Missed Calls

"Thwack!" Thirteen received another blow from Mistress Zero, and she realized she'd lost count of just how many times she'd been paddled.

Twenty-One suffered right alongside the other girls, but the girls were slow to forgive. Even now, three weeks later, there were a handful of girls who still wouldn't speak to her. It had taken Thirteen a couple of days; even if the weekend under Mistress Zero's lock and key had been a weird, twisted turn-on, and even if it continued to be so now, Thirteen had still lost her weekend. She'd lost the opportunity to go out for drinks with her friends. She'd lost the opportunity to pull together her research notes, as she typically did on Sunday, so that she could send them to Gillian. She'd lost the opportunity for her weekly call with her mother. The punishment was still a punishment, no matter how much it had turned her on, and Thirteen wasn't alone in being angry over receiving a punishment for something Twenty-One had done.

That weekend had been the breaking point, it turned out, for the original Mailgirl Number Twenty-Three. Five weeks into her role as a mailgirl, Twenty-Three hadn't really stood out to Thirteen, and she'd taken her sufferings and humiliations right alongside the rest of them. But that morning, despite signing into her smartphone and beginning her day, something snapped inside of her, and she decided that she couldn't take being a mailgirl any more. Not even bothering to return to the locker room to collect her things, Twenty-Three went AWOL, walking right out the front door and into the streets beyond in nothing more than her armband and collar.

Adding insult to injury - and even Thirteen had to laugh at this - when Twenty-Three was finally picked up by the NYPD, the police didn't take her home, or to their precinct. Instead, they brought her back to the Plaza. Not only had she walked out with USF property (her smartphone, the collar), but Twenty-Three was technically USF property herself; her contract said so, and Twenty-Three had reconfirmed that fact that very morning, as part of her routine affirmations. What followed were the typical threats and promises of retaliation, and Thirteen knew that Twenty-Three had done lasting, long-term damage to herself both financially and professionally. But a more formal resignation was finally accepted, and Twenty-Three was allowed to walk out of USF with her freedom, such as it was. She wasn't allowed to leave with anything else, however; she returned home in a police blanket, and her clothes were still hanging in her locker when the new Mailgirl Number Twenty-Three joined the team that afternoon.

Thirteen grunted to herself as Mistress Zero landed another blow. That one stung more than the last.

In the twisted mind of a mailgirl, Thirteen ultimately found herself more angry, upset, and annoyed with Twenty-Three than she had been with Twenty-One. Twenty-One's sin had landed on them all, but it was a sin that Thirteen understood. She'd been tempted herself, and it wasn't unthinkable that Thirteen might have succumbed to her own arousal that way at one point or another if she had remained a mailgirl long enough.

But Twenty-Three? Screw her. They'd all suffered that weekend, and they'd all suffered the same. What made her think she was special? What made her incapable of accepting the punishment that the rest of them had? In her darker moments, Thirteen found herself rooting for USF to ruin her. If it were easy to get out of a mailgirl contract, they'd all have done so dozens and dozens of times over by that point. It wasn't fair that Twenty-Three was able to leave them all behind.

Thirteen received one final kiss from Mistress Zero's paddle, and a part of her - knowing that it might just be her last ever - longed for more. "Thank you, Mistress," she dutifully acknowledged, before propping herself more upright against the spanking bench. She reached behind her and gently massaged her aching behind, the flesh hot and sore. But it wasn't her ass that was causing her the most distress, nor the clamps on her nipples. Without waiting, without bothering to move away, she found her pussy, and wasted no time in masturbating a second time that day.

Twenty-One had decency enough to give her space, but her presence would have caused Thirteen no pause, if the other girl had decided to linger. Thirteen was probably on the receiving end of more punishments than the average mailgirl. And as much as she felt that Mistress Zero was singling her out, to put the PhD candidate in her place, Thirteen wondered if she were secretly sabotaging herself so that she could return to the bench. Because as much as a paddling might have hurt, there was no denying how excited the blonde girl was at being on the receiving end of Mistress Zero's domination.

Legs spread and hands between her legs, with both her nipples and bottom shrieking out in pain, Thirteen stood at the spanking bench and got herself off. The first orgasm came quickly, and the second wasn't far behind, Thirteen gasping and sighing as she hit each climax. She longed to stay and pursue a third, or a fourth, but time - once again - was against her.

Tonight, she assured herself. Tonight.

She was still catching her breath when she caught up with her mistress, finding the German woman back at her desk and surveying the goings-on of the mailgirls' locker room. It was at half capacity, as the first round of twelve mailgirls had had the 12:30 that day, while Thirteen, Twenty-One, and the others were now enjoying their own longest break of the day.

Twenty-One had been granted permission to remove her nipple clamps, and so it stood to reason that Thirteen would be allowed to do so, as well. "Mistress," Thirteen asked politely, "May I remove my clamps?"

The older woman sized her up, taking her in from top to bottom, before finally responding, "No. I'll take them off at the end of lunch."

Thirteen was frustrated, and her breasts were sore, but it did her no good to complain. There was no benefit to letting Mistress Zero see that frustration, no upside in protesting. And so Thirteen, nipples in a vice and ass aglow, offered a perfunctory, "Thank you, Mistress," and returned to her locker.

Thirteen's locker was mostly empty, with nothing inside but what she'd brought with her that day. Most of the other girls approached their lockers in a similar fashion, as anything they brought in with them could be used as a form of torment against them. Mistress Zero had proven she was not above cutting up a girl's clothes, or even pilfering a bra or set of panties (presumably on behalf of one of the analysts up in Human Capital). There were exceptions, though - Ten, for instance, had a half dozen pairs of shoes and five or six different outfits, and Twenty-Four had previously kept a picture of her boyfriend taped to the back of her locker.

But Thirteen did have her personal phone, with her purse, sitting her locker. And, as she returned from her spanking, she risked a glance at it. It wasn't against policy, per se, but Thirteen tried to avoid doing so as much as possible, as her life "out there" was a painful reminder of her life "in here." As if to drive that point home, she immediately regretted it - she had three missed calls and a pair of desperate sounding texts from her sister Sophie.

"I know you're at work, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE call me!!"

Given that Thirteen had confessed to her sister what her work actually entailed that summer, she was glad that Sophie hadn't put quotes around "work."

And then the next message: "I'm freaking out! I need to talk to you NOW. It's IMPORTANT!!"

Both were from around eleven o'clock. But both would have to wait. Even if she were willing to pick up the phone and call, Thirteen couldn't have talked for long - she needed to eat. She could have shot a text back, sure, but there was something about trying to have a conversation with Sophie with clamps on her nipples that pierced the divide between worlds a bit too much for Thirteen's liking. And so, guiltily, she slid the phone back into her purse and the purse back into the locker.

More likely than not, Sophie's 911 emergency had to do with John, her fiancée. They had gotten engaged around Christmas the year before, and were planning a Fall wedding. Planning a wedding could be stressful, and Thirteen understood that. But, more and more, it was planning the marriage that had Sophie freaking out. She'd been with John since high school. She'd gone to Pomona; he'd gone to Harvey Mudd. They were both now at UCLA, entering their second year of dental school. And Sophie worried about her whole life being planned out so soon; she was just twenty-three, and overly concerned about having no new great adventures in front of her.

Sophie had had the audacity to make that complaint that summer while visiting, not long after Thirteen had walked through the door wearing a slave collar and recounted her own great summer adventure.

It could wait. Get through the day, Thirteen told herself, and talk Sophie off the ledge that night.