Sunday 13 September 2015

CLEANER II: Chapter Five - Part Five

DAHLIA

Spying on Melissa as she sat at the pool bar with this handsome guy; listening to them; the first thing that struck me was her confidence.

When she started working for me back in England as a cleaner, Melissa had been timid and withdrawn, her self-image a mess. Her gargantuan weight, her uninspired dress sense, her near-poverty and her short-sightedness all crushed any chance she had of feeling good about herself. All of those things were in the past now – taking over my life and wealth, and doing all her training had achieved that – and now she seemed more self-possessed than I had been in years. Maybe more than I ever had.

The only reason I could think for that was that she had effectively undergone a fairytale transformation, from an ugly servant to a beautiful princess. She was like an actor on the stage. It was near-fantasy, the life she was living, and that meant she had nothing to lose.

I had to admire her. But that admiration was something more. I acknowledged that she was doing amazingly well but this was beyond that and the sense that she was doing it better than I would was out there now. I felt... envy; maybe even jealousy. I... resented how well she was playing my part. I felt like an understudy to it, as though she was the one who had been chosen; that I was only the back-up; and looking at myself; at the flabby folds of belly, the quivering fat on my arms and thighs, the features of my face that were drowned by fat on my face; I realised that I couldn’t play the role of Dahlia anymore, even if I was called to.

She looked uncannily like Dahlia with only a couple of facial features out of place. I didn’t. Nobody who saw me could ever have guessed that I was her. I wasn’t her in the least anymore in any way, physically or mentally.

I didn’t even recognise my psyche now; it had changed so much. I had been a confident and successful model. Now I was an obese, fetishistic obsessive who had destroyed her own beauty and health to chase after a self-destructive and preposterous goal.

But her confidence was only the first thing I noticed.

The second was her voice, because she didn’t sound like she used to at anymore. It was months since we had started recording our memories for one another. We had been meant to be practicing emulating the other’s voice and I had done as instructed. This was the first time I really sae her do it in a public arena.

Maybe it was the drop in weight or the increase in self-belief, but she spoke exactly like I used to. Her tone was exactly the same, but more, she used the same words and phrases. And as she chatted to this bloke I heard her make little references that identified her as the genuine article.

She chatted to him about her life as a model, giving various juicy anecdotes about her time on the catwalk and backstage. It was entirely convincing to him and intimidating to me.

Could she fool someone who knew me well?

Maybe not in person... yet... but over the phone? Yes. Definitely. If I closed my eyes then the woman I was listening in on was Dahlia Western, no doubt about it.

The more she talked, the more I realised that she had accomplished everything she set out to do here in Greece. She had become me in every way that mattered. And yes, she excelled at it. She did it better than I had for a long time.

The contrast was like a regular unceasing tapping against my forehead, pointing out the contrast between us; how far I had come myself.

She fit in here; she really did; and I didn’t. At this moment it felt like I never could again. How could I? I was gross. I was disgusting. She was beautiful.

She was flirting with the guy but it was more than that. She had already slept with him. She was planning to do so again. Part of me felt awful about that; violated; as though it were my reputation in question; almost that she was doing it with my body (which in a way she was). But the rest of me knew that she had more right to that persona and form now than I did. It wasn’t my life she was living; it was hers.

She really was Dahlia Western now and that meant that I wasn’t.

Was I fully Melissa Chapman?

Maybe I was. Though it didn’t yet feel complete.

Yet.

I had to get out of there. I couldn’t listen anymore. It wasn’t just that I was watching her. Witnessing this was having a weighty impact on my own self-image; casting me further away from my origin and into this new life I had borrowed. It made it feel like it wasn’t just a temporary loan; that it was a permanent trade.

That scared me. It scared me very much.

I turned to go; to creep away in the hopes that she didn’t see me; but as I started to leave I heard something that chilled me still further; that made tears break out and stream down my cheeks as I lumbered back to the front of the hotel and down to the bus stop. It made me hate myself and look down on myself too; made my self-image plummet still further.

The man. The man said, “I’ve seen you talking to a repulsive obese woman with thick specs occasionally. She comes to see you. Who is she?”

Melissa laughed, tilting her face to the sky. “Oh her? She’s nobody. She’s nothing,” she said. “She works for me. But you’re right; she is hideous. I’m embarrassed to be seen with her. To be perfectly honest, she disgusts me. I despise people like that with so little self-control; so flabby and crass. I wish I didn’t have to see her. She’s beneath me.”







55 comments:

  1. Wonderfully done, Emma! Gripping episode!
    You've left us with the tantalizing fact that Melissa could fool someone Dahlia knew her well, not in person, but seemingly well on her way to doing so.
    And, Dahlia, poor Dahlia is watching the last thread connecting her to her former identity begin for fray and come apart. She doesn't feel that she is fully Melissa Chapman, but she admits that Melissa has become Dahlia Western and that Melissa has more right to that identity than she does.

    Melissa will do well in her new modeling career once she snips that last thread!

    --R

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  2. That's really powerful. well done

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  3. Wonderful episode. I guess something will still need to happen for Dahlia to give up on being herself. Even then, she will not give up on returning to herself... or has she already? You can feel that occurring :-)

    MIke W

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    1. The question has now arisen in her mind. We can only wait to see how it plays out.

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  4. Still hope that D tries to get her life back instead of serving it M on a silver platter.
    Much more humiliating when D is "forced" into being a cleaner permanently while helplessly watching the usurper enjoying the finer things life has to offer.
    Knowing that it was all a homemade demise, that D herself was the one enabling M to steal her existence, her career and her well-being should be sufficient for lots of self-reproaches. Realizing that she was manipulated, tricked and used by M might then be the "last straw" breaking D`s back".

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    1. But maybe Dahlia is already beaten!

      Or not...

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  5. ADSOLUTELY CHILLING! BBBBB! M is really showing the evil & hatred to D now. One of yur best chapters!!

    "She fit in here; she really did; and I didn’t. At this moment it felt like I never could again. How could I? I was gross. I was disgusting. She was beautiful. More ‘self possessed’ but what self is possessing why D’s of course. And D thinks she is doing it better and looking at her grotesque and ugly present self D realizes she could play the part of D – of herself anymore CHILLING!
    “I didn’t even recognize my psyche now; it had changed so much. I had been a confident and successful model. Now I was an obese, fetishistic obsessive who had destroyed her own beauty and health to chase after a self-destructive and preposterous goal."

    And now M speaks EXACTLY like D.
    "She chatted to him about her life as a model, giving various juicy anecdotes about her time on the catwalk and backstage. It was entirely convincing to him and intimidating to me. (note this is natural to M now, like she had lived D’s life!! Also, D calls the man a ‘bloke’ would she have used that word in her own persona? It sounds lower class to me. She has been faithfully memorizing M's boice & way of speaking for months now))

    D now believes M could fool any one over the phone! This will probably be important soon. And its more dirt of the engraved of D’s previous identity! Even D closing her eyes thinks the person speaking is DAHLIA WESTERN.

    “She fit in here; I didn’t. At this moment it felt like I never could again. How could I? I knew that she had more right to that persona and form now than I did. It wasn’t my life she was living; it was hers. was gross. I was disgusting. She was beautiful.”
    (I) Knew that she had more right to that persona and form now than I did. It wasn’t my life she was living; it was hers.

    She really was Dahlia Western now and that meant that I wasn’t. Was I fully Melissa Chapman? "

    Maybe I was. Though it didn’t yet feel complete. YET
    "Witnessing this was having a weighty impact on my own self-image; casting me further away from my origin and into this new life I had borrowed. It made it feel like it wasn’t just a temporary loan; that it was a permanent trade. "

    That scared me. It scared me very much. "

    “I’ve seen you talking to a repulsive obese woman with thick specs occasionally. She comes to see you. Who is she?” (Emma you might want to consider having him call M ‘Dahlia' instead of you)

    Melissa laughed, - - -“Oh her? She’s nobody. She’s nothing,” she said. “She works for me. But you’re right; she is hideous. I’m embarrassed to be seen with her. To be perfectly honest, she disgusts me. I despise people like that with so little self-control; so flabby and crass. I wish I didn’t have to see her. She’s beneath me.”

    OH, MY GOD. What will D do now? Things are spiraling out of her control. She has one good chance to call Katherine RIGHT NOW and get her down there with some DNA testing to prove who she is no matter whom she looks like. But I doubt if she will do it or even think of it. It still shows the depth of D’s madness that she thinks she could like press a magic button and e restored to the beautiful Dahlia Western. It took M MANY MONTHS to achieve D’s old body. Could D do it, I wonder?

    Also, will D to too ashamed to admit or feel too unworthy and just totally give up and let M now be Dahlia Western and she to accept her new horrible life and identity totally. That she now is far more Melissa Chapman than the beautiful, charming model Dahlia Western and willing accept the needed Plastic Surgery? I can’t wait for more. Poor Dahlia. Her character I think is a major improvement as far as the story than Topaz in the original. She is sympatric, Topaz was arrogant.

    Ican't wait for more! Bravo, Emma!



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    1. Thanks Eric. It was you that reminded me to cover the vocal changes so that's all you!

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  6. Wow, Emma. Another brilliant chapter!
    And we are not even halfway through the trilogy... :-)

    I am wondering, though, if D has already accepted a permanent swap by simply considering M now the better woman or if D still thinks there is some sort of "panic button" ending it all.

    If so, I am sure that a nightmarish lesson awaits Dahlia when she finds herself unable to press that button, seeing her kinky dreams become cruel and permanent reality.

    marc

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    1. Dahlia gave Melissa control of only some of her money, not all of it but, as she said, more than enough to cover expenses involved in the Greek 'temporary' life swap. So there should be a panic button available to her if she really needs or wants it. Of course she'll face he same journey Melissa's already taken to regain anything like her former appearance and status.

      These last few postings have been quite chilling and concern the thing that interests me most - the interaction in the relationship between the two women. The sudden change in Melissa as the lift door opened (from lovingly friendly to distant and dismissive in a moment) must have shocked Dahlia as much as the confident demeanour of Melissa as she overhears her conversation - indistinguishable from her own.

      I also liked the touch (I assume deliberate) where Dahlia refers to Melissa's appearance in the third person "She looked uncannily like Dahlia with only a couple of facial features out of place" as if Dahlia isn't Dahlia at all any longer.

      Anyway, Emma has delivered yet again for which I thank her. Now just another looong 6 days before we get more :)

      Robyn H

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    2. Thanks guys.

      The money wasn't complete but I guess if Melissa goes home as Dahlia then she would naturally assume control of the rest.

      Yes Robyn, Dahlia is losing touch with her old self.

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    3. Dahlia is mega rich and probably has someone taking care of the majority of her money for her. All Melissa needs to do is find out who that is, present herself as Dahlia Western and voila, control.
      Dahlia would be powerless to stop her. Who would believe her if she tried to convince someone that she was really Dahlia Western? She doesn't believe it herself anymore.

      What do you mean 'IF' Melissa goes home as Dahlia? She will!

      --R

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    4. Exactly. Melissa may not be fully Dahlia yet but Dahlia is certainly no longer Dahlia.

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  7. There would be no cause fort self loathing if she was just Melissa them rings would be as they had always been and nothing would be wrong...

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  8. If Dahlia "completely" loses touch with her old self...would this not prevent her from realizing what she had lost due to her kinky desires???
    I remember the fantastic mirror scene in the original tale where M asks D who the cleaner and who the supermodel is. This was always the moment - for me - where Dahlia´s long journey into becoming insignificant, losing it all to Melissa, had come to its bitter end. Wouldnt a scene such as this lose some of its impact if Dahlia had already accepted becoming Melissa Chapman inwardly, if she had long before given up hope for getting back what is hers?
    I was of the opinion that a fundamental part of the story and D´s humiliation was that she indeed set her downward spiral in motion by organizing and starting the "temporary" swap, not seeing that this "game" would finally give M the power to make the swap permanent, stealing her life. But maybe my interpretation was wrong here and this story is not about a life theft but a life sacrifice. ;-)

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    1. I expect to cover all the original story's themes before I'm done. But things are developing rather differently now because we're seeing the scenes abroad. This is accelerating some aspects.

      I'm hoping you won't be disappointed.

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    2. It is next to impossible that you will disappoint me with this magnificent tale, even if I might not agree with all trials and tribulations in detail. ;-)
      marc

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    3. Well you can't please everybody... but I do try to.

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  9. If I recall, in the original story Melissa doesn't do well in Dahlia's life. I'm hoping that this version is a little darker and Melissa thrives in Dahlia's life while Dahlia is left out in the cold wallowing in her life as Melissa while remembering her life as Dahlia Western.

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    1. I suspect a bit of both may occur...

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    2. Mr. Anonymous, i wholeheartedly agree. And if I interpret Emma´s teasings correctly, there might still be hope for us "dark-end-junkies"... :-)

      marc

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    3. You dark end junkies may be in for a nice surprise at some point. The afterword of A New You 5 tells more...

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    4. It's a bit worrisome that Dahlia is scared. Will she press the panic button and end the game? Can she even do that at this point? She admits that Melissa is now Dahlia Western and she has more right to that persona. I have a feeling that if Dahlia tried, Melissa wouldn't go quietly.

      I can only imagine what is going through Dahlia's mind at this point. She's hiding behind a plant watching another woman live her life better than she could thinking that after all the work Melissa had put into it, she deserves it.

      I think that Melissa should go back to England and leave Dahlia to work a couple more weeks. Dahlia would be in Greece scrubbing floors thinking about Melissa making Summer Top her own along with the rest of Dahlia's life.

      Yes, like Marc I am a "dark-end-junkie"! :)

      --Robert

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    5. Robert? I think you're biassed because you're Melissa's husband and you fancy having her replaced with a former super model :)

      Actually I think the scenario you suggest would be better if Dahlia was actually living in Summertop, too ... but as a live in cleaner and able to see Melissa taking over.

      Robyn H

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    6. If I were M, I would leave D to rot in Greece while taking over her fortune, friends, career and life without any disturbances.
      For Dahlia... the purest horror...staying in a foreign country...scrubbing floors...all the while knowing that far away...at home... another woman ruins your life (at least the rest of it) and positions herself in your place permanently... Not able to do anything against it... because cleaning up Greek floors is the only problem you are capable of solving...
      marc

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    7. Robyn, I'm way nicer that THAT guy! LOL!

      I think Dahlia being stuck in Greece knowing that Melissa is a thousand miles away living in her house, wearing her clothes, spending her money, taking over her friends and getting a firm foothold into Dahlia's life would give her a real sense that she's lost control of her life forever.

      Then, once established, Melissa could send Dahlia the means to return to England and work as her cleaner.

      Imagine Dahlia reporting for work to find that the new Dahlia Western has taken up with Tommy and they are now a couple and her career has taken off.

      (grin)

      --Robert

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    8. Hmmm... I'm not sure about this. I think Dahlia will have s many things to be getting on with we wouldn't have room to include that thread as well, good idea though it is.

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    9. I'm sure you have it all planned out in that wonderfully devious mind of yours and the Tommy thread isn't really pertinent to the identity struggle.

      I'm thinking that if Dahlia and Melissa go back at the same time and Dahlia finds out what Robert is really like, she may call the whole thing off before Melissa gets complete control of Dahlia's identity.

      Melissa has her work cut out for her!

      --R

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    10. Maybe, yes. And of course Tommy is part of the English cast so he may come back into it if events move back to Blighty!

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    11. Yes...
      I also think that it can do no harm to the story´s suspense level if there will be some sort of resistance by D at some point.
      Thus, it might appear that D would feel even more humiliated by her final surrender when there were at least some feeble attempts at regaining control before. It might be funny to see these attempts thwarted by a cunning M and her ruthless manipulations.
      marc

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    12. Trust me...

      (Grins with side of mouth)

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    13. Really? You have to be joking!

      As far as story plots go I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you (and I'm very weak!). That's a GOOD thing btw :)

      Robyn H

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    14. At the moment, Melissa IS Dahlia Western for all intents, the only thing that remains is the question of whether or not the real Dahlia accepts it and fades quietly into Melissa's identity or if she struggles to regain her life. Only Emma knows that. :)

      Dahlia is scared, but at the same time you can almost see the wheels turning as though she's wondering if Melissa could really take it all the way and return to the modeling career that was once hers. Dahlia might be far gone enough to let Melissa do just that.

      It remains to be seen...

      --R

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    15. It must be profoundly creepy. Imagine this happening to you in your life!

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    16. You do creepy so well!

      --R

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  10. An interesting thought has com to me.
    Earlier before this shock of seeing M doing so well as 'Dahlia Western' D had decided to study M's life and kind of make it own, as if it were indeed HER OWN past.
    Now the delightful M seems to be changeling D's past & rying to make it her own, to feel comfortable in D's memories & attitudes.
    Where will this led,I wonder?
    I can why M would do this of coruse, & I remember earlier still when she was thinking of some picture to keep her on he weight lost course, that she wanted to possess everything D had & hurl D totally into M's pitul life.
    IsM consciously or unconsciously want to even steal D's past &^& persoanlity & forced D into notonly a exchange of identity, but a change of Persona;s as well?

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  11. Just another thought. Could the despricble Emma be plotting somehting wicked. Surely not, & yet. Maybe we think Katheine will be coming to the rescue as she has found out where they are. Couild poor D be saved?. I wonder if we will be led to believe that say Katherine has tracked them down & is preparingto fly down to Greece to make sure eveyrthing is OK until she talks on the phon e to 'Dahlia' at the POSH hotel & is reasured that everything is fine, Dahlia is just gettinga holiday to forget the greif of losing her brothe & the 2 'old friends' have a comfortable chat with 'Dahlia' talking Katherine from visiting & they talk about old times. Reasured Katherine hangs up thinking, thank god dahlia is OK, infact more like her OLD SELF!

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  12. The last chapters were all "dedicated" to Dahlia.
    Maybe the next Melissa part of the story will shed some light on coming events, though.
    Until now we do not know anything about the next moves M might have planned.
    We do not even know how M thinks about Dahlias announcement that the holidays were over soon and the time for their temporary swap was running out.
    One might think that M didnt very much like such talk... ;-)
    I am starting to get nervous as well...
    marc

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    1. I thought we heard from Melissa about that a couple of chapters ago...

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    2. "I felt ill at the thought of it: of going back to England and having to fit back into my life as a cleaner; to go back to Robert. I was too used to the wealth and pleasure now. I could never go back. I would die if I had to.
      I would kill myself. "

      That doesn`t sound like like a plan... Not really...

      But you are right nevertheless. We already know how M "feels" about returning to Nockton as a cleaner... ;-)

      (grinning ... a bit muddle-headed)

      marc

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    3. Dahlia mentioned previously that seeing Melissa doing so wonderfully playing the role of Dahlia was 'a dream come true'. I think Melissa's plan is to use that to manipulate Dahlia.

      Melissa has already wrapped herself in Dahlia's identity. She's committed Dahlia's experiences to memory to the point where she can recall them as though they were hers. She's confident and comfortable with her new Dahlia persona and as Dahlia herself admits, she IS Dahlia Western.

      I think her plan is to keep Dahlia off balance and convince her that extending the swap is Dahlia's idea. Melissa knows that if she can get back to England as Dahlia Western, then she will have the advantage.

      At least that's my perception. :)

      --Robert

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  13. Cut to the quick! Just read that the next 'Cleaner' posting is delayed until Sunday How can Emma treat we fans so cruelly as to make us wait a further 24 hours for her words of both wisdom and erudition? Or perhaps I meant erotism? Spelling's a bit hit and miss at this time of night :)

    Robyn H

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    1. Sorry! Life sometimes gets in the way. I'll do my best to get it out tonight for you. Still haven't read it yet!

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    2. Don't apologise. Real life ALWAYS takes priority. You know my comment was meant to read with tongue in cheek.

      Thanks so much for all you write so well.

      RH

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