Story: The New Regime

THE NEW REGIME
By Tcheser

The Servile Revolution was celebrating its five year anniversary when Marta was made house manager to the first citizen. The tales of her rather miserable existence as a sweat shop worker prior to the revolution had made her most desirable to his administration and offered the position she humbly accepted it vowing to do everything she could for the downtrodden and oppressed.

The position of house manager was similar to that of chief of staff during the old regime of course, but it wasn't what one would call a glamorous position, as its trappings were much different. Glamour was not something one ran across much anymore and any small amount of glamour the positions had held in the past was now gone completely. Still Marta seemed to go about it with great pride and vigor.

Among her duties was that of filling all the senior level house staff positions which were vacant. To this end she lined up a number of candidates for each empty position and additional ones which she would assign support positions. This was an important duty as it was vital that they only had the right types in positions of authority lest the corruption and decadence of old reassert itself or so the party kept saying.

So it was strange that one of the first people she interviewed for one of these open positions turned out to be someone who wasn't quite who they claimed. Marta was fairly certain of it. She went by the name of Carmen Sanchez, but she imagined that before the revolution she had gone by a very different name. Rather than reveal right away that she saw through her ruse, Marta instead went on with the interview as if she had no suspicions, she thought that was the best way to approach things. Perhaps she should have called security, but she didn't.
Instead they went about the interview in what had become the typical fashion for a position in the new regime. They began with her background. Where she was from and what she had done before the revolution. According to Carmen she was from south central Los Angeles, the daughter of a housekeeper and had been a housekeeper herself, working off the books for her mother, when the revolution had occurred. In addition she looked after their employers children and tried to go to school, but never attended college as they couldn't hope to afford it.

While Carmen spoke Marta surreptitiously looked the other woman over. Had she not known the woman was lying about who she was, she would have assumed she was just what she said she was. She was very fit, with strong looking arms and thighs, was about medium height with dull brown hair, eyes and skin. Like all the women Marta had interviewed so far, she wore only the drab gray button down dress, hard wearing tights and rubber clogs which had almost become the uniform of the Servile party. She would have been fairly attractive but these clothes downplayed her ample breasts and shapely figure and she of course wore no makeup and had her dark hair pulled back in a simple bun. Taken as a whole she was the epitome of a new regime woman and a fine example at that.

They then discussed what she had been doing since the revolution. Carmen told Marta she had continued working for the family that employed her mother until she joined the California branch of the Committee of Reassessment and helped out there wherever she could. A few months in she was noticed by the 1st Statesman of California and became one of his councilors. After that she had filled various roles in the transitional state government before being tapped to come to the nation’s new capitol in Kansas City and be a servant of the new people’s government. Since then she had worked as a staffer for several influential members of the Worker's Committee.

Finished with her tale Carmen smiled and waited for Marta to continue the interview. It was at this point however that Marta leaned forward and revealed what she knew. "You're no maid's daughter. You're a one of the enemy. You're a one percenter." she said.

"How did you know?" Carmen blurted out clearly stunned that Marta had been able to see through her disguise and see that she really wasn't what she claimed to be, the poor hardworking downtrodden child of a 1st generation immigrant.

"I suspected it the moment you opened your mouth to greet me. You should have stuck to English, You're Spanish is good, but it's actually too good, you sound like my high school Spanish teacher. Still I wasn't sure, so I thought I'd confront you... and now you have confirmed my suspicion."

"Damn, how could I be so stupid?" Carmen said shaking her head at her own folly.

"Well you almost had me fooled. If it wasn't for that little slip up I probably would have believed you really were just the hardworking immigrant maid you claimed." Marta gave her credit where credit was due. It was after all quite a transformation. "Tell me now, how did you do this? You should be in the fields picky fruit with the rest of your kind!"

"Well it wasn't easy... or cheap," Carmen admitted, "Originally my name was Taylor Anderson. My father was Carlton Anderson, a successful real estate developer like his father before him. We were quite wealthy, what the new regime denounced as 'the parasitic rich' or 'the one percenters'."

"You're white aren't you? Probably from where... Malibu?"

"Yes... to both...or at least I was." Carmen smiled wistfully, "I had everything really. I was a rich, sexy blonde who was never going to have to work because her parents were born rich. My life consisted of shopping and parties and figuring out which guy I was going to let take me. Of course... that's all history now. When the revolution started down the course of reassessment my parents realized we were going to lose everything. They wanted more for me so they made arrangements."

"What kind of arrangements?" Marta was curious.

"Well we did actually have a maid who had a daughter who worked off the books, her name was Lupe." Carmen explained "For a substantial payment in gold jewelry she agreed to say that I was also her daughter. Of course I didn't look anything like her being of Scandinavian descent while she was Mexican."

"So you did what? Dyed your hair and skin and got contacts?"

"I wish it had been that easy. We considered such things, but realized that under the present political atmosphere, it seemed I would eventually slip up and be discovered. So we decided on more permanent measures." Carmen swallowed as if remembering something unpleasant. "We were able to find an unlicensed doctor, in a part of town I'd never been to before, who specialized in a number of unapproved medical procedures that could change my appearance significantly enough that no one would suspect I wasn't born a Mexican."

"Really? What did he do?" Marta asked intrigued.

"To begin with he used a laser to stimulate the melanin in my skin so that it increased dramatically. When I tanned I stayed tan." she explained showing off the brown shade of her arm, "Then he inserted ocular implants into my eyes which changed them from the blue I was born with to the dark brown they are now. A little plastic surgery here and there gave me a more Latin look."

"That sounds unpleasant." Marta said genuinely unsettled. She had more than a little bit of a phobia about doctors and surgery.

"Yes, I suppose," Carmen nodded "But all of this was relatively quick and painless, the implants in my eyes are irritating and I have to take anti-inflamatories, but its not that bad really. The hair however was more difficult. To get it the texture and color it is now the doctor had every one of my hair follicles plucked out, one by one, and then replaced with donor follicles. It took days to pull out all my beautiful blond hair and put the new hair in. When they were done though my hair looked just like this," she fingered a dull brown lock of hair, "and will until the day I die."

"And then you launched you're new career?" Marta assumed.

"No, not quite," Carmen shook her head, "First I had to work under Lupe for about a year. She said if I wanted to really fool anyone I had to not only look the part, but really know what it was like for someone like her. Perhaps even more importantly, she said the work would change me almost as much as the doctor had, and she was right."

"I wore an old polyester uniform and apron of her daughters and did everything she had. I effectively became the maid in my own house with the housekeeper as my boss. Every day I mopped, washed, scrubbed and polished until even my bones felt tired. The work toughened my formerly soft hands, gave me calluses, made me strong in muscles I didn't even know I had, my thighs and ass especially. Even my arches fell. I'll probably never be able to wear heels again."

"I think Lupe enjoyed the process actually, watching me wear that hot stinking uniform, eat the slop they ate at every meal, and toil away on my hands and knees doing what she had done for years until I gradually took on the posture of a working woman rather than a spoiled dilettante."

"That's quite a story," Marta said as she stood up and walked over to the intercom which could be used to call security with just a press of a button.

"I know, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tried to pretend to be what I'm not. Please don't be too harsh... I've been through so much already!" Carmen pleaded. "I'll go to the fields or the reeducation camps or wherever you like!"

"No I don't think those will do, I have a much better place for someone like you."

"Not the mines, please, I just wanted to do something with my life!" Carmen fell to her knees and begged for all she was worth. She crawled over to where Marta stood and fell at her feet, her tears falling on the house manager's sensible shoes.

Marta couldn't help but laugh. "Stop that already," she said, "I'm not going to send you to the mines or the reeducation camps or anything like that. I'm actually going to give you just what you sought, a position in the administration."

"What? I don't understand. You know who I am... What I am...why would you do this for me?"

"Because you silly girl, we aren't that different. Did you really think you were the only person of privilege out there who didn't want to end up digging up turnips in Minnesota for the rest of their lives?"

"So you..."

"Well I'm not going to confirm anything, but I will say that there are more than a few people in this administration who did everything they could to put the lives they led before the revolution far behind them and, like you, assume a.... somewhat less illustrious demeanor to curry favor with the new regime."

"I understand," Carmen nee Taylor smiled, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, it's just another reality of the time we live in."Marta explained matter-of-factly, "Further always remember I know the truth about you. This regime may lack the trapping of the old one, but it works the same way. Now go work on your Spanish, the next person who figures out who you really are might not be as forgiving."