The alarm clock went off at 4 AM and Kirsten cursed the early hour, just like she did every day.
She rolled out of bed. Dave groaned, and then fell asleep again. He was one of several scrubs she'd been through since her fiance had left her. Her standards, once so high, had plummeted in favor of the seedier class of loser who wouldn't pry too deeply into her work life. She wondered why she cared enough to date anyone, but she did. Maybe because it was nice to be around someone who saw her as something other than a lackey to order around or a hole to fuck. That was the theory anyway; her recent string of boyfriends had been pretty close to the assholes who abused her at work.
Kirsten stepped into her neatly appointed bathroom, stripped from her pajamas, and then stepped into the shower. She washed quickly as the cold water warmed, turning into steaming rivulets that cascaded over her toned, naked form. If there was one thing to thank her new job for, it was fitness. She'd taken on the taut, lean physique of a runner, appropriate as she ran for miles every day through the halls of the office.
Kirsten shut off the water and rubbed her body with depilatory cream. She did this daily, as per company memorandum MR-038. There were lots of memos, and Kirsten and the other girls in the mailroom lived and died by them. This was in her mind as she dried, and then finished her ablutions, quickly doing her hair and makeup (slutty, not too slutty, per memorandum MR-031).
She returned to her room and dressed in her Ann Taylor suit. The girls had to wear their best to work, even though they only wore them from the walk from the garage to the mail room. Once, she'd asked Mr. Pinkman in Human Resources why this was so. His answer was predictable. "It keeps up appearances, #12," he'd said. "It's not just from the garage; it's on the ride to and from work. You girls represent the company and we don't want you looking like little tramps, do we?"
That and it was one more petty regulation for them to follow. The company was big on petty rules, and the all to frequent memos that heralded their adoption. Still, there was one reason to be grateful for; it gave her one less thing to explain to the boyfriend. He knew she worked in an office, and he assumed she had a job commensurate with her intelligence and education. She saw no reason to disavow him of the impression just yet.
By 4:30 she was behind the wheel of her car, eating a Nutragrain bar she'd grabbed from the kitchen. She tossed her laptop bag on the passenger seat - it was full of papers from her old position. It was just to keep up appearances, but she felt a pain in her heart as the dates on the papers she'd handled in the old days receded further and further into the past.
The drive to the office took 20 minutes. Her Camry rattled all the way, it needed some engine work, but lately there hadn't been the time or money to get it looked at. There were only a few cars on the freeway. Kirsten wondered how many of them were driven by other mailroom girls, on their way to jobs like her own. She recognized the Saturn S-1 driven by Girl #2, Elyse Peldon. She follwed Elyse's car from the off-ramp to the office garage. They drove down the winding ramps, five floors to the most remote spots in the structure.
Kirsten and Elyse met at the elevator and exchanged wan smiles. Elyse was wearing an Armani suit, the same one that had served her so well when she had been the director of New Media Marketing. They took the garage elevator up to the lobby and walked past the tiled atrium to the basement stairs. The bored guard at the reception desk barely spared a look at them, though he'd be staring plenty when they were in their "uniforms."
They took a helix staircase down to the basement and walked through the swinging door into the mailroom.
The mailroom was a spartan, functional room. There was a wall of mailslots on one wall, and cases of mail on the floor. There were 12 cubbies by the door, one for each of the mailroom girls. The only furniture was in the head of the mailroom's office, which would be locked until Carl arrived.
Kirsten and Elyse stripped wordlessly out of their chic suits and sensible pumps. The morning dress code was the most subtly cruel regulation on the books. Every day, when they stripped out of their best suits, it keenly drove home all the privileges and respect the girls had lost. On the plus, it saved on cleaning costs. Kirsten hadn't had to have her suits dry cleaned in months.
Kirsten knelt on the floor by her cubby, which was marked #12, the name she went by at work. Her armband was waiting for her in its charger. It was a black, neoprene band inset with a specially programmed iPhone. She pulled it onto her left arm, three inches about her elbow, transforming herself from the relatively insignificant Kirsten Allen to the truly insignificant Mailroom Girl #12. Instinctively, she glanced at the display, but the screen was idling green. During the rush of the day, the armbands were alive with instructions and timers, timers that had to be beaten to avoid demerits and humiliating punishments. Fortunately, there was no one of importance in the building at that ungodly hour, the only small positive that Kirsten could find in her grueling arrival time.
By this time, the other girls had filtered in, stripping at their cubicles, exchanging their clothes for their respective armbands. Kirsten folded her suit as best she could, then tucked it away with her shoes. Then she stood in front of the mirror at the end of the room. She was stark naked save for her armband and makeup, in other words, the regulation mailroom girl outfit. She completed the effect by pouring some oil out from a bottle on the mailroom counter, applying a light coat so her skin shone. Elyse followed suit, and Kirsten noted that Elyse was was on her period, her full pussy lips couldn't quite conceal the tampon with the string cut off.
By that time it was 5:00 exactly.
The girls spent the next thirty minutes running through the eight floors of the office, doing the morning prep. They put fruit bowls in the conference rooms, checked the water coolers, started pots of coffee, delivered the trades and newspapers that had come that morning By 5:29 it was done and they were back in the mailroom, where they knelt in rows, waiting for their boss, Carl Wilcox, to come in and give them their morning instructions.
Carl entered at 5:47. He was17 minutes late, but it hardly seemed prudent to mention that. Carl was 29, paunchy, and cruel. He gripped a sloppily stained cup of Starbucks coffee in his right hand, coffee had alreadhy stained his rumpled Oxford shirt. He handed the cup to Elyse, who knelt before him, holding his coffee as high as she could.
Carl stood before the girls, looking for any flaws in their uniform presentation. "Good morning, Skanks," he said.
"Good morning, Mr. Wilcox," they chimed back.
"We've been getting some complaints that you've been making eye contact with the executives. This stops now. If they wanted to see your disgusting faces, they'd ask."
"Yes, Mr. Wilcox," the girls said, in unision.
Carl went on in this vein for a bit, discussing stuff they all already new, peppering his dull speech with an abundance of "ums" and "likes". Like always, the presentation was in service of making him feel like a big man rather than any immediate need.
The big clock on the mailroom wall flipped to 6:00. By this time, the office assistants were all at their desks. There were interoffice packages to be delivered and memos to be distributed. One by one, the girl's armbands started lighting up, displaying the location there were needed and the laughably insignificant time they had to get there.
Kirsten turned to go, eager to leave the mailroom.
"Hold up Kirsten."
"Yes, Mr. Wilcox.?" She turned, being careful to stoop a little. Kirsten was 5'8 and even in her bare feet she was a skosh taller than Carl in his loafers.
Carl looked her up and down. She flushed with humiliation. She still hated being naked, and resented every microsecond spent under Carl's rapacious gaze. Carl knew it and loved that about her.
"Go get 'em, Kiddo." He gave Kirsten a little pat on the fanny and retreated to his office to look at porn or god knows what.
++++
