An Audience

"My own body odor," Fourteen blurted out, and sniffed her armpits for show. Twenty feigned a gag.

"Having my hair pulled," Mountbatten-Two admitted.

"Holding One's hand up on the 42nd Floor," Three offered, to boos and hisses from the other girls. Apparently, it wasn't risqué enough for their liking.

"New fish," Twenty said, looking in Seventeen's direction. When Seventeen looked surprised, Twenty amended her confession. "Not you. Not you, exactly. I mean, you're very pretty. Very, very pretty. But just the thought of my first day, of going through all of this the first time."

The other girls nodded in agreement.

"How about you?" Seven asked of Seventeen.

Seventeen didn't get a chance to respond. "Getting spanked in front of her old co-workers," Fourteen answered for her. "Next?"

Seventeen, red-faced once more, nodded in the affirmative.

Eighteen and Mountbatten-Seven made their admissions, as well, but follow-ups were cut short when Fourteen cried out, "Are you touching yourself on my knee?!"

Twenty's hand was indeed in her lap, and she looked embarrassed about being caught. Though, perhaps, not as embarrassed as she should have been. She apologized with a shrug, and brought her hands back up to the table.

"Come on," Three said, taking Twenty by the hand, and leading her away from the table. "Let's go to the Kissing Booth. We can take turns on watch."

"Your old lady's not going to mind?" Fourteen asked, referring to Mailgirl Number Two. Two and Three, as Seventeen understood it, had been a monogamous couple since some point earlier in the summer.

Three just winked, and b-lined for the darkened booth in the corner of the bar with Twenty in two. The monogamy she and Two shared apparently still had some allowances. Seventeen saw that there was already a girl sitting in the booth, but she couldn't tell who it was or what, exactly, she was doing. Which was, of course, the point of said Kissing Booth; Mountbatten-Two had admitted to getting herself off over in that corner earlier in the evening while Mountbatten-Seven played lookout.

"And speaking of old ladies," Fourteen said, turning to Seven with a raised eyebrow, "how is yours? How was the trip across the Hudson?"

"Not my 'old lady,'" Seven corrected her, "but she's good. I mean, she's okay."

"Really?"

"Really," Seven answered. To Seventeen, she explained, "Our last Mailgirl Number Thirteen, the one that Human Capital sent to Park Place. I went and visited her last weekend."

"Oh, yeah," Eighteen said, just now remembering that Seven had taken that trip to Jersey City. "I meant to ask you. How'd it go? What's it like?"

Seven took a sip of her own drink, and explained. "So, you know, it's twenty-four/seven. She can't leave. But, I mean, you can visit. They basically do this," -- meaning, drinks -- "on Saturday nights in one of the employee lounges. They're off the clock from seven on Saturday night until seven on Sunday morning, so we were up until after three."

"Doing what, pray tell?" Fourteen smirked.

"I'm not one to kiss and tell," Seven answered coyly.

"But she's allowed to...?" Eighteen began, and then stopped. She tried again, "They're allowed to...?"

"Yes," Seven replied. "They're allowed to sleep with each other in the building. At night. After their shifts. But before lights-out at nine. And on Saturdays nights, until Sunday morning." Sensing more teasing from Fourteen, Seven got out in front it. "And, yes, I slept with Thirteen. Once in the lounge, once back in the locker room, and then once more in the locker room in the morning. Happy?"

Fourteen just grinned suggestively.

"So, you can visit. But you've got to be naked," Seven went on. "Not just us, though, either. Any female visitors. Apparently her mom flew out at the end of October, to see her and her sister, and Barrow stuck to his guns."

"No!" Mountbatten-Two gasped.

Seven shrugged. "She's apparently in pretty good shape. Mrs. Scott, that is. Or, Mrs. Ryan, I think? There was a divorce and a second husband in there somewhere, if I remember right. But, she had Thirteen and her sister young."

"Two?" Fourteen asked. "One and Two?"

"One and Two," Seven nodded. "Park Place One and Park Place Two. I was 'Plaza Seven' the whole night."

"It's hard to follow along sometimes," Mountbatten-Seven observed.

"Talk to the Chiyoda girls," Eighteen said. "They get new numbers every single day, just to drive home how interchangeable they all are."

"And apparently it's a clusterfuck," Fourteen added. "It's what they do at Fukuda-Chiyoda Financial Group in Tokyo, so they set it up the same way here at Chiyoda America. It's confusing as shit, though, so they all call each other by their real names secretly, and it ends up slipping out every now and then at work. Which means they get slapped around a lot." She nudged Seventeen with her elbow. "You can tell the Chiyoda girls by the handprints on their cheeks."

"So, Park Place Two," Seven started up again, ignoring the aside. "You can visit her. But you have to be in uniform, and they'll lock you in for night, so I did have to sleep in their locker room. They've all got Sunday shifts they have to do -- with the same sort busy work we do on Saturdays -- but Park Place Two gets allowed some time in Human Capital to work on her research. And, truly and honestly, I think she's okay with it now."

"Come on!" Fourteen waved the suggestion off.

"No, really," Seven said earnestly. "She had a hard time at the beginning, the way the whole thing played out. And, you know, they sleep on the floor over there, so she misses her bed. But it's been like eleven weeks since the last time she wore clothes, and she seems to think it's easier -- not having to get undressed every morning and living half-in and half-out of the mailgirl thing. And she's still angry about the way her sister got roped in. But you should see them -- they're super close, closer than they've ever been, apparently."

"They haven't...?" Eighteen began to ask, but trailed off.

Seven cringed a little, but nodded reluctantly. Seventeen wasn't entirely sure what the exchange meant, but wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Eighteen made a face. She shifted topic slightly, and asked, "What about the HR girl? The redhead?"

"Park Place Six," Seven offered. "What about her? Did she leave an impression?"

"She spat in my asshole!" Eighteen guffawed, to a round of horrified jeers and laughter from the table.

Once she'd composed herself, Seven answered, "Yes, she's there. She had a hard time at the beginning, too, because the other girls blamed her for trapping them. But, if it hadn't been her, it would have been someone else. And however they all got there, she's in it tits-deep right there with them." She nodded in the direction of their replacement Mailgirl Number Thirteen, with whom there was some sort of history Seventeen wasn't privy to. "We're all in this together."