Story: The Cleaner Returns. Chapters 25-26.

by BigBird74

Dahlia’s evening was short and punctuated only by her evening meal and a visit from her doctor. Her body ached with an unfamiliar exhaustion. Though she was used to exercise, the same could not be said for hard, real work. The few times that evening she had risen from her bed, she had felt a twinge in the small of her back, a sign perhaps of having overdone things a little. Laying on the bed, she stared up at the ceiling, lost in her thoughts and contemplating what had been a highly unusual day. Stretching her spine, she lengthened the arch of her back and ran her hands up and down her svelte figure. Pausing at her belly, she slid her fingertips over her flat stomach.

Closing her eyes, she sunk her fingers in as far as they would go, her taut, muscular stomach providing instant resistance. She felt kind of disappointed: there was no evidence of her earlier, substantial lunch, no bulge, no fatty softness. She pictured how it would feel instead to touch soft flesh layered on wider hips and a fuller belly. The idea sparked heat within her nether regions and she let her mind wander down this formerly forbidden trail.

She had always had a morbid curiosity towards women that struggled with their weight. Her iron will had meant that the process of retaining her slim, model figure had rarely been tested. Temptation was something in which she never indulged. But what of the ever growing numbers of women around her that seemed oblivious of their growing weight? What ran through their minds each time they overate? Was it a conscious decision that made them feel sated, their belly pushing out against their belt buckle? Or was it an uncontrollable compulsion, like an act of reckless short-term gain that, in their minds, outweighed the long-term consequences? Or perhaps their bodies really did function on a lower metabolic plane, maybe they did just pile on the pounds in spite of whatever they ate? Undoubtedly some people needed help in that way.

It had always puzzled her and yet why? In her younger years, she had maintained a snooty sense of being ‘holier than thou’, but as her contemporaries gave into age, temptation and the good life, she stood firm, increasingly alone and feeling almost besieged. Her sense of being tired of it all, of having reached an inflection point in her life – a moment of powerful change – was unmistakeable.

This was Dahlia’s frame of mind when dinner arrived. Like lunch it featured a number of heavier items that she would never have chosen normally. It was the realisation that she was eating the food of a cleaner, of Petra, that sent a wave of pleasure cresting within Dahlia. She knew food intimately. Avoiding excess calories had been her obsession for almost all her adult life and the alarm bells rang loudly as she started chewing. None of this food suited a supermodel. But that wave of raw pleasure, at being someone different, suppressed her feelings of guilt. Her steely determination, normally deployed towards protecting her diet, was now pushing her to ignore convention and to live her own life as she wanted. After all, Petra was her own woman.

She was also very hungry. Physical work takes calories and makes the body crave food. Dahlia could see the dumplings she ate were dripping in butter. But she did not pause to think, letting the butter smear the sides of her face. She could taste the oils used to marinade the meat she so eagerly pushed down her gullet, but that did not stop her either. She wanted to feel her belly protrude tonight. She wanted live what was, to her, becoming an increasingly sexual fantasy for the next few days.

A sense of seediness descended upon Dahlia. Forbidden thoughts do that. Their sexual import hidden from us by layers of social convention and expected norms. Once they are peeled away, the descent into the darker recesses of our minds can be rapid and unforeseen. Was this what was happening to Dahlia as she lay on her bed caressing herself after that heavy meal? This time, her fingertips finding a large bulge in her stomach from where she had polished off every scrap of food given to her without question.

These were the thoughts circulating in Dahlia’s mind when, later that evening, the doctor ‘popped by’ to question her on how she felt things were progressing. Highly embarrassed and unable to unload her true feelings, she ducked and weaved her way through the conversation, avoiding his most pointed questions with evasive, throwaway remarks. This did not fool the doctor. He was fully aware she was lying to him. The hidden monitors dotted around the room had followed Dahlia’s every move and witnessed the eagerness with which she had devoured her evening meal. The patient was indeed making progress and the doctor was eager to see how entrenched her new behaviour could become. For that, she had to trust him completely. He was pretty sure she did already, but he needed to be sure.

Speaking to her slowly in his calm, measured tones, the doctor soon put Dahlia into a relaxed state. Brick by brick her dismantled the wall separating her true self from the moment. Now, wide open to suggestion, he repeated his questions. Feeling a mild sense of euphoria as her inhibitions dissolved, Dahlia opened up fully to his tender inquisition. Her fear gone, she smiled and laughed her way through his increasingly risqué line of questioning.

“You feel good… as Petra?” He asked again.

Her bright smile looked so radiant, so endearing as she nodded silently, her face a bright red. All her inner beauty now exposed.

“And you see how being Petra offers you a different, freer way of life to the one you have been living?” He leaned close to her like co-conspirators in some grand scheme.

She nodded again, her body arching up towards him, mimicking his movements, the moment sexually charged as the world famous supermodel was inches away from admitting she enjoyed being Petra. How Dahlia ached to feel Petra’s body surround her and consume her, enabling her to be ordinary and live an unremarkable life.

“You will do that for me Dahlia? You will be Petra for me and for yourself?”

After the briefest of pauses, barely perceptible, but there nevertheless, she nodded her consent for a third time. This time, her lips pressed forwards to meet his. An explosion of emotion rocked her. The absurdity of what she was doing and saying suddenly washed away in a tide of excited lust and desire for this man taking her on a journey unimaginable only a few days ago.

As their lips parted, an image of Petra flashed through Dahlia’s mind: the bloated figure, the round, red face, heavy pendulous breasts and short greying crop of hair. Petra was nothing like Dahlia. In so many ways, they were almost the root opposite of one another. To pretend to be Petra was wrong on so many levels. After all, Dahlia had habitually looked down on Petra from her lofty perch. Though Petra had managed to put one over on Dahlia by leaving her service with a certain amount of dignity - going to start a business with her husband – there was never any doubting their relative social ranks.

Petra’s coarseness of language, her provincial accent, the way she dressed and carried herself were al signals of where she belonged. Dahlia’s inner confidence stemming from a sense that she deserved her status as one of life’s top dogs had already been crumpling fast. Now, confronted by the idea of ‘wanting’ to be Petra, she found the last reserves of her self-belief shrivel away.

She lifted her head and torso again, her body achingly close to his, a shiver of anticipation running though her. Would she have thrown herself at him at that moment? Years of being single without the love and attention we all need had left her vulnerable. Could it be that she was falling in love? Lust was one thing. It is possible to lust after someone and retain a degree of emotional separation, but love, at least to Dahlia, was another matter.

A little tear of joy trickled down her pretty cheek. In that moment of utter vulnerability, she gazed at the doctor, surprised at how she was acting, as though from a Mills and Boon novel. Rippling with emotion, she was about to say something stupid, when the doctor interrupted her, placing his finger over her lips and gently shushing her.

“I know,” he said, “you do not need to say a word.”

For his part, the doctor had surprised himself with the intensity of her emotions and the feelings they generated within him. Though highly attracted to the supermodel, his primary goal in all this had been Dahlia’s cash. Now a pall of confusion had descended over his intentions. He had found it necessary to end their embrace, only because it risked muddying the waters and sowing confusion. He needed to keep control: could he do what he planned to someone he loved? Could he reshape and remould a loved one’s body, mind and spirit?

He saw the burning love in her eyes, in part fuelled by his underhand mental games, but driven by a carefully groomed attraction for him. It also showed something deeper. Dahlia was starting to believe that he would love her in spite of everything, in spite of the weirdness and perhaps in spite of her looks. To Dahlia maybe this all represented an escape route of sorts. He was pressing that button now whenever he could, reinforcing the notion that she had a partner in her deviant wishes.

 

Subscribe to Lady2Maid Blog Newsletter