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 �>�Mailgirl Number Six by lizstanton8181

    -�Here?  Now? -� 

   There was disbelief in the girl -(TM)s voice, as if she -(TM)d
misunderstood.  As if she -(TM)d misheard.  As if she -(TM)d misinterpreted
her new station.  It was as if the conversation that had preceded the
instruction had been a purely rhetorical exercise, or as if they -(TM)d
been talking about someone else.  She couldn -(TM)t possibly comply.  Not
here.  Not now. 

   Abigail Wagner Williams fought back her annoyance.  Of course there
-(TM)d be hesitation and disbelief, and Abby wasn -(TM)t entirely devoid of
empathy.  The direction of this poor girl -(TM)s life had just changed
dramatically, and what was about to happen to her  -" what had already
begun happening to her  -" would have been unthinkable even just sixty
minutes earlier.  And, even if she had truly and fully understood what her
new role was in the company and what would be expected of her, the
immediacy of her induction was admittedly startling.  Despite that week
-(TM)s announcements and demonstrations, Abby doubted that the girl had
left for work that morning thinking that this could happen to her. 

    -�Here, -� Abby responded.   -�Now. -� 

   As much empathy as Abby may have had, however, she still felt annoyed by
the pushback.  It shouldn -(TM)t have mattered to Casey Campbell whether
she undressed here in the middle of Regulatory Compliance or if she
undressed downstairs in the basement.  Her current coworkers and colleagues
were going to see her in all her glory soon enough; there was no gradual
easing into the life of a naked mailgirl. 

   Casey looked to Will Barrow to overrule Abby, and then to Steve
Dreisewerd for support.  Neither was going to help.  Barrow was Director of
US Financial -(TM)s Human Capital unit, a specialized team within Human
Resources that had been tasked first with launching the Mailgirls Program
at USF Plaza downtown, and now expanding said program to the company -(TM)s
back office here in Jersey City; everything that Abby was doing was at his
direction.  Dreisewerd, a middle manager with all the power and personality
one might have expected out of a career compliance officer, was in no
position step in even if he -(TM)d wanted to. 

   Casey didn -(TM)t bother to seek assistance from the other woman in the
room.  Mistress Rei, her new supervisor, stood behind Barrow with her hands
behind her back, legs ever-so-slightly apart, and chest puffed out.  Abby
was doing her best to swallow her annoyance at the girl.  Mistress Rei made
no such effort. 

   Smartly, though, Casey gave in.  She -(TM)d already fought the good
fight over the course of the preceding hour, exploring any alternatives
that she might have had, and she seemed beaten.  Meekly, she offered up
only an,  -�Okay. -� She glanced nervously over her shoulder, through the
glass walls of the conference room, and out into the cubicle farm that lay
beyond.  Her fellow compliance officers were trying  -" and failing  -" to
pretend they weren -(TM)t doing everything in their power to sneak a peek
at what was unfolding here in the room.  And as Casey stood, and reached
for the lapels of her blazer, Abby could have sworn that what had been a
dull murmur in the workplace outside hushed in anticipation. 

   Historically, the dress code at USF -(TM)s Park Place office in Jersey
City had been less formal than at the Plaza downtown.  But Casey Campbell
was still a lawyer by training, and Park Place was still generally
representative of USF -(TM)s staid, conservative financial services
culture. And so it wasn -(TM)t out of place for Casey to be wearing a
charcoal grey suit jacket and a matching, formal sheath dress.  No, she
wasn -(TM)t wearing pantyhose.  Or stockings, as Abby was.  But even Abby
usually went without when here in Jersey City.  And it was only when she
went in-town, or when she was entertaining senior staff here at Park Place,
that Abby made the effort to don hose. 

   Casey shed the blazer, and then first glanced nervously over to Abby,
and to Barrow immediately after.  She looked unsure of what to do with it.
Casey was already looking for instruction of how to fold her clothes or
where to put them.  But neither Abby nor Barrow offered more direction than
they already had, and so the girl neatly folded her jacket and draped it
over the back of an empty chair. 

   She was gorgeous, to be sure.  Of this first cohort of mailgirl
prospects, she was probably the only one that Abby and Barrow both agreed
was a good, solid  -�10. -� Five-foot-eight, maybe even five-foot-nine,
with long, wavy blonde hair that she let fall loose.  She had  -�high
school cheerleader -� written all over her, a tidbit that Abby had
confirmed while doing her background research.  Perfect teeth and a big,
happy smile  -" though, admittedly, not at the moment.  Bright blue eyes.
And, breasts.  The breasts.  Not even the bateau neckline could hide the
girl -(TM)s curves.  Abby and Barrow had debated over whether she was a
D-cup or a C.  She -(TM)d been a party girl at one time; Abby was sure of
it.  Three years of law school and a compliance job in a cubicle farm in
New Jersey had managed to stamp most of it out her.  Even though Casey had
been a no-brainer from the beginning, from a looks standpoint, she was also
the one that Abby most worried would be sporting some sort of tramp stamp
or tribal tattoo that would could threaten her candidacy. 

   Balancing herself against the conference table, Casey stepped out of her
black pumps, and then bent forward to retrieve them.  They were placed
neatly side-by-side on the table, the girl taking care to make sure they
were perfectly aligned in a transparent attempt to stall what was coming
next. 

   She didn -(TM)t look up at Abby or Barrow at this point.  Nor did she
risk a glance back towards her old desk, her old coworkers, or her old
life. Instead, she seemed to focus herself within, calm herself down, and
proceed.  She reached back over her shoulder with her right hand and
unfastened the sleeveless dress at the top of the zipper.  One or two quick
tugs at the zipper from the top, to get it started, and then she changed
positions; she pulled her arm from over her shoulder, twisted it awkwardly
behind her back, and then found the zipper once more.  All the way down her
back, to just above her waist, and the dress began to loosen around her
shoulders. 

   The conference room was almost entirely glass on one side, and exposed
to Regulatory Compliance here on the 6th Floor beyond.  Abby and Casey were
both on the near side  -" Abby seated towards the head, with Casey now
standing towards the foot, near the door.  Barrow and Dreisewerd were
seated on the other side, across from Abby, with only a single empty chair
between them.  Mistress Rei, meanwhile, was standing comfortably enough
behind Barrow, close to the wall.  Casey had spent the better part of the
last hour seated at one end of the table, being talked into a job she didn
-(TM)t want.  And so it was therefore natural for her to continue facing
the four people in the room, ignoring the rest of Regulatory Compliance and
perhaps pretending they weren -(TM)t out there. 

   Abby wasn -(TM)t sure what she -(TM)d hoped Casey would be wearing
beneath her dress, but she found herself mildly disappointed.  When the
mailgirls program had begun rolling out at the Plaza, women throughout the
company confessed to one another they -(TM)d worn their best out of fear
they -(TM)d be forced to undress in front of an audience.  Even yesterday,
when Abby and Barrow had tapped Theresa Gutteridge here at Park Place,
Theresa had been wearing a ridiculous black g-string that Abby doubted was
in her regular rotation.  Casey, as she slithered out of her dress,
revealed a simple and boring bra-and-panty set made of lavender/violet
nylon.  The wireless bra sported a plunging neckline that lifted Casey
-(TM)s generous cleavage.  And the hip hugger panties had lace trim along
the waist and either leg, as well a pretty little bow at the top.  Nothing
that Casey would have any reason to be embarrassed about, per se.  But the
set was ordinary and run-of-the mill, something that could have been picked
up on clearance just about anywhere, and didn -(TM)t do justice to the
stunning blonde contained within. 

   And Casey Campbell was stunning.  Abby knew the moment that the dress
puddled around her ankles that she -(TM)d be the standard against which the
rest of Park Place -(TM)s mailgirls would be measured.  What this girl had
been doing in a cubicle, working a 9-to-5 in Jersey City, was  -" at this
moment  -" baffling.  Abby knew her inside and out, though:
twenty-eight-years-old, Buffalo native, Binghamton graduate, with a JD from
City College.  She -(TM)d apparently hated the two summers she -(TM)d spent
at Hobson Morgan McNamara while in law school, and had landed in USF -(TM)s
Compliance department as a way to use her law degree without necessarily
having to be a lawyer.  But her true talents, as her now-exposed figure
made apparent, had been going to waste here on the 6th Floor.

   Casey bent at the waist, gathered her dress, and then folded it neatly.
She placed it on the conference table beside her shoes.  To her credit, she
didn -(TM)t default to the uncomfortable  -�cover-myself-with-my-arms -�
position both girls had instinctively taken yesterday.  And she didn -(TM)t
hesitate in reaching behind her back for her bra clasp.  She wanted to get
this over with, yes.  But there was also an undercurrent of anger and
defiance that Abby detected, which paradoxically only further underlined
her potential as a mailgirl. 

   The truth about the mailgirls program was that it was never about simply
delivering the mail.  Nor was it even about the perverse and voyeuristic
nature of watching a beautiful naked girl dash through one -(TM)s place of
work.  Rather, there was measurable data that showed the impact that the
mailgirls program had already had at USF Plaza downtown.  Attrition was
down.  Significantly.  Even among women.  Employee engagement was up. 
Significantly.  Usage of sick days, vacation time, and even FMLA was down.
USF had lost a handful of clients to the negative PR surrounding the 
-�mailgirl issue, -� but they -(TM)d more than made up for those losses
with new business, especially if that new business had the opportunity for
an on-site meeting at USF Plaza.  The more general productivity gains were
a bit less straight forward.  And it was only when Barrow began sharing
some of the theories and speculations of Mailgirl Number Thirteen  -"
sorry, Mailgirl Number Two, now  -" that it began to come together for
Abby. The dominance and superiority that USF -(TM)s employees felt in
interacting with the mailgirls at the Plaza had translated into material
gains in productivity; in short, feeling superior had a direct and
measurable affect in producing superior performance.  If Casey fought her
new station, if Casey had to be broken  -" so much the better.  While
submission was expected and essential for all mailgirls, dominance required
domination, and superiority required USF -(TM)s non-mailgirl population to
claim it. 

   D -(TM)s, Abby told herself as Casey -(TM)s bra came off.  She was sure
of it.  It was one of the data points she -(TM)d been asked to provide for
each candidate, and she -(TM)d spent more time over the last few weeks
looking at women -(TM)s breasts than she would have thought possible for a
straight girl.  Naked breasts.  Fully clothed breasts.  Breasts in bras. 
Breasts in bikini tops.  She -(TM)d done most of her research on her
personal computer, not wanting to get flagged by IT for running afoul of
the company -(TM)s Internet policy.  But she -(TM)d also done quite a bit
of research on USF -(TM)s own mailgirls app, which thoughtfully provided
measurements (and photos) for each member of the mailgirl team.  As there
hadn -(TM)t been photos of those girls while dressed, however, Abby still
had to make a best guess at what was hiding beneath blouses and blazers
here in Jersey City.  But now that Casey -(TM)s two, perfect round globes
had introduced themselves to the room, Abby was certain she -(TM)d been
right.  She glanced across the table, hoping to catch eye contact with
Barrow and crow; she was kidding herself, though, if she believed Barrow
-(TM)s attention was directed anywhere but on the topless blonde. 

   No tattoos, Abby confirmed as she turned back to Casey, unless they were
hiding beneath the hiphuggers.  There was a belly-button ring, but that
could come out.  In fact, Abby jutted her chin towards it, and said,  -�You
-(TM)ll need to take out the belly-button piercing. -� 

    -�Okay, -� the girl agreed, and began fiddling with her navel. 

   Abby smiled to herself, knowing that she -(TM)d just delayed Casey
-(TM)s final reveal; Barrow and Dreisewerd would have to wait a few moments
longer for the panties to come off. 

    -� -(TM)Yes, ma -(TM)am. -(TM) -� This from Mistress Rei.  She -(TM)d
let the last one slide, but the corporate dominatrix in her took over this
time.  It was time for Casey to begin learning her place. 

   Casey stopped with the jewelry, momentarily, and found Mistress Rei
-(TM)s gaze.  She seemed caught off-guard, but recognized her mistake, and
offered up an apologetic,  -�Yes, ma -(TM)am -� in Abby -(TM)s direction. 

    -�I think  -~Mrs.  Williams, -(TM) will do, -� Barrow corrected them
both. 

   There it was again.  Barrow had offered the same correction to Erin
Higgins yesterday.  Abby wondered if he was probing.  Did he know about the
divorce?  Was he teasing her?  Was he just trying to ask her if she was
single?  For a mailgirl, the default form of address to her superiors was 
-�sir -� for men and  -�ma -(TM)am -� for women.  But you could have a
mailgirl call you  -�Mr.  So-and-So -� or  -�Ms.  So-and-So -� if you
preferred; even  -�Miss So-and-So -� seemed to be making a surprising
comeback at the Plaza.  Abby didn -(TM)t have any particular aversion to 
-�ma -(TM)am, -� though, so she found herself asking if Barrow had an
agenda. 

    -�Yes, sir, -� Casey replied.  Flustered, she added,  -�Yes, Mr. 
Barrow. -� And then,  -�Yes, Mrs.  Williams. -� 

   Mrs.  Williams.  Abby was barely thirty, and had less than two full
years on Casey Campbell, which made  -�Mrs.  Williams -� sound odd coming
out of the blonde -(TM)s mouth.  It was intended as a sign of deference,
and act of submission to a superior, but it they way it landed made Abby
feel old.  It made her sound like her mother.  No, rather, it made her
sound like Jon -(TM)s mother. 

   Casey -(TM)s hands were now trembling as she returned to her bellybutton
ring.  The admonishment from Mistress Rei had spooked her, and there was a
certain amount of nervousness that she couldn -(TM)t seem to shake off. 
Perhaps it was that she still had to remove her panties.  Or perhaps it was
that the reality of her situation had begun to make itself apparent.  She
fumbled with the piercing a moment longer, but nonetheless managed to
remove it without too much more delay.  Casey placed the bellybutton ring
on the table, beside her bra, dress, and shoes, and then hesitated.  To
Abby, she began,  -�Ma -(TM)am  -" Mrs.  Williams  -" should I take the
rest of it off, too? -� 

   She meant the rest of her jewelry.  But the question was ambiguous, and
so Abby offered an impish smile and a comprehensive reply.   -�It -(TM)s
all got to come off. -� 

    -�Yes, Mrs.  Williams. -� Casey nodded, and made up her mind that the
rest of jewelry would come before her panties.  Rings.  Watch.  A thin,
silver necklace.  And, finally, with bare breasts framed between her
elbows, she took out her earrings. 

   There -(TM)d be no more delay now; Casey had only one final offering for
her new masters.  She hooked her thumbs into the waistline of her purple
panties, and wriggled free.  Down her thighs, past her knees, until she was
able to step out of them.  But, as she went to place them atop the rest of
her clothes, she was instructed to give them to Abby, instead. 

    -�I -(TM)ll take those, -� Abby said, leaning forward and reaching out
with one hand.  She knew what she sounded like  -" some sort of lesbian
pervert who -(TM)d be sniffing Casey -(TM)s panties back in her office. 
She suspected that Barrow had gotten a kick out of her asking the two girls
yesterday, and that he was likely chuckling to himself now.  But the
claiming of a trophy had become an important rite at USF; there were
already a good two-dozen-and-some pairs of women -(TM)s underwear hanging
in the corridor leading to Human Capital on the 18th Floor of the Plaza. 
Casey -(TM)s would be added to those of Mailgirls One through Four here at
Park Place, downstairs in HR. 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Two

   Mailgirl Number One, the younger of the two Scott sisters, had
surrendered her cute little classic bikini to the company sometime the
previous Friday morning.  Mailgirl Number Two  -" the other Scott sister,
the PhD from Yale, the one who -(TM)d been Mailgirl Number Thirteen at the
Plaza up until Friday night  -" already had white lace thong hanging at the
Plaza from when she -(TM)d originally undressed in front of Barrow back in
June.  But she -(TM)d donated another on Friday, a black one, that she
-(TM)d stripped out of at the start of her shift that morning.  Numbers
Three and Four  -" Erin Higgins from Commercial Loans and Theresa
Gutteridge from Estate Planning  -" had handed their respective shimmery
yellow briefs and black thong to Abby yesterday, just as Casey Campbell was
doing now.  And it would be Abby -(TM)s charge to hang Casey -(TM)s pair
alongside the others later this afternoon.

   Casey -(TM)s hiphuggers were still warm to the touch, a realization that
now made Abby actually feel like some sort of lesbian pervert.  After all,
while Casey -(TM)s underwear was dry to the touch, Abby knew she couldn
-(TM)t say the same about her own.  She was no lesbian.  Nor had she ever
had any fantasies or any particular curiosity when it came to women.  But
her current assignment, under Barrow, had clearly struck a nerve over the
last few weeks.  And whether it was the dominance of her position or the
submission of the girls, Abby couldn -(TM)t deny that she was getting off
on this.  Maybe even more than Barrow. 

   She worried she -(TM)d let the genie out of the bottle two weeks ago at
the Plaza --

   The fact that Casey wasn -(TM)t shaved down below excited her more than
it should have.  As she understood it, a highlight of a girl -(TM)s first
day  -" lowlight, probably, from the girl -(TM)s perspective  -" was the
first time she was forced to shave in front of an audience.  Theresa
Gutteridge -(TM)s Brazilian had robbed them of that particular spectacle
yesterday.  But Casey -(TM)s whispy little blonde triangle would allow her
the opportunity to put on a show later that morning  -" likely seated on
the floor of the shower block, with legs splayed and crotch covered in
shaving cream, while a crowd assembled on the far side of the locker -(TM)s
room -(TM)s mirror glass. 

   Gutteridge, at least, had still had to endure her anal bleaching, a
misery that Casey may or may not have been aware awaited her.  After the
first time, the girls at the Plaza were generally able to take care of that
particular chore on their own time, in the relative privacy of a spa or
salon.  But the girls of Park Place, guinea pigs for USF -(TM)s new 24/7
program, would be granted no such luxury. 

   Abby found herself absentmindedly wondering what Casey -(TM)s asshole
looked like  -" a goddess such as this, flawless in just about every way.
But it wasn -(TM)t as if she could ask to see it.  Well, technically, she
could  -" she needed only to give the command.  But even as up-close and
personal as she -(TM)d gotten with the Number Eighteen -(TM)s rear end at
the Plaza, there were some lines that Abby wasn -(TM)t yet ready to cross
on her own.  And she certainly wasn -(TM)t going to ask in front of Barrow.
Leave that particular command to Mistress Rei later that morning; leave
that to the professional. 

   Casey was now fully naked in her place of work, in front of an audience
of four here in the room, as well as a handful of gawkers outside who
-(TM)d popped their heads like prairie dogs up over the walls of their
cubicles to see for themselves.  She had likely had conference calls and
Monday morning briefings and birthday parties here in this room.  She
likely had never imagined herself standing here now, tits out and body on
display, utterly humiliated and anticipating two more years of even worse
humiliations to come. 

   Barring some sort of executive -(TM)s fantasy or the whims of Human
Capital, Casey was unlikely to be allowed any opportunity to wear anything
again until September rolled back around two years from now.  And yet, just
as both girls had done yesterday, she asked about the clothes she -(TM)d
worn to work that morning. 

   And, just as he had done yesterday, Barrow responded,  -�They -(TM)ll be
donated to charity. -� He stopped, pausing for a moment to let that sink
in, and then asked,  -�Do you have any particular charities you -(TM)d want
them to go to? -� 

   The follow-up question caught Casey off-guard, and she shook her head. 
-�N-n-no.  No, sir. -� 

    -�Well, -� Barrow said smugly,  -�we know a few good ones.  We -(TM)ll
take care of it for you. -� He -(TM)d just stripped her bare, stolen her
clothes, and made it sound like he was doing her a kindness. 

   Where Casey -(TM)s outfit would end up wasn -(TM)t entirely an unfair
question, though.  Casey had been told, earlier in their conversation, that
Barrow would be dispatching his personal secretary and a team of
professional movers to Casey -(TM)s apartment to collect her things.  They
-(TM)d box up and ship everything that Casey owned  -" every piece of
furniture, every book, every photo album, and every stitch of clothes  -"
up to a third party storage facility north of Paramus.  If she broke
contract, and forced her way out of her current role, it -(TM)d all default
over to USF.  If she fulfilled her end of her agreement, she -(TM)d get it
all back two years from now. 

   Which itself wasn -(TM)t entirely true.  Mailgirl Number Two had a box
of underthings sitting in a storage room down in the subbasement, and
similar treasures from the former homes of Mailgirls Three and Four would
have arrived here at Park Place that morning.  Barrow wouldn -(TM)t be
content with just the single pair of purple hiphuggers Casey had ceded to
Abby here.  He intended to share a much more extensive trophy collection
with the employees of Park Place in the near future, and Abby was
admittedly and inhumanly looking forward to the faces on the girls when
they were made aware. 

   Complicating things, however, was the fact that Casey had a roommate,
and they -(TM)d all been forced to listen on as Casey had called her and
lied to her about what was happening to her, and why some men were coming
to pack up her things.  Apparently, Casey Campbell had been offered a
promotion to go work overseas, and she had to jump at that opportunity
immediately or risk losing out on it.  They -(TM)d talk again soon, and
Casey promised to be back within a few weeks to visit  -" but, for now,
could the roommate pretty please make sure she was home when the movers
arrived, and make sure they didn -(TM)t take anything that didn -(TM)t
below to Casey? 

   Abby understood the lie, and Barrow allowed it, but it -(TM)d only be a
matter of time before the reality of Casey -(TM)s new job would be trickle
out.  Mailgirl photos were now regularly popping up on a social media, and
there were only so many times a girl could untag herself before her
situation became public knowledge among her friends and family.  The elder
Scott sister had managed to keep her role as a mailgirl secret from her
mother for the entirety of the summer; as Barrow was now employing both of
her daughters, however, he -(TM)d felt it was the  -�right thing to do -�
to inform her of that fact on Monday.  In Casey -(TM)s case, the more
immediate concern was packing up her things, and whatever lie the roommate
needed to be told to help Barrow -(TM)s assistant accomplish that task was
okay by him. 

   What now, though?  Casey was standing uncomfortably by door, in her
altogether, and awaiting what was next.  But this was no longer Abby -(TM)s
show  -" Casey belonged to Mistress Rei now. 

   The Japanese woman, who despite being a good head shorter than Casey,
and beneath the floor Barrow had set for Abby when hunting for mailgirl
candidates, had an intimidating presence about her nonetheless.  And as
much as it may have been Barrow who was running the show, it would be
Mistress Rei calling the shots when it came to Casey -(TM)s induction into
her new role. 

    -�Knees, -� she instructed, her English good but heavily accented.  
-�In the corner. -� She rounded the table and joined the naked girl by the
door. 

   Casey looked to Dreisewerd in one last desperate plea for rescue.  It
was a mistake. 

    -�Knees! -� Mistress Rei barked again, and grabbed the girl by her
long, blonde locks.  She literally tugged her to the floor, and Casey had
to catch herself with her hands, before rising back up to her knees.  She
was facing now the corner, with her bare back to Abby and Barrow.   -�Eyes
on the floor. -� 

   Casey did as instructed, even managing to squeak out a,  -�Yes, ma
-(TM)am, -� along the way, before the sniffles began to break out.  She was
going to cry.

   Mistress Rei wasn -(TM)t going to allow it, though.  First it was a
correction -  -�Yes, mistress, -�  -" which Casey was forced to parrot
back. And then a warning.   -�No crying, -� Mistress Rei ordered, with the
threat of punishment going unspoken. 

    -�Yes, mistress. -� 

   If this didn -(TM)t already feel like a punishment, Casey could be
assured that there worse things her new mistress was ready and willing to
do to her. 

    -�It is an honor to be chosen as a mailgirl. -�

    -�Yes, mistress. -� 

   From the little black satchel Mistress Rei had been holding behind her
back, she produced a thick, vicious-looking, black metal collar.  It was
like something fished from the deepest, darkest corners of a
bondage-and-discipline fetishist -(TM)s imagination.  This was no pretty
little piece of jewelry  -" it was ugly, and evil, and affixed with a
series of D-rings that Mistress Rei could put into use as she saw fit. 
And, though Casey wouldn -(TM)t have her new mailgirl number inked upon her
hip until after she -(TM)d showered and shaved, the dog tag hooked upon the
collar clearly established her as Number 5.  As Mistress Rei clicked the
collar around the girl -(TM)s neck, Casey Campbell was stripped even of her
name. 

    -�Practice, -� Mistress Rei began.   -� -(TM)Ma -(TM)am, per Human
Capital, I am to be called by my mail room number. -(TM) -�

   Mailgirl Number Five visibly shuddered, but held back the sobs that so
clearly wanted to escape.   -�Ma -(TM)am, per Human Capital, I am to be
called by my mail room number. -� 

    -�Again. -� 

    -�Ma -(TM)am, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room
number. -� 

    -�Again -� 

    -�Ma -(TM)am, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room
number. -� 

    -�Good girl, -� Mistress Rei answered, but took hold of the blonde
-(TM)s hair once more.   -�Back straight. -� She waited for Five to
comply. 

    -�Chest out. -�

    -�Hands behind your back.  Left wrist in your right hand. -� 

   Pause. 

    -�Knees apart. -�

    -�More. -�

    -�More. -�

    -�Knees -� was the shorthand name of one of a good twelve or thirteen
positions that USF -(TM)s mailgirls were expected to learn and execute on
command.   -�Ankles. -�  -�Hands-and-Knees. -�  -�Elbows-and-Knees. -� 
-�Forehead-and-Knees. -�  -�Head-Shoulders-Knees-and-Toes? -� Abby didn
-(TM)t know them all.  In those rare moments during the day, though, that
Five wasn -(TM)t actively engaged in a delivery or some other task, it was
this current position,  -�Knees, -� to which she -(TM)d default  -"
kneeling, with knees at least shoulder-width apart, arms behind her, and
back arched, all while she kept her head down, submissively, and focused on
some imaginary spot on the floor in front of her. 

   Five would be treated to a game of Simon Says, Mailgirls Edition, a bit
later that morning, before Mistress Rei allowed her out into the rest of
the building.  It -(TM)d been an hour yesterday of up-and-down, and
this-way-and-that, and back-and-forth, before she -(TM)d let Three and Four
go, to shadow One and Two.  Mistress Rei apparently demanded perfection;
she -(TM)d barked at them, screamed at them, pulled their hair, slapped
them around, and even let loose with a riding crop a number of times.  Only
later did it dawn upon Abby that the exercise was less about the positions
themselves, and more about Mistress Rei establishing control and putting
her new charges in their place. 

   Five -(TM)s new collar wasn -(TM)t the only item that Mistress Rei had
brought with her, though.  Nor was it the only item that seemed
mail-ordered from a BDSM catalog.  As Five had the honor of being the first
girl recruited that morning, she also had the honor of being forced to wait
as Mistress Rei joined Abby and Barrow in recruiting Mailgirl Number Six.
Given the order to open her mouth, the naked blonde complied, and was
treated to a black, silicone ball gag that her mistress secured around the
back of her head.  Then, of course, came the black leather blindfold.

   Number Five, stripped to skin, gagged and sightless, was left in the
corner of the room. 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Three

    -�Stay, -� Mistress Rei instructed, and then turned the others. 

   The girl offered a muffled and almost comical response.  Better safe
than sorry, she mewed,  -�eff, mih-eff. -�

   Abby stifled a laugh, and met a smile from Barrow. 

    -�To Trade Ops? -� Barrow asked, standing. 

   Mistress Rei began gathering the detritus of Five -(TM)s old life  -"
the shoes, the blazer, the dress, the bra, and the jewelry.  Abby,
meanwhile, was awkwardly filing away Five -(TM)s panties in her portfolio;
the fact that another girl -(TM)s underwear was wedged between her notepad
and her tablet was just another sign of how much the world had changed, and
how odd these last few weeks had been for Abby, personally. 

    -�Mailgirl Number Six, -� Abby nodded. 

   It was Dreisewerd -(TM)s turn now to be confused.   -�You -(TM)re going
to leave her here? -� 

    -�For now, -� Barrow answered.   -�Mistress Rei will be back to fetch
her in a bit. -� 

    -�It -(TM)s just, -� Dreisewerd went on,  -�we -(TM)ve got meetings in
here. -� He seemed fearful of Barrow, as if any bold line of questioning
would result in Dreisewerd himself naked and gagged on the floor beside
Five. 

    -�Is she in the way? -� Barrow asked. 

   This, too, confused Dreisewerd.   -�Well, no.  I mean, not exactly --
-� 

    -�She won -(TM)t bother you. -� This from Mistress Rei.   -�She knows
better. -� 

   Not for the first time, Abby wondered what she would have done in the
girl -(TM)s shoes.  Five had had a surprising amount of credit card debt,
sure.  And Abby, on USF -(TM)s behalf, had just agreed to pay it off for
her.  They -(TM)d also tripled her base pay over the next two years on top
of that, an increase made even more significant by the fact that they
-(TM)d also be providing her with room and board  -" taking care of every
expense.  And, sure, the money would all be paid out in a single lump sum
at the end of her contract, and subject to certain penalties that she
-(TM)d only learn about later.  But she -(TM)d also be provided with the
opportunity to earn some fairly substantial  -" if demeaning  -" incentives
along the way. 

   But was any amount of money worth this? 

   Was any amount of money enough for Abby to subject herself to this sort
of treatment? 

   If left alone like this, would anything have kept Abby from
reconsidering, reneging, and hauling ass to the nearest exit? 

   And yet, Number Three had waited patiently yesterday while Abby, Barrow,
and Mistress Rei had ensnared Number Four.  And Mistress Rei was confident
Number Five would still be here when she returned to fetch her with Number
Six. 

   Barrow exited the conference room first, stopping just long enough to
pat the blonde on the head, and shoot Abby an approving look; she -(TM)d
done good work with this one, he seemed to be telling her.  Mistress Rei
followed behind, the diminutive Japanese woman not bothering to repeat her
instruction to Five and paying her no further attention  -" for now. 

   Abby, though, lingered for a moment longer.  She stared absently at the
bare back of a USF employee who -(TM)d woken up this morning, at home, as a
midlevel compliance officer.  And who -(TM)d go to sleep tonight in the
basement, here at work, as a naked mailgirl.  What could she be thinking?
What was it like?  How did she feel about herself?  About Barrow?  About
Abby?  What was she going to tell her family and friends?  How was she
going to face her coworkers? 

   Was a part of her turned on by this? 

   Was a part of her turned on by this as much as Abby was? 

   ***

   The very fact that a single mailgirl program could exist anywhere was
confirmation to Abby that the world she -(TM)d been living in for the past
few years had slipped into some other dimension, some sort of alternate
reality, some sort of sick fantasy land dreamt up by some unknown pervert.
The world had gone off track right around the time that Abby had been
graduating from Penn, twenty-two-years-old, full of promise, and oblivious
to the deranged revolution then percolating on the far side of the Pacific.
First it was Tokyo.  Then Osaka.  Kyoto.  From Kyoto to Seoul, Seoul to
Singapore, Singapore to Hong Kong.

   A few weeks prior to that morning with Mailgirl Number Five, Abby had
been eavesdropping on a conversation between two Employee Relations
representatives at USF Plaza.  Diane Harris, who earlier that day had had
to confiscate a vibrator from a woman on the 32nd Floor, joked that it was
like the entire building had been doused with animal pheromones over the
past few months.  It wasn -(TM)t just the mailgirls  -" behavior and
conduct issues of a sexual nature had been popping up all over, among men
and women both.  It was how Abby felt about the overall mailgirl phenomenon
worldwide: it was like the whole world had been doused with those same
pheromones over the last few years, and everyone had collectively gone out
of their minds. 

   If she hadn -(TM)t lived through it, Abby never would have believed the
penetration and staying power the concept achieved in just a few short
years.  It managed to cross cultural divides, and find footing in Germany,
Scandinavia, and Benelux.  The United States had been late the party, but
there were already a few dozen companies who -(TM)d rolled the idea out on
the West Coast, and USF was among the vanguard here in the New York Metro
region.  It had spread like a cancer, and the more and more it transitioned
into the mainstream, the more and more it was becoming normalized. 

   Conservatives had blamed feminists and the Sexual Revolution for
providing fertile ground for such an anathema to take root.  Abby was
willing to concede that there may have been some truth in that argument, as
contradictory as a straight line between Women -(TM)s Lib and
Mailgirls-in-Chains might have been on the surface; for every women -(TM)s
rights group picketing and protesting a company initiating its own mailgirl
program, there was another lined up in support, who viewed a girl -(TM)s
decision through the lens of a  -�woman -(TM)s right to choose. -�
Mailgirls were volunteers; at USF, they had to re-affirm their decision to
participate in the program each and every morning.  And a shocking number
of mailgirl alums  -" most, even - lined up in support of mailgirl programs
elsewhere.  Despite everything they -(TM)d been forced to endure, there was
a large percentage of former mailgirls who loudly championed the concept
worldwide. 

   It shouldn -(TM)t have surprised Abby that there were men everywhere
willing to launch these sorts of initiatives at their own companies.  Nor
should it have surprised Abby that, among women, there were plenty of
masochists, closeted exhibitionists, and bimbos willing to prostitute
themselves for the large sums of money that regularly followed mailgirls
around.  But Barrow, when he -(TM)d recruited Abby to help him expand his
vision to Park Place, argued that a nineteen-year-old, or a  -�true -�
submissive, or an already fully-blossomed nymphomaniac wouldn -(TM)t do for
what USF was looking for.

    -�There has to be an element of --almost -- -� he had said, pausing for
dramatic effect, before continuing,  -� -- -(TM)schadenfreude -(TM) with
our girls. -� 

   Barrow -(TM)s argument was the one that held that the superiority the
mailgirls instilled in the non-mailgirl staff drove superior performance
company-wide.  There were plenty of measurable and quantifiable data points
that fed the bottom line, but Barrow -(TM)s ideal mailgirl was more than
just a piece of ass. 

    -�We -(TM)re looking for women, not girls, -� he explained.  It was the
only time that Abby had ever heard him use the term  -�women -� in
connection to the mailgirl program, and he -(TM)d never use it again. 

   Abby Wagner Williams had gotten mixed up with Human Capital at the
recommendation of her boss, Christine Klinger.  Barrow -(TM)s little team
of analysts and technicians would continue to oversee the mailgirl program
overall, from Manhattan, even as the program expanded to Jersey City. 
However, they -(TM)d needed someone to help them scout talent at the back
office, and Chris had apparently told Barrow there was no one better than
the Junior Vice President of Talent Management for Park Place, Princeton,
and Paramus.  Which was why Abby found herself beckoned over to the Plaza,
up to the 18th Floor, through the Hall of Panties, and into Will Barrow
-(TM)s corner office. 

   Scouting  -�talent, -� in this context, was not exactly the sort of
Talent Management that was written into Abby -(TM)s job description.  She
-(TM)d been a management consultant down in DC after Penn, and returned to
Philadelphia to pick up an MBA from Wharton with a focus on Human
Resources. She -(TM)d been recruited by USF after business school to help
them redesign career-pathing company-wide from an office at USF Plaza
in-town, but that project had ultimately stalled out when USF hired a new
Director of Human Resources.  Abby was shuffled off to Jersey City and
assigned to Chris, and had been commuting back-and-forth over the Hudson
from her condo in Chelsea ever since.  Annual performance evaluations,
talent review sessions, assisting in setting individual and departmental
objectives  -" these were the sorts of things that Abby had been
responsible for over the last three years, for USF -(TM)s back office in
Jersey City and two smaller satellite offices elsewhere in the state. 

   She was no longer an up-and-comer.  Her next step here at USF, with all
probability, was to take over Chris -(TM)s job at some future point - which
was essentially Abby -(TM)s job today, but for USF -(TM)s entire Northeast
region.  But Chris was only in her early forties, and likely wasn -(TM)t
going anywhere in the near future.  Abby had taken a couple of recruiting
calls outside of USF for a few opportunities back home in Boston, and
another down in Philly.  But Jon was a Long Island boy, and having success
at Pierce & Pierce, so Abby had ultimately decided to stay put.  Jon was
longer an issue, but the calls had gotten less and less frequent in the
last year or so. 

   As much as Abby -(TM)s first instinct was to recoil from the idea of
being involved with Human Capital and the mailgirl program, she -(TM)d said
 -�yes. -� She wasn -(TM)t sure she had much of a choice, if she were being
honest about it.  But it was an opportunity to do something different, as
monstrous, sadistic, and maybe even evil as it may have been.  With the
divorce, she certainly had the time.  Getting her mind off of her failed
marriage and the financial morass she now found herself in certainly
helped, too.  And, though she didn -(TM)t like to admit it, there was a
sick, perverse pleasure in taking her misery out on the poor, unsuspecting
mailgirl candidates at Park Place. 

   The bitch manager who told Abby she didn -(TM)t have time to conduct her
team -(TM)s performance evaluations, and that Abby should just do it
herself?  On the list.  So-and-so was mean to one of her friends in Human
Resources?  On the list.  That girl who passed Abby in the lobby, and just
seemed sort of stuck-up?  On the list. 

   Abby would have to have been naive, though, to not suspect that Barrow
was sizing her up as a mailgirl candidate, herself.  Never in a million
years, she told herself then.  No matter how much money he offered, or what
he tried to hold over her.  She -(TM)d rather show up jobless, homeless,
and penniless on the doorstep of her parents -(TM) house back in
Massachusetts than subject herself to the daily humiliations the mailgirls
were treated to at the Plaza.  And the fact that Jersey City would be
piloting a new 24/7 concept  -" in which the mailgirls were never allowed
to get dressed, never allowed to leave the building, never allowed a
respite from their exposure and embarrassment  -" only further cemented her
resolve. 

   All that being said, though, Abby herself couldn -(TM)t have better fit
the profile that Barrow outlined for her.  He didn -(TM)t want to go any
older than thirty-four or thirty-five, but he also didn -(TM)t want to go
any younger than twenty-four or so.  There was no doubt in his mind that he
could fill the roster with perky little twenty-two-year-olds fresh out of
college, but that wasn -(TM)t what he wanted Abby looking for.  He also
knew the task would be easier if they were scouting around on the lower
ends of the payscale, where the administrative assistants and call center
reps could be found.  But, no - Barrow wanted her to come back to him with
some of the best-and-brightest USF had to offer, junior executives and
management-track types, preferably with advanced degrees. 

    -�A JD.  Or a Masters, -� Barrow had thrown out as examples. 

    -�An MBA? -� Abby asked, pointedly. 

    -�Exactly, -� Barrow replied. 

   Girls had to be about or above average height, maybe five-foot-four as a
floor and five-foot-nine or five-foot-ten as a ceiling.  And, then, the
task that really and truly had taken Abby down the rabbit -(TM)s hole:
Barrow wanted only  -�8 -(TM)s, 9 -(TM)s, and 10 -(TM)s. -� He -(TM)d take
a  -�7, -� if Abby could build a case, and if there was potential to get
her up to an  -�8 -� with some diet and exercise. 

   Abby was thirty years old, an Ivy League graduate with a Wharton MBA,
stood five-foot-six, and was capable of admitting that she was good, solid
-�8. -� Maybe even a  -�9, -� on a good day.  She was a C-cup, with a good
figure, and kept herself in good shape; she was going to the gym more often
in the last few months, now that she -(TM)d need to  -�get back out there
-� and meet someone new.  She had shoulder-length red hair, green eyes, and
a smile that stretched ear-to-ear when she was happy. 

   If it weren -(TM)t her making the list, she was sure she -(TM)d be on
it. 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Four

   And so Abby -(TM)s involvement in the project was also partly
self-preservation.  Not only would she build up a roster of candidates so
perfect that Barrow wouldn -(TM)t need to look her way, but she -(TM)d also
go a step further and provide him with the leverage he needed to assure him
that any candidate on that list would have no choice but to say  -�yes. -�
Casey Campbell had had a surprising amount of credit debt, for example;
insurmountable, even.  Theresa Gutteridge had regular instances of
including alcoholic beverages on the receipts she submitted for
reimbursement - a common enough practice, but one that she could
technically be fired over.  And Kristen Metkovich, a lesbian, had two
instances of sexual harassment filed against her by female team members;
Abby had had to  -�encourage -� the second one out of a hesitant so-called
victim just last week, but she expected it to pay dividends when presented
to Kristen today. 

   Even Kaitlyn York, one of the recruiters who sat in a cubicle just
outside of Abby -(TM)s office, and who had a passing resemblance to Olivia
Munn.  She was on the list.  A  -�9, -� for sure.  She and Abby were
friends, of sorts.  Work friends, at least.  And the betrayal that Kaitlyn
would feel when Abby and Barrow sat down with her would cut Abby to the
core.  But if it were the choice between Kaitlyn and Abby, Abby was going
to nominate Kaitlyn.  She didn -(TM)t dare leave Kaitlyn off, for fear that
Barrow might see her omission as either a glaring error or as an attempt to
protect one of her friends. 

   With midyear reviews behind her, and year-end performance evaluations
still a few months away, Abby was able to throw herself into Barrow -(TM)s
little project.  She lived it and breathed it on a daily basis, and it had
begun to affect her.  She couldn -(TM)t ride the subway without rating
other passengers  -" the girls, at least - on a scale from 1 to 10.  She
couldn -(TM)t have a conversation with her friends or coworkers without
risking a glance at their chests, and assigning a best guess as to their
cup size.  She couldn -(TM)t walk the halls at Park Place without imagining
USF -(TM)s female population doing so in the nude.  The naked pictures she
-(TM)d begun looking up online for strictly research purposes had turned
into movies, and soft core had transformed into hard core in short order.
Abby, who -(TM)d watched a dirty movie maybe once or twice in her entire
life before that summer, was now pulling up pornography evening after
evening; rare was the night that her bedtime routine over the past few
weeks didn -(TM)t involve a twenty-thirty minute session with her tablet. 

   It had been Number Two  -" then still Number Thirteen at the Plaza  -"
who -(TM)d set her off initially.  Abby had come into the city to provide a
report on early progress, and was greeted in the elevator lobby by a naked,
masturbating blonde.  It was mid-morning, the girl was on her break, and
Abby was on the far side of a mirror glass wall, waiting for an elevator to
the 18th Floor.  True, Thirteen couldn -(TM)t see her, nor any of the other
voyeurs and lookie-loos gathered in the lobby.  But she had to have been
aware that there were people out there at given moment.  And yet she had
one hand propped up against the glass while her other worked furiously,
rubbing between her legs, as cold water fell onto her from the showerhead
above. 

   It wasn -(TM)t even the first time Abby had caught one of the naked
mailgirls masturbating in the locker room; it had become such a common
sight that it was almost rare to not see at least one or two girls touching
themselves whenever they had the opportunity to do so.  Some of it felt
forced, though, almost like a stage show.  What Thirteen was doing that
morning, in contrast, was honest, desperate, and focused, and Abby had been
haunted by it for the rest of that day and into the next.  She -(TM)d been
a psychology major in college, and so it wasn -(TM)t unusual for her to
wonder about what made people tick; what was it that made Thirteen tick? 
What was she thinking?  Was she bothered at all by the audience in the
elevator lobby?  Was the sex, even just with herself, so good that she
-(TM)d readily accept the humiliation?  Was she fantasizing about some
lover, maybe there at the Plaza?  Was it a man or a woman?  If it was a
woman  -" and many, if not most, of the mailgirls were rumored to be
sleeping with one another when off-duty  -" had she been a lesbian before
undressing for USF?  Was she thinking about being somewhere else, somewhere
more private?  Or was the exhibitionism in front of the audience an
integral part of what had Thirteen so revved up and turned on? 

   The image of the mailgirl pawing at her pussy had lingered at the
forefront of Abby -(TM)s mind well into the following night, when Abby had
been forced to find her own relief  -" albeit behind closed doors, in the
privacy of the condo that was slowly bankrupting her.  It wasn -(TM)t a
lesbian fantasy, though.  Nor was it even about that particular girl,
exactly.  The girl -(TM)s bare body featured heavily, but it could just as
well have been Abby -(TM)s own; in the heat of the moment, it was blurred.
The company -(TM)s power over the mailgirl was a turn-on, but so too was
the girl -(TM)s own powerlessness; she had been betrayed and embarrassed
even by her own body. 

   Abby, in the aftermath, was embarrassed by what she -(TM)d just done. 
The shame hit her as she worked to catch her breath in the darkness of her
bedroom.  Her panties were still askew, halfway down her thighs.  Her tank
top had been discarded midway through, and lay somewhere on the floor
beside her bed.  She was ashamed at what she just done, and confused about
what it had meant. 

   Thirteen-now-Two wasn -(TM)t a typical mailgirl, though, and Abby had
been granted an opportunity to get to know her better  -" through her
research notes.  Sarah Jane Scott was a twenty-six-year-old doctoral
candidate within Yale -(TM)s Anthropology Department, one whose previous
work had focused on social and cultural issues within groups of women and
girls.  Her summer at US Financial Plaza had been arranged through Will
Barrow, who had apparently been a student of Sarah -(TM)s thesis advisor in
New Haven, and whose presence had assured both student and teacher that USF
wouldn -(TM)t descend into the sorts of abuses that had overtaken mailgirl
programs elsewhere.  Abuses, sure.  But, to a point. 

   Sarah, as Mailgirl Number Thirteen, had documented her life among the
mailgirls since June, capturing the sentiments of and insights into the
girls -(TM) day-to-day at the Plaza, and had flavored her research with her
own analysis and self-examination.  They were all miserable, of course  -"
the uptick in engagement and morale company-wide did not extend into the
mailgirls locker room.  But there was an unmistakable camaraderie that
existed among the girls, and almost a culture unto itself.  And, being
stripped bare of everything that had made them who they had been in their
prior lives had allowed them a certain freedom and an opportunity to be
honest about who they really were, what excited them, and what they wanted.
It allowed them the chance to explore themselves, whether they liked what
they found or they did not. 

   Thirteen had shared her notes with her professor, the professor had
shared those notes with Barrow, and Barrow had shared them with Abby. 
There was restraint and self-censure in the early reports.  But the more
recent submissions had been filled with very open soul-searching and
introspection, confessions that hinted of inner conflict, and anecdotes
that were outright pornographic in nature.  But it was one throwaway
statement, amid an exploration of Thirteen -(TM)s sex life prior to that
summer, that managed to catch Abby especially off-guard, and stay with her
as much as the image of Thirteen in flagrante delicto. 

    -�I had never been an overly sexual person, -� Thirteen had written.  
-�I had never been an overly sexual person, -� said the girl who -(TM)d
been fingering herself in the lobby of major financial services firm in
downtown New York.   -�I had never been an overly sexual person, -� said
the girl who then went on a few paragraphs later, in explicit detail, to
describe masturbating on the floor of the locker room within inches of
another sweaty, naked, mailgirl. 

   Abby, too, had never been an overly sexual person.  She -(TM)d lost her
virginity as a senior in high school, and had been just a few more men that
Thirteen confessed to.  She -(TM)d met Jonathan Williams, a few years her
senior, at business school, and they -(TM)d gotten married when Abby was
twenty-six.  They -(TM)d been hot-and-heavy for a time, but Abby hadn
-(TM)t thought much about it as their sex life began to wane.  It was two
or three times a week for a while.  Then once or twice.  Then, maybe on a
Friday or Saturday night, when she didn -(TM)t have to get up to go to the
gym in the morning.  Or, maybe only reserved for a special occasion.  It
was what happened to all married couples, wasn -(TM)t it?  It was entirely
normal, right? 

   Jon didn -(TM)t think so.  He complained about it repeatedly, accused
her of never initiating, and had once had the gall to accuse her of
suffering from some sort of sexual arousal disorder.  Even that hadn -(TM)t
really phased her, though  -" wasn -(TM)t it common for men to want more
sex than women?  Wasn -(TM)t that a staple of sitcom couples and a trope
that played out over and over again in marriages everywhere? 

   Abby should have worried about it more, though.  She should have forced
herself to show more of an interest in her husband, to make an effort and
perform her marital duties.  But, in the moment, she often just wanted to
go to sleep after a long day.  In the moment, she was stressed about how
her career seemed to be going nowhere.  In the moment, she just wasn -(TM)t
all that turned on.  But because Abby didn -(TM)t share Jon -(TM)s libido,
Jon had begun sharing a bed with a twenty-three-year-old fitness instructor
from Brooklyn. 

   Abby had never been an overly sexual person.  But now that Jon was
shacked up with Traci-Spelled-With-An-I out in Bushwick, now that he -(TM)d
abandoned her to a mortgage that was unfortunately in her name only, now
that Abby no longer had an outlet in bed beside her  -" now, suddenly, Abby
had come alive. 

   It was the mailgirl program at USF, of course.  Diane had joked that the
whole building had been doused in animal pheromones, but the truth of the
matter was that no amount of animal pheromones could have affected as many
people as the mailgirls themselves.  Among men, it was straightforward  -"
visual creatures that they were, it made sense that a naked girl dashing
past would encourage a wave of erections to follow along behind her.  Among
women, it was more complicated.  Thirteen, given her anthropological
training, had speculated that the presence of these naked goddesses had
inspired competitive juices to begin flowing among the non-mailgirl female
population.  Abby wasn -(TM)t so quick to discard Diane -(TM)s theory
altogether, though; more than once, while working at the Plaza, she -(TM)d
been treated to the waft of sex and pussy accompanying a mailgirl on her
rounds. 

   What had Thirteen been dreaming of that morning in the locker room?  How
had she -(TM)d reacted when Barrow had extended her contract and shipped
her to Jersey City?  What was Casey Campbell  -" er, Mailgirl Five  -"
thinking right now?  What would go through Kristen Metkovich -(TM)s head
when Abby laid out her new life for her in the middle of Trade Ops?  And
could any of them be as turned on by all this as Abby found herself,
excited about the hunt, anticipating that opportunity to strip another girl
bare? 

   No, Abby had never been an overly sexual person.  But that had changed
over the last few weeks, after Barrow had tapped her as his right hand. 
Rare had been the night Abby hadn -(TM)t watched a dirty video in bed. 
Rare had been the night Abby hadn -(TM)t had to touch herself to calm her
body down, to fall to sleep.  And rare, even, had been the day here at Park
Place  -" at least over the last week or so  -" she hadn -(TM)t given in
and debased herself by masturbating in her office. 

   Abby was uncomfortable with all of this, of course, and she was
embarrassed by her behavior  -" even if she hadn -(TM)t been caught.  It
had started at the Plaza, but had developed into a full-blown problem here
at Park Place.  She was ashamed of herself, of what she -(TM)d allowed
herself to do, of how far she -(TM)d allowed herself to go.  Part of it was
the power, playing the role of the dominant, and having the fates of these
girls in her hand.  But part of it was the lack of power, as she identified
with these very same girls and the humiliations they were to suffer.  It
all came together in one big disturbed and demeaning jumble of feelings and
fantasies.  And the idea that she might be caught had only made that
initial orgasm on the stairwell of the 18th Floor that much more intense. 

   Did Barrow know how much all of this was affecting her?  She wondered.
If he did, or if he -(TM)d seen any change in her, he hadn -(TM)t tipped
his hand.  True, he -(TM)d called out her status as a  -�Mrs. -� twice now,
which seemed to be about something; Abby hadn -(TM)t kept her divorce a
secret, but she hadn -(TM)t made it public, and she was still wearing her
engagement ring and wedding band.  But she -(TM)d kept her composure around
him.  She wasn -(TM)t so lacking in self-control and self-awareness that
she devolved into a trembling, sex-craved monster each and every time she
thought about her assignment with the mailgirls.  Even if that same
self-control and self-awareness hadn -(TM)t kept her from masturbating at
work, at least occasionally. 

   Ultimately, Abby had presented a list of thirty-six candidates to Barrow
for review.  He had tossed out seven for various reasons, but he -(TM)d
kept twenty-nine.  He -(TM)d shuffled around her rankings, and had
disagreed with her on some of the more subjective assessments she -(TM)d
made.  But he -(TM)d also complimented her on the job she -(TM)d done for
him. 

   The mailgirls locker room in the basement had been built with
twenty-four girls in mind, but Barrow only wanted to go after eighteen
girls over the next couple of months.  He liked the idea of having an open
slot or two to instill a certain level of peril in the company -(TM)s
female population, and he looked forward to a more ad hoc approach to
roping in a new girl.  They -(TM)d launch with six in September, six more
in October, and then a final six in November.  And then see where they were
at that point. 

   Twenty-nine candidates, though, had dwindled to twenty-six this past
Monday, when three of Abby -(TM)s prospects had quit the company after the
program was announced at Park Place.  Female attrition had gone up at the
Plaza, too, when the first few mailgirls were tapped in April.  But,
weirdly, female attrition there had eventually come down even more
significantly than male attrition after that initial spike, and Barrow
expected to see that pattern repeat itself in Jersey City.  But twenty-six
candidates had become twenty-eight when Barrow informed Abby of a last
minute audible, and shipped two girls over from his offices in town. 

   Shipped, in this case, was literal.  Girls Numbers One and Two  -"
sisters Sophie, twenty-three, and Sarah, twenty-six  -" had arrived stuffed
into a single pet carrier on the back of a delivery truck that Saturday
morning.  Stark naked, both, sweaty and disheveled, and sore from having
shared such cramped and uncomfortable quarters with one another since late
the previous afternoon.  They -(TM)d spent the night in an un-air
conditioned loading dock at the Plaza, and they seemed to be relieved to
finally be free of their tiny prison.  Even if it was only into the larger
prison of the new mailgirls locker room at Park Place. 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Five

   Abby had had to come in on Saturday, to sign for the delivery.  As the
Scott sisters emerged, already inked up as Mailgirls One and Two, Abby was
seated in the employee cafeteria, on the far side of the one-way mirror. 
Mistress Rei was there to greet them, though, and introduce them to their
new home.  The first allowance both girls were given by their new mistress
was the chance to pee. 

   Peeing girls had certainly never been Abby -(TM)s  -�thing. -� Not now,
not before.  But she wasn -(TM)t going to judge, and she recognized she
could just look past it.  She wondered if it had been Barrow -(TM)s kink
that kept the mailgirls from being given even that one opportunity for
privacy over at the Plaza or here at Park Place.  She -(TM)d heard of kitty
litter boxes and repurposed mop sinks being used by mailgirls elsewhere,
though; even if this was a fetish for Barrow, it was apparently a fetish
shared by others.  He had, because of the 24/7 nature of this new program,
given in and allowed a pair of open toilets to be installed around the
corner and out of the line-of-sight from the cafeteria.  These, however,
were a gift only for the girls to use when moving their bowels; otherwise,
as both One and Two demonstrated that Saturday morning, the girls were to
utilize the row of six, Japanese-style squat toilets directly behind the
shower block and visible to the cafeteria beyond. 

   Unlike the locker room at the Plaza, which had fours showers on either
side of room, the locker room at Park Place had a single shower block dead
center, up against the mirror glass.  It was fitted with just six
showerheads, total; if Jersey City ever expanded to a full complement of
twenty-four girls, those showers would get crowded.  There were three sinks
on either side of the shower block, where girls would be expected to comb
their hair, brush their teeth, and apply make-up. 

   Absent were the spanking benches that stood guard on either side of the
locker-room entrance at the Plaza.  Girls were still very much expected to
receive some level of discipline in the locker room, but the benches  -"
along with a set of stockades, a pair of St.  Andrew -(TM)s crosses, and a
few other frightening options  -" were upstairs in an open courtyard in the
building -(TM)s East Wing.  Abby wasn -(TM)t sure how it was going to work
in the dead of winter, but she supposed she, at least, would be watching
from inside, looking down upon the girls below. 

   Also missing were the lockers that may or may not have been required for
this to accurately be described as a  -�locker room. -� The girls were not
dressing and undressing each day, nor did they have any personal items
outside of a storage locker up state.  The smartphones and lycra armbands
the girls were issued when on-duty would be distributed daily by Mistress
Rei, with no girl guaranteed to have the same unit or band two days in a
row. 

   But while Park Place didn -(TM)t have the spanking benches or lockers of
the Plaza, the locker room in the basement here in Jersey City did have a
row of sinister-looking eye hooks that stretched from one end of the locker
room to the other, lined up in a neat little row on the floor.  There were
twelve of them in total, thick and menacing, and planted deep. 

   The look on the two girls -(TM) faces had made Abby snicker cruelly. 
They -(TM)d been promised a dormitory.  Instead, they found themselves in a
room smaller and tighter than the locker room at USF Plaza.  It was a
locker room with no lockers, a dormitory with no beds.  They went to sleep
that night on the hard, tiled floor, each with a short stretch of leash
chaining them to a single eye hook on one end of the room. 

   Barrow had apparently intended to send the elder of the two girls, the
famous Mailgirl Number Thirteen, over to Jersey City for some time, and had
made all of the arrangements with the university in New Haven on his own.
The second sister, though, was a rising second-year dental student out in
Los Angeles, who had just happened to fall into Barrow -(TM)s lap earlier
in the day on Friday, before he -(TM)d sprung his trap on the first. 
Neither were true USF employees, per se, but Barrow believed the program at
Park Place would benefit from having an already trained, already broken
mailgirl in its initial cohort, to help impart some of the Plaza -(TM)s 
-�culture -� upon the new recruits.  Marie Partee and Jill Johnson, Abby
-(TM)s prospective numbers five and six, got bumped down the list, and
would have to wait until October.  With Casey, Abby and Barrow were now up
to five, and Kristen Metkovich would round out the first class as Mailgirl
Number Six. 

   ***

   Kristen Metkovich, however, had other ideas.  She had an inch or two on
Abby, though Abby -(TM)s heels help close the gap.  She -(TM)d been a field
hockey star at Lehigh, and still carried herself with an athlete -(TM)s
confidence seven years after graduation.  She made no secret of the fact
that she was gay, a fact that that her pantsuit, flats, and short,
chin-length bob seemed to underline.  She was no lipstick lesbian, to be
sure, but was attractive enough to turn heads of both genders all the same.
Abby was sure that, once undressed, Kristen would prove herself every bit
as feminine as the other mailgirls, and her sexuality would be an
interesting wildcard once introduced to her new team. 

   Any sexual relations with or among the mailgirls was strictly forbidden
at the Plaza, and enforced with terminations among the non-mailgirl
population and severe punishments for the girls themselves.  An entire team
in IT had felt Barrow -(TM)s wrath when one of them was found ...ing
Mailgirl Number Twenty-One  -" willingly and consentingly on the girl
-(TM)s part.  All the girls themselves, all twenty-four of them, had been
punished for Twenty-One -(TM)s sins.  But, off-hours, there was apparently
rampant bisexuality among the girls themselves.  They were 
-�letter-carrying lesbians, -� lesbians of convenience, using each other to
get their rocks off without having to string together random one-night
stands or having to explain to a boyfriend what they did for work.  In that
environment, a practiced hand like Kristen Metkovich could prove popular. 

   The idea of 24/7 mailgirls was not one that had sprung forth from
Barrow. Rather, it had been handed down to him by Senior Management.  As
Barrow had explained to Abby, he actually preferred the daily rite of the
girls undressing for their shifts; he liked that that particular
embarrassment was one they had to live through each and every day.  Still,
he was willing to experiment here in the back office, and he was testing
out a handful of other concepts before they decided what the regional
programs would look like in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Houston,
and San Francisco. 

   The squat toilets were a good example.  The trough was another: rather
then being fed from a dish of their own, mailgirls at Park Place would eat
from a communal trough.  And, because of the research that Mailgirl Number
Thirteen-now-Two had done that summer at the Plaza, the Park Place
mailgirls would be given a few hours of relative liberty on Saturday nights
(on campus, of course), and be granted some leniency when coupling off for
a quick round of pussy-eating with one another.  Only during  -�off hours
-� - which was really only seven to nine each night  -" and only in the
locker room. 

   But a veritable buffet of mailgirls was not enticement enough for
Kristen Metkovich, apparently. 

    -�No! -� she shouted, the moment she caught sight of Abby.   -�No! ...
you! -� 

   It was a perfectly normal reaction; even Mailgirl Number Five had had a
few off-color outbursts that morning, before ultimately becoming more
subdued.  Abby just wished Kristen had waited until they -(TM)d gone behind
closed doors.  Here, out in the open, she had an audience. 

   Kristen glanced behind Abby, and saw Barrow and Mistress Rei with.  But
her ire was reserved for Abby. 

    -�This is why you were sniffing around Lauren Zuber, isn -(TM)t it? -�
she asked.  Lauren Zuber was the second girl who -(TM)d agreed to file a
sexual harassment claim against Kristen, with Abby pushing her to do so. 
Abby might have dismissed a claim as flimsy and petty as Lauren -(TM)s if
she -(TM)d been really-and-truly wearing her Human Resources hat.  But,
coupled with an equally questionable and similarly marginal claim from
another woman, a few months earlier, it fit a narrative that Abby had hoped
to exploit in coercing Kristen out of her clothes. 

    -�Do you want to do this here? -� Abby asked. 

    -�Is this too public for you? -� Kristen seethed.   -�Or are you going
to get me into an office and blackmail me? -� 

   Abby didn -(TM)t want a scene.  Not a scene like this, at least.  USF
-(TM)s mailgirls were technically volunteers.  The dirty secret, though,
was that most were given little choice but to volunteer.   -�Blackmail -�
was an extreme word for it, but even Barrow -(TM)s claim of 
-�incentivizing -� the girls didn -(TM)t quite capture the menacing nature
of the conversation Abby was hoping to have with Kristen. 

   The brunette didn -(TM)t wait for a response.   -�No, -� she repeated. 
-�No. ...  you. ...  off. -� She grabbed a small clutch from her desk and
walked in the opposite direction, away from where Abby, Barrow, and
Mistress Rei were standing. 

    -�Security? -� Mistress Rei asked Barrow softly, loud enough so that
only Abby and Barrow could hear. 

   Barrow shook his head.   -�Not like this. -� 

   Abby had no choice but to follow.  Kristen -(TM)s coworkers were now
standing up in their cubicles, looking to see what the commotion was.  As
much as many of them probably hoped to see Kristen in the nude, Abby
doubted she -(TM)d be able to win their hearts and minds if she got into a
full-on shouting match with a girl they worked with on a daily basis. 
Kristen had friends in this room; Abby did not. 

    -�Kristen, slow down, -� Abby called behind her.   -�We need to talk.
-� 

   The girl didn -(TM)t turn around.  Instead, she flipped Abby the finger.
 -�There -(TM)s your ...ing contract. -� 

   Abby had expected things with Mailgirl Number Six to be a bit messier
than they had been with Mailgirl Number Five.  But she had expected that
messiness to come later, when it came time for Kristen to call her partner
and tell her she was moving out.  This, this head-on conflict, had caught
her by surprise. 

    -�I think it -(TM)s in your best interest -- -� This from Barrow, who
also appeared to be unnerved about the audience watching the confrontation
unfold. 

   She turned and stopped, and pointed an angry finger in Barrow -(TM)s
direction.   -�I know who you are.  I know why you -(TM)re here. -�
Pointing to Mistress Rei, she added,  -�I know why she -(TM)s here. -� 

   Back to Barrow, Kristen growled,  -�...  you, too.  I know you -(TM)re
the one pulling the strings here.  You -(TM)re just having your ginger
bitch here do the dirty work.  And when she -(TM)s done, she -(TM)ll hand
me off to that other ...ing ...  so that I can take a spanking and ask for
another. -� 

    -�Kristen, -� Abby began, trying to reel her back in. 

    -�No, ...  this, -� Kristen responded, and then turned back towards the
door.   -�I quit. -� 

   Abby couldn -(TM)t let her go.  If she could just get her alone, without
spectators, she could apply some leverage.  There were carrots to be
offered.  And Kristen didn -(TM)t yet fully grasp the size of the stick
Abby was carrying. 

    -�Kristen, -� she called again, but the girl had already pushed through
the rear door leading out of Trade Ops.  She was on her way up the corridor
towards the lobby. 

    -�Security? -� Mistress Rei asked Barrow again. 

   This time, the Director of Human Capital hesitated before he responded.
Though Abby was already at the door, and beginning to round out into the
corridor, she heard Barrow reply,  -�No, no.  Not like this.  We -(TM)ve
got other options. -� 

   Abby, though, wasn -(TM)t going to let Kristen get away that easy. 

   There were a few other employees here in corridor, but nothing like the
row-upon-row of cubicles and desks back in Trade Ops.  And so it was time
to fire back. 

    -�You -(TM)ve got two sexual harassment claims on your record now, -�
Abby barked after her.   -�I guarantee we -(TM)ll make sure at least one of
them turns into criminal charges.  You -(TM)ll be radioactive. -� 

    -�Better to be radioactive out there than sucking dick in here, -�
Kristen replied.  She didn -(TM)t slow down.  She was wearing flats to Abby
-(TM)s heels, pants to Abby -(TM)s tight-fitting black dress, and had a
longer stride on top of all that.

    -�Your 401K is frozen, -� Abby called out.   -�Benefits are cancelled.
And we -(TM)ll be applying a clawback on all incentives you -(TM)ve
received from us to-date. -� 

    -�Great, -� Kristen snorted.   -�And you can shove it all up your ass.
-� 

   Abby was running out of bullets.  Maybe it was time for carrots?

    -�Name your job, -� Abby tried, desperately. 

   No response. 

    -�Name your figure, -� she tried.   -�On the back end. -� 

   No response. 

   Abby was huffing and puffing, doing her best to keep up.  But Kristen
was now rounding the corner into the Main Entrance -(TM)s lobby, and she
was going to get away. 

    -�Come back! -� Abby yelled.   -�Come back here!  Right now! -� 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Six

   As Abby turned the corner, she found Kristen waiting for her by the
security desk.  There was anger written all over her face, but also
something that Abby hadn -(TM)t seen before.  Pity. 

    -�Last chance, -� Kristen announced, nodding towards the two security
guards seated behind the desk.   -�Are you going to lock me up?  Haul me
off into some dungeon?  Whip me into shape? -�

    -�No, -� Abby answered.   -�No --I --just -- -�

    -�You want a mailgirl? -� Kristen asked.   -�Be a mailgirl. -� 

   It was like Abby had been slapped. 

    -�That -(TM)s what this is about, right?  You -(TM)re doing this for
him, but you -(TM)re also doing this to save yourself. -� 

   Abby offered an unconvincing shake of her head. 

    -�Walk out with me right now, -� Kristen offered.   -�Walk out with me.
Just quit.  You know he -(TM)s going to ...  you in the ass.  That -(TM)s
how this sort of thing plays out every ...ing time.  It practically writes
itself.  You can see it coming from a mile away. -� 

    -�No, it -(TM)s not.  It -(TM)s not. -� 

    -�It is. -�

    -�No, it -(TM)s  -" -�

    -�It is. -� Kristen reached forward, and jammed a finger into Abby
-(TM)s chest.  She then pulled it back, and pointed to herself.   -�But
this?  This shit with me?  And the other girls?  Whoever -(TM)s next?  Go
...  yourself. -� 

    -�Ma -(TM)am? -� This from the security guard, to Abby, as he watched
the exchange. 

   Kristen wasn -(TM)t done yet, though.  She ignored him, and went on.  
-�No, seriously, go ...  yourself.  Just go ...  yourself.  This can -(TM)t
happen.  This can -(TM)t happen in the ...ing real world.  You can -(TM)t
just strip and enslave women like this.  And ...ing chain them up and whip
them.  All so a guy like that, -�  -" she pointed back over Abby -(TM)s
shoulder, to Barrow, who -(TM)d managed to catch up  -"  -�all so a ...ing
asshole like that can jack off to their misery?  You -(TM)re going to
humiliate them and treat them like dogs? -�

   Abby didn -(TM)t have a response. 

   Kristen was fed up.   -�...  you, -� she said, throwing up her hands,
and turning back towards the front entrance.  She sounded more tired than
angry now, resigned to her fate outside Park Place, resigned to fact she
knew full well that USF would come after her finances and reputation.  
-�You might as well just be one of his submissive little bitches, on your
back and performing for him.  Like you have no control. -� 

   And then, she was gone. 

   It had been a scene, and the whole lobby was frozen in anticipation of
how the redhead would react.  Someone chuckled softly, and uncomfortably,
across the way.  There was a nervous cough.  Abby had no choice but to
return to Barrow. 

   She joined him, hesitated, but didn -(TM)t address what had just
unfolded.  Instead, she took a deep breath and offered,  -�On to Marie
Partee? -� 

   Barrow sized her up, nodded, and replied,  -�Yes.  Marie Partee. -� It
looked as if she wanted to reach out, and give her a hug, but he held
back. 

   He was good-looking.  Of that, there could be no argument.  Tall, dark
hair, in good shape.  Young; maybe mid-to-late thirties?  He was
whip-smart, with an MBA of his own.  In what was perhaps the understatement
of the century, Abby -(TM)s boss Chris had warned her that Barrow could be
-�condescending to women. -� Abby had found herself fetching coffee and
making copies for him when she -(TM)d come to give him updates at the
Plaza, and he -(TM)d basically evicted her from her own office that week in
Park Place  -" setting up shop and forcing her down the hall to the
reception desk.  But he also had a power to him, an undeniable magnetism
that Abby (and others, it seemed) couldn -(TM)t resist; she found herself
wanting to please him.  Chris had told her, before that first meeting, that
she needed to make sure she was well-dressed for him, in a skirt and hose,
and Abby had dutifully allowed that instruction to dictate how she -(TM)d
dressed around him every time since. 

   The fact that Kristen Metkovich had just escaped, that Abby had failed
Will Barrow, was crushing. 

   He recognized that she wasn -(TM)t quite ready to move on to Marie
Partee just yet.   -�No need to fall on your sword, -� he offered.   -�We
get a  -~no -(TM) sometimes. -� 

    -�No, of course, -� Abby responded.   -�Of course.  I know. -� 

    -�Why don -(TM)t we regroup, lick our wounds, and plan on meeting down
in the call center at eleven? -� Marie was a team leader for the escalated
customer complaints group, with a staff of sixteen under her.  At
thirty-four, she was among the oldest of Abby -(TM)s candidates.  But she
was single, gorgeous, and took to every assignment she was given with
enthusiasm and company spirit.  And, as a native of Montreal, she -(TM)d be
USF -(TM)s first Canadian-born mailgirl, one whose work visa Abby and
Barrow were hoping to exploit as leverage. 

    -�Sure, -� Abby answered.   -�Makes sense. -� 

    -�I -(TM)ll have Mistress Rei get started with Number Five a little
early, -� Barrow continued on.   -�I -(TM)m just going to be in your
office, making a couple of calls.  Are you coming? -� 

   Abby shook her head.   -�No, I -- -� she started, then stopped.  Then
started again,  -�No, I think I -(TM)m going to go grab a coffee
downstairs, and maybe take in the show? -� Number Five would have an
audience as she was introduced to the locker room for the first time.  It
came out a little creepy, and certainly had some homosexual undertones to
it.  But she and Barrow had watched Numbers Three and Four join the ranks
from a lunch table together yesterday, so she knew he -(TM)d understand
that the place she was operating from was one more akin to the pride of
ownership.  She -(TM)d bask in that morning -(TM)s success to get over the
subsequent failure. 

   She wasn -(TM)t actually going to head to the cafeteria, but it made a
believable enough cover  -" so long as Barrow didn -(TM)t invite himself
along. 

   He didn -(TM)t.   -�Call center, -� he confirmed.   -�Eleven. -� 

    -�Eleven, -� Abby repeated. 

   He looked past her, out the door, and after Kristen Metkovich.  He
smiled, and then offered up only,  -�.... -� 

   Abby couldn -(TM)t help but laugh a little.  In whatever regards Barrow
held the whole of her gender, he was never one to speak to bluntly or with
such vulgarity.  He was doing this for her benefit, and with a mischievous
twinkle in his eye. 

    -�..., -� Abby agreed. 

   Barrow turned, headed for the elevators, and gave Abby her leave. 

   She looked at her smartphone.  It was already ten past.  She wouldn
-(TM)t have a lot of time.  As Barrow returned to her office, Abby was off
to the stairwell, and down into the depths of Park Place. 

   ***

   Two weeks earlier, Abby Wagner Williams had walked in on someone
masturbating in the ladies -(TM) room.

   The Junior Vice President of Talent Management for Park Place, Paramus,
and Princeton was at USF Plaza for the day, checking in with her direct
supervisor, Christine Klinger, and working with Human Capital to stack-rank
Abby -(TM)s Park Place mailgirl candidates.  She was squatting in an open
cubicle on the 18th Floor, in Human Resources proper, and surrounded by ER
reps and HR strategy analysts; every time Will Barrow called her over to
his office in Human Capital, she had the make the trek through the gauntlet
of mailgirl panties in the corridor down towards Human Capital.  Pink and
purple, white and black, satin and lace, bikinis and thongs  -" a reminder,
each time, of how Human Capital had treated twenty-some women here at the
Plaza.  A reminder, each time, of what Abby had been tasked to do at Park
Place. 

   But Abby stepped out of the cubicle for a few minutes around
mid-morning, and headed to the ladies -(TM) room that was tucked around the
corner from the elevator banks.  As she crossed the 18th Floor -(TM)s
reception area, she passed an unoccupied mailgirls mat and a silver dog
dish that was three-quarters full.  The mat was nothing more than a thin
layer of foam, no thicker than a standard yoga mat, colored pink and
imprinted with the USF logo in one corner.  In those moments that a
mailgirl wasn -(TM)t actively involved in a delivery or some other task,
she -(TM)d be expected to take her  -�resting -� position  -" that is, 
-�Knees -�  -" on one of these mats scattered throughout the building.  On
her knees with her legs spread, hands behind her back, and gazing emptily
and submissively at an imaginary spot on the floor.  There could be as many
as two girls at a time on a particular mat, and Abby had seen a pair of
girls holding hands on her last trip into the Plaza.  It was vacant at the
moment, however, and so Abby was able to make it to the bathroom without
the distraction of having to pass a naked girl in what had once been a
boring, conservative office. 

   USF Plaza, though, was far from boring anymore.  If Abby needed any
further proof of that, the moan that greeted her in the ladies -(TM) room
would have sufficed. 

   It hadn -(TM)t been a loud moan, and it had been cut short by the sound
of the door as Abby entered.  But it had been a moan all the same.  The
soft inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale panting that followed, and signaled that
the moaner was working to catch her breath, was further evidence that Abby
had just walked in on someone masturbating in the near stall.  The pair of
red pumps, visible beneath the stall door, was spread wide and frozen in
place. 

    -�Oh! -� Abby gasped.  And without even thinking about it, amended an 
-�I -(TM)m sorry! -� and backed out of the ladies -(TM) room. 

   She immediately kicked herself for doing so, and prayed that Red Pumps
hadn -(TM)t recognized her voice.  She wasn -(TM)t at the Plaza often  -"
one day a month prior to her current project, really only once every other
week since  -" and it was reasonable to think she wouldn -(TM)t be placed
by her  -�sorry -� alone.  It had been instinctual, automatic; how was she
supposed to have reacted to someone playing with herself in a public
bathroom? 

   Abby, too, was now frozen in place, unsure of what to do next.  She
should have been making a b-line back to her desk.  That -(TM)s what she
should have done.  Instead, she hesitated, stayed quiet, and listened.  Red
Pumps had let a moan escape before.  But she -(TM)d just been caught with
her hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and so it probably made sense that
Abby couldn -(TM)t hear anything else from the far side of ladies -(TM)
room door. 

   Curiosity got the best of her, though.  She wasn -(TM)t going to wait
here, and greet Red Pumps as she exited  -" Abby didn -(TM)t want to deal
with the awkwardness of the masturbator knowing by whom she -(TM)d just
been interrupted.  Instead, Abby took up position out by the reception
desk; she said a quick hello to the receptionist, and then made a show of
flicking through her emails on her phone. 

   Whether Red Pumps had returned to her task-at-hand, or whether she
-(TM)d simply remained in the ladies -(TM) room to avoid whomever had just
caught her, Abby couldn -(TM)t be sure.  Either way, it was another six or
seven minutes before Wendy Brown from Benefits came walking nervously up
the hall, red pumps carrying her past Abby and back to her desk.  If she
suspected Abby had been the one who -(TM)d walked in on her, Wendy gave no
indication; she even offered a polite  -�hi -� as she saw Abby, and
returned to work as if nothing of interest had taken place that morning. 

   Abby wasn -(TM)t sure who she -(TM)d been expecting to waltz out of the
ladies -(TM) room, but Wendy Brown was a surprise.  She had to have been no
older than twenty-four or twenty-five.  She would have been a little mousey
and flat-chested to be tapped for mailgirl duty, but she wasn -(TM)t
unattractive  -" rail thin and long straight brown hair.  A respectable 
-�6. -� What had made a girl like feel the need to get herself off at
work? 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Seven

   What had made a girl like that feel the need to get herself off at
work? 

   The ER Reps with whom Abby was sitting had their theories. 

    -�Mind control, -� Diane Harris offered. 

    -�Drugs, -� Nicole Culberson disagreed.   -�Aphrodisiacs. -� 

    -�Mind control drugs? -� Diane joked, and the two laughed. 

   Abby hadn -(TM)t shared the incident with the two women, and wasn -(TM)t
even a part of their conversation at that point.  She was seated in her own
cubicle, and Diane and Nicole might not have even remembered she was there.
She was theoretically focused on her list of prospects, going back and
forth as to whether the leverage she had on Erin Higgins outweighed the
sheer, undeniable attractiveness of Casey Campbell, and whether Will Barrow
would agree with her assessment.  She was eavesdropping on Diane and
Nicole, however, as they joked about what had transformed the social and
sexual mores of USF Plaza so quickly. 

    -�I mean, it has to be mind control, -� Diane laughed.   -�Women don
-(TM)t act this way in real life.  There -(TM)s no other way to explain it.
-� 

    -�Maybe they -(TM)re putting something in the water? -� Nicole
speculated.   -�Maybe it was only supposed to be for the mailgirls at first
-- -� 

    -�It -(TM)s a theory, -� Diane conceded.   -�Have you stopped and
watched recently?  There -(TM)s two of them  -" Meredith Ferris from Middle
Markets, and what -(TM)s-her-name from Asset Management -- -�

    -�Amanda Dobson. -� 

    -�Right, Amanda Dobson.  Two and Three.  They -(TM)re down there
touching themselves in the shower every time they -(TM)re on break
together, making eye contact and googly eyes at one another. -� 

   Nicole laughed. 

   Diane went on,  -�They -(TM)re not even gay.  At least, they weren
-(TM)t before.  Did you know Meredith was engaged before all this started?
-� 

    -�That -(TM)s too bad, -� Nicole responded, genuine empathy evident in
her tone.  It was obvious that, given her current predicament, Meredith
-(TM)s wedding had been called off.  But Nicole seemed to recover, and
whispered,  -�I heard they -(TM)re all sleeping with each other. -� 

    -�Like in a big pile? -� 

   The two women both chuckled at this suggestion.  Diane said,  -�But that
-(TM)s what I mean.  God help me, but if you took off my clothes, and sent
me running around the building in my birthday suit, I -(TM)m not going to
suddenly become a lesbian.  I -(TM)m not going to be all  -~ungh, ungh,
ungh -(TM) with myself in the locker room. -� 

    -�So you think it -(TM)s mind control? -� 

   Diane paused, and answered,  -�I mean, no, not really.  Maybe you
-(TM)re right?  Maybe they -(TM)re dosing them with something, and it
-(TM)s --I don -(TM)t know --seeping out their pores into the rest of the
building. -� 

    -�Maybe they screened for exhibitionists? -�

    -�I don -(TM)t know.  I mean, I don -(TM)t know.  Those particular
twenty-four girls?  Those twenty-four knockouts and visions were all
secretly flashers and fetishists?  And Will Barrow was able to sniff them
out from everyone else here in the building? -� 

    -�What they -(TM)re doing has to have some effect on them -- -� 

   Diane ignored her, and added,  -�And even that wouldn -(TM)t explain
what -(TM)s going on with everyone else. -� 

   She stopped, and Abby heard her open the drawer to her desk.  Diane
asked,  -�Do you want to see what I had to confiscate up on the 32nd Floor
this morning? -� 

    -�No! -� Nicole laughed.  But, based on the pause and her ultimate
reaction, Nicole clearly stood up and looked over the cubicle wall at Diane
-(TM)s prize.  She shrieked, softly,  -�No! -� 

    -�Yes! -� Diane laughed.

    -�No! -� Nicole insisted.   -�Oh my god!  Look at the size of that
thing! -� 

   Clearly a sex toy, Abby guessed.  Vibrator?  Dildo? 

    -�I know! -�

    -�Were they going to use it on a girl? -� 

    -�No, -� Diane answered.   -�Do you know Georgeann DiMaggio?  In
Product? -� 

    -�No. -� 

    -�Okay.  Well, she -(TM)s in her fifties.  Senior Vice President. 
Married.  Kids.  This was just for her.  Brought it in from home.  And I
got a  -~noise complaint -(TM) from the woman in the office next door. -� 

    -�Like, during work hours? -� 

    -�Nine in the morning! -� 

   The two women laughed a few more minutes, and then seemed to quiet down.
After a bit, though, Nicole coughed and spoke up.   -�If you -(TM)re going
to bring something like that to work, it -(TM)s got to be small.  And
quiet. -� To Abby, it sounded almost like a confession.  As in, if Nicole 
-�hypothetically -� had thought through the issue herself. 

   There was hesitation from Diane, Diane apparently having had the same
thought Abby had.   -�Like what? -� 

    -�Like, I don -(TM)t know -- -� Nicole began.   -� --like, I don -(TM)t
know, one of those little egg things. -� 

   Diane snorted.   -� -(TM)Egg things -(TM)? -� 

    -�Yeah, you know.  They -(TM)re little, and rubbery, and they vibrate?
-�

    -�No, I -(TM)m sorry -- -�

    -�It -(TM)s like an egg, -� Nicole insisted.   -�It fits in your purse.
-�

    -�No, I get it, -� Diane answered.   -�I -(TM)ve just never heard of an
 -~egg -(TM) before. -� 

   A few beats passed.  Nicole, in a whisper that Abby had to strain to
hear, offered,  -�Like this. -� The woman clearly had exactly such a device
in her own purse, and was now clearly showing it to her counterpart.  Abby
desperately wanted to see it for herself. 

   Diane guffawed, and feigned a scandalized gasp.  She giggled, and then
warned Nicole,  -�Don -(TM)t let me catch you using that here at work. -� 

    -�Of course not! -� Nicole whispered.  But Abby found herself wondering
why Nicole had it with her, if not to use it here at work. 

    -�I -(TM)ve got my rabbit, -� Diane added to the conversation.   -�But
it -(TM)s at home. -� 

   Rabbits and eggs.  It was like the two women were discussing Easter, and
not sex toys.  Abby couldn -(TM)t believe the direction the conversation
was going in.  Especially here in Human Resources.  Especially between two
Employee Relations reps.  She stayed quiet, and tried not to inadvertently
remind them she was there. 

    -�I -(TM)ve got one at home that -(TM)s bigger, -� Nicole confessed, 
-�and it -(TM)s got a little curve to it. -� Pause.   -�You know -- -�
Pause.   -� --to get in there. -� 

   Diane laughed again.   -�Like a g-spot one? -� 

    -�Yeah. -� 

    -�Does Paul know? -� Nicole was married.  Apparently, to a Paul. 

    -�He knows -- -� Nicole replied, and then trailed off.  There was more
to that response, but Nicole had already shared more than she -(TM)d
intended to. 

   Diane sighed.   -�This is what I mean, though.  It -(TM)s like the whole
building has been doused in some sort of animal pheromones. -� 

   The theory landed with Abby.  Of course USF hadn -(TM)t been dousing its
employees with some sort of sex chemical.  Of course there wasn -(TM)t mind
control involved.  Of course they weren -(TM)t drugging the mailgirls or
spiking the water supply.  But there was no doubt that, since the roll-out
of the program that Spring, there had been an effect on the entire USF
population here at the Plaza, mailgirl or not.  Abby was glad to know that,
with Wendy Brown and Georgeann DiMaggio and even maybe Nicole Culberson,
Abby wasn -(TM)t alone in being affected by the mailgirls -(TM) presence.
ER was dealing with fewer issues around tardiness, or performance, or
disability claims.  But they apparently had found their hands full when it
came to vibrators in the office, blowjobs in the parking garage, and
meet-ups in the supply closets. 

   Thirteen -(TM)s research called out that female employees, in
particular, had been dressing differently since April.  Controlling for the
summer weather, she was tracking the rise of hemlines and the drop of
necklines.  Abby wondered if she, herself, had dressed differently today
than she might have a year ago. 

   She had on a black, relatively tight-fitting pencil dress - not entirely
dissimilar from the sleeveless sheath dress she -(TM)d strip Casey Campbell
of two weeks later.  Abby -(TM)s had sleeves, though, short as they were,
which were hidden away beneath a one-button suit jacket.  She -(TM)d bought
the dress the previous Winter, which potentially invalidated Thirteen
-(TM)s theory.  But she could admit that the hem was a little higher than
some of her other dresses, and that maybe it was a little tighter than
something she would have worn to Park Place.  She had on nude pantyhose,
but that had been a conscious decision - she usually wore them when she
worked at USF Plaza, even in the summer.  Chris -(TM)s  -�heads up -� about
Barrow -(TM)s preferences in women -(TM)s work-wear didn -(TM)t change that
fact.  Hidden away was a pink-ish white lace tanga and a matching underwire
bra, neither of which she had any intention of exposing in the workplace,
even if both were a bit out-of-the-ordinary when compared to what she
typically wore to work.  But, she liked the confidence she felt when
wearing them; she liked feeling sexy when she had to go toe-to-toe with
Barrow. 

   But whether Abby was suffering the effects of animal pheromones, or
under the thrall of a mind-controlling puppet master, there was no denying
that the mailgirls -(TM) presence at USF was having an affect on her.  The
last time she -(TM)d come to the Plaza, she -(TM)d arrived to the sight of
Number Thirteen rubbing herself just off the elevator lobby, and she hadn
-(TM)t been able to forget it.  Whenever she caught sight of one of the
girls running through Human Resources, or passing her in the halls, she
couldn -(TM)t help but crane her neck for a better view.  The whole thing
was like a car wreck that Abby couldn -(TM)t look away from.  Squeezing her
thighs together in her cubicle, she could feel the dampness between her
legs, and could tell how much her own pussy ached to be touched. 

   Again, it wasn -(TM)t the mailgirls themselves who were doing this to
her.  At least, not directly.  She could appreciate the female form, of
course.  And she was comfortable enough in her own sexuality that she could
admit the twenty-four girls Barrow had handpicked for the Plaza were
beautiful, sexually attractive creatures no one could be faulted for
admiring.  But it was the concept in its entirety that seemed to do it for
her: the dominance and submission, the exhibition and exposure, the
embarrassment and humiliation.  Not for the first time, Abby wondered if
something were broken about her, that such degradation and debasement had
the power to get her sexually excited.  Had that been what was missing with
Jon?  Was he not mean enough to her?  Or vice versa?  Abby took comfort in
the fact that, mailgirl and non-mailgirl alike, she didn -(TM)t seem to be
the only one who found all this weirdly arousing. 

   As if to illustrate that point, as if to underline the  -�weirding -�
effect that the mailgirls had upon her, it was the posterior of Mailgirl
Number Eighteen that had sent Abby Wagner Williams over the edge later that
same afternoon.  Specifically --

    -�What an asshole! -� Alan Bagby announced from around the corner.  It
wasn -(TM)t as if that utterance had never been offered up at the Plaza
before.  But Abby doubted it had have been called out quite so literally. 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Eight

    -�What an asshole! -� Alan Bagby announced from around the corner.  It
wasn -(TM)t as if that utterance had never been offered up at the Plaza
before.  But Abby doubted it had have been called out quite so literally. 

   She was in the copy room inside the Human Capital offices, making
duplicates for Barrow for a presentation entirely unrelated to her project
at Park Place.  They -(TM)d had their meeting, they -(TM)d shuffled around
their list, and they -(TM)d decided upon their first class of prospects:
Higgins, Gutteridge, Campbell, Metkovich, Partee, and Johnson, with McBride
and Ryba held in reserve, in case of a decline or two.  But Barrow -(TM)s
administrative assistant had been tasked with some other job for the
afternoon, and so it was Abby who -(TM)d been pressed into service doing
work that Barrow apparently felt was beneath him.  Abby didn -(TM)t push
back or complain, though; as usual, she wanted to please him, she wanted to
make him happy, even if it meant doing a job that was likely beneath her,
too. 

   Human Capital was set apart from the rest of Human Resources, accessible
only via the  -�Hall of Panties -� from the reception desk, and the
atmosphere was different than Abby felt in Payroll, or Benefits, or
Employee Relations.  There was definitely an air of testosterone, as Human
Capital was unique among its sister teams within Human Resources for
employing more men than women.  Significantly more men than women.  Once
you subtracted the mailgirls and their direct supervisor, the only other
woman under Barrow was his AA.  Two technicians and four analysts, all
male, plus Barrow himself, made the program run.  And the praise and
adulation they -(TM)d received for their work had been internalized: these
were USF -(TM)s heroes and rising stars.  Still, the chauvinism, sexism,
and unspoken misogyny ( -�Not that unspoken, -� Abby would remark to Chris)
were rarely so blatant as what Abby caught sight of as she poked her head
out of the copy room, to catch sight of the asshole in question. 

    -�You could eat off it, -� joked Mike Moses, one of the analysts, to
the laughter of the others. 

   Bagby, Moses, and a third analyst, Spencer Russell, were gathered
menacingly around Mailgirl Number Eighteen  -" a tall, leggy brunette who
had to have been about Abby -(TM)s age.  If Abby remembered correctly, she
was a Brown grad.  She was on the floor in front of them, up towards the
entrance to Human Capital -(TM)s private kitchen, and alongside the trash
and recycling bins.  Her face was pressed into the carpet, in what Abby
believed to be called either the  -�Forehead -� or  -�Forehead-and-Knees -�
position.  Her knees were apart and her legs spread, and even her normal
exposure hadn -(TM)t been quite enough for the analysts here in Human
Capital; they -(TM)d asked her spread her ass cheeks and expose herself
even more. 

    -�You realize she shits out of that thing, right? -� Abby called down
the hall. 

   She was met with a big, wide smile from Bagby.  None of the men looked
at all embarrassed about fun they were having at Eighteen -(TM)s expense.
If anything, they all lit up at the sight of Abby, at the prospect she was
joining in. 

    -�Quiet, -� Bagby chuckled.   -�Mailgirls don -(TM)t poop.  You -(TM)ll
ruin the illusion. -� 

    -�I mean, you should see this thing, -� Moses added.   -�It -(TM)s
spotless. -� 

    -�Did it burn? -� Russell asked the girl, referring to the bleach job
she -(TM)d been subjected to. 

    -�The first time, sir. -� The girl -(TM)s response was partially
muffled in the carpet. 

    -�A lot? -� 

    -�Yes, sir. -� 

   Outside of  -�Feet, -�  -�Knees, -� and maybe  -�Toes, -� it was rare
for a girl to be asked to take one of the other positions she was still
expected to know.  Mistress Rei -(TM)s counterpart here at the Plaza, one
Mistress Zero, might run them through the full gamut every now and then,
and might even have asked Eighteen to take this exact posture to inspect
that her  -�uniform -� was up to USF -(TM)s standards.  But this was still
likely a very rare humiliation for Eighteen, the men of Human Capital
knowing full-well what they were within their rights to order. 

    -�How frequently does she have to do that? -� Abby couldn -(TM)t help
but ask.  She was curious. 

    -�How often do you have to do that? -� Russell asked the girl. 

   Eighteen responded, but Abby didn -(TM)t catch it.  She took another
step out of the copier room, but no further; not so close that she was a
part of what was going down. 

    -�What did she say? -� Abby asked. 

    -�Once a month, -� Russell repeated, for Abby -(TM)s benefit. 

    -�It -(TM)s the first time that burns, -� Bagby added.   -�Because they
-(TM)re pressed into service right away, they use something that -(TM)s a
little more harsh. -� 

   Abby shuddered.  She couldn -(TM)t imagine smearing chemicals in and
around something as sensitive as her butthole, especially if they had be
qualified by levels of harshness. 

    -�And after that first time? -� Abby asked Bagby, but Bagby turned to
the girl. 

   Abby took another step closer.   -�And after that first time? -� she
asked again, this time louder, and in Eighteen -(TM)s direction. 

    -�It still tingles, ma -(TM)am, -� the girl answered, her voice still
muffled. 

   Abby cringed, and made an exaggerated show of horror to the three men
gathered around Eighteen.  Abby, certainly, had no interest in the routine.
She shook her head, turned, and went back to the copier.

   There were a few more comments, a bit more back-and-forth, and more
laughter.  Abby did her best to focus on Barrow -(TM)s presentation,
however, ignoring the naked girl out in the hall and the abuse she was
suffering.  Her curiosity was piqued, and there was a sadistic little
kernel inside of her that was intrigued by just how far Bagby, Moses, and
Russell would go.  But, as a woman especially, she should have more control
than to join in, should she? 

   The three men all roared at one point, and Abby heard Russell protest, 
-�No, no.  I -(TM)m not going do that! -� She cocked her head, and heard
him clarify,  -�I -(TM)m not going to spit on it. -� 

   The  -�it, -� in question, was in no doubt still Eighteen -(TM)s exposed
asshole.  The mailgirls may have been entirely dehumanized here at USF, but
they were still treated to the proper pronouns of  -�she -� and  -�her.
-� 

   Abby giggled to herself, and shook her head.  They were like a group of
schoolyard boys, daring and double-daring one another to see what they
could get away with.  If they touched  -�it, -� if they stuck anything into
 -�it, -� if they did anything blatantly sexual to  -�it, -� they -(TM)d be
crossing the line, and would have to answer to Barrow.  Apparently,
spitting on  -�it -� was  -" at least to Bagby and Moses  -" still on the
right side of that line.  It may have even been on the right side of the
line for Russell; he just wasn -(TM)t going to be the one to do it. 

    -�Abby! -� 

    -�No, no, no, -� Abby thought to herself, and pretended she hadn -(TM)t
heard her name shouted from up the hall. 

    -�Abby! -� Bagby called out again. 

    -�No! -� she shouted back.  She didn -(TM)t budge from the copier. 

    -�Abby!  Abby! -�

   She steeled herself, and then peeked around the corner.   -�No, -� she
said again, forcefully, even through a laugh.   -�I -(TM)m not going spit
on her asshole. -� Her tone emphasized how ridiculous she found the
request. 

   Bagby gestured in the girl -(TM)s direction, and said,  -�She doesn
-(TM)t mind. -� To the girl,  -�You don -(TM)t mind, do you? -� 

   There was hesitation on the part of the brunette.  And, in a less
charged environment, Abby might even have felt some sympathy for her as
another human being.  After all, what choice did the girl really have?  She
might be able to get out of this in another department, on another floor.
But this was Human Capital; there was no higher power to which Eighteen
could appeal.  The girl answered,  -�No, sir.  I don -(TM)t mind, sir. -� 

    -�No, -� Abby said again.  She still had a smile on her face, though,
and it was evident that Bagby thought she was at least beginning to
entertain the thought.  Maybe she was.  But she returned to the copier all
the same, ignoring the pleas from the hall. 

    -�That -(TM)s what they -(TM)re here for! -� Bagby called after her. 

   Abby should have resisted.  This was like a game now, and even engaging
with Bagby meant she was still playing along.  Against her better judgment,
she leaned back around the corner and offered,  -�I -(TM)m pretty sure that
-(TM)s not what they -(TM)re here for. -� 

    -�You think she -(TM)s here to deliver the mail? -� 

   There was a teasing condescension in Bagby -(TM)s voice, condescension
that she could be so naïve as believe that a mailgirl -(TM)s role was the
deliver the mail.  She was working on a project for Barrow.  She was here,
in the inner circle of Human Capital.  She had access to Thirteen -(TM)s
research.  Surely, surely, she knew better than that. 

   The punch landed.  Of course Abby recognized that Eighteen wasn -(TM)t
naked and prostrate here at in the workplace simply to deliver the mail. 
There was a reason she was naked.  There was a reason she was punished,
publicly, on a regular basis.  There was a reason she had to eat out of a
dog dish and wear a slave collar.  None of that was really and truly being
done on the behalf of more efficient interoffice communication.  Abby had
heard Barrow expound upon his views as to what drove the bottom line, of
what made a successful mailgirl here at USF.  Being demeaned and degraded
by her betters?  Being teased and tormented by non-mailgirls?  Being put
her place so that others could find theirs?  This was exactly what Eighteen
was here for. 

   Bagby tempted Abby further with the offer of a coffee.  And then brought
Moses and Russell in for peer pressure, by announcing he -(TM)d buy them
all  -" Eighteen included  -" a round of coffees if Abby gave in.  But Abby
had already given in, and so this additional  -�prize -� or  -�thank you -�
was unnecessary.  Still, at least she -(TM)d get a free coffee out of
debasing another human being. 

   As Abby joined the three male analysts above and around the naked
brunette, she recognized she was now almost as much a part of this little
scene as Eighteen herself.  Did she wonder if this, on some level - on any
level - was wrong?  Of course.  But she liked being a part of Bagby -(TM)s
mean little clique, of being accepted by her peers in Human Capital, of
being one of the boys.  She made a show of swishing saliva around inside
her mouth, and caught the anticipatory looks from them all as she did so.
And, with one last wicked smile at her co-conspirators, Abby discharged
down onto the mailgirl -(TM)s back door. 

   The sound of the impact brought about immediate regret in the redhead.
What had she just done?

   But that regret didn -(TM)t last long.  The three men around her cheered
in celebration, and it was hard not to get swept up in their enthusiasm. 

    -�Bull -(TM)s eye! -� Moses whooped. 

   Abby -(TM)s saliva puddled a bit in the pucker, but then began to
dribble down between the girl -(TM)s legs and to her thighs.  Eighteen didn
-(TM)t make any attempt to wipe it away or clean it off; she knew she would
need permission.  She didn -(TM)t risk wiping it away when she was finally
allowed to stand, nor when Bagby stuck a twenty in her armband and sent her
off for coffees.  She might have cleaned herself off in the service
elevator, maybe.  Or, maybe she just let it dry naturally.  Abby didn
-(TM)t exactly check when Eighteen returned to Human Capital, and delivered
her her coffee in the copier room. 

   Abby knew it was frowned upon to thank a mailgirl, so she resisted the
instinct.  She also resisted the urge to apologize, or to make a joke about
the whole thing.  Instead, she donned her best domineering bitch mask, and
simply nodded at the naked girl as she received her coffee. 

   Eighteen wore a mask of her own.  There was no evidence of hate or anger
or disgust in Abby -(TM)s direction.  Instead, the girl wore only an
inscrutable Mona Lisa smile, as if she -(TM)d found some sort of amusement
in the humiliation she -(TM)d just suffered.  And, as they met eyes for the
briefest of instances, Abby knew that amusement was at Abby -(TM)s expense.
Maybe it was just guilt or paranoia.  But, in that moment, it was as if
Eighteen could see right through her, and possessed some truth about her
that escaped Abby herself.  No, Eighteen didn -(TM)t seem angry at all. 
She did, however, seem to know how much Abby was affected by her day at the
Plaza, how aroused the redhead truly was. 

   And Abby was aroused.  Not by the sight of another girl -(TM)s anus, of
course  -" Abby wasn -(TM)t quite that warped.  At least, not yet.  It was
the dominance and submission involved that had her wet, and she wasn -(TM)t
sure which was affecting her more.  Was it the power that Abby felt in
owning and humiliating Eighteen?  Or was it being owned and humiliated, as
imagined vicariously through Eighteen?  The two were surprisingly difficult
to untangle, and Abby wasn -(TM)t sure which disturbed her more.  All she
was sure of was how sexually stimulating the whole thing had been. 

   She didn -(TM)t dare risk eye contact with Eighteen again as she left
Human Capital.  The girl had taken up position on a mailgirl mat outside of
Barrow -(TM)s office, the only deviation from her standard  -�Knees -� pose
being the coffee in one hand.  Such a rare kindness and luxury in the
middle of a shift had likely made the torment she -(TM)d just suffered
worth it.  Abby suspected she -(TM)d been treated worse. 

   Back in the cubicle where Abby was working for the day, she bit her lip
and pulled at her hair.  She -(TM)d caught Wendy Brown masturbating in the
ladies -(TM) room that morning.  Diane Harris had caught Georgeann DiMaggio
with a vibrator.  Nicole Culberson likely hadn -(TM)t brought her little
vibrating egg to work as simply a conversation piece.  There were blowjobs
happening in the parking garage, sexual encounters taking place in supply
closets, and god-knows-what-else being done by god-knows-who
god-knows-where here at the Plaza. 

   Abby would be in good company if she slipped off somewhere to get
herself off. 

   No.  No.  No.  No, of course not.  Of course she couldn -(TM)t do such a
thing.  Wendy had been caught.  Georgeann had been caught.  She -(TM)d be
caught, too.  And, whether or not she -(TM)d get caught was beside the
point, wasn -(TM)t it?  Wasn -(TM)t there a right-and-wrong when it came to
touching yourself at work? 

   But Abby thought back to the sight of Thirteen masturbating in the
shower, downstairs in the elevator lobby.  And about how rampant the
behavior was among the rest of the mailgirls, almost every chance they got.
Why should they be allowed something Abby was denied? 

   It was tortured logic, and Abby knew it.  But, it was enough.  It was
enough that the decision had been made, and now Abby was only left with a
question of where. 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Nine

   The ladies -(TM) room, of course.  It was the logical choice.  She could
go into a stall, close the door, and be quicker and quieter than Wendy had
been.  And she -(TM)d be smarter about it than Wendy had been  -" she
-(TM)d go downstairs, to the 17th Floor, just to make sure she didn -(TM)t
run into anyone she knew here in Human Resources.  In fact, she didn -(TM)t
even need to walk up through the rest of Human Resources to the elevators.
She could simply take the stairs - the service stairs - which were within
eyeshot of her cubicle.  No one would even see her sneak out. 

   As Abby pushed open the thick metal door that led to the stairs,
however, she began to see an alternative.  Maybe she didn -(TM)t need to
hide in the ladies -(TM) room after all.  Maybe the stairwell would do
fine. The door clicked closed behind her, but Abby was frozen in place as
she thought this through.  Whether to masturbate or not  -" that decision
had been made.  But she considered the chances of being caught in the
ladies -(TM) room versus being caught in the stairs. 

   Prior to the introduction of the mailgirls here at the Plaza, no one
used the stairs.  No one.  It was just part of the building -(TM)s culture,
Abby supposed.  That first year she -(TM)d been with the company, when she
-(TM)d worked here in the building every day, the only time she -(TM)d seen
anyone go into or come out of the door to the stairs was during a fire
alarm.  She knew that Kaitlyn York had once snuck a quick smoke on the
stairs between the 18th and 19th Floors.  But, as a general rule, the
stairs had been ignored and neglected. 

   When the mailgirl concept had been adopted at the Plaza, Barrow had
granted a few allowances that would have been unthinkable in mailgirl
programs elsewhere.  Specifically, he allowed the girls to ride the
elevators.  The service elevators only, and only on those occasions where a
delivery required more than a ten story climb or descent.  In practice, the
greater proportion of interoffice deliveries and memos occurred within a
few floors of one another, and so the girls were still on the stairs a lot.
But from twenty-four total mailgirls, subtract six due to afternoon breaks.
Maybe subtract another six or seven who might be waiting patiently on their
mailgirl mats waiting for their next delivery.  Subtract another few who
might be on the elevators.  And then divide by forty-eight floors. 

   The math worked in Abby -(TM)s favor.  So too did the fact that any
amount of noise echoed up and down the stairwell; she -(TM)d have to be
quiet herself, but she -(TM)d be able to hear anyone coming from above or
below in time to get herself together.  Even if anyone heard her breathing
a little heavy, they -(TM)d likely assume the panting belonged to a
mailgirl running the stairs.  And then, even if anyone caught her, it was
almost guaranteed to be a lowly mailgirl  -" stark naked and in no position
to judge. 

   Her biggest risk was from the 18th Floor itself.  Mailgirl Number 18 was
still back in Human Capital, and any job between the 8th and the 28th could
theoretically bring her rushing through that door.  But the way the door
opened, into the stairwell, granted Abby some measure of safeguarding
against that possibility; if she were in the corner, the open door itself
would shield her from exposure  -" so long as Eighteen didn -(TM)t look
back behind her after the door closed. 

   She hesitated for a moment longer, wondering if this were truly a good
idea.  Of course it wasn -(TM)t.  Of course it wasn -(TM)t!  She shouldn
-(TM)t be doing this.  She shouldn -(TM)t even be considering this.  But
--but --if she were going to do this, if she was really and truly going to
get herself off at work, she was less likely to be walked in on by a
mailgirl here in the stairwell than another woman in the 17th Floor -(TM)s
ladies room. 

   Abby ground the butt of her palm into her groin, through her dress, and
it was decided.  She could do it here, and do it quickly. 

   She wished she had one of Kaitlyn -(TM)s cigarettes.  At least then she
-(TM)d have a plausible reason for being out here, as forbidden as it may
have been. 

   Positioning herself in the corner, with the door to her right, Abby
leaned back against the wall and began to tug her dress up her thighs.  She
cursed her lack of foresight when she got dressed that morning; not only
did she have to deal with the tightness of her dress, but she -(TM)d also
have to contend with her pantyhose, as well.  A garter belt and stockings
might have been smarter, she told herself  -" it would have allowed for
easier access.  Nonetheless, Abby was determined, and so the black pencil
dress was bunched at her mid-section, with her hand stuffed unceremoniously
into the waist of her panties and pantyhose. 

   She would have been a sight.  Heels.  Nude pantyhose.  Light pink -
almost white  -" lace panties.  Black dress, hiked up to a ridiculous
degree.  Her suit jacket, naturally.  Her long red hair hanging loose. 
Eyes as wide as dinner plates, looking nervously up and down the stairs. 
And her right hand working furiously back and forth against her pussy. 

   The naughtiness of it all, coupled with the fear of being caught, made
the whole thing exponentially more exciting.  It wouldn -(TM)t take long. 

   ***

   It was in the immediate aftermath that Abby felt most ashamed about what
she -(TM)d done.  Still breathing heavily, still disheveled, still coming
down from her orgasm.  She had barely broken a sweat  -" she was thankful
of that, at least  -" but her fingertips were wet and she smelled like
pussy.  She smelled like mailgirl.  She knew what she -(TM)d done was
wrong, and she felt damaged, dirty, and whorish. 

   And yet this was now the sixth time she -(TM)d gotten herself off at
work, since that afternoon two weeks ago in the stairwell. 

   Abby was on the floor of a storage room on B-2, the sub-basement, a
floor down from the call center, the cafeteria, and the mailgirls locker
room.  Her skirt, as her dress had been that first time, was bunched around
her waist, and her legs splayed out with her hand between them.  She -(TM)d
folded her suit jacket and placed it neatly on a nearby open shelf, but her
blouse was still on, still buttoned, and now rumpled and partially
untucked. She -(TM)d left her shoes on, for some unknown reason, and her
heels were flat on the floor, her legs bent at the knees.  At least today
she -(TM)d worn stockings and a garter belt instead of pantyhose  -" she
-(TM)d had one less layer to contend with as she had dipped her hand into
the front of her panties. 

   After that first time at USF Plaza, Abby had managed to go the better
part of a week before she touched herself at work again.  That next time -
and the time after that, and the time after that - she -(TM)d at least been
able to do so in the privacy of her own office at Park Place, door closed
and securely locked.  The anticipation of this week -(TM)s induction of
Jersey City -(TM)s mailgirls had proven too much for her to resist, and she
-(TM)d talked herself into getting off, getting it over with, and getting
on with her day.  She -(TM)d already  -�broken the seal, -� so to speak,
and the risk of being caught in her office was decidedly lower than in the
stairwell on the 18th Floor. 

   But Barrow had claimed Abby -(TM)s office for himself that week, and
Abby had been bumped down to an open seat at the reception desk in Human
Resources.  As it wasn -(TM)t as if she could ask Barrow for her office
back, for a few minutes of privacy, she -(TM)d gone the entirety of that
Monday being good.  Being good, at least, until the moment she walked
through the door of her apartment. 

   Tuesday, though, her excitement had proven impossible to deny, with the
ensnaring of Mailgirls Three and Four.  Abby knew she -(TM)d either have to
take care of herself or go home.  She briefly flirted with the default of
the ladies -(TM) room, even if it meant there was a chance she -(TM)d be
caught.  But then she realized she had access to a storage room in the
sub-basement, off-limits to everyone but Barrow, Barrow -(TM)s assistant,
and Abby herself. 

   Abby had begun to think of it as the  -�Treasure Room. -� It was where
the underthings of girls One and Two had come over the weekend, and where
those of Three and Four had arrived that Wednesday morning.  In an
expansion of the  -�Hall of Panties -� that stood guard outside of Human
Capital at the Plaza, and the corresponding trophies that were already now
hanging in Human Resources here at Park Plaza, Barrow -(TM)s intention was
to display each and every pair of underwear his new mailgirls had owned
throughout the building.  This was a staging grounds, a temporary holding
place, until Abby  -" to whom responsibility for executing Barrow -(TM)s
vision had fallen  -" could get to sorting through and framing the girls
-(TM) treasures. 

   The room was mostly empty, occupied by a few metal shelves, boxes of
unopened frames, and a single folding table.  But it had sufficed in Abby
-(TM)s moment of need yesterday, and it done the trick again that morning.
She wondered if maybe she should have waited until after they -(TM)d
stripped and enslaved Marie Partee, but she -(TM)d had the better part of
an hour and had needed something to take her mind of her failure with
Kristen Metkovich. 

   Abby rolled to one side, and used the table to pull herself to her feet.
A chair might have been nice.  A bed, even better.  But the floor had
worked in a pinch, and it seemed to work for the mailgirls, so Abby had
accepted the hard linoleum as a price she had to pay for a good, private,
hiding place.  She fixed her panties, tugging them back into place, and
shivered at how wet they still were.  She pulled her skirt back down,
smoothing it and hoping it hadn -(TM)t gotten too wrinkled.  And then she
tucked her shirt back in, hoping  -" as she had yesterday  -" that the
floor had been clean enough that it wouldn -(TM)t leave a hard-to-explain
dirt smudge on her back. 

   Taking a moment longer to collect herself and catch her breath, Abby
peeked inside a large cardboard box that was marked with a  -�4. -� Bras.
Black bras.  White bras.  Satin bras.  Cotton bras.  There -(TM)d be
lingerie in here somewhere, too  -" Abby was sure of it.  In an attempt to
spice up her love life with Jon, and in response to his complaints she wasn
-(TM)t adventurous enough, Abby herself had picked up a few babydolls and
teddies over the last couple of years.  More often than not, however, she
wore them only once or twice, and then they -(TM)d fall into disuse.  And
she couldn -(TM)t justify continuing to spend money on something that she
-(TM)d take off quickly and discard in a pile on the floor. 

   Abby laughed a little at the idea Jon had accused her of not being
adventurous enough.  Abby, who -(TM)d just masturbated on the floor of a
storage room in the basement of Park Place. 

   There -(TM)d be lingerie here, Abby thought to herself, among Four
-(TM)s things.  And Three -(TM)s.  Mailgirl Number Two, despite having only
temporarily moved down to New York for the summer, had had a shocking
number of sexy little things among her belongings. 

   She wondered what it would be like for someone to sift through her
panties, bras, and lingerie like this. 

   After a moment or two longer, Abby found her suit jacket and then the
lights, and exited into dimly lit corridor beyond.  She -(TM)d need to
check her hair and reflection in the ladies -(TM) room down the hall, the
one that USF had converted into a fully-functional bathroom for Mistress
Rei  -" shower and all  -" before she -(TM)d head back upstairs. 

   Mistress Rei was almost every bit as much a captive of the mailgirls
program here at Park Place as the girls she oversaw.  Just as Abby had
signed for the delivery of Mailgirls One and Two over the weekend, she
-(TM)d had to sign for Mistress Rei two weeks earlier.  The crate she
-(TM)d arrived in had been a little bigger, and she -(TM)d been alone, but
Mistress Rei had emerged no less naked and crazed as the two sisters.  It
was hard to believe that that girl, Mailgirl Juu-Shi, could have
transformed into Mistress Rei so quickly.  But in addition to being a
testament to the power of the Plaza -(TM)s Mistress Zero, to whom the
transformation had been assigned, Abby felt it spoke to the thin line
between dominance and submission.  The two were two sides of the same coin,
and Mailgirl Juu-Shi - despite having recently inked her third consecutive
mailgirl contract for a keiretsu in Tokyo  -" had been sold and shipped to
USF, to play the part of governess to a new generation of mailgirls.  It
made the confusion Abby felt about what was turning her on seem more
understandable  -" the Japanese girl had gone from submissive to dominant
overnight. 

   But, though she was playing the part of dominatrix here in New Jersey,
Mistress Rei wasn -(TM)t exactly free.  Because her charges would be 24/7,
she herself was expected to be here nearly 24/7, as well.  She -(TM)d been
given a tiny, makeshift  -�apartment -� here in the sub-basement to live.
Consisting of not much more than a bed, a desk, and a closet filled with a
wardrobe Mistress Zero had picked out, Mistress Rei -(TM)s new  -�home -�
wasn -(TM)t much.  But, Abby thought to herself, it was better than a hard
floor and a metal leash upstairs naked in the locker room. 

   Abby entered the ladies -(TM) room on B-2, and headed to the sinks to
wash her hands and fix her hair.  There were still two stalls on one side
of the rom; a third, however, had been replaced with a shower with a
see-through glass door.  Abby doubted there were many women who came down
here, though, which meant that Mistress Rei likely had the facilities to
herself. 

   Her red hair was out of place, but Abby otherwise looked aglow.  As
embarrassed and ashamed of her behavior as she might have been, the girl
staring back at her in the mirror looked content, happy, and confident. 
There was little as satisfying as a good orgasm, even if it had been
achieved alone, and Abby felt wicked and naughty  -" in a very good way. 
Whatever the rest of the morning brought, and whatever the afternoon held
in store, Abby felt ready for it.  As ready as she could be, at least. 

   She needed a smoke. 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Ten

   Barrow found her outside, seated ungraciously on a set of cement stairs
leading down from the loading docks behind the building.  Abby was on her
second cigarette, bummed from Kaitlyn York during a quick trip back up to
HR.  She was lost in contemplation as the Director of Human Capital joined
her, and she almost didn -(TM)t notice him at first. 

    -�I didn -(TM)t know you smoked, -� he remarked, and sat down beside
her. 

    -�I don -(TM)t, -� she replied with a smile, and then took another
puff.  -�It -(TM)s just been that kind of day. -� 

   Barrow paused, and then offered,  -�I wouldn -(TM)t get too hung up on
Kristen Metkovich.  I wouldn -(TM)t let her get to you. -� 

   Abby didn -(TM)t answer. 

    -�Casey Campbell -- -� he went on,  -�should count for two. -� 

   Abby raised an eyebrow.   -�So then we -(TM)re good for the day? -� 

   Barrow chuckled a little.   -�No, not quite.  I -(TM)m just telling you,
she -(TM)s a vision. -�

    -�Are you smitten? -� Abby teased. 

    -�Why didn -(TM)t we lead with her? -� 

   Abby exhaled, the smoke dissipating in the gentle, late summer breeze. 
-�We had better leverage with the first two.  Credit card debt --?  I don
-(TM)t know.  I wasn -(TM)t sure that -(TM)d be enough to entice her. -� 

    -�What did she buy?  Where did it even all come from --? -� 

    -�I don -(TM)t know. -� 

   Abby thought about her own situation.  She was thirty, divorced, and
stuck in a mortgage that would bankrupt her eventually.  Jon was gone, and
it had been Jon whose money had been tied up at the time of the condo
-(TM)s purchase; because of that, it was Abby -(TM)s name and Abby -(TM)s
name alone on the bank loan.  He -(TM)d paid his fair share the first month
after he -(TM)d taken up residence out in Bushwick with Traci-With-An-I. 
And he -(TM)d eventually done so the second month, after Abby had chased
him.  Her father had helped out after, but the condo was now on the market
and Abby had been looking to downsize.  That alone, though, wouldn -(TM)t
have been enough to sign her life away like Mailgirl Number Three had
done. 

   Barrow reached inside his jacket, and produced a packet of paper that
had been stapled and folded in three.  He extended it to Abby, and said,
unceremoniously,  -�I have a proposal for you. -� 

   Abby smiled, shook her head, and took another puff.  From beneath her,
as she -(TM)d been sitting on it, she produced a packet of her own.  She
held it out for Barrow.   -�I already signed it. -� 

   This clearly caught Barrow of guard.  But, he recovered, took the
packet, and glanced it over. 

    -�Congratulations, -� Abby teased.   -�You -(TM)re buying me out of a
one-bedroom walk-up in Chelsea. -� 

    -�Am I? -�

    -�The University of Pennsylvania also thanks you for settling the
matter of my student loans. -� 

    -�That -(TM)s generous of me. -� 

    -�I -(TM)m worth it. -� 

    -�We -(TM)ll see. -� 

   Abby puckered.  That stung.  It had been the opportunity for Barrow to
compliment her, or to say something nice.  Instead, his response was
ominous and condescending. 

    -�I guess we will, -� Abby sighed.   -�I -(TM)m also in-line for
Stephanie -(TM)s job, down in Miami. -� Stephanie was Chris -(TM)s peer for
the South Atlantic and Latin American divisions; the job would be a step up
from where Abby was today, with the opportunity to travel down to Panama,
Rio, and Buenos Aires.  More importantly, Miami was over a thousand miles
from Jersey City. 

    -�What am I doing with Stephanie? -� 

    -�You -(TM)ve got twenty-four months to figure that out.  I -(TM)m sure
you -(TM)ll think of something. -� 

    -�Anything else I should know? -�

   Abby leaned over, flipped through the pages in Barrow -(TM)s hands, and
pointed to a dollar figure.   -�There -(TM)s a nice little completion bonus
in there, too. -� 

   Barrow whistled sarcastically.   -�This is getting expensive. -� 

    -�I -(TM)ve seen the bottom line.  I know what a mailgirl is worth to
the company. -� 

   Barrow continued to flip through the document, eventually finding the
signature he was looking for.  Holding up that particular page to Abby, he
pointed out,  -�You understand that, with this, with Power of Attorney, I
can go inside and re-write all of this right now? -�

   Abby shrugged.  Of course she did.  Of course.  She expected the company
to ...  her over at some point, maybe with the promotion or maybe with the
bonus.  Or maybe she -(TM)d get bullied into a subsequent contract.  It was
just how these things worked.  But there was nothing overly unreasonable in
the contract she -(TM)d marked up, even if the dollars and cents were on
the higher end when compared to the contracts she -(TM)d done for girls
Three, Four, and Five.  And even if Barrow screwed her on half of the
things in here, it still meant he -(TM)d be honoring the other half. 

   Abigail Wagner Williams would become Mailgirl Number Six. 

   For now, though, she extinguished what was left of her cigarette on the
stairs beside her. 

    -�Why? -� Barrow asked.  Why was she doing this?  Why had she taken
this on? 

    -�It seemed inevitable, -� she answered, snark evident in her tone. 

   Why?  Why, exactly?  It wasn -(TM)t the money.  Nor was it the
promotion. Nor was it even the fact that she likely didn -(TM)t have much
of a choice anyways  -" it was probably either this, or returning broke and
broken to her parents -(TM) house in Massachusetts.  She wasn -(TM)t sure
how she -(TM)d ever explain this decision to Jim and Angie Wagner.  But it
was her decision, a decision she -(TM)d reached in the ladies -(TM) room
down in the sub-basement, a decision that was likely the result of being
still drunk on a cocktail of post-orgasmic hormones.  There was no denying
that she was turned on by all of this, so why not lean in?  She was no
longer Abigail Wagner, up-and-comer.  Nor was she Mrs.  Jonathan Williams.
It was time to see who Mailgirl Number Six would be. 

    -�Alright -- -� Barrow said, folding her contract, and tucking it into
his jacket.  He wasn -(TM)t entirely satisfied with her answer, and he knew
that there was more swirling around inside her head than she was going to
share with him. 

    -�One favor, though, -� Abby began. 

    -�Okay. -�

    -�Can I tell people that you blackmailed me into this? -� 

    -�I -(TM)d prefer that you told people you volunteered. -�

    -�Right, right.  I mean, right.  But, my parents, maybe? -�

   Barrow reached into his pocket, and pulled his phone out.  He handed it
Abby, and asked,  -�Would this help? -� 

   The moment she saw the image, Abby blanched.  She knew what it was, and
knew immediately.  How had she been so stupid?  How could she not have
realized there were cameras in the stairwells at USF? 

   It was clearly her.  Red hair, black dress, black suit jacket.  She
-(TM)d kept her clothes on, at least, but that was small comfort.  Her
dress was around her waist, her legs were spread open, and her hand was
buried under her panties and pantyhose.  The camera must have been in the
opposite corner, and the resolution above-and-beyond what one might have
expected out of security footage.  They -(TM)d likely been installed by
Human Capital, to catch a mailgirl red-handed in the act of doing exactly
what Abby was doing to herself.  It was a video, but Abby didn -(TM)t need
to press  -�play -� to know Barrow had captured the whole thing. 

    -�Hold on, -� Barrow said, leaning over the phone, and swiping to the
right.   -�I -(TM)ve got a couple more. -� 

   The next image was no better.  It was the interior of Abby -(TM)s
office, as seen from her desk. 

    -�You hacked the camera on my laptop? -� 

   Barrow nodded absentmindedly.   -�The angle -(TM)s not as good as the
stairs, though. -� He wasn -(TM)t a wolf, who -(TM)d trapped her in his
jaws.  He was simply proud of what he had on her, as if the two of them
were discussing a third party.   -�You can -(TM)t see much below the desk,
but you can see it on your face. -� He swiped right again, and then reached
for the phone.   -� --and here, the audio on the third one is the best --
-�

   Abby pulled Barrow -(TM)s phone away from him.   -�I don -(TM)t need to
hear, -� she said.   -�I was there. -� 

   She didn -(TM)t know what she should have expected.  She knew going in
that she -(TM)d be caught  -" Wendy had been caught, Georgeann had been
caught. 

    -�And you know about the basement, then? -� 

    -�No, -� he said, shaking it head.   -�What about the basement? -� 

    -�..., -� she swore.   -�Never mind. -� 

   She -(TM)d piqued his curiosity, but he didn -(TM)t press.  At least,
not at the moment.   -�You -(TM)re not the only one, if that helps, -� he
offered.   -�It -(TM)s more men than women, though. -� 

    -�You have those on your phone, too? -�

    -�Why?  Are you interested? -� 

   Abby sighed.  It didn -(TM)t matter, did it?  She -(TM)d already signed
on as a mailgirl, and had agreed to humiliate herself over and over, time
and time again over the next two years.  Based on her recent track record,
she -(TM)d be doing exactly this, in front of an audience down in the
cafeteria, before the end of the week.  She was embarrassed, of course. 
Humiliated.  But she was more embarrassed by the fact that Barrow had
likely watched this two weeks ago, and had kept silent about it until now.

    -�You were going to release this if I said no? -� 

   Barrow looked at her blankly, and took back his phone.   -�Honestly?  I
was probably going to release it either way. -� 

   Abby couldn -(TM)t help herself; she laughed.   -�Oh god, -� she
chuckled, wiping away a tear.   -�What an asshole. -� 

   Barrow laughed along with her, and took the insult in the gentle, joking
way it had been offered.  Almost as a compliment. 

   Abby said,  -�I need another cigarette. -� 



   Mailgirl Number Six, Part Eleven

   Abby said,  -�I need another cigarette. -� 

   This, Barrow could do.  From inside is jacket, he pulled a Parliament
Light.  When she looked at him, mystified, he shrugged.   -�Kaitlyn told me
where to find you. -� 

   Abby took the offered cigarette, and reached for Kaitlyn -(TM)s borrowed
lighter. 

    -�Though, you really should start thinking about your cardio -- -�

   She scowled at him.   -�I -(TM)ve got a couple more minutes of freedom.
-� 

    -�You know there -(TM)s no smoking in the building, right?  And this
may be your last time outside for a while. -� 

   On top of everything else, she -(TM)d be a prisoner here at Park Place.
She took a puff of the cigarette.   -�Then I better enjoy the fresh air
while I can. -� 

   She was resigned.  This was not the full-throated confrontation she
-(TM)d had with Metkovich, nor the bitter back-and-forth she -(TM)d had
with Mailgirl Number Three yesterday.  Abby was licked, and she knew it. 
Her conversation with Barrow was not an angry one, or a threatening one. 
Rather, they talked like colleagues, joking as if discussing the fate of
Marie Partee, and not Abby Wagner Williams. 

   As if to drive this point home, Barrow asked bluntly,  -�When was the
last time you got laid? -�

   Abby stared out across the parking lot.

    -�I mean, with someone else, -� he added. 

   She stuck her tongue out at him.   -�I don -(TM)t know, -� she answered
honestly.   -�Valentine -(TM)s Day, maybe?  So, seven months or so? -� 

    -�Ouch, -� Barrow winced. 

    -�Yeah, it wasn -(TM)t great. -� She didn -(TM)t know why she was being
this honest.   -�Why?  Are we at this point in the onboarding? -� 

   She ran through the litany of answers she -(TM)d be expected to give.  
-�Five-foot-six.  A hundred-and-twenty-five.   -"Ish.  Red.  Green.  May
11th.  Thirty-four, twenty-five, thirty-five.  Eight.  C.  Straight. 
Sixteen.  Oral, yes.  Anal, no.  Never been with a woman -- -� 

    -�No, no, -� Barrow said, throwing up his hands.  He stopped, and then
added,  -�We -(TM)ll get there.  And I -(TM)ve got some follow-ups.  But,
just with the 24/7 thing, and the rules against fraternizing with
non-mailgirls -- -�

    -� --I -(TM)m going to grow my virginity back? -� she joked.  She
stared him down, and asked,  -�Why?  Are you offering? -�

   Barrow smirked.  He may have been ...ing her metaphorically, but he wasn
-(TM)t going to do so literally.   -�Talk to me in two years. -� 

    -�It -(TM)s a date, -� she said.  She added,  -�Maybe it -(TM)s for the
best.  It might be good to take a break from men for a little. -� 

   Abby had meant only that it might be good to be single for a little
while.  Barrow, however, interpreted it a different way.   -�I hear Number
Two has had some practice, -� he offered helpfully.   -�With Number Seven.
Or maybe Ten?  I don -(TM)t know, I can -(TM)t keep the numbers straight
sometimes.  The blonde one, from Legal, with the nose.  Michelle Mayer?
-� 

    -� -(TM)Sir, per Human Capital, she is to be called by her mail room
number. -(TM) -� 

    -�So we -(TM)re starting with the  -~sir -(TM) already? -� 

    -�I don -(TM)t know, sir, -� she said, half-mockingly.   -�Do you want
me to, sir? -� 

    -�It can wait a little longer, -� he said, brushing off the fact that
she was making fun of it.  But then he turned to her, looked her in the
eyes, and asked,  -�Why?  Do want to start now? -� 

   He wasn -(TM)t asking for her permission to institute the practice, and
insist she start calling him  -�sir -� at that very moment.  Instead, he
seemed to be asking her if calling him  -�sir -� turned her on? 

   She bit her lip.  It did.  God help her, it did. 

   She didn -(TM)t answer.  And he took her non-answer as answer enough. 
He looked away, and joked,  -�Too bad about Kristen Metkovich, though. -�

    -�Too bad about Kristen Metkovich, -� Abby parroted back, meaning it on
any number of levels.  To the point that Barrow had intended to make,
though: yes, if she were going to start sleeping women here as a mailgirl,
it might have been nice to have someone with a little more practice.  She
added,  -�Sir. -� 

   That last  -�sir -� hung in the air uncomfortably, it was clear that the
mood had shifted.  She was bitter, in her way.  She might have been
volunteering.  She might have drawn up the contract herself, and signed it
before Barrow even made the offer.  And she might have been turned on by
all of this, inside and out.  But she likely hadn -(TM)t had as much
freedom to choose this life as any of those things might have implied; the
videos on Barrow -(TM)s phone made that clear.  If it hadn -(TM)t been now,
it would have been October, or November, or some other point.  As wet as
she might have been, she wasn -(TM)t looking forward to what lay ahead. 

   They sat in silence for another minute or so, until Abby finished her
cigarette and put it out with the bottom of her shoe. 

    -�Do we want to go find Mistress Rei? -� Abby finally asked.  Unsure of
herself, she repeated,  -�Do we want to go find Mistress Rei, sir? -� 

    -�Do we need Mistress Rei? -� 

   Abby swallowed.  No, of course not.  Abby knew the drill.  She didn
-(TM)t need the Japanese woman pulling her hair or slapping her around. 
Not yet, at least.   -�No, sir -� she finally answered. 

   Abby stood, and turned for the door, but Barrow stopped her.   -�We can
stay here.  We can do it here, -� he offered.  It was classic Barrow  -" he
-(TM)d strip her and humiliate her here, out behind the building by the
loading docks, and make it sound as if he were doing her a favor.  Surely
this was better than doing so in the locker room, he seemed to be
implying. 

    -�Here?  Now? -�