Confessions of a Mailgirl Ch. 01

Author's note: The concept of the Mailgirl - nude female couriers used to deliver memos, files, packages, and other items between departments within a corporate office building - was originated by a writer named Cambridge Caine. Other writers took it up and added their own spin on this idea so I thought I'd give it a shot as well. The concept may not be original but the settings and characters in my version of the Mailgirls universe are original.

The earlier stories were very heavily oriented toward BDSM while my story focuses more on the ENF, humiliation, and nude in public aspects, although it does cross over into BDSM territory at times. The other stories also took place in a world where there were apparently no sexual harassment or labor laws to protect the mailgirls and I've tried to ground this story in a more realistic environment where those things are factors.

This is a long story and I've got a lot written already so I plan on releasing a chapter every week or so.

All characters involved in sexual situations or nudity are 18 years of age or older.

*****

PROLOGUE

The naked mailgirl phenomenon began, as many crazy trends often do, in Japan. As legend has it, it began at Hiromoto Industries headquarters in Tokyo when Mr. Hiromoto, one of the wealthiest men in Japan, began grousing at a high level executive meeting about how memos and files could be delivered instantly through the internet but there was no guarantee that the most important ones would be read or acted on immediately. There must be some way to insure that the most important items get immediate attention and don't get lost in the pile of useless information being shat out like dog dung, he grumbled.

"Have a naked woman deliver it," one of the executives joked to laughter around the table. But Hiromoto didn't laugh.

"I like that idea," he said. "Make it happen." The others present that day, once they realized he was serious, began protesting and listing the many reasons why this wouldn't work. It would hurt productivity by diverting employees' attention from their work; it would bring bad press and unwanted media scrutiny; various groups would protest it; female employees would quit; clients would leave them. Mr. Hiromoto listened to all of these arguments but was too old and too rich to give a damn about any of them. He simply liked the idea of having beautiful nude women running around his corporate headquarters delivering mail.

"Make it happen," he repeated as he rose to his feet and walked toward the door, letting out a fart in the general direction of his senior executives as he exited the room.

And so they did make it happen. A few weeks later a couple of pretty college interns were convinced - with the promise of a large bonus and excellent pay and benefits - to begin delivering mail naked around corporate headquarters. And many of the negative things that the senior executives had warned Mr. Hiromoto about did happen. Some women did quit in protest but they were replaced by younger, more attractive women at lower pay, and several would later accept invitations to join the Mailgirls program themselves. Some clients did leave but that was easily offset by an influx of new clients who looked forward to meetings at Hiromoto headquarters where they could observe the mailgirls in action. The company was the subject of protests by various groups and did get bad press in both Japan and the world media but this notoriety only helped to spur sales, especially among young adult males.

One thing that didn't happen was a drop in productivity. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sick calls went down, the retention of male employees improved, and workers were often willing to work longer hours. Seeing beautiful nude women during the workday turned out to be more stimulating to many employees than the gyokuro tea they were served during their shifts.

At first the mailgirl delivery system was very rudimentary. The two naked young mailgirls were given a small room in the basement with a laptop they would each use to check e-mails for their delivery orders. The mailgirl would then run up the service stairs to the correct floor and office to pick up her delivery and take it to another office in the building. When she was done she returned back to the basement to check the e-mail again for a new order. This proved to be very inefficient until someone got the idea of strapping a smart phone to their upper arm with a velcro strap so they could check their e-mails without having to go to the basement. This was better, but still not perfect as sometimes both would show up answering the same e-mail or would not show up at all thinking the other one was getting it. There also was not an efficient way to track how long it was taking for the girls to make their deliveries, and one of the girls was often seen standing around flirting with male employees forcing the other girl to work harder to keep up.

At first the idea was to reserve only the most important and time sensitive items for mailgirl delivery, but the definition of "important" became more flexible over time as nearly every manager in the building began wanting to use mailgirls to deliver even the most trivial correspondence. It became obvious that more mailgirls would need to be hired but the system would have to be overhauled first.

The solution the company came up with was to build a network throughout the building that would sync with the smart phones the mailgirls had strapped to their arms and register the time they entered or left an office. They also developed software that could track the individual movements of the mailgirls throughout the building. It could also find the closest available mailgirl to the pickup point and then alert her to the pickup via a message sent to the smart phone, which was renamed the Mailgirl Monitoring Unit, or MMU. They also established time parameters for travel to various parts of the building to insure the brisk movement of deliveries (too brisk some of the mailgirls complained), and the failure to meet the deadline resulted in demerits and eventual discipline. And to simplify the identification of the mailgirls and avoid confusion, they were each assigned a number that would be inked onto their bodies with a black felt tip pen prior to the beginning of each shift. Employees were instructed to address the mailgirl by that number rather than her name while on duty.

It took almost a year to work out all the bugs but in the end Hiromoto Industries had created an efficient system for delivering packages, memos, bulletins, and files via sixteen beautiful naked female couriers. The company had also weathered the initial firestorm of controversy causing its stock to drop and by the end of the year the stock had not only fully recovered but had increased in value based on reports of record profits and productivity gains.

At the annual stockholders meeting Mr. Hiromoto announced that their new interoffice delivery program was an unqualified success and they would begin licensing the training and technology for the program to other companies.

"What will you call it?" one stockholder asked. Mr. Hiromoto's marketing department had come up with a variety of suggestions for a catchy name for their new product but he hadn't been impressed by any of them.

"Mailgirls," he grunted. And so it came to be that this very simple and condescending name became the generic term commonly used by the public for nude female couriers.

It took awhile for Hiromoto Industries to find a client willing to take the risk of implementing a nude Mailgirls program, but when another Tokyo firm finally did and it also became a success the orders began pouring in from other companies in Japan. After that they began marketing their program in Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, and the Philippines with varying degrees of success.

The Mailgirls program remained largely an Asian oddity for the first several years before a Spanish firm in Barcelona dipped its toe into the water and tried it out. After it became a success there it began taking hold in other parts of Europe as well. Within five years Hiromoto Industries could brag that it had sold its program and technology to over one hundred companies in twenty countries. There were also many companies that started their own Mailgirls program without bothering to buy the Hiromoto license or technology since all it really required was nude women willing to deliver items from office to office. Few unlicensed companies ever approached the level of sophistication or efficiency of Hiromoto's clients, however.

But there was one huge market that remained untapped and resistant to the concept of naked mailgirls: the United States. Many thought that the concept would never fly there. The country was too conservative, too prudish about nudity, its labor laws were too restrictive, and there were too many religious and feminist activist groups that would scream bloody murder and organize boycotts against any American company that dared try such a thing there.

I admit that I was one of the people who thought that. As a twenty-five-year-old woman with an MBA degree and on a management fast track working for an American corporation I thought that the Mailgirls concept was absurd and exploitative and mailgirls were misguided and pathetic creatures. And I kept thinking that until the day - after a series of bad decisions based on greed, lies, ambition, and naiveté - I became a naked mailgirl myself.

This is my story.

AN UNEXPECTED OFFER

The day began like most others for me as I sat in my cubicle in the Marketing department working on promotional ideas for the imminent release of our latest game, "Gangsta 4."

The company that I work for, DumpsterDawg Enterprises, started out in a garage about twenty years ago when a few friends began writing a computer game based on building an urban crime gang. Their first effort was rather crude but sold well enough for them to move into a small office building and hire more developers, software engineers, and artists to expand on the concept. Their second release became a huge hit and since then the company had grown into a multi-billion dollar corporation with a reputation for developing edgy, controversial urban crime games, first person shooters, and fantasy RPGs for the PC and consoles. DDE, as the company was commonly called, was known for pushing boundaries in sexual content, nudity, and violence in their games and was frequently the target of grandstanding politicians who claimed they were corrupting the nation's youth. The founders of the company actually loved this type of publicity which they knew would only help drive sales higher. Lately the company had begun producing movies based on their games and was rumored to be developing a series for HBO.

I'd been with DDE for about a year and enjoyed the atmosphere which was a long way from the usual stuffiness of most corporations. "Work hard, play harder" was the unofficial motto here for the relatively youthful workforce and long days days at work were frequently followed by hard partying together on days off.

About an hour after arriving for work my typical day started becoming very untypical when I got a call from Barbara Anderson's secretary. "Is this Danica Peterson?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Barbara Anderson is requesting that you meet her in her office at 10:15. Will you be able to make it?"

"Um, sure."

"Do you know how to get here?"

"I'll be able to find it," I answered.

"Great! See you then."

After hanging up I sat for a minute wondering what this meeting could be about. I knew Barbara Anderson by sight and by reputation but had never actually met her. Her office was in what was referred to by employees as "the tower," the section of the sprawling DDE complex where the company's suits - its senior executives and managers - had their offices. I'd only been there once, during my initial employee orientation, so I was excited and nervous about being invited there for a meeting. I had aspirations about someday having my own office there.

I gave myself plenty of time to get to the tower and find Barbara's office. When I got to the reception area I found Kelly Darby, who was also in the company's management training program, waiting as well.

"Hey Kelly, do you know what this is about?" I asked her.

"No idea," she said. We spent a few minutes engaging in small talk about work as we waited. We'd been hired at the same time and had gone through initial orientation and training together but had been assigned to different departments, so it was a chance to catch up. It was nearly 10:30 before the receptionist waved us into Barbara's office. She was on her cell phone as we entered and motioned for us to sit down.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she said after finally hanging up. "Danica, Kelly, it's nice to meet you both." Barbara shook our hands then pulled a chair around and placed it in front of ours. She was barely in her seat before she began speaking in the direct, no nonsense manner of a busy executive. "I don't have much time so I'll get to the point. We have a new project I've been placed in charge of and I've been told that you two ladies would be good candidates to help me out with it."

"Sure," I replied eagerly. "What is it?"

"Have you two ever heard of mailgirls?"

"You mean where naked women run around delivering packages?" Kelly asked.

"That's right. What do you think of it?"

"I think its kind of nuts," Kelly responded.

Barbara smiled and looked at me. "And you, Danica?"

I pondered for a second wondering how to answer, then decided it would be best to tell the truth. "I think it's exploitative and demeaning to women. Why? Are we planning on making a Mailgirls game?"

"No," Barbara laughed, "but that's actually not a bad idea. I'll pass it on to one of our devs. No, we've signed a deal with Hiromoto Industries in Tokyo to be the launch customer for their Mailgirls program in North America and I've been placed in charged of it. The powers that be felt it would be best if the program was run by women so I've been given your names as a couple of promising candidates from our management program who could help me with it."

I looked over at Kelly in shock. It seemed incomprehensible to me that the company would do something like this or ask me to be involved in it. "Do we get to keep our clothes on?" Kelly asked.

"Yes, of course. The two of you will help me set up and manage the program."

"Why are we doing this?" I asked.

"Dan Evans, our CEO, is intrigued by the idea. As you know he's never been shy about creating controversy, and since our games and movies are marketed primarily toward young adult males it won't exactly hurt us with that demographic. Hiromoto is providing the technology and training for free as launch customers in exchange for a promise to stick with it for a minimum of two years. If it works out we'll partner with them in promoting and selling the program in the U.S. and Canada."

"And if it doesn't work out?" Kelly asked.

Barbara shrugged. "Then we'll dump it and move on."

"How is this even legal anyway?" I asked.

"There are a number of businesses that require nudity as a condition of employment," Barbara replied. "Strip clubs are the most obvious example, but there are also Broadway plays, movie sets, naked news websites, that kind of thing. We're producing a movie right now with a lot of female nudity in it and the actresses have had to sign waivers acknowledging that nude scenes are a required condition of employment."

"I don't know if I could do something like this though," I said. "I mean, promote something that I feel exploits women who think their only value is in their bodies?"

"You've already helped us promote films and games with copious amounts of female nudity, Danica."

"I know, but I guess that seems different to me somehow."

"It seems different to you because artistic nudity has become relatively commonplace in our culture while nudity within the corporate workplace is not. But nudity hasn't always been commonplace or accepted in movies or gaming. The culture changed over time and that may eventually happen within corporate culture as well. It already has to a certain extent in Japan and other Asian countries."

When neither of us responded Barbara leaned back in her chair and spoke again. "Listen, I tend to agree with you both. This Mailgirls program is exploitative, demeaning and a little bit nuts, but it is going to happen and I've been put in charge of it so I'm going to do everything in my power to make it work. I wouldn't blame either of you for turning this down, and if you do you can return to your cubicles with no hard feelings."

The "return to your cubicles" remark sounded a little like a dig to me and I began to wonder if turning this down might negatively affect my career chances here.

"Before you decide though," Barbara continued, "hear me out and let me try to sell you on it."

"Alright," Kelly replied, and I also nodded in agreement.

"The jobs I'm offering are considered management level positions and will be a promotion for both of you along with a considerable pay raise. On top of that, this will be a high profile project that will be followed closely all the way to the top of the company. A strong performance in helping me with this project won't go unnoticed."

The prospects of the raise and the opportunity to advance my career sounded intriguing but I still wasn't convinced I should get involved with something like this. That's when Barbara set the hook.

"Let me ask you guys this," she said. "You each have six years invested in getting your MBA's. How much do you owe in student loans? $75,000? $100,000? More?"

"More," I said.

"Yeah, more," Kelly also replied.

"I thought so. I've been authorized by the company to pay off each of your student loans in full if you'll agree to sign a two year contract to help me set up and run the Mailgirls program. You'll also each receive a $50,000 bonus upon the completion of your contract."

I looked over at Kelly in disbelief and a huge smile spread across her face. The thought of getting out of from under the weight of our huge student loan burden was almost too good to believe.

"I'm in," Kelly said. When I hesitated she said, "C'mon, Danica, this will be fun. It's not like we have to take our clothes off."

By the end of the day the contracts had been drawn up and signed by both of us. In retrospect I should have spent a lot more time reading over the fine points of it or, better yet, had a lawyer do it. But I was inexperienced in dealing with contracts and had never had a lawyer so I signed it trusting the company would be fair to me. That would turn out to be a huge mistake.

A week later Kelly and I found ourselves on a flight to Tokyo to observe Hiromoto's Mailgirls program firsthand.

TOKYO

As our limousine wound its way through the crowded city streets Kelly and I stared out the windows in wide-eyed wonder at the sights and sounds of downtown Tokyo. We were flown to Japan in first class, put up in a five star hotel, then picked up by limo this morning to deliver us to Hiromoto headquarters.

"Man, I could get used to this," Kelly said.

"No kidding," I replied. As a girl who'd grown up in a small, rural town and who, as recently as a week ago, had been just another drone in a cubicle, it felt like I'd suddenly been transported into a different life.

The streets were alive with activity. Space was at a premium in the city and it seemed like every square inch around us was filled with cars, buildings, street vendors, and pedestrians. The limo crawled through heavy traffic until it finally entered an underground parking garage beneath a building that looked no different than a dozen other large office buildings in the area.