Chapter 5
Megan drove back to her condo after walking Five back to the Mailgirls' Locker Room, leaving her to the none-too-tender mercy of Mistress V. Three not-all-out 6ks in the past twenty-four hours shouldn't have done her in, but it was hot and challenging Mistress V on the behalf of One and Five had been tense. She was looking forward to iced tea, a shower, and then collapsing – perhaps not in that order.
While laying on her couch with NPR playing in the background Megan decided to call Brendan. Getting her mind off of naked women would be a good thing. She googled "Howard County Striders" to look at the schedule of local races and saw they were holding a "Meet of Miles" at one of the local high schools – that seemed like a nice, normal topic to call Brendan about. Feeling sufficient re-hydrated she went to her wine refrigerator and pulled out an Albarino, a little Spanish courage would help. Pouring herself a glass, she laid back down and called Brendan.
"Megan, this is a pleasant surprise. How have you been?"
And despite her best intentions she responded, "Getting sucked back into the world of naked women. Oh, my God, did I just say that?"
"Well, I heard 'world of naked women' so if that's what you said..."
"Look, you know that Sarah and I were mailgirls at SG&T, right?"
"I know about Sarah, and I thought you probably were as well. You're certainly attractive enough to be recruited. Neither Sam, nor Sarah, has said anything much about mailgirls and I haven't prodded them. I did some web searches and read the rather bland mission statement from SG&T and of course, there are thousands of photos and videos posted on social media. The scenery at Fort Meade is far less attractive."
"I ran the Corporate Challenge last year two months after putting clothes back on and returning to my job as a financial analyst. The fifth floor is competitive in all things and they want to do well in this year's race, especially since we're hosting it. They've transferred in some men from other locations, but based on my performance last year some bright soul thinks they can field a squad of mailgirls in the women's race. And I've been officially assigned to help coach and select the team.
"Community Relations dropped this on me on Wednesday, Thursday I met with Human Capital – those are the folks who manage the Mailgirls Program – and Friday I returned to the Mailgirls Locker Room to sell this to twenty-four naked women. We ran three 6k trials, one Saturday morning, the other two this morning splitting the women into three heats all of which I paced. This being a Mailgirls activity the last finisher in each trial and the six slowest overall are all promised a beating of which Mistress V administered two following the first and second trials. One woman dnf'd with a sprained ankle and the last finishers in both the first and third trials were obviously suffering some degree of heat exhaustion so I screwed my courage to the sticking point and shepherded those three away from Mistress V to the Med Center. Tomorrow morning Mistress V will deliver six strokes to the asses of the four women who escaped immediate chastisement.
"And I don't know why I'm telling you this except I have to vent to someone."
"Who's Mistress V?"
"She's the direct Mailgirls supervisor. She was a mailgirl that SG&T imported from a German program. She has her own apartment in the basement and wears clothing, but is trapped like the other twenty-four. She makes up the work schedules and cracks the whip and paddle and crop to keep the others in line. Having spent two years under her thumb, I amazed myself when I pried Eight and One and Five away from her to the safety of the Med Center. I nearly wet my pants just thinking of it."
"Why tell me, why not Sam or Sarah or some other friend or family member? And why haven't you followed Sarah's lead and left SG&T?"
"My younger sister Samantha graduated from college last year and promptly signed on as a mailgirl at SG&T. My dad hasn't talked to me since he found out that I was a mailgirl and my mom blames me for Samantha's decision. So, I'm stuck there keeping a sisterly eye on Mailgirl Twenty-two while trying to rebuild my life. And no, I did not encourage her – I was horrified when she was delivered to SG&T two months before the end of my contract.
"I couldn't dump on Sarah or Sam; she's moved on and I'm happy for the both of them. Becoming a mailgirl is a seismic event – my friends from school, college, work in Chicago mostly recoiled in shock, horror, embarrassment and I haven't renewed any of those ties in the past year, none of them are geographically close, anyway. I need to move on, but it's been hard and tossing me back into the Mailgirl Program, even though I'm wearing clothes now, is not what I need."
"Why did you do it? Become a mailgirl, that is."
"I had just transferred from the Chicago office, eager to be part of SG&T's new East Coast headquarters. I was proud of my work in Chicago and saw this as a step up with new challenges. I was right about the new challenges. When I reported in that first day they sent me up to Human Capital where I was offered the choice of a dead end job in Marketing at less than half of what I had been making in Chicago or to be a mailgirl with a slight rise in salary plus a signing bonus and a completion bonus. They told me this was a ninety-day pilot program and there was no guarantee that it would continue on. The completion bonus was only applicable if the program was picked up for the full two years. I would be on call 24/7, but the contract included housing and meals. I was also guaranteed a slot as a financial analyst at the end of my mailgirl contract with another boost in pay. They didn't emphasize the financial penalties for breaching the contract, but I read those carefully and they are punitive. I called my old boss in Chicago and she urged me to take the position – consider it a gap year with a big financial payoff, she said. And so I signed.
"The six of us in the pilot program were flown business class to the West Coast for off-site training at Dumpster Dawg Enterprises. After six weeks of hard physical training to build stamina and non-stop humiliation to beat down any self esteem we were returned air freight and introduced to Mistress V and our living quarters in the basement of the SG&T building. The fitting out of the Mailgirls suite in the basement told us all this was no ninety-day pilot. Then ensued two years of non-stop debasement, cold showers, awful food, minimal intellectual stimulation.
"On the up-side, I paid off my student loans, maxed out my 401K, and upon return to the real world paid cash for my new car and put down a hefty down-payment on my condo. Financially, I've never been better off, well at least until I start paying for the therapy I undoubtedly need."
"How are you doing at work now?"
"Except for this new task my assignments have been challenging and professionally fulfilling. My boss has been nothing but positive and has supported me fully. On the other hand the people that I work with have all seen me running around in the nude, being forced to abase myself in any encounter, and had numerous opportunities to watch me bending over a padded bar to be paddled or caned to work off excess demerits. The new people have all seen photographs and videos of my life as a mailgirl. Many of them believe that I essentially whored myself to get my current position. Spending the next three months working closely with mailgirls will do nothing but reinforce that image. Still I feel that I need to do it to protect those women as much as possible; the ex-mailgirls on staff have a bit of latitude to treat mailgirls with some compassion."
"How many ex-mailgirls still work at SG&T?"
"Eleven women have completed the two year contract, three of us work in Maryland, one transferred to San Francisco, three left SG&T, and four signed on for another two years as a mailgirl. Five more contracts run out two months from now. The original twelve mailgirls were all recruited from the professional ranks at SG&T; the current twenty-four are a mixture of sometime professionals, a few admin types, and a number of women who applied to be mailgirls, including my sister."
"This is a long way from the personnel practices of the Department of Defense."
"And my original reason to call was to ask you about the Meet of Miles on Wednesday. What is it?"
"The Striders mostly put on road races from five to 26 kilometers. At the Meet of Miles they just run a series of mile races on the track, splitting the entries into reasonable size heats based on projected times. It's a more manageable distance in a Maryland summer and gives everyone a chance to run a classic distance."
"Do I enter on-line?"
"Just show up Wednesday and plunk down your $2. We have everything from twelve plus minute milers to a few high school and college types inside 4:30. Only the high schoolers train for the mile so the rest of us are faking it; we can do the distance, but speed kills."
"If I can escape from work Wednesday afternoon, I'll give it a go."
"I hope to see you there."
Chapter 6
Megan drove into work early Monday morning. Aside from her mailgirl days the only previous times she'd been at SG&T at this hour was when they worked the night through – doing deals overseas didn't always fit in a 9-5 schedule. She didn't know when Mistress V had scheduled her punishment parade and Megan felt she needed to be there in support of Eight, Five, Eighteen, and Twenty-one. Seven had run fourteen seconds quicker than Twenty-one providing a clear margin between those who escaped the paddle and the to be red-bottomed six.
Megan walked through the glass doors into the upper lobby and stepped to the side while she brought up the Mailgirl App on her Android phone. She only had access to the Mailgirl database from the internal network which was not accessible over the Internet. There were individuals who could access the Mailgirl database by connecting to a VPN – Sarah's Sam had been given an Iphone with that capability after their meeting at the Juniper Resort, but its access had been revoked at the end of Sarah's mailgirl contract. She brought up the daily calendar and saw the punishment was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in the courtyard off the employee dining room. One, Five, Eight, and Eighteen were indeed on the list and clicking on the thumbnail photos next to each number brought up a photo of the mailgirl crossing the finish line, obviously exhausted and drenched in sweat. The photo of Eight showed her in full limp, being supported by Megan whose shorts and running top were plastered to her body and left little to the imagination. She knew she didn't want to emphasize her association with mailgirls, this whole project was a bad idea for so many reasons.
There were, as always, a number of men having their morning coffee and pastries while sitting at the tables overlooking the lower lobby and the Mailgirl Locker Room. This SG&T coffee shop did much better breakfast business than at any other SG&T location. Megan knew this for a fact since she'd been tasked with reviewing the financials of SG&T's food service programs system-wide: coffee shops, dining rooms, vending machines. SG&T Maryland's vending machines did mediocre business; the coffee shop in the lobby, the employee dining room, the executive dining rooms outperformed all other locations. Part of this was due to the suburban location – there were a vast array of food choices within easy walking distance of both the Chicago and San Francisco sites. Mostly she ascribed it to the floor show, both executives and worker bees ate at a significantly rate on-site than at the other locations and fewer still ate at their desk. Virtually all visiting clients to SG&T Maryland were wined and dined on-site; as a mailgirl Megan, that is Mailgirl Two that was, had delivered countless messages to client luncheons and dinners and spent more than a few evenings serving at soirees when table service replaced the normal cafeteria style presentation. Megan hadn't thought so much about the gallery when she made her first visit to the Mailgirls Locker room on Friday, she could feel their eyes burning into her back as she descended the stairs and entered this morning.
She could see the usual morning prep going on on the other side of the glass walls, mirrored on the inside. They weren't all out yet, some mailgirls were still out of sight in the Mailgirls Lounge or Dormitory. Sinks, showers, toilets, beauty supplies were all in the Locker Room and they had to be properly groomed when Mistress V made her appearance; still some mailgirls preferred to wait as long as possible. Megan never understood that – what's an extra five to ten minutes of exposure in a twelve to fourteen hour day.
