Salty and Sweaty

From Stansbury, it was off to George Strunk. Then Mitch Miller. Debbie Truesdale. And so on. After Asset Management, it was an interoffice envelope from the 26th Floor to the 28th via the stairs. And then another, from the 28th to the 24th, again via the stairs. A standard mail delivery. Another interoffice. A series of memos back and forth between 23rd and 21st Floors. And so went the morning, dashing from one mail stop to the next, one associate to the next. It was routine, and in that routine, Thirteen allowed herself to operate on auto-pilot.

She picked up two demerits for being just over a minute late on an interoffice delivery to a junior executive on the 30th Floor, and then another when she missed a deadline only by a few seconds. Risking a glance up at a clock down on the 16th, she confirmed that she still had a while before the girls would begin to be called back to the locker room in waves for their first break. At twenty-four demerits, and the bulk of the day still ahead of her, she knew that hitting number twenty-five and the punishment that followed was inevitable. But, she hoped against hope that she could avoid another until after her break; better that a spanking (or paddling, or whatever Mistress Zero was in the mood for today) eat into the thirty minutes she was allotted to at lunch than the fifteen minutes she had for break.

It was up on the 33rd Floor that Thirteen had her first moment of rest, a rare lull in delivery activity that allowed her to catch her breath. She'd just delivered a memo to a manager in the Products & Segments division, and – without a notification pinging on her smartphone – made her way to the floor's reception desk, where she knew a mailgirl mat would be waiting for her. She passed the dour, uninterested receptionist, who didn't even bother to look up, and found Mailgirl Number Ten already there, on her knees.

There was a single pink mat on the floor, pressed almost up against the wall to the right of the elevators, below a nondescript piece of corporate artwork and to one side of a silver dog bowl half-filled with water. It was no thicker than a traditional yoga mat, stamped with the official USF logo, and just big enough to accommodate two mailgirls in close proximity to one another. If two girls had already been kneeling there, Thirteen would have been forced to seek out another, similar resting spot on the 34th or 32nd Floors. But, thankfully, it was just Ten, and so Thirteen got to her knees beside the other girl as she scooted over.

Knees on the ground, thighs parted, and sitting back on their haunches. They weren't allowed more than a quick moment or two of eye contact, but they smiled and greeted each other before bowing their heads. And, in their only deviation from the rigors of standard "Knees" position, Ten took Thirteen's left hand in her right, interlocking their fingers and holding hands. Though technically out of position, and theoretically risking a demerit from someone petty enough to assign one, holding hands was one of those rare transgressions that Mistress Zero and Human Capital seemed to look the other way on. All the mailgirls did it, whenever they found themselves paired up and resting on a mat together. It was a sign of camaraderie and commiseration, and took place even between two girls who might not have otherwise gotten along – such as the veiled, passive aggressive competition between One and Fourteen, or the falling out between Eleven and Eighteen when they stopped sleeping together.

Thirteen, for her part, felt a mixture of awkwardness around and jealousy towards Number Ten. Whatever Thirteen's ever-so-brief relationship with Seven had been, and despite the fact that it had been Thirteen who'd wanted to keep her distance and her objectivity, it still stung a bit when Seven moved on to Ten so quickly afterwards. And to a combination of Ten and Nineteen after that.

But Ten felt no such awkwardness around Thirteen, so far as Thirteen could tell. Her own relationship with Seven – if you could even call it that – was both casual and utilitarian. And the inclusion of Nineteen only seemed to underline the fact that it represented the "letter-carrying lesbian" phenomenon more than it did an out-and-out serious, monogamous lesbian pairing, like the one that Two and Three shared.

"You're sweaty," Ten whispered. Not a "hi" or a "hello."

Thirteen didn't apologize for it. "I just did 21 to 33 on the stairs, on a rush order, and got there six seconds under deadline."

It was perhaps a weird thing to be proud of, but one that Ten, at least, appreciated.

Ten was tall, slender, and blessed with long, well-toned legs that would have turned heads even if she'd been wearing clothes. Her breasts were on the smaller side - relatively, at least, as there were no flat-chested mailgirls. Thirteen guessed she might have been right on the line between a "B" and "C," and laughed to herself – not for the first time – how casually she now found herself evaluating other girls' chests. Ten had straight, shoulder-length brown hair that, at the moment, was spilling down freely on either side of her face. She was tanned, though not excessively so, and beautiful in a smart, East Coast sort of way.

Ten was a few years older than Thirteen. Twenty-nine, Thirteen thought she remembered from the girl's file. She'd been at one of the big Swiss banks before getting her MBA, and had joined USF out of business school the previous summer. Her role with USF had been a strategic one, focused on client management and customer experience within Private Wealth Management, a role in which she'd caught the eye and the attention of a particularly deep-pocketed client. When USF first announced its mailgirls program, it was that client who'd first asked – of Ten's old boss – whether or not the young brunette was being considered. The promise of the mailgirl bonus, tuition reimbursement, and an eventual portfolio of wealthy clients all her own had been enough tempt her, and Ten had been a part of the May roll-out – only a few weeks before Thirteen arrived in New York.

Her real name was Katherine. Or, at least, it had been, once upon a time - Thirteen thought of her only as Ten. Even the few girls who'd known each other prior to volunteering for the program referred to one another by their numbers now, both inside and outside the building. This was partly due to the fact that they were strictly forbidden from using each other's real names at work, and it was dangerous to get out of the habit while out for drinks or over the weekend for fear of slipping up while at the Plaza. But Thirteen suspected it was also partly due to an attempt at disassociating what they were forced to do as a mailgirl and who they really were: it wasn't Katherine who was forced to strip naked and parade through her old place of business, but rather Mailgirl Number Ten. Thirteen had taken a similar approach earlier in the summer, but she had to confess that the two versions of herself had begun to bleed together, and that her "true self" was more Mailgirl Number Thirteen that she felt comfortable with.

"Getting a little salty," Ten giggled, using the term the mailgirls tossed around to refer to the particular combination of sweat, body odor, and pussy that they all succumbed to at various points in the day.

"You've got no idea," Thirteen whispered back.

"I've got some idea," Ten responded, squeezing Thirteen's hand in her own. "I got sent to the garage this morning."

To the uninitiated, it sounded like a change in subject. Thirteen, however, knew what the other girl was driving at. They spent so much of their time at USF hurrying along among cubicles and offices, filing rooms and board rooms, and they'd all been naked day-in and day-out for so long, that it almost became easy to forget just how abnormal it was. It was embarrassing to be naked, sure, and Thirteen hadn't exactly stopped being embarrassed. But it was familiar. It was an embarrassment that she'd suffered countless times before and would suffer countless times again. Being sent somewhere new, on the other hand? Or, out of the ordinary? Suddenly, it was like being stripped naked again for the first time, being humiliated in an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar way.

It was also exciting.

It was thrilling, in a naughty and exhibitionist sort of way. Ten had confessed to that dichotomy earlier in the summer, out for drinks at the Imperial. And Thirteen, for her part, had to agree. Being sent down into the shops on the first floor for one excuse of a reason or another, or out to the front desk to pick up a package that didn't go to the mail room first, or down the garage – it was a reminder at just how embarrassingly naked they were. But also a weird, deep-seated turn-on that nearly all of girls had owned up to.

"Fucker got a personal delivery here in the office," Ten recounted, "and had me take it to his car for him. Big, heavy-ass box, and I needed two hands to carry it. Guess where I had to carry his keys?"

Thirteen cringed and thought back to other mailgirl programs she had read about. No, not here. Not at USF.

Ten took a hold of the D-ring on her own collar. "He just looped his whole key ring right here."

Thirteen had to laugh a little.

"No key fob, of course," Ten continued. "So picture me in the garage, bending down at the waist and mashing my face up against his Mercedes, so that I can unlock the driver's side with a key attached to my neck."

"It's a sight."

Ten paused, and then whispered, "But joke's on him. I wiped juice all over his leather seat."

Thirteen laughed politely, but she wasn't exactly sure that the joke was on Ten's unnamed "fucker." Smearing a bit of pussy juice on the inside of some guy's car seemed like a minor victory, one that Thirteen was sure more than a few men would get off on. But Thirteen understood where Ten was coming from; it was one of those minor acts of retribution and defiance that a few of the girls – Fifteen, most often – seemed to need to get through this life. Thirteen, for her part, would never have been so bold, and even this seemed out-of-character for Ten.

It went unsaid that, owing to her trip to the garage itself, Ten had apparently been wet enough to enact this particular brand of mischief. And it struck Thirteen that she probably hadn't had an opportunity to wash her hands between then and now.

Thirteen gave the brunette's hand a squeeze.

"You're coming tonight, right?" Thirteen asked.

"Of course," Ten answered. "We've got send you off right."

It sounded like all the girls, including the half that were scheduled to come in for their designated turn covering Saturdays, were planning to attend that night's "Bitch Sessions" at the Imperial. Even without a true cause for celebration, as Thirteen's impending release was for them all, Friday nights at the bar had become a weekly tradition, and an outlet for an otherwise beaten-down, beaten-up population of mailgirls.

"The Atlantic Life girls are coming, too," Ten added. "I don't know about Mountbatten, though." Atlantic Life was a staid, conservative insurance company in Midtown, which had nonetheless followed USF's lead and rolled out their own mailgirls program in July. Mountbatten Asset Management, too, had begun a program, but theirs was only a few weeks old, and consisted of only six girls – only two of whom had shown up at USF's Bitch Sessions so far. Thirteen wasn't sure which of the girls at USF had reached out and invited them to the Imperial that first time, but she was appreciative of having other, local mailgirl initiatives to compare and contrast USF's against. And she was sure that the mailgirls from Atlantic Life and Mountbatten appreciated finding a larger pool of mailgirls with whom to share their pain.

"Great," Thirteen replied, sincerely.

"What are you wearing? Did you bring anything special?"

Thirteen swallowed, and waited a moment as two fully-dressed young women passed by, glancing down at the two naked girls holding hands by elevator.

"No, I just have my regular clothes," Thirteen said, once they'd walked away. By regular clothes, she meant the pencil skirt, blouse, and heels she'd worn the office that morning – vampish and tight-fitting all around – which she'd purchased that summer with money out of her stipend from her faculty advisor. But Thirteen found it difficult to talk about clothes when she was "in uniform."

Ten, apparently, didn't feel quite as tortured; Thirteen suspected that planning out her outfit for that night was one of the rare slivers of hope that got her through the day. "Don't worry," Ten responded, "I've got an extra. I've got a cocktail dress in my locker that I think will fit you."

Ten was a bit taller than Thirteen, but they had a similar build, and so Thirteen was fairly confident Ten's dress would fit. Unlike a few rare mailgirl programs that celebrated a wide spectrum of female body types, USF's was generally pretty limited: thin, above-average height, with breast size running between Ten's ample B's (C's?) to Six's stately-but-not-pornographic D's. And, unlike Thirteen's Spartan cubby back in the locker room, she knew that Ten's had a few outfits hanging in there at all times.

"Absolutely," Thirteen offered with enthusiasm she didn't entirely feel; she felt comfortable in her own clothes, and wasn't entirely on-board with the idea of Ten playing dress-up with her like she were a paper doll. Nevermind the logistics of getting the dress back to the brunette, given that Thirteen was leaving for Connecticut in the morning.

There was a familiar buzz, and both girls instinctively looked down at the smart phones on their arms.

"It's me," Ten said, dropping Thirteen's hand and standing. She looked down at the smartphone again, and complained, "Ugh. 39." Six flights of stairs.

As she turned to leave, she called back to Thirteen. "Maybe I'll see you on break. Or at lunch." Referring to the dress, "If we don't line up today, just take a look yourself."

"Thank you," Thirteen answered. And, "Good luck!"