CLEANER II: Chapter Five - Part Six

DAHLIA

On the journey back to the hotel and my filthy menial job I alternated between three contrasting states, flipping between them in sequence, one after another and back again.

In the first state I simply stared out of the bus window, eyes rigid, blurred out of any kind of interest in the scenery I was passing as my sluggish thoughts went back over the... obscenity... I had just witnessed; the insane situation I had found myself in.

Then my thoughts would drift to the second state where my memories of the humiliation and envy of my real life took on a rosy golden glow; a simmer of gently bubbling arousal between my swollen, fleshy thighs. This arousal was like the silvery film around a bubble, floating in a breeze, each one holding a different image of this awful sordid life I had inherited and the questionable decisions I had made. One bubble might be the massive amount of fat I had piled onto my body, another the pathetic and dirty job I willingly did when I was meant to be a wealthy model. Another was my eyesight, ruined possibly beyond repair; another was Melissa living my life as a superior clone of me, telling people how ugly and fat I was; how beneath her.

And as each stimulating bubble in my mind popped I broke into a brief and desperate tears: weeping that lasted only seconds before it shut off and I went back to staring.

I knew this was wrong. I knew it was a terrible and maybe even irrevocable mistake, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t break free of it. Because I wanted it still. I wanted to be fat. I wanted to be ugly. I wanted to have weak eyes and cheap clothes. I wanted to work in a subservient and pitiable vocation. I wanted Melissa to be superior to me; to take on every trait that I had lost. I wanted her to be as beautiful and slim as I was homely and obese. I even wanted her to treat me like I was scum. I wanted to be scum compared to her.

And I didn’t know why. I honestly didn’t know why I did any of this.

I hated myself but I couldn’t stop. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to. And again I wondered what would happen now if Melissa came to me and mentioned, matter-of-factly that she had decided to keep my life.

Would I fight her for it? Did I even want it back?

And how in heaven could I ever hope to be Dahlia again, looking like this; my self-esteem and self-respect in ruins?

The bus came to a stop and I got out. I lumbered back toward my hotel, my knees creaking terribly because of my extra mass and the battering they got when I was scrubbing the floors. My weight was so huge now. It was giving me back pains too; making my breathing laboured. How obese was I now? How much fatter was I going to get? Did I know when this was going to end? And when it did, I did know that I wouldn’t suddenly spring back to my former shape.

When Melissa and I decided to stop doing this crazy scheme I wouldn’t be Dahlia in any way anymore, even if I wanted to be. I was far more like her now than she was. I was a grossly obese woman with thick glasses. And the lifestyle I had adopted was so set in now. I craved my meals and my snacks. With such a habitual lifestyle catapulting me into a progressively fatter woman, how could I hope to get back or even stop?

I might end up being fat forever, whether I was myself again or not.

As I walked up the drive to the hotel I realised that my gait was so different now. I remembered the grace that I used to use as I walked the catwalk modelling extravagant dresses. Now I was so gargantuan that I could do nothing but waddle: one lumbering footfall after another, the ample thighs grazing one another as my chubby arse shifted alternately up and down; as quivers ran round my folds of belly fat and up through my doughy thighs and swollen calves. My distended boobs flopped and juddered with each heavy stomp and the flab around my chin trembled too in time with the shivers in my bloated upper arms.

This was my fantasy come true. This was me as a corpulent cleaning lady, with nothing better to do than trudge to her unskilled and tedious job.

I thought about the other cleaners and the way they treated me and I started crying again.

What had I done to myself? Why had I done it? I knew I should call a stop to this now but where could I find the courage to do that? Where could I find the will?

And deep down I was afraid of what would happen if I did. It wasn’t just a case of becoming Dahlia gain but a grossly obese parody of the former model. The thing I was really afraid of was that I would go back to Melissa and demand a switch and she would say no, as she sort of had before. She would refuse to swap back and leave me stranded in her awful life forever.

But perhaps that didn’t make me fear. Surely that was the most titillating part of this; the darkest and most seedy fantasy. For surely, deep down, that was what I had wanted all along. Surely if she did that then part of me would be glad, would sizzle in raging, unfettered arousal, even as the conscious part of me that wasn’t mad screamed and screamed for the rest of my life.