Story: The Cleaner Returns. Chapter 56.

by BigBird74

56.

Katherine had worked long into the night preparing the reception room for Dahlia’s big press conference. Carefully chosen flowers lined the sides of the room, placed strategically so they would show up clearly behind where Dahlia would sit. Katherine had always believed that, with sufficient care and attention paid to surroundings, it was possible to sway the sympathies of those in attendance. Her job had been made easier by the fact that Dahlia was looking her very best. After all, the public likes beautiful people. Katherine could only marvel at how trim and perfectly turned out Dahlia was after all those months recovering from her ‘breakdown.’ That word – breakdown – had been carefully selected by Tommy, again, to elicit a large dollop of sympathy. Drug use was still a complicated issue as far as public opinion was concerned, with a wide range of opinions, from those likely to have also indulged in the forbidden to those whose moral compass would never permit such abandon. Katherine knew, in our age of constant media, that playing the victim card would be best. It was therefore crucial that everything about the event played its part in conveying such an image.

It did not help that the cleaner seemed to be distracted, her mind clearly elsewhere. More than twice, Katherine had caught ‘Petra’ staring at the podium that was to elevate Dahlia back to her former glory, deep in thought. She had brushed off the fat slob’s excuses and firmly reminded her that the hallway and reception room must be spotless by 11am when the various guests were to arrive. It was only after the third time of telling that something finally shifted inside of ‘Petra’ and the next time Katherine checked on her, she was busy mopping the marble floor.

Checking her watch, Katherine could see that Tommy was due to arrive at any moment. Of the many men in her life, Tommy was, by far, the one she cared for most. Their relationship was purely platonic, but grounded on a real affection formed over many years of working together. Tommy had always looked out for Katherine and sent various projects her way. But Dahlia was something special. Until the ‘incident’, she had been Tommy’s prized client and he was understandably nervous about where he stood with her. Now, given what amounted to a second chance, he wanted nothing to go wrong and had asked Katherine, as a safe pair of hands, to take the job of assisting Dahlia.

Tommy had set the press conference up after speaking to Dahlia a few weeks ago. Though he had his doubts about the timing, she had insisted, as though fearful that a comeback would only get harder the longer she left it. It had taken a monumental effort and the calling in of several favours to get the turnout promised today. This left him nervously optimistic about Dahlia’s chances. It also played to his ego. He still wanted to help her to achieve that place in the pantheon of supermodels, though he had his doubts. She had lost none of her beauty, but he worried that maybe some of brand Dahlia had been tarnished by recent events. All this was playing on his mind as he parked his car and walked to the front of Dahlia’s palatial home. After taking a deep breath to calm his mind, he rang the doorbell.

As if by pure chance, the real Dahlia was on the other side of the door. She had just finished vacuuming the carpet that acted as a door mat for visitors and jumped as the bell rang. With the fateful hour approaching, she had grown more nervous, a light sweat forming on her body in all the wrong places. The slightly damp patches under her armpits were to be expected, but what horrified the former model was the way the sweat also clung to her belly and between her fat thighs, leaving slight, tell-tale signs on her otherwise immaculate, new uniform. Understandably, she felt grateful to whoever had left that uniform in the wardrobe of her new home. Without it she would have been forced to appear today in her old dress, worn thin over the past few months.

The doorbell rang again and, with no sign of Katherine, ‘Petra’ reached out to open the door - after all, had she still been mistress of the house, it is was what she would have expected from the cleaner. She stood for a moment staring at the door handle, the eroticism of that momentary, flyaway thought about her ‘previous’ life making her tingle all over and brought back memories of last night. After finding the collection of magazines stored in her bedroom, she had binge read all of them, obsessing over how beautiful she was and feverishly debating whether she may be able to recapture her looks and position. After all, she WAS Dahlia Western. Melissa could never take that away from her. But, as she scanned every page of every magazine that contained an image of her old self, the fear that she could not manage it bubbled within her. No matter how much she told herself she WAS Dahlia Western, the image that looked back at her in the cracked mirror was that of a grossly fat woman with a cheap haircut who looked like she had never taken a minute of exercise in her life. Looks of course can be deceiving. Many women pile on the pounds later in life as their biochemistry alters and leaves them hapless victims of a growing girth they cannot control. But Dahlia could not escape the nagging worry that she had chosen this. She had wanted it. And as she looked at those pictures of herself from a now seemingly bygone era, she felt that powerful eroticism stirring again. Her sexual self was again firmly in the driving seat and, as her pudgy fingers pushed her towards a climactic crescendo, she found herself rationalising what she had done to herself and how she ‘needed’ to live within the role she had placed herself in. That moment of acceptance, a recognition that, for the time being, she had no say over the direction of her life, let Dahlia relax and stop worrying about her predicament.

Casting her gaze around the dingy, worn out flat, Dahlia felt that the seediness of what she had wanted all along was catching up with her. If this was still a game, a moment away from herself, she could already see that it was going to last a lot longer than she had initially accepted. Exhausted from her long day, she stripped off for bed, her gaze drawn to her reflection in the long dressing mirror. She surveyed her naked body, her finger tips pressing into the soft mounds of flesh that now covered her body. Her massive breasts hung like sacks of fat on her chest. Without her enormous parachute bras to hold them up, they sagged in an ugly fashion onto her protruding belly. Her thatch of pubic hair visible from the rolls of flesh hanging down from her stomach and her overly ripe, thick thighs. She continued touching herself, still barely able to conceive the person she was becoming and how far removed it was from her old glamourous self. A shiver passed down her spine: could she start thinking like she were Petra? Would she ever forget she was Dahlia? These thoughts were still fresh in Dahlia’s mind that morning as she travelled to Hilltop. The eroticism hung around her like a pink mist as the clock ticked by and that moment approached: the symbolic moment that everyone around her would acknowledge her sister as Dahlia Western and she became Petra McMahon. Each of them would be confirmed in their new identity by those around them.

Any hopes Dahlia had at reclaiming her old life were about to be dealt another blow. For, as Dahlia opened the door and came face-to-face with Tommy, her complete loss of identity was cruelly confirmed.

Time seemed to stand still for Dahlia as she laid eyes on Tommy for the first time since the overdose. Only this was the not the Tommy she knew. The Tommy she had worked with for so many years, who had nurtured and shielded her, who she had grown to trust above all others, would have smiled at Dahlia, eagerly proffering a kiss to each cheek. For his part, Tommy had devoted a big part of his life to Dahlia, but this obese cleaner was not Dahlia. Dahlia was the beautiful supermodel lusted after by all ages of men, desired by everyone, a figure of perfect femininity. That was the Dahlia he knew and ‘Petra’ was most certainly not any of the above.

Dahlia did not know what to do. She had planned to hide in the shadows today, keeping herself out of view of anyone that may have known her. Instead she had found herself right in front of the one person that knew her about as well as her sister. But that flash of recognition never came. The twinkle that sparked in Tommy’s eyes whenever he saw Dahlia was absent. However, much Dahlia feared she might be recognised, Tommy’s superficial interest in the cleaner meant that he paid her the slightest of interest.

“Hello. I am here to see Dahlia,” he announced, clearly in a hurry and expecting to be let in.

Dahlia nodded, terrified to talk, opening the door for him and stepping submissively to one side. Tommy brushed by Dahlia as though she were invisible. Though she had always played it safe with Tommy, Dahlia had always been flattered by his attention, often finding it a timely boost to her self-confidence. Now, to be totally ignored by him, to be nothing more than a part of the background, just some pathetically unattractive home help, left her shocked and unable to think straight.

Fortunately or otherwise, Katherine finally made an appearance at that very moment, coming to collect Tommy and escort him upstairs to see an expectant Dahlia. ‘Petra’ stood motionless. A part of her longed for him to recognise her, while the fear of exposure led her to stand to one side, to shrink as best she could into the background. However as Tommy was led away, Dahlia realised just how big a change she had undergone and how well she was hidden. If Tommy did not bat an eyelid at her, then who would? Only two people knew who she was and they were both firmly in on the secret. To all those she would encounter on a daily basis, she was Petra. Everything they saw about her categorised her as a poor fat cleaner. Nothing more. A drudge. A slob.  A person with no ambition. A terrible thought then crossed her mind: what if she never got back? What if Melissa would really insist on keeping her this way? Or what if something happened to her sister? Is her disguise so complete that she could never get back to where she was? As Katherine escorted Tommy upstairs to see Dahlia, that thought, of never getting back her life, sent Dahlia into mild shock. As the image of Tommy paying her scant regard played over and over in her head, she felt dizzy and needed to reach out to steady herself. Finally, Dahlia was seeing the wood for the trees. Her sister was clearly planning for more than just the next few months. She was in this for years!

Dahlia’s fears were confirmed over the course of that morning. When Melissa did appear, the room full of journalists and the fashion press seemed to take a collective gasp of air. She looked truly amazing. Her golden locks were teased to perfection, her sultry figure seemed to be poured into the tightest of the dresses that accentuated the slimness of her torso and the seductiveness of her gym-honed curves. Dahlia watched the whole thing from an adjoining room, where she had to content herself with peeking through a slightly ajar door, after Katherine had angrily dismissed the ‘eyesore’ from the room. For the first time in her life, Dahlia felt a pang of jealousy towards her sister, the thought that rather than merely replacing her, she was superseding her.

Over the course of 90 agonising minutes, Melissa stole Dahlia’s life and cemented her place in it. She revealed detailed plans for the next year: lots of international shows; a hectic schedule of interviews and picture shoots. Most importantly was her decision to accept a fly-on-the wall documentary team into her home in a display of openness that would aid her ‘recovery’. That last point in particular meant only one thing. Dahlia’s route back to her old life was to be blocked off from the very start. How could she recover her lost self and confront her sister with those people in her home?! Obviously Melissa was using her calendar to her advantage, filling the empty space in which she might have discreetly lost weight and grown her hair back into place. Instead she would have to stick to the role of cleaner for all to see. Hilltop would no longer be a private place of seclusion, but a window onto the life of a supermodel.

As she stood trembling with a toxic mixture of fear and anger, Dahlia momentarily considered opening the doors and revealing her true identity and telling everyone to get out. But the notion that she could take all the ridicule and shame that would involve was soon squashed by her growing fear. No. Nothing like that was possible. Besides, destroying Dahlia Western’s career served to benefit no-one. She would just be the same as she was now: a fat, ugly failure. Just a fat, ugly failure in the full glare of global publicity and not one that can hide away in Barton.

The realisation that she was to be Petra for more than a few months or – perhaps – years affected Dahlia profoundly. The last flickers of self-belief were extinguished as she realised the real peril she was in. Her sister clearly had no concern for her wellbeing and held almost all the cards. If Dahlia pushed the nuclear button, she would merely destroy herself. Her sister would, on the other hand, probably gain from the notoriety. She was Dahlia now and her story would be inspirational to millions of women around the world. Dahlia, on the other hand, would be a figure of scorn.

Dahlia doubted that any court of law would take her pleas of being misled seriously. She had signed too many documents for that. Who knows just what she had signed away in her fit of sexual excitement? Her sister seemed to have access to her money. Had she the deeds to the home? Did she know everything about her financial dealings? All these thoughts crowded into Dahlia’s already busy mind, making her panic. Just as she felt she could take no more, she heard a familiar voice from behind her.

“Hello Petra..”

The voice was welcomingly familiar, someone who would know the inner torment she was enduring right now. “Hello Doctor,” she replied somewhat ashamed at being caught spying on her sister’s big moment, her hands still trembling.

“You enjoy that?” The doctor asked. “You like being a voyeur into your own life?”

Barely perceptible to the human eye, Dahlia’s vast bulk shifted ever so slightly. To a trained specialist, the shift was clear and indicative. “Go on. Turn and watch her. Watch Dahlia Western take what is rightly hers.”

Dahlia could not have explained why she did it, but she returned to the crack in the door and started watching again as her sister talked of starting a new foundation to tackle drug abuse.

“Impressive isn’t she?” He continued to taunt her gently. “Much better than you ever were, wouldn’t you say?”

Dahlia again found herself on a threshold. From the sensations she felt growing within her, she knew nodding now would feel so good. She knew it would confirm to one of only two people who knew the truth that she would accept her place, that she would let go of her old life and literally become Petra. Nodding would seal her fate for years. Nothing could help her.

His hands were on her vast backside. Looking in the mirror last night had brought home the true extent of her weight gain and, as his fingers sank deep into her fleshy cheeks, she shuddered as the memories of their previous sexual encounters came crashing back to her. Those delicious moments of shame and humiliation seemed to pale into insignificance compared to what she felt now. Her overly ripe body seemed to wobble a little as a shockwave of pleasure shuddered upwards. 

“Yes. Dahlia is a tremendous beauty. Could you ever imagine looking like her? Being that beautiful and successful?”

A slight shake of the head from Dahlia made the doctor smile and continue his observations.

“I guess you could never imagine having her looks. I suppose you can only dream of having her life yes? Is that not the case Petra?” Again she nodded, letting herself indulge in the fantasy that had developed in her head these past few months and was now becoming real. She felt her body responding to his touches, his light fingers tracing her fat curves from behind, as she watched events unfold hidden away from view.

“I….I am not … good enough to be let into the room…” Dahlia whispered to him. “My place is out of sight, out of mind… I….am only a …. cleaner after all.”

She talked with pauses, her mind racing along as she spoke, letting go of the reality she had held dear for almost all of her life and embracing a new one. She felt dirty and seedy. No-one in their right mind would ever actually embrace the life awaiting her in Barton. But, at that very second, as she watched Melissa closely, she was sure she could see a rictus grin. For a moment, she imagined herself up on that podium, recalling the sickness in her belly that preceded almost any public engagement. Could she ever have done what her sister just did? Did she have the metal for all this now? The memory of those awful anxiety attacks and the way people seemed to leech off her. How many superficial smiles had she given? How many people did she suspect of using her for their own gain? Did any of them care for her, or was it always about her looks?

A slight gasp left her lips as the doctor’s fingertips reached her neck and he slid them up to her ear. He leaned forwards and whispered in her ear.

“I chose the flat in Barton. Petra, I know everything you are feeling. I made you. I saved you from that facile life. Let Melissa have it. You belong elsewhere now.”

Dahlia could only nod now. Like those early days when they first met, his grip over her was complete, only this time without the additional help of a trance. This time, Dahlia needed no help in opening her eyes to her true nature. As the conference finished and the doctor walked away to greet Melissa, Dahlia returned to her menial duties, an invisible presence in this gathering of beautiful people. Whereas once she had been the most beautiful, now she was an oddity. She could see a questioning look in their eyes, wondering why Dahlia Western employed such a foul-looking creature? At least that was how Dahlia imagined they thought. She was intensely aware of just how much she stood out and how, on the surface, no one could imagine she had ever been anything other than a cleaner. 

 

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