Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 02

This helped. She was back in her comfort zone. Or, at least back in the comfort zone of a mailgirl. This wasn't about her -- it was about Manzanillo. It was about pleasing him, about giving him want he wanted, about putting on a show for him. She was submitting herself to him.

And when the first crumpled up dollar bill was tossed in her direction, she felt buoyed. It turned her on. It turned her on, knowing she was turning him on.

It got easier from there.

By the time the song was through, Thirteen had actually begun to get into it. She'd lost herself to the fantasy, to the music.

"Bravo, bravo," Manzanillo said, beaming. Thirteen looked back at him red-faced. Seven had stopped her ministrations with the ice, and was smiling, as well.

There was no kissing. No heavy petting. That torment had been for Seven and Three alone, apparently.

Thirteen collected the money from the floor, squatting down and retrieving it, and then -- at Manzanillo's instruction -- handed it back to him. For a second, she was afraid he was going to keep it, and she felt stung. Not that she wanted seven dollars. That seven dollars was an insult. But it was seven dollars that she'd earned.

After flattening the money back out, stacking it, and folding it in half, Manzanillo gave her back six dollars. He kept the last one, promising her that he'd hold on to it "for next time," and then proceeded to slip it into her armband, behind her smartphone. He collected Seven's ice cube -- her third or fourth; Thirteen wasn't sure -- and tossed it back into his cup, before taking a big, exaggerated swig out of now mostly melted ice water. And then, with that, the girls were dismissed.

Back in the service corridor, out of the view of any of the denizens of the 47th Floor, the girls caught their breath as they waited for their car to arrive. Neither said a word. And then, when Seven took hold of Thirteen's hand, Thirteen did the unthinkable.

Seven leaned in and kissed the other girl.

Thirteen didn't know what had come over her. In that moment, it just felt right. She was worked up. Turned on. Out-and-out horny. It wasn't a peck on the cheek or a quick, friendly kiss on the lips, either. It was desperate, raw, and intense. Animal instinct just took over. She was thinking with her pussy, and her pussy wanted more. At some point during her dance, all she'd been thinking about was sex. Not with Seven. Certainly not with Manzanillo. Maybe not even with a partner at all. But her body had known what to do, and her body had followed her pussy's lead.

"Mmmm," Thirteen finally said, breaking away when the elevator doors rolled open. "You are a good kisser..."

They didn't talk about it, and Thirteen was grateful for Seven's silence on the subject. They did share a big smile between them, and Thirteen was forced to turn away, embarrassed. As they rode down to Wealth Planning, Seven quipped about her pussy being cold. Both girls laughed.

By the time the pair returned to the locker room for lunch, Thirteen was dragging. She was exhausted. Mentally? Sure. Emotionally? Of course. But she was also feeling worn down, physically. She'd done her best to keep up with Seven, but she worried she was slowing the other girl down. They'd picked up a few demerits in the last hour. A few were due to an impossible deadline that Seven would have missed even on her own. But two or three of them could be laid squarely at Thirteen's feet. She wasn't in as good a shape as she'd thought she was. She wasn't nearly in as good a shape as Seven.

Her thighs and knees ached. Her bare feet hurt from the pounding. Her breasts were sore from the way they bounced as she ran. Though unseemly -- and though also a violation of the standard "Feet" position the girls were expected to take in the elevators -- Thirteen had taken to massaging her chest every time the two girls got into the elevator over the last hour. It wasn't a sexual thing, even if anyone watching could have easily mistaken it as such. Even if Thirteen felt a little sheepish doing so in front of Seven.

As the elevator doors chimed open on the 2nd Floor, both girls were startled by what awaited them. Across the service lobby, in the doorless, single-occupant bathroom that was tucked out of sight from the main elevator lobby on the other side of the mirror glass, Mistress Zero sat on the toilet -- skirt hiked up about her waist -- and met the girls' eyes defiantly.

Thirteen immediately looked away.

It felt like a violation, catching Mistress Zero like this. Like she'd done something wrong. Like she'd be issued yet another demerit just for catching her mistress in a moment of vulnerability.

No. No, this wasn't vulnerability. Thirteen might have been embarrassed, but Mistress Zero had no shame. As a mailgirl, she'd likely gotten accustomed to peeing in public. So accustomed, in fact, that it probably barely registered as something she needed to be embarrassed about. And, certainly, Mistress Zero wasn't going to feel ashamed in front of the likes of Mailgirls Seven and Thirteen -- both of whom took the return the locker room as an opportunity to the do the same, in a much less private setting.

Seven sat directly across from Thirteen. As the two girls relieved themselves, Mistress Zero -- now put back together, skirt back in place -- clicked her way down the narrow corridor between them, back to the locker room proper.

"Girls," she said.

"Mistress Zero," the two of them said in unison.

Once she'd passed, Thirteen whispered to Seven. "Does she...?"

"Sometimes," Seven whispered back. She understood what Thirteen was asking. "She spends most of her day here in the locker room. Here, and up on the 18th Floor. She's got an office up there, too. Next to Alan Bagby's. But she's mostly here, so that bathroom is mostly hers. Doesn't seem to phase her, though -- even when we get the occasional visitor. Honestly, I think she'd be fine out here, too."

It was the later lunch, the one that ran from one to one-thirty, and Seven and Thirteen were the last of the girls to arrive. Dog bowls were scattered around Mistress Zero's desk, and mailgirls Nine, Fifteen, and Eight were down on their hands and knees, scarfing down their respective lunches. The others -- Two, Twelve, One, and Fourteen -- had eaten already, apparently. One and Fourteen were on either end of the locker room, under the showers. Two and Twelve were bent over the spanking bench to the left of the double doors, waiting on Mistress Zero to administer "corrections."

Twelve had been spanked just last night, right after the German woman had finished with Seven and Thirteen. Somehow, the girl with the long, blonde hair had managed to pick up another twenty-five demerits in a single morning.

Thirteen found that someone had already served her and Seven. There were two bowls still left unclaimed, each of which contained an entire can's worth of mailgirl chow. Once again, Thirteen's food was still in the shape of the discarded can, standing straight up in all its gelatinous glory. She wasn't hungry. She certainly wasn't hungry for this. What Thirteen really wanted to do was curl up into a little ball at her locker and take a quick nap. She probably could have fallen asleep, too, given how tired she felt -- the hard, cold, tiled floor be damned. Instead, she took her first bite of chow, fought the urge to vomit, and went back for a second.

***

Thirteen wept.

She could feel it coming on while choking down her "lunch." Her serving of mailgirl chow being in the shape of the can was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the fact that it was standing vertically in the center of her dish allowed her to take bites one at a time, without having to plunge her whole face into the messy mush and wind up with it smeared all around her mouth. Once the food itself was gone, however, there remained a cloudy grey pool of liquefied "gravy," for lack of a better term. There wasn't much, admittedly, but mailgirls were expected to lick their bowls clean. And so Thirteen did as she was expected, while suppressing the urge to vomit.

It wasn't even the food, though. Rather, it was the degrading way she was being fed, the dehumanizing nature of being down on all fours and eating from a dog bowl. This wasn't sexy. This wasn't erotic. This wasn't flitting about the building in her birthday suit and titillating middle managers upstairs. Thirteen was no exhibitionist (at least, she didn't think she was), but there was something undeniably mischievous and playful about her delivery duties.

This, though? The whole point of it was to degrade and humiliate her. And it succeeded.

But what finally broke Mailgirl Number Thirteen was the sight of her own reflection in the showers. As much as the locker room could be thought of as a refuge from the Plaza as a whole, and as much as this space was for mailgirls and mailgirls only, Thirteen found herself wanting to run screaming from the 2nd Floor. She wanted to be back upstairs with Seven. No one out there among the regular USF employees was going to let her forget her place, or forget that she was naked, or forget just how little they thought of her. But at least out there she didn't have to look herself in the eye.

It wasn't the first time she'd seen herself like this, of course. Her reflection followed her - taunted her - wherever she went. She saw it elevator doors. She saw it glass windows of darkened offices. She saw it staring back at her from computer monitors. In the locker room, with its floor-to-ceiling one-way mirrors that separated the girls from the elevator lobby on the other side, her reflection was inescapable. She continually did her best to look away, to avoid it. But, here and now, she was too tired to exert that willpower, too beaten down to keep from being drawn in.

Not only had they all been reduced to numbers by their corporate masters, but even the girls themselves referred to each other as "One" and "Two" and "Seven" and "Thirteen." Sure, "a mailgirl is to be referred to only by her mailroom number" and blah-blah-blah. But not even in secret, not even in hushed whispers, did they dare speak one another's name. Seven was Seven, not Michelle. One was One, not Laurie. It allowed distance between their lives as mailgirls and who they really were. It protected the ego and one's sense of self while spending twelve hours a day having those very things stomped on, squashed, and blown to smithereens. It was a trick. It was a lie the mailgirls told themselves.

But it wasn't working for Thirteen. Sarah Scott glared at her from the other side of shower -- naked, wretched, and accusatory.

She wet all over. Her hair, too -- this wouldn't be a quick rinse like on break, and she'd be forced the face those same judgmental eyes at the sinks while brushing and blow-drying her hair. Rivulets of water dripped down her body, from her naked shoulders to her naked chest to her naked hips and her naked legs. Her breasts were exposed in all their glory, her nipples hard, at attention, and drawing focus. Her sex, too -- shorn of any hint of pubic hair, looking almost pre-pubescent.

And that "13." That fucking "13." The water couldn't wash it away. Soap and water weren't going to be enough to cleanse of her of that "13" on her hip. It might fade a little over the course of this shower, but not enough. She'd been branded. She couldn't escape it.

The shower hid her initial tears.

How had it come to this? How had she allowed herself to be put in this situation? She hated Gillian for talking her into this, but she hated herself even more for talking herself into this. All the back-and-forth over the preceding months, the pressure, the self-doubt and self-deception -- it all came crashing down on the miserable blonde at once.

Seven was beside her, one shower over. Thirteen now regretted the kiss. She'd been caught up in the moment, and she'd lost herself. Sarah Scott, and her condemning gaze, made clear how little she thought of Mailgirl Number Thirteen's poor decision-making. Overall, certainly. The last two days. The last few weeks. The last few months, even. But, in particular, the kiss, and what the kiss said about her. So drunk on her own arousal, Thirteen had forgotten who she really was. She wasn't an exhibitionist. She wasn't USF's whore. She wasn't a sexual plaything for Tony Manzanillo. She wasn't even really a mailgirl -- not really. And she was certainly no letter-carrying lesbian, as much as the kiss and the stirrings she'd felt for Seven suggested otherwise.

And so, when Seven draped a cold and naked arm around her, Thirteen's first instinct was to recoil.

The other girl must have noticed the tears, or heard the sniffling, or been watching when Thirteen began the first of a series of panicked sobs. Seven one step towards her, out from under her own shower and joining Thirteen beneath hers. Though initially rebuffed, Seven persisted, and wrapped Thirteen up in a hug. She took Thirteen's first reaction for what it was - nothing more than an unthinking reflex to having someone intrude upon her naked and vulnerable -- and stubbornly continued to wrap her in her arms. Thirteen needed this hug.

"Hey," Seven said softly. "Calm down."

The water was cold upon Thirteen's skin, but Seven's embrace was warm and reassuring. After first fighting the urge to pull away, Thirteen now found herself fighting the pull of wanting to hug Seven back, to lose herself in the other girl's embrace. Another kiss, so soon after being disgusted by herself for the first, seemed natural and comforting.

Wouldn't that have been a show for the audience out in the elevator lobby?

"Don't cry," Seven whispered. "Don't cry. Don't let them do that to you. Don't do that to yourself."

Thirteen's chest heaved, and she sobbed.

"Ssshhh. Ssshhh," Seven soothed her.

A good cry was exactly what Thirteen needed at the moment. More than a nap. More than a session of self-gratification. It had been cathartic last night, to get herself off after a day of pent-up emotions. But it had been cathartic, too, to cry at the Imperial. As embarrassed as she'd been to break down in front of Gillian, it had felt good, too. In both instances, her body had craved release from all of the pent-up emotions she'd been suppressing throughout the course of the day.

"Don't bottom out," Seven insisted. "Don't let them see how much this is affecting you. Don't give into it. I promise, tonight, we can have ourselves a good old-fashioned cry after a drink or two. A little liquor in me, and I can almost guarantee it. But not here. Not now. Not in front of them."

Thirteen half-sniffled, half-laughed. She joked, sarcastically, "A mailgirl is to smile? She knows exposing herself is for the benefit of the company?"

Seven chuckled politely. "No rules against crying on the job. But...don't. Don't give her" -- meaning Mistress Zero -- "the satisfaction."

It was okay, then, to masturbate in the locker room, and to show everyone how much the life of mailgirl was affecting her that way. But tears? Tears seemed to be a no-no.

"Not in front of the other girls, either."

Thirteen looked to Seven's reflection questioningly.

Seven, sensing that Thirteen had pulled out of the worst of it, began to pull away. Still, she remained under the same shower. In a normal shower -- and Thirteen had showered with boyfriends before, though sparingly -- she might have worried that the stream wasn't wide enough for them both, and that one or the other would be hogging the warm water. Given that there wasn't any warm water, though, that concern was moot. It was actually warmer out of the spray than under it. Still, Seven stayed close, and both girls were half-in and half-out of the stream, with Seven's right shoulder touching Thirteen's left.

"You're miserable. I get it," Seven explained. "I'm miserable. We're all miserable. But -- brave face. Resolve. Save it for later. Don't get another girl down. Don't force them to remember just how miserable they are, too."

Misery, it seemed, was infectious. Thirteen could appreciate that perspective. She'd made it to this point leaning heavily on denial and distancing herself from herself. The other girls were all doing the same.

Seven remained under the same shower head for the remainder of their rinse, and Thirteen was thankful for it. There was no encore of the performance Seven had put on earlier that morning, of course, for which Thirteen was thankful of, too. Instead, the two girls got down to washing themselves clean. Seven, at one point, called out the need for Thirteen to scrub the soles of her feet -- they were nearly jet black. She demonstrated the most effective way to get filth off; she sat down on the low lip that separated the shower block from the locker room's floor, and pulled Thirteen down with her.

No, Seven didn't masturbate again. Neither did One, Fourteen, or Nine, for that matter -- all potential candidates, given that they'd each done so yesterday. The girls all behaved themselves. They were "good." Thirteen wondered if the audience out in the elevator lobby was disappointed.

They went about prepping themselves for the rest of their day -- brushing their teeth, fixing their hair, reapplying make-up, deodorant, and perfume. One by one, they returned to their lockers, hooked themselves into their leashes, and got back down into "Knees." Thirteen peed one more time before doing so, but joined new recruits Fourteen and Fifteen in time for Mistress Zero to make her rounds. The German woman kicked Thirteen's knees apart a little wider, but otherwise seemed to be satisfied with the blonde's posture. Or, satisfied enough that she wasn't going to make an issue about it just as the smartphones all sprung back to life and beckoned the girls back up into USF Plaza.

That afternoon, too, was mostly uneventful. Or, as uneventful as it could be, given that Thirteen was still scurrying around the building in the nude. Or, perhaps, it only seemed uneventful in retrospect, in comparison to what awaited her and Seven on the far side of that afternoon's break. There was some name-calling and general nastiness, a few instances of being told to get into this position or that, and the standard ogling and eye-fucking that was part and parcel of the mailgirl experience. It struck Thirteen that the actual day-to-day run-ins that she experienced in her new job were often just more of the same. After you'd been called a "slut" so many times, it began to roll off you. After you'd had your tits stared at by the umpteenth person in a row, it stopped feeling like such a violation. She was new blood, a new girl on the roster, and so she received some additional attention -- but even this began to die down as she returned to a particular floor time and time again.

She lost herself in the job. No more tears. Pick-up, then delivery. Pick-up, then delivery. Pick-up, then delivery.

She and Seven continued to chat and get to know each other when the opportunity arose, but an onslaught of jobs early in the afternoon limited their ability to talk about anything meaningful for any meaningful amount of time. Mostly, they kept their heads down and focused on their deadlines, zipping this way and that through rows and rows of cubicles, up and down stairs, and from office to office to office to office.

Still, when possible, Seven went on indoctrinating Thirteen in the Ways of the Mailgirl. When it came to matters of self-pleasure in the locker room, Seven explained that the girls -- generally -- looked the other way when one of the them was occupied with themselves, carrying on as if nothing were happening. They granted one another some measure of "privacy" (or, at least, an illusion thereof). They might comment upon it afterwards, or tease one another over the grunts and sighs and other vocalizations that escaped over the course of the act. But never, during.