Hooligans

About an hour later the four of us met in the parking lot of Hooligans. I'd ridden there with Anna who was driving my old car and, for the first time since my mom's visit months earlier, I wasn't naked. I had on a tan dress composed of a soft stretchy fabric that clung tightly to the curves of my body. It had a plunging U-shaped neckline that showed off quite a bit of cleavage and a hemline that covered my ass and not a whole lot else. Beneath the dress I was bare. On my feet I wore a pair of open-toed heels with leather straps and around my neck was the metal collar with the number "9" stamped on a plate in front. That latter accessory was a permanent fixture courtesy of Barbara and was almost impossible to remove without the key.

I'd picked the dress and heels out of Anna's closet since I no longer owned any clothes of my own. It felt weird to be wearing something on my body but I knew I looked hot in this dress. I felt sexier than if I'd been completely nude. Heads turned throughout the pub as we walked through the door. Even fully clothed the four of us drew attention. We found an empty table and sat down.

Since it was a Monday evening the bar was relatively quiet so there was no waitress on duty like there normally would be later in the week. A good looking bartender came around the bar and approached our table. He looked to be in his mid-twenties with dark hair, blue eyes, a fashionably stubbled beard and a body that looked like it had been chiseled in a gym. "Wow, this my lucky night," he smiled. "What can I do for you gorgeous ladies?"

"We're here for drinks and some girl talk," I said to him. "Can you help us out?"

"I can help you out with the drinks part of that equation. I'm gonna need to see some ID's though." I knew this was going to be a problem for both me and Anna. My identification cards were all locked up in Barbara's safe in the condo and Anna wasn't twenty-one yet.

"I don't have any ID on me but I'm twenty-seven," I said.

"Hey I believe you, but the last bartender got fired after the bar was fined because he served some underage minors, so I've gotta see ID's. Sorry."

I was really in the mood to drink tonight and didn't want to go somewhere else where we'd probably have the same problem anyway. "Have you ever heard of Mailgirl 9?" I asked him.

"From the video game? Sure. I don't really play it but my roomie does."

"I'm Mailgirl 9," I said. "I'm a mailgirl at DDE and that character was based on me." I pointed to the number 9 on my metal collar. "This is my ID," I said, then pulled down the front of my dress to reveal my tits to him, "and these are my ID's."

The bartender rocked his head back in laughter. "Okay, I think I can accept that." Then he looked around the table. "Are all of you DDE mailgirls?" Anna, Kelly, and Diana all nodded in the affirmative. A mischievous grin spread across his face. "Alright I'm gonna need to see all of your ID's."

"Show him your ID's, Anna," I said to her. She looked at me and rolled her eyes, then unbuttoned her blouse and flashed her bare tits at the bartender.

"You know I do have a driver's license I can show you," Kelly said to the man when he turned to her.

"How can I be certain that it's not fake?" he grinned.

Kelly let out an exaggerated sigh although I knew she was amused by the situation. "Well I can promise you these aren't fake," she said as she lifted up her shirt.

Diana laughed as she unbuttoned her blouse and gave him an eyeful of her perfect pair when it was her turn.

"Damn, I'm gonna have to get a job at DDE," the bartender said shaking his head. "What can I get you ladies?"

A few minutes later we had our drinks but the mood at the table had turned somber again as everyone knew something was going on with me. "So what happened in Barbara's office today?" Anna asked.

"Should we really be talking in front of her?" Kelly asked eyeing Diana suspiciously. "Nothing personal but you're a new tango and I don't know you."

"I promise you I won't tell anyone about anything that's said here, but if you if you want me to leave I will," Diana said.

"No," I said to her. I told Kelly about the movie, Diana's role in it, and her background.

"The Bixby Girls? I never watched that show," Kelly said after I'd finished. "But if you trust her, Danica, then guess I will, too. I just don't want to see this stuff I think we're about to discuss end up on TMZ."

"I'm not famous enough any more for TMZ to give a shit about me," Diana replied defensively.

"They might once your pussy shaving videos start showing up online courtesy of the Gangsta geeks," Kelly said.

"I do trust her," I told Kelly. "She can stay."

Diana gave me a smile. "Thanks."

I took a sip from my vodka tonic and wondered how much I should tell them. Everything, I decided. I would tell them everything. So I began to speak. After I'd finished the table was quiet. Anna was the first to break the silence.

"So you've been spying for Hiromoto? Why would you do that?"

"Mariko offered me Hiromoto's protection from Barbara if I provided him information and I believed her. It turned out to be total bullshit."

"Did you steal that VR headset?" Anna asked.

"No," I said shaking my head. "I would never do that. I just gave them information that I figured Hiromoto might use for insider trading or something." I glanced over at Kelly who was staring down into her pint of Guinness. I wasn't going to tell them about my suspicions that Kelly had done it, but it turned out I didn't have to.

"I stole it," Kelly said looking up from her pint. "And now I'm fucked, Danica. We both are. Barbara can sue the shit out of us and have us locked up if she wants." Kelly choked back a sob and brushed a tear from her eye. "I'm so sorry, Danica, that's the second time I've screwed you over. You must hate me."

I did want to hate her, but I couldn't. "Why did you do it Kelly?" I asked quietly.

"Why the hell do I do anything, Danica? For money. Mariko offered me ten thousand bucks to steal it and deliver it to that Hiromoto tech in the east wing."

"So how long were you spying for them before that?" I asked.

"Mariko recruited me not long after that meeting in Barbara's office where she assigned us numbers. You know, the one where she basically told me to shut the fuck up and stay out of her sight or else. I got a pickup order from that room in the east wing about a week or so after that. The Hiromoto tech was there and handed me the phone with Mariko on the other end. I hated Barbara so much that she didn't need to twist my arm much."

"So does Barbara have security footage to prove that you took it?" I asked.

Kelly shook her head. "No, I was careful about that. After I handed it off to the Hiromoto tech I talked to Mariko about it on the phone. Barbara has the recording of that." God, they have everything on us from those phone calls with Mariko, I thought to myself. We're so screwed.

"She told me you signed a new contract today. Is that true?" I asked her.

"Yeah. The bitch called me into her office first thing this morning and played the recording. I had no choice. It's for less than half the money I'm making now and with no expiration date. I figure I'm stuck working as a mailgirl now until the statute of limitations runs out on the VR theft."

"How long is that?"

Kelly shrugged. "Who the hell knows? Quite a few years, I'm sure."

Barbara really did have us dead to rights, I thought to myself despondently. I couldn't see any way out of this.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," I said turning to Anna. "Barbara knows about you and Ben."

"What?" Anna replied in shock, the color draining from her face. "How?"

"Barbara says she set the whole thing up, supposedly to help you move on from me. She claims Ben doesn't know anything about it and she doesn't care if you two hook up as long you're discreet about it."

"And you believe her?"

"God no, Anna. I don't believe anything that comes out of her mouth anymore. I'd stay the hell away from Ben if I were you until your contract is up."

"But that's three months!" Anna protested. "And you'll be moving in with Barbara so I won't even have you!"

"Yeah, it's three months, Anna. So what? What the hell do you have to complain about? Kelly and I are going to be stuck in this shit show for years!" That came out much more harshly than I intended but I guess my nerves were frayed from everything that had happened that day. I glanced over at Diana who had a look of wide-eyed horror on her face as she listened to all of this.

"Can I ask a stupid question?" Diana said. "Who the hell are Hiromoto and Mariko?"

I filled her in on Hiromoto's background and told her the story of the trip Kelly and I had made to his headquarters in Tokyo. I even told her the story about watching him whip Mariko on the 14th floor. This was also the first time that Kelly and Anna had heard it.

Diana's eyes were the size of saucers by the time I finished. "Jesus, what the hell have I gotten myself into here?" she said. "Blackmail, whippings, Japanese gangsters, corporate espionage? What the fuck, Danica? I'm going to call my agent tonight and see if I can get out of this!"

"I wouldn't if I were you," I told her. "You really don't want to screw with Barbara. She'll eat you and your agent for breakfast. Just do the movie and then get the hell out."

"You also promised to keep your fucking mouth shut about what you heard here tonight," Kelly warned her. "Did you sign a contract with Barbara?" Diana nodded. "Well then you might want to take another look at the fine print in it, Bixby girl. You'll want to make sure you really can leave after the movie." A look of panic came across Diana's face as Kelly spoke.

It was Anna's turn to speak up. "We've got to do something," she said to me. "You and Kelly should go to the media or the police or something and tell them what's going on!"

"The media?" Kelly snorted derisively. "Do you remember how much media exposure Linda got when she ran to that feminist group for help? Where's she at now, Anna? Right back here running the mail in her birthday suit. And what the hell are we supposed to tell the police? That me and Danica got caught in corporate espionage and now the company is being mean to us by making us stay mailgirls forever? I'm sure the two of us will look smoking hot in our mugshots."

"We have to do something," Anna replied desperately. "Barbara can't just keep getting away with this!"

"From where I sit she probably can keep getting away with it," Kelly retorted. "We're fighting her with wooden spears while she's got nukes."

"We'll figure something out," I said without enough conviction to convince even myself of it.

We all sat in miserable silence for a time until we were interrupted by a voice behind me. "Are you mailgirls having fun on your girls night out?" I turned to see the bartender standing there. I guess he figured out the answer by the death glares he got from the four of us. "Um, yeah, not so much it looks like. I just wanted to check and see if you ladies wanted another round."

"Yeah, I think we do," I said.

It wouldn't be our last round of the night.