Second Thoughts

After being dismissed from Sanjeev's office I suddenly realized how hungry I was. Between Barbara's presentation, the meeting in her office, and the craziness that just took place in Marketing, I'd missed my lunch break. Normally every second of my day at work had been governed by my smart watch, but the phone now strapped to my arm hadn't issued me any orders and I wasn't even sure if it was active yet. Without something to tell me where to go, what to do, and how much time I was allowed to do it, I was feeling a little unmoored.

I decided to go back to the tower to eat my lunch and began making my way back through the south wing. Without a pickup or delivery deadline to meet I felt like just a naked girl walking through a busy office complex as fully clothed people gawked at me. Of course that's exactly what I was, but when I was performing my mailgirl duties I at least had a sense of purpose and a goal to focus on. With only vague instructions from Barbara to guide me right now I felt an odd longing for the return of an electronic leash that would control my every step throughout the workday.

It was also strange how much more comfortable I felt once I got back into the tower. After three months here the places and faces had grown familiar and I'd learned to navigate these waters without sinking. Even though the tower employees would never accept me as one of them it still felt a little like home. The rest of the DDE complex remained a strange and foreign land for a naked mailgirl.

I went down to the makeshift locker room in the basement and decided to take a shower. As I was soaping myself it struck me that this might be the last time I'd be able to do this with some semblance of privacy. Tomorrow I'd be "inaugurating" the new Mailgirls locker room and would be showering in front of an audience. I desperately wished that things could continue on as they were with just Kelly, Anna, and me working the tower. If I could only do that I thought I might be willing to keep working as a mailgirl indefinitely. In many ways the job was perfectly suited for my exhibitionist and submissive impulses. Barbara had more ambitious plans for me, though, and I knew that every time I reached some level of comfort she'd devise a new way to test and expand my boundaries.

After my shower I gathered my lunch and took it to the second floor Mailgirls mat. For once I could eat without worrying about the clock and my mind wandered back to the events in Sanjeev's office. As I thought about it I began having nagging doubts about whether I'd done the right thing. Yeah, Stephanie had been a complete bitch to me today, but I also knew that Sanjeev was cynically using me to blackmail her into becoming a mailgirl so he could get the $10,000 bonus.

Sanjeev had written out the formal sexual harassment complaint against Stephanie while she sat there withdrawn into a morose funk, refusing to speak. After he'd finished it I'd signed it without hesitation, still angry about the way I'd been treated. After that Sanjeev had called Barbara and arranged an immediate meeting with her. I'd been surprised that she excluded me from it telling Sanjeev that my signature on the complaint was enough. Now that I thought about it I realized that she knew I'd probably start waffling on it, just as I was starting to do now. Barbara knew me too well. She didn't want me anywhere near her office during the meeting with Stephanie.

Now that some time had passed and my anger had subsided I was feeling pangs of guilt about subjecting Stephanie to Barbara's tender mercies. Did she really deserve to lose her job or be forced into Mailgirl servitude just because she'd been mean to me today? And if I was really a humiliation junkie hadn't she given me exactly what I craved? I guess it was because it had happened in front of so many people I knew that it felt like she'd crossed the line.

I was still shocked about how nasty Steph had been to me but I guess in retrospect I should have seen it coming. Things had started going south almost immediately after she'd found out that I'd become a mailgirl. The party that I went to after that had been uncomfortable all the way around, but Stephanie in particular had been cold and condescending toward me. Something Gary said that night gave me the impression that she'd been trashing me to all of my friends and turning them against me. When I confronted her about it she went into a rant about how I was taking part in something that was setting women's rights back by decades. Steph had never struck me as an ardent feminist before that but I couldn't really argue with it either.

And then today when Barbara put me up on stage and thoroughly humiliated me in front of several hundred DDE managers, Steph seemed to enjoy every second of it. Somewhere along the line I'd obviously pissed in her Cheerios without realizing it.

The more I thought about it the worse I felt about signing that sexual harassment complaint. No matter what Steph had done today she didn't deserve to be swept into the black hole of Barbara's gravitational pull for it. I knew Steph was up in Barbara's office right now and I was tempted to go up there and attempt to withdraw my complaint, but I was certain it wouldn't do any good. Her fate was in Barbara's hands now and for me to try to change that would be like spitting into a hurricane.

I finished my lunch and began wondering what I should do next. Barbara had told me to go to every department in the rest of the complex outside of the tower, let myself be seen, and answer any questions about Mailgirls and the app. That seemed simple enough but how exactly was I supposed to do that? Did I wander around to random departments and search for the manager? Should I establish some kind of plan for the order that I did this to make sure I didn't miss anyone? Should I just blow it off knowing that Barbara's sole purpose for it was to further humiliate me? Good Christ, I thought, I'm totally lost now without a fucking watch to tell me what to do. How pathetic is that? Three months as a mailgirl had erased any initiative I'd learned in earning an MBA degree or spending a year in DDE's management training program.

I decided I'd start with the south wing and work my way through it floor by floor, department by department. The prospect of it sounded absolutely horrible, but what choice did I have?

I was nearly to the entrance to the south wing when the MMU strapped to my arm began vibrating. I had to twist my arm to read it and was almost grateful to see I was being summoned to Barbara's office. I turned and made the familiar trip up the stairs to the ninth floor.

As I entered Barbara's office I found Stephanie kneeling naked on Barbara's floor, tears streaming down her cheeks. I wish I could say I was shocked by this, but I wasn't. This is exactly what I'd expected to see.

"Nine, I think you've met our newest mailgirl," Barbara said to me.

I was immediately overcome by intense guilt. What the hell had I done?