Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 ï>¿Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 02 by lizstanton8181

   PhD student has ups and downs on day two as a mailgirl.

   Thirteen took a deep breath, found the hem of her shirt, and pulled it
up over her head.

   She'd undressed in Will Barrow's office yesterday, in front of both
Gillian Schang and Barrow himself.  She hadn't yet had to do this in the
locker room, with dozens of early bird employees watching through the
locker room's big, mirror-glass windows.

   No, she caught herself.  That wasn't quite right.  She'd gotten dressed
the previous evening to go home, only to then be told to undress and
shower. She'd stunk too much -- of exertion, of arousal -- for Mistress
Zero to permit her to leave in the state she'd been in.  Her skirt, which
had been bunched up around her waist so that her mistress could give her
bare ass a good paddling, had had to come off.  Her tank top.  The jacket
she'd borrowed from her roommate back in New Haven, so that she could look
"professional" when arriving at USF Plaza yesterday morning.  Her
pearl-white lace bra.  She hadn't been wearing panties, of course, because
Barrow had stolen those away from her before the clock had even struck
eight in the morning, to be hung like a museum piece in the corridor
outside his office.

   In retrospect, being forced to shower turned out to be a blessing in
disguise.  All she'd wanted to do was go home, go back to the apartment
she'd rented for the summer, and pretend like yesterday hadn't happened. 
Or, had happened to someone else entirely.  But, on her way out the door,
she'd been intercepted by her academic advisor, Dr.  Gillian Schang, who'd
hung around that day so that she could be there when Thirteen was finally
set free.  Had Mistress Zero not instructed her to undress again and
shower, Thirteen would have been forced to sit through a meal with Gillian,
surrounded by her own stink.

   Thirteen folded her top neatly, and placed on her locker's lower shelf.
When her pants came off, she'd have to slide those under.  USF had rules
and regulations on how clothing items were to be arranged in a mailgirl's
locker.  Pants, shirt, panties, bra.  Outwerwear to innerwear, no
exceptions.  Demerits to be awarded for failure to comply.

   Dinner with Gillian was the last thing Thirteen had wanted after the day
she'd had.  It had been a surprise.  As Thirteen's day had worn on
yesterday, she'd been looking forward to returning to the Upper West Side,
putting on a pair of sweats, and maybe having a good cry.  The tears had
come, but they'd come in the middle of the Imperial Hotel's dining room, as
Thirteen recounted the events of the day to her professor.

   Gillian had thought she was doing a nice thing.  Comforting.  Motherly.
Wrapping her arm around Thirteen in the elevator lobby and being there for
her -- physically, emotionally.  Maybe it had been guilt, for pushing
Thirteen as hard as she had to get her to volunteer.  Maybe it had been a
simple kindness.  Or maybe it had been for the purposes of collecting
research, and she'd wanted to pump Thirteen for information while it was
still fresh.  Given that this was a joint study, that Gillian and Thirteen
would be co-authors, Thirteen recognized that she should be grateful to
Gillian even if this was, in fact, her motivation.

   And so Thirteen ran her through her day, from being left alone with Mrs.
Lowrie to the indoctrination in the locker room to the round of deliveries
she'd made with Mailgirl Number Seven late in the afternoon.

   She censored the worst of it.  Most of all, the intense sexual arousal
she'd battled with for the bulk of the day.  That, she wasn't ready to
confess.  That, she was still wrestling with herself.

   She'd broken down at one point, torn up by the rawness of it all, and
had sobbed for a good three or four minutes before collecting herself and
going on.  It had the felt good -- the release -- but she'd also been
embarrassed to lose her composure in front of her professor.

   Thumbs in the waistbands of both her pants and her underwear, Thirteen
tugged them down over her still-tender backside.  Seven had been right. 
The welts Mistress Zero had bequeathed upon her yesterday with her riding
crop were gone, as was the more generalized red glow she'd received from a
combination of her mistress's paddle and her mistress's bare hand. 
Thirteen had checked that morning in the mirror.  She was still a little
sore, but not as sore as she'd been last night at the restaurant.  She'd
been thankful for the Imperial's cushioned benches in their booths.

   She was sore all over, though.  It wasn't only due to her multiple trips
to the spanking bench, and it wasn't localized only to her ass.  So much
had been said about the psychological toll of delivering the mail in the
nude.  The physical exertion of running the stairs, though, would be its
own challenge.  Her thighs smarted from the ascents.  Her knees, from the
descents.  To say nothing of the aches and pains in those very same knees
from kneeling all day.

   The burning sensation around her asshole had dissipated, though, and
that was a relief.  She'd tried to inspect Miss Henriksen's handiwork last
night, after yet another shower -- this one in the privacy of her own
bathroom.  But Thirteen hadn't been able to get the right angle in the
vanity, and the sublet wasn't stocked with a hand mirror.  She had to take
it on faith that the bleach had done its job.

   She stood bottomless in front of her locker, and pulled her underwear
out from the black yoga pants.  Nothing special today.  Thirteen had worn a
pair of cotton briefs, cotton candy pink, with full coverage in the back.
Cheap.  Functional.  Disposable, in the sense that they wouldn't be missed
if she were forced to go home commando again tonight.  But also, perhaps,
less tempting to Will Barrow and his Human Capital goons.  The skirt she'd
worn yesterday had been long enough to keep her from flashing anyone at the
Imperial, but it had felt odd, all the same, to be out without underwear.

   As Thirteen folded her pants and slid them beneath her shirt, she took
stock of her lower body.  Though Seven and Nine had warned her of the
futility of doing so, Thirteen hadn't gotten out of the shower last night
until the black ink on her hip was completely scrubbed off.  It was
pointless, sure.  Thirteen conceded that fact.  Mistress Zero would be
coming around with her marker shortly.  But she'd obsessed over it, and had
wanted it off -- even just for the night.

   She grimaced, though, as she saw the lines around her hips that her
panties' waistband had left, and, with a quick glance back-and-forth to see
if anyone was looking, she massaged her skin in an attempt to remove the
impressions.  Panty-lines -- in this case, in her actual skin -- were a
no-no.  USF's official mailgirl handbook was clear on that fact.  She had
time before Mistress Zero made her rounds, however, for them to fade. 
Maybe she'd need to get to the Plaza even earlier tomorrow, to make sure
this wasn't going to be issue going forward.  Or maybe some new underwear
was in her future, after all?

   She'd already charged yesterday's bra-and-panty set to the grant.  She'd
had misgivings about doing so, when she'd used her department-issued credit
card to pay for them back in Connecticut.  But Gillian had made clear that
the research grant she'd been given access to was for any and all expenses
related to her summer in New York, no questions asked.  Her rent.  Her
grocery bills.  Her commuting costs.  Her meals and any entertainment.  The
waxing she'd gotten as a run-up to yesterday went on the account, in what
Thirteen imagined was the first time the Department of Anthropology had
footed the bill for a Brazilian.  Thirteen wasn't pulling down the handsome
sums of money the rest of the mailgirls were for their sacrifices, but
Gillian had assured her that the grant was hers to do with as she pleased,
especially if it was to keep up with the other girls and better fit in.

   A few new pairs of seamless briefs weren't going to hurt anyone.

   Thirteen wasn't the first girl in the locker room that morning.  That
honor belonged to Mailgirls Four and Ten, who'd been assigned Morning Shift
duties and had been here since before five o'clock.  Mailgirls Two and
Three were here, as well, and were whispering secrets back and forth
between them in their underwear on the far end of the locker room. 
Mailgirl Eighteen had beaten Thirteen to the Plaza that morning, and was
already in the showers.  But Thirteen was on the earlier side, all the
same. It was in her nature, even if she was in no rush for today to get
started in earnest.

   Being among the early birds, Thirteen got to watch the others arrive. 
Five?  Eight?  Fifteen?  They all seemed to subscribe to the same belief
that Thirteen had when she'd picked out her clothes that morning, that it
didn't matter what she wore if she were going to be taking it off as soon
as she got the Plaza.  Sixteen was wearing jeans.

   But as more of the veterans began showing up, Thirteen was struck by how
put-together and professional they all looked.  Nine was in a suit.  Six
was wearing a tight-fitting plaid pencil skirt, a low-cut blouse, and a
blazer.  Eleven, as she began to undress, revealed a garter belt even, to
hold up her stockings.  Heels, the whole lot of them.  They dressed as if
they were arriving for their old jobs, and not their new ones.

   Mailgirl Number Seven arrived in a short-sleeved floral flare dress, one
that showed off a little leg above the knee.  She looked ready for a date,
and Thirteen now worried she'd underdressed for what Seven had described
only as a "quick drink" after work.

   "Good morning, beautiful!" Seven smiled as the two made eye contact. 
She didn't stop to chat, however.  Not yet, at least.  Instead, she placed
her purse on the edge of Mistress Zero's desk, and -- still fully dressed,
still looking like the consummate professional -- got down onto her hands
and knees and took a drink of water from the silver dog bowl there on the
floor.  When she got back up, she was now carrying her light tan pumps in
one hand, and pulling her purse back over her shoulder.

   "Did you have an okay night?  Well rested?" Seven asked.

   Did she know?  Did she suspect?  What was she insinuating?

   "I actually ran into my professor," Thirteen said softly.  She hadn't
yet confessed to the other mailgirls what she was doing here among them
that summer.  For all they knew, Mailgirl Number Thirteen was just another
accountant or lawyer or product manager, plucked from USF's payroll.

   "Oh," Seven replied, sounding almost disappointed for her.  "Where'd you
go?"

   "Just over to the Imperial."

   "Smart," Seven chuckled, with a hint of mischief in her eye.  "Padded
seating."

   Thirteen couldn't help but giggle a little.  She'd taken off her bra --
again, nothing fancy, just plain white and full-cupped -- and added it to
the pile of clothes in her locker.  It felt weird having this little
back-and-forth with Seven still fully dressed.  Somehow, it would have felt
less weird if Seven had been naked, too.  Leaving aside those few quick
minutes Seven had been in her underwear when the pair had been sent to
Mistress Zero's spanking bench, Thirteen hadn't really seen Seven in
clothes.  She looked like a different person.

   "We're still on for tonight, right?" Seven asked.

   "Yeah," Thirteen answered.  Glumly, she added, "After Evening Shift."

   "After Evening Shift," Seven affirmed.

   Seven o'clock wasn't always the end of a mailgirl's day.  Nor was seven
in the morning always the start.  Two girls were assigned Evening Shift
each day, and two were assigned Morning.  Tonight, Seven and Thirteen were
expected to stay behind until nine, to pick up and clean up and mop up the
locker room, to pull together all the used hand towels for laundry, to
scrub the toilets and wash the girls' dishes.  In this regard, the veteran
mailgirls were thankful for the new recruits; six new girls meant that
these responsibilities would be spread out a bit more.

   For the second night in a row, Thirteen wouldn't be able to head right
home.  As much as she wanted this opportunity to connect with Seven outside
of their daily routine, she hoped that Seven wasn't intending for this to
be long night out.  It was going to feel torturous to get home late, only
to have to turn around and come right back to the Plaza in the morning.

   "I'm not..." Thirteen started, looking for the right words.  "I'm not
going to be 'underdressed,' am I?"

   Seven laughed at the thought.  She knew what Thirteen meant.  She
surveyed the pile of clothes in the girl's locker.  "For the Imperial? 
Maybe."

   "Do you think we're going to needed the padded seating again tonight?"

   Laughter, again.  "I certainly hope not.  It usually takes me two or
three days to rack up twenty-five demerits.  Unless...you're not going to
slow me down, are you?"

   "I'll try not to!"

   "We can go somewhere else," Seven said.  "Or, you know what?  Ten's got
a few extra dresses in her locker.  I'm sure she wouldn't mind.  Let's do
the Imperial again.  I like the bartender there."

   Thirteen knew the one.  As ramped up as she'd been last night, he'd been
hard to miss.  Well over six feet tall, with dark hair and muscles.  A
charming -- if a little goofy -- smile.  After a day of being eye candy to
the men and women working at USF, Thirteen could forgive Seven for wanting
a little eye candy of her own.

   Even if it meant borrowing a dress from someone else, someone she didn't
even yet know.

   "Are you sure?" Thirteen asked.

   "It'll be fine," Seven assured her.  "I'll ask for you.  She won't
mind."

   "Okay," she said meekly.  It felt odd to commit to wearing another
girl's clothes, especially sight unseen.  If she'd been smarter, she might
have anticipated this, and dressed accordingly.  But Thirteen had been
focused only on the here-to-there of her morning commute, and hadn't really
thought through cocktails with Seven that night.

   "Hey," Seven said, turning her back to Thirteen.  "Would you mind?"

   She was asking Thirteen to unzip the back of her dress.

   "Uh, sure," Thirteen stammered, and reached for the zipper.

   "Impractical, I know," Seven apologized.  "You should have seen me
trying to get it zipped this morning.  But, I figured, once I got the
locker room, I could press someone into service."

   That someone was Thirteen.  She pulled the zipper all the way down,
exposing the other girl's skin between her shoulder blades, as well as the
back of a black lace bra and -- eventually, as she reached the nadir -- the
waistband of a matching black lace set of panties.

   "Thank you," Seven said sweetly.  She didn't immediately pull the dress
off.  She'd go over to her locker first before doing so.  But, she didn't
leave before issuing Thirteen a few reminders and instructions.

   "We've still got some time," she said, glancing at the time on the
smartphone still set in its charger in Thirteen's locker.  "Sign in, and do
all that stuff.  Shower.  Get yourself ready to go.  Make-up, deodorant,
teeth, et cetera, et cetera.  Make sure you use the bathroom.  Do the
morning weigh-in, once you've got your phone on you.  Collar, after that.
But don't attach the leash until right before Inspection, just in case you
forget something.  Or, if you and your nervous bladder need another go."

   Seven wasn't telling her anything that Mistress Zero hadn't yesterday.
She knew all this.  But she appreciated the sisterly advice, all the same
-- especially the bit, embarrassing though it might have been, about making
sure to use the facilities here in the locker room.  As humiliating as it
was to pee out in the open, in front of whomever was watching from the
elevator lobby, it would be even more so if she happened upon a chaperone
less willing to bend the rules than Nick Pagliaro had been yesterday.  At
least here, she was just one mailgirl among many.

   Thirteen wasn't sure she'd ever be able to recover if she'd had an
"accident" somewhere in the building, as apparently some of the other
mailgirls had.

   Once Seven had departed, Thirteen dutifully thumbed on her smartphone,
and hesitated for just a minute as her morning affirmation popped up on
screen.

   "I swear," it read, "under the penalty of the law, that I submit under
my own free will..."

   Submit.

   She knew what it meant, in this context.  There was no deeper meaning
intended.  No slight.  No effort to "put her in her place." She knew she
was reading into it more than what was there.  But Thirteen couldn't help
but get hung up on the word, all the same.

   Submit.

   Submit.

   Submit.

   Was that what she was?  Someone who "submitted"?  A submissive?  On the
sub-dom spectrum, was Thirteen the sort of person who derived sexual
pleasure in being servile and obedient?

   It was incongruous with the way she'd always thought of herself, at the
top of her class and in the upper echelon of academic achievers.  She'd
never been a leader, exactly, but nor had she ever been a follower.  An
"independent spirit," was the term she'd once heard her mother use to
describe her, as if she were the sort of person who dropped out college to
backpack across Europe or joined a motorcycle gang.  Thirteen hadn't done
either of those things, of course.  But the characterization still fit. 
After all, didn't take an "independent spirit" to go this route?  To do
something this wild and adventurous?  She couldn't see the other girls in
her PhD program being willing to take part in a grand experiment such as
this.

   But was she a "submissive"?  There was data now, given yesterday, to
suggest that the label might be appropriate.  After all, she'd been turned
on for an embarrassingly large portion of the day, if not for the day in
its entirety.  Nipples hard.  Moist between the legs.  Lost to inner
fantasies on more than one occasion.  She'd masturbated in the shower
almost as soon as she'd gotten home, and again in her bed before turning
out the lights.  There was simply no denying that she was getting off on
being a mailgirl.

   "I swear, under the penalty of the law, that I submit..."

   Thirteen scrolled down the page on her phone.  It was her contract.  She
didn't read it all again, only enough to confirm that it was her specific
contract, and not the contract the other girls had to agree to as part of
this morning exercise.  Thirteen weeks for Mailgirl Number Thirteen.  She
didn't want to accidentally agree to more, and be suckered into this life
for the next two years.  It wasn't unheard of for a mailgirl to be tricked
or bamboozled into agreeing to more than she'd intended.  Even here at USF,
Thirteen understood that the initial class had been told they were signing
up for a "pilot program" only - just a month, we swear - and that they
could expect to return to their normal jobs thereafter.

   Still, it would have taken the better part of an hour and three years of
law school for Thirteen to go line-by-line through the affirmation she was
agreeing to that morning.  Or to truly understand the implications of it
all.  She simply didn't have the time.  Knowing full well that she might
live to regret it, Thirteen thumbed her consent.  She'd risk that USF
hadn't snuck anything new into her contract in the last twenty-four hours.

   Thirteen got under the first showerhead in the block at her end of the
locker room.  Fifteen was under the one in the far corner, and Twelve was
beside Fifteen, leaving an open spot and a bit of space between Thirteen
and Twelve.  She turned it on, gasped and shivered as the water began to
fall, and got down to business.

   Thirteen had felt ashamed of herself after that first time in her shower
at home.  She felt shame in it now.  If she'd touched herself here at the
Plaza, she would have been required to report it to Mistress Zero, to be
logged and added to her profile.  USF allowed their girls to masturbate
when off-duty in the locker room (not all companies were so understanding),
but they tracked these sessions, right alongside every other data point
they tracked in the app.  At home?  On her own time?  Thirteen could keep
those to herself.  But she was terrified that it was written all over her
face.

   She'd never masturbated in the shower before.  She'd never masturbated
standing up, for that matter.  But, once she'd started, it was impossible
to stop.  Bracing herself against the wall with her left hand, her right
operated on autopilot.  It knew what it was doing.

   "Yes," she had whispered to herself, echoing One's cries from earlier in
the day.  "Yes.  Yes.  Yes."

   Thirteen never would have described herself as a particularly "sexual"
person.  She liked sex.  Well enough.  It was fun.  It was fine.  No,
seriously, it was fine.  She hadn't really known was she was doing when
she'd first lost her virginity to Mark Agnew in college.  And it wasn't
until two months into that particular relationship that she'd achieved her
first real orgasm.  Luke Gaffke, her next boyfriend of any significance,
had repeatedly faulted her for never initiating.  Even with Christopher, as
hot and naughty as it had been to be sneaking around and dating one of the
faculty, sex had always been more about intimacy and making him happy than
anything physical Thirteen took away.

   That said, she'd been masturbating more in the last few weeks, for sure.
She chalked it up to the amount of "research" she was doing online.  The
spanking videos.  The bondage and discipline stuff.  The mailgirl accounts
and confessions she'd been reading on the Post Office, on Mailgirls
Exposed, on Mailgirl Submissions.  Prior to exploring this narrow niche of
academia, Thirteen's sessions of "self-love" had always had their peaks and
valleys.  She might masturbate two or three or four nights in a row, and
then not even think about it for weeks at a time.

   But the full weight of yesterday had come crashing down on her in the
shower.  Every look.  Every embarrassment.  Every name she'd been called.
Stripping in Barrow's office.  Being bent over Mistress Zero's bench. 
Having Alan Bagby ask her about oral and anal sex, and whether or not she'd
ever been with another girl.  Dealing with the number of times someone felt
it necessary to point out just how hard her nipples were.  Getting
"inspected" by the twenty-two or twenty-three-year-old in his cubicle. 
Holding hands with Seven, and breathing her in.

   She nearly collapsed when she came, getting weak in the knees as she
rode that first orgasm to completion.  But, as powerful as it had been --
and Thirteen wasn't sure she'd ever had a climax like that in her life --
one hadn't been enough.  There was more there.  The tank wasn't on empty
just yet.

   She thought about Mailgirl Number One at the sinks, about how confident
and in control the girl had been.  Laurie Rice, the girl had once been, a
lawyer like Mailgirl Number Seven.  Thirteen could imagine her in the
middle of a court room, commanding the attention of the judge and jury
both, owning them with her presence.  Thirteen knew that One had been some
type of Mergers and Acquisition specialist; she wasn't, however, sure that
that meant she'd ever been inside an actual court room.  But she liked the
image of One in control like that, regardless.  Nine had masturbated in
front of her, as well, but she hadn't performed like One.  Nine's session
had been quick and dirty.  Utilitarian.  Hot, too, in its own way.

   One, though, had put on a show.

   Thirteen came a second time.  And then a third.  And then - unbelievably
- a fourth.  Sarah Scott was not the girl who had multiple orgasms. 
Thirteen, on the other hand, was another story, and she pushed off from one
to the next with ease, chasing every last bit of sexual energy her body had
built up over the course of the day and wringing orgasm after orgasm from
her pussy.

   When she was through, she cried.

   Eyes still puffy and hair still wet, Thirteen crawled into bed wearing a
pair of boxers and an oversized Pepperdine tee.  She'd hoped she'd be able
to fall right asleep, given how drained she felt, given how little she'd
slept the night before.  But sleep proved to be elusive, her mind racing --
replaying the day, and projecting more of the same onto tomorrow.  She
tried to distract herself with TV, but she got only a few minutes into a
half dozen different shows on Netflix before she lost interest and went
searching for something else.  She'd flipped through the handbook she'd
been issued, reading a little here and a little there.  She'd read it
before, in New Haven.  But, it was only a matter of time before she'd
gotten disgusted by it, by herself, by USF.

   Pornography turned out to help some, though it hadn't exactly distracted
Thirteen from her day.  XXXTube, inspired by world events and sensing a
demand, now had an entire "mailgirls" section.  The videos were mostly of
Japanese and Eastern European girls, and the clips were almost entirely
staged and scripted.  Wanting something more "real," Thirteen found herself
on Mailgirls Exposed, perusing cell phone pics and grainy, low-quality
videos.  USF proved to be underrepresented here, and Thirteen found some
comfort in that.  Even if she was frustrated in the moment, as she'd kind
of hoped to stumble across Mailgirl One or Mailgirl Seven in her searches.

   After getting herself off one last time, she'd finally fallen asleep. 
But it had been late, and Thirteen was supposed to be up early.  She'd been
dragging that morning, and the only silver lining had been that she could
just throw on whatever.  She'd shower, shave, and run through her morning
routines once she got to the Plaza.

   Not that Thirteen needed to shave.  She'd gotten waxed in preparation of
her first day as a mailgirl, and there was not a single hair on her body
below the neckline.  Even still, she'd been forced to lather up and make a
show of running a razor over her pubic area yesterday, so as to not
disappoint the spectators in the elevator lobby.  And, unsure of whether
this step would be necessary every single day for the next thirteen weeks,
Thirteen did so again now.  She wasn't going to risk admonition from
Mistress Zero when it came time for Inspection.

   Thirteen and Twelve shared a razor.  They passed the soap, shampoo, and
conditioner back and forth between them.  Twelve said "hello," and the pair
made a few attempts at small talk, but the mood in the locker room that
morning was somber, and made even more so by the arrival of their mistress.

   Her heels clicked against the tile floor of the locker room as she
entered, echoing off the walls and sending a communal chill up the spines
of every girl there.  She was tall.  Statuesque.  And, even in a room full
of 10's, she was a thing apart.  She wore a sleeveless white blouse, so
thin that the black lace bra she was wearing under it was plainly visible
right through.  Her top few buttons were undone, and cleavage spilled out
into the open.  Her breasts were more exposed than they were covered.  She
had on a high-waisted black pencil skirt with delicate, feminine-looking
pinstripes, and six little silver buttons -- three each to a side -- that
flanked what would have been her belly button.  No hose, as Mistress Zero
could apparently get away with things that other women at the Plaza
wouldn't have dared to dream of, a decision she'd be forgiven for when
surrounded on all sides by naked mailgirls.  Her heels were ridiculous,
evil-looking things that only added to her already considerable height; she
would have even towered over most of the men at USF, to say nothing of the
barefooted mailgirls.  Completing the ensemble was a pair of black,
horn-rimmed glasses she might very well have plucked from a "sexy
secretary" Halloween costume.  Thirteen didn't think they were real. 
Mistress Zero hadn't been wearing them yesterday.  Thirteen had the sense
that they were for show.

   Because Mistress Zero was every bit the part of the show that the
mailgirls themselves were.  Sure, she was their direct supervisor, and it
was her duty to keep them in line.  She was Will Barrow's lieutenant, his
presence in the locker room, and the company's representative down here on
the 2nd Floor.  But she was also part of the fantasy, the one employee at
the Plaza who was able to lay a hand on the girls and touch them as she saw
fit.  As she'd tweaked Thirteen's nipple yesterday, slapped her on the ass,
and run a hand between her legs to supposedly check for "stubble," the men
at USF lived vicariously through her.  She'd been a mailgirl herself, back
in the day, but she was all dominatrix now.

   She screamed sex, and -- even under the ice-cold shower -- Thirteen felt
aroused by her.

   Mistress Zero paced, menacingly, back and forth behind her.  Up and down
the locker room, surveying the girls and taking stock of them.  She
couldn't move particularly fast.  It would have been impossible to do so in
those heels.  Her skirt didn't help any, though, either -- it was so tight
that it restricted her movement, other than the side-to-side way her hips
sashayed as she stalked along among the mailgirls.

   As she exited the shower, Thirteen was conscious of her own body
language, her posture.  Smile, she told herself.  Shoulders back.  Tits
out. After all, "a mailgirl feels no embarrassment at her nudity."

   As if.

   Eighteen was waiting for her at the sinks.  So too were Mailgirls Ten
and One, the latter decidedly less distracted than she'd been here the
previous evening, but still no less engrossed in her own reflection.  She
was applying eye-liner.  Given that her locker was all the way down on the
far end of the locker room, Thirteen wondered what kept bringing her up
this way.  Two, Three, Four, and Eight were all crowded around the sinks on
the other side of the double doors.  So maybe that was it?  Or maybe One
had been coming down this way all along, back when the locker room had been
a little emptier, and this was her spot.

   It was tempting to think that the communal cosmetics and toiletries the
girls all used stayed in one place, and that -- coming back to the same
spot over and over again -- one could minimize the number of girls who'd
had a particular toothbrush in their mouths or stick of deodorant under
their arms.  That seemed unlikely, however.  That seemed to miss the point.

   Thirteen tossed her hand towel in the laundry, brushed and dried her
hair, attended to her teeth, and spritzed herself with perfume.  While it
wasn't a scent Thirteen might have chosen for herself -- and Thirteen
rarely wore perfume, anyways -- it wasn't terrible, either.  A little
sweet, maybe.  Floral.  It wasn't a perfume that Thirteen recognized.  But,
given the nondescript bottles of "shampoo" and "conditioner," the
cheap-looking bars of soap, and the cans of food labeled simply "Mailgirl
Chow," Thirteen doubted that the perfume was anything expensive.  It had a
function to perform, she knew, in masking the funk of sweat and pussy she'd
put out yesterday, the scent that followed her around like a cloud.

   She put on make-up and puckered up to apply lipstick.  Eye-liner, blush,
and lipstick, like the perfume, weren't a part of her normal routine back
in New Haven, and Thirteen had to be careful not to go too heavy on any of
it.  She looked to Ten and One for guidance, to get the "mailgirl look"
just so.  She did, however, hold back from following One's lead in applying
blush to her nipples.  Ten didn't do it.  Mistress Zero hadn't made mention
of doing so yesterday.  Thirteen assumed One had added this step on her
own.

   Thirteen left her hair down.  Surprisingly, neither the handbook nor
Mistress Zero had had much to say on the subject.  There were girls in
ponytails, girls in buns.  Two and Three, disturbingly, had opted for
pigtails, and looked like schoolgirls.  Jailbait.  Seven had worn her hair
down yesterday, though, and Thirteen just wanted to do whatever Seven was
doing and fit in.

   She got a drink of water from the bowl beside Mistress Zero's desk, down
on her hands and knees with her hair pulled back.  She positioned herself
just so, so that she was parallel to mirror glass, so that her backside was
pointed in the direction of Eighteen's end of the locker room.  Maybe she'd
get over this in time, but she felt self-conscious about "presenting" her
backside to the people out in the elevator lobby.  They'd get only the side
view this morning, thank you very much.

   She peed.  As unnerving as it was to set herself down so close to where
Six was doing the same -- and, the toilets were so close together that
their thighs touched and their arms grazed against one another -- the other
girl's body provided a sort of shield between Thirteen and the locker
room's entrance.  A mailgirl partition, as it were.

   "It'll get easier," Six whispered, commenting on the fact that it took
Thirteen a minute or two to get the stream going.  "I used to have a hard
time peeing in front of an audience, too..."

   There was one more toilet around the corner, tucked inside what had
likely once been a more traditional, single-occupant bathroom in the
service lobby.  It was relatively more private.  Relative, in the sense
that there was no line-of-sight direct from the far side of the mirror
glass.  But at some point, USF had decided to remove the door, and anyone
coming and going through the doors from the stairwell or out of the three
service elevators would be treated to an eyeful.  The girls were told that
they could use this one for "solid waste," should the need arise.  Thirteen
had vowed to never take a shit at the Plaza.

   "Mailgirls don't poop," Seven laughed when Thirteen had shared this
promise with her the previous afternoon.  "I've made it this far, knock on
wood.  Apparently, it's one fetish too far for Human Capital.  Hence, the
private one."

   Thirteen washed her hands and returned to her locker.  She slipped on
the black lycra armband that comprised the full extent of the "clothing"
she'd be allowed to wear today at the Plaza, and deposited the smartphone
into its sleeve.  She then eyed her collar with a sick feeling in her
stomach.

   She hated it.  She hated everything that it represented.

   It was an ugly thing.  Vicious.  Medieval.  It was something that
belonged on a Rottweiler, not a human being.  A mean-looking Rottweiler, at
that -- the sort of dog that guarded a rundown junkyard somewhere.  Thick.
Black.  Metal.  Adorned with D-rings so that she could be leashed in the
front, in the back, on the sides.  The single touch of femininity to the
thing was a silver "#13" that hung, like a dog tag, from the front.  She
was delivering the mail in her birthday suit.  Shouldn't that have been
enough?  The collar represented something deeper, something darker, about
her new station in life.  She was slavegirl, not a mailgirl.  She was a
piece of property.

   She hated it.  So why did it turn her on so?

   Swallowing, Thirteen clicked the collar into place, and panicked for a
brief moment.  She'd complained to Will Barrow yesterday that it was too
tight, too restrictive.  She'd worried that something was wrong.  But she'd
been assured that it fit properly, and -- as tight as it may have been --
she'd gotten used to it as the day had progressed.

   The locker beside hers was still empty.  Fourteen hadn't yet arrived. 
Thirteen wondered how Mistress Zero would react if the dark-haired girl was
late on just her second day as a mailgirl.  Probably poorly.  Or, maybe
Fourteen wasn't coming back?  Whatever indignities Thirteen had suffered
yesterday -- and she'd suffered more than her share -- Fourteen had gotten
it worse.  It wasn't unreasonable to think Fourteen wasn't coming in that
morning, or that there'd be a new Number Fourteen by day's end.  Thirteen,
certainly, had been tempted to stay home, to call up Gillian and tell her
that she couldn't possibly go through with this for the entire summer.

   Collar on, Thirteen joined a handful of other girls waiting their turns
to weigh in.  Matt Doyle -- "Mr.  Doyle" to the girls -- had demonstrated
how it worked the previous afternoon.  The girls didn't have to do much. 
They needed only to step on one of the two available scales, and the scale
itself would synch with their smartphones and log their weights
accordingly. Each girl was assigned their own narrow band in which their
weight was allowed to fluctuate.  Too heavy or too light, and they'd be
issued a demerit, in addition to having their servings of mailgirl chow
adjusted accordingly.  Thirteen had been told she needed to lose weight. 
Being given a smaller amount of the disgusting grey porridge they were fed
at lunch and for snacks didn't seem like all that much of a punishment to
her, however.

   "Rookie mistake," Seven whispered to her.  The other girl had just
stepped on the far scale.  She was now naked, like Thirteen, from head to
toe, save for her armband and phone.  She wasn't, though, wearing her
collar, and it was this that she was teasing Thirteen about.  "This thing
registers down to a tenth of a pound.  Your collar's not helping."

   Stupid, Thirteen thought to herself.  Stupid, even for a mailgirl.

   Not that it really mattered.  The scale spat back her weight, and her
smartphone chimed that it had been recorded.  She would have been over her
prescribed number no matter what, and -- as heavy as the collar may have
been -- its absence wouldn't have changed that fact.

   There was still time before inspections began, before the girls were
expected to line up and subject themselves to Mistress Zero's scrutiny.  A
few girls milled about, having hushed conversations.  A few others lingered
by the sinks longer than was probably necessary.  A couple -- Mailgirl
Five, most notably -- were already at their lockers, already on their
knees, already leashed in.  More carefully following Seven's instructions
this time, Thirteen left her own leash coiled where it was, but got down
into "Knees" in front of her locker and waited the remaining few minutes
out.

   It was at this moment that Fourteen burst through the double doors, the
last of the mailgirls to arrive.  She shot a fake-looking smile at Thirteen
and said, "Good morning," but got right down to business in stripping off
her clothes.  Flip-flops.  Jeans.  Lightweight jacket.  Tank-top.  Bra and
panties.  She wasted no time, and hustled back across the locker room to
the showers.  She'd be cutting it close.

   Thirteen, though, was still mostly fixated on Mailgirl Number Five.  Chi
Yong Cho.  She'd been a quantitative analyst before this, with a PhD in
Applied Mathematics from MIT.  Mailgirl Number Eleven was half-Asian,
Thirteen knew, but Five was full-blooded Korean-American, from Houston. 
And she looked utterly miserable.  It hung over her.  Mailgirls Four and
Six barely acknowledged her as they, too, got to their knees beside her. 
Thirteen assumed this had more to do with Five than any unfriendliness on
the part of the other two girls.

   What was Five doing here?  Thirteen hated all this, too.  Only Mailgirl
One seemed to be actually enjoying herself.  The others put on brave faces,
and smiled as they were supposed to, but none of them really and truly
wanted to be a mailgirl.  Seven, as much as she'd made clear that she'd
volunteered, and as much as she'd come close to outright acknowledging some
complex emotions about her participation in the program, had let her
regrets and second-guessing slip through to the surface a few times
yesterday.  Did USF really have that much on Five?  Did she have that much
hanging over her, that she'd show up day-in and day-out and be that
depressed and outwardly pathetic?

   Thirteen felt sorry for Mailgirl Number Sixteen, that the
African-American girl would be paired with such a downtrodden partner.  She
felt lucky to have been assigned to Seven.  Eleven wouldn't have been so
bad; she and Eighteen appeared to be getting along fine.  Nine, teamed with
Fifteen, seemed nice enough.  Seventeen looked to be struggling, but Six
had been there to encourage her along, and Six's massive chest would have
been enough to pull attention away from whomever she'd been assigned. 
Thirteen was intimidated by Mailgirl Number One, but -- from what little
Thirteen had observed of her so far -- Mailgirl Number Fourteen had enough
personality and backbone that that pairing sort of made sense.

   She'd never masturbated in the shower before.  She'd never masturbated
standing up, for that matter.  But, once she'd started, it was impossible
to stop.  Bracing herself against the wall with her left hand, her right
operated on autopilot.  It knew what it was doing.

   "Yes," she had whispered to herself, echoing One's cries from earlier in
the day.  "Yes.  Yes.  Yes."

   Thirteen never would have described herself as a particularly "sexual"
person.  She liked sex.  Well enough.  It was fun.  It was fine.  No,
seriously, it was fine.  She hadn't really known was she was doing when
she'd first lost her virginity to Mark Agnew in college.  And it wasn't
until two months into that particular relationship that she'd achieved her
first real orgasm.  Luke Gaffke, her next boyfriend of any significance,
had repeatedly faulted her for never initiating.  Even with Christopher, as
hot and naughty as it had been to be sneaking around and dating one of the
faculty, sex had always been more about intimacy and making him happy than
anything physical Thirteen took away.

   That said, she'd been masturbating more in the last few weeks, for sure.
She chalked it up to the amount of "research" she was doing online.  The
spanking videos.  The bondage and discipline stuff.  The mailgirl accounts
and confessions she'd been reading on the Post Office, on Mailgirls
Exposed, on Mailgirl Submissions.  Prior to exploring this narrow niche of
academia, Thirteen's sessions of "self-love" had always had their peaks and
valleys.  She might masturbate two or three or four nights in a row, and
then not even think about it for weeks at a time.

   But the full weight of yesterday had come crashing down on her in the
shower.  Every look.  Every embarrassment.  Every name she'd been called.
Stripping in Barrow's office.  Being bent over Mistress Zero's bench. 
Having Alan Bagby ask her about oral and anal sex, and whether or not she'd
ever been with another girl.  Dealing with the number of times someone felt
it necessary to point out just how hard her nipples were.  Getting
"inspected" by the twenty-two or twenty-three-year-old in his cubicle. 
Holding hands with Seven, and breathing her in.

   She nearly collapsed when she came, getting weak in the knees as she
rode that first orgasm to completion.  But, as powerful as it had been --
and Thirteen wasn't sure she'd ever had a climax like that in her life --
one hadn't been enough.  There was more there.  The tank wasn't on empty
just yet.

   She thought about Mailgirl Number One at the sinks, about how confident
and in control the girl had been.  Laurie Rice, the girl had once been, a
lawyer like Mailgirl Number Seven.  Thirteen could imagine her in the
middle of a court room, commanding the attention of the judge and jury
both, owning them with her presence.  Thirteen knew that One had been some
type of Mergers and Acquisition specialist; she wasn't, however, sure that
that meant she'd ever been inside an actual court room.  But she liked the
image of One in control like that, regardless.  Nine had masturbated in
front of her, as well, but she hadn't performed like One.  Nine's session
had been quick and dirty.  Utilitarian.  Hot, too, in its own way.

   One, though, had put on a show.

   Thirteen came a second time.  And then a third.  And then - unbelievably
- a fourth.  Sarah Scott was not the girl who had multiple orgasms. 
Thirteen, on the other hand, was another story, and she pushed off from one
to the next with ease, chasing every last bit of sexual energy her body had
built up over the course of the day and wringing orgasm after orgasm from
her pussy.

   When she was through, she cried.

   Eyes still puffy and hair still wet, Thirteen crawled into bed wearing a
pair of boxers and an oversized Pepperdine tee.  She'd hoped she'd be able
to fall right asleep, given how drained she felt, given how little she'd
slept the night before.  But sleep proved to be elusive, her mind racing --
replaying the day, and projecting more of the same onto tomorrow.  She
tried to distract herself with TV, but she got only a few minutes into a
half dozen different shows on Netflix before she lost interest and went
searching for something else.  She'd flipped through the handbook she'd
been issued, reading a little here and a little there.  She'd read it
before, in New Haven.  But, it was only a matter of time before she'd
gotten disgusted by it, by herself, by USF.

   Pornography turned out to help some, though it hadn't exactly distracted
Thirteen from her day.  XXXTube, inspired by world events and sensing a
demand, now had an entire "mailgirls" section.  The videos were mostly of
Japanese and Eastern European girls, and the clips were almost entirely
staged and scripted.  Wanting something more "real," Thirteen found herself
on Mailgirls Exposed, perusing cell phone pics and grainy, low-quality
videos.  USF proved to be underrepresented here, and Thirteen found some
comfort in that.  Even if she was frustrated in the moment, as she'd kind
of hoped to stumble across Mailgirl One or Mailgirl Seven in her searches.

   After getting herself off one last time, she'd finally fallen asleep. 
But it had been late, and Thirteen was supposed to be up early.  She'd been
dragging that morning, and the only silver lining had been that she could
just throw on whatever.  She'd shower, shave, and run through her morning
routines once she got to the Plaza.

   Not that Thirteen needed to shave.  She'd gotten waxed in preparation of
her first day as a mailgirl, and there was not a single hair on her body
below the neckline.  Even still, she'd been forced to lather up and make a
show of running a razor over her pubic area yesterday, so as to not
disappoint the spectators in the elevator lobby.  And, unsure of whether
this step would be necessary every single day for the next thirteen weeks,
Thirteen did so again now.  She wasn't going to risk admonition from
Mistress Zero when it came time for Inspection.

   Thirteen and Twelve shared a razor.  They passed the soap, shampoo, and
conditioner back and forth between them.  Twelve said "hello," and the pair
made a few attempts at small talk, but the mood in the locker room that
morning was somber, and made even more so by the arrival of their mistress.

   Her heels clicked against the tile floor of the locker room as she
entered, echoing off the walls and sending a communal chill up the spines
of every girl there.  She was tall.  Statuesque.  And, even in a room full
of 10's, she was a thing apart.  She wore a sleeveless white blouse, so
thin that the black lace bra she was wearing under it was plainly visible
right through.  Her top few buttons were undone, and cleavage spilled out
into the open.  Her breasts were more exposed than they were covered.  She
had on a high-waisted black pencil skirt with delicate, feminine-looking
pinstripes, and six little silver buttons -- three each to a side -- that
flanked what would have been her belly button.  No hose, as Mistress Zero
could apparently get away with things that other women at the Plaza
wouldn't have dared to dream of, a decision she'd be forgiven for when
surrounded on all sides by naked mailgirls.  Her heels were ridiculous,
evil-looking things that only added to her already considerable height; she
would have even towered over most of the men at USF, to say nothing of the
barefooted mailgirls.  Completing the ensemble was a pair of black,
horn-rimmed glasses she might very well have plucked from a "sexy
secretary" Halloween costume.  Thirteen didn't think they were real. 
Mistress Zero hadn't been wearing them yesterday.  Thirteen had the sense
that they were for show.

   Because Mistress Zero was every bit the part of the show that the
mailgirls themselves were.  Sure, she was their direct supervisor, and it
was her duty to keep them in line.  She was Will Barrow's lieutenant, his
presence in the locker room, and the company's representative down here on
the 2nd Floor.  But she was also part of the fantasy, the one employee at
the Plaza who was able to lay a hand on the girls and touch them as she saw
fit.  As she'd tweaked Thirteen's nipple yesterday, slapped her on the ass,
and run a hand between her legs to supposedly check for "stubble," the men
at USF lived vicariously through her.  She'd been a mailgirl herself, back
in the day, but she was all dominatrix now.

   She screamed sex, and -- even under the ice-cold shower -- Thirteen felt
aroused by her.

   Mistress Zero paced, menacingly, back and forth behind her.  Up and down
the locker room, surveying the girls and taking stock of them.  She
couldn't move particularly fast.  It would have been impossible to do so in
those heels.  Her skirt didn't help any, though, either -- it was so tight
that it restricted her movement, other than the side-to-side way her hips
sashayed as she stalked along among the mailgirls.

   As she exited the shower, Thirteen was conscious of her own body
language, her posture.  Smile, she told herself.  Shoulders back.  Tits
out. After all, "a mailgirl feels no embarrassment at her nudity."

   As if.

   Eighteen was waiting for her at the sinks.  So too were Mailgirls Ten
and One, the latter decidedly less distracted than she'd been here the
previous evening, but still no less engrossed in her own reflection.  She
was applying eye-liner.  Given that her locker was all the way down on the
far end of the locker room, Thirteen wondered what kept bringing her up
this way.  Two, Three, Four, and Eight were all crowded around the sinks on
the other side of the double doors.  So maybe that was it?  Or maybe One
had been coming down this way all along, back when the locker room had been
a little emptier, and this was her spot.

   It was tempting to think that the communal cosmetics and toiletries the
girls all used stayed in one place, and that -- coming back to the same
spot over and over again -- one could minimize the number of girls who'd
had a particular toothbrush in their mouths or stick of deodorant under
their arms.  That seemed unlikely, however.  That seemed to miss the point.

   Thirteen tossed her hand towel in the laundry, brushed and dried her
hair, attended to her teeth, and spritzed herself with perfume.  While it
wasn't a scent Thirteen might have chosen for herself -- and Thirteen
rarely wore perfume, anyways -- it wasn't terrible, either.  A little
sweet, maybe.  Floral.  It wasn't a perfume that Thirteen recognized.  But,
given the nondescript bottles of "shampoo" and "conditioner," the
cheap-looking bars of soap, and the cans of food labeled simply "Mailgirl
Chow," Thirteen doubted that the perfume was anything expensive.  It had a
function to perform, she knew, in masking the funk of sweat and pussy she'd
put out yesterday, the scent that followed her around like a cloud.

   She put on make-up and puckered up to apply lipstick.  Eye-liner, blush,
and lipstick, like the perfume, weren't a part of her normal routine back
in New Haven, and Thirteen had to be careful not to go too heavy on any of
it.  She looked to Ten and One for guidance, to get the "mailgirl look"
just so.  She did, however, hold back from following One's lead in applying
blush to her nipples.  Ten didn't do it.  Mistress Zero hadn't made mention
of doing so yesterday.  Thirteen assumed One had added this step on her
own.

   Thirteen left her hair down.  Surprisingly, neither the handbook nor
Mistress Zero had had much to say on the subject.  There were girls in
ponytails, girls in buns.  Two and Three, disturbingly, had opted for
pigtails, and looked like schoolgirls.  Jailbait.  Seven had worn her hair
down yesterday, though, and Thirteen just wanted to do whatever Seven was
doing and fit in.

   She got a drink of water from the bowl beside Mistress Zero's desk, down
on her hands and knees with her hair pulled back.  She positioned herself
just so, so that she was parallel to mirror glass, so that her backside was
pointed in the direction of Eighteen's end of the locker room.  Maybe she'd
get over this in time, but she felt self-conscious about "presenting" her
backside to the people out in the elevator lobby.  They'd get only the side
view this morning, thank you very much.

   She peed.  As unnerving as it was to set herself down so close to where
Six was doing the same -- and, the toilets were so close together that
their thighs touched and their arms grazed against one another -- the other
girl's body provided a sort of shield between Thirteen and the locker
room's entrance.  A mailgirl partition, as it were.

   "It'll get easier," Six whispered, commenting on the fact that it took
Thirteen a minute or two to get the stream going.  "I used to have a hard
time peeing in front of an audience, too..."

   There was one more toilet around the corner, tucked inside what had
likely once been a more traditional, single-occupant bathroom in the
service lobby.  It was relatively more private.  Relative, in the sense
that there was no line-of-sight direct from the far side of the mirror
glass.  But at some point, USF had decided to remove the door, and anyone
coming and going through the doors from the stairwell or out of the three
service elevators would be treated to an eyeful.  The girls were told that
they could use this one for "solid waste," should the need arise.  Thirteen
had vowed to never take a shit at the Plaza.

   "Mailgirls don't poop," Seven laughed when Thirteen had shared this
promise with her the previous afternoon.  "I've made it this far, knock on
wood.  Apparently, it's one fetish too far for Human Capital.  Hence, the
private one."

   Thirteen washed her hands and returned to her locker.  She slipped on
the black lycra armband that comprised the full extent of the "clothing"
she'd be allowed to wear today at the Plaza, and deposited the smartphone
into its sleeve.  She then eyed her collar with a sick feeling in her
stomach.

   She hated it.  She hated everything that it represented.

   It was an ugly thing.  Vicious.  Medieval.  It was something that
belonged on a Rottweiler, not a human being.  A mean-looking Rottweiler, at
that -- the sort of dog that guarded a rundown junkyard somewhere.  Thick.
Black.  Metal.  Adorned with D-rings so that she could be leashed in the
front, in the back, on the sides.  The single touch of femininity to the
thing was a silver "#13" that hung, like a dog tag, from the front.  She
was delivering the mail in her birthday suit.  Shouldn't that have been
enough?  The collar represented something deeper, something darker, about
her new station in life.  She was slavegirl, not a mailgirl.  She was a
piece of property.

   She hated it.  So why did it turn her on so?

   Swallowing, Thirteen clicked the collar into place, and panicked for a
brief moment.  She'd complained to Will Barrow yesterday that it was too
tight, too restrictive.  She'd worried that something was wrong.  But she'd
been assured that it fit properly, and -- as tight as it may have been --
she'd gotten used to it as the day had progressed.

   The locker beside hers was still empty.  Fourteen hadn't yet arrived. 
Thirteen wondered how Mistress Zero would react if the dark-haired girl was
late on just her second day as a mailgirl.  Probably poorly.  Or, maybe
Fourteen wasn't coming back?  Whatever indignities Thirteen had suffered
yesterday -- and she'd suffered more than her share -- Fourteen had gotten
it worse.  It wasn't unreasonable to think Fourteen wasn't coming in that
morning, or that there'd be a new Number Fourteen by day's end.  Thirteen,
certainly, had been tempted to stay home, to call up Gillian and tell her
that she couldn't possibly go through with this for the entire summer.

   Collar on, Thirteen joined a handful of other girls waiting their turns
to weigh in.  Matt Doyle -- "Mr.  Doyle" to the girls -- had demonstrated
how it worked the previous afternoon.  The girls didn't have to do much. 
They needed only to step on one of the two available scales, and the scale
itself would synch with their smartphones and log their weights
accordingly. Each girl was assigned their own narrow band in which their
weight was allowed to fluctuate.  Too heavy or too light, and they'd be
issued a demerit, in addition to having their servings of mailgirl chow
adjusted accordingly.  Thirteen had been told she needed to lose weight. 
Being given a smaller amount of the disgusting grey porridge they were fed
at lunch and for snacks didn't seem like all that much of a punishment to
her, however.

   "Rookie mistake," Seven whispered to her.  The other girl had just
stepped on the far scale.  She was now naked, like Thirteen, from head to
toe, save for her armband and phone.  She wasn't, though, wearing her
collar, and it was this that she was teasing Thirteen about.  "This thing
registers down to a tenth of a pound.  Your collar's not helping."

   Stupid, Thirteen thought to herself.  Stupid, even for a mailgirl.

   Not that it really mattered.  The scale spat back her weight, and her
smartphone chimed that it had been recorded.  She would have been over her
prescribed number no matter what, and -- as heavy as the collar may have
been -- its absence wouldn't have changed that fact.

   There was still time before inspections began, before the girls were
expected to line up and subject themselves to Mistress Zero's scrutiny.  A
few girls milled about, having hushed conversations.  A few others lingered
by the sinks longer than was probably necessary.  A couple -- Mailgirl
Five, most notably -- were already at their lockers, already on their
knees, already leashed in.  More carefully following Seven's instructions
this time, Thirteen left her own leash coiled where it was, but got down
into "Knees" in front of her locker and waited the remaining few minutes
out.

   It was at this moment that Fourteen burst through the double doors, the
last of the mailgirls to arrive.  She shot a fake-looking smile at Thirteen
and said, "Good morning," but got right down to business in stripping off
her clothes.  Flip-flops.  Jeans.  Lightweight jacket.  Tank-top.  Bra and
panties.  She wasted no time, and hustled back across the locker room to
the showers.  She'd be cutting it close.

   Thirteen, though, was still mostly fixated on Mailgirl Number Five.  Chi
Yong Cho.  She'd been a quantitative analyst before this, with a PhD in
Applied Mathematics from MIT.  Mailgirl Number Eleven was half-Asian,
Thirteen knew, but Five was full-blooded Korean-American, from Houston. 
And she looked utterly miserable.  It hung over her.  Mailgirls Four and
Six barely acknowledged her as they, too, got to their knees beside her. 
Thirteen assumed this had more to do with Five than any unfriendliness on
the part of the other two girls.

   What was Five doing here?  Thirteen hated all this, too.  Only Mailgirl
One seemed to be actually enjoying herself.  The others put on brave faces,
and smiled as they were supposed to, but none of them really and truly
wanted to be a mailgirl.  Seven, as much as she'd made clear that she'd
volunteered, and as much as she'd come close to outright acknowledging some
complex emotions about her participation in the program, had let her
regrets and second-guessing slip through to the surface a few times
yesterday.  Did USF really have that much on Five?  Did she have that much
hanging over her, that she'd show up day-in and day-out and be that
depressed and outwardly pathetic?

   Thirteen felt sorry for Mailgirl Number Sixteen, that the
African-American girl would be paired with such a downtrodden partner.  She
felt lucky to have been assigned to Seven.  Eleven wouldn't have been so
bad; she and Eighteen appeared to be getting along fine.  Nine, teamed with
Fifteen, seemed nice enough.  Seventeen looked to be struggling, but Six
had been there to encourage her along, and Six's massive chest would have
been enough to pull attention away from whomever she'd been assigned. 
Thirteen was intimidated by Mailgirl Number One, but -- from what little
Thirteen had observed of her so far -- Mailgirl Number Fourteen had enough
personality and backbone that that pairing sort of made sense.

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

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

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

   She wondered what Seven thought of Nick Pagliaro.

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

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

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

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

   "And so?" Thirteen raised an eyebrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "No, it's..."

   "Yeah."

   "Yeah," Thirteen agreed.

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

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

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

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

   "But?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Thirteen's jaw dropped.

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

   "So I wouldn't be the first."

   "Not by a long shot."

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

   "Why?  Do you have plans?"

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

   "Life among the gorillas."

   "Right."

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

   "Comforting," Thirteen said, sarcasm masking sincerity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   One had commuted to the Plaza wearing nothing more.

   "Bold," Thirteen conceded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Just as Thirteen would, too, eventually...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Yes, please, Thirteen said inwardly.

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

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

   Thirteen blushed.  "Thank you, sir."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "Martinez."

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

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

   Moses shrugged.  "Couldn't have hurt."

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

   "Consumer, right?"

   "Consumer Credit."

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

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

   "I'll give you that."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   The remainder of the morning passed without incident.  Or, perhaps said
better, passed without any major incidents.  The girls made their
deliveries on time, and the demerit they'd picked up for Thirteen's weight
that morning remained the only demerit of the day.  There was commentary
aplenty, of course, running the gamut from the positive to the negative. 
Thirteen, as the new girl, got more attention than Seven, but Seven
received her far share, as well.  It was awkward and weird and
embarrassing, showing up in someone's cubicle dressed as she was.  But
Thirteen felt that she was blushing less and less each time; she was
getting accustomed to it.  It was also undeniably arousing, just being the
embodiment of sex.  Being so naked.  Submitting herself in this way.

   She decided that men, alone, were to whom she preferred to make
deliveries, and from whom she preferred pick-ups.  The majority of these
interactions were quick and by-the-book.  They'd look her over, of course,
but it was often perfunctory.  Only once or twice did she feel her skin
crawl as someone fucked her with their eyes.  Most of time, they were
almost gentlemanly and kind.  Or as gentlemanly and kind as a mailgirl had
any hope of being treated.  They were appreciative of her and her
sacrifices.  She'd get the occasional, "gorgeous" or "beautiful" or "hot"
or "sexy." Sometime, she'd even be referred to by one of these adjectives,
as if it were name.  "Here you go, Beautiful."

   Women, when they were alone, were fine enough.  A few looked at her with
empathy in their eyes, feeling sorry for her.  They, too, were polite. 
But, more often than not, Thirteen was looked down upon with disgust.  They
didn't want her and Seven in their offices for longer than necessary.  They
didn't want to be forced into an interaction with a naked girl.  They
didn't want her tits in their faces.  She was viewed as a pathetic wretch,
an annoyance, or a whore.  She was a torment inflicted upon them for
working at USF.

   Men, even together, were not so bad.  A little more teasing.  A few more
remarks.  A bit more objectification.  They'd talk about her like she
wasn't there.  Or they'd say something sexual to her, to get a rise out
their friends.  If Thirteen was being honest with herself, she didn't mind
even this, especially as the morning wore on.  She was naked.  Call it out.
Make a comment.  It felt more awkward to pretend like this was normal.  It
felt weirder when they got nervous and wouldn't acknowledge it.

   Women together, though?  By far, hands-down - they were the worst. 
Thirteen began to dread these deliveries.  When one woman was in another's
office when Seven and Thirteen arrived.  When two women were seated
together in some sort of communal workplace.  It wasn't just disgust.  It
was open, vocal, contempt.  There were catty remarks about the mailgirls'
bodies.  The name-calling was worse.  "Skank" and "tramp" and "slut" were
thrown at them repeatedly.  Even more so than when interacting with men,
Seven and Thirteen were called upon to get down on their knees or up on to
their toes.  Or forced to recite the phrases Mistress Zero had drilled into
them.  Thirteen was "lazy" or "stupid" or "slutty." She called herself all
of these things at their command.

   After one particularly vicious back and forth with a pair of
administrative assistants in Underwriting, Seven wrapped her arm around
Thirteen's waist as they waited for the service elevator.  Thirteen was
shaken.  Visibly so, judging by Seven's reaction.

   Upon arriving, Seven and Thirteen were forced into "Knees, Fourth
Position," an instruction so specific that the girls knew they were in
trouble from the outset.  Most employees knew the old standards -- "Knees,"
"Feet," "Toes," and even "Hands and Knees." When they were looking for
something more specialized, they simply told Seven and Thirteen what they
wanted out of the two mailgirls.  Seven dutifully informed them the
"official" name of the posture each time, but for most it was in one ear
and out the other.  "Knees, Fourth Position" suggested that these two
cackling old crones had either run other girls through the ringer or had
spent time studying the positions on the mailgirls app.  Neither boded
well.

   Down on their knees with their legs apart, and leaning far enough back
that they had to brace themselves with palms flat on the floor, Seven and
Thirteen parroted back each and every word they were instructed to utter.

   "This mailgirl is a dirty, filthy whore," Thirteen whimpered.

   "This mailgirl's cunt is dripping wet," Seven whined.

   "This mailgirl is an embarrassment to her mother," Thirteen professed.

   As Seven and Thirteen made their confessions, one of the secretaries
filmed them on her cell phone.

   "Why?" Thirteen asked weakly, blinking back tears.  It couldn't have
been purely sexual.  There simply couldn't be that many closeted lesbians
working at the Plaza.

   "Because they can," Seven explained.  Lesbians, no.  Sadists, yes.

   The only saving grace was that one of the two secretaries had made a
comment somewhere along of the lines of, "Steve's going to get a kick out
of this." That it was being filmed for an audience of one -- a husband or a
boyfriend, perhaps -- was preferable to it being splashed all over the
Internet.  Though, Thirteen admitted to herself glumly, the former didn't
necessarily preclude the latter.

   When USF had announced its program in April, those women indignant about
the very concept had likely been among those first resignations.  A
subsequent subsection of the female population who might have been
empathetic to the girls, given how they were treated in practice on a daily
basis, had likely been in the next wave.  The remainder, it seemed, loathed
the girls for volunteering, loathed the girls themselves.

   Morning breaks were clustered around ten o'clock, with Mistress Zero
pulling six girls out of circulation at a time, in fifteen-minute
increments.  9:30.  9:45.  10 o'clock.  Seven and Thirteen were called down
at ten.  But, as these breaks included the time it took the girls to get
down to the locker room, and as Thirteen and Seven had been up on the 36th
Floor when their smartphones had signaled it was their turn, their time
off-the-clock was brief.  Much of it was eaten up just waiting for their
elevator car to arrive.

   The pair was greeted in the service lobby by the sound of running water
in the distance, and the sight of Seventeen -- looking like a
deer-in-the-headlights -- seated on one of the metal toilets, relieving
herself.  Thirteen, too, needed to pee.  She'd needed to do so for the
better part of an hour, but she'd told herself she could make it back to
the locker room.

   Seven didn't waste any time.  She crossed the lobby to a storage closet,
retrieved a can of mailgirl chow, and handed it to Thirteen.  "Let's split
a can," she said.  "Open it, pour it into one of the dishes, and I'll join
you in a few."

   "I think I'm good," Thirteen stuck out her tongue, recoiling at the
thought of eating the disgusting grey gruel voluntarily.

   Seven wasn't taking no for an answer, though.  She shook her head. 
"Eat. Keep your energy up.  You can skip it this afternoon, if you want."

   "Okay," Thirteen said meekly as her stomach turned.

   "Potty break.  Eat.  Then a quick rinse, and back to your locker.  We
don't have a lot of time.  And I need to...take care of...something."

   Thirteen's eyes widened.

   Seven was going to do it.

   She was going to go for it.

   Despite what she'd told Thirteen earlier, just a few hours ago, Seven
was going to get herself off here in the locker room again.

   "Don't judge," Seven said sheepishly, reading the look on Thirteen's
face.  "It's your fault.  Making me relive it.  I've been thinking about it
all morning."

   "I'm...sorry?"

   "Kidding.  Sort of."

   Seventeen was done by the time Thirteen sat down on one of the toilets,
and was headed back into the locker room proper.  Any misgivings that
Thirteen had about peeing in front of whomever was out on the other side of
the mirror glass were minor.  She was distracted by the confession Seven
had just made.  It was all she could think about.

   In addition to Seventeen, the girls were joined in the locker room by
Mailgirls Six, Three, Ten, and -- of course -- Mistress Zero.  Thirteen
couldn't help but be drawn to Ten's chest, given the comments Lin and Moses
had made about her up on the 18th Floor.  The girl was unquestionably
beautiful, as beautiful as any of the other girls.  She was a brunette. 
Tall.  Slender.  Tan all over.  Thirteen remembered yesterday thinking she
looked "smart," a judgment somewhat diminished by the fact that she was on
her hands and knees now, lapping up water from a dog dish beside their
mistress's desk.  Her breasts were admittedly on the smaller side for a
mailgirl.  Oranges, maybe, instead of the grapefruits Thirteen and most of
the other girls possessed.  Cantaloupes, in the case of Mailgirl Six. 
Thirteen felt for the girl.  Otherwise gorgeous, her smaller-than-average
cup size (again, only for a mailgirl) were her distinguishing feature, the
thing that singled her out.

   But Thirteen's focus wasn't on Ten.  It was on her fellow blonde in the
far showers, who looked to be...yes...yes, she was!...squatting and peeing
as water cascaded down on her from above.  Thirteen felt nauseous.  She
wondered if this was normal behavior for the mailgirls, or if it was
something Seven-specific.  As nasty as it would have been had it been just
Seven, Thirteen suspected that the former was closer to the truth.  That
her fellow mailgirls -- pressed for time -- might have been regularly
urinating in the showers.  That thought made Thirteen retch a little bit,
and rethink whether she actually wanted to rinse off, after all.

   Seven wasn't alone in the showers, however.  Mailgirl Number Three, two
showers down, didn't bat an eye.  Nor did Three pay Seven any attention
when the girl, still squatting, spread her legs open and began furiously
attacking her own pussy.  Seven braced herself against the mirror with one
hand, closed her eyes, and rubbed herself with abandon.

   Before yesterday, Thirteen had never watched another girl masturbate. 
On the Internet, sure.  If that counted?  But it wasn't...normal.  It
wasn't the sort of thing people did in front of each other.  Christopher
had once confessed that it would turn him on if Thirteen did it while he
watched.  But, as much as the idea had also titillated Thirteen, she'd
lacked the courage to actually go through with it.  She wasn't an
exhibitionist.  Or, at least, she hadn't thought of herself as one at the
time.

   No, the closest Thirteen had ever come to witnessing this sort of thing
firsthand had been with Erica Wright, her freshman-year roommate back in
Malibu.  Erica had stumbled home late one night, pretty early into the
Fall, drunk out of her mind and bumping into furniture.  She'd crawled into
her own bed across the room, while Thirteen pretended to sleep.  They were
still getting to know one another.  Erica was very much a "party girl," and
Thirteen was decidedly not.  At the time, it had just seemed easier to roll
over and close her eyes, rather than acknowledge Erica's return and be
drawn into some sort of confused, beer-addled conversation with the other
girl.  Erica, buying into Thirteen's ruse, had taken the fact that her
roommate was passed out as an opportunity to pleasure herself.  Softly, to
her credit.  Or, as softly as a drunken eighteen-year-old girl was capable
of.  There'd been the rustling of covers, the gentle whispers of the bed
springs beneath her, and the labored in-and-out breathing that increased in
tempo as she got closer to achieving her goal.  When she came, she didn't
call it out.  There was no whining, no whinnying, no moaning.  Just a
simple, desperate gasp for air, and then the thing was done.

   The whole episode couldn't have lasted for more than two or three
minutes.  Erica had known exactly what she was doing, and must have been
fairly worked up even before she'd stumbled back to their room.  Thirteen
was never going to come right out and ask her what had gotten her so hot
and bothered.  To do so would have meant admitting she'd been awake to hear
the whole thing unfold.  But she'd overhead Erica confessing to one of
their other suitemates that she'd been out with the men's volleyball team.
Erica had gone on and on about how "hot" one of the freshmen was, and
Thirteen was eventually able to make an educated guess; Erica and Drew
Wagner dated, on-and-off, for much of the Spring.

   Erica Wright had gone on to medical school after Pepperdine, if Thirteen
remembered correctly.  As Thirteen was delivering interoffice envelopes,
naked, in New York, Erica was probably just starting her residency
somewhere out west.  Thirteen wondered what she was specializing in.  It
made her laugh think that Erica might have gone on to become a
gynecologist.

   Seven was moving with that same purpose, that time-is-of-the-essence
desperation that suggested she, too, was going to hit her climax in less
than three minutes.  She wasn't screwing around.

   Thirteen had granted Erica an illusion of privacy then, and she thought
it only proper to allow Seven that same politeness now.  Three, who was
only three or four feet removed from where the thing was going down, paid
no attention to other mailgirl.  Three remained focused on her shower. 
Thirteen could do the same.

   Willing herself to pretend it wasn't happening, Thirteen went to the far
side of Mistress Zero's desk, retrieved the silver dog dish from the floor,
and -- using a can opener left conveniently nearby -- opened the can of
mailgirl chow and deposited the contents in the bowl.  The dish itself
wasn't quite clean.  There were specks of food left behind from whomever
had eaten their own snack out of it during one of the earlier breaks,
streaks from where another girl's tongue had licked it clean.  Clean-ish,
at least.  This didn't make the chow any less appetizing.  No, there simply
wasn't a way in which Thirteen's "snack" could have gotten any less
appetizing.

   "I'll split that with you," Mailgirl Ten offered, from down around
Thirteen's ankles.  She was still on her hands-and-knees at the other dish,
where she'd stopped to have a drink.

   Thirteen glanced down the locker room, where Seven was still at work
beneath the shower.  She began, "Seven said..."

   Ten checked the time on her phone, and peeked around Mistress Zero's
desk to get her own quick glance at the masturbating blonde.  With a little
smile on her face, Ten said, "I don't think she's going to have time."

   Thirteen frowned.  She'd only resigned herself to the chow at Seven's
instruction.  It didn't seem fair that Seven would be too busy to actually
eat her half of the can.

   "You're going to have finish it alone if she doesn't wrap up quick," Ten
argued.  "Otherwise, you know, demerits."

   "Thirteen is not afraid of demerits," Mistress Zero added from behind
her desk.  She was playing with her tablet, and listening in on the girls'
exchange.  The comment carried with it an accusation.  Thirteen wasn't
afraid of demerits, she had said.  But what she'd meant was that Thirteen
was growing accustomed to the spankings that followed.  That maybe she was
enjoying them.

   Thirteen bit her lip.  She didn't want demerits.  On the other hand, she
wanted to wait for Seven.  On the other other hand, she didn't want to be
forced to choke down an entire can of mailgirl chow on her own.  She nodded
to Ten.  Seven could get another can, if she finished up in time.

   Mistress Zero's presence intruded on the "snack" that Thirteen and Ten
shared on the floor.  She hovered over them both -- listening in, judging
them, keeping them in line.  Still, Ten smiled at Thirteen, and there was
an unspoken conversation between them.

   "It's not so bad," Ten seemed to be saying with her eyes, seeing the
hesitation in Thirteen.

   "It's pretty bad," Thirteen frowned.

   They took turns.  Ten first, then Thirteen.  Ten, again.  Thirteen,
again.  Ten gobbled down more than her fair share, in what Thirteen took as
a favor to her.  When the food was gone, Ten licked one side of the bowl,
and then encouraged Thirteen to do the same on the other.

   If the taste, smell, and consistency of the chow weren't bad enough, the
watery "gravy" that remained behind afterwards was worse.  Thirteen felt
herself gag, and she dipped her head into the water dish immediately after
she was done, desperately trying the wash the taste out of her mouth.  She
knew better, but she swallowed more of the room-temperature water than she
probably should have.

   Thirteen didn't dare look back down the locker room to assess where
Seven was in her build.  Instead, she turned tail and b-lined for the
shower block on her own end of the room, the end of the room where
Mailgirls Thirteen through Eighteen had their lockers.

   Ten padded behind.

   Seventeen had already had her own quick rinse.  Thirteen wasn't sure if
Six had done the same.  She fought the annoyance she felt when Ten followed
her over to the showers, and slid in under the showerhead immediately to
her left.  Four showers to choose from at this end of the locker room, and
Ten had be right on top of her.

   She'd done so, apparently, to talk.

   "Figured I'd give her some space," Ten whispered, unironically.  She
meant Seven.

   Thirteen couldn't blame her.  Three had seemed unfazed by the display,
but she'd been in the showers before Seven had joined her.  Given the
choice, it made sense that Ten would shower down here, away from the
mailgirl engaged with her own sex.

   "It gets better," Ten said softly.

   Thirteen was unsure of what she meant.

   "The food," Ten clarified.

   "Yeah?" Thirteen asked, skeptically.

   "It gets more tolerable," Ten allowed.  "I tell myself that it's good
for me."

   "Certainly doesn't taste that way," Thirteen quipped.  She wasn't being
nice.  She changed her attitude.  "Thank you, by the way.  I know that you
choked down more of it than I did."

   "You did your part," Ten smiled.  "Soap?"

   "Uh..." Thirteen said, looking down at her feet and scanning for one of
the bars.

   "Nevermind," Ten said.  "I see them." She stepped out of the spray and
went to retrieve both bars of soap from the far end of the block.  She
returned, and handed one of them to Thirteen.  Luxury of luxuries, Thirteen
wouldn't have to share.

   "So, you need a dress?" Ten asked.  "I've got a cocktail dress in my
locker that I think will fit you."

   They were about the same size.  Ten had a few inches on her, and
Thirteen was a bit bigger in the bust.  But they were roughly the same the
same build.  To Kevin Lin's point earlier that morning, there wasn't a lot
of variety in body types among USF's mailgirls.

   "You think I need it?" Thirteen asked.  She didn't want to borrow Ten's
clothes.  It felt uncomfortable.  She'd just met the girl yesterday, and
hadn't exchanged more than a few words with her up until now.  Ten was
doing this as a favor to Seven more than she was doing it for Thirteen. 
"She wants to go to the Imperial."

   "Ooh," Ten replied.  "Fancy."

   It's not that fancy, Thirteen wanted to say.  She'd been there last
night with Gillian, in a moderately casual skirt and a tank-top, albeit
wearing her roommate Audrey's blazer.  It certainly wasn't a place that
required a "cocktail dress."

   "So that's a yes?  You think I need it?"

   "What'd you wear in this morning?"

   "Yoga pants.  And a long-sleeve shirt."

   "Borrow the dress."

   Thirteen grimaced.

   "Dress up," Ten encouraged her.  "You're doing more than enough dressing
down."

   Despite herself, Thirteen had to laugh.  Ten had a point.

   "Just get it back to me tomorrow.  Or, whenever.  Ooh," she said, an
idea striking her, "wear it in tomorrow!  Just leave your clothes from this
morning here overnight."

   The suggestion wasn't without merit.  What was Thirteen going to do with
her clothes otherwise?  Carry them with her?  They weren't going to fit in
her purse.

   She was hesitant, though.  "Overnight?"

   "They'll be fine.  I've had a pair of underwear go missing every now and
then.  But, honestly, that's been during the day.  I don't think anyone's
taking your pants on you."

   The casualness with which Ten just divulged someone had stolen her
underwear was alarming.  Thirteen had hoped the thong she'd handed over to
Will Barrow yesterday would be the last undergarment she surrendered to
USF. Now, it seemed, she had reason to be concerned that the panties she'd
worn in this morning wouldn't be there when she got back to her locker
later in the day.

   "Yeah, maybe don't leave your underwear here overnight," Ten suggested.
"I'm assuming you're wearing those out of here tonight?  Because if
not...ewww...you can't borrow the dress."

   "As long as they're still here at the end of the day," Thirteen joked.
She hoped it was a joke.

   She didn't wash her hair.  This was just a quick rinse.  She'd showered
here in the locker room that morning.  She'd showered last night, at home.
She'd showered before that, too, in the locker room before leaving, at
Mistress Zero's request.  She'd showered early yesterday afternoon, not
long after she, Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen had been added to USF's
roster.  All of this bathing was going to take some getting used to.

   There was a lot about her new job that would take some getting used to.

   Seven apologized when they got back to stairs, when morning break was
through.  Thirteen wasn't sure if she was saying sorry about forcing her to
eat the chow against her will, and abandoning her after her promise to
consume half.  Or if she was apologizing for her behavior in the showers.
It turned out to be both.

   "Once you've done it once..." Seven said, sheepishly.  As much as Seven
clearly didn't want to talk about it, she had to at least acknowledge that
it had happened.  She was using Thirteen's own words.

   Thirteen did the same, using Seven's.  "Genie's out of the bottle."

   "Genie's out the bottle," Seven agreed.

   They descended down to B2, to the mailroom.  Master Hooper was no less
unpleasant than he'd been yesterday afternoon.  But Thirteen and Seven
didn't stay long.  They collected everything he had for the 33rd and 34th
Floors, and they were off.

   Regular mail.  Interoffice envelopes.  Electronic messages, bumped from
cell phone to cell phone, and delivered by gorgeous young girls in the
nude. Thirteen was down on her knees, up on her feet.  She was bounding up
the stairs behind Seven, following behind her on the descents, and -- every
now and then -- tapping her toe and waiting for one of the service
elevators to arrive.  Occasionally, they passed another mailgirl in the
stairwell, but it mostly just Seven and Thirteen alone together.  They got
handed the occasional odd job -- empty my trash bucket, fetch me another
cup of coffee, run this lint brush over my coat over there.  At one point,
after fixing a paper jam, the pair was asked to Xerox their tits.  They
both did as they'd been asked, and the middle-aged man who'd made the
demand went back to his cubicle staring intensely at both pictures
side-by-side, comparing them.

   Thirteen's time in Commercial Banking made her uncomfortable.  It all
made her uncomfortable, of course.  But the bankers there were particularly
aggressive in walking right up to the edge of what they were allowed to do.
One after another, they ordered Seven and Thirteen to their knees before
accepting their deliveries or giving them their pick-ups.  And then they'd
step right up close to the kneeling mailgirls so that their crotches were
in the girls' faces.  Time and time again, Thirteen was instructed to
forego her usual stare-at-the-floor submissive act, and instead to "look me
in the eyes." She could see the bulges in their pants as they made this
request.  She could smell them right through their flies.  It was clear
what they were doing -- it was fellatio without the fellatio.  Everything
but.  All that kept these men from jamming their cocks down her throat were
a few thin layers of fabric and the rules Human Capital had put in place to
keep USF's employees from crossing that final line.

   "Alpha male stuff," Seven said, when the pair was back on the service
elevator.  "It started with the I-bankers a couple of weeks ago, Three
said. It's bled down into Business Banking now, too."

   It would only be a matter of time before someone tested Will Barrow's
resolve.  Someone senior.  Some rainmaker whom USF couldn't possibly part
with.  What frightened Thirteen more, though, was how she'd respond.

   Later in the afternoon, when they got the call up to the 47th Floor,
Thirteen saw the color run out of Seven's face.

   "Tony Manzanillo," Seven explained.  USF's Chief Human Resources
Officer. "Strap in.  This one's going to be rough."

   "What?  How?"

   "Think Parker Wertz," Seven went on.  "But with a Senior Executive VP.
He wants to check out the new girls."

   Was it Manzanillo who'd be the one to cross the line?  After all, how
was Will Barrow going to discipline his boss?

   "He brought me up last week, with Three.  On Tuesday morning.  He had
us...put on a little show."

   Now it was Thirteen's turn to blanche.  "What does that mean?"

   "Kissing.  A little heavy petting.  That sort of thing."

   "He can...he can do that?"

   "He can't touch us himself, if that's the question.  But, when he's got
a pair of girls..."

   Thirteen wasn't ready for this.  She'd never been with another girl
before.  Sure, Seven was hot.  And she smelled amazing.  Thirteen was
admittedly turned on, just being in the girl's presence.  "I'm not sure I
can do this."

   Seven shook her head.  "It's not going to go that far," she assured
Thirteen.  "We're not going to be...like...you know.  Putting on THAT sort
of show."

   That was a relief.

   "I bet I'd be good at it, though," Seven said, doing her best to make a
joke out of it.

   Thirteen chuckled politely.  "Don't take this personally, but I don't
really want to find out."

   Seven feigned hurt feelings, projecting her lower lip out in an
exaggerated pout.  She didn't really want to go down on Thirteen, any more
than Thirteen wanted her to.  "I'm a good kisser, at least.  That, I'm
pretty sure you're going get.  If this plays out the same way it did last
week."

   "Okay," Thirteen smiled weakly.  "Go easy on me, though.  This is...this
is my first time."

   "First time kissing another girl?" Seven scoffed.  "I'm a veteran.  My
first time was in Manzanillo's office last week, with Three."

   Seven winked at her friend.  "We'll be fine.  Buddy system, you know?"

   "Buddy system," Thirteen agreed.

   "We're buddies," Seven said, sounding more like she was attempting to
reassure herself than Thirteen.

   The 47th Floor wasn't all that different from the other floors Thirteen
had visited so far.  Bigger offices, sure.  Secretaries seated out in front
of them all.  It was quieter.  But the carpeting was more-or-less the same,
the office furniture the same sort of stuff she'd run past dozens of times
over by that point.  The occasional topiary.  The banal seascapes and other
inoffensive choices of "art" that hung on the walls.

   And yet being up here affected Thirteen in a way that trips to Capital
Markets and Commercial Banking and Product Management hadn't.  Or, at
least, hadn't -- as much.  There was power here, and Thirteen had already
confessed to Seven that the power dynamics at play at the Plaza were
turning her on.  Seven had confessed to the same.  Thirteen wondered which
of the offices they passed belonged to the General Counsel.

   Manzanillo's secretary - a gorgeous young thing who couldn't have been
any older than twenty-three or twenty-four - greeted the two naked
mailgirls with a knowing smile.  They were heading into the lion's den, and
she was getting a kick out of it.  She knocked on her boss's door on their
behalf, showed them in, and reminded Manzanillo about an upcoming call. 
Whatever he was going to get up to with Seven and Thirteen, it couldn't
last any longer than ten minutes or so.

   Whereas Will Barrow was polished and professional, Tony Manzanillo came
across like an unmade bed.  It seemed unlikely that he'd have risen to his
station, overseeing 80,000 employees world-wide, on merit alone.  He didn't
look the part.  He was overweight.  Fat, even.  He seemed the sort of man
who'd break into a sweat just sitting there at his desk.  The sort who'd be
huffing and puffing if he'd been forced to climb a single flight of stairs
at the Plaza -- let alone the ten-at-a-time the mailgirls were expected to
take.  He had a bad comb-over, pudgy cheeks, and jowls.  He loosened his
tie as the girls entered, but it had been loose already and crooked.  The
top two buttons of his dress shirt were undone, and a well-worn white
undershirt was on display, with a ill-fitting collar that looked like it
had gone through the wash a few too many times.

   Melanie Lowrie had pushed back against mailgirls at USF.  And, for that
sin, she'd been demoted down the 18th Floor and somehow forced into an
administrative assistant's job in Human Capital.  Tony Manzanillo had been
installed as USF's new head of Human Resources, presumably based on little
more than his willingness to let Senior Management have its way.

   "Good morning, girls," Manzanillo smiled as his secretary left them
alone with him.

   "Good morning, sir," Seven replied.

   "Good morning, sir," Thirteen echoed.

   "Let's get a good look at you," he said.  "Come over here, why don't
you? 'Feet.'"

   They did as they were told, taking up position a few feet in front of
Manzanillo's desk.  Seven on the left.  Thirteen on the right.  Legs spread
wide, hands behind their backs.

   "Not bad," Manzanillo remarked, his eyes tracing up and down Thirteen's
body.  She could feel them on her, lingering on her breasts.  When he spoke
again, he was addressing her pussy and the not the girl to which it
belonged.  "Open up for me.  Let's see what we're working with.  Use your
fingers.  Number Seven, you too."

   Thirteen wasn't sure what he meant.  Or, rather, she wasn't sure if he
meant what she thought he meant.  She risked a glance in Seven's direction,
and confirmed that the order was exactly as she'd heard it.

   Seven, parting her legs just a bit further, found either side of her
pussy with each hand and spread her labia open.  Thirteen, hands shaking
noticeably, did the same.

   "Good girls," Manzanillo praised them.  He left them holding themselves,
just as they were, while he licked his lips.  Thirteen couldn't have been
sure, but it looked as if he rubbed himself -- carefully, casually --
beneath his desk.  He was silent for a moment, and the silence was more
uncomfortable than if he'd asked them to do something even more
humiliating.

   "You look hot," he said, finally.  "Your pussies.  They look hot.  Hot
and bothered."

   "Yes, sir," Seven replied on their behalf.  "These mailgirls...their
pussies are hot and bothered, sir."

   It wasn't a lie.  Thirteen couldn't believe that Seven had just admitted
it like that, out loud, to Manzanillo.  But it wasn't a lie.  It wasn't
Manzanillo, of course.  It was the collective weight of the day -- every
delivery she'd made, every new embarrassment she'd suffered, every time
she'd been viewed as nothing more than a lowly mailgirl.

   There was a plastic cup on the man's desk, one that had probably been
ice coffee earlier that morning but was now nothing more than half-melted
ice cubes.  Manzanillo removed the lid and used his big, meaty paws to
retrieve a handful of ice.  "Here.  Cool down."

   He didn't mean...?  He couldn't mean...?

   He did.

   "Thank you, sir," Seven said, stepping forward to take one of the cubes
from his outstretched hand.  "These mailgirls' pussies are hot and
bothered. This will help."

   Why was Seven going along with this?  Why was Seven repeating the
confession?  He hadn't ordered her to.  Seven had done this before, though.
Maybe not this, exactly.  But she seemed to know what Manzanillo wanted,
and was playing her part.

   "Thank you, sir," Thirteen said.  She couldn't bring herself to repeat
the rest.  She took the offered ice cube, however.  She knew where it was
supposed to go.

   Seven shivered beside her, and Thirteen knew the other girl had done
what Manzanillo had wanted her to do with it.  She was using her thumb and
index finger of her left hand to keep her labia open, and gently touching
the ice cube against the top of her slit with her right.

   Thirteen followed suit.  She touched herself with the ice just so.  She,
too, felt a shiver run up her spine.  It was too intense, and she pulled it
away.  But, she went back with it a second time.  And then a third.  And
then, by that fourth time, her pussy was numb enough that she could hold
there in place.  It was on her clit.  Her throbbing, fully alive clit.  As
much as she hated herself, it did feel good.  It did feel cool.

   Was she supposed to...insert it?  Again, she looked to Seven in an
attempt to follow the other girl's lead.  It was hard to tell exactly what
Seven was up to, at least without being blatantly obvious that that's what
she was doing.  But, the way that Seven was standing, the way she was
holding her hands, the way her right arm was rocking just ever so
back-and-forth, suggested to Thirteen that her ice cube was still on the
outside.  She was rubbing herself with it.

   Thirteen did the same.

   She wasn't masturbating with the ice cube.  Not exactly.  It was sexual,
and it was on its way to being masturbation.  But it was more like
foreplay. Gentle.  Tender.  Slow.  And, of course, cold.

   "When those melt, feel free to take another," Manzanillo said to them.
He pushed the cup closer to their side of the desk.

   "Thank you, sir," Seven said.

   "Thank you...sir," Thirteen said, as well, though the honorific got
stuck in her throat.  She was distracted.

   It went on like this for another few minutes, Manzanillo saying nothing,
only watching.  Seven's pussy was warmer than Thirteen's, apparently, or
her ice cube had been smaller to start with; the other girl reached an
empty hand into man's cup and retrieved a second piece of ice.

   "That helps, doesn't it?"

   "Yes, sir," Seven answered.  "Thank you, sir."

   "Maybe we need to get an ice maker down in the locker room," Manzanillo
snorted.  "You'd think the cold showers would be enough.  But, you girls.
You girls are still down there, finger-fucking yourselves anyways."

   Did he know what Seven had just done?  Had he seen?  Thirteen knew there
were cameras in the locker room.  Regular USF employees didn't have access
to them, but it wasn't inconceivable that Manzanillo might.  After all,
Human Capital reported in under him.

   The accusation, though, didn't come off as one specific to Seven.  When
Manzanillo said, "you girls," it wasn't just Seven and Thirteen he was
talking about it.  It was a comment on mailgirls, in general.  That, even
under the cold spray of water in the shower blocks, USF's mailgirls were
still able to masturbate.  That they needed to, and there was little that
USF could do about it.

   "So, Thirteen?  You're our summer intern?"

   "Yes, sir.  Sort of, sir."

   "Sort of?"

   "Sort of.  Yes, sir.  I'm...I'm...this mailgirl is here for research."

   "But we're not paying you," Manzanillo said, clarifying.

   "No, sir."

   "Meaning, you're doing this for free?"

   Thirteen groaned inwardly.  She was running around naked at the Plaza,
and rubbing herself with an ice cube in front of him, and she was doing so
without money changing hands.  She had the grant that she had access to,
but it wasn't like she needed to get into any sort of detail there.  It
wasn't the point.  It wasn't what Manzanillo was after.  "Yes, sir."

   "Maybe we ought to get a few more interns," Manzanillo chuckled.  "The
rest of these girls are costing us a fortune.  You can't be the only girl
out there wired this way, ready and willing to be a mailgirl just for the
charge of the thing."

   Thirteen felt the thin sliver of ice against pussy melt away to water.
She didn't want to take another.  She did so anyways.

   "Seven, what are we paying you?" Manzanillo asked.

   "A lot, sir.  More than I was earning in Legal," she replied.  She
caught her mistake, and began to correct herself.  "More than this mailgirl
was earning in --"

   "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Manzanillo waved her off, annoyed.  "A lot.  I don't
need the specific number.  It's a lot.  I just hope you're worth the
investment."

   "Yes, sir.  Me, too, sir."

   Manzanillo leaned to one side, pulled his wallet from his back pocket,
and made a show of counting out, "one, two, three...," and so on, until he
got to seven.

   "Seven dollars," he said, stacking the singles neatly and tapping them
on his desk.  "How about seven, Seven?  What are you willing to do for
seven dollars?"

   Seven was at a loss for words.  She wasn't sure how he wanted her to
respond.

   "Never mind," Manzanillo said, shaking his head.  "I can look up your
price." He turned his attention to Thirteen.  "Maybe the better question,
intern, is what you'd be willing to do for seven dollars?"

   They were whores.  USF had found Seven's price.  Thirteen's was a little
less black-and-white.

   "Sir?" Thirteen asked, fumbling for words.

   "It's not fair, is it?  You're doing the same job, and Seven here is
taking home a check.  A big, fat check.  I'll tell you what.  How about you
do a little dance for me?  You do that, and I'll let you keep
all...seven...dollars."

   No, Thirteen cried to herself.  Please, no.  Not that.

   "Sir, I --"

   Manzanillo wouldn't accept no for an answer.  Thirteen didn't have a
choice.  He shifted back to Seven.  "Use that ice cube.  Get her nipples
nice and hard first."

   Thirteen's nipples didn't need any attention.  They'd been rock hard
long before she'd set foot on the 47th Floor.  But, with a guilty look in
her eye, Seven nodded and reached for Thirteen's tits.  The ice cube that
had been only just now on Seven's own pussy was applied -- gently -- in a
circular pattern around Thirteen's left nipple.  Then, her right. 
Goosebumps formed on the edges of her areolae.

   As Seven attended to Thirteen's chest, Manzanillo busied himself
fiddling with his computer.  At least both his hands were now where
Thirteen could see them.  A few seconds of pecking around, and he found
what he'd been hunting for.  Music began to play from the tiny, tinny
speakers built into the desktop.

   Thirteen had been a musician.  If Manzanillo had handed her a violin,
Thirteen would have been more in her comfort zone.  In fact, possibly the
only thing more embarrassing than dancing in front of him would have been
if he'd asked her to sing.  Her music was Mozart.  It was Bach.  It was
Vivaldi, Haydn, Rachmaninoff.  Still, though Thirteen didn't recognize the
song, she was just knowledgeable enough to recognize that Manzanillo had
selected the Rolling Stones for her.

   "I am the little red rooster," Mick Jagger began to growl.  "Too lazy to
crow for day..."

   She felt like an idiot.  Nothing she'd done that morning, nothing she'd
done yesterday, was as humiliating as this.  As Seven returned to the ice
on her pussy, Thirteen tried to find the beat.

   "I am the little red rooster," Jagger repeated.  "Too lazy to crow for
day..."

   Thirteen had never been to a strip club, of course.  Not that she really
had anything to strip off, though, either -- making that particular
touchstone relatively less helpful here and now anyways.  But, she swayed
her hips along with the music, making a go of it, and doing her best to
match the slow, sexy, purposeful rhythms of the song.

   "Keep everything in the farmyard upset in every way..."

   She closed her eyes, hoping that that would be okay, and tried to
pretend she were alone, in the privacy of her own apartment.  "You've got
to dance like there's nobody watching," went the saying, and Thirteen tried
to find some comfort there.

   But as the song progressed, Thirteen found herself doing exactly the
opposite.  What did Manzanillo want?  Did he like it when she dipped a
shoulder towards him?  Did he like it when she ran her hands down her
sides? She gave her tits a slow, purposeful shake.  She turned, shimmying
her ass seductively in his direction.  She rolled her neck and tossed her
hair with purpose.

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

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

   It got easier from there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Seven leaned in and kissed the other girl.

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Thirteen immediately looked away.

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

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

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

   "Girls," she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

   ***

   Thirteen wept.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   The shower hid her initial tears.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Thirteen's chest heaved, and she sobbed.

   "Ssshhh.  Ssshhh," Seven soothed her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Thirteen looked to Seven's reflection questioningly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   Seven and Thirteen avoided talking about the kiss, however.  Thirteen
wasn't sure what had come over her that morning.  Or, perhaps said better,
she knew exactly what had come over her and didn't want to have to say it
out loud.  It was lust, pure and simple.  Arousal.  In that moment, she'd
been turned on, ready to go, and desperate to be touched.  Despite the
breakdown beneath the showers, there'd been a part of her -- and not a
small part, either -- that had been disappointed in Manzanillo,
disappointed that he hadn't ordered Seven and Thirteen to perform for him
in the same way he had done to Seven and Three.  "Heavy petting," as Seven
had put it.  She was jealous of Three.  Jealous of Seven, for that matter,
for being allowed to engaged in some HR-sanctioned physical contact.

   She needed some sort of release.

   The more she thought about the kiss, Thirteen no longer regretted it. 
Not exactly.  She was a little embarrassed about it, sure.  She'd only
known this other girl since yesterday.  What they'd been through together
over the last day-and-a-half, though, was bonding.  It was intimate.  It
was intimate in a way that Thirteen had never been with anyone else.  Not
Christopher.  Not Luke.  Not Mark.  She was so, so naked.  So vulnerable.
So honest.  And Seven had been just as naked, vulnerable, and honest with
her.  The kiss, as self-serving as it might have been, felt right.

   Still, despite all they'd shared, Thirteen had no interest in talking
about it.

   If Thirteen had hoped the kiss might provide some sort of release, it
did exactly the opposite.  As she had been for much of the day yesterday,
and as she had been for much of the morning, Thirteen had sex on the brain.
As person after person took her in in all her glory, and as they regarded
her as little more than a fuck toy to be enjoyed, she felt her state of
arousal rising to hitherto unexperienced heights.  Just when she thought
she couldn't be any more turned on, someone would comment on her body, or
stare openly at her breasts, or order her up on her toes or down onto her
knees.  She hated it and she loved it.  No matter how much her higher brain
functions tried to deny it, animal instincts got the better of her.  She'd
get that much more sexually excited.  Which, in turn, made her feel that
much more like a whore.  Which, in its own twisted way, only served as a
feedback loop to the whole thing.

   She found herself fantasizing about getting back to her apartment that
night.  Alone, in her own bedroom, with her hand between her legs.  It was
all she could think about, and the clock seemed to slow each time she dared
to look at it on her arm.  The end of the day seemed impossibly far away.
As much as she wanted to get drinks with Seven, and as much as she
recognized it would be good for her research, she wished she hadn't agreed
to yet another night out at the Imperial.  She wished she could simply
return home to the Upper West Side after work.

   By the time she and Seven arrived back down on the 2nd Floor for their
afternoon break, Thirteen had time only for a quick potty break and
perfunctory rinse beneath the shower.  Again, there were no moans of
pleasure to greet her upon her arrival.  None of the other girls were
attending to themselves.  She was, surprisingly, a little let down by the
mailgirls' self-restraint.  After the stories she'd heard, and those few
instances she'd witnessed yesterday, she'd expected someone -- anyone -- to
give in and get off.  Seven had explained that the veterans tended to hold
back when new girls were inserted into the mix.  But Thirteen had hoped
that Ten, or Two, or One, or even Seven again might make a go of it, and
act upon the sexual excitement that they, too, had to be feeling.  Thirteen
wasn't ready to do so, herself, but she'd have felt validated if one of
them had touched themselves -- knowing that she wasn't alone in the
feelings she was feeling inside of her.

   Seven was a pro.  It was easy to forget that this was just her seventh
day on the job, the way she handled herself.  She'd been nervous, of
course, when they'd been called up to Manzanillo's office.  But, for the
most part, she took everything that was thrown at her in stride.  "Yes,
sir" and "No, sir." "Thank you, ma'am" and "Please, ma'am." Quick and
efficient in her deliveries, submissive and obedient in her dealings with
her clothed counterparts.  In those moments they were allowed to rest
together, she'd whisper a secret or share some gossip.  But, on the clock,
Seven was heads-down and compliant, operating almost on autopilot in her
interactions with the Textiles.  Her composure was infectious, and Thirteen
followed along.  Her courage gave Thirteen courage.

   Which, then, was why Thirteen was so shaken by Seven's reaction to their
next assignment, just after six o'clock.  They had finished a delivery on
the 35th Floor -- an electronic message to a mousy young woman in her early
forties who was clearly uncomfortable with having to get close enough to
bump her smartphone against theirs -- and were on their way to the mailgirl
mat by the elevators when the order came through.  Seven froze in place,
yelped out, "No!  Please no!", and turned as white as a ghost.  Thirteen
glanced at her own phone, and saw the issue.

   They were headed to the 21st Floor.

   They were headed to Legal.

   Seven had been noticeably on-edge when the pair was down on the 21st
Floor earlier that morning, when she and Thirteen arrived to prep coffee.
Their time there, though, passed without incident.  And somehow, by simple
luck of the draw, Thirteen and Seven had managed to avoid Seven's old
stomping grounds for the remainder of the day.  Maybe it was that Legal
didn't have any need for the services of mailgirls today.  Or maybe it was
just that one of the other girls always happened to be closer when they
did.

   This, though, was something different.  Not only were they being
summoned down to Legal from fourteen flights away, but there also appeared
to be an expenditure of chits above-and-beyond the associated cost with
summoning a specific mailgirl.  Matt Doyle, yesterday afternoon, had walked
the new girls through the various chimes and vibrations they could expect
out of their smartphones, and what all of the various numbers and icons
represented.  Most assignments were simple ones: this location by this
time. But, though Thirteen was still getting accustomed to the app, she
knew enough that the "$" symbol next to the destination signified that they
were being called to do something less than routine.

   "The 'Chautauqua Conference Room'?" Thirteen asked.  "Does that mean
something?"

   "It's not the conference room," Seven moaned.  "It's Lisa D'Alessandro."

   Thirteen looked at her friend blankly.

   "One's old boss," Seven explained.  "Lisa D'Alessandro.  The Dragon
Lady."

   "That sounds ominous."

   "She was a bitch, even before.  She's also one of the few people -- even
in Legal -- who knows how involved I was in prepping the contracts."

   "She's upset about the program?" It wasn't surprising.  If Lisa
D'Alessandro believed Seven to be even partially responsible for the
naked-women-in-dog-collars thing, Thirteen could understand why Seven was
afraid of her.

   But Seven shook her head.  "No.  No, it's not that.  She's one of those
firmly in the camp that any girl who volunteers for the mailgirl program is
going to get what's coming to them.  She's just...sadistic.  A bitch just
for the sake of being a bitch.  When I transferred down here from Boston, I
got warned to steer clear of her from some of my old coworkers."

   Not good, Thirteen thought to herself.

   "On the day the program launched back in April, on Three's very first
assignment, Lisa ran her through, like, every single one of her positions.
'Feet' and 'Knees' and 'Toes' and even stuff like 'Ankles' and
'Shoulders-and-Toes' and so on."

   On the one hand, Seven and Thirteen had been run through various
positions by various different people at various different points
throughout yesterday and today.  Mostly, it was just the 'Feet' and 'Knees'
and 'Toes' positions, but they'd been thrown the occasional
'Hands-and-Knees' or 'Squat, Knees Apart' along the way. 
'Shoulders-and-Toes,' admittedly, was a little intense; it required a
mailgirl to get down onto her back, spread her legs, and then arch her
lower body up off the floor, thrusting her pussy up into the room.  No one
but Mistress Zero had yet asked Thirteen to strike that particular pose --
but it was only Day Two.  Still, such requests were well within the rights
of any USF employee who chose to make them.

   On the other hand, the fact that Lisa D'Alessandro chose to inflict that
particular torment on the very day the program launched, on Three's very
first trip up into the Plaza, spoke to something vicious and vile within
the woman.  In every program Thirteen had studied, there were always those
"early adopters" who took the opportunity presented to them to jump into
the mailgirl world with both feet.  But, from what Thirteen had read, most
people were more cautious and conservative around the mailgirls at the
outset.  It took time to break them of the notion that these were still
human beings.

   "Well, if that's the worst..." Thirteen began, optimistically.

   Seven shook her head.  "On Day Two, she walked One around the entire
floor on her hands and knees, on a leash.  She made her bark like a dog,
too, for good measure."

   Thirteen cringed.  "Okay.  That's a little more extreme."

   "Nine?  She was a tax attorney.  She worked on the 21st Floor, too. 
That first Friday in May?  After she became a mailgirl?  Lisa sent her down
to the locker room to fetch the clothes she'd worn in that morning, and
made her come back upstairs and shred them all in front of all her old
colleagues.  I was there.  It was awful."

   Thirteen swallowed hard.  "She can do that?  They can do that?"

   Seven shrugged.  "She did it.  One of the other girls in the office --
Theresa - took some pity on her, and gave her a coat to wear home that
night.  Lisa was pissed.  Theresa?  She's Mailgirl Number Eighteen now."

   Thirteen was beginning to understand why Seven was dreading this next
assignment.

   Seven was quiet as they got into the service elevator on the 35th Floor.
She'd been quiet before, but mostly in the context of keeping her head down
and concentrating on whatever task they'd been assigned.  This, though, was
different.  It was dread.  It was fear.

   Thirteen reached out and took the girl's hand.

   Being walked around the 21st Floor on a leash?  It would be humiliating,
for sure.  But it wouldn't be the first time Thirteen had been on the
business end of a leash over the last two days.  She was already drinking
out of dog bowls, and choking down mailgirl chow that couldn't have been
more than a step or two removed from actual dog food.  She could get
through it.

   Shredding her clothes?  It was ruthless.  It was vicious.  It was
sadistic.  Thirteen, of course, didn't want to lose her yoga pants, her
shirt, her underwear.  But she'd worn those cheap, cotton-candy pink
panties that morning partly because she'd half-expected to go home without
them.  And Ten had already offered her a cocktail dress to wear out to the
Imperial that night with Seven.  Even if Lisa D'Alessandro forced her to
repeat the torture she'd inflicted upon poor Mailgirl Number Nine, it
wasn't as if Thirteen would have to return to the Upper West Side in the
nude.

   She hoped that whatever awaited them in the Chatauqua Conference room
wasn't so elaborate.  She hoped it was nothing more than being run through
her positions.  It would be embarrassing enough to Seven, being forced to
do so in front of people she'd once considered peers.  Thirteen couldn't
even begin to imagine how embarrassed she'd be, if Gillian and Thirteen's
fellow graduate students took a field trip down to USF Plaza to watch. 
Thirteen hoped that Lisa D'Alessandro would recognize this, and nothing
would be inflicted upon her and Seven more than a few rounds of "Feet" and
"Knees" and "Shoulders-and-Toes."

   She could hope, at least.  Will Barrow couldn't take that away from her.

   The elevator signaled its arrival on the 21st Floor, and the girls
disembarked.  They had time to spare, if Thirteen were reading her
smartphone correctly, but Seven broke into a sprint all the same.  Thirteen
understood.  Seven didn't want to linger out on the floor, out among her
old colleagues.  No matter what One's old boss had in store for them.

   Outside the conference room, Seven hesitated.  She paused, caught her
breath, and looked Thirteen in the eyes.  "We can do this," she reassured
Thirteen.  Thirteen could see through the façade.  Seven was really
reassuring herself.

   As they entered Chatauqua, they were greeted by none other than Mailgirl
Number Seven herself.  The blonde girl, naked save for her collar and
number, was squatting beneath the shower in the locker room, legs spread
wide and eyes closed.  One hand was extended, bracing flat against an
invisible wall.  The other was between her legs, and it was unmistakable
what it was doing there.  The image was a little grainy.  It had clearly
been captured on someone's phone.  Now, though, it was blown up almost to
life-size, projected onto the far wall for all to see.

   It was from that morning.  Someone had snapped a picture.  No, no, no --
that wasn't quite right.  The image was frozen, static, but the big white
circle at the bottom of the picture -- the one with the triangle in it --
signaled that this was a video.

   All the eyes in the room, though, were fixed upon the two nude mailgirls
who'd just joined the proceedings.  There were two men -- one in his late
forties or early fifties, who looked sick to his stomach, and another,
likely only a few years older than Seven and Thirteen, who stared at Seven
in shock.  The rest were women.  Four of them, in total.  Two of them
looked about the mailgirls' age, while the other two -- while still
attractive and well put-together -- were a little older.

   Thirteen didn't need introductions to place which of them was Lisa
D'Alessandro.  The woman with the phone her hand, at the end of the table,
sneered at them as the door closed behind Thirteen.  "A culmination of all
your work?" she teased Seven.

   Lisa started the video.  From the guilty looks upon the rest of the
audience's faces, this wasn't the first time they'd watched it.  There was
no audio.  Or, at least, there was no audio of Seven; instead, the
conference room's speakers spat out background noise from elevator lobby.
Someone on the recording laughed.  Someone else called, "Jesus!" A dozen
different conversations combined into inaudible and indistinguishable
chatter.

   The recording picked up with Seven already rubbing her pussy with speed
and with purpose.

   "I was getting myself coffee this morning," Lisa began.  "And I caught
your little show.  We'd heard about the first time.  On Wednesday.  The
floor was abuzz!  Honestly, I didn't think you'd make it to the end of your
first day without doing it, given how hard you'd worked to set this all
up."

   It took all the strength Thirteen could muster to keep from darting back
out the conference room door.  Consequences be damned, she just wanted to
grab Seven's hand and pull her out behind her.  They could run.  Down to
the locker room.  Down to their lockers.  Down to their clothes, and then
out to the street.  Thirteen wanted to save her friend from this
humiliation.

   Seven, though, clenched her jaw.  She parted her legs.  She placed her
hands behind her back.  Her eyes went to the floor.  She stood defiant,
even as the video of her masturbating in the showers played out on the far
wall.

   Thirteen followed the other girl's lead, and took up "Feet," as well.

   "No," said one of the younger women to Lisa's left.  "Watch.  Make her
watch."

   "You heard her," Lisa sneered.  "Watch."

   Seven raised her head.  Thirteen did the same.

   Where had Thirteen been?  How far into the diddling had Lisa begun to
record it from the other side of the window?  Was Thirteen still scarfing
down mailgirl chow at Mistress Zero's desk?  Was she already in the showers
with Ten?  Was Thirteen, too, going to make a cameo appearance?

   Then, she'd done her best to given Seven her space, to pretend it wasn't
happening.  Now, though, Thirteen was witnessing Seven in all her glory. 
Lisa, phone in hand, couldn't have been more than four or five feet from
where Seven had been masturbating, and the proximity -- maybe even more
than the recording itself -- felt like a violation.  Seven's eyes were
shut, and the girl was blissfully unaware that the session was being
captured for posterity.  Even if they'd been open, all she'd have seen from
her side of the glass was her own reflection, biting her lip and gasping
for air.

   "Please," Thirteen begged, before she was even aware that she had
uttered the word aloud.  "Please.  Please.  You don't have to do this."

   Lisa cackled.  The girl who'd insisted the Seven watch laughed along
with her.  So, too, did the younger of the two men.

   "This isn't for me," Lisa sneered.  Jutting her chin towards Seven, she
continued, "This is for her.  Our star!"

   Seven risked a glance in Thirteen's direction.  Subtly, she shook her
head, and whispered, "Ssshhh." Thirteen wasn't to speak up again.

   "You can dress all of this up however you want," Lisa said.  "Deliver
the mail.  Make coffee.  Fetch this package or that.  Mop up the men's
room. Whatever HR is selling.  Whatever we're peddling to the protestors
out front.  This is what it's all about, isn't it?  Me?  Courtney?  Cathy?
Brian?  We're just minor characters -- bit players -- in Michelle's story."

   "Ma'am," Seven interrupted, her voice strained, "per Human Capital, this
mail girl is to be referred to by her mail room number."

   Lisa laughed.  So, too, did the others around the table.  Some it was
uncomfortable laughter.  But some was cruel, mocking.

   "My apologies," Lisa offered sarcastically.

   "Ma'am," Seven responded, "you are not to apologize to a mailgirl."

   Seven was required to correct Lisa for using her real name.  She was
required to correct Lisa for apologizing to a mailgirl.  To Thirteen,
though, the corrections came off as petty.  It was Seven finding the
smallest of ticky-tack regulations to regain the upper hand, to put Lisa
her in her place.

   Lisa was caught off-guard, but recovered.  She smiled thinly, and
offered, "You're right.  You're right.  What was I thinking?"

   "It was this mailgirl's fault," Seven went on.  "For putting you in such
a position."

   Again, uncomfortable laughter from around the room.

   "You're right, of course," Lisa snickered.  "Your fault.  You did this
to yourself.  You're the reason we've got exhibitionists in the lobby,
fucking themselves silly and forcing us all to watch."

   "Did she tell you?" This, from one of the other women.  Cathy? 
Courtney? The third, so far unnamed woman?  It wasn't aimed at Seven,
though.  The question was directed at Thirteen.  "Did she tell you that
she's the one who wrote the contracts?"

   Thirteen used the opportunity to look away from the wall, where Seven
continued to pleasure herself beneath the shower.  She met Seven's
accuser's eyes -- briefly.  It was one of the younger of the women, a girl
who probably only a year or two older than Thirteen herself.

   Thirteen nodded.  "She did.  She did, ma'am."

   "Ms.  Judd," Lisa interjected.

   Thirteen swallowed, and then nodded again.  "She did, Ms.  Judd."

   Ms.  Judd was a bit surprised by the fact that Seven had revealed her
part in the mailgirl program to another mailgirl.  She didn't, however, let
up.

   "She did, did she?  She told you that she's the reason you're a
mailgirl? That she's the one who slipped clawbacks into all our bonuses? 
That it's her fault that the company is doing this to us all?"

   Thirteen wanted to point out that she wasn't actually a USF employee. 
Or, at least, that she hadn't actually been a USF employee before yesterday
morning.  That it wasn't Seven's fault that she was here, that she was
under the thumb of Will Barrow and Human Capital, that she hadn't been
subject to clawbacks on a bonus.  But she didn't see the point -- it wasn't
what Ms.  Judd was after.  And the Chatauqua Conference Room didn't need
Thirteen's backstory.

   "She did, Ms.  Judd," Thirteen repeated.

   "Are you surprised?" Lisa asked Ms.  Judd, eyebrow raised.  "She's one
of Them.  The money?  The contracts?  The quote-unquote 'pressure' they're
put under?  It's not why she's here.  You can smell it on her.  This one
was just looking for an excuse to take off her clothes.

   "Don't you get it?" Lisa went on, pointing up towards the projection of
Mailgirl Number Seven, still masturbating away on the wall.  "This is what
it's about.  They're getting off on this.  We're just along for the ride."

   Ms.  Judd looked unconvinced.  "No.  Not Theresa." She meant Mailgirl
Number Eighteen.

   "Yes, Theresa," Lisa scolded her.  "She's one of Them now, too.  She
probably always was.  Just looking for an excuse to join in.  It's cover."

   "Then give her what she wants," said one of the men.  The younger one.

   "Exactly," Lisa said, smiling wickedly.  Even as the video continued to
play on behind her, she tapped the surface of the table and turned to
Mailgirl Number Seven.  "Up," she ordered.

   Seven hesitated for just a moment, but then did as she was told.  One
knee up on the edge of the conference room table, then the other.

   "Knees," Lisa directed her.  To Thirteen, she repeated the order,
pointing to the floor.  "Knees."

   Thirteen found the floor.  Seven, meanwhile, crawled onto her knees atop
the table, and put her hands behind her back.

   "Tell them," Lisa cooed.  "Tell them how much this is turning you on."

   Again, Seven hesitated, but recovered.  "This is turning this mailgirl
on."

   "You worked with these people.  Ms.  Judd.  Mr.  Crawford.  Ms. 
Stapleton.  Ms.  Burleson.  Mr....McCarthy."

   The hesitation told Thirteen something about 'Mr.' McCarthy.  She
guessed that it was the younger of the two, and that Lisa was having
difficulty bestowing upon him the honorific.  Which meant that Mr. 
Crawford was the other one.  It was still unclear which of the other two
women was Ms.  Burleson and which was Ms.  Stapleton.  It didn't matter,
though.  Lisa was right.  They were bit players.  They were the audience.
This was about Mailgirl Number Seven.

   "Some of us more closely than others," said one of them, however.  Ms.
Burleson or Ms.  Stapleton.  She wanted it on the record that she hadn't
worked with this naked mailgirl all much.  She didn't want to be associated
with Seven's shame.

   "Give them a show," Lisa dared her.  "Give them the show that I got
earlier today."

   "Lisa!" Mr.  Crawford objected.  "You can't.  She can't."

   "This is gross," said one of the women.  "I don't want to watch that!"

   "Ma'am," Seven said, taking this as opportunity to chide Lisa once more,
"Mailgirls are prohibited from pleasuring themselves outside of the
mailgirls locker room."

   Lisa laughed.  So, too, did Ms.  Judd and Mr.  McCarthy.

   "Prohibited?" Ms.  Judd chuckled.

   Lisa nodded, and repeated, "Prohibited.  Because if they weren't
prohibited..." She trailed off.

   "And what's the punishment for a mailgirl pleasuring herself outside of
the locker room?" Lisa asked, leading Seven on.  It was a trap.

   "This mailgirl isn't sure," Seven said softly.

   "And, you?"

   "I don't...I'm not...this mailgirl doesn't know," Thirteen responded. 
"Mistress Zero, probably.  The bench."

   "The bench?" Lisa laughed.  "A spanking, I think it what you mean."

   "Yes, ma'am."

   "And that's...what?  Twenty-five demerits?"

   "Lisa," Mr.  Crawford coughed, and then spoke again.  "You can't."

   Lisa shifted her attention to the older man, held up her phone, and
clicked it.  Thirteen felt a vibration on her arm.  She heard it from the
phone on Seven's.  A demerit.  For some unknown offense.

   "Let her choose," Lisa said coyly.  "Pleasure or pain.  'Individual
life, individual choice' and all that nonsense."

   Thirteen's arm buzzed a second time.  A second demerit.  Then, again.  A
third.  A fourth.  A fifth.  A sixth.

   "Lisa," chided the older woman.  It was her turn to object again.

   "What?" said the woman with the phone.  "We're not touching her.  We're
not asking her to touch us.  There's no 'providing relief' here, aside from
maybe allowing her to provide a little 'relief' to herself.  We're giving
her permission.  She's got an order, from a superior."

   "I'm not going to be a part of this," Mr.  Crawford said, standing.  He
looked to the others around the table, seeing who was going to follow his
lead.

   No one stirred.

   "You know she wants it," Lisa argued.  To Seven, she asked, "You do want
it, don't you?  Whether or not you're prohibited rom doing it?"

   Seven said nothing.

   "Say it," Lisa insisted, delivering another demerit to the two girls'
smartphones.

   "This mailgirl..." Seven began, meekly.  "This mailgirl does."

   "Say it."

   "This mailgirl wants it."

   "Tell them.  Tell them what this is really about.  Tell them what this
all boils down to.  Tell them why you needed to get yourself off this
morning."

   Thirteen cringed.

   Seven sighed.

   "Tell them."

   "This mailgirl is a slut," Seven finally conceded.  Whether she meant
it, in her heart of hearts, wasn't immediately clear.  But it was what Lisa
wanted out of her.  "This mailgirl is getting off on being a mailgirl. 
This mailgirl wants to...to touch herself."

   Mr.  Crawford remained frozen where he stood.

   "But..." Seven went on, "Mailgirls are prohibited from pleasuring
themselves outside of the mailgirls locker room."

   Defiance.  Seven was willing to admit that she was turned on.  She was
willing to admit that she wanted to touch herself.  But she wasn't going to
give Lisa D'Alessandro the win.  She wasn't going to finger herself there
in the conference room, in front of her former coworkers, just because Lisa
told her to.

   Lisa frowned.  Thirteen's arm buzzed, and then buzzed again.  And again.
And again.

   Seven met Thirteen's eyes.

   In that moment, Thirteen knew the fight had gone out of her friend. 
Maybe she'd be able to justify it later, and insist that she was looking
out for Thirteen.  That she didn't want Thirteen to be subjected to another
spanking because of her.  But there was more to it, Thirteen knew.  The
pair had made confession upon confession to one another yesterday and
today. There was no hiding from the fact that Seven was worked up, turned
on, and ready to go.  If not here, it'd be back in the locker room.

   Thirteen nodded, signaling she understood.  "Fuck her," Thirteen wanted
to tell her friend.  "Fuck them all."

   "Please!" Seven whined, begging for the demerits to stop.  She was
giving in.  Lisa would have her way.

   Ms.  Judd laughed.  The younger of Ms.  Burleson and Ms.  Stapleton,
whomever was whom, gasped.  The other pushed back from the table, but made
no move to leave.  Mr.  McCarthy's eyes went wide in disbelief.  Mr. 
Crawford took a step towards the door, but stopped -- unable to turn away.

   Behind Seven, on the wall, the other Seven continued to work her pussy.
Now, though, she had company.

   "There you go," Lisa cooed as Seven's hand found her sex.  This wasn't a
lesbian thing.  This was about dominance.  If Lisa was getting off on
anything, it was on the power she had over her former colleague.

   Thirteen, deeply uncomfortable with what was happening, looked away. 
She defaulted back to the proper "Knees" position, which required her to
stare submissively at the floor.  She'd given Seven space in the locker
room that morning, and so it seemed only fair to grant the other girl that
nicety now.  Mailgirls were to allow other mailgirls that illusion of
privacy, that bubble, until it was over.  Seven had taught her that.

   "Watch," insisted Ms.  Judd.

   Lisa, turning her attention to Thirteen, sent an additional demerit to
the girls' phones.

   Thirteen had no choice in the matter.

   Atop the table, Seven closed her eyes.

   "Eyes open," Lisa barked.  "Look at your little friend."

   Thirteen was now a part of this, too.  Seven found her, and the two
locked eyes once more.  There was no apology this time.  Seven -- the Seven
that Thirteen had come to know -- was gone.  This girl, the one staring
back at her, was an empty shell.  She was lust.  She was arousal.  She was
sexual pleasure incarnate.

   "Tell them," Lisa instructed.  "Tell them what you are."

   "A slut," Seven whispered.  Her hand picked up its pace.  Her chest
heaved.  Her naked body quivered with excitement.  "This mailgirl is a
slut."

   "I can't," Mr.  Crawford spoke up again.  "I can't.  I can't.  I'm not
going to be a part of this."

   Lisa shrugged with indifference.

   "Courtney?  Let's go."

   Whether it was Courtney Burleson or Courtney Stapleton, Thirteen still
wasn't sure.  But the younger of the two backed away from the table, stood,
and -- eyes still transfixed upon the masturbating mailgirl -- followed Mr.
Crawford dutifully towards the exit.

   "Brian?" Mr.  Crawford asked.

   Mr.  McCarthy -- Brian McCarthy -- shook his head.

   "Cathy?"

   The older woman did the same.

   Somewhere off to Thirteen's right, the conference room door opened and
closed, and the sounds of a normal office -- phones ringing, idle chit-chat
-- interrupted.  But then the door closed again, and Seven's audience had
dwindled to five.

   "Say it again," Lisa told Seven.  "Tell them.  Louder."

   "This girl is a slut," Seven whined, more insistently this time.  Her
breathing had become noticeably labored.

   "Tell them why you volunteered," Lisa went on.  "Tell them what this is
really about."

   Seven, panting, explained, "Because this girl is a slut.  Because she
wanted to be a mailgirl.  Because...ahhh...beacuase...because...she's a
slut."

   Lisa laughed.  "We've covered that bit already."

   Seven's eyes fell from Thirteen's, and drifted towards Thirteen's tits.
She caught herself, even in the thick of it, and came back to Thirteen's
gaze.

   "This girl," she admitted, "this girl is a slut.  She's turned on by the
power.  The power over her.  The...the...the...looks.  The control. 
The...the...the...ohhh...the...sex.  The sex of it."

   "Ooh, naughty-naughty," Lisa teased.

   Seven could no longer remain fully upright.  She leaned forward, and
found the surface of the table with her free hand.  Still on her knees, and
still fully engaged with her other hand, she was now all in.  There was no
hesitation, no holding back.  She was enjoying this -- physically, at the
very least.  But also somewhere deeper.  Somewhere darker.  Somewhere that
had always been denied.

   "I'm cumming..." Thirteen caught the sight of Seven's convulsions on the
screen, and her attention turned to the projection.  "I'm cumming..." She
couldn't hear her.  The mirror glass may not have been entirely soundproof,
but it had likely been no more than a whisper to herself, and any audio had
managed to escape the capture of Lisa's phone.  Still, Thirteen could see
it on the girl's lips -- the confession -- as she announced her climax. 
Just as she'd admitted she'd done last week, following the run-in with the
General Counsel.

   On the table, Seven-in-the-flesh was already nearing that same point. 
She was up off her haunches, and down on all fours.  Or, rather, on
"threes," given that one of her hands was still between her legs, moving
faster and faster back and forth over her pussy.  Her body quaked.  She was
breathing heavily.  Her mouth hung open.  And her eyes were back on
Thirteen's chest.

   "Ho..." she panted, quietly.  She was close.

   Lisa had a look of satisfaction on her face.  Ms.  Judd and Cathy
exchanged a look, and Ms.  Judd broke into an uncomfortable giggle.  Brian
McCarthy looked entranced.

   "Oh," Seven whispered, loudly this time.  "Oh...oh...oh..."

   And then it came.  There was no mistaking it.  Seven's whole body
shuddered.  Her leg muscles tightened.  The pace of her right hand slowed
dramatically, but didn't stop completely; Seven was more forceful and
deliberate in these last few moments.

   "Ohhhh..." she sighed, loudly.  Catching herself - apparently
embarrassed by the vocalization - she dropped to her elbow and covered her
mouth with her left hand.  It was pointless, though.  Despite maybe being a
bit more muffled, everyone in the room heard her call out one, final,
moaning, "Ohhhh!"

   The room was silent for a beat.

   And then, another.

   Finally, Lisa spoke.  "Bravo!" she laughed.  "That-a-girl!"

   "Oh my god," Ms.  Judd continued to giggle.  She, too, now covered her
mouth.

   Seven, looking exhausted, smiled weakly at Thirteen.  The shame was
evident, but so too was the relief.  She pulled herself -- slowly -- back
up onto her knees, locked her hands behind her back, and returned to the
proper Mailgirls Resting Position.  Her chest continued to rise and fall as
she labored for breath.

   "I believe a thank you is in order," Lisa said.

   "Thank you," Brian McCarthy smiled.

   "Not you," Lisa tsk-tsked him.  "Our mailgirl."

   Seven, through gritted teeth, panted out, "Thank you."

   "...for...?"

   "Thank you, ma'am," Seven went on.  "Thank you for letting this
mailgirl...masturbate."

   "Now, the others."

   "Thank you, Ms.  Judd," Seven offered shakily.  "Thank you for...for
watching this mailgirl masturbate.  Ms.  Burleson.  Mr.  McCarthy."

   "Well, we just want to support you in your new role," Lisa replied
mercilessly.  "It's where your talent truly lies."

   If Seven had turned around and kicked the woman square in the jaw,
Thirteen felt she'd have been forgiven.

   Lisa went on.  "Now, I know that you're supposed to report this to your
supervisor.  For tracking.  But let's just keep this one off the books.  It
can be our little secret, between us girls.  Do you think you can do that
for me?"

   There'd be hell to pay if Mistress Zero were to discover that Seven
hadn't reported masturbating while here at the Plaza.  But then, there'd be
hell to pay if Mistress Zero were to discover that Seven had masturbated
anywhere but the locker room.  Either way, it likely meant time over the
spanking bench, and either offense might well have called for the German
woman to employ the bull whip coiled threateningly in her desk.

   If Seven were tell Mistress Zero about what had gone down here, she
might be able to extract some vengeance upon her tormentors.  Lisa,
especially.  But also, perhaps, the others.  Thirteen imagined Will Barrow
and Mistress Zero walking them all out the door that night, telling them
that they were no longer welcome at the Plaza.  Maybe even -- given that
she was of the right age, if not entirely up to the caliber -- stripping
Ms. Judd down and saddling her with a "#19" across one hip.

   Seven, though, gave in.  "Yes, ma'am," she agreed.

   "Good girl," Lisa cooed.  "Maybe we can make this a regular thing? 
You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

   Hesitation.  But then, "Yes, ma'am."

   "Good," she chuckled.  "I'll add you to next week's calendar."

   They were dismissed.  Neither girl said a thing as they exited the
conference room, and Thirteen couldn't catch Seven's eyes.  She wanted to
make sure her friend was okay.  Or, at the very least, to offer up her
sympathies.  But their smartphones signaled a pick-up on the 24th Floor
immediately after they'd been granted release from Lisa D'Alessandro and
her chits, and Seven took off down the hall in a run.  Thirteen was forced
to catch up.

   When they hit the stairwell, Seven finally stopped, looked at Thirteen,
and shook her head.  "I don't want..."

   She didn't want to talk about it.  Thirteen could respect that.  Not
here.  Not now.  Maybe not ever.  Thirteen nodded.

   There were tears beginning to form in Seven's eyes, but she blinked them
back.

   Mailgirls didn't cry.

   "24th Floor?" Thirteen asked.  Concentrate on the task at hand.  Let the
work provide an escape.  Head down.  Focus.  There'd be time enough for
introspection later.

   Relieved, Seven agreed.  "24th Floor," she said.

   They were busier today after six o'clock than they had been yesterday,
and so there was no down time between deliveries and pick-ups, no
opportunity to catch a few minutes of rest on the ubiquitous mailgirl mats
spread throughout the building.  For Seven's sake, Thirteen was grateful.

   A group of analysts leered at them when they arrived for a pick-up.  A
secretary clucked her tongue at them, tsk-tsking their very existence.  A
routine drop-off turned into demand for twenty-five jumping jacks before
they were released.  And Master Hooper loudly muttered to himself about the
size of Seven's nose and Thirteen's ass when they brought down outgoing
mail from the upper floors.  They rolled with it all.  None of it could
compare to the indignities Seven had suffered in Legal.  All of it was the
routine, run-of-the-mill harassment they could expect on any given call. 
And, for Seven's sake, Thirteen was grateful for this, too.

   Mercifully, there wasn't much day left in their day.  Or, at least,
there wasn't much left to their regular shift; given that Seven and
Thirteen had Evening Shift that night, it would still be another two hours
before they'd be let off duty.  But as much as Thirteen wanted to put on
her clothes and leave the Plaza behind for the night, she wasn't dreading
the assignment as much as she thought she might have.  It was mostly locker
room work -- picking up, cleaning up, mopping up.  And, after the day that
she and Seven had just had upstairs, the locker room seemed almost like a
safe haven.

   Almost.  She wasn't Lisa D'Alessandro, but Mistress Zero still caused
Thirteen's asshole to pucker and spine to tingle when she welcomed the two
girls back to the locker room.

   The German woman greeted them with a smirk, checked her tablet, and
sounded almost disappointed when she announced they were still on the right
side of twenty-five demerits.  Even though Lisa had logged a good number of
them against the two girls earlier (a baker's dozen, in fact), there'd be
no spankings for Thirteen and Seven that evening.  They'd no doubt hit
twenty-five early in the day tomorrow, of course.  But it still felt like a
victory to Thirteen, after the number of times she'd been bent over
Mistress Zero's bench yesterday.

   "Bowls," Mistress Zero directed Seven.  To Thirteen, "Food."

   Though not required to choke down another serving of Mailgirl Chow at
the end of the day, some of the girls had apparently begun doing so
voluntarily.  That decision had been utterly unfathomable to Thirteen when
she first heard of it.  Now, though, Thirteen supposed she could see the
appeal.  No, no -- "appeal" wasn't the right word.  She supposed she could
see the "utility" of it.  After a twelve-hour shift, did you really want to
go home and make dinner?  If you were trying to hit a target weight, was
there really anything better than a chow-only diet?  Thirteen was hungry
after a long day, and it was probably a good idea to get something in her
belly before going out for drinks with Seven...but her stomach turned at
the thought of scarfing down the runny, grey gruel without being explicitly
ordered to.

   Thirteen carried four cans of chow to Mistress Zero's desk, where Seven
was placing two silver bowls alongside the water dishes.  Mistress Zero
herself produced the can opener.

   It didn't make sense to shower -- not yet.  Thirteen's B.O.  had just
begun to overpower the off-brand deodorant she'd re-applied during her
afternoon break, and the hint of pussy just seemed to be a reality of her
new life.  Seven, of course, stunk of the latter, but had her fair share of
the former, as well.  Mistress Zero, though, left their general "saltiness"
unremarked-upon as they restocked hand towels, distributed soaps, shampoos,
and conditioners, and made sure there were enough toiletries and cosmetics
in the shallow drawers beneath the sinks.

   Mailgirl Number Twelve had been tasked with unlocking Thirteen's collar
the previous evening.  But Mistress Zero was here tonight, instead of up on
the 18th Floor or out the door already, and so she kept possession of the
keys for now.  Thirteen and Seven remained in their collars.  It was
understood that they'd do so until nine o'clock.  Thirteen had no
expectations otherwise, but she did hope that her mistress would remember
to leave the keys behind before heading home for the night.  Thirteen had
no intentions of sitting in the Imperial's bar wearing a mailgirl collar.

   By seven o'clock, their prep-work was complete.  Mistress Zero beckoned
the two girls over and directed them to their knees on either side of the
desk.  They had their backs to the mirror glass behind them, and were
facing up the narrow corridor, past the toilets, to the service lobby
beyond.  They would need to feed the small number of mailgirls who opted
for dinner here at the Plaza, but otherwise there was little for them to do
but wait for the last of the mailgirls to depart before their next round of
chores began.

   Seven hadn't said much since they'd returned to locker room.  She hadn't
said much, in fact, since the incident on the 21st Floor.  With their
mistress's desk now between them, and their mistress herself about,
Thirteen felt intimidated out of whispering to her friend, even if she very
much wanted to do so.  Her best moments of the day had been with Seven,
holding hands and conversing in hushed tones upon a shared mailgirls mat.
Seven had given Thirteen encouragement when she'd needed it.  Thirteen
wished she could have returned the favor now.

   Instead, she followed her mentor's lead, and greeted the returning
mailgirls.  She was on her knees, with her legs apart and her hands behind
her back.  But, like Seven, she kept her head held high.  There was no need
to bow or avoid eye contact with the other girls.  For the first time in
hours, Thirteen was among equals.

   ***

   She wasn't alone.

   The truth of the matter was that Mailgirl Number Thirteen hadn't been
alone since entering the locker room that morning.  She had undressed at
her locker, surrounded by her fellow mailgirls, witnessed by peeping toms
and lookie-loos in the lobby.  She had been assigned to shadow Mailgirl
Number Seven for the day, her smartphone and schedule synched to those of
the ever-so-slightly more experienced blonde.  She'd been rushing from
delivery to delivery, floor to floor, giving and receiving mail to and from
fully clothed co-workers.  There'd been no time to herself, no
opportunities to catch her breath on her own, no moment or two when she'd
been alone, or had even a whisper of privacy.

   But then, "a mailgirl shall have no privacy, nor any expectations of
privacy, so long as she is under contract."

   It was after nine in the evening, and even now Thirteen wasn't alone. 
Most of the mailgirls had gone home for the night two hours earlier,
rushing through their ablutions, slipping into the clothes they'd
collectively shed that morning, and doing everything in their power to put
USF Plaza in the rearview mirror.  A few of them -- Eighteen, Eleven,
Eight, and Three -- took their turns over Mistress Zero's spanking bench,
calling out each of the stings delivered upon them by their mistress's
riding crop.  Mailgirl Number One had diddled herself on the far end of the
room, but none of the other girls had apparently been in the mood.  Within
ten minutes from the first few girls' arrival in the locker room, it was
already half empty.  Within twenty, it was just Thirteen, Seven, Mistress
Zero, and a few stragglers.  Within thirty, even Thirteen's mistress had
departed for the night.

   But Seven was still here, having been assigned to Evening Shift with
Thirteen.  She was maybe a minute or two behind Thirteen in heading for the
showers.  Seven had granted the rookie permission to be done for the day,
while she herself ticked off the last few items on their Mistress's list of
chores.

   Seven, though, headed for the showers at the far end of the locker,
rather than opting for one of the heads next to Thirteen.  Thirteen didn't
take it personally.  It had been a difficult afternoon.  And, though the
two of them had talked through it while scrubbing toilets together, and
Seven was in a better place, Thirteen was more than happy to grant Seven a
bit of distance.  A bit of alone time, such as it was.

   Even then, Thirteen still wasn't quite alone.  As the water came on, and
Thirteen gasped at the shock of the ice cold deluge, there was another girl
on the block with her, another girl that she barely recognized.  The other
girl gasped, too.  Her back arched.  Her shoulders tightened.  And her eyes
shot open, meeting Thirteen's gaze and staring back at her.

   "A mailgirl is not allowed eye contact unless authorized by a superior."

   This girl, though, was no one's superior.

   She was attractive, to be sure.  A vision.  Long blonde hair.  Bright
blue eyes.  High cheekbones.  Thin, Mona Lisa lips.  Ample breasts. 
Flawless skin, without scar or tattoo.  Without demarcation -- save one. 
She was a goddess, albeit a goddess in disarray.

   Her hair darkened as it got wet, and it clung to her face, her neck, and
her shoulders.  Those bright blue eyes looked a bit less bright than they
had yesterday morning.  They looked tired, and sad.  She was frowning.  Her
shoulders seemed hunched.  This girl was beaten, humbled, and owned.  This
girl carried the weight of the day on her back.  This girl was pathetic,
pitiful, inferior.

   And scrawled upon her hip in black ink, fading but not faded, was the
number thirteen.

   "A mailgirl is to be referred to only by her mailroom number."

   Thirteen met her reflection's eyes, and had to look away.

   There'd been a moment in Will Barrow's office the day before when Sarah
Jane Scott had transformed into Mailgirl Number Thirteen.  It hadn't been
when she'd finally gotten naked, as Barrow had kept her in her white lace
thong for longer than she'd had any right to expect.  It hadn't been when
he'd led her through her positions -- Feet, Toes, Knees.  It hadn't been
when he'd finally scribbled her number on her hip with the lipstick he'd
fished from her purse.  No, it had been before all that, Sarah tagging out
and Thirteen tagging in, as if everything from that point forward had
happened to another girl entirely.

   The truth, though, was both less and more complicated.

   She was Sarah Scott, just as she was Mailgirl Thirteen.  She was this
blonde, just as she was that one.  She was the wretch on this side of the
mirror glass, just as she was the wretch looking back at her.

   But she wasn't the same Sarah Scott who'd crossed the lobby for the
first time yesterday.  Honestly, how could she be?  Since she and Gillian
had entered the building the previous morning, Sarah Scott had been
stripped, spanked, and subjugated.  She'd been collared and leashed.  She'd
been cursed at and called names.  She'd been belittled, humiliated, and
degraded, treated like an animal.  There was the bright young woman she'd
been in New Haven, and then there was the sorry and contemptible creature
showering after hours in the confines of USF's white-tiled mailgirl
terrarium.

   It had been a day.

   "A mailgirl feels no embarrassment at her nudity, and knows exposing
herself is for the benefit of the company."

   The truth of the matter was, as Thirteen had been told, that the nudity
really was the least of it.  Having had flitted about the building
yesterday in nothing more than her birthday suit, today had been more of
the same.  It was uncomfortable.  It was weird.  It was humiliating, tits
out and sex on display.  The idea that a mailgirl would feel no
embarrassment at her nudity?  Laughable.

   But today had been Day Two.  She'd been through it on Day One.

   She'd dreaded undressing in the locker room that morning, but less than
she'd dreaded undressing in front of Will Barrow yesterday.  She'd dreaded
bounding around the building stark naked today, in front of USF's bankers
and analysts and executives, but less so than she had the first time. 
Quite frankly, undressing that morning in the locker room had been more
stressful than actually being nude; she'd hurried through it and had wasted
little time in getting "into uniform." Why linger?  Why stall?  Why wait?

   Being naked day-in and day-out this summer would be no small thing.  But
the job brought with it other challenges that distracted from the dress
code itself.

   "A mailgirl will be prompt.  It is the primary duty of a mailgirl, above
all others, to be punctual, to meet or exceed their deadlines, and to
maintain delivery schedules to ensure the smooth operation of all
departments within the company."

   Forget the nudity, the name-calling, and the degradation (a big ask,
Thirteen supposed).  Sarah and Gillian had both grossly underestimated the
physical demands of a day in the life of a mailgirl.

   Thirteen was sore all over.  Her thighs -- quads, hamstrings -- smarted
from the running, the jogging, and all of the ups-and-downs on the stairs.
Her knees bitched and complained at her all afternoon, still accustoming
themselves to the amount of time Thirteen spent kneeling as part of this
new adventure.  The redness and the welts on her buttocks from the
attention they'd received yesterday, courtesy of Mistress Zero, had faded,
as had the acidic sting of Miss Henriksen's bleach about her asshole.  But
Thirteen was still ever-so-aware of the anguish she'd put her glutes
through during her first full day delivering messages and interoffice
envelopes.  Her tits begged for a bra, less for coverage than for support.
Her feet begged for sneakers, the thin, industrial carpeting throughout the
building only slightly preferable to the concrete stairs.  Even her groin,
from the inside of one thigh to the other, throbbed from the uncomfortable
and unusual way she'd been spreading her legs for anyone and everyone to
see.

   She needed to stretch.  She promised herself she'd stretch tomorrow
morning.  There were other programs she'd researched that spring with
full-on yoga sessions for the mailgirls in the morning.  These were
apparently popular among the masses, and often created large crowds of
spectators outside of locker rooms, inside of mail rooms, or out in the
lobbies -- wherever the program decided to take its girls through Dolphin,
Bridge, Bound Ankle, and Upward-Facing Dog.  USF had no such courses at
this time, thankfully, but Thirteen had seen a few of the veterans
loosening up that morning before Inspection -- most starked naked, with Six
still in her bra and panties and Eleven wearing only the latter.  Thirteen
would make sure to carve out a little extra time on Day Three to do the
same.

   The cold water of the shower, then, was probably good for her aching
muscles.  Thirteen, though, would have given anything for a bit of heat.

   She reached up with both hands, cradled the outside of her breasts, and
kneaded into them with the butts of her palms.  She knew what it would look
like to anyone still out in the elevator lobby after nine o'clock.  But, at
that moment, Thirteen didn't care.  She massaged her chest all the same,
the deep tissue beneath feeling that much better after having bounced and
jounced and flipped and flopped through the day.  It wasn't sexual.  At
least, it wasn't sexual to Thirteen, on this side of the mirror glass.  Or,
at least, it didn't start that way.

   The girl in the reflection played with her tits, too.

   "A mailgirl is to be hygienic, her uniform maintained diligently,
cleanly shaved from neck to toes and free of all significant dirt, dust,
grime, grit, or sweat."

   Again, as if.

   Thirteen had lost count of the number of times she'd been under this
shower head today.  She'd been covered in a sheen of perspiration from her
very first delivery, and she'd joked with Seven that she was sweating out
of body parts she hadn't even been aware possessed sweat glands.  Her neck.
Her back.  Her underarms.  Her crotch.  Her ass.  The underside of her
breasts.  On more than one occasion today, with Thirteen either down on her
knees or up on her feet with her arms behind her back, she'd felt a bead of
sweat or two trickle down her naked body.  She'd left a moist spot or three
on mailgirl mats at dozens of different locations up in Plaza.

   Thirteen wasn't in terrible shape.  She'd never been one much for the
gym, but she'd been more diligent about making time at Payne Whitney in the
weeks and months before the end of Spring Term, motivated by the fact that
the world was about to see her in all her glory.  Even still, the workout
she was getting on USF's actual stairs was significantly more intense than
anything she'd put herself through on the Israel Fitness Center's
Stairmasters.

   She took heart in the fact that Seven seemed to be struggling, too.  The
other blonde had a week on her as a mailgirl, but it had only been a week.
Sarah Scott would no doubt be returning to New Haven in the Fall in the
best shape of her life, but there was still quite a bit of distance between
here and there, and Thirteen felt better about herself that Seven was
sweating from exertion right alongside her.  From Seven's sweaty palms when
the two were holding hands, to the puddles of perspiration that that
accompanied Thirteen's on the thin pink mailgirl mats, to the times that
Thirteen's skin had brushed up against her partner's, Thirteen was very
much aware of Seven's sudoriferous body.

   And, even if Thirteen hadn't felt the other girl's sweaty body, she
could smell her.  Just as Thirteen knew that Seven could smell Thirteen,
too.  Thirteen wasn't sure she could blame the communal roll-on deodorant
the girls all shared.  She doubted her normal stick of Secret would have
held up to the exertion she was putting her body through.  The floral
perfume the girls were all required to wear helped some, but it didn't so
much mask the smell of the girls' body odor so much as it contributed to a
unique and specific bouquet of scents Thirteen couldn't help but think of
as mailgirl "musk." By the time Seven and Thirteen had descended down to
the locker room for Morning Break, and then again later for lunch, and then
again for Afternoon Break and the end-of-day, both girls stunk similarly
and strongly of sweat, deodorant, perfume, and pussy.

   And, yes, both girls smelled of pussy.

   "A mailgirl agrees to adopt any of the standard mailgirl positions, at
any time, when instructed to do so by a superior."

   At any time, Thirteen's superiors - that is, anyone, anywhere in the
building, save from the mailgirls themselves -- were allowed to force her
into Inspection position, and judge the state of her so-called "uniform."
No one had done so today, thankfully.  A youngish cubicle-dweller yesterday
afternoon had, but it had been less an actual evaluation and more of a
chance to get up close and personal with the new mailgirl.  Had he been
more diligent in his duties, the stink emanating from between Thirteen's
legs -- from Seven's, too -- would have been remarked upon, and Thirteen
would have been sent immediately down to the locker room to freshen up.

   Thirteen bent at the waist, and reached for the bottle of shampoo on the
shower block's floor.  Flipping it upside down, she squeezed a decent gob
onto the top of her head, placed the bottle back down at her feet, and
began to lather her long, blonde locks.  She had rinsed a handful of times
over the course of the day, but it hadn't been since this morning that
she'd washed her hair.  She doubted she would have bothered now, had she
and Seven not made plans for drinks earlier.

   Soap would come, too, but Thirteen used a bit of the excess shampoo on
her hands as she always did, rubbing her pits, the top of her ass crack,
and her crotch as a first, quick pass.  Though the cold water was new, as
the prospective audience out in the elevator lobby certainly was, Thirteen
still fell into the same little rituals she did in the privacy of her own
home.  Sarah Scott, in the reflection, aped the routine.

   Yes, Thirteen smelled of pussy.  Yes, Seven did, too, and Seven's
nostrils had grown accustomed to the pair's intermingling fragrances as the
day had gone on.  Following the incident on the 21st Floor, Seven's scent
had been overpowering in the stairwell, with Thirteen following just behind
her new friend on the climb up to the 24th.  Seven hadn't want to talk
about it then, but the smell of sex had made it difficult for Thirteen to
think about anything else.  As much as the two girls had tried to throw
themselves into the round of pick-ups and deliveries that came after, the
cloud of Seven's intimate and personal perfume was inescapable.

   Thirteen's own scent gave away that the run-in with Lisa D'Alessandro
had affected her, too.

   "A mailgirl is not to refer to her betters by name."

   Sorry.  The run-in with Ms.  D'Alessandro.

   Ms.  D'Alessandro, the sadist fucking bitch.

   "A mailgirl is to be polite, respectful, humble, and thankful for any
activity imparted upon her by her superiors.  She follows all commands as
issued, so long as those commands are themselves compliant with
restrictions as set out by Human Capital."

   A selling point of the US Financial program was the presence of Will
Barrow, and his assurances to Gillian that he'd erected guardrails to
prevent the company's naked messenger girls from sliding into full-fledged
sexual playthings.  Just yesterday, in his office, he'd mentioned that
they'd fired someone of the maintenance team for jacking off in front of
one of the girls, and that he himself had had to discipline one of the
senior executives for patting the girls on their rear ends.  Gillian and
Sarah had each read accounts of programs elsewhere in which mailgirls were
required to perform fellatio (or cunnilingus) on anyone who made the
demand, or had had fingers inserted inside of them every time they'd ridden
the elevator without repercussion, or had been forced to make their
deliveries bathed in the ejaculate of the previous pick-up.

   USF, though, had rules.  Rules about everything.

   "A mailgirl is forbidden from using the restrooms outside of the
mailgirls' locker room, unless authorized, documented, escorted, and
monitored by a superior."

   "A mailgirl is prohibited from any sexual activity with a superior, on-
or off-duty, on- or off- campus."

   "A mailgirl is prohibited from pleasuring herself outside of the
mailgirls locker room."

   And yet Lisa D'Alessandro had compelled Seven to finger-fuck herself on
a conference room table up in Chataqua, while Seven's former co-workers had
watched on.

   Thirteen shuddered to herself.  With shampoo still in her hair, she took
a step out of the cold stream and fetched a bar of soap from two showers
down.  As she returned to her own, the temperature didn't affect her as
much as it had when she first got in.  She was growing accustomed to it. 
The turned the bar of soap about in her hands, building up suds, and got to
cleansing her body.

   Seven hadn't wanted to do it, Thirteen told herself, before stopping to
really consider that thought.

   Yes, Lisa had made her do it.  Yes, Seven had been hesitant about it. 
Yes, Seven was clearly uncomfortable touching herself in front the likes of
Ms.  D'Alessandro, Ms.  Judd, Ms.  Burleson, and Mr.  McCarthy.

   And yet she had done so anyways.

   Seven -- and by consequence, Thirteen -- had racked up over a dozen
demerits in the span of a few quick minutes while trying to rebuff her
tormentor.  But, as Thirteen had learned yesterday, trips to Mistress
Zero's spanking bench were painfully frequent.  A spanking tonight for
going over twenty-five didn't seem all that awful when faced with the
reality that they'd very likely hit that number before lunch tomorrow, and
be bent over the bench anyways.  Thirteen didn't know what the consequence
was for masturbating outside of the locker room, but she imagined that it
had to be worse than a simple (and, again, frequent) spanking was.  To say
nothing of the fact that X number of demerits probably would have raised an
eyebrow from either Mistress Zero or the 18th Floor, and Seven would have
been given the chance to explain herself.  Maybe the demerits would have
still stood, or maybe that wouldn't have.  But Lisa very likely would have
been reprimanded herself for issuing a command out of compliance with the
restrictions set out by Human Capital.

   Soap suds up and down her body, shampoo still in her hair, Thirteen met
the eyes of Sarah Scott in the reflection.

   No, it wasn't as simple as "Seven hadn't wanted to do it." Because that
wasn't really the truth at all.

   There was a reason Thirteen was here.  There was a reason Sarah Scott
was watching on.  There was a reason neither of them had taken any of the
exits available to them on the way to this place, to here and now, to
standing naked at USF, drowning in sexual urges undiminished by the cold
shower.

   She wanted to be here.

   So, too, did Seven.

   So, too, did Mailgirls One, and Two, and Three.  So, too, did even the
likes of Five and Eight.  Fourteen, with the word "Slut" scrawled in
lipstick across her forehead.  Fifteen, outwardly hissing in anger like an
old-school radiator.  Seventeen, as white as a ghost at the end of Day Two.

   Every one of them could hide behind an excuse that they were tricked, or
forced, or coerced into becoming a mailgirl.  But, truly, what consequence
or threat or punishment could be worse than what they were enduring as
USF's naked delivery girls?  What sort of blackmail or intimidation had
them subjecting themselves to this level of harassment and humiliation?

   No.  They were all here because they chose to be.  Thirteen, included.
There was something inside of each of them that had compelled them to be
here.  Curiosity.  Ambition.  The need for an adventure.  Exhibitionism. 
Submissiveness.  Out-and-out masochism.  Sheer, unbridled lust.

   And with that, Thirteen's hand found her pussy.

   It was the agency that did her in.

   After a day of being told what to do, where to go, and how to stand,
Thirteen was choosing to do this of her own volition.

   With her left hand braced against the mirror glass before her, Thirteen
leaned forward, spread her legs ever-so-slightly, and allowed her right
hand to caress the top of her pussy with abandon.  From her vantage point,
it was almost as if she holding hands with herself, and she stared into the
eyes of the girl in the reflection.  It became unclear, in that moment, who
was who, and which side of the looking glass Thirteen was really on.

   This was not a porn shoot, or a soft-lit sex scene.  This was quick,
coarse, and contemptible.  She looked pathetic -- wretched, even -- soaking
wet and covered in shampoo and soap.  Thirteen hated herself as she stared
into her own eyes, and that hostility only fueled the fire that much more.
She took a deep breath, chest heaving, and gritted her teeth.  Her hand
moved as if acting on its own, coaxed into rubbing this way or that by some
unspoken command emanating from her vagina itself.  It was unfair to say
that she was on autopilot, that her higher brain functions had given way to
animal desires from below the waist, because the fantastic nature of her
current situation was playing a very big part in how horny she found
herself in that moment.

   But here, too, Thirteen descended into ritual.  Before last night, she'd
never masturbated in the shower before.  Before last night, she'd never
masturbated standing up.  That aside, however, Thirteen's fingers knew what
they were doing.  They'd been practicing for this moment for months, with
Sarah Scott's dirty thoughts increasingly turning towards fantasies about
mailgirls, fantasies about being a mailgirl herself.

   "Yes..." she whispered to herself, and watched Sarah Scott whisper the
word back to her.  "Yes, yes, yes...'

   Sarah had underestimated the number of times she'd be spanked over the
course of the summer.  She'd promised herself that she'd do everything she
could to avoid that particular punishment.  She'd had no similar illusions
about masturbating, however.  She'd known, coming in, that it would be a
"when" and not an "if," even if she'd told herself it would be for the
purposes of the study itself.  She'd read all the accounts, and knew that
-- if she were truly to fit in among the mailgirls -- she'd need to succumb
and touch herself at the Plaza.  She hadn't been looking forward to it.

   No.  Again, it wasn't that simple.

   "Yes..." she cooed again, between heavy breaths.

   The full weight of the day was upon her.  Undressing that morning in the
locker room.  Spinning and twirling for the likes of Mr.  Moses and Mr. 
Lin in Human Capital.  Hearing Seven recount her office encounter with
David Woodward, and the round of self-pleasure that followed.  Manzanillo,
the ice cubes, and the Rolling Stones.  The dickish, abusive commercial
bankers.  The names she'd been called and clucked at by unsympathetic
women. Lisa D'Alessandro.

   And Seven.

   Seven.

   Seven, most of all.

   Holding hands.  Sharing secrets.  The kiss.  The intimacy of it all. 
Feeling sweat dripping from the other girl's body onto her own naked skin.
The smell of her.  Watching her, staring at her, meeting her eyes as she
fucked herself on the table up on 21.

   Thirteen met Sarah's eyes the same way.

   And, at that moment, it all became too much.

   Sarah watched as the mailgirl gasped in ecstasy, the orgasm blossoming
inside of her, grabbing a hold of her at the base of her spine and refusing
to let go.  There were no shrieks or screams or vocalizations, beyond the
soft, hissing exhalation of the word, "Yessssssss..." The girl, still
covered in soap and shampoo, ground desperately against the butt of hand,
thrusting with her hips against an imaginary lover.  Her knees bent
reflexively.  A shiver ran up her spine.  Her shoulders convulsed.  Her
head was tossed back.

   Whether it was a single orgasm that crested and then crested again, or
was, in fact, an orgasm followed by another and then another -- of that,
Sarah couldn't be sure.  Thirteen didn't know.  From both sides of the
mirror, though, each girl watched the other, riding it out and losing
themselves in the bliss.  The lines between them blurred.  There wasn't a
Sarah Scott.  There wasn't a Mailgirl Thirteen.  There was only the orgasm
itself, self-indulgent and all-encompassing.

   It was release, in a way that the mailgirl had never experienced before.
Even the night previous couldn't compare.  The whole day had been foreplay,
tension building and then building more, winding the girl tighter, pushing
her just to the precipice but never over.  And then -- now -- surrendering,
setting loose, submitting.  As Sarah's eyes stared into Thirteen's, and
Thirteen's into Sarah's, the desperation and distress were gone, and only
satisfaction remained.

   There was a weird freedom in being a mailgirl, running deliveries from
floor to floor upstairs in the Plaza.  As excruciatingly embarrassing as it
all was, standing stark naked in front of strangers and shoving her tits in
their faces, there were moments of placidity and serenity, flipping the
switch off on higher brain functions and simply following orders.  So, too,
had the orgasm allowed her to forget, momentarily, everything but the
orgasm.

   But, as Thirteen began to regain composure, still weak in the knees and
gasping for air, a wave of shame washed over her.  She hadn't been alone,
of course.  She hadn't been performing for an audience of one, the Sarah
Scott she'd been before yesterday.  There was another girl here with her in
the locker room, and any number of spectators out in the elevator lobby
lucky enough to catch a late night show.  She'd need to report tonight's
on-site session the following morning to her Mistress, and anyone and
everyone with the Mailgirl App would know about her dirty deed.  They'd
know that Mailgirl Thirteen was getting off -- had gotten off -- on her new
life as one of USF's naked delivery girls.

   Sarah Scott had become a mailgirl through and through.

   ***

   Thirteen tugged at the hem of Ten's dress once more, in yet another
futile attempt to cover a bit more of her thighs.  She was self-conscious
about just how high the hemline was, and half-resigned to the fact that
she'd end up flashing someone at the Imperial before the end of the night.
And, in that scenario, she found herself wishing -- somewhat in jest --
that she'd have something other than the girlie-pink cotton briefs to show
off.  After streaking around USF Plaza all day, would it have been so
unthinkable that she just simply go commando...?

   Thirteen brushed the thought aside.  Honestly, if she could have put on
a pair of overalls and hoodie, she'd have been happier.  But Seven had
suggested something a bit fancier than the yoga pants and long-sleeve tee
Thirteen had worn into work that morning, and Ten had insisted on sharing
one of the spare dresses she kept in her locker.

   And so Thirteen stood in front of the row of sinks in Ten's black
sleeveless evening dress, flouncy tiered ruffles punctuating the skirt from
the waist down.  Hemline aside, Thirteen was thankful for the high neckline
and the loose fit; this could have been so much worse.  Ten's shoes weren't
terrible, either -- a pair of black, chunky-heeled ankle-wrap sandals that
were maybe a size too big, but Thirteen would make them work.

   As Thirteen checked her look in the mirror, Seven sauntered over from
the far side of the locker room, wearing the same floral-print dress she'd
had on that morning and a knowing smile.

   "Shut up," Thirteen laughed, looking away.  She blushed.

   "I didn't say anything," Seven shrugged.

   Seven joined Thirteen at the mirror, and reached for one of the lipstick
tubes arranged neatly to one side of the counter.

   There was a beat of silence.

   "It's your fault," Thirteen joked, finally.

   Seven smirked.  "I'm...sorry?"

   "Twice today," Thirteen accused.

   It was Seven's turn to blush.  "Oh, right..." she began, but trailed
off, shaking her head.  "Well, we've got each other, at least."

   "Are you sure that's such a good thing?" Thirteen giggled, despite
herself.  Thirteen had managed to ramp Seven up that morning, by making her
relive the last time she'd masturbated here at the Plaza.  And Seven had
just played an embarrassingly large part in Thirteen's own fantasies under
the shower that evening.

   Seven smiled in response, the big, beaming grin infectious.  Thirteen
felt better about that evening, about that day, almost immediately.  Seven
seemed to have that effect on her.

   "It's a good thing," Seven assured her friend.  "We've got each other.
And the other girls."

   Thirteen nodded.  Seven was right, of course.  They had each other. 
They had each other, all of them.  Whatever Thirteen was going through,
whatever was done to her, whatever she did to herself -- well, she was just
another mailgirl.  US Financial had made sure of that, stripping her even
of her name.

   Sarah Scott would walk out of the Plaza tonight.

   But Mailgirl Thirteen -- number thirteen of eighteen -- would return to
the Plaza tomorrow for Day Three.