A MOMENT OF TRUTH
The employees on the ninth floor of the tower paid little attention to me as I exited the elevator and walked toward Barbara's office. As far as they were concerned I was just another DDE employee wearing business attire on my way to a meeting somewhere. I'm not even sure some of them would have recognized me with my clothes on even if they had been paying attention.
Barbara's receptionist Jan definitely recognized me though as I entered her office. "Danica, what are you doing?" she asked as she looked at me curiously.
"Is Barbara in?"
"Yes, but she's busy..."
I strode past her and opened the door to Barbara's office as Jan quickly got up and followed me. Inside Barbara was sitting at her desk talking on her cellphone. "Hold on," she said to whoever she was talking to as she saw me.
"I'm sorry Ms. Anderson," Jan said from behind me. "She just barged right past me."
"That's okay," Barbara said. "Let her in and close the door. And don't let anyone disturb us please." Then she spoke into the cellphone. "I'll have to call you back."
She looked at me with a bemused smile after we were alone. "Have a seat, Danica," she said as she pointed to a chair in front of her desk rather than ordering me to kneel on the floor as she normally did. "What's on your mind?" I have to admit I was thrown off a little by the cool, unperturbed manner in which she was handling my surprise entrance. I'd pictured a more dramatic reaction.
I sat down and began speaking. "Kelly has told me everything. About how you used her to help get me involved with the Mailgirls program and paid her to encourage me to get naked in Tokyo."
"Okay," Barbara shrugged. "And?"
"And, um, you've been lying to me and manipulating me from the start!"
"Guilty as charged."
"You also intended for me to be a mailgirl right from the start and the whole offer of a management position was a sham."
"Yep."
This wasn't going at all as I'd planned. I'd been expecting her to get mad or defensive or to deny everything. The mental script I'd been rehearsing for this confrontation hadn't included her casual indifference. I wasn't sure what to say next until Barbara finally broke the silence.
"What is it that you want, Danica?"
"What do I want, Barbara? I want the truth!" I replied indignantly in a tone that came out more petulant and shrill than I'd intended.
Barbara leaned in across the desk toward me. "You want the truth, Danica? You can't handle the truth!" She glared at me intensely for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I love that scene," she said referring to the one with Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.
I was completely disconcerted now. My whole plan of attack for this big confrontation was in shambles. Barbara stared at me for a minute then got up, walked around her desk and sat on top of it looking down at me.
"Alright Danica," she said, "I'll tell you the truth although you may not want to hear it. I was hoping to delay this conversation until later but now is as good a time as any. The truth is you're the reason that DDE has a Mailgirls program."
I was startled by this statement. "What are you talking about?"
She paused for a minute as if weighing how to continue. "It's a bit of a long story so bear with me. I'm sure you know I have my Master's degree in Psychology."
"Yes," I nodded.
"The reason I chose that is because I've always been fascinated by human behavior, by what drives and motivates people and makes them do what they do. But more specifically I was interested in studies involving controlling and shaping human behavior. I wanted to learn to read people and understand their true desires rather than the ones they express publicly."
So she went to college to learn to become a master manipulator. I can't say that surprised me. "That's interesting, but I'm not sure what that has to do with me being responsible for the Mailgirls program here, Barbara."
"I'm getting to that," she smiled. "I took part in studies involving human behavior in college, including some where I allowed myself to be the subject. But as you know there are ethical limits to how far you can go in a university setting with those kind of studies. I've always wanted to know what it would be like to be in complete control of another person, to have them willingly submit and turn over their life to me. There's only so far you can go with that in a formal peer-reviewed environment."
"So basically you just wanted to be a fucking dominatrix then?" I replied snottily. "How boring."
Barbara laughed. "I'd like to think it's much more complex than that. I'm not averse to using the carrot along with the stick. I also want something that goes well beyond just simple role playing and involves a complete lifestyle change."
"And so you decided to use me as your human guinea pig? You really think you know what my true desires are now after a couple of months as a mailgirl?"
"Oh I've been learning about you much longer than that, Danica."
"What do you mean?"
"Right after you started working here your new hire class was brought through the tower during orientation. I doubt you even remember seeing me but I remember those green eyes staring out of that beautiful face very clearly. It wasn't just your exotic beauty that caught my eye, though, it was the innate intelligence and hunger I sensed behind those eyes. I was immediately fascinated by you."
"And you got that from seeing me for like thirty seconds?"
"It was enough to get me interested in learning more about you," Barbara replied.
"So, what, you started spying on me and stalking me or something?"
"I've kept a close eye on your work here and learned the basics about you on the internet, but obviously that wasn't nearly enough," Barbara said. "Fortunately I have a friend from college who is an investigative reporter and does some work for me occasionally. She has a rare ability to be able dig up all kinds of information without raising any red flags or even letting the people she's chatting up know they're being interviewed. She found out quite a lot about you from your friends and family. Probably a lot more than they realized they were revealing."
I was stunned by the lengths Barbara had gone to in digging into my life. I had no idea any of this had been going on. "And what did she find?" I asked, more than a little nervous about the answer.
"Oh, she just provided me with raw information. I'm the one who interpreted it into an evaluation."
"Then what did you find?"
Barbara was silent for a few moments before speaking. "What I found was a smart, driven girl who is very conscious of her looks and a little bit vain about them. A girl who grew up without a father and with a frequently absent mother who imposed little discipline and few limits on her. A girl who wanted those things so desperately that she imposed her own limits on herself. A girl who has suppressed her exhibitionist fantasies and homosexual desires while hooking up with a series of losers and allowing them to mistreat her while ceding a great deal of control to them. Most of all I found a latent submissive with the desire to be under the control of a strong person who understands what her true desires and fantasies are and will force her to live them out."
I wanted to lash out angrily at Barbara, to tell her she was wrong and that she knew absolutely nothing about me. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I knew she was right about everything. Some of them were things I'd only recently discovered about myself after being manipulated by her into becoming a mailgirl. As she spoke I felt more naked and exposed than ever even though this was the first time I'd been dressed in front of her in weeks. I felt a rush of emotion coursing through me as I was psychologically laid bare before her.
"So you started Mailgirls for me to make me do all the things you think I secretly desire?" I asked in a quiet, trembling voice. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that she was the driving force behind the program at DDE.
"It's not entirely about you, Danica," she replied. "I've been interested in Mailgirls for a long time. I've always thought it would be a marvelous laboratory for observing and shaping human behavior. It tends to bring out honest reactions and emotions in the interaction between the clothed employees and nude mailgirls, much more so than you would normally find between people in an average workplace. Discovering you is what pushed me to finally take action to make it happen, though. I thought it would provide the perfect environment for incubating your latent exhibitionist and submissive tendencies."
"So I'm going to be your human behavior experiment then?" I asked. "Your plan is to take control of my life and force me to do things against my will?"
"Just the opposite, Danica," she replied. "Any knucklehead with a gun or heavy fists can force someone to do something against their will, or can beat them down psychologically like Anna's mother has been doing with her. What I'm interested in is peeling back the layers and finding the true core of a person and then forcing them into a situation where they would voluntarily become who they really are every moment of the day."
"If you're forcing someone into that situation then how could what they do be voluntary?" I asked.
"Because there is always a door left open for them to leave at any time."
I let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "You mean like a contract that would ruin a person financially if they ever left? That kind of door?"
