Day 478 Tuesday
It was early in the morning when Denise climbed out of Dale's bed. She looked at Dale while he watched her with a smile on his face. He knew that the time had come for her to leave. In a soft voice, he said, "I'm going to miss you."
"You've got Victoria to keep you entertained," Denise said with a smile.
"That's true. It is about time I found another young woman to join the program," Dale said.
"Don't worry about it," Denise said. She looked around the room and said, "I'm going to miss living here. It is hard to believe that I've come to think of here as home."
"It has been an interesting sixteen months," Dale said.
"That it has," Denise said. She wiped her eyes and asked, "Do you mind eating alone this morning? I'd like to spend a little time saying good bye to Victoria."
"Go ahead," Dale said.
Denise leaned down and kissed him. Rising, she said, "Take care of yourself."
"I will," Dale said. He watched her walk out of his bedroom for the last time.
She turned at the door and said, "Good bye."
"Good bye, Denise," Dale said. He stared at the closed door thinking about the past sixteen month. He sighed and said, "One day it will be my turn to fall in love."
Denise walked down to Victoria's room. She opened the door and looked at the young woman asleep in the bed. She slipped under the covers. Victoria shifted and then snuggled closer. Denise relaxed and rested while Victoria slept. After a few minutes, she could feel Victoria holding her tighter. She said, "I know you're awake, Victoria."
"How'd you know?" Victoria asked.
"Your breathing changed," Denise answered.
Victoria didn't move for a few minutes. Finally she said, "I'm going to miss you."
Denise could tell that the young woman was on the verge of tears. She said, "I know. I'll miss you, too."
"You could stay a little longer," Victoria said.
Denise shook her head and said, "No. I've got to move on. It is time for me to act like an adult and make my own way through life."
"I know, it is just that it is going to be so lonely here without you," Victoria said.
"Dale will be here."
"Not that I'm complaining, but he's going to wear me out," Victoria said with a giggle.
Denise laughed and said, "I know what you mean."
Victoria said, "You're a gorgeous woman."
"So are you," Denise said.
"Not yet, but I'm getting there," Victoria said. She didn't have any pretentions of glamour. There were still a lot of pounds to lose before she'd be turning heads.
"It isn't about what is here, but here and here," Denise said pointing first to the young woman's stomach and then to her heart and head. She said, "You're a beautiful woman. The fact that others haven't recognized it yet is a testament to their stupidity and blindness."
"Thanks, Denise," Victoria said. She kissed Denise and then said, "I really hated you for a long time. It took me months to get over the little episode in Dale's study."
"I know," Denise said. She sighed and said, "I didn't enjoy doing that."
"I know that now," Victoria said. She shook her head and said, "I was a real spoiled brat as well as a fat woman."
"True," Denise said.
Victoria laughed and said, "You've always been honest with me."
"I've tried," Denise said. She said, "There were a lot of times when I wanted to temper the truth with a little misplaced compassion."
"I must have been quite a trial for you," Victoria said.
"I was a trial for Susan. It is all part of the program," Denise said knowing that it was true.
"I'm not looking forward to that part of the program," Victoria said.
"I know, but the day will come when a fat woman moves in and Dale will look to you to help her through the program," Denise said.
"I dread the day."
"Don't be that way. There are rewards," Denise said.
"Like what?" Victoria said.
Denise leaned forward and kissed Victoria. She said, "Like that."
"I'd like to visit you sometime soon," Victoria said finding that it was hard to keep the tears at bay.
"Call me," Denise said.
Victoria said, "You better go before I start crying."
Denise kissed her and said, "Good bye, Victoria."
"Good bye, Denise," Victoria said.
Denise slipped out of the bed and returned to her room. She spent the time packing her suitcase. After she finished packing, she looked around the room that had been hers for a year. She tried to remember her old apartment and realized that time had dimmed her memory. It hadn't really been a home.
She sat down at the computer and watched the time-lapse video of the past sixteen months. It brought tears to her eyes to watch it. It was better than watching Cinderella. That was fantasy, but her video was reality.
She clicked on the picture that had been taken the previous night. The woman that stood at the posing station was a true beauty. After putting the proper paper in the printer, she sent the picture to be printed. She opened the picture that had been taken her first night in the program. She sent it to the printer.
She stood by the printer waiting for the pictures to be finished. She pulled out the first one and stared at it. Grinning, she thought about how Larry would feel to find it in his lunch bag. The second picture finished. She grabbed it without looking at it. She put both pictures in her purse.
She double clicked on her word processor and opened a file. She sent the document to the printer. It would take an hour to print. She sat back in her chair and read the pages as the printer spat them out. She smiled while reading parts of it, cried reading parts, and reflected on some of the philosophy that appeared in other parts. She knew each and every word. She had written them.
The time passed slowly. She listened to the normal morning noises as Dale and Victoria prepared for their day. She heard the front door close when Dale left the house to head for work. It wouldn't be long before Victoria raced out to head for school. She always left late and had to rush to get there on time. She smiled and returned to reading.
She knew that the last page had printed when the printer went quiet. She opened up a new document and typed: The Victorian By Denise She added a copyright below her name. The story was finished after six months of work. Inspired by Claire, supported by Larry, and curious if she could do it, she had spent a few hours every night adding a little to the story. A week ago she had realized that the story had come to an end.
She sent the cover page to the printer and typed up a simple submission letter. She sent that to the printer and packaged the manuscript for shipping to the publisher. She had no idea if it would be accepted, but she liked it and that was the important thing. She'd be able to say that she had done it. She added it to her luggage and closed it.
The sound of the front door closing with a frantic bang let her know that Victoria had left for school. She stepped out of the bedroom and went to the swimming pool. It would be at least a year before she'd have a chance for a swim in the nude. From now on, she'd have to wear clothes for all of her outdoor activities.
It seemed strange to her that she had become so used to casual nudity. Of course, that was nothing to being unashamed of performing sex acts in front of others. She tried to remember how many people had seen her engage in sex over the past sixteen months. It was a pretty long list of men and women. There had been a time when that would have caused her to die of shame. There had been so many changes in just sixteen months.
Wearing a dress that hugged her body in all of the right places, Denise stepped out of the house and looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky, comfortable temperature, and bright sun. She turned back and looked at the front door. She said, "Sixteen months. It was sixteen months ago that I entered through that door a fat woman. Now I've left it a sexy woman."
She swallowed as the tears threatened to break through. She took a breath and said, "I'm not going to cry."
It was a whole lot easier to say than to do. Denise walked briskly to her car carrying her luggage. She opened the trunk and added it to the bag that was already there. She looked at the contents of the trunk thinking that it was rather strange that sixteen months of her life fit in two pieces of luggage. She sighed and slammed the lid closed.
Getting into the car she sat behind the wheel. It was time to stop by her new apartment and drop off her luggage. She had a small errand to run at lunchtime before meeting up with Susan. She started up the car and drove off without looking back. To look back would bring back memories and the memories would bring tears. There was too much to do for her to waste her time crying.
She drove the twenty minutes to her new apartment. She parked in the little covered spot and got out. She carried her luggage to the door of her new place. She stood there and said, "My new life begins today."
With a turn of the key, she entered the apartment. She dropped her luggage by the door and looked around. New furniture filled the living room. All of her old stuff was still in storage. The clothes that she had packed were all too big. The knickknacks reflected a person who no longer existed. Even her old kitchenware was crude compared to what she had learned to use at Dale's. The only thing that meant anything was her photograph album.
The apartment reminded her of Susan's place. Like Susan, Denise had decorated the place with the help of her fiancée. Most of the apartment had a slightly masculine feel to it, but the bedroom was her room and had a feminine appearance. There was even the study filled with technical books and a small desk. She looked at the study and smiled thinking of how happy Larry had been to shelve his books.
After picking up her luggage, she went into the bedroom. She threw her bags on the bed. She opened her luggage and hung her clothes in the closet. It looked empty, but that would change. She'd gone shopping and bought lots of clothes over the past sixteen months, but the majority of what she had bought no longer fit. Her undergarments went into her chest of drawers. It only took a single drawer to hold them all. It wasn't a lack of quantity, but a lack of material in them.
She carried the small bag over to the night stand. Dale had given her the small bag the previous night. She had been surprised to see that it held all of the toys they had used over the previous few months. Her toys went into the drawer. She closed the drawer with a private smile.
Stepping back, she said, "I have officially moved into my new apartment."
She went into the kitchen and checked out the refrigerator. It was empty. She said, "I've got a major trip to the grocery store after lunch."
The reminder of her lunch plans made her check the clock. She raced over to where she had dropped her purse. Picking it up, she checked the contents before she left the apartment. She had an important lunch date to keep. She froze before leaving and ran back into her bedroom. She picked up the package she had prepared earlier and left the apartment.
The fat woman carried the tray across the lunch room with a lazy shuffle. She sat down at the lunch table. The chair squeaked as if protesting the weight. Filled with self loathing, she stared at her lunch. Food was the bane of her existence. She couldn't live without it and she couldn't control herself around it. Every time she lost control more pounds were added to an already heavy body.
With dead eyes, she looked around the lunch room and sighed. She was eating alone again. That was nothing new; she ate lunch alone every day. In fact, she ate alone every meal. Loneliness had become a lifestyle. It was impossible to have friends when you loathed yourself.
She knew that people didn't like fat people. She knew it by the insults that they lobbed in her direction. It had gotten to the point where she didn't see them as insults, but statements of fact. She was slowly growing to hate thin women who pointed at her and commented how they'd rather die than look like that whale. She wondered if they thought that she wanted to look that way.
Denise sat down across the table from the fat woman. The large woman looked across the table and frowned. Convinced that it was another skinny bitch about to insult her, she asked, "What?"
Smiling at the fat woman, Denise said, "Hello, Shannon."
"Do I know you?" Shannon asked suddenly defensive.
"No, but I know you," Denise answered with a smile. Denise had been watching her for the last month. She'd seen the woman fill a shopping cart with three quarts of ice cream one evening at the grocery store. She knew that the woman would go home and eat at least one of them.
"What do you want?"
Denise opened her purse and pulled out a pair of pictures she had printed that morning. She selected one and slid it across the table. Smiling, she said, "That picture was taken of me last night."
Shannon glanced down at the picture and nearly choked on her food. The last thing she had expected was for a woman to shove a picture of herself nude under her nose. Offended, she said, "What the hell is this?"
Denise slid the other picture across the table and said, "That was taken of me sixteen months ago."
Unable to help herself, Shannon glanced down at the picture. She couldn't tear her eyes away from it. The woman depicted in the picture was fat. She looked up and could see that the woman in the picture was the same one that was seated across from her. She swallowed and asked, "Why did you show me that?"
Denise picked up the two pictures and put them back in her purse. She looked Shannon in the eye and said, "I was a fat woman. Now I'm not. You are a fat woman, but you don't have to stay one."
"Are you trying to sell me a diet or something?" Shannon asked a little unnerved by Denise's manner.
"I'm inviting you to participate in a special program," Denise said.
"How much is it going to cost?" Shannon asked.
Denise looked at Shannon and said, "That's a hard question to answer. In terms of money, it costs very little. I paid two hundred a week for room and board."
"And that is all?" Shannon said with a short bark of laughter. Two hundred a week would kill her finances. She was living paycheck to paycheck.
"I'll be honest with you. You'll have to earn your way through the program. For a while, that was almost more than I was willing to pay. In the end, the program gave me a thousand times more than I paid."
Shannon snorted and asked, "What did you get out of it?"
Denise pointed at herself and answered, "I got this body. I regained my self-respect. I got a promotion at work. I saved enough money for a down payment on a house. I got a fiancée."
"Get out of here," Shannon said. This wasn't the first time that someone tried to sell her all kinds of things to lose weight. They promised the world and delivered nothing. She was a fat woman and that made her an easy victim.
Denise smiled as she stood up from the table. Placing a small piece of paper in front of the fat woman, she said, "I lost 40 pounds without counting a single calorie. Think about that."
Shannon stared as Denise walked away. She looked down at her plate mentally calculating how many calories were on it. She knew should have gotten the salad. She looked over at the door where Denise had disappeared wondering about this mysterious program. She would never admit it, but she was desperate. She studied the piece of paper as if the answers to all her problems were written upon it.
Leaving the office building behind, Denise walked down the street and entered a restaurant. She spotted Susan and headed over to the table. She sat down and asked, "How are things going?"
"Great. We've made an offer on a house," Susan answered with a grin.
"Tell me about it," Denise said.
"It is a nice four bedroom house on a quiet cul-de-sac. We were looking for a three bedroom place, but Chuck pointed out that we'd have an extra room that we could use for a playroom," Susan answered. She added, "There isn't a pool in the backyard, but there's room for one. The neighbors can't see in the backyard, so we'll have plenty of privacy."
"It sounds great," Denise said.
"It is. Chuck is busy planning how to turn it into a smart house. He's got piles of catalogs in the study," Susan said.
"Is that a problem?" Denise asked.
Susan laughed and said, "He's so cute. He finds some little device and comes running to me to share his great discovery. I've got to admit that I don't understand half of what he's saying, but he's excited."
"I know what you mean. I've written user manuals for software programs for years. I understand about half of what Larry tells me," Denise said. She smiled as she thought about Larry.
Susan said, "You love him."
"Yes, I do," Denise said. She looked across the restaurant and said, "It wasn't that long ago when we were convinced that we'd never find men."
"I know," Susan said.
Denise said, "Did you ever pick up any of the stuff you put in the storage locker?"
"Not yet. I figure that I'll get it when we move into the house. I'll sort it out and throw away the things that I don't want," Susan answered.
"I was thinking of doing the same thing," Denise said.
Susan asked, "What are your plans for your first night in your new apartment?"
"Larry is going to spend the night," Denise said.
"That sounds like fun," Susan said. She'd had Chuck spend the night the first night she had lived in her apartment.
"I'm not sure how I'll handle going a full day without sex," Denise said.
Susan grinned and said, "I tend to visit Chuck at work. He loves it when I come over for lunch. He eats his sandwich and I eat him."
The two women chatted about life after the program. The time passed quickly and the lunch came to an end. They kissed goodbye and Susan left. Denise sat at the table drinking a cup of coffee thinking about the future. She wondered how Dale and Stefanie would work out thinking that she would enjoy being a fly on the wall when they finally met. Would it be love at first sight or hate? It was going to be explosive one way or the other. She had an image of the two of them going at it with the intensity that had been present between her and Larry after the time spent at Claire's house.
Victoria was blossoming into a very attractive young woman. She thought about the months ahead for Victoria and smiled at what she would think of the introduction to costume play. She wondered if Shannon would join the program. Victoria would have her hands full with that woman. It was going to be difficult for Victoria to be hard enough to help Shannon through the program.
She thought about the program. It had been brutal at times, but she recognized the need for some of the brutality. She had resisted change even while knowing that it was for her own good. There had always been a small self-destructive streak in her. She laughed at that thought and corrected it to being a large self-destructive streak. She knew that it was gone now. She had emerged from the program a much stronger person. She had accepted responsibility for her happiness.
Dale had always been honest with her. She had agreed to abide by the rules of the house and those rules had been very explicit. She had known going in that she would have to engage in just about every sexual act known to mankind except those involving scat, water sports, blood sports, and pain. Sex was the currency by which the women in the program paid for his participation. She had agreed to those terms not fully understanding what it meant. Like any landlord, he insisted on payment when it was due. Like most renters, she had not wanted to pay and hated him for demanding that she pay it. In hind sight, she felt that he undercharged for what he delivered.
She finished her coffee and said, "I better get to it. I've got a new life to establish and it will be a lot of work."
On the way to the grocery store, Denise stopped by the post office. She stood in line to purchase the postage necessary to mail the manuscript to the publisher. After paying for the postage, she stepped back and watched the postman toss it into a bin. She had a feeling that there would be more manuscripts in the future. She even had an idea for another story brewing in the back of her mind.
Stepping out of the post office, she looked up at the sky. It was still a beautiful day. She smiled and said, "This is the first day of the rest of my life and I am going to have a wonderful life."