A Culture of Exploitation

The elevator doors slid open and Claire stepped out onto the third floor of Mizutomo Tower, colloquially known as the "Atrium". She hadn't seen it her first day thanks to Mistress Henckel taking her through the service lift, but now that she had her own badge, she was expected to pass through this section of the building to access the rest of the Tower just like all its other employees.

The Atrium was a wide, expansive concourse level bearing many similarities to floors she'd seen in other office buildings. It was designed as a central traffic hub, as the many elevator banks on the far end linked the many floors of the tower together. There were concession stands flanking the main thoroughfare, and although Claire was very much tempted to grab a cup of coffee, it would only work against her during her day.

She found herself looking around to see if there were any naked women running around, even though she knew that mailgirls only serviced floors Four and above in Mizutomo Tower. This was by design; the lobby and lower three floors were designated retail and commercial space. She recalled these facts from the packet she'd received upon starting her assignment; it was tangentially useful information, though she still wasn't sure why the building designers hadn't included elevators which bypassed the Atrium and instead forced all traffic through it.

Someone brushed past her roughly, bumping forcefully into her right shoulder, nearly causing her to lose her balance. She looked around and spotted a bespectacled, slightly overweight young man in a business suit moving briskly towards an open staircase to the right of the elevator banks. He looked back at her and shouted "Sorry!" before bounding up the steps.

"The way he's moving, you'd think he was late for an important meeting or something."

Claire looked to her left. The derisive comment had come from a smartly-dressed businesswoman, who was watching the man with a disgusted look. "He's not?" Claire ventured.

"Nope." The businesswoman pointed forward. "Though I'm sure it's important to him."

Claire looked in the indicated direction, following the young man as he climbed up the stairs, which led him not to the next floor, but rather to what appeared to be some sort of pedestrian bridge spanning the width of the Atrium. Gathered in the center of the bridge was a group of people, almost all of them men, from what she could see. They all seemed keenly interested in the windows in front of the bridge; standing room at the railings looked like it was at a premium.

"What are they all up there for?" Claire asked, even as her mind tried to work out the answer.

The other woman chuckled, the sound dripping with sarcasm and absolutely devoid of actual amusement. "Feeding time at the zoo." At Claire's curious and confused look, she elaborated. "They're all looking into the locker room for those mailgirls. One-way glass gets them a peek at all those sluts fingerbanging themselves into oblivion."

"Oh." It was all Claire could offer in response without giving away her actual reaction of shock. She had seen the locker room on her first day, but it had barely been a blur in her memories due to the entirety of what had happened to her yesterday. "They like watching the mailgirls shower?"

"Shower, touch themselves, get whipped by that dominatrix madam of theirs. All part and parcel of the Mailgirl experience." The businesswoman looked incredibly unimpressed with the entire notion.

Claire ventured a look upwards as they passed underneath the bridge on the way to the elevators; sure enough, the glass windows opposite the railings were clear enough to show the locker room with about a half dozen mailgirls walking around, most of them already naked and the few that weren't were working on disrobing. Almost all of the men at the railing had their smartphones out, snapping pictures and videos of the sights, some of them leaning far over the railing to try and get the closest view.

"Pathetic, the lot of them," the businesswoman said, shaking her head.

"Yeah... really," Claire agreed even as she reached down to draw the ID badge, which she'd been issued the previous day and was hanging from her blouse into her handbag. The ID badge which not only bore her assumed name, but also her assigned Mailgirl number of "20" as well as a full body shot of her, completely naked.