Mailgirls on the Run Pt. 13

Out onto the third floor, then to the corridor leading back to Human Capital. Twenty-two gestured to the frames hanging on the walls to either side. "Our current roster. Whatever you have under your dress will be up there tomorrow morning. That's the only reason you were allowed panties on the flight here."

Misty had been growing visibly more nervous with each step forward, she started to shake when she looked up and saw the array of framed underwear. She hadn't understood why the trainer at the DDE Mailgirl Education Center had taken personal interest in what clothing she had picked out for the journey to her new employer. They said the rest of her stuff would be packed up and shipped to Washington. She stopped, not sure whether she could go through with this.

Twenty-two looked down at the clothed woman standing beside her. "Look, I'm not going to tell you it's going to be okay. I've been a mailgirl for more than a year and it won't be okay unless your okay encompasses non-stop degradation, eating dog food out of a bowl on the floor, being beaten for too many demerits or any other transgression Human Capital dreams up. Then there's being naked 24/7, confined to this one building, sleeping in a hole in the wall, having your entire life regimented by a bunch of misogynistic bastards. But it's only two years of your life and you will survive. After Human Capital will be the Med Center where you'll be examined by Nurse Allen, once Mailgirl One. There will be life after the next two years."

Misty took a deep breath and started forward. Twenty-two reflexively lowered her eyes as they approached Miss Bradley's desk. The Admin waved them into Ms Barnes' office, "You too, Twenty-two."

They entered to see Ms Barnes sitting behind her desk and Mistress V standing to the side.

"Just a moment if you please Ms Greene. Twenty-two, across my desk."

Twenty-two stepped forward and bent down across the large shining desk pressing her breasts into the surface. Ms Barnes grasped her wrists.

"Has she behaved herself while escorting you this morning, Ms Greene."

Misty nodded, too nervous to speak.

"That's good. Just three then."

Mistress V raised her crop and lashed down onto the mailgirl's bare buttocks. One, two, three left three neat parallel lines across her cheeks.

Twenty-two didn't move until Ms Barnes spoke, "Into the corner with you" and released her wrists.

Twenty-two rose slowly, pivoted, and walked into the corner of the office, nose pressed into the wall, hands clasped behind her head. She had not made a sound since entering the office.

"Twenty-two often has a problem with the basic tenet of mailgirl service which is do to exactly what you're told and nothing else. I find that giving her a reminder every time we cross paths to be helpful. Now, would you like to sign your contract?" and she placed the thick sheaf of paper last seen in Legal Services along with a pen on the desk in front of Misty.

Misty gulped. She had undergone four weeks of training leading up to this moment, but still....

She stepped forward, flipped to the last page and signed her name and her clothes and her freedom and most of her rights away for the next two years.

"Strip."

The new mailgirl pulled the simple cotton sundress over her head and carefully folded it, placing the cloth onto the corner of the desk. She stepped out of her sandals and place them on top. She reached behind her back and unhooked her bra which dropped down to reveal a pair of large soft breasts jutting forward, sure to please the mammary obsessed members of SG&T's executive suite. Twenty-two, nose to the wall, could see none of this, but she remembered the whole excruciating ordeal vividly. She expected that it got easier in time at those firms where mailgirls commuted to work and disrobed in the locker room every morning.

Misty, no, Mailgirl Thirteen, hooked her thumbs into the sides of her delicate, peach satin panties and drew them down her legs.

"Hand those to Mistress V. I'm sure that Mailgirl Twenty-two pointed out the frames on the walls as you entered."

Thirteen turned and handed the scrap of satin to the terrifying figure on her left.

"Knees."

Thirteen responded instantly -- that had been beaten into her during the four weeks.

"For the next two years, you respond only to Mailgirl Thirteen or just Thirteen. You will deferentially correct any one who directly addresses you differently. Your primary duty is to carry out any orders given to you by any SG&T employee or conveyed to you via your Mailgirl Management Unit. Mistress V will fit you with your MMU when you report to the Mailgirl Locker Room. You do not converse with any other employee or visitor and there is to be no physical contact between you and anyone else. Your MMU has a panic button in the event that you are physically threatened. In the three years that SG&T has had a Mailgirl Program that button has been pressed only in testing. Our employees know what their limits are and keep their interactions with mailgirls within those limits."

Mistress V walked over and locked the dull silver collar with an ID tag reading just "13" around the new mailgirl's neck.

"Mailgirl Twenty-two will now escort you to the Medical Center for your last stop before you report to Mistress V. Dismissed."

The duo exited Human Capital silently, Twenty-two leading the way back to the stairway.

"You'll also need to visit Security to get your ID made. We don't actually carry the ID, our collar is our ID, but they'll take your photo and produce a photo ID to hang over your sleeping niche. It's also the photo that goes in your panties frame on the wall in Human Capital.

"The check-up at the Med Center will be pretty cursory, they'll have all your medical info from DDE. But this will introduce you to Nurse Allen, she used to be Mailgirl One. Four of the original six mailgirls still work here: Nurse Allen, my sister, Mailgirl Six, and the former Mailgirl Three who is Mr Soame's secretary and mistress. Of the next group Nine and Ten signed up for another two years and Twelve went off to the San Francisco office."

After the Med Center Twenty-two led the new mailgirl down the back stairs and into the Mailgirl Locker Room. Mistress V was waiting for them and sent Twenty-two back upstairs to release Fifteen.

Megan got a request from Mr Fforde for a meeting in his office and idly agreed wondering why he just didn't message her to say that he would take Maria to the train station. After walking up to the fifth floor Mrs Grimes waved her back to his office.

"Yes, of course you can take Maria to the train station, that will get it off my plate."

"No, I was going to talk to you about your friends in high places. You may survive this mailgirl racing lark after all."

"What friends in high places? Mr Bratz likes my work and Mr Dawlish surprised me by praising me to his Japanese visitors last month, but Ms Barnes and I clash and then there's Ms Aldridge."

"I wouldn't worry about Barnes and Aldridge as you have a firm champion in Maria's mother. Besides her seat on the Board, she can control Mr Soames by way of his wife. Still, I was thinking of your new friend Charlotte."

"Charlotte? She's a Special Assistant reporting directly to her cousin Ben. How important is he?"

"Ben Albertson is the CEO of SG&T."

"Oh."

"What do you know about the ownership structure of SG&T?"

"I've read the potted history that the bank advertises. It was founded by three men pre-Civil War focusing on financing new ventures in the West. Those three families still own the bank, though what six, eight generations later that's a lot more than three people."

"Not as many as you might think since there was considerable intermarriage between the three families and it took the better part of a century for women to be eligible to inherit. Ben is a direct descendant as is Charlotte who actually is a larger shareholder than her cousin being an only child. She can't vote her shares until she's thirty, but she has influence.

"After grad school she was a management trainee in San Francisco. About three years ago they formed a committee to study restructuring their operations and Charlotte was a junior member of that body, more as a sop to her ownership stake than anything else. My contacts there tell me she essentially took over that effort through a torrent of ideas and sheer force of personality. The senior execs never knew what hit them. There was considerable relief among the upper management there when she got married and then followed her husband to England. Now she's her cousin's gun for hire, so to speak. I'm sure she'll review the mailgirl program."

"I haven't seen any sign of her throwing her weight around and she appears to be accepting of mailgirls. She was interested in meeting Maria on her return Friday."

"Well, it's good for you if she's in your corner. And by the way, the new Mailgirl Thirteen was a high school track star, dropped out after her first year of college. You might want to speak to her."

Megan resolved to send for Fifteen who would have the new mailgirl in tow when she got back to her desk. However, that was preempted by the alert on her system concerning Mailgirl Four who had an accident and was currently in the Medical Center. She strode down to the first floor to check on Four.

Susan, Nurse Allen, met her at the door, "I presume you're here to check on Mailgirl Four?"

"Yes, what happened, how is she?"

"She missed a step while sprinting down the stairs to make a rush delivery and broke her ankle. I did what I could, but it needs setting and casting. Security transported her to the County Hospital; she won't be racing in two weeks. I'll stay until she returns and get her settled in for the night."

"I'll check back in the morning. I know she won't be running, but Ms Barnes can't rush her back into service."

"Don't worry, Human Capital has to give way to my judgment in these cases. At most she can kick it up for the doctor on call to review. Fortunately for her, Four is a salaried employee so she'll still get paid while she's laid up."

"Fourteen and Twenty-three are the only hourly mailgirls on the running team. I'll have to check on the new Thirteen, Mr Fforde tells me that she ran."

"Thirteen doesn't have the build I associate with a runner, you'll have to find out."

Back at her desk, Megan decided to put off talking to Thirteen until tomorrow. She could pair up with Fifteen on the treadmill in training this week.

Twenty-two was kneeling on a mat outside of Real Estate wondering when she would be sent to dinner when her MMU pinged with a message. She brought it up and read the weekly running schedule: Three and Twenty-three on the treadmill at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Thirteen and Fifteen Wednesday, Twelve with her Thursday, 8k run Saturday at 7:30 a.m. Apparently Megan had heard about Four's accident. In a more normal employee-employer relationship such an accident might have major repercussions, office work wasn't supposed to be dangerous. She'd fallen on those stairs just once, but managed to grab the railing to break her fall. After that she saved her stair sprinting for going up.

Megan waited until after she finished cleaning up from dinner before calling Sarah. "Happy Fiscal New Year."

"And my first day at work. It was all either boring administrative stuff or stuff that I can't tell you or both. How goes life in the mailgirlverse?"

"The new Mailgirl Thirteen started today, Four broke her ankle, and Charlotte reports directly to the CEO. Mr Fforde tells me that I'm fortunate to have friends in high places."

"What happened to Four?"

"She was running down the back stairs. Nurse Allen sent her to the hospital to set the bone and predicted a cast. No Corporate Challenge for her. The new Thirteen ran track in high school; I haven't seen her yet and don't know whether she can replace Four on the team. I may need those friends in high places."

"Anything more on your television stardom?"

"I've been recording Fox 5 News at 10 every night and scanning it for the teaser for their special report. I haven't had a speaking role since the first night, but they show video of flashing legs every night and glimpses of me leading the way. So far, no explicit frontal nudity. I'm so looking forward to all of this being over."

"Just two more weeks and then you can start thinking about your future when Samantha finishes up her contract. Stay with SG&T, find a new job in the area, return to the Midwest, you have options. Hang in there. I'm planning on running the Corporate Challenge, no idea how strong the team here is; Sam says there is a solid core of civilians and some years some terrific runners among the military assigned here. If I'm a scoring runner we're not contenders."

"Two weeks."

Megan's first stop Tuesday morning was the Med Center where Susan told her Four was resting uncomfortably. "I told her that when she goes off the good meds and then the ankle starts itching inside the cast, then she can start complaining. I'll probably wheel her down to the Dorm tomorrow, but it will probably be a week before she can start working in the mail room and she'll be stuck in a chair for another week after that. She won't be able to make deliveries, even part-time, for at least a month."

Megan called Bob Starnes when she got to her desk, realizing that she should have talked to him yesterday. She wasn't the only one carrying the load.

"Yes, I heard. Why couldn't it have been Twelve or Fifteen, that's our marginal pair."

"Well, we're in better shape than I would have thought a month ago. Charlotte is a capable runner and the new Thirteen ran track in high school. I'll talk to her today. If she's at all promising we can have her run the 8k on Saturday and see if she's competitive. Ms Barnes won't be pleased."

"I'll let Jeremy know. He can sell Thirteen to the fifth floor if we need her."

Deciding that the sooner she worked through the mailgirl business the sooner she could get to real work Megan requested that Mailgirl Fifteen report to her. Some fifteen minutes later she could hear the stir in the office at the sighting of a new mailgirl and looked up to see the two women approaching. She reached across her desk and tapped Fifteen's MMU to acknowledge her arrival, noting that the pair had made it in time.

"Good morning, Fifteen, Thirteen."

"Good morning, Ms Brooks." Fifteen continued in an undertone to her trainee, "Employees are not to greet mailgirls, Ms Brooks can get away with it as she used to be a mailgirl." Then she addressed Megan, "Can I stay with you for the next week after I'm dismissed Friday?"

"Yes, of course."

"I've got a flight to Chicago Sunday afternoon to meet my new office and spend some time house-hunting. I fly back on Friday."

"Make sure you get in some light running in while you're there."

"Yes, thank you."

Megan looked at the new mailgirl, short, stocky, probably C to D cup breasts jutting out, wire rimmed glasses, shoulder length light brown hair. She wasn't the template of a distance runner, but Megan knew that looks could be deceiving. "I understand that you ran track."

Thirteen kept looking down, "Yes, ma'am. I was the state 1A champion in crosscountry and in the 1600 and 3200 in track my senior year. Then I finished second in the 3200 in the Meet of Champions and that got me a partial college scholarship. We never ran more than thirty miles a week in high school, we were doing more than twice that in college when I was diagnosed with a stress fracture which cost me my scholarship. "

"How is your leg now?"

"All healed, I had no problem keeping up in mailgirl training."

Fifteen interjected, "Mailgirls don't say 'I', speak of yourself as 'this mailgirl'; again, we can get away with it with Ms Brooks, but usually each 'I' is a demerit or worse."

Megan concluded, "You're both scheduled for a training session on the treadmill tomorrow, depending on how that goes you may be running 8k on Saturday."

On Thursday Megan ate lunch with Charlotte in the Executive Dining Room. It lacked the view of the courtyard provided by the Employee Dining Room, but did have two mailgirls crouched over their bowls of Mailgirl Chow in the middle of the room and table service with mailgirls serving as waitresses.

"This is the first time that I've sat at a table in this room. My only previous visits here were as a mailgirl. Staffing this room was the prime reason to expand to twenty-four mailgirls. What with mailgirls eating their own meals here and downstairs, serving as the waitstaff here, and likely a couple or more being punished in the courtyard, those available to deliver messages could be run ragged, if there was some big deal being worked across multiple departments.

"This room is also where the 'no touching' rule is most often violated. HR usually didn't show up for holiday parties, they didn't want to know. Ms Barnes was always ready to blame the mailgirl; I wound up in the courtyard for both objecting to being pawed and for wantonness. The mailgirl is always at fault."

Megan pointed at the two mailgirls on the floor. "Those are Mailgirls Thirteen and Fifteen. You may recognize Fifteen from our weekend runs. Tomorrow is Amanda's last day as a mailgirl and then after the race she's off to Chicago and an analyst's desk. She comes home with me on Friday. Thirteen, Misty Greene, just started Monday. She had a track scholarship to a D2 school. I need to get her a pair of shoes for the run Saturday so we can see what kind of shape she's in."

"Her feet aren't toughened up enough yet?"

"I doubt it. Ms Barnes will be pissed, but I need to find out if Misty can help us. We're going to run an 8k Saturday and I've recruited some of the women from the Roadrunners to provide competition."

"Anthony has no interest in running five miles, the Air Force only makes him run three so that's enough for him. He even balks at 5k. I still have contacts in San Francisco, I'm sure you could transfer to that office after the race, or after your sister finishes up her contract."

"I've never been to the West Coast, that might be something to think about. The former Mailgirl Twelve transferred there after her stint here."

"Think about it. Did I hear that SG&T is supplying uniforms for the race?"

"Yes, well tops. Powder blue with SG&T in gold across the chest. Bras in the same colors for the mailgirls; there's not a lot of fabric on those bras to attach the letters. We'll have to see how they look."

"I'm pushing off just after we finish eating. Hopefully, I'll beat the traffic on the Beltway. See you Saturday morning."