Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 01

Her ears popped as she stepped from the revolving doors and into the lobby of US Financial Plaza. Though it was probably just the adjustment of leaving behind the vacuum-sealed pocket of air in the doors themselves, Sarah Jane Scott could be forgiven for believing it to be something more symbolic and profound.

The din of the world outside faded away. It was still early. The city was still waking up. But there had been a crowd in front of the building -- the International Women's Action Committee, United American Women, and a host of other Whitestocking groups had erected an encampment just beyond the doors, protesting USF's treatment of their female employees. These sorts of demonstrations had popped up all over the Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest, but few still matched the furor or the numbers of what Sarah had been forced to navigate that morning. USF was the first company to launch a program here in New York, and so USF Plaza felt like a beachhead to Grace Burgmeier and her Actioneers, the spread of an infection they were passionately fighting to stop.

But though there was still an audible roar from outside, the Plaza's lobby was a world away. A single, self-contained bubble in the middle of a frothing sea. Inside, the fight had been fought. Inside, the Whitestockings couldn't touch USF. Inside, it was like a parallel dimension, a fantasy world made real by perverts, creeps, and misogynists. A century of women's rights and equal treatment, from Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton down to Grace Burgmeier herself, was buckling under the pressures of the day, with USF joining the ranks of dozens of other American companies in establishing business practices that would have been unthinkable a decade earlier. Inside, separated from the world, mailgirls were the new reality.

Her escort that morning, Professor Gillian Schang, was a step or two ahead of her, Gillian's pace one with purpose and destination. Sarah trailed behind, hesitant and unsure of herself. Wide-eyed, she took the lobby in in its entirety, all the while fighting the gravity pulling her backwards and out the door. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. There were no naked mailgirls scurrying this way or that. No girls dancing nude, with a chain around their necks, to greet them. No stocks, no pillories, no cages.

The lobby was spacious, and still mostly empty at this hour of the morning. It was decked out in black onyx and gold leaf in a way that was somehow subtle and tasteful, yet hinted at immense wealth and power. She knew, from her research, that there were a handful of shops here on the Ground Floor -- a bakery, a bookstore, and a women's boutique, among them. The Whitestockings weren't allowed to protest inside, but the lobby was open to the public, and the rumors were that the Plaza had seen a dramatic uptick in foot traffic since April, as voyeurs and lookie-loos tried to catch a glimpse of USF's infamous mailgirls. Access was restricted beyond the security desk, with only USF employees and their invited guests allowed up the central escalators to the elevator lobby on the 2nd Floor, and up into USF proper from there.

Walking behind Gillian, Sarah couldn't help but feel like a trophy her professor was parading into Human Capital, a sacrifice to the mailgirl gods. As much as this was Sarah's research and Sarah's field study, it had been Gillian who'd suggested going this particular route, and it was Gillian who had made most of the arrangements with USF. Sarah was here under her own volition. She was here by choice. She was a volunteer. But Gillian had midwifed this morning into existence, and Sarah wouldn't have been here now had Gillian not pressured her into reluctantly pursuing this avenue for her studies.

Sarah would be a mailgirl, at least in name. She'd be among them, work beside them, and suffer embarrassment and humiliation -- the likes of which she couldn't begin to imagine -- right there with them. For the next three months, she'd explore firsthand what made these girls tick, what had led them to volunteer, and what the relationships they forged with one another were like. She was a PhD candidate, working under one of the foremost academics in the fields of Anthropology and Women's Studies. Only that academic, that foremost in the fields of Anthropology and Women's Studies, had sold Sarah and Sarah's body to US Financial.

"S-c-h..." Gillian told the security guard. "'Schang.' And, 'Gillian,' with a 'G.'"

Sarah had spaced. They'd somehow arrived at the security desk without her noticing, and were checking in.

"And you, Miss?" the guard asked. He wore a name-tag that read simply, "Popowski."

"Uh...Sarah," the girl replied. "Sarah Scott. We're here for Will Barrow. He's expecting us for seven."

She half-expected a lecherous grin or a knowing smile, but Popowski maintained his composure. If he knew who Will Barrow was, or if put together what Sarah Scott was here for, he didn't let it show. Instead, the model of professionalism, he simply nodded and asked them for identification.

Sarah fumbled through her purse, found her wallet, and produced her student ID. There'd be no need for this tomorrow, as she'd been informed that she'd be issued an official USF security badge later that afternoon. If she were to have been a normal USF employee, it was probably the sort of thing she'd clip to her waist or to her blazer, or wear on a lanyard around her neck. As a mailgirl, though, Sarah imagined that her "uniform" alone would be enough to readily identify her as belonging to USF.

As Popowski double-checked that they were who they said they were, Sarah's eyes followed the escalator up to the elevator lobby on the 2nd Floor. Though there was no direct line-of-sight, she knew what waited for her up there, beyond. Those "normal" USF employees would be treated to a view of USF's mailgirl locker room, on the far side of a one-way mirror. As they waited for their cars to arrive, to carry them off to wherever they spent their days here in the Plaza, they'd be treated to a view of the mailgirls readying themselves for inspection. Undressing. Showering. Sarah stifled a shudder. Shaving.

Though she'd moved into her apartment for the summer already, Sarah had met Gillian at the Imperial Hotel that morning for breakfast. It had been early, and the hotel's restaurant hadn't been open. But Sarah hadn't slept more than an hour or two the night before, and she hadn't been hungry anyways; the meager offerings of the hotel's continental breakfast had been enough for her advisor, while Sarah worried about being able to keep anything down due to her nerves. She'd confessed that she wished there was another way into the building, one that didn't necessitate her being subjected to the goings-on inside the mailgirls' locker room. Gillian had countered that it might be good for her, that whatever fears Sarah had going into the day might be helped by seeing that she wouldn't be alone. There was a tortured logic to Gillian's argument, but Sarah still dreaded the ascent up the escalators to the 2nd Floor.

Popowski handed the girl's ID back to her, and then did the same for her professor. He picked up the phone at the desk, dialed the appropriate extension, and had a short back-and-forth with whomever was on the other end.

As he did so, a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties breezed past them, flashed her badge at the security guard, and then ran it over the card reader to one side of the desk. As Sarah watched her head up the escalator, she couldn't help but feel out of place.

The woman - a brunette with long, flowing hair -- was a Wall Street stereotype. Good-looking, well-dressed, and confident. She was wearing a dark, tight-fitting pencil skirt with rich, floral lace and a scalloped hemline that fell just below the knees. She had on a suit-jacket with a single button fastened in the front. Heels, of course. And hose. Pantyhose? Stockings, perhaps. Though USF now had a roster of young women flitting about Plaza in nothing more than a lycra armband to hold their smartphones, the company still had the reputation for being old-school and conservative when it came to the regular dress code. Women wore skirts and dresses, significantly more so than pants and pantsuits. And, though it was now June, they apparently continued the practice of wearing hosiery along with those skirts and dresses right through the summer.

Sarah, in contrast, wore a loose-fitting, light-weight A-line skirt in navy blue, speckled with small white polka dots that gave it a sort of retro-chic look. She had on a sleeveless white satin tank-top, with a conservative little keyhole cutout at the neckline, and a navy blazer she'd borrowed from her roommate in New Haven on top of it. No stockings for her, but a pair of pair of white, open-toed flat-heeled sandals. For a graduate student still living in university-provided housing, this was dressy for Sarah. Even with all her clothes on, she didn't feel like she fit in here at the Plaza.

"18th Floor," Popowski announced, turning his attention back to Gillian and Sarah. "Up the escalators. Take the elevators to the right to the 18th Floor. You'll be met by Mr. Barrow's assistant at reception, and she'll escort you from there."

"Thank you," Gillian responded as he buzzed her through.

"Thank you," Sarah repeated, though she was already at the top of the escalator in her mind's eye; it just took another moment or two for her body to catch up. Gillian took her by the arm, and they rode up together.

As they ascended, the elevator lobby on the 2nd Floor came into view. Four massive columns stood guard at the top, marked and labeled to indicate which floors were serviced by which sets of elevators -- the lower floors off the right, the higher floors to the left. But Sarah's eyes were drawn to the far side, where a set of glass doors led into a well-lit, white-tiled room. The doors were flanked on either side by big, picture-glass windows that went from floor to ceiling, and ran the entire length of the back wall in both directions.

At one time, this had been USF's employee fitness center, Sarah knew. But the facility had been underutilized, as employees -- female employees especially -- had complained that they'd felt on display while working out, ogled in their gym clothes while riding the exercise bikes or climbing the Stairmasters. Earlier that year, the company had relocated the fitness center down to the 1st Floor, and repurposed the space in April to take advantage of those very aspects USF's employees had previously bemoaned. The windows had been removed, but had been replaced with new ones that -- from the outside looking in -- would have seemed no different. However, USF had installed one-way mirrors; from the inside looking out, anyone on the far side would see on their own reflections.

The scene that greeted Sarah and Gillian was jarring, and would have been utterly unthinkable in a world before mailgirls. Twelve girls, naked almost entirely from head-to-toe, were lined up shoulder-to-shoulder in the locker room. Most were on their knees, with their backs to a bank of open lockers behind them, and facing out towards the elevator lobby. A single girl -- a blonde with a prominent nose who looked vaguely familiar to Sarah -- was on her feet. No, rather, she was on her toes, with her elbows out at ninety degrees from her body and her hands behind her head. A tall, immaculately dressed dark-haired woman was running a fingertip down the girl's naked hip.

Sarah had known what to expect. She'd read accounts of mailgirl programs on the West Coast and abroad, and was well versed in the function here at the Plaza. She'd seen pictures online, and had even watched a handful of videos -- both official and unofficial -- that had allowed her a peek at mailgirls in practice. But, even still, she wasn't prepared for the scene before her. There was nothing to compare with seeing it firsthand, being there in the elevator lobby and witnessing it in person.

Sarah knew the mailgirls, themselves. As people. USF's Human Capital department had thoughtfully provided her with their files for her research, and she'd pored over them all. She knew their names. She knew their backgrounds. She knew their measurements, as well as any number of other formerly private details of their lives -- anything and everything from when they'd lost their virginity to whether they'd ever slept with another girl or engaged in anal sex. She knew them intimately, and knew things about them she didn't about her own closest friends, or even her own sister.

Mailgirl Number One -- so identified by the black magic marker on her right hip - was a lawyer named Laurie Rice. Mailgirl Number Two was Meredith Ferris from Middle Market. Three was a Princeton grad and a Tuck MBA named Amanda Dobson, formerly of USF's Asset Management group. Four, from Trading, was a twenty-nine-year-old girl named Chelsea Hurst who -- up until her transfer to the mailroom -- had been on some sort of corrective action for not meeting the minimum performance standards of her old job. And so on.

But these weren't people. The girls before her? They were objects. Sex objects. Whatever and whoever they'd been before, they'd been reduced to nothing more than tits and ass. They were animals. They were pets. They belonged, through and through, to US Financial. The numbers. The collars. The "uniforms," such as they were. Laurie Rice was no longer Laurie Rice; she was just a mailgirl. Meredith Ferris? Amanda Dobson? Chelsea Hurst? Mailgirls, all. Diminished. Lessened. Owned. Stripped of everything -- not just clothes, but of dignity, self-worth, and even value as a human being.

And Sarah Scott would be right there with them, later that very day.

Mailgirl shifts at the Plaza ran from seven in the morning to seven at night, six days a week, with a handful of rotating early morning and later evening shifts mixed in for good measure. The girls, though, were expected to ready themselves for an "inspection" each morning before their shifts began. It was still a quarter to seven when Sarah and Gillian arrived on the 2nd Floor, and it was this exact exercise that greeted them on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond the elevator banks.

Yes, Sarah had information on each of the naked girls on their knees in the locker room. The fully-dressed brunette, on the other hand? Sarah had been forced to go digging. Human Capital hadn't released her information to Gillian or her graduate student beforehand, citing the "special" role she'd play in Sarah's day-to-day life here at USF. Known only as "Mistress Zero," it was this woman's responsibility to provide authority and instill discipline in the girls, to oversee the program on the ground, and to carry out the will of the higher-ups on the 18th Floor. Even on this side of the glass, Sarah found her intimidating.

Gillian pushed Sarah gently at the small of her back. "We've got a minute or two," she offered reassuringly, encouraging her student to get closer.

She's trying to be helpful, Sarah told herself. She's not rubbing your face in it. She's trying to expose you to this world before you immerse yourself in it.

Sarah didn't want to go any closer, but she did as her professor wished all the same.

The floor-to-ceiling windows that separated the elevators from the mailgirl locker room weren't sound-proof, but they did muffle the exchange taking place inside. Sarah could make out the tone, at least: contemptuous and condescending, superior and sneering. Though Mistress Zero's tone was short, Mistress Zero herself was tall and commanding; she towered over the one standing naked blonde, even with the blonde on her toes. She wore a pair of stiletto heels and a form-hugging bodycon dress, in raspberry red, with a knee-length hem and a slit that ran up one side to a dangerous degree. Her hair was up, pulled back into a precise and severe-looking bun. Even amid a scene that included twelve naked women and all the exposed tits and flesh and sex associated with them, Mistress Zero stole focus and owned the room.

She'd been "Mailgirl Funf," once upon a time, at an investment bank in Frankfurt. Her real name was Mila Bluhm. She was thirty-eight years old, and a former client services rep, who'd been one of the very first to ink a mailgirl contract with Rhine-Main Bankengruppe when the concept reached Central Europe from the Far East. Though Sarah knew plenty about Mailgirl Funf's sordid history with RMB, what had brought her here to New York was still a blank spot in Sarah's research. Sarah hoped she could build enough of a relationship with her soon-to-be new boss that Mistress Zero might one day open up to her about her experiences in Germany, and why she'd chosen to become a mailgirl supervisor at USF.

"Down in front!" a man's voice called out in a joking tone.

Surprised, Sarah took a step back from the window and looked over her shoulder. Even at this early hour, there was a smattering of USF employees watching the show on the other side of the mirror glass. There was a coffee cart in one corner, manned by a single cashier only half paying attention to her duties. There was an older man, alone, seated at one of the tables USF had thoughtfully provided here on the 2nd Floor. A short woman with horn-rimmed glasses sipped a coffee quietly by herself. A trio of young men in their early twenties were chatting and laughing, joking at the mailgirls' expense. A shoeshine waited by his chair, and passed the time between customers by nervously surveying the goings-on of the locker room. There were others, too, including the middle-aged man who'd told Sarah she was blocking his view, though his interest in the naked girls seemed to be competing with interest in the smartphone in his hand.

Sarah took another step back, and to her right. She hadn't realized she'd gotten as close as she had; she'd wanted to see if she could hear what Mistress Zero was saying to the mailgirl on her toes. The blonde appeared to pass her mistress's morning survey, and was marked with a thick, black number "7" on her right hip. After Mistress Zero had unlocked the leash that secured her collar to her locker, the girl returned to her knees, and the fully-clothed brunette moved to the next girl down the line.

As Mailgirl Eight was tugged to her feet, and up onto her toes, Sarah reflected on the collars the girls all wore. These were not jewelry. Nor were they playful, flirty nods at bondage and discipline. These were the real deal. They were thick, black, and looked almost like they were made of cast iron, three inches wide and studded with D-rings around the circumference. The mailgirls to Number Seven's left -- Sarah's right -- had leashes still hooked to them, leashes with thick, heavy links that ran from each girl's neck to floor of their assigned lockers. There was no slack; each mailgirl still wearing the chains was at the furthest-most point her leash would allow her.

To the uninitiated, these trappings of BDSM were at odds with the stories USF and other companies with mailgirl programs spun about the nature of their girls. These were volunteers, after all, and not slavegirls in a sex dungeon. But such elements of bondage had been around since the very first mailgirl programs began in Tokyo some years earlier. Maybe not every program had collars and leashes, spreader bars and armbinders, muzzles and hoods and gags - but many did, and some of the earliest had incorporated them from the outset. Similarly, not every company enacted corporal punishment upon their girls, but spankings, paddlings, and even the occasional light whipping were utilized by mailgirl supervisors the world over to instill proper discipline in their teams. These sorts of restraints and punishments had Grace Burgmeier and her Actioneers frothing at the mouth, but those who defended the practice again pointed to the fact that the mailgirls had volunteered for this treatment, and could walk out at any time.