The early morning sounds of the city continued on behind Sarah Jane Scott as she crossed the marbled lobby of US Financial Plaza, but they were quickly fading into the background. Sunrise was still a good half hour away, and the Financial District was lit in the waxing blue light that signaled a new day, new opportunities, new promises.
Elsewhere in the city, people were only just now waking, only just now getting showered and shaved, only just now picking out their clothes for work. They were saying good morning to their spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends with a morning kiss. They were checking their smartphones for new emails, social media for new pictures and updates from friends, the headlines for what was going on in the world that morning.
But for Sarah, "elsewhere" was just that -- elsewhere. The rest of the city was already a world away, and fading fast. Her world, her universe, was here: a forty-eight story skyscraper in Southern Manhattan that served as national headquarters for US Financial. The rhythms of other people's lives -- the normalcy, the decency -- were irrelevant to Sarah's life at US Financial Plaza.
Her heels clicked against the marble floor as she sped towards the security desk, David and Pedro greeting her with big smiles. She was immaculately dressed -- three inch black leather heels, a black pencil skirt so tight it constricted her every step, and a button-down white blouse with just a few too many buttons left un-buttoned at the top. Her cleavage bounced with each step, her natural, C-cup breasts playing peek-a-boo above the neckline, and the hint of her black lace bra popping just in and out of view.
She wouldn't have dressed this way when she started with USF three months ago, done up and put together like a sexual predator, as if hunting for a meal on Wall Street. High heels, tits on display, and ass swaying seductively behind her. But, then, a lot had changed over the last three months, and Sarah often found herself wondering what that Sarah Scott would have thought of this one. Or what this Sarah Scott would have told that one about what lay ahead. Or if that Sarah Scott were the real one, or this Sarah Scott was.
She was attractive. She knew that much. Long blonde hair framed a face that might have been chosen at random from a women's fashion magazine, complete with bright blue eyes, high cheekbones, and perfect teeth. And those lips -- thin, but sexy as hell -- when smiling, hinted that Sarah was in on a secret the rest of the world was not. She looked less a girl-next-door than a smart, cynical trouble-maker, sitting at the back of class and scheming about which boy to lure under the bleachers after detention. Which, for anyone who knew Sarah, was laughable, and completely at-odds with the girl in real life. She'd been a band-geek in high school, clueless about a world beyond her clarinet, who'd spent the better part of two years dating a closeted (but,in retrospect, obviously gay) cellist, and who'd carried her virginity embarrassingly late into college. She'd been summa cum laude at Pepperdine, and spent her time in Malibu significantly more in the library than on the beach. And, now twenty-six years old and four years deep into a PhD at Yale, she could still count the men she'd been with on one hand.
Reflecting on that Sarah Scott -- the straight A's high school clarinetist, the dual anthropology and sociology major, the anthropology-slash-women's studies doctoral candidate -- Sarah felt she'd been play-acting then almost as much as she was now. The provocatively dressed Wall Street siren, with the self-confidence and the come-hither smile, was every bit as much a fictional character, and didn't capture the actual girl beneath the clothes.
Sarah flashed her USF badge at the two security guards as she passed, but she needn't have bothered; they knew exactly who she was. The ear-to-ear grins told her as much. And even if they hadn't recognized her by sight, the full-body shot in the picture ID would have given it away, as there were only a handful of employees in the company whose pictures included more than a head-shot for identification.
Past the security desk was a set of escalators up to the second floor, and the main elevator banks beyond that. As she ascended, Sarah glanced over her shoulder. The first floor lobby was still mostly empty at six in the morning, as few USF employees outside of Sarah's department bothered to arrive this early. There were a number of the other girls -- Sarah's teammates, her colleagues for another thirteen-fourteen hours -- who arrived just prior to the start of their shift at seven, none too eager to spend more time at work here in the Plaza than they absolutely had to. But Sarah preferred a less rushed and harried start to her day, as there were consequences to being late. She would rather be prepped and ready for her day, waiting on the tick, tick, tick of the clock, than be stressing over traffic or worrying whether she'd taken care of everything she needed to prior to her shift beginning.
While the lobby, and the entire first floor, was open to the public, the second was restricted to USF employees, clients, and other guests. Downstairs, there were a handful of stores -- a bakery and coffee shop, a bookstore, a small sandwich shop, and even a boutique lingerie store among them -- as well as another set of elevators down to the basement levels and parking garage. Upstairs, the second floor was more wide open, save for four massive columns that housed the building's primary elevator shafts and access to the upper floors, and a picture-glass wall into what had at one time been home to a fitness center for USF employees. There was a coffee cart, already open, as well a shoe-shine service, a newsstand, and an ever-increasing number of café tables and chairs spread about.
Sarah smiled uncomfortably at the gentleman manning the coffee cart as she stepped from the top of the escalator. Even at this early hour, and in contrast to the mostly empty lobby below, there were already a good seventeen, eighteen people scattered about. They sipped their coffees and pretended to flip through newspapers, but all of them looked up to see who was passing by. Most were men, alone. But a few of them sat in pairs, and there were always more women present than Sarah would have expected; Jessica Cochran, from Finance & Accounting, smiled at her as she passed. Sarah steeled herself as walked past them all. It was her last day with US Financial, and this was the last time she'd flash her badge at the security guards, the last time she'd ride the escalator up to the main elevator lobby, the last time she'd have to parade past the early morning coffee club. Tomorrow, she'd be moving back to New Haven, the summer over and her time with USF come to an end. She wouldn't miss her job here, and wouldn't miss anyone beyond the girls she worked most closely with. At least, not exactly.
Sarah bit her lip, and hesitated.
She'd learned so much that summer, even beyond the research directly applicable to her doctoral thesis. She'd learned about a sadistic little kernel that existed seemingly in everyone, even if it was buried deep and often denied. She'd learned about a masochistic side that apparently could be found in a shockingly large subset of the female population. If not the entire female population. If not the entire population as a whole, gender aside. Sarah wasn't entirely sure how extensive this tendency truly was -- it was a part of her research that demanded further study, and a theory that even she and her faculty advisor disagreed on. But, regardless, she'd discovered it in herself, and Sarah Scott had learned more about Sarah Scott in the last three months than she had in all her years of formal education.
Sarah strode from the escalator, pocketbook over one shoulder and dressed to fit in with other young, successful women working in New York's financial market. She made her way between the two central columns - two sets of elevator doors on either side - that carried USF employees up into the building. But Sarah wasn't heading up, at least not yet, and she passed by elevators to the double-door entrance to the former fitness center.
Clearly visible on either side of the doors, displayed prominently to anyone waiting for the elevator, or seated at one of the table for a cup of a coffee, or reading the Wall Street Journal at the newsstand, were a pair of leather benches. To this day, they still reminded Sarah of pommel horses, wide enough to fit two people across. Correction: two girls across.
No, the Sarah Scott who'd entered US Financial Plaza at the start of June wouldn't recognize this Sarah Scott. And this Sarah Scott would have a difficult time understanding that one. But then, the navel-gazing and introspection was moot the moment that the girl crossed the threshold beyond the double doors, because at that moment Sarah Scott disappeared.
For one last time, Sarah Jane Scott was stripped even of her name. The blonde who entered the open locker room on the other side was Mailgirl Number Thirteen.
***
Thirteen entered the locker room to the sound of a running shower to her right, to whispered and subdued conversation, and the sound of another girl's moans of pleasures echoing across the tiles. The large, metal desk in front of her, with its back to the double-doors and the elevator lobby beyond, sat unoccupied. It was both utilitarian and terrifying, an unadorned piece of throwback office furniture that had been transformed into an intimidating symbol of control by its owner; even now, despite the fact that Thirteen knew that Mistress Zero was still at least thirty minutes away, bare minimum.
The mailgirls' locker room stretched in both directions, from left to right on either side of the desk, on either side of where Thirteen entered the room. It was entirely balanced and symmetrical; in addition the spanking benches flanking the double doors, each side had four sinks, four showers, and twelve open, door-less lockers that faced into the center of the room. On the other side of metal desk was a corridor that led to another lobby, where the girls could access the building's East, West, and North Staircases, as well as the four service elevators. There was no door to enter the service lobby, as there was to elevator lobby behind her. But that fact hadn't alarmed Thirteen on her first day as much as the six prison-issue toilets, three on either wall along the corridor, open and exposed for anyone to see. Thirteen, though, had read of mailgirls forced to pee in litter boxes and mop sinks in other companies, so she ultimately decided to accept the toilets as some bare minimum concession that the mailgirls were still, on some level, human beings.
Not that this was something Mistress Zero, or the men in Human Capital, encouraged the girls to think. On either side of the metal desk, on the floor, were two pairs of silver dog bowls. They'd been filled the night before by the girls on duty for Evening Shift, and left overnight for any girl thirsty for a drink the next morning. As the day progressed, it fell to Mistress Zero to refill -- or, more accurately, to instruct one of her girls to refill -- the bowls.
Being Number Thirteen, the blonde had the misfortune of having the first locker on the right, closest to her mistress's desk. It was here she went first, to put her purse down, take off her heels, and run her thumbprint over the smartphone charging there within. And, without thinking any more of it, without lamenting her misfortune or the humiliation of the exercise, Thirteen turned back to Mistress Zero's desk, dropped to her hands and knees, brushed her hair back from her face, and began sipping up water from the bowl. Her ass in the air, her face in the dog bowl, Thirteen drank down the room-temperature water, not even bothering anymore to consider the fact that the bowl was already half-empty, and had likely already been drunk from by at least one or two other girls. She was thirsty, but she was careful not to drink too much; not only was it common for Mistress Zero to "forget" to refill the bowls, but Thirteen knew she'd be able to have a drink in a few minutes in the shower. And, besides, she had found that one of the biggest challenges to being a mailgirl was not the humiliation of delivering interoffice envelopes in the nude, nor enduring the punishment for racking up too many demerits, nor the physical exertion of climbing up and down stairs or spending long stretches of time on her knees. No, three months in, Thirteen still found it difficult to balance the necessities of hydration with the realities of a limited number of bathroom breaks.
