Mailgirl Number Thirteen: Day 01

Sarah grimaced. She'd been through the instructional handbook USF assigned its mailgirls, a thick, dense tome filled with do's and don'ts, rules and regulations, and even petty instructions on how she was supposed to arrange her clothes and undergarments in her locker. She and Gillian had also been supplied with documents -- emails, memorandums, meeting notes -- that had circulated prior to and after the program's launch. And so not only did Sarah know how the "bathroom issue" finally netted out, and what would be required of her just to go to the bathroom, but she was also aware that the matter had been debated internally, with Barrow trying to find the appropriate solution for USF.

She'd read of programs that denied their mailgirls of actual toilets, forcing them to use litter boxes or repurposed mop sinks or men's urinals. There was a company in suburban Berlin that sent them out into the woods behind their office park. And one of earliest accounts she'd come across involved a mailgirl peeing on the floor, and being forced to lap it all back up with her mouth -- a story so vile it had nearly turned Sarah off on mailgirls, on the whole.

USF, thankfully, had installed toilets -- actual toilets -- in the locker room. There were no partitions, and anyone standing in the elevator lobby on the 2nd Floor could watch from the far side of the mirror glass. But toilets, all the same. One of Barrow's analysts had floated the suggestion of Japanese-style "washikis" or squat-toilets, but the idea had been nixed...for now.

Outside of the locker room, USF's solution was to require that bathroom breaks would be supervised. A mailgirl was supposed to ask for permission, and then be escorted -- be it a man or a woman playing the role of chaperone -- into the nearest restroom, where she'd be required to leave the stall door open and the chaperone would be required to watch. Sarah couldn't imagine that anyone but the perviest of degenerates might enjoy their part in this particular arrangement, but mailgirls weren't to be allowed even the briefest moments of privacy or solitude while on the clock. The whole thing was then to be logged and reported into the app, another bit of metadata for Mr. Ostermueller and his peers to do god-knows-what with.

Sarah wasn't a mailgirl yet. Not technically speaking. The point of Barrow instructing her to use the facilities now was -- among other things -- to avoid this exercise, and she supposed that she should have been grateful for it. Her stall door was closed. She still had her underwear, even if it was down around her ankles. And Mr. Ostermueller wasn't watching. But he was listening. Maybe not intentionally. But he was still out there, engaged in a conversation with her that she did not want to have here and now, and he didn't seem to be taking the hint.

And so she peed. As it turned out, the sound in the bowl was enough for Mr. Ostermueller to finally bid her adieu; she heard the men's room door creak closed behind him.

She was alone now as she emerged from her stall, snapping her panties back into place. Alone, save for the miserable-looking wretch staring back at her from the mirror above the sink, a topless blonde wearing nothing but a lacy white thong. She didn't look bad, per se. If anything, there was something undeniably sexy about how she was dressed, standing in the sanctum sanctorum of her male "coworkers" with the urinals all lined up behind her.

But her reflection's face spoke volumes. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to be doing this. She didn't want to be seen.

"Confidence," Sarah told the girl, a message the girl repeated back to her. "Confidence."

However she'd arrived at this moment, she was here now. She'd volunteered. Whatever her reasons, this was what she'd wanted. It didn't serve her purposes to show Barrow and his lackeys how much she hated it, how miserable she was, how much this embarrassed her. She wasn't going to go skipping back to Barrow's office with a big smile on her face, or start twirling her panties around over her head, or shake her tits at any of the Human Capital employees she happened to pass by -- but she could put on a brave face, and pretend that none of this was affecting her as much as it truly was.

"Confidence," she said aloud again.

That confidence was tested the moment she poked her head back into the hall. In addition to Mrs. Lowrie, whom she'd be able to see at her desk all the way back down to Barrow's office, there were now two men engaged in conversation about three-quarters of way towards her destination. As Sarah stepped into the hall, both of them turned their heads and drank her in. Whatever topic they'd been discussing was back-burnered the moment the underwear-clad blonde came into sight, and neither made any effort to pretend they weren't staring at her chest.

Sarah was self-conscious of the way her breasts bounced as she approached them. Mailgirls spent most of their days dashing this way or that, running at top speed to hit their impossible deadlines and desperately avoid racking up demerits. She wished she'd be allowed to wear a sports bra, not for the coverage -- though, that too -- but for the support; she knew her C's would be moving almost independently and with their own agenda.

Sarah put on her brave face, smiled at them, and padded in their direction.

"Yowza!" the taller of the two exclaimed, and chuckled out loud.

Sarah decided to take the comment for what was -- a compliment, in its way, on her body. She gritted her teeth, willed them to let her pass without further conversation, and stayed focused on the door to Barrow's office.

After she was by them, she heard one say to the other, "She's the PhD, right? She's not one of ours?"

There was a laugh. And then, "She's ours now."

Though Mrs. Lowrie told her to go right back into Barrow's office, Sarah still knocked politely as she opened the door. Barrow and Gillian were still talking, but both looked up at her as she entered. Gillian, apparently, had made herself useful, and had taken it upon herself to fold Sarah's clothes neatly and place them on the corner of Barrow's desk. Blazer, skirt, and blouse, with the white lace bra stacked on top, and her sandals off to one side.

Barrow interrupted Gillian with the "one minute" finger, and directed his attention to Sarah. "I'm going to have keep your underwear on for a little while longer, so that you can have a seat and chat with us."

He meant it as a reprieve. Or, at least, he meant for Sarah to take it as a reprieve. Once her panties were off, she wouldn't be allowed to sit back down -- the company claimed "sanitary" reasons in preventing mailgirls such basic comforts as chairs, even. Sarah, honestly, just wanted to get on with it, to take off her panties and become a mailgirl in earnest. But she did as she was told, and settled into the chair beside Gillian where her clothes had been before.

"Jewelry needs to come off, though," Barrow add.

Now seated, Sarah took out her earrings. She deposited them, along with her rings and her necklace, in a pile next to her clothes.

As she did so, Barrow slid a stack of papers across to her, a stack of papers Sarah recognized as her contract. She'd already signed it once, but Barrow was asking her to initial it once more, and to affix an inky thumbprint upon the last page.

"No changes, no edits," Barrow promised, holding up his right hand. "Scout's honor."

Sarah knew better than to trust him. As much as Gillian might have vouched for him, Barrow was still USF's representative on the mailgirls initiative, and her research had taught her to be suspect of anything a company asked her to sign. She'd been though the contract dozens of times by that point. There were bits that were concerning, but none of the possible dirty tricks and legal loopholes could have been as bad as the things that were spelled out explicitly. She scanned the document quickly - quicker than she probably should have, if she were being honest with herself -- speed-reading through each page to make sure that the contract before her now was the same one she'd handed over to Gillian during their office hours a few weeks back. She scribbled "SJS" in each corner as she progressed through, but wondered if she should have perhaps been scrawling a number "13" instead, to signify her surrender to what she'd become.

As Sarah was re-checking her contract, Barrow and Gillian continued to talk. Only now, Barrow began to include Sarah herself in the conversation.

"Just so that we're all on the same page, are we telling the other mailgirls what you're doing here?"

Sarah looked up from the contract, shared a look with Gillian, and nodded. "Yes," she said aloud. The matter had been of some debate between the student and the professor. Gillian had wanted a cover story -- Sarah was a new hire. Sarah was a transfer from another office. Sarah was coming on board as a "loaner" from another company currently in the exploratory stages of launching a similar program.

Sarah hadn't felt comfortable with any of it. She didn't want to lie to the other girls. Yes, they were the subjects of her research. And, yes, she'd tell them that they were subjects of her research. She hoped that joining them in the nude would soften that revelation, and demonstrate that she herself was willing to experience their experiences first-hand.

"Good," Barrow replied. "There's no reason to hold back from our girls. If I were to embed a reporter, or a reality TV star, or an academic, well...that's my decision. They don't get a say. I'll make clear that they are to cooperate with your research."

Sarah winced. "If it's alright, can I be the one to tell them? I'd rather be upfront and honest, myself, and work to gain their trust. If talking to me is going to be compulsory, or if they see it as a dictate from the company, it may affect what they're willing to share."

Barrow took the pushback in stride. He probably wasn't used to hearing mailgirls tell him "no," but then Sarah wasn't yet a mailgirl.

"I'd agree," Gillian supported her. "We'll be sharing Sarah's research with you as we go. She and I will be speaking weekly, on Sunday afternoons, for the next thirteen weeks. For our purposes, getting the girls to open up to Sarah is critical. For yours, too, I suspect. She'll be able to provide insight and feedback that you're not going to get from data alone, or from your mailgirls' 'supervisor' down on the 2nd Floor."

It made Sarah feel like she was spying on the girls, reporting back on their conversations to Human Capital. She knew that they'd likely be suspicious of her. She'd be suspicious of her, too. But Sarah intended that anything the girls offered to her would be kept anonymous. The trick would be getting the girls themselves to believe that.

"Fair enough," Barrow agreed. "How are you feeling about all this?"

How did she feel? How did she feel?!! He was fucking with her again. She knew it. How was she supposed to answer that question? What did he want from her? She was submitting herself to USF, in body and soul. She was surrendering her modesty, her dignity, and even her very name. There were only a handful of people who'd ever seen Sarah Scott naked -- just four men, in fact, and rarely in the full light of day, or out of the bedroom. By seven o'clock that night, when she'd be allowed to go back to her apartment, that number would have risen exponentially. She could expect to be put down, belittled, treated like a whore. She'd be reduced to nothing more than a mindless bimbo, tits bouncing this way and that as she raced to complete menial tasks under tight supervision. She'd be spanked -- spanked! -- if she came up short anywhere. She'd been betrayed by her advisor and "sold" to USF, her honor and her self-respect sacrificed in exchange for a paper. How did she feel?

She squirmed a bit in her chair, feeling the scratchiness of the fabric against her bare buttocks.

"I'm nervous," she answered honestly. And then added, "But excited, too. About this opportunity."

It wasn't a lie. Despite herself, Sarah was excited. She'd always been a "good girl." She'd been in the band in high school. She'd lost her virginity embarrassingly late into college. At twenty-six, she could still count the men she'd been with on one hand. This -- this opportunity -- felt like some grand adventure, an exploration far outside of her comfort zone, a chance to do something that scared her. And so, as much as she dreaded what they day had in store for her, what Will Barrow had in store for her, she was excited by the idea that she was doing something that Sarah Jane Scott would never, ever, ever do.

Barrow grinned, the smile stretching from ear from ear.

"Mostly terrified, though," Sarah said. "I've read enough mailgirl material to know what to expect."

"Well, I promise that USF will look after you. We're two months in, and we're still getting our bearings. But ours is an upright and upstanding program, with zero tolerance for the sorts of bad actors and the worst abuses you might have read of elsewhere. I can't tell you that you won't be uncomfortable with some of what you're asked to do, but I can assure you that USF is a 'look-but-don't-touch' shop. You may hear things. You may get called names. But, you are a mailgirl, not a sex toy."

That Barrow had to reassure her of the distinction between the two was less than comforting, and had the opposite effect he'd been intending. Sarah wasn't a prostitute, per se, but she'd agreed to take off her clothes and show off her body in exchange for something she wanted.

"That's why we're here," Gillian responded. "With you in charge, Will, we know everything will above-board."

"Cards being on the table? We've had an incident or two. We had a member of the maintenance staff well, er, 'pleasuring himself' in front of one of the girls. He's been terminated. And I had to personally reprimand one of the senior executives for being a little too handsy. Nothing too over-the-top -- he'd patted a few of the girls on their backsides on their way out of his office. But we're not going to put up with that sort of behavior. There are too many eyes on us."

That Barrow was looking out for the girls only to stay on the right side of the public relations issue was perhaps not as comforting to Sarah as Barrow had hoped it would be. But his point was well-taken, all the same; USF had strict rules in place to keep the mailgirls from sliding into full-on sexual servitude. Having read accounts of less reputable programs requiring their mailgirls to "provide relief" to non-mailgirls when asked (that is, to provide oral sex), Sarah felt encouraged knowing that USF wouldn't be going down that particular path.

"Good to know," Sarah croaked. Her mouth was dry.

"Now -- again -- just so that you're aware, and just so that you're going in with eyes wide open, know that we've granted Mistress Zero some leeway in this regard. She'll be in charge of your morning inspections..."

"We saw," Gillian interrupted. "This morning."

"...she needs to be a little more 'hands-on' than we'd allow anyone else. Myself included. She's responsible for making sure grooming habits are up to the standards we've set, and she's been tasked with maintaining the discipline of our mailgirl staff. You won't enjoy it." He paused. "Or maybe you will? But Mistress Zero's job is to make sure you're performing yours with dedication and enthusiasm."

Sarah had witnessed the way Mistress Zero had been "hands-on" with the girls that morning. She wasn't looking forward to it.

"Now, without her here, some of her normal duties during these sorts of meetings fall to me," Barrow went on. "Have you finished with the contract?"

Sarah nodded. "I have. It looks the same. By-the-book."

"Good." He pushed an ink-pad in her direction, and Sarah inked her thumbprint on the final page. She was handed a tissue to wipe it off, but she'd probably need to wash her hands to get it all off completely.

"Now," he said, taking the contract back and slipping it into a pink-colored folder, "a few more ground rules. All of this, I'm sure you're heard before. I'm sure you've read it in the contract. I'm sure you've seen it in the handbook. But Mistress Zero runs a tight ship, and she'd be upset with me if we didn't go through a few of the basics."

"Okay."

"'Yes, sir,'" Barrow corrected her.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. A mailgirl will be respectful. She will refer to all other members of the staff as 'Sir' or 'Ma'am,' maintaining her respect and position as the lowest in the company hierarchy." He was quoting directly from the handbook.

"Yes, sir."

"A mailgirl is not to refer to her betters by their given name. If permission is granted, she is allowed to utilize the appropriate and preferred honorific."

"Yes, sir."

"'Yes, Mr. Barrow.'"

"Yes, Mr. Barrow."

"A mailgirl is not allowed eye contact unless authorized by a superior."

"Yes, Mr. Barrow." She found a spot on Barrow's desk, and focused on it.

"A mailgirl is to be polite, respectful, humble, and thankful for any activity imparted upon her by her superiors. She follows all commands as issued, so long as those commands are themselves compliant with restrictions set out by Human Capital."

"Yes, Mr. Barrow."

"A mailgirl is to be referred to only by her mailroom number."

"Yes, Mr. Barrow."

Barrow pantomimed the signs of the cross, and announced, "I dub thee Mailgirl Number Thirteen."

Thirteen, then. Sarah had been right. Or, rather, "Mailgirl Number Thirteen" had been right.

Honestly, it felt like a relief. Would she be Mailgirl Number Thirteen? Would she be Mailgirl Number Eighteen? Would she be issued some sort of other designation, given her short contract and outsider's status? That matter was settled. And, with that matter being settled, it freed Sarah Scott of the weight of being Sarah Scott; from this point forward, she was just a number. She was just another mailgirl. She was only Mailgirl Thirteen.

"Practice for me," Barrow went on. "Sir, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room number.'"

Mailgirl Number Thirteen echoed it back. "Sir, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room number."

He repeated it. "'Sir, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room number.'"

"Sir, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room number."

Again. "'Sir, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room number.'"

"Sir, per Human Capital, I am to be called by my mail room number."

"Good," Barrow relented. "Or, good enough for now."

Thirteen, who'd walked into Barrow's office as Sarah Scott, felt like she was being inducted into the army. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Or was it a cult? The call-and-repeat. The mindless, deferential chanting of, "per Human Capital, I am to be called..."

"Alright. Let's have you stand, up into 'Feet' position. You can keep your underwear on for now -- just don't tell Mistress Zero."

Again, it seemed to Thirteen that Barrow was trying to get her believe that this thoughtful on his part, that this was an allowance he was granting her. Again, though, Thirteen would have been willing at this point to part ways with her thong and just be done with it. It provided little cover, and she'd already flashed her pussy at him before she'd been sent down the hall to the bathroom. That they were conspiring together, apparently against Mistress Zero, felt wrong. And, if anything, Barrow's permission to keep it on only underlined the lack of choice Thirteen had in the matter.

Thirteen, though, dutifully rose from her chair. She took a step to her right, then a step back to give herself more space, and got into position. She stood flat on the floor, Barrow's rug beneath her bare feet. She parted her legs just so. She put her arms behind her back, clutching her left wrist in her right hand. She bowed her head submissively, and stared vacantly at the ground.