by BigBird74
Dahlia kept one eye on her former room over the next
few days to see if and when the new patient would arrive. Meanwhile her daily
routine continued: up at 6.30am; breakfast at 7.30; cleaning until 11.30, when
she stopped to eat lunch; cleaning until 4.30pm; and free time till 6.00, when
she had her evening meal. The routine was so entrenched that deviating from it,
even for a few minutes, proved unsettling for her. Dahlia’s rigid nature went
hand-in-hand with her iron will, which in turn explained how she had maintained
her low calorie diet and exercise regime for so long. Now her focus had changed
and she was instead sticking diligently to her timetable of cleaning while
looking forward to her three large meals.
It felt good eating, repeatedly filling herself to the
brim and achieving a forbidden sense of fullness. This was not without cost. As
her appetite expanded, Dahlia found she had to eat more to gain the same
satisfaction. While heavier, more calorific foods sated her growing hunger more
than others, she only felt truly happy when her belly pressed outwards, tight
against her cheap polyester dress. Only in this bloated state did she feel like
she feel ‘right’, sensing that she was investing herself fully into her role as
Petra and making the most of her treatment.
Still, for the past few days, her overeating had stepped up a level. The fact that a new guest would see her – albeit dressed as Petra – worried Dahlia. Voicing her fears to Ms Nechita, Dahlia was reassured by the mature housekeeper that the new guest would never recognise her in her wig, glasses and uniform. Naturally Ms Nechita was careful not to mention the substantial layer of fat now surrounding her body, which was threatening to burst at the seams and render her utterly unrecognisable whether she wore her disguise or not.
Over the past few days, Dahlia had noticed how her
relationship with Ms Nechita had changed. Perhaps the older woman was accepting
the former model as an equal, a co-worker. Maybe she no longer felt threatened
by the vastly more beautiful Dahlia Western, now that she was an increasingly
fat and unadventurous non-entity called Petra. Whatever it was, Dahlia was
struck by a warming in their relations and a growing sense of camaraderie. The
last person Dahlia would have characterised as a close female friend was back
in high school, in the years before she was discovered and thrust into the
limelight. After that point, she found maintaining friendships a challenge.
Sure, a steady flow of male admirers always seemed available but, in terms of
female friends, nothing. There had been colleagues and contemporaries, but
no-one she felt she could truly unburden her thoughts to.
Other than the odd, distorted reflection in a window
she passed, Dahlia had not seen herself for weeks and still thought of herself
as that supermodel that had won ‘figure of the year’ four years running. The
model that was the face of Anonymous perfume. The model used to being
congratulated for her natural beauty. It had all been so easy, come so
naturally, but the cost to her mental health had been high. The pressures of
stardom had long weighed down on Dahlia, but her experiences at the clinic were
revealing just how lonely she had been too.
Perhaps the fear of being recognised explained why, in
the days leading up to the new guest’s admission, Dahlia suddenly started to
eat more. Was she now conditioned to find too much comfort in her food? Was she
trying to hide her identity further, convinced she had put on only a little
weight and thinking that a touch more would help her disguise? Surely she could
sense how heavy she was now getting, how it was proving more difficult to
ascend the stairs? The power we all possess to delude ourselves was abundantly
clear in her behaviour at that moment and signalled to those watching just how
deeply Dahlia’s subconscious had embraced her new role. But more than that, it
also presented a shocking display of how her isolation was fuelling her
cravings for degradation and humiliation. How she would react later, once
everything was in its final place, was still an open question. But she showed
few signs of resisting her decline.
As she cleaned what had been her former room, she
found herself daydreaming about the symbolism of what she was doing. She
imagined herself as a plain and ordinary cleaner busily tidying the room of a
famous celebrity. No-one would imagine she herself could ever have been famous,
a beauty known the world over for her captivating looks. As she reached under
the bed and found herself crawling on all fours trying to reach underneath, the
pulsing between her thighs made her stop. She paused for a while and then sat
with her back against the far side of the bed, her thighs parted wide and her
hand slipped under the cheap polyester material. Silently, she fingered
herself, imagining she was cleaning for a famous supermodel like herself. She
remembered how invisible the staff around her had been and how she was now just
one of those minions, utterly unremarkable, her uniform robbing her of her
identity as anything other than a simple cleaner.
The feeling was electric as she gently stroked her wet
lips. Though she had felt the rush of servitude many times before, it had been
unclear how sexual her feelings were. While capable of pulling a smouldering
pose and looking the epitome of sexuality, Dahlia had always been rather
vanilla in her preferences and tastes. She would never have imagined the thrill
she was now getting from imagining herself scraping and bowing in front of her
betters. The woman she pictured herself serving had Dahlia’s body from before
she came to the clinic. Her arms and thighs were perfectly shaped and hung
elegantly aside her honed torso, a slim hourglass with curved hips and a small
round bust.
She pictured herself in the future, imagining how she
would look if she really let go, oblivious to the fact that she already had. In
her mind, Dahlia was just a few sizes off her previous perfection, not the
overweight woman currently writhing against the side of the bed, her chunky
thighs squeezing her hand as she thrust them into herself, her tight dress
pulling against her stomach and hips. Eyes closed, she gasped at the image of
herself truly fat and beyond repair, forced to give up her modelling career and
enter, full-time, her new career as a cleaner and maid.
The images in her head remained so unclear and blurry.
But the emotions were raw and the pleasure now rippling within her built so
rapidly that, within seconds, she was climaxing, writhing and trembling on the
floor. For a moment she was stuck in place, like nothing could release her from
the orgasmic grip that tightly held her in place. Oh god! How wicked she was
and how good it felt to let go.
Shocked at herself and at the strength of her
feelings, Dahlia slowly corrected herself, regaining a sense of her
surroundings as the pink mist had cleared. She felt confused and worried by her
behaviour, having never done anything so outlandish before. An acute sense of
shame took hold as she contemplated the riskiness of what she had just done and
the degree to which she had been emotionally invested in the image she had
formed of herself, as well as how much it thrilled her.
The feeling of ‘being replaced,’ of letting go of all
she had held dear these past decades, of becoming someone so different, of not
caring about her appearance and of just becoming anonymous. All these
sensations had driven her climactic rollercoaster, leaving her more confused
than ever. Did she want that? Truly? Did she want to step over the line that
would see her unable to retain her former life, to truly become fat, ordinary
and ….. she paused before saying it….. possibly ugly? Her pussy pulsed. It was
all too terrible to be real. As a fantasy held in private, a temporary game, it
was fine, but to go that far, to purposefully ruin her looks and body was
surely a degree of madness from which she would lose herself entirely.
The turn that her mind had taken along that short
journey of realisation made her shudder and determined not to think about it
anymore, at least till she found herself back in the privacy of her room. A
faint smile creased the corners of her mouth at that thought. She did not have
long left here at the clinic and this unexpected turn – how she found herself
enjoying the degradation – had to remain a secret.
Most of all she worried that her blossoming affair
with the doctor could suffer. He loved her just the way she was or, at least,
how she imagined she was. If she really put on weight, really let her body
shape deteriorate, surely he would be put off? Conditioned for so long into
thinking that female beauty conformed to a narrow stereotype, Dahlia struggled
to imagine he could ever find her attractive any other way. She knew she was
special and that it was too risky to change so radically. Almost all her adult life
had revolved around looking beautiful, being made to feel exceptional and
exploiting that natural advantage. It was only recently, under the tutelage of
the doctor, that she had ever begun to question whether she deserved that.
Perhaps her answer to the question was the need for degradation, a belief that
she was a fraud and could be exposed at any moment.
As she returned to cleaning the new guest’s room,
Dahlia’s thoughts kept returning to how it would feel to be seen as nothing
more than a cleaner. Her breathing tightened as she imagined how they might
treat her, how it would feel to finally sink into anonymity. She had always
loved dressing up when she was a child and this, in some ways, felt just the
same: a cute little game. But events were moving fast around Dahlia and, like a
strong storm, were about to upend her world.
powerful decent into madness, very well written
ReplyDeleteOne more item. I hope th doc is proceeding with plastic surgery on Emma. I cant wait until the 2 meet!
ReplyDelete[N]othing could release her from the orgasmic grip..." "Her pussy pulsed."... And readers' minds are repulsed. Fan service ad nauseam. Presumably the author meant to deliver another oddly thrilling chapter. However this one is interesting only in the routinely unthrilling way it manages to overwhelm and underwhelm at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIs this Jackie J?
DeleteYou gotta be right?!
It's the only thing I can think of, Jackie being jealous that the only other story on this barren blog is more popular than her nonsense.
Either that or you're just a cretin.
Pussies were simply not meant to pulse. (And just what would a pulsing pussy be doing anyway?) The "p-word" is best avoided, if an author doesn't wish to be seen as writing pulp pornography. If an author feels she simply has to use the p-word, it should never be the subject of an active verb, and never, ever of an alliterative verb. Writing about a p---y that pulses, pulsates, palpitates, etc is prima facie grounds for permanent revocation of the author's literary licence. (Or at very minimum, more than adequate grounds for mocking the author in a Comments section.)
DeleteThe p word?!
DeleteHow old are you? 8?
Mate, the only one that's due some mockery is an adult (hopefully) that has to self censor themselves using a word as inoffensive as pussy.
I doubt that Jackie J is jealous. She has her faithful little claque here. That seems to satisfy her, and she seems able to keep on satisfying them, whatever more discerning readers might think.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of this story, to put it mildly, but I don't think it's horrible. I am willing to give the author credit for his willingness to engage in stylistic experimentation, though it mostly hasn't worked. I think the story could still be redeemed if the author figures out how to flesh out the major characters into some approximation of believable, fully-rounded humans.
In a way, the problem with this story is that it does often show promise. We all know just what to expect from Jackie J. BigBird74 gives the impression that he really does have it in him to tell a good story if he just worked at it a little harder. So when BigBird74 descends to writing about a pulsing moggy, that's a much bigger disappointment.
I think it's very poor form to refer to this as a "barren blog". It has its ups and downs, as does any such venue, as do we all. It's been a while since I read anything here I thought truly excellent, granted, but I am still content to wait and hope and trust our esteemed editor, Camille. This is a unique little literary niche that she is carving out here. Maintaining consistent high-quality is a challenge for any blog or publication. I see lots of New Yorker and Granta fiction that strikes me as mediocre, if not worse. I think Camille always merits our appreciation and respect, whatever we think about specific stories she has published.
The word is "clique" !!
Deleteclique
[kliːk]
NOUN
a small close-knit group of people who do not readily allow others to join them.
"his flat became a haven for a clique of young men of similar tastes" · [more]
synonyms:
coterie · circle · inner circle · crowd · in-crowd · set · group · pack · band · ring · mob · crew · club · society · fraternity · sorority · fellowship · camp · cartel · cabal · junta · caucus · cell · lobby · push · gang · bunch · camarilla
...and hooded long robes are essential if you expect to join it.
claque
DeleteNOUN A group of sycophantic followers.
claque, Lexico
Jackie J's claque is freely open to all would-be members; no robes needed; no literary taste needed.
I love the latest entry and can't wait for the next chapter when Petra meets the new Dahlia. I love the depth that bigbird explores into the psyche of what motivates both of the Western sisters. Well done. Keep up the great work.
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to share this
ReplyDelete