Cleaner - Part Five

THE ORIGINAL MELISSA

I laughed until my throat got sore. I had to make myself stop. To see my stupid ignorant arrogant boss reduced to the state she was now – standing there in my old fat body, watching me leave.

I hated my body and life as Melissa. She was welcome to it.

All the years I had worked for Topaz, scurrying round while she lounged by the pool reading magazines, I’d felt the envy turn to bitterness and then to hate.

I hated her arrogance, the air of superiority she always carried. I hated the fact her life had reached a point mine never could. I hated the irritation and impatience she had around her trainer when she put on the slightest amount of weight.

Now she’d put on a bit of extra weight. She was every bit as huge as I had ever been.

How surprised that after all that hate and jealousy, she had come to me with a request to swap places? How eagerly had I accepted, pretending to be scared and surprised?

To be honest I had been surprised. Surprised at how foolish and shortsighted she could be and how happily she could give away everything she possessed to me.

I played along. I insisted she pay me for the trouble I was going to, all along not believing that she’d push all the way. Despite my desire for a thinner body, my depression had always drained my resolve to slim. With her pushing me and the hope that she would give it all up spurring me on, I trained harder than I could have believed possible.

And all the time, she loved pretending to be me – loved putting on weight and looking worse and worse each day.

When she asked me if I would have plastic surgery and temporarily assume her life completely, I had to bite my lip to stop myself laughing in her face.

You stupid stupid woman, I thought. Don’t you realise that I’ll never let you take it back from me?

And now I had it. I was the model. I was Topaz. It was my long legs and slender body that languished by the pool. It was her chubby form that bent down on hands and knees to clean.

Every day was a pleasure that outdistanced the last. I gloried in the punishment I gave her, each belittling remark and put-down a thank you for the years I’d suffered under her reign.

And now I was on my way to meet her fans and her friends while she was about to find out just how bad my old home life was. Except her fans and friends were mine now. If she were there she’d be a laughing stock.

I was going to be a queen.