One Last Inspection

Jolting her back to the present, however, came a rough tug upwards on her leash. She'd somehow lost track of time, so consumed by her thoughts of returning to Connecticut. The locker room was now silent, and all twenty-four girls had taken their place in front of their lockers. Fourteen, now stark naked and costumed in the same armband and collar as the rest of the girls, was on her knees beside her. Mistress Zero was in front of Thirteen, jerking the blonde girl to her feet by her leash, and barking out simply, "Toes."

"Yes, mistress."

Thirteen did as she was told. She rose to her feet, and then up on tip-toes -- instinctively keeping her legs about three feet apart. She put both hands behind her head, elbows out, and then interlocked her fingers. She stared straight ahead, eyes fixed forward, and locked eyes with her own reflection in the mirror-glass across the room. She made no attempt to look at Mistress Zero, but instead gritted her teeth and waited for her mistress's touch.

Mistress Zero didn't disappoint. She dropped her hold on Thirteen's leash and immediately grasped the girl's left nipple between her thumb and forefinger, pinching it violently. She repeated the exercise on the right. Most USF employees would be reprimanded and punished harshly for touching a mailgirl like this (punished, that is, with a written warning or a termination -- not a paddling or spanking as a mailgirl might expect). But Mistress Zero was given nearly carte blanche to do to the girls whatever she pleased, to keep them motivated and performing, to instill a level of terror in them that kept them in line. That she was performing for an audience, as well, wasn't lost on Thirteen.

If Thirteen's nipples hadn't already been hard and standing at attention before, they certainly would have been now.

The intimate abuse didn't stop there. Mistress Zero performed a "sniff test," making sure Thirteen smelled of soap and shampoo and deodorant, and faintly of perfume, and the sensation of the woman's warm breath on Thirteen's bare skin caused similarly warm sensations to begin percolating up from inside of her. It didn't help, then, when the German woman ran a finger along the bare skin above Thirteen's pussy to check for stubble, and then roughly cupped the girl's sex with her hand -- probing either side of her slit with her fingers to make sure Thirteen was fully in compliance with the hairless policy.

Thirteen shivered with the familiar mixture of terror and excitement.

Mistress Zero had performed that same exercise on twelve girls before her, and would perform it upon the next eleven girls down the line. It was hardly sanitary, but Thirteen doubted the older woman, or the men in Human Capital who oversaw her, were overly concerned.

With her right thumbprint, Mistress Zero activated Thirteen's smartphone, never bothering to remove it from the girl's armband. There was a mild vibration, and Thirteen felt the counter begin to tick down towards seven o'clock.

"Feet."

"Yes, mistress."

Heels on the floor. Arms behind her back, right hand grasping her right wrist. Eyes cast downward in submission.

Mistress Zero circled behind her to inspect her from behind. This was standard procedure. "Ankles," she instructed. This was not.

"Yes mistress."

Legs apart, bent at the waist, each hand around an ankle.

Though hardly a part of Mistress Zero's normal morning routine, "Ankles" was still a position the girls were expected to know and take, if instructed. At least here in the locker room, it was more commonly asked of new mailgirls -- partly to make sure they'd been properly bleached, partly to further break their spirits. It was fairly uncommon throughout the rest of the building, though Thirteen had still been asked to take the position just last week, by a particularly cruel junior executive in Middle Market Financing, upset at Thirteen for being only a few seconds late with a memo. This, now, was similarly nothing more than cruelty, Mistress Zero's way of letting Thirteen know she was still in charge.

At least for today.

For newer mailgirls, Mistress Zero actually made a show of spreading their cheeks for a closer inspection. Fifteen had snickered that this couldn't have been particularly enjoyable for the German woman, either. Today, at least, Mistress Zero decided that the position was humiliating enough, and walked back around to in front of Thirteen. Roughly (as she rarely did anything gently), she grabbed the blonde girl by the hair, and removed the elastic that held her ponytail in place.

"I think pigtails today," she said.

Fine, Thirteen thought to herself, before mewing, "Yes, mistress."

Standard, for Thirteen, was a ponytail. Other girls wore their hair up in a bun. Still others just let their hair flow freely as they dashed from one mailstop to the next. It was one of those rare freedoms of choice they were allowed, for some inexplicable reason. Only occasionally did Mistress Zero decide to weigh in -- but she did, from time to time. Twelve's pixie cut was an attestation to that fact. As was the fact that Thirteen would be bounding around the Plaza today with her hair done up like a kindergartner's.

No matter. She'd do what she was told. It made not one lick of difference if she objected or protested, so she didn't bother giving it another thought. Once her inspection was completed, she'd put her hair up in pigtails.

"Up," Mistress Zero instructed, pulling her up by her hair. "Feet."

"Yes, mistress," Thirteen replied.

Heels on the floor. Arms behind her back. Eyes cast downward.

Mistress Zero produced a felt-tip marker, and traced a fresh number thirteen over the ever-so-slightly faded number thirteen already written on Thirteen's right hip.

"I don't know why they don't let us just tattoo you girls," the woman mused.

Thirteen hadn't encountered any mailgirl program going that far -- yet. But she had read accounts of former mailgirls doing just that, of getting tattooed with their former numbers once liberated. It was maybe one part a badge of honor, that a girl had endured all of the torture and humiliation and come out the other side. But it was likely also one part a reminder to never, never fall victim to a mailgirls contract again. Thirteen was happy to soon be rid of hers.

They'd been recruited in classes when the mailgirls program had rolled out at USF. One, Three, Five, and Six, as well as the original numbers Two and Four, had all been assigned their numbers when the first wave started in April. Then came the original number Seven, whom Thirteen had never met, as well as Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve in May. Thirteen had been assigned her number as the first member of the June class, along with five other girls, Fourteen through Eighteen. Unlike the two previous classes, the June group hadn't yet lost a single girl. Even the July wave, Nineteen through Twenty-Four, couldn't say the same -- they'd lost the original number Twenty-Three just two weeks ago.

Thirteen's number was her identity at this point. She'd read of companies randomly assigning numbers daily, to keep that very thing from happening - to strip everything away from a girl, to keep her from being anything but simply a mailgirl, to make sure she knew her place. Thankfully, however, USF didn't have to go that far to make sure Thirteen knew her place. If the fact that she was naked here at the Plaza weren't enough, the collar and leash hammered that message home.

Mistress Zero unlocked the leash from the collar with a key she kept on her wrist. Patting Thirteen on the ass, she dismissed her. The inspection was through, Thirteen had passed, and now she had been tasked with doing her hair up in pigtails. Mistress Zero, meanwhile, moved on to Fourteen, to perform more-or-less the same inspection.

It was odd, at least in the morning pre-shift, to be alone at the sink counter. Behind her, in the reflection, Thirteen could the other girls -- Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, and so on -- lined up at their lockers. Fourteen was standing on her toes, hands behind her head and elbows out, while Mistress Zero looked her over. The others were on their knees, hands behind their backs, and eyes down facing the floor. Thirteen didn't linger in doing her hair; there was something discomforting about being free while the rest of the mailgirls were locked up. She felt a pang of guilt in that discomfort, the thought of leaving all of her fellow mailgirls behind when she returned to Connecticut. She decided not linger on the guilt, either.

Hair now up in two matching pigtails, Thirteen returned to her locker. Mistress Zero had progressed further down the line, and was in the middle of inspecting Twenty-One, whom she'd been harder on -- deservedly, in most of the girls' opinions -- over the last few weeks. Thirteen, though, paid the inspection no mind, instead reattaching her own leash to her collar. After the familiar "click" of the lock, she took her place on her knees, and sat back on her heels with her hands behind her. She glanced down, awkwardly, at the smartphone on her arm.

Another seven minutes and thirteen seconds before seven o'clock.

She stared down, blankly, at the tiled floor in front of her, fixating on one particular spot. The seconds ticked by, and Thirteen comforted herself with the fact that every minute, every second, that passed got her closer to the end of the day. The end of her time at USF. The end of her life among the mailgirls.