Epilogue

A black sedan pulled up in front of the exclusive restaurant on the outskirts of Tokyo. A valet quickly walked to it and opened the passenger side door, then held out his hand to help the old man out of the car. The old man shook his head and grunted indicating he didn't want any help, then exited the vehicle in a surprisingly spry manner for a man his age.

The valet shut the door then opened the rear one. He once again offered his hand to the passenger but this time the offer was accepted. He assisted a nude woman wearing a steel collar around her neck out of the vehicle; then a second woman emerged from it, also nude and collared. Ayee, the old man brought both of his whores tonight, the valet thought to himself. What it must be like to have such wealth and power! He walked quickly to the restaurant door and opened it for the old man and his two naked slaves.

Mr. Hiromoto entered the building with Mariko and Barbara following behind, their eyes dutifully lowered to the floor. The restaurant staff was accustomed to him showing up with one of his mailgirls, but bringing both at once was unusual. It was even more of a spectacle for the restaurant's patrons and the nude women created quite a stir as they were led to Hiromoto's table.

Hiromoto took his seat, then spoke a brief command. Mariko and Barbara obediently knelt down on the floor beside him facing each other. It did not take long for Hiromoto's meal to arrive since he was a valued customer and always ate the same thing. The two mailgirls were given only a single bowl of broth to share placed on the floor between them. Each took turns bending down and licking from the bowl before settling back into their kneeling position.

Mariko glanced up briefly at the beautiful nude woman kneeling in front of her. Barbara has come far since her arrival in Tokyo, she mused. That had been nearly two years ago now and Mariko had not known what to expect from her back then, but Barbara had fulfilled her mailgirls duties without complaint or self-pity. She had prepared herself by studying Japanese during those six humiliating weeks of "training" at DDE and it had taken only six months in Tokyo for her to become proficient enough in the language to finally discover the truth: Hiromoto had not been the architect of her downfall. It was not Mariko who was Hiromoto's puppet but the opposite.

Mariko felt the eyes on her and heard the laughter and comments as she knelt on the floor, but this did not bother her. She had become accustomed to enduring these humiliations. She was playing a long game and this was a necessary part of it. Someday it would not be.

The game had begun the day she had walked into Hiromoto's office and asked him to allow her to run his Mailgirls program. The version of this story that she had told Danica that day in her office after the girl had witnessed her whipping by Hiromoto had not been entirely truthful. It had not been Hiromoto who had summoned Mariko to his office to ask her to run the program, she had been the one to request the meeting. It had taken all of her strength to find the courage to do so.

"Why should I allow you to run the program?" Hiromoto had asked. "What can you offer me?"

Mariko had replied with a carefully rehearsed response: "No one sees or hears more than the lowly mailgirl. She goes everywhere and is seen by all, yet remains invisible."

Hiromoto had understood immediately what she was offering him: information. Information about what was really going on in his company: who was scheming against him, or negligent in their duties, or stealing from him, or spying for his competitors, or screwing a co-worker's wife. Information that could give him the upper hand against those who might try to undermine him or sabotage his plans. Business was a competitive bloodsport in Japan and Mariko understood the value of what she was offering. So did Hiromoto.

In return Mariko had asked Hiromoto to allow her to run the Mailgirls program and use his power to protect her girls. He had agreed to this with one provision: if the mailgirls were not to suffer for their failures then Mariko must take their place. She would be whipped as punishment for their demerits. She had reluctantly agreed.

So Mariko began feeding information to Hiromoto in his office and afterwards he would whip her with a riding crop for his own sadistic pleasure. It was hardly a fair arrangement in her mind, but Hiromoto had never been known as a fair man. He had always extracted every ounce of blood, sweat, and yen possible out of every deal. This had earned him few friends and many enemies over the years but it had also made him a very rich man.

Hiromoto had not survived this long though by reneging on his end of agreements so one morning his security team dragged seven employees, including an executive who had been with the company for many years, out of their offices and dumped them and their belongings onto the street. They were the ones who had been the most abusive to Mariko's mailgirls and the message Hiromoto had sent was received with great clarity throughout the building. The abuses ceased after that.

It was after one whipping session that Mariko made the humble suggestion to Mr. Hiromoto that perhaps he could license his Mailgirls program to other companies in order to gain information from them also. He had immediately seen the potential in this but did not trust anyone else to know that mailgirls made such effective spies.

"You must be the one to arrange this," he had said to her. "No one else."

"And what might I gain from this arrangement?" she asked. Hiromoto thought about this for a moment before responding.

"I will teach you how to profit from this information."

So Mariko became Hiromoto's spymaster as his Mailgirls program spread throughout Japan and other parts of Asia. Hiromoto was a man who trusted almost no one but over time Mariko slowly gained his confidence. The whippings continued but afterwards he began opening up to her about his life as she knelt naked on his floor.

For all his status, it turned out that Hiromoto was a lonely man. Maybe it was because he believed Mariko posed no threat to him that he began telling her stories about his rise from the streets of Tokyo to the top floor of an office building bearing his name. He used Mariko to unburden himself of his past the way that others might use a psychiatrist or a priest. Mariko listened quietly, absorbing every word of it knowing that she was being taught a masters course in the accumulation of wealth and power.

One thing Mariko had already learned on her own was how to subtly manipulate the information she gave to Hiromoto in order to protect those she favored and punish those she did not. Careers soon began rising and falling based on the words she whispered into Mr. Hiromoto's ear. She also used this subtle power to benefit her own girls.

Mariko had always given preference to university graduates when hiring mailgirls and as they completed their contracts she helped the best and brightest of them obtain entry level management positions. From there she used her influence over Hiromoto to aid their ascent through the management ranks and slowly began building a power base within the company of women who were absolutely loyal to her. Using the knowledge she had gained from Hiromoto, Mariko began to quietly accumulate her own wealth and power.

Then one day she had gotten a call from Barbara Anderson asking about setting up a meeting with Mr. Hiromoto to discuss bringing Mailgirls to the United States. Mariko explained to her that Hiromoto did not involve himself in these types of negotiations but she insisted she wanted to deal only with him.

Because America was such an important untapped market Hiromoto had reluctantly agreed to the meeting with Barbara but insisted that Mariko be there as his "translator."

"Tell this motherless whore I'm going to ride her like a show pony and put her away wet," Hiromoto had said in Japanese at the beginning of the meeting, pretending to not speak a word of English.

"Mr. Hiromoto says he is very much looking forward to our talks and reaching a beneficial agreement," Mariko translated to Barbara.

Hiromoto had been intrigued enough by Barbara though to continue taking part in the negotiations and by the end had become equally fascinated and infuriated with her. After all the paperwork had been signed he decided she needed to be punished for her arrogance and insolence. "I want you to bring that woman here as a mailgirl," he had said to Mariko. "Make it happen." And so Mariko had made it happen.

It was Mariko who had set up the $500,000 bribe to Barbara which she then put on their books as a promotional expense paid to DDE. It was Mariko who had given the recordings of her conversations with Danica and Kelly to Barbara and then set up the hack to steal them back. And it was Mariko who had instructed Hideki to secretly place video cameras inside the MTUs in Barbara's and Dan Evans' offices. Those cameras had produced a treasure trove of blackmail material and guaranteed that Evans would remain in thrall to Mariko for as long as she wished. Hiromoto had played no part in any of this, but then it hadn't been necessary; Mariko had learned her lessons well from him.

It was not long after the conclusion of those negotiations with Barbara that Mariko first began noticing a change in Hiromoto. He had always had a razor sharp mind but now began to occasionally forget names or struggle to find a word. It had been a minor issue at first but over time it became more pronounced. Although Hiromoto remained remarkably fit and healthy for a man his age it eventually became obvious to Mariko that his mind was beginning to fail him.

Hiromoto understood what was happening as well and took steps to prevent it from getting out to the rest of the company knowing that the sharks would start circling if it did. He began isolating himself on the fourteenth floor becoming a virtual hermit there. His paranoia also grew and he trusted no one but his personal secretary and Mariko to enter his office. His bodyguards and driver also knew what was happening but they were too loyal and too fearful of the man to tell anyone. Hiromoto was able to mask his problem in brief conversations so any required interactions with his senior executives were kept short. He would mostly just listen and grunt out blunt responses which wasn't terribly different from the way he'd always spoken to them anyway.

One day Mariko had humbly suggested to Mr. Hiromoto the idea of sending a lowly mailgirl such as herself to deliver his instructions to senior management in order to relieve himself of this tedious burden. So Mariko began representing Hiromoto at executive board meetings and soon learned she could subtly nudge the company in directions she desired by introducing elements of her own agenda as Hiromoto's ideas. It was a dangerous game but Mariko became so skilled at it that she gradually became the de facto CEO of Hiromoto Industries without anyone realizing it.

She'd been able to get away with this by relaying Mr. Hiromoto's "instructions" from her knees as she knelt naked before those very important executives. None of them could ever imagine that a lowly mailgirl would be anything other than a simple messenger for Mr. Hiromoto. In order to maintain this guise Mariko had also chosen to remain in her small fifth floor office and allow herself to be mocked by her colleagues as she continued working mailgirls shifts whenever possible. In reality Mariko was no submissive but she had mastered playing the role of one.

But now rumors were circulating throughout the company about Hiromoto's deteriorating mental health and Mariko knew she could not maintain this fiction for much longer. She'd known this day would come so had spent the last two years quietly pulling strings to line up Hiromoto's heir apparent from among the ranks of his senior executives. The man she had chosen very much looked the part of a powerful executive with his expensively tailored suits, handsome features, and smooth manner. In reality, though, he was a shallow and vain man with a laundry list of dirty secrets that she could easily exploit. It would not be difficult for Mariko to manipulate him.

So now Mariko knelt naked on the floor of a crowded restaurant surrounded by people who had no idea she was the most powerful person in the room. Only Barbara Anderson knew the truth.

This would be Barbara's final week in Tokyo before returning to America and DDE. Mariko had always known that she was an extremely bright, perceptive woman but had become even more impressed by her over the past two years. Barbara's arrogance had been her downfall but she was far too smart to repeat the same mistakes in the future. She could easily become a very dangerous foe which was why Mariko had chosen to make her an ally instead.

Over the past year Mariko had taken Barbara into her confidence and revealed everything to her; then the two of them had mapped out a path together for her to replace Dan Evans as the head of DDE within a year of her return. Barbara was going to become the first former mailgirl to run a major corporation and this would represent a significant symbolic boost to the legitimacy of Mariko's Mailgirls program.

The two projects that Barbara had championed at DDE - the "Mailgirl 9" game and the film "The Mailgirl" - had both been released over the past year and had both been very successful. They had helped push Mailgirls into the cultural mainstream just as she had envisioned. How could she have known that it would be Danica who would capitalize on this while she herself would become a member of the class of nude, subservient women that these projects were meant to create?

Danica was now the face of Mailgirls, not just in America but around the world. The success of the game had cemented her status as the world's most famous mailgirl and her stunning looks, intelligence, and personality had made her a far more effective spokesperson than Barbara had ever been. Barbara had built the foundation for Mailgirls in North America but Danica had taken it to the next level. Mariko's risky decision to replace Barbara with Danica had paid off and the partnership between DDE and Hiromoto Industries had become a profitable one for both companies.

Danica had done something that Mariko had not foreseen however: she had aggressively pushed the boundaries of her Mailgirls program farther and faster than even Barbara might have. Contracts now forced mailgirls to maintain their roles as submissive nude servants twenty-four hours a day and she had built a dormitory (which critics had likened to a prison) in DDE's basement to house them when they were off duty. She also introduced new language into the contracts allowing for the use of restraints and corporal punishment for mailgirls who accumulated excessive demerits. The sale of Mailgirls contracts at DDE headquarters had also begun to take on the look of the slave auctions they actually were as representatives from licensees flew in from around the country once a month to inspect and bid on beautiful, naked, subservient women.

In retrospect Mariko realized she should not have been surprised by Danica's enthusiasm for pushing these boundaries. Unlike Mariko, Danica was a true submissive. At some level, whether consciously or subconsciously, she must have known that she might be building her own cage in preparation for Barbara's return. There was a darkness within her that often led her to tread dangerous paths toward the precipice of total submission.

Barbara also knew this, of course, and was still as obsessed as ever with possessing the girl. Danica had become a valuable asset so Mariko had considered protecting her, but ultimately decided against it. Danica was no longer the naive girl she'd once been and her submissive tendencies didn't necessarily define her. She had proven to be ambitious, intelligent, and resourceful and Mariko believed she now had the skills and knowledge to handle Barbara if she truly wanted to retain her freedom.

But Danica was driven by such complex and unpredictable forces that even Mariko was uncertain about the outcome of Barbara's return. She had begun sharing her condo with the actress Diana Clarkson and the potential influence of this new lover added yet another wild card to the mix. Mariko decided she would simply allow the dynamic between Barbara and Danica to play itself out without any interference from her.

Mariko also had another reason for staying out of it: this would be an important test for Danica. Her impressive performance over the past two years had revealed her potential and Mariko now believed that Danica herself might one day be prepared to run DDE as its CEO. She wasn't ready for that yet but Mariko believed in the old maxim that fire strengthens steel. If Danica could withstand the intense heat of Barbara's return it would prove she was a worthy candidate to someday replace Barbara if Mariko ever decided that needed to happen. If not, she would most likely end up as Barbara's slave.

Mariko thought back now to the first time she had met Danica and her incredible decision to take the girl up to the fourteenth floor to witness Hiromoto whipping her. Why had she done that? It had been dangerous to do so because she had not known how Hiromoto would react to it. Perhaps Mariko had sensed the intelligence behind those extraordinary green eyes and thought of Danica as someone she could nurture and mentor. Perhaps she reminded Mariko of herself when she had been more innocent and naive and felt the need to educate her in the realities of this world. Whatever the reason, Mariko had wanted Danica to witness what she was willing to endure in order to survive and thrive in Hiromoto's world. She had wanted her to understand one day that it was not always the one with the whip who held the power.

Danica still wore that metal collar stamped with the number "9" around her neck even while working fully clothed in her office. To Mariko this represented the dichotomy within her, but she believed now that only one of Danica's two personas would survive Barbara's return to DDE. She would emerge from the fire as either Danica Peterson or Mailgirl 9; she could not remain both.

Mariko's thoughts were interrupted by the touch of Hiromoto's hand as he began stroking her hair. The old man removed a small piece of chicken from his plate and held it to her lips as a treat. Mariko took the meat into her mouth and looked up adoringly at her "master." The other diners around her snickered at this shameful display of weakness and submission to such a powerful man.

Mariko swallowed the meat, then her eyes met Barbara's and a slight, knowing smile came across each of their faces. The two of them understood something that those around them did not and could not.

The future belonged to these lowly naked mailgirls.

THE END