Confessions of a Mailgirl Ch. 12

"Hello Danica," she said. We waited in silence for a couple of minutes before Brianna sighed and said, "God I hate coming back here." Her old job before becoming a mailgirl had been here in the mailroom so I knew how she felt having to face her old co-workers now. Almost immediately after Barbara's meeting announcing the $10,000 bonus for every woman they successfully referred to the program, Rick Delaney had begun pressuring Brianna to become a mailgirl. He'd told her that the mailroom would soon become a part of the Mailgirls operation and she would become expendable. Brianna resisted for awhile but as a single mother of a young daughter she was worried about losing her job and finally ended up signing the two-year contract.

It hadn't taken long for Brianna to realize she'd made a big mistake. She found the job to be terribly humiliating and was one of the six girls who had tried to quit. After the company had gone after her to repay the bonus money and contract termination penalties she'd felt like she had no choice but to return. The irony of the whole thing was that Delaney had thought he was lying to her about the mailroom becoming a Mailgirls operation only to discover later that it was true and that he himself might soon be expendable.

"You know it's supposed to be random which girl is called here but I don't think it is," Brianna said. "I get called here all the time." It had to be tough on her to have to continually return to her old department to do the same job she used to do, but in the nude. "I think they do it to punish me for trying to quit. Do you think that if DDE loses that lawsuit then the judge will void all of our contracts?" she asked hopefully.

"I really don't know, Brianna," I told her. "These things can drag out for a long time though, so I wouldn't expect anything to happen soon."

Mariko had managed to get rid of up front bonus money and early contract termination penalties at Hiromoto Industries to prevent women from being trapped the way she had been and the way Brianna was now. The only reason for DDE to include these things is because Barbara wanted women to be trapped. Once again I was struck by how much power she seemed to wield within the company. Far more than her job title would suggest.

Brianna sighed. "Yeah, I'm probably here for the duration. You know I have to go to choir practice tonight right after my shift. How messed up is that to have to walk into my church right after doing this all day?"

"Who's taking care of your daughter?" I asked.

"The church has a daycare so I have to swing by there every day anyway. I feel like such an awful sinner every time I walk through those doors."

"Do the other church members know what you do for a job?"

"Yeah, they found out. I was afraid they'd kick me out of the church but they've been nothing but supportive. They know I'm doing what I have to do to support my daughter."

"You're up Twelve," Delaney shouted. Brianna flashed me a quick smile then rose to her feet to go to work. A couple of minutes later it was my turn.

"This cart's all south wing stuff, Nine," Delaney said as his eyes roamed over my body. I had to suppress a groan when I heard that knowing it meant an inevitable trip into Marketing.

Pushing a mailroom cart was one of the more embarrassing tasks for a mailgirl since it meant making stops at just about every department along the way to deliver letters and packages. Since it was impossible to come up with accurate deadlines for mail cart deliveries at least I wouldn't be on a timer. It did mean that just about everyone in the south wing would get a good look at me this morning, though.

As I made my rounds the reaction I got from the clothed office workers was fairly predictable. The threat of being fired for violating sexual harassment policies had been drilled into them to the point where I didn't have to worry about being groped or called a filthy slut or anything like that, but it hadn't taken long for most of them to adapt to their new roles as my superior. People were either embarrassed by my presence, acted in a condescending manner, or openly leered at my body. Whatever the case I was seldom treated as an equal or fellow co-worker. The nudity and the numbers inked onto my body served their purpose of separating me from them. The message it sent was that I wasn't one of them and never could be. I was an inferior, a lowly servant girl, and the submissive manner in which I was required to interact with them only helped to reinforce that.

My cart was nearly empty by the time I rolled up to the familiar doors leading into the Marketing department. It seemed like a lifetime ago now that I'd worked here. I'd been back here any number of times over the past couple of months but I still dreaded it. I opened one of the two double doors and backed the cart in.

My first stop was Sanjeev's office where I had a couple of letters and a package to deliver. "Ah, hello Nine," he said with a slightly embarrassed look on his face. He always looked like that whenever he saw me and I suspect it was because of the guilt he felt over the role he played in forcing Stephanie to become a mailgirl. I'd heard later that he'd only done it because his wife was expecting another child and he needed the money, but it was still a pretty scummy thing to do.

I placed the mail on his desk and was given a couple of items for the outgoing mail, then returned to my cart out in the corridor after being dismissed. "Hey, it's the prodigal mailgirl returning home," I heard Bill say as I wheeled the cart out onto the main floor. "And she's got mail!" He always had some smart ass remark to make whenever he saw me although he was clever enough not to ever let it cross over into sexual harassment territory. I didn't respond as I continued through the middle of my old department, the humiliation building as it always did when I came back here.

I only had one more delivery to make in the department and I rolled the cart over to Gary Turner's cubicle. "That guy is such a dick," Gary said to me as I set the brakes on the cart and began to retrieve his package. "Stephanie was here earlier this morning and Bill ordered an inspection on her right in the middle of the floor. Did it just to torment her." An inspection was probably the most humiliating thing that we mailgirls had to endure on a regular basis. It meant placing our hands behind our head with our legs spread and up on our toes as the person inspected every inch of our "uniform" to insure we were in compliance with company standards.

"Did Three pass the inspection, sir?" I asked already knowing the answer. The standards we were supposed to meet were completely arbitrary which meant there was always some reason that could be found for failing the inspection.

"Of course not," Gary replied. "He sent her back to the locker room to shower and reapply her makeup, then return for another inspection. At least he didn't give her any demerits. Sanjeev was pissed when he found out about it, though. He banned any more mailgirl inspections in the department." I was grateful to hear that, not only for my own sake but for Stephanie's. She was having a very hard time adjusting to being a mailgirl and crap like this only made it worse.

I placed the small package I was delivering onto Gary's desk then assumed the standing position. "Do you have any outgoing mail, sir?" He shook his head.

"How are you holding up anyway, Danica?"

"I'm doing fine sir but please refer to me as Nine." Of all of my old friends and colleagues he was the one who had been nicest to me since becoming a mailgirl and I didn't want him to get into trouble. Gary was a graphic designer and his long curly brown hair, sideburns, and John Lennon glasses made him look like a refugee from the Sixties.

"No, I refuse to do that. How about if I just don't call you by anything at all. That should keep us both out of trouble, right?"

"Yes sir," I replied with slight smile.

"You know, when you worked here I used to try to imagine what you looked like naked. Now that you actually are here naked I feel so damn guilty about looking at you because of how you're treated."

"It's my job to allow you to look at me, sir."

Gary shook his head. "Man, this mailgirls thing is so fucking crazy. You women are treated like slaves here. I just never imagined something like this would ever be allowed in a first world culture. Someday you'll have to tell me the full story about how you became a mailgirl because I know there's a lot more to it than you're letting on."

"Yes sir, I will," I promised.

Gary smiled at me. "I guess I better let you get back to work. Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor graphic designers shall keep the mailgirl from her appointed rounds."

I let out a laugh. "Thank you sir."

Moments of genuine human interaction like this where I was treated like a real person rather than a sex object or a servant were so rare in this job that it gave me a lift that lasted through the rest of the morning.

I'd finished delivering two full carts of mail and had just returned to the mailroom when my MMU indicated it was time for my lunch break. I hustled back to the locker room for my mandatory pre-lunch shower, then headed for the cafeteria to live out yet another of Barbara's daily torments that she'd created just for me.

After walking from the mailroom in the south wing to the locker room on the fifth floor of the north wing, taking my mandatory pre-lunch shower, then walking back to the cafeteria in the south wing, my 45 minute lunch break was down to less than twenty minutes. And by the time I got my food and knelt down on the Mailgirls mat in the middle of the room I had maybe fifteen minutes left before I was back on the clock. This was pretty typical. Too little of my lunch break actually involved a break.

Not that I really wanted to spend a long leisurely lunch here anyway. Being forced to eat my lunch naked on the cafeteria floor each day surrounded by clothed DDE employees had been part of Barbara's punishment for breaking one of her unspoken rules, one I was supposed to know even though she'd never specifically mentioned it before. I tried to block out the usual snickering, jokes, and condescending remarks as I began to eat. As a mailgirl I burned a lot of calories during a shift so I needed a good lunch.

"Got room down there for another naked girl?" I heard a voice say above me.

"Lin!" I said excitedly. "I'm so glad you're here!"

"Well that makes one of us then," she laughed.

Lin was completely nude except for the MMU strapped to her upper arm. She didn't have to wear it when she was working at her job as a programmer on the "Gangsta" floor but whenever she was in any other part of the complex it was required. The smart phone had her company ID on it which she needed for access to the rest of the building. It could also be used for making purchases here in the cafeteria which were deducted from her paycheck. It was the same way I bought meals here.

Lin was the only non-mailgirl in the DDE complex allowed to work naked, although "allowed" definitely wasn't the right word for it. She'd been forced to work nude by Barbara to punish me for my disobedience in bypassing the chain of command in trying to help her. I'm sure it was also intended as a demonstration to me of the power Barbara wielded within the company. She wanted me to know that she didn't need money or a binding contract to coerce someone into naked servitude. In this case Lin's intense desire to become a programmer provided all the motivation needed to allow Barbara to force her out of her clothes.

Lin was allowed to act as an equal within her own department but was required to be submissive and deferential to other employees whenever she was anywhere else in the complex. Although she had no numbers inked on her body and was never summoned for deliveries she had to act like a mailgirl to avoid confusing other employees who'd been trained to associate nudity with submissive servitude. Her role as a pseudo-mailgirl once she was off the Gangsta floor also allowed us to speak as equals while we lunched together.

"I saw you in the shower getting ready for lunch so I decided to sneak out and join you," Lin said as she knelt down and placed her tray beside mine. "Sorry I haven't been here to see you lately but it's crunch time to get the new DLC ready for release. I've been eating at my desk most of the time."

"That's okay, I don't blame you for not wanting to come here. I wouldn't come here either if I didn't have to." For the first couple of weeks after starting her job as a nude programmer Lin had met me here just about every day for lunch. She'd found out that the reality of working naked was much different than the fantasy of it so our lunches together had been important to help her get through it.

When Lin first appeared on the Gangsta floor as a naked programmer it had created quite a stir. No one there knew quite how to handle it, especially Ren and Stimpy who were both a little pissed off about Barbara doing it without consulting with them first. They were even more pissed off about it when they found out they wouldn't be getting bonuses since Lin wasn't a mailgirl. Although they had both wanted to see Lin as a naked mailgirl, having her dropped into the middle of their department like an undetonated bomb was something that neither of them had wanted.

DDE's north wing, which was where the company's game development took place, had always had the reputation of being more raucous and bawdy than the rest of the complex. Salty language, jokes, and insults were the norm and the Gangsta floor was the rowdiest of all. While the crew there loved the mailgirls they'd been warned over and over again about watching what they said around them to avoid any accusations of sexual harassment. That hadn't been too difficult since a mailgirl was usually only around for a brief time during a pickup or delivery. But having the beautiful Lin working alongside of them naked all day long was a totally different story.

To avoid any problems, Stimpy had assigned her a desk in a far corner of the room away from most of the other programmers and tossed her a few simple assignments to do. Lin had been "isolated to protect the herd," as she'd put it, and after about a week she marched into Stimpy's office to bitch about it. To placate her he'd decided to let her work on the Mailgirls mini-game with a couple of other junior programmers and a graphics artist they'd just hired from the mod community. The Mailgirls game wasn't exactly a high priority project as far as he was concerned so he didn't want to waste any experienced people on it.

"How's my game coming along?" I asked about the Mailgirls mini-game. After doing the modeling and motion capture for it I thought of it as "my game."

"Pretty good, considering Ren and Stimpy give us zero support or resources to work with. They think its a joke. They're just doing it to get you into the game and then see what the modders do with you." Lin then started rattling on about levels and NPC's and other things that I only had a vague idea what she was talking about. "You know that big crime building that's supposed to be the centerpiece of this new DLC? It turned out it really consists of only the exterior, the ground floor lobby and the office on the 14th floor that they use for a strategy game. That's it. We've had to create the floors for your mailgirl runs from scratch. Not every floor. We don't have time. And we've had to use a lot of stock art from other parts of the game to do it."

"So it's going to be pretty cheesy then?" I asked. I'm not sure why I wanted my game to be good, but I did.

"No, I don't think so. The gameplay will be relatively simple but it should be kind of fun. You're just delivering packages to different floors against the clock and trying not to rack up too many demerits. We wanted to put in a cut scene where you get chained up in the basement if you do, but I don't think that's going to happen." That scene would have been closer to reality than Lin probably realized. "I actually think we're helping to bring that building to life," she continued. "We're not doing too bad for noob code monkeys."

"So things are going better for you on the floor?"

"Oh yeah. For awhile no one wanted to get near me for fear of the deadly sex rays I was emitting that would get them fired. But then I finally just started flipping them shit and after awhile they started flipping it back. Things have gotten better since then. I'll never be one of the guys since none of the other guys are naked chicks with great tits, but I'm starting to be accepted I think. A few of those geeks have had perma-boners since I started my new job though."

I couldn't help but laugh as Lin talked. She was back to her old self, the one with absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth. I loved this about her, although I worried that her mouth would get her in trouble with Barbara. I hoped that the loose atmosphere on the Gangsta floor and the fact that she wasn't a mailgirl would allow her some freedom to be herself.

"So how's the Queen treating you these days?" Lin asked, referring to Barbara. She'd been pestering me about what had happened that day in Barbara's office after she'd left, but I didn't dare tell her about the whipping.

"I haven't really seen her much lately. She's been busy dealing with all the publicity from that UAW lawsuit."

"Yeah, she's been on television more than the Kardashians lately," Lin said. "She definitely knows how to sell her program, I'll say that for her. I saw her on 'The View' last week and I swear she had a couple of those gals ready to strip off and strap on an MMU right there."

I just about snorted a mouthful of soup out my nose when she said that. "Lin, you have no idea about how persuasive she can really be," I said in a mix of laughter and coughing.

"Well all I know is that after twenty minutes with her I ended up as a lifetime honorary member of the Mailgirls club. I'd hate to see what would've happened if she'd unloaded all of her mana on me. I might never wear clothes again." Once again Lin had no idea how close to the truth she was getting.

My MMU suddenly vibrated with an alert. "Shit, I'm back on duty already," I told Lin. "I could get called back out at any time."

"Don't worry about your tray and dirty dishes. I'll take care of them. Sorry I haven't been here to meet you more often. I promise we'll do it more once the new expansion is released."

"You don't have to," I said. "I know it sucks to have to eat in here naked on the floor. It's so humiliating."

"It's not any more humiliating than having to report my progress to Stimpy every day while his eyes are locked onto my tits the whole time. I'm sure he has a box of tissues stashed in his office with my name on it, so this is nothing."

"I'm sorry I got you into this mess," I said.

"Naw, it was my choice. Still is. I'm doing what I want to do."

My MMU vibrated again. I had a pickup in the east wing. "I've gotta go," I said as I rose to my feet.

"See you in the game, Mailgirl Nine," Lin said to me as I headed toward the door.

A BUSY AFTERNOON

I'd just made a delivery to an office on the ground floor of the north wing when my MMU flashed and vibrated alerting me to another job. I groaned as I checked it seeing it was a Premium Rush order which meant the deadline I had to meet was significantly shorter than standard. Today was Friday and they were always the worst since departments wanted to use up their delivery credits since they didn't roll over from week to week. This was already my third Premium Rush of the afternoon.

I began running through the corridor toward the stairs being careful to avoid the "norms" in my path. Running into a regular DDE employee was automatically a minimum of ten demerits and the person you ran into had the option making it as high as twenty. A mailgirl who did anything more than lightly brush an employee as they went past was ordered to stop immediately and allow that person to enter the demerits into their MMU. The time it took to do this also made it likely that the deadline for the run would not be met which would add even more demerits.