been worse to have faced it alone.

Thirteen watched the veteran mailgirls at the other end of locker room begin to click their leashes onto their collars, and so she did the same. Seven had encouraged her to use the bathroom one last time, but Thirteen thought she'd be okay. She only had to make it until morning breaks -- either 9:45 or 10 o'clock, depending on which break Mistress Zero called her and Seven down for. She believed she could make it three hours, nervous bladder or not.

Her leashed locked to her collar.

Her collar locked about her neck.

Thirteen wondered what would happen if there was a fire in the building. She'd have to wait patiently as Mistress Zero unlocked them all, girl by girl by girl. She wondered if they'd be allowed to grab their clothes, or if they'd be expected to line up on the pavement out in front of the building dressed as they were now. The Whitestocking protestors outside would be sure to get a kick out of that. Thirteen prayed that the Plaza didn't have a fire drill planned for that summer. She chose not to think about it.

She scooched forward a few inches on her knees, so that the leash was taut and there was no slack between her and her locker. This was how she'd been instructed to wait for Mistress Zero.

When it was her turn, Thirteen dutifully got up on her toes. She locked her fingers behind her head. She stuck her elbows all way out to the sides. She waited for the German woman to do her worst.

The inspection was nowhere near as thorough as it had been yesterday, the first time Mistress Zero had run her through it. But then, Mistress Zero now had all eighteen mailgirls to get through. It wasn't just the four new recruits (neither Seventeen nor Eighteen had joined them by that point yesterday) she'd had to do then. Still, Mistress Zero put her through her paces. She sniffed each underarm. She sniffed the side of Thirteen's neck, to check for the perfume. She ran a finger over her mons pubis, to make sure there wasn't even a hint of pubic hair, and then again on either side of Thirteen's pussy. She bent Thirteen over at the waist, asked her to spread her cheeks, and traced a circle around her asshole -- intimate and teasing -- to make sure the bleach had done its job.

It was all too much. Thirteen's body reacted to her touch, getting goosebumps and sending a chill up her spine. She was wet with anticipation, her pussy coming alive as if this were foreplay, and Thirteen braced for a comment or a judgment. If she noticed, Mistress Zero said nothing. No "slut." No "whore." No snide remark about just how ready and willing Thirteen appeared to be.

Thirteen wondered what would happen if she orgasmed right then and there. The idea would have seemed laughable twenty-four hours ago. But...now? She wasn't sure. Her whole body was just one big erogenous zone. She'd heard of women who could orgasm from nipple play alone. She'd heard stories of lesbians with feathers. Mistress Zero was given a long leash by USF (metaphorically speaking, of course), and it was unclear as to whether she was allowed to touch the girls even more intimately. Just a thumb on Thirteen's clit, and Thirteen might have gone careening over the edge, cumming right then and there in her mistress's hand.

No one had ever touched Thirteen this way before. Not Christopher. Not Brad. Not Luke. Not Mark. Even her gynecologist had boundaries. It wasn't as if her doctor was going to tweak her nipples, the way that Mistress Zero chose to do so again today.

She did so roughly. With Thirteen back in "Feet," Mistress Zero barked at her to spread her legs further apart, to arch her back, to stick out of her breasts. She didn't have her riding crop with her now, the way she had when she'd run Thirteen through her positions yesterday, and Thirteen was initially grateful for that fact. But, in instructing Thirteen to display her chest just so, Mistress Zero first cradled the underside of Thirteen's breasts in her bare hands and hefted them up. And then, still not seeing the results she was after, she pinched both of Thirteen's nipples between the thumbs and forefingers of each hand and tugged the girl's body upwards.

Any hope that Thirteen wouldn't spend the morning walking around the Plaza with her nipples hard dissipated.

Her weight didn't go uncommented upon, but Mistress Zero proved to be more forgiving of that than Thirteen had had any right to expect. She got a demerit, of course, one that was added to the count she and Seven shared for now. But, as a new recruit, she was given until Monday to shed those extra pounds before it became a bigger issue. Thirteen wasn't entirely sure that it was the kindness Mistress Zero presented it to be, however. It meant she'd be provided with full servings of mailgirl chow for the remainder of the week, after all.

Thirteen otherwise passed inspection, though, and was instructed to get back onto her knees after Mistress Zero had unlocked her from her leash. Fourteen, going next, wasn't so lucky. In fact, though all of the veteran mailgirls had managed to make it through relatively unscathed, three of the new mailgirls were issued demerits and told to make corrections. In Fourteen's case, her hair was still wet and she'd applied entirely too much eye shadow. In Seventeen's, she'd applied too little make-up, and was sent to the sinks with Mailgirl Number Six (who was issued a second demerit of her own, just because) to "get it right." As for Fifteen, well, Mistress Zero didn't believe Miss Henriksen had done a good enough job with the bleach; after being told that she had a particularly dirty asshole, Fifteen was sent to bend over Mistress Zero's desk so that Mistress Zero herself could apply another round.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Thirteen had been on the outside looking in. She'd been out in the lobby, with the shoeshine and the coffee cart girl and the woman in the horn-rimmed glasses and the group of men in their twenties and so many others. There'd been twelve mailgirls then. There were eighteen now.

Thirteen had gone from being a spectator to being a part of the act.

***

When the clock finally struck seven, the locker room came alive once more. The girls all dispersed out into the building. Every single one of them felt their smartphones buzz at the same time. Every single one of them had an assignment, and was issued a deadline to get from Point A to Point B, or to complete whatever task they'd been given to do.

To hear Seven explain it, it wasn't that USF's early arrivers were punching in orders all at once. Rather, after finding that the demands upon the mailgirls before nine in the morning were somewhat light, Human Capital and Mistress Zero had pulled together a list of chores for them to be assigned before their days began in earnest. These could be more standard sorts of things, like checking the outboxes on certain floors for any mail that had piled up after seven o'clock the previous night or picking up that morning's Wall Street Journals for distribution throughout the building. Or, they could be as random as washing dishes in employee break rooms, restocking copiers with paper, refilling water coolers, or picking up after sloppy executives in the conference rooms upstairs. Seventeen and Six had, apparently, been loaned out to Custodial and were on their way to clean bathrooms.

For their part, Thirteen and Seven were headed up to the 5th Floor to make coffee. From there, they'd be expected to work their way floor-by-floor upwards, repeating the task in every break room between the 5th Floor and the 22nd. Fourteen and One were doing the same, starting on the 48th and working downwards. They'd meet in the middle.

Thirteen thought the time they'd been given made this yet another impossible task.

Seven disagreed. "Most of them have those pod things now. We just have to make sure they're working right and that the break rooms are stocked with coffee. Unless we get pulled into something, we've got more than enough time."

They started up the stairs to the 5th Floor. Seven, though, wasn't impressed with Thirteen's pace. "...so long as we're not lolly-gagging."

"Sorry," Thirteen apologized, and bounded up behind the other blonde. "This girl is just too slow and lazy..."

By the time they'd reached the 17th Floor, Thirteen had finally worked up the courage to ask Seven the question she'd wanted to since the previous afternoon. They'd been chatting and gossiping the entire time, swapping stories in hushed tones as they made coffee, refilled supplies, and washed the odd dish. Were it not for their lack of clothes or the occasional pervy spectator, there was a sense of normalcy to it all, a sense of routine. No, Thirteen had never been a secretary before or an office gopher. But there wasn't any trick to this sort of work, and she was in good company.

Thirteen couldn't lead right into it, though. If she were looking for Seven to confess something to her, Thirteen had to confess something herself first. She was willing to share the events of the prior evening with Seven. She wanted to, even. She wanted Seven to assure her that it was normal. That she wasn't alone.

"So..." Thirteen began, following a lull in the conversation. "Last night."

"Mmm-hmmm?" Seven answered, suggestively. She knew exactly where Thirteen was going. Did Thirteen even have to say it?

"I..."

"It was good, right?" Seven jumped in, rescuing her. "Like, just a huge release? This pent-up thing that you'd kept a lid on all day."

"Oh my god," Thirteen gasped. She turned beet red. Smiling, embarrassed, she said, "You have no idea."

Seven laughed. "I have some idea. I have neighbors. That first night? Well...I'm pretty sure they have some idea, too."

"I just...I've never...I mean, not like that..."

"Yeah," Seven said dreamily.

"So I'm not...wrong, right? Like, there's not something wrong with me?"

"If you're wrong, I'm wrong. One? Two and Three? Four? Six? They're all wrong, too."

She left out Mailgirl Number Five. Why, exactly? Thirteen would have to come back to that.

"Oh my god," Thirteen said again. "It was like I hadn't done...'that'...in weeks."

"Had you? Done 'that,' I mean? In weeks?"

It was Thirteen's turn to laugh. "No. I mean, yes. I have. Maybe even more than usual, since the whole thing first came up."

"Same," Seven agreed, her voice taking on a nervous, almost sort of sing-song quality. She was just as embarrassed talking about this as Thirteen was. "Since last Fall, in my case, when they first moved me down here."

"I'm not...it's not a thing I do...you know, a lot. The normal amount. I think?"

"Until you started thinking about it," Seven corrected her. She knew. She'd gone through it, too. Long before she was ever an actual mailgirl, Seven's own sex drive had apparently been kicked into a higher gear. Just by being around mailgirls, even back when it had been nothing more than an idea.

"Yeah."

"No. But, yeah. No, last week was crazy," Seven said sheepishly. "I got home. And it's all I wanted to do. I'd been thinking about it all day. It was like the whole day had been this one long build. Foreplay, you know? And it wasn't even the 'being naked' thing. It wasn't not the 'being naked' thing, though, either."

"The power," Thirteen interjected.

"Yeah. Sort of."

"The lack of it, I mean."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I was going to say the objectification -- the way everyone looked at me. Like, at my body."

"Like you were some sort of exhibitionist?"

"Maybe," she allowed. "But, no, I like your thing better. That's it. Like, someone else is completely in control, and they know exactly what's working. They know exactly what's going to push your buttons."

"Mistress Zero?"

Seven scoffed. "I was thinking of Will Barrow, honestly."

Thirteen cringed a little. Had she just given something away about herself? Was Seven going to think she was gay now?

"If I'm being honest, I was thinking about Will Barrow then, too," Seven chuckled.

A beat. Another. The confession hung in the air. Thirteen wasn't sure what to say to that.

"I mean, he...honest to god...he took my underwear!" Seven laughed, shaking her head.

"I saw," Thirteen said. "In the hallway. Mine, too."

"Right? Just helped himself. Like, what kind of...what kind of prick does that? It's a power move. It's telling you that you're his, to do with whatever he wants. Sure, you get handed off to Mistress Zero pretty quick, but it's him who's behind that. She's doing it to please him, too. And so, that's what got me. Like, the idea that he was sitting in his office that night, sniffing my panties. I was this...thing...to him. To be played with and toyed with and fucked with. And it was...okay, sure, it was demeaning and humiliating and all that. But it was hot, too. Just being this sex object."

"Four times," Thirteen jumped in.

Seven had lost her way a bit there, and was clearly getting turned on just thinking about what she'd thought about that first night. She blinked. She looked at Thirteen. "Really?!!"

Thirteen just laughed. "Four times. In one go. And then again, before I went to bed."

Seven laughed, and whistled. "You beat me. I think I just sort of rolled over and went to sleep there on the couch."

"Have you..." Thirteen began. This was it. This was the moment. "Have you done it...here?"

Too far. Seven cringed visibly.

"Sorry," Thirteen said quickly. "It's just that One...yesterday. And Nine, too. I mean, honestly, I was kind of expecting more of it."

"Everyone's on their best behavior," Seven explained. "We saw it in May, when the second cohort of girls was added. No one in the April cohort wanted to be the first one to do it in front of the new girls. I think, you know, they'd gotten used to doing it in front of each other, maybe. And then, suddenly, you've got these six new girls in there with you, and everyone's feeling each other out. Everyone was generally pretty...'hands off'...around me, too, when I got added. But it was just me, alone, so they got over it quick."

"But One..."

"One's One," Seven sighed, rolling her eyes. "Nine, yesterday, was more par for the course. No one wants to do it. Okay, so that's a lie. But, no one wants to do it like that, publicly. No, maybe that's not right, either?"

Thirteen was following as best she could.

Seven took a deep breath. "Okay, so, me? Personally? I've done it once. On Wednesday. And it's gross. I regretted it, like, the second it was over. I don't want to do it again. I just...I got back to the locker room in the afternoon, for breaks, and I was all worked up. I'd been thinking about it for days.

"I'd been up on the 48th. And, you know -- your thing? The power thing? Well, the 47th and 48th floors are where all the executives sit. I'd been up on the 47th Floor before, but only that week, only as a mailgirl. As much work as I did on the mailgirl contracts, as much work as I did for Senior Leadership, I was mostly just facing off with Will. Like, one-on-one, working with him directly. If something needed to go higher? It got handed off to David Woodward. He's our General Counsel. Or, rather, I'd hand it off to my boss, and he'd hand it off to David.

"But I'd never actually been up to David's office before. I'd seen him a few times. I met him Boston when I first started with the company. He's down on the 21st with us for meetings sometimes. But on Wednesday, it was just me and him, alone in his office.

"And he tells me to sit down. He's got a couch in his office. He wants me to sit down. And, of course, I'm like, 'I can't.' And he's like, 'No, it's fine.' And I'm like, 'No, really, I can't. It's against the rules.' And he says, 'No, really, it's fine. I'm telling you to sit down.' And then I'm all, 'No, I'm naked.' And it's a concern, right? Like, even more than getting in trouble? I'm sweating, and there's stuff going on...downstairs. The last thing I want to do is leave a puddle on his couch. Or even...like...an ass-print.

"But he gets his way. They always get their way. I'm sitting, but there's not, you know, a way mailgirls are supposed to sit, because we're not supposed to sit. So, I sit. But I don't sit like a normal human being. I'm all in my head, and I'm perched at the edge of the couch, and I've got my legs open. I can't close my legs, right? And it's weird. It's uncomfortable. I don't know what I'm doing.

"And then he tells me to relax. To just be...normal. Doesn't come right out and say it, but he, like, looks down at me. Like, down here. And it's just so, so, so obvious what he means. So I close my legs. I don't cross them or anything. It doesn't occur to me in the moment. And then I'm asking myself, 'Did the General Counsel just tell me to close my legs?' It's that level of weird. And it stays that way.

"He's not interested in me as a mailgirl. He's got chits. He spends them. What he's after is having me take a look at 'Power of Attorney' rights. I'm supposed to sit there, in his office, and do, like, a legal review. He's asking about transference, about whether there's any way of transferring Power of Attorney between entities..."

"Oh my god," Thirteen gasped. She was suddenly that much more glad she hadn't signed hers over to USF. "Like, USF is going to 'sell' one of the mailgirls to another company?"

"No, it was more about transferring those rights to USF," Seven explained, shaking her head. "My sense of it was that he was looking at bringing more established mailgirls in. More in the mold of what we did with Rhine-Main in bringing Mistress Zero over, but for actual mailgirls. One of the companies out in Seattle is kicking the tires on it, though -- training girls there, and then auctioning them off to clients. Young & Unglaub's doing work in the space, too. But what he wanted me to look at was taking over those Power of Attorney privileges from another company. Like, I'm guessing, to maybe 'seed' USF's regional offices with girls who are already trained up and under contract."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to ship some of...well...you girls here out there? And if they're bringing girls in from the outside, doesn't that kind of go against what Human Capital has been doing in tapping thirty-year-olds from inside?"

"I don't think that's off the table," Seven answered. "It'd be awful to be sent back to Boston like this. Which, of course, means that it's only a matter of time."

Thirteen hoped it wouldn't happen that summer.

"But I think the idea is like one or two girls from outside," Seven went on, "who know what they're doing, and kind of set the tone for whomever else gets added to the roster. Anyways, it's not an easy thing. Power of Attorney is iffy, even in our own contracts. You've got to prove to the courts that you're acting strictly in the best interests of the principal, that you're not profiting even incidentally, that you're demonstrating reasonable care. There's also no real precedent for transferring those rights from one person to another, let alone one company to another, without the principal being actively involved. Or, at least, there wasn't, before a couple of years ago, when the mailgirl thing started popping up. And now we're in this space where stuff's starting to happen like that, specifically around mailgirls. You can kind of see why I wanted to be a part of it. It's new, it's exciting, it's interesting."