Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 02

Thirteen guessed she understood. As a lawyer, Seven would have been on the front end of all these issues. It made sense why Young & Unglaub had had an interest in her. As a mailgirl, though, the thought of being traded around like chattel was horrifying.

"I'm off-topic," Seven said. "I know you don't know David. But picture Will Barrow. You know, the same general thing. Handsome. Well-dressed. Confident. He's got ten years on Will. He's divorced. His ex-wife was just...gorgeous...in that sort of star cheerleader mold. I don't know why that's important here? Maybe it's just that it tells you his type, or just speaks to the fact that he's -- I don't know -- a catch. Like Will."

Thirteen found this fascinating. Seven apparently had a thing for their boss. Maybe for her old boss, too.

She wondered what Seven thought of Nick Pagliaro.

"So, like, he's attractive. And he smells like aftershave, which is just...I don't know. A thing, I guess? A turn-on for me. And, at first, he's right there beside me, practically on top of me, and all I can think about is him. And him and me. And him on top of me. Or me on top of him. But after a couple of minutes, he takes a call, and then another. And then goes out to a meeting down the hall, but comes back. He has his secretary bring me a cup of coffee, and she's completely pissed about it, and she tells him that he's going to 'confuse' me and all that.

"I end up sitting in there for almost two hours. I'm looking at this contract, and looking at that one. And I'm jotting down notes. I'm pointing out places for follow-up. I'm doing real work, like the work I'd been doing before. And I'm a mailgirl but not a mailgirl, if that makes sense? I'm back in my old job, but I'm also doing it naked in the General Counsel's office. It's...I don't know? Sexy? It's sexy.

"I'm distracted. I'm not really all there. It's probably not my best work. But I'm distracted. I'm thinking about him, and I can tell he's thinking about it me. I catch him looking at me at one point, as I'm leaning over the table and my breasts are just out there and just...dangling. And he looks away, embarrassed. And, you know, he's allowed to look. He's supposed to look. That's what we're here for, right? And I start thinking, maybe if we just slept together, I could get it out of my system and back to what he wants me to do. And then that's all I'm thinking about. I'm reading and re-reading the same paragraph over and over again, because I can't concentrate, and none of it's sinking in. Because at that point, all I can think about is him and me, and what I want him to do to me.

"But afternoon breaks are coming up, and David's already spent a fortune in chits in keeping me there with him. So I do what I need to do. I wrap up. And then, on the way out the door, he thanks me. And he gives me this little pat on the ass. Which is so, so against the rules. But at that point, I would've let him do...like...anything. Anything he wanted. But he lets me go. He sends me off. And I'm back to being a mailgirl again."

"And so?" Thirteen raised an eyebrow.

"And so," Seven continued, taking a deep breath, "I get back to the locker room, and just go for it. Like, right at my locker. On the floor. On my back. It's all I'm thinking about. I don't care that Mistress Zero is there. I don't care about the other girls. I don't even think about who might see, who might be watching on the other side of the glass. It's just...on."

Seven jokingly made a show of fanning herself with her right hand. "Sorry. I'm getting a little...you know...just thinking about it."

"You and me both," Thirteen laughed, and then realized what she'd just said. Idiot. She'd just told Seven that she was getting turned on, thinking about the other girl masturbating on the floor of the locker room.

Seven brushed past it. "And, in the moment, I'm justifying it to myself. Rationalizing. Angry at myself, even, for not doing it before. Like, why shouldn't I do it? The other mailgirls have all done it. Two's in the locker room with me, and she's doing the exact same thing at her locker at the exact same time. Which, you know, makes it hotter. At least, that's what the voice in my head is telling me at the time. I'm a mailgirl. This is what mailgirls do. No one's going to judge me for it. They'd understand.

"And then Two orgasms, and it's too much. She's all, "I'm cumming, I'm cumming." And then me, too. I'm saying it, too. 'I'm cumming...' Which is so, so not me. It's not something I've ever, ever done before. But I'm like a sponge like that, so I'm announcing it. Not loudly, you know? But loud enough for Two to hear. And maybe some of the other girls, too. And it's just...everything. It's everything. All at once. Honestly, it may have been best orgasm I've ever had. Honestly. I'm the best lay I've ever had. And it was in the middle of that fucking locker room."

Seven's eyes had glazed over. Thirteen's, too.

"Sorry," the other girl said, half gasping and half laughing out of embarrassment. "You probably didn't need all the details."

"No, it's..."

"Yeah."

"Yeah," Thirteen agreed.

They both took a moment to collect themselves. Silence, for a beat or two.

"I haven't done it again," Seven added. "Not since. The second it was over, I'd realized what I'd done. I'd just done it in public. In front of god knows how many people. I couldn't take it back. I couldn't go back and be me again. The me from before. The me that hadn't done it. And I swore I'd never do it again. That afternoon, I swore it to myself."

"Right," Thirteen offered. What was she supposed to say here?

"But..." Seven went on, slowly.

"But?"

"But...I'm not going to be able to keep that promise. And - again, though - why shouldn't I do it? The other girls are all doing it. It's weirder if I don't, right? I mean, Five hasn't done it. Eight hasn't done it. One's kind of her own thing, and she's doing every chance she gets. But the others all do it here and there. Not every day. But, they do it when they want to."

"And after you've done it once..." Thirteen reasoned.

"Devil!" Seven accused, her mouth agape in mock horror.

"But, right? Like you said, it's not like you can take it back."

"No," Seven laughed. "You're right. There's no honor in being the girl who only got herself off in public that one time. Genie's not going back in the bottle."

"No," Thirteen chuckled along with her. "After that first time..."

"After that first time, it's not like it's any more embarrassing the second time," Seven agreed. She looked over at Thirteen. Teasingly, she asked, "So, how about you? When are you going to do it?"

"Honestly, I could have done it yesterday," she admitted with a laugh.

"Nine did it on her first day," Seven told her. "Fourteen, too. Last night, after you'd gone home."

Thirteen's jaw dropped.

"Yeah. Fully dressed and all, just before she headed out. She used the bathroom," (the bathroom, in this case, being a misleading description. Seven meant the line of toilets between the locker room and the service lobby) "and just did it right there. Quick. Over and done with. And then she was gone."

"So I wouldn't be the first."

"Not by a long shot."

"I mean, I wouldn't be the first, among the new girls."

"Why? Do you have plans?"

Thirteen blushed. "I mean, it's going to happen."

"Life among the gorillas."

"Right."

"When One did it the first time, it was scandal," Seven offered. "The whole building knew about it. But then a couple of weeks went by. And then we added the girls in May. And now it's...routine? It's expected of us. Not in the sense that we have to do it or that we're being told to do it. But it's just the sort of thing that mailgirls do. Like I said, it's almost weirder if you don't."

"Comforting," Thirteen said, sarcasm masking sincerity.

"Alright, so, tell me," Seven leaned in, conspiratorially. "What was it? What screwed up, messed up thing got to you most?"

You, Thirteen wanted to say. Being in such close proximity to another naked girl. The way their knees touched on the mailgirl mats in between deliveries. The way Seven had held her hand. The way Thirteen had spent the better part of the afternoon staring at Seven's naked backside as she followed her up the stairs. The smell of her.

"I don't know," Thirteen hedged. "Probably taking off my clothes in Human Capital. It was terrifying, but..."

"No," Seven insisted. "The screwed up thing. The thing you'd never expected. Come on. Come clean."

It was only fair. Thirteen had confessed to masturbating when she'd gotten home. But Seven had divulged quite a bit more.

"It was One," Thirteen finally allowed. It was true, even. The thought of One, masturbating at the sink without a care in the world, had fueled a good part of Thirteen's fantasy the night before.

"She's something," Seven said, satisfied with the response.

"No...not in that way," Thirteen added quickly. Not in a lesbian sort of way.

Seven. Mistress Zero. Mailgirl Number One. Each of them had affected her. Things were confused. Thirteen was confused. But it wasn't a lesbian thing. It wasn't a gay thing. At least, Thirteen didn't think it was a gay thing. It was sexual, for sure. But it was the sexual nature of those individual situations that was turning her on, more so than the individuals themselves. Did that make sense? Thirteen wasn't sure it did.

"No. I got it," Seven replied, seeming to understand what Thirteen was getting at. "One? She's her own breed. Did you catch her this morning? What she wears in?"

Thirteen had taken stock of the other girls' outfits, but she'd missed One's arrival.

"Trench coat," Seven offered. "Trench coat, shoes, and nothing else."

One had commuted to the Plaza wearing nothing more.

"Bold," Thirteen conceded.

"They knew what they were doing with her," Seven laughed. "She's all in."

"She's not actually enjoying this, is she?"

"More than the rest of us, maybe. I knew her a little. Before. She was in Legal. She sat on my floor. Her old boss is real piece of work. I don't know that she had some burning desire to be a mailgirl. Nothing to suggest that she was some sort of closeted exhibitionist. But she'd always been something of a...competitor? Maybe that's the right way to describe her. Driven to win."

"She couldn't have taken the demotion well."

"No. No more so than any of us. But once she was down here, she was down here. She was a mailgirl. She was going to be a mailgirl. She was going to be the mailgirl that Human Capital wanted her to be."

"Yeah, I got that sense from her," Thirteen said. "She was right there at the sink, just going after it..."

Just as Seven had, apparently. Just as Nine had earlier in the day. Just as Fourteen had, after Thirteen had left.

Just as Thirteen would, too, eventually...

Thirteen and Seven worked their way up to the 18th Floor, repeated their tasks in the kitchen for Human Resources, and then headed over to Human Capital. As intimidated as Thirteen was by returning to Will Barrow's domain, there was something comforting about it, too. She'd spent more time on the 18th Floor yesterday than anywhere else but the locker room itself. It was familiar. More than that, though, she didn't expect to feel as out of place here as she had in Asset Management, in Private Wealth Management, in Products & Segments, in Accounting. Whereas these other departments were more normal places of business, Human Capital was in the business of mailgirls.

She wasn't ready for the "Hall of Panties," though. More specifically, she wasn't ready for her own contribution to be up on there on the wall.

At some point yesterday afternoon, the lecherous little photographer who'd conducted a photoshoot down in the locker room had delivered his product to Human Capital. Thirteen's full-body shot, on her knees, had been used for her new employee ID. But it had also been inset inside one of the movie poster-sized frames that graced the corridor between Human Capital and Human Resources proper. There Thirteen was, in the corner of the display, wearing her collar, her armband, and nothing more, smiling a great big smile. Her eyes were alive. There was no embarrassment on her face. This girl was having the time of her life.

Above her, the pearl white lace thong she'd worn into the Plaza hung for all to see. Thirteen had worn the thing only twice -- once to try it on, and again yesterday morning. She'd worn it, in fact, for only a few hours. From her apartment on the Upper West Side to meet Gillian at the Imperial, and from the Imperial up to Will Barrow's office. Sure, she'd traipsed back-and-forth to the men's room in it and in it alone. And it was likely the only clothing that the likes of Chad Ostermueller and Alan Bagby and the other Human Capital employees who'd witnessed the trip had ever seen her in. But it had been surrendered pretty early on. Thirteen had no real attachment to it. That said, it was still humiliating to have her underwear hung up and on display like this, all the same. It was a violation. It was a provocation. It was intimate. Or, at least, it had been.

Thirteen's white thong was directly across the hall from Seven's red tanga. It was flanked on either side by Twelve's coral briefs and Fifteen's beige boyshorts. In fact, all of yesterday's mailgirls had had their underthings added to Will Barrow's trophies. Sixteen had apparently been wearing a mulberry purple pair of bikinis with a floral print when she'd been tapped to volunteer. Seventeen had had on a high-cut pair of lace briefs in nude. For Eighteen, it was white thong, not entirely dissimilar to Thirteen's own contribution.

Curiously, Fourteen's frame was empty. Her picture was there, but no underwear hung above it. Thirteen wondered how Fourteen had managed to escape this particular humiliation, or if that humiliation was still coming. Maybe whatever she'd been wearing hadn't been up to Barrow's standards, and he'd send Mistress Zero to collect the underwear she'd worn that morning, instead. Maybe they'd been dirty? Or maybe Fourteen hadn't been wearing any panties at all...

Even with the addition of six new frames, the walls in the corridor leading to Human Capital were still only half-filled. There'd be room enough to accommodate trophies from Mailgirls Nineteen through Twenty-Four when they were added in July. There'd be room enough for similar displays for another dozen or so girls after that, when the current roster turned over, for whatever reason. There'd be another Mailgirl Number Thirteen here at the Plaza when this Thirteen headed back to grad school in the Fall.

"Come on," Seven said, pushing Thirteen along. "Don't torture yourself. You're not getting them back. And we've spent enough time here."

Human Capital's kitchen was tucked just beyond the door at the end of the hall. Thirteen and Seven were saved from having to parade past all of the offices, but deprived from seeing Will Barrow again. Seven still craned her neck down in that direction, and Thirteen thought the other girl looked a little disappointed in not being seen by him. Still, Mike Moses witnessed their arrival, and soon he and Kevin Lin -- "Mr. Moses" and "Mr. Lin" -- had joined the two girls in the kitchen.

"Oh my god," Lin proclaimed as he laid eyes on Thirteen.

"Give us a little spin," Moses ordered, and Thirteen did as she was told.

"I think I'm in love," Lin joked.

The kitchen here in Human Capital was equipped with higher-end and newer items than Thirteen had seen in any of their previous stops. There was a soda stream. There was a cappuccino-maker. There were snacks in the cabinets, and there was beer in the refrigerator. In fact, there was even a wet bar over to the one side - with tequila, with gin, with whiskey, and so on. The men working in Human Capital had either been rewarded for their contributions to the mailgirl program, or USF had decided to look the other way when it came to these deviations from the norm.

There was no chit-chat between the mailgirls here in Human Capital, the way there had been down on the 17th Floor. Seven and Thirteen were performing for Moses and Lin, and the two analysts commented on the girls' bodies as if they couldn't hear.

"She's got a little something in the trunk," Moses said of Thirteen.

"I like it," Lin replied. "It makes me want to reset her target weight."

Yes, please, Thirteen said inwardly.

"Nah," Moses said, shaking his head. "It's coming off. The little muffin-top she's got going on, too. A week or two of running the stairs, and you'll be bouncing quarters off that ass."

"Don't listen to him," Lin said, this time to Thirteen. "You're perfect the way you are. Beautiful."

Thirteen blushed. "Thank you, sir."

"Don't do that," Moses chided Lin. "No one wants a chubby mailgirl."

"She's not chubby," Lin said back. "And even if she were, we could use a little variety."

"Sixteen's not variety enough?" Moses asked, referring to the African-American girl. "Five? Eleven? Your people are represented..."

"'My people'?" Lin said in mock indignation.

"If you had your way, we'd have eighteen little Chinese girls running around," Moses laughed. "Or, eighteen BIG Chinese girls."

"Asshole," Lin chortled. "You know what I mean. Will's got a type."

"Yeah, Victoria's Secret models. I don't think anyone's complaining. Besides, we tried yesterday with Mariana What's-her-name..."

"Martinez."

"Martinez, right. I'm surprised we didn't play the ICE card."

"Asshole!" Lin repeated, laughing. "She's Puerto Rican."

Moses shrugged. "Couldn't have hurt."

"Yeah, well, we've got Gabriela Herrera in the next round. She's Colombian."

"Consumer, right?"

"Consumer Credit."

"Well, maybe we can do the ICE play there."

"Asshole," Lin said, shaking his head. His eyes returned to Thirteen, who was busy pouring water into the coffee maker and pretending the two men weren't there. "But, come on. Look at those breasts. They're perfect. They're perfect just the way they are."

"I'll give you that."

"Remember what happened with Ten? The weight came off, but it came off there, first."

"She wasn't working with much to begin with. Is she a B?"

"She's a B. But she was a big B, before."

"I don't think that's happening here." To Thirteen, Moses asked, "You're a C, right? Or are you a D?"

Cup-size. Thirteen had gone through her measurements with Alan Bagby yesterday. "Uh...yes, sir. C."

"C," Moses repeated, proud of himself. "See?"

It went on. By the time Seven and Thirteen were finally through, and on their way to the 19th Floor, Moses and Lin had managed to touch upon every part of her body. Her hair. Her face. Her hips. Her thighs. Her pussy, even, had been referred to as "picture perfect," and Moses had both speculated on what it would taste like and lamented the fact they weren't allowed to "put it to good use." Lin joked about getting Will Barrow to reconsider his opposition to "vaginal delivery tubes" -- just the words themselves sent a shiver up Thirteen's spine -- but Moses, thankfully, made clear that it was a firm stance. He did, however, suggest that they revisit the "anal delivery tube topic" with Barrow, though he sounded sarcastic in the way he said it. At least, Thirteen hoped it was sarcasm.

The girls ran into Fourteen and One when they reached the 22nd Floor. In fact, Fourteen and One had already taken care coffee duties on the 22nd Floor, having made better time in their descent down from the 48th, and were occupying the mailgirl mat out by the reception desk there. They, too, were holding hands, suggesting that this intimacy wasn't one that Seven and Thirteen were alone in sharing. Rather, it appeared to be standard practice when two mailgirls were together.

Without another assignment popping up just yet, Seven and Thirteen ascended up to the 23rd Floor, and took position on their knees on the mailgirl mat there. They could have opted for either the 23rd or 21st floors, given that the mat on the 22nd was occupied. But Legal was on the 21st Floor, and Seven had seemed noticeably spooked and on-edge during the time they'd spent there. And so, it was up to Trading.