Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 01

"It doesn't always work out," Barrow went on. "Mistress Zero really needs to be in two places at once on day like today. I'd like to have her in all of these meetings, ideally. Not only does it give us another woman in the room, but it saves me from having to get directly involved."

From getting your hands dirty, Sarah said to herself.

She folded the blazer vertically, and then over her forearm, before looking to Barrow for instructions on what to do with it. As he was otherwise engaged with Gillian, Sarah took the path of least resistance and just draped it over the open chair next to her professor, where she'd already set her purse.

Blouse or skirt? Skirt or blouse? Sarah had had this debate internally for weeks now, whenever she had imagined this moment. Not that it mattered, given that they were both coming off. This wasn't a strip show -- at least, not in the sense that Sarah was on stage and swinging around a stripper's pole. She wasn't here to perform. This was a Point A to Point B trip. It didn't matter how she got naked, only that she did. Despite that, Sarah had strategized her next step. She tugged the skirt down to around her knees, stepped out of it with her right leg, and then did the same with her left.

Sarah's blouse wasn't long, but it was long enough that it fell past her waist, and obscured the top of her panties. For a beat or two, at least. She knew she was being ridiculous. She knew that it was pointless. But modesty was difficult to overcome. Grimacing, she took the shirt's hem in her hands, pulled it up over her head, and stood before Barrow in just her bra and underwear.

Barrow had been concerned that whomever Gillian was sending his way wouldn't belong among his mailgirls. His concerns were unfounded. Whereas Deepa Chaudhri was noticeably flat-chested, and Liz Smith was carrying a little too much weight around the mid-section, Sarah was a vision. Long blonde hair spilled down upon her shoulders, and Sarah smoothed it down even as she folded her blouse. She'd never been one much for the gym, the occasional yoga class or get-in-shape-just-in-time-for-swimsuit-season panic notwithstanding. But, though she was carrying a little more weight than she might have wanted -- especially at the hips and on her behind -- this was more her own neuroses and body image issues than reality. Without the rest of her clothes to hide behind, Sarah proved she that was mailgirls material, with big, bouncy breasts that were still being held back by her bra, and a God-given physique that belonged more to a model in a men's magazine than it did to a mousey academic. Sarah wasn't vain, but she knew she was pretty. She may not have had much experience with men when it came to actual relationships, but she'd been on the receiving end of more than enough pick-up attempts and come-ons to know she was desirable to the opposite sex.

"It can be...I don't know...what's the word? Unseemly, maybe?" Barrow was saying to Gillian. "We looked at other programs. What worked, what didn't. Ultimately, we thought it better to hire a woman to oversee the mailgirls, a woman with some experience in this sort of thing."

"With mailgirl experience?" Gillian asked.

"Experience," Barrow said, nipping that line of questioning in the bud. Sarah didn't know if Barrow was trying to shield Mistress Zero's past from her, as Sarah would soon be one of her charges.

Gillian seemed to take the hint.

"Honestly, training begins right away, which is why it's helpful when Mistress Zero is here. She'll be with me this morning, at least, but I might be on my own as we get into the afternoon. Depending on how the meetings go, we may only be able to get through the first three or four volunteers before Mistress Zero is needed back in the locker room."

Sarah reached behind her back, bending forward ever so slightly as she did so, and fumbled with her bra hooks. She was nervous. At home, in the privacy of her bedroom, she might have done this differently; she might have slipped her arms out of the shoulder straps, released her breasts from their cups, and twisted the bra itself around so that she could see what she was doing. Instead, she opted to unfasten it like an adult. That she was struggling with it like a teenaged boy, however, made her regret the choice, and spoke to nerves. Gillian and Barrow were still engaged in their chit-chat, however, and neither seemed to notice. The extra second or two it took Sarah to finally free herself from her bra was likely only perceptible to Sarah herself, and they both looked over to take her in when her breasts popped into view.

As she took a breath, calmed herself down, and prepared for the final reveal, Barrow stopped her. Thumbs already beneath the elastic waist of her thong, Sarah looked across the desk.

"Hold up just a minute," he ordered. His eyes went from her underwear to her breasts, and only then to her face, meeting her gaze. "It's still early, and it's going to be a little while before we get you down to the locker room. Do you want a quick bathroom break?"

He was fucking with her. He was fucking with her, right? She was almost there. She was almost through with this ordeal. He could have done this before she'd begun, before she'd taken everything else off. Now, if she were to be granted a reprieve and allowed a trip to the bathroom, she'd have to put everything back on and do it all again.

Only then did it dawn on her that, yes, Barrow was fucking with her. But that also, no, he had no intention of making her undress a second time. She was supposed run to the restroom dressed just like this, wearing just her underwear.

"I'm okay," she answered meekly. Had it been a kindness? A twisted, perverted kindness, but a kindness all the same? Sarah was cursed with tiny bladder, one that only seemed to shrink with anxiety. If she were expected to wait here for an hour or two, while Barrow and Mistress Zero held meetings elsewhere in the building, she probably shouldn't have turned the opportunity down. Sarah wasn't sure she really had the option, though; Barrow had put the suggestion out there politely and phrased it in such a way that it seemed up to her, but it was possible that this was a test.

As if to underline how little Sarah had to say in the matter, Barrow shook his head. "No, go ahead and go now. We can finish this when you get back. There's a men's room here in Human Capital. Mrs. Lowrie can direct you."

Turning to Gillian, Barrow explained. "If she's in uniform, she really should have a chaperone. And then Melanie's got to take her out the ladies' room, out of Human Capital, back by reception. The door's got to be left open. Melanie's got to watch. No privacy for our mailgirls - it's a whole thing."

Barrow sounded annoyed by rules and regulations he himself had no doubt put into play.

Gillian nodded, shrugged, and directed her attention back to Sarah. "I'd go now. Take the opportunity while you've got it."

Traitor. Sarah seethed internally, but didn't let it show. She wasn't even a mailgirl yet -- not officially, at least -- and she was already under USF's thumb. Barrow was fucking with her, but it was her job to do as she was told. It was her job to let him fuck with her, just as it would be her job to let anyone else here at Plaza fuck with her, too, if they so chose. Being a mailgirl wasn't just about delivering the mail in the nude -- it was to serve at the pleasure of any USF employee, to follow any instruction issued to her, to degrade and humiliate herself in any way she was directed.

Here and now, that meant running to the men's room in just her panties.

She hesitated, and both the Director of Human Capital and Sarah's academic advisor saw the hesitation.

"Trial run," Gillian reasoned. "Just here in Will's offices. While you're still wearing...something."

"Okay," she replied, finally, fighting the urge to offer a sarcastic "Yes, ma'am" or a "Yes, Dr. Schang."

As Sarah closed the distance to the door, Barrow cleared his throat and her head swiveled back in his direction.

"Before you go, though, let's just get a quick peek at what we're working with downstairs." He jutted a chin towards her crotch.

He wanted her to flash him. He wanted her to show him her pussy.

This caught even Gillian off-guard, and Sarah watched her professor sit up a bit in her seat. Barrow seemed to notice the reaction, as well, and smiled wolfishly in Gillian's direction. No words passed between them. But it was clear that Barrow was flexing, that he was demonstrating the power he already had over Sarah.

Sarah resisted a gag. Instead, she stiffened up her back, summoned her resolve, and exposed her sex, tugging her panties down just enough for Will Barrow to get a good look.

"That's disappointing," he said in response.

Sarah was taken aback by the reaction. What had he been expecting?

"Waxed?" he asked.

"Last weekend," she answered, confused. "I'm sorry. I thought we were supposed to? I thought we weren't allowed to keep our...to have any...pubic hair?"

"It's alright," Barrow offered graciously, taking her apology at face value. "You're not the first mailgirl we've had who came in already shaved. You're still going to have to make a show it, though."

Make a show of what, exactly? Sarah shifted her attention to Gillian, as Barrow did the same.

"It's become something of a crowd favorite," Barrow explained to the older woman. "A popular part of a girl's first day, to have to shave or get waxed. We got a crowd in the lobby in May. That...that, and the anal bleaching."

Sarah shuddered.

Gillian, though, didn't miss a beat. Apologetically, she began, "If we'd known..."

Barrow shrugged good-naturedly. Back to Sarah, he said, "Like I said, Mistress Zero will have you make a show of it anyways." And, with that, he made clear that she'd been dismissed.

Sarah pulled her panties back into place, covering her "disappointing" pussy, and exited the room. As she stepped back out to where Mrs. Lowrie was sitting, she fought the instinct to cover her chest with her arm, to shield her bare breasts and exposed nipples from view. There'd be a lot of that today; every instinct she had told her to storm back in Barrow's office, collect her things, and run screaming out of Plaza without looking back. She was here by choice, however, no matter how much Gillian might have pushed that choice upon her. She was here to become a mailgirl, to learn about being a mailgirl, to live the life of a mailgirl.

Mrs. Lowrie gave her the once over with a look of disgust on her face. "New uniforms?"

"Bathroom break," Sarah answered. "The men's room? I'm supposed to use the men's room."

Mrs. Lowrie sighed. "You'll need a chaperone."

"He told me I didn't," Sarah mewed. She didn't want to get into a back-and-forth with Barrow's secretary. "Not yet."

The woman sized her up, glanced at the door to Barrow's office, and shook her head. She seemed annoyed by the curve ball, and searched Sarah's face for a sign that the topless twenty-six-year-old was lying. "Sure," she sighed again, resigning herself to the situation. It wasn't worth a fight. "Down the hall, on the left. On the other side of the break room."

Sarah tried to measure the distance in her mind's eye before setting off, but failed. As she'd been led down to Barrow's office on the way in, she'd been so focused on the men in their offices on one side of the hallway that she hadn't taken stock of what had been on the other. She saw a number of different doorways that, from this vantage point, could have been the break room to which Mrs. Lowrie was referring, or could have just been conference rooms, supply rooms, or closets. Though she couldn't tell just how far she needed to go, she prepared herself for the reality that she'd have to march past every single one of those offices -- almost all of which had been occupied even at this early hour in the day -- until she reached her destination.

These men have all seen naked breasts before, she tried to tell herself. Who was she to them? Who was she to them but just another mailgirl? This was Human Capital, the very department responsible for overseeing the mailgirls. This was Human Capital, who recruited and tracked naked young women day-in and day-out. This was Human Capital, where Will Barrow held court. It would have been worse, then, had Mrs. Lowrie been forced to accompany her back through the "Hall of Panties" and to the ladies' room out amidst the rest of Human Resources. In that light, Barrow's instruction to use the men's room here in Human Capital was -- as it turned out -- a kindness, after all.

Sarah struck out from Mrs. Lowrie's desk at a pace that was neither too fast nor too slow, moving deliberately down the hall. She avoided even the quickest of glances into the first office on her right, and moved past each subsequent office with the same restraint. Maybe Barrow's underlings would see her breeze past, and maybe they wouldn't. Sarah, for her part, pretended they weren't there, and she focused all of her attention on the wall to her left. Mailgirls -- real mailgirls -- were generally forbidden from making eye contact with their "superiors," an all-encompassing classification that usually meant anyone but their fellow mailgirls. In that moment, Sarah took the restriction as a blessing, because it meant never having to meet someone eye-to-eye, and it meant being able to pretend they weren't there.

Still, Sarah measured her progress down the hall by how many offices she passed on her right, counting them out of the corner of her eye. Someone in the third office apparently saw her, and yelled out a teasing, "Yeah, baby!" Sarah didn't break stride. Someone in the fifth let loose a "Wow!" Sarah didn't turn around. She remained fixed on her destination, and wasn't going to be distracted in getting there. When she did, finally and thankfully, see the door marked "Men," she pushed it open and sought refuge inside.

Refuge, as it turned out, was not to be found in the men's room. As Sarah entered, she came face-to-face with a man -- a boy, really -- washing his hands at the sink. If Sarah was surprised and embarrassed by his presence, he was even more so by hers; the moment he laid eyes upon her, his whole face turned a deep shade of crimson. It was almost as if Sarah had caught him in his underwear, and not vice versa.

"I'm sorry!" Sarah yelped. "I should have knocked! I was just-"

...just trying to get out of the hall. Just trying to get somewhere relatively more private. Just trying to get away from the eyes on naked breasts.

"No, no," the man-boy said back. His eyes went to the floor. To the sink. To the door. Sarah had somehow stumbled upon the one man in Human Capital whose eyes weren't on her naked breasts, whose eyes were now searching for something -- anything -- to look at other than those naked breasts. "I'm...I'm...I'm all done. Just washing my hands." He held up his hands, still dripping wet, as if Sarah required proof.

Tech support, Sarah surmised. He couldn't have been any older than twenty-four. He was short, and nothing more than skin and bones. Even in her bare feet, Sarah had a few inches on him. Even devoid of nearly all her clothes, Sarah probably had a good ten pounds on him. His face was pockmarked with acne scarring, and if he'd been wearing glasses or braces he couldn't have been more of a "nerd" in any sense of the word. Her naked body -- or, nearly naked, as it was -- clearly made him uncomfortable, and his discomfort only served to heighten Sarah's own.

"I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I was told to use the men's room. I didn't know..."

"No, no," he repeated. "You're not the first mailgirl in the men's room. I'm done, really." He shut off the sink, stood from his hunch, and looked, distressed, past her to paper towel dispenser. He was strategizing how to get around her without being forced to ask her to move.

Sarah took it upon herself to slide out of his way. She went around him to the large, handicapped stall on the end, entered, and shut the door behind her. And, as she slid her panties down her thighs and turned to sit, the man-boy finally found his voice.

"You're the girl from Yale. Right?"

She just wanted to pee. But she responded, all the same. "Yup."

"I thought so. I recognized you from the pictures."

Sarah scowled. He was referring, of course, to the pictures Gillian had submitted to Barrow. Pictures. Not just in the singular. Not just the naked selfie she'd taken in the mirror at first, but the "pictures" -- plural -- that she'd pressed Audrey into taking. From the front. From the back. From the sides. Close-ups of her breasts, her vagina, her naked behind. It had been a full six days after Gillian had sent them over that she and Sarah had finally heard back from Barrow, and that response time had nearly given Sarah a complex. Did she not measure up? Did they not see her as "mailgirl material"? Were her hips too wide? Was her butt too big? Was there something wrong with her breasts?

Apparently, these pictures had been circulated among the Human Capital staff.

Sarah didn't know how to respond. She wanted to say something witty, to make a joke out of it, to ask him what he thought. But nothing was coming, and so the man-boy spoke again.

"I'm Chad. Chad Ostermueller. Mr. Ostermueller, I guess," he introduced himself. "I'm the one that wrote the app."

"Mr." Ostermueller. The formality of the title seemed awkward even to Mr. Ostermueller. But she'd been right -- Mr. Ostermueller was indeed one of Barrow's tech support guys.

"Oh, wow," Sarah said. She wasn't sure what he was looking for. She continued to sit, but waited to pee. Though ridiculous in the face of everything else she'd be expected to go through today, she felt embarrassed to let him hear her take a piss. "Anything I should know?"

"Well, no," Mr. Ostermueller answered, sounding as if he was giving it some serious thought. "The app's not really for you. I mean, it's for you and it's about you and it's how people summon you. But you're not really supposed to touch it or play with it."

"Oh. Okay."

"Well, maybe that's not true. You've got do your daily affirmation on it. But, after that, it's just directions and a countdown."

"Good to know."

A pause. And then...

"You're doing research. You're doing research, right?"

"I'm doing research," Sarah confirmed.

"If I can help at all, let me know. I can run you through it. I can show you how it works. It might have to be after hours, when you're not on-duty. Though I guess if we were to do it here in the building, you'd probably still have be in uniform..."

From seven to seven, Sarah would be a mailgirl. At the end of the day, she'd be allowed to get dressed and go home. Not "home" home -- not back to New Haven, of course. Not back to the graduate apartment Sarah and Audrey shared. But to the one-bedroom she'd sublet for the summer on the Upper West Side. And then she'd get up the following morning, and repeat her day. But, even after seven, even if she were officially off the clock, Sarah wouldn't be allowed up into the building if she weren't stark naked.

"Thank you," Sarah replied. Mr. Ostermueller had seemed uncomfortable around her in her current state. She wasn't sure he'd be able to sit and talk to her if she were in his office, fully nude. But his offer was sincere, and seemingly without a more lurid objective. And Sarah did, in fact, want to learn about USF's mailgirl app, an app that she'd be forbidden from using during the day. "I'd love to take you up on that. Maybe next week, once I get a better handle on everything?"

"Cool," he said. "I'm here, in 1861. That's my office number."

"Got it."

"Okay, good." He didn't seem to have anything further to say, but nor did he seem to be walking away.