Mailgirls Down Under Pt. 01

But 'like that' was what everyone had seen in videos and photographs and interviews on the net. And it seemed that everyone Mitch knew had seen the videos. The American mailgirls' morning change room routine was on public display to anyone who was in the foyer at the time. The photos and videos of mailgirls assuming their resting position on their knees with their straight backs and spread legs showing everything off seemed to be everywhere.

***

And Mitch was copping it at home.

"Are you going to be staring at naked women all day at work?" Jessica demanded.

Mitch smiled at her, recalling some of their early days hi-jinks and wondering whether mentioning those would be a good or bad idea. But he couldn't control a boyish smile at his wife.

That did not seem to help her mood, as she seemed to read his thoughts. "Don't think you are going to get me onside with this by recounting what you and I used to get up to. This is totally different."

Mitch gave her his big boyish look. "There's nothing I can do about it, Jessica," he mock complained. "We've been forced to by head office."

"And if head office told you to make components for nuclear war?" his wife taunted.

Mitch gave her that look. "Oh," she said.

"It's that or get another job," he reminded her, gesturing vaguely at the palatial home they occupied.

Looking for a safe retreat, his wife conceded. "I just don't want the girls getting in this discussion." Mitch nodded. As if.

"Will they be home for dinner?" Mitch asked her.

Jessica shrugged. "You know as much as I do."

Cara got back from Uni just as Jessica was dishing up.

"Where's Emily?" Jessica asked her daughter. Maybe because they were twins, they had chosen different courses and kept separate hours. So Cara's response was unsurprising.

"Dunno."

The meal was on the table and they were digging in when Cara looked to her father and made sure that they had eye contact. "How's the mailgirls thing going?" she asked.

"Your mother doesn't want me to discuss it with you," Mitch replied.

"Well," Cara came back, "everyone else is discussing it, so I thought I'd get the right story from the person responsible."

Mitch laughed. "I don't want to know what you know," he tried.

What sort of girl would do that?" Cara wondered.

"I don't really know," Mitch admitted. Because he hadn't thought about it since they were nowhere near recruiting yet.

"They would have to be athletic, good looking and shameless," Cara continued.

"Do we really have to have this conversation?" Jessica asked her daughter.

"Why not?" Cara responded. "It looks like dad could do with some assistance." She turned to her mother for the eye contact with her. "Are you okay with it?" Cara demanded of her.

"I don't think that's a fair question, Cara," her mother responded.

But Cara did not seem to notice her mother's tone. "Women naked on their knees in the middle of offices. It's available on videos, it's all over the internet. Everyone knows what a mailgirl is. Running around the offices trying to meet impossible deadlines so they don't get punished. And ex-mailgirls alleging that they were virtually slaves to their companies, that they had to just about make jailbreaks to get away and get their lives back to normal. And now, thanks to Dad it's coming to Australia."

She looked back to her father. "I'm going to ask you the question that mum wants to but I'll bet she hasn't asked. Would you let your daughters do it?"

Jessica interrupted her daughter. "You're smart and you're getting an education."

That did not put off Cara. "Mum, they've got girls with MBAs running around naked in the US office. They boast about it on their website."

Jessica looked over to Mitchell. "Is that true?" she queried.

Mitch tried to parry. "It's going to be different here.

"Dad," Cara complained.

Again Jessica intervened. "Cara, trust your father. Give him a chance on this, okay? Let's keep it all at the office for a while and keep it out of our home, all right?" Jessica held her stare.

Cara noted her mother's view and nodded, although clearly she still held some reservations.

But her mother had not quite finished. "And before you get ideas, I don't completely support the idea either. But..." She looked sternly at her husband who gave her a weak smile back. "All right?" Jessica pressed her daughter.

Cara shrugged. "All right."

***

Later on, Cara heard her sister come home and go into her room, she thought she ought to catch up with her. She went into her sister's room without knocking, as usual, and found Emily spread out on her back on her bed feigning exhaustion.

"Where have you been?" Cara asked her, with mocking concern.

"Celebrating. We scored one against the patriarchy," her sister stated like she had been at the barricades and lucky to get out of a sticky situation intact. Cara considered her sister's state again. Then she noticed that Emily had her phone strapped to her arm.

Cara came up close and pointed. "Em, why did you do that?" she asked. "You haven't started exercising have you?"

Emily sighed. "I was part of a protest against the misogynist creeps who are introducing mailgirls to Australia."

Cara took her gently by the arm and looked deeply into her sister's eyes. "You do realise that dad is the boss of that company?"

Emily looked genuinely surprised. "What, really?" she asked.

Cara shook her head. "FMD," she declared.

Emily missed that. "You should have been at the protest. Do you have any idea what a turn on it is to be naked in public?" she gushed.

Cara looked aghast at her sister's complete nonchalance. "Double FMD!" Now she was worried. "Were there photos? Was there a video?"

Emily smiled. "Of course there is. Want to see it?" She took the phone off her arm and did what she needed to cue up the video. She patted the bed next to her, insisting that her sister sit and watch.

Cara worriedly obeyed and looked over. The video started with Emily already naked and kneeling on a floor. There were others around, that was clear. "I'm glad we're not identical, sis," Cara observed. "But I must say that you scrub up pretty well." Cara concentrated on the images on the phone. "So you are in the middle of the Uni caf. I can only see you in the shot. How many of you are there?"

Emily smiled. "One."

Cara laughed. "That's what it looks like. You. Just you naked with your legs spread and surrounded by a couple of dozen of what, supporters? Pervs?"

"But two other girls joined in later. Look at the next video."

Cara waited for Emily to start the next one. "Okay, there they are. Nice tits."

Emily ignored that. "And plenty of others strapped their phones to their arms in solidarity."

Cara shook her head. "True martyrs to the cause," she noted dryly. She looked hard at her sister. "It would be better if dad and mum don't know about this." Her sister nodded, but clearly only to be agreeable to her twin. Cara could only worry what further demonstrations were planned, whether her sister would make the news and if anyone else would make the connection with her father. She did not dare yet ask her sister any of that. She would have to think if there was a way to stop Emily continuing.

***

Shane had made a breakthrough. The IT company on levels three and four was capable of providing and maintaining the comms for the mailgirls' pagers. Mitch had some real fun wrapping the employees of BAD Solutions up in contractual red tape that would silence them and keep them from divulging anything to the outside world about what went on with the mailgirls, under threat of certain destruction and bankruptcy. There was one concession that Mitch made to them however. Floors three and four would be part of the mailgirls program. This was predicated around the need for the IT people there to have access to the hardware and software when their assistance was needed. But it was an easy way to clear the passage up and down the stairs between the gym and the Harada Industries offices. One problem solved.

The gym was visible from four of the upper storeys above it. Due to a lucky quirk, its windows opened onto the back of the foyer. So the mailgirls would not be visible to people coming into the foyer from the street. You would have to make your way past the security desk and through the lift area to be able to get any view of the mailgirls in what would be their change room. The five floors above the mezzanine could witness the mailgirls getting ready in the mornings, those floors being the two levels of BAD Solutions and the three lower floors of Harada Industries. Shane and Mitch discussed how they were glad that there was little chance of paparazzi style photos of their mailgirls being snapped by unauthorised intruders, and they should not have to worry about the tenants on the higher floors. Visitors to BAD Solutions could be a problem and one that they would deal with. But like all problems that was one that they were sure they could solve. Probably with non-disclosure agreements and more threats to BAD Solutions. So that was solved.

Eventually Mitch engaged with the government officials. To his surprise the government was mostly concerned with the mailgirls' employment rights and not interested in their lack of clothes. He agreed to a meeting with a pair of government officials who emphasised that any women who agreed to be mailgirls would have fair contracts with proper pay and clear conditions. So the next step was to work out those.

***

Mitch and Shane were waiting in Mitch's office for the union rep to appear.

"I bloody hate unions," Shane blustered.

Mitch stopped him. "I know how you feel. But we have no choice if this thing is going to happen."

"And what will happen when Mr Harada finds out we have a union in the office. You know what he thinks."

"Yes, the same as you. But I'll tell him what I told you, we do not have any other choice." And Mitch raised his hand to Shane to warn him that their venting time was over. Because he could see Betty Cuthbert escorting a thin, confident looking young woman to his door. She was dressed professionally, Mitch realised, in a dark jacket, a white blouse and matching dark slacks. Was he expecting her to turn up in a boiler suit or dirty overalls or something? Betty gestured with a smile for her to go in to meet Mitch and Shane who went to the doorway. Introductions were made while they were still standing there.

"I'm Marjorie Jackson," the visitor announced as she reached out and gave them both a firm handshake. "Everyone calls me Jackson," she added.

Mitch looked over to Betty but she gave him a sneer and closed the door, returning to her desk outside the meeting. Mitch invited the others to sit down.

"We didn't want the union involved," Mitch started, "but the Fair Work Commission insisted that we draft an agreement that they could accept, and no law firm would touch it and our own in-house lawyers begged off, saying that they didn't have the expertise. So we had to turn to you. We were advised to contact you by the government."

Jackson smiled and folded her arms. "Because we cover massage parlour workers?" she challenged.

Mitch shrugged. "Maybe, I guess. The government people told me that if the lawyers wouldn't do it to call you."

"And the lawyers wouldn't do it?"

Mitch smiled at that "We went to left wing firms thinking that they would want to protect vulnerable workers but they said that they have principles. So we went to some right wing lawyers thinking that they would take a libertarian stance and look after anyone's right to do anything that they wanted, but they said that they had principles too. If you ask me, both sides were just scared of what their clients would think of them. So that's why you're here."

Jackson smiled. "What a great time for lawyers to find their principles."

"Indeed," Mitch agreed. Shane smiled too. They seemed to have started on the same side.

Jackson adopted a more serious pose. "Do you think that I don't have principles?"

Mitch shook his head. "On the contrary. I assume that you are driven from your experience looking after the interests of marginalised workers to do an honest job here so the workers we are talking about are best protected." Why was no one using the vital eight letter word, he wondered.

Jackson smiled at that. "Nice words, very flattering. So I help you and you get your government sign off. Yet some quick research tells me that you do not usually let unions anywhere near your workers."

Shane spoke up. "Because they are not downtrodden."

Jackson gave him a knowing smile. "Well I guess we'll find out about that." She paused. It was time to begin. "Tell me what are your attitudes to mailgirls?"

Mitch took that head-on. "I saw one briefly when I was visiting the US office. I think that they are a distraction and I'll be honest, I think this is a personal foible of Mr Harada for his own gratification. Personally, it's not my choice." He let that hang, the implication that he had been saddled with mailgirls, whether he wanted them or not.

"The controversy and the degradation of women is just a lucky side effect?"

Mitch nodded. "Something like that. But you know all the counter arguments. The women are well paid, they know what they are getting themselves into and it can be brief time for them that allows them to fast track their way up the hierarchy in a way that is not open to men with similar abilities."

Jackson picked up his tone. "You don't sound convinced," she noted.

Mitch smiled out his concerns. "I'm not. My wife and daughters are not completely behind me on this."

"But here we are."

Mitch sighed and stated the obvious. "I have been instructed to introduce the program here. Mr Harada has decided we are getting mailgirls, and he is following my progress closely. I have to deliver this. But I want to do it in the best possible way. Which is why you are here."

"But I am a last resort?"

"Pretty much so. The people from the government have no template for this. Except to emphasise that we have to look after the rights of all our workers. So there's an opportunity for you."

Shane burst out. "We're not used to dealing with unions. We thought you would be opposed to it from the start, take a radical feminist view that the whole thing was bad and you'd fight us all the way to ensure that it didn't happen."

It was Jackson's turn to sigh. "I'll be honest, I didn't support the idea when I was told to come here and see if I could help you to implement this mad idea, but if you are really prepared to be reasonable and deal fairly, I am committed to helping to try to come up with something that can work."

The temperature of the room fell, as they started to sketch out how the program would work.

***

Mitch realised that he was sizing up all the young women he saw -- in the office, in the street, at bars and restaurants -- as potential mailgirls, imagining them naked and kneeling in his office, waiting for him to give them a message or an item to deliver to someone else in the building. He knew that it was not healthy. But what could he do?

Mitch watched as Jackson strode confidently up to Betty Cuthbert's desk and said hello to her, looking past her to see if he was free yet. "Good morning Marjorie," Betty greeted her with some warmth. Mitch waved her into his office.

"Good morning Jackson," he chimed in as she entered, heading to her usual seat at the small round table where they worked. "Belinda should be here soon."

This woman, this thin attractive sassy union rep who was half his age was soon nonchalantly bossing him around in his own office because it was obvious to both of them that she knew much more on the matter at hand, how to draft an acceptable contract for the mailgirls, than he did. Even so, Mitch found himself wondering what Jackson would look like as a mailgirl, naked, thin and pale and slinky, easing her taut narrow buttocks between the desks outside his office on her way to meet her delivery deadlines. He looked at her hoping that she could not read his face or his mind. Shane with Belinda Clark, the head of HR, soon joined them. Mitch had to concentrate harder or he would miss, in his reverie, what Jackson was saying. But there they were, her perky breasts under her blouse and blazer. All he had to do was make her a mailgirl so that he could see her breasts and her buttocks and everything else. So that he could see them. He gave himself a mental slap. This is what he had become.

Jackson was explaining the tribunal again, as she had developed the concept further. The tribunal was to be three of the mailgirls who would deal with matters they did not like. Which included inappropriate attention from other staff. Belinda Clark was taking notes and seemed to be considering all the details. She had been pressing Jackson on where the tribunal ended and normal HR processes started and there had been quite an email exchange between them. This was Jackson's chance to try to bed down the details. She was riffing on the finer points on where the line would be. Mitch waited for Jackson to finish and for Belinda to finish typing into her Ipad before he spoke up.

"We need someone who knows how the tribunal should work, how it integrates into the team and who can make sure that it doesn't get carried away with its power."

Jackson sat up straight and teasingly licked the top of her pen, then rolled it along her lips. Shane looked at Mitch and then looked back at her with his mouth open, showing how Mitch felt although Mitch knew to control his own face.

"Someone like?" she smiled. "You're talking about their supervisor?"

This was a role that they were also trying to bed down. Belinda wanted to keep HR at arms distance from the mailgirls and had suggested they employ a fulltime supervisor. Shane had confirmed to Mitch that Mr Harada was in favour of that role and was funding it, probably because he imagined someone in the role like Mrs Ogawa. Given the way that the contracts were looking, the supervisor was more likely to be somewhere between a mentor and social worker with no scope for corporal punishment. Mitch looked at Jackson, sitting there so self assured.

"Yes," he agreed, "their supervisor."

Jackson seemed to be reflecting on that.

***

Cara looked in on Emily in her bedroom. It was one of the things that the twins had always done, walked into each other's bedroom without knocking or warning when they wanted to chat. She found Emily poised on her knees on the floor and naked. And inspecting herself in the mirror, thrusting her hips forward with her knees apart. Her phone was strapped to her arm.

"What are you doing?" Cara asked, although it was pretty obvious.

"Practising. You should too," Emily replied without taking her eyes away from the mirror. She rolled her shoulders back to see if that was an improvement.

"Not my thing," Cara replied, although she did wonder why that was the case. And then she pondered, was everyone going mailgirl crazy like this? She looked closer at her sister. Were there hundreds of women in Melbourne practising like this at that moment? So many articles in the news, so much on social about it. Cara looked again. "Back has to be straighter," she barked. "Legs further apart." She had seen the videos of course and she knew the position. But why had she been so harsh to her sister? And why did her sister instantly obey?

Cara walked slowly around her poised naked sister, nudged her knees with the toe of her shoe to make her spread wider and poking her back to make her stance just that little straighter, with her breasts forward just that little bit more. Cara felt a sensation that she could not quite describe although she knew it was tied to a sense of control over her sister. It felt good. She looked hard at her sister. "You've got the body to be a mailgirl," she told her. But did she have everything else that it required?