Pheromones

Diane ignored her, and added, "And even that wouldn't explain what's going on with everyone else."

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

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

"Yes!" Diane laughed.

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

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

"I know!"

"Were they going to use it on a girl?"

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

"No."

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

"Like, during work hours?"

"Nine in the morning!"

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

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

"Like, I don't know..." Nicole began. "...like, I don't know, one of those little egg things."

Diane snorted. "'Egg things'?"

"Yeah, you know. They're little, and rubbery, and they vibrate?"

"No, I'm sorry..."

"It's like an egg," Nicole insisted. "It fits in your purse."

"No, I get it," Diane answered. "I've just never heard of an 'egg' before."

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

Diane guffawed, and feigned a scandalized gasp. She giggled, and then warned Nicole, "Don't let me catch you using that here at work."

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

"I've got my rabbit," Diane added to the conversation. "But it's at home."

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

"I've got one at home that's bigger," Nicole confessed, "and it's got a little curve to it." Pause. "You know..." Pause. "...to get in there."

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

"Yeah."

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

"He knows..." Nicole replied, and then trailed off. There was more to that response, but Nicole had already shared more than she'd intended to.

Diane sighed. "This is what I mean, though. It's like the whole building has been doused in some sort of animal pheromones."

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

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

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

But whether Abby was suffering the effects of animal pheromones, or under the thrall of a mind-controlling puppet master, there was no denying that the mailgirls' presence at USF was having an affect on her. The last time she'd come to the Plaza, she'd arrived to the sight of Number Thirteen rubbing herself just off the elevator lobby, and she hadn't been able to forget it. Whenever she caught sight of one of the girls running through Human Resources, or passing her in the halls, she couldn't help but crane her neck for a better view. The whole thing was like a car wreck that Abby couldn't look away from. Squeezing her thighs together in her cubicle, she could feel the dampness between her legs, and could tell how much her own pussy ached to be touched.

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

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