Progenitrix

Here's the winning story from last month, using winner LucaG's idea as a springboard! I really like how this one came out! Sorry for the delay on it, this was supposed to come out last week, but my final semester of college is starting up, so that took a bit of my time.

Enjoy!

The smell of something burning reawakened Mia Chavez from her “brief” slumber. Jolting from the chair that she had “briefly” sat down upon because she was feeling dizzy earlier, she quickly attempted to salvage the blackened chicken that she had started. It was unsalvageable.

Mia took a long, defeated sigh. Her daughter, Clover, would be home soon, and she would not be happy to witness the mess her mother had made. Sure enough, her intuition was correct.

“Ugh, mom, what the hell?” Clover complained as soon as she walked through the door. Waving her perfectly manicured hand in front of her cute, tiny nose. “You said dinner would be done by the time I got home! I’m starving!”

“S-sorry sweetheart,” Mia responded, her posture shrinking before her taller daughter. “I was a little tired after work today, so I-”

“So you almost burned the entire fucking house down?” Clover finished her mother’s sentence for her. “Ugh, every day you manage to fuck up and I always have to bail you out.”

Mia’s terrified look had a hint of confusion within it, one Clover immediately picked up on.

“Did you forget last week when you neglected to take out the trash, leaving me to walk out into the dead of night to do it because the house smelled like fucking garbage? Or when I found ants in the kitchen two weeks ago because you left dirty dishes in the sink?”

Clover was making a big deal out of what were ostensibly the only chores she had done around the house in months. Ones that her mother should have done, only doing them herself out of Mia’s incompetence. It wasn’t anywhere close to the “every day” claim, but Mia wasn’t about to fight back against the sheer terrifying presence of the 20-year-old before her.

When her mother didn’t respond, Clover simply rolled her eyes and retreated to her room. “Whatever, I wasn’t hungry anyways. I’ve got a ton of homework to get done, so don’t bug me.” Mia knew that was a lie, Clover was barely passing by on the merits of her attendance alone. Yet once again, she did not interject, her glazed eyes following her daughter silently as she disappeared behind her door.

Retreating to her own bedroom after the verbal humiliation from her own daughter, Mia’s first instinct was to break down crying. How had this all happened to her? How had she let her own life slip away from her grasp? Her husband had abandoned her, her own daughter hated her, she was barely scraping by with a job that treated her like shit.

Looking into the mirror, her day was only further ruined. A pudgy, misshapen vistage was all that looked back, which was all she could make out due to her increasingly poor eyesight that had been a development recently. But she couldn’t afford glasses due to how close she was to slipping into the red every month, so blurry vision it was.

Mia’s mind immediately drifted to the body of her daughter. How did such a prim, pristine piece of girl come from 50% of her genes of all places? Though her memories of the times were fading with her aging brain, she distinctly remembered not looking half as good as Clover did at the same age.

Her 20 year old daughter had this spunky, curvy body, only accentuated further by her choice of modern clothing. Even Mia’s failing eyesight could tell how sexy her daughter was to the boys her age, her low-cut top and booty shorts revealing a delectable midriff and supple thighs, both working together to create a pear-shaped body that sooner belonged in a museum than merely a college-aged brat.

But Clover used it well. She knew exactly how sexy she was, often bringing home a new guy every single day. Mia tried her hardest to connect with these men, assuming that they might become serious partners for Clover, but they never did, vanishing as soon as they had arrived.

She was holding onto optimism, despite everything. After her ex-husband had abandoned her, she made a promise that she would work as hard as possible to make sure that the daughter she was left to raise would get the best life possible. It had worked, even if she herself had to work herself half to death just to see it happen. Her daughter was living a happy, fulfilling life, just like Mia had wanted—yet to say Clover was taking it for granted was the understatement of the century.

Fully buried within the sunk-cost fallacy, Mia could not bring herself to show any resistance to her daughter’s ludicrous demands, even as it came at a great cost to her mental and physical health. Even as she caught wind of neighbors making demeaning comments about her weight and appearance.

“Have you seen Mia lately? She’s really put on those pounds. Must be all that fast food she’s been ordering lately.”

“Yeah, how’d a pudgy woman like that pump out a daughter that attractive? Clover must be adopted or something.”

The words of insults past echoed through her head as if the neighbors were there in the room with her. This was simply her life now. She’d go to work, be treated like shit and drive home only to be treated like shit there.

There was no breaking point, Mia was simply content with her life regardless of the misery it brought her.

Arriving at work the next day after oversleeping and forcing herself to skip breakfast just to make it there in time, she was once again treated to neglect and disrespect as the cycle of abuse continued anew.

Her stomach grumbled as her performance faltered. She was but one worker in an assembly line of thousands, moving at a weaker rhythm than the rest would be noticeable if she couldn’t keep up with the person before her or after her. Her job was simple—securing the caps atop pills as they came to her along the conveyor belt.

Mia’s eyes jittered from hunger as her vision swayed, it now took her an extra second to find the proper caps and screw them on, her fingers shaking as the act of righty-tighty became less uniform to her. She could hear the person down the line from her complain that she was moving too slow; that her conformity wasn’t conformist enough; that at this rate, they’d never make today’s quota.

Mia was surprised that her ears were even able to make out any of that through the voracious sound of her stomach. Despite every limiting factor only getting worse, she continued the excruciating routine, even as every part of her body slowly failed one after the other.

The heat around her seemed to be increasing. If she could muster up the strength and courage to talk, perhaps she’d ask if a fan could be turned on in the warehouse. But atop of the fact that she rarely spoke up at work, she physically couldn’t redirect any more of her energy to the world around her. “Overwhelmed” didn’t even begin to describe Mis Chavez at that moment.

And then, rather abruptly, Mia fainted on the spot.

-

“Hello? Ms. Chavez? Ms. Chavez, can you hear me?”

The sound of her manager came to her first, before her eyes had even opened. Even though she could feel the cold, hard ground beneath her head, it felt like an Angel’s bosom compared to what she experienced before she had briefly lost consciousness.

Opening her crusty eyes, a blurry vistage of her manager appeared to her. Realizing she had been asked a question, her head generated a slow nod in response.

“You can hear me? Good. You’re fired.”

Mia’s eyes shot open, wider than ever. But the shock on her face was her only form of protest. Once her brain pieced together that she had passed out on the job, it all made sense. Sure, that logic may have been birthed from pushing an overworked employee to the point where she literally fainted, but she knew that making a fuss about it wouldn’t change anything.

Her head throbbed as she shuffled to her locker, her walk cycle ebbing and flowing as she struggled to remain conscious. Her hunger was now overwhelming, as much as she didn’t want to create a scene, she was so weak and desperate for some form of sustenance her body was on autopilot.

Being meek and unassuming had its perks sometimes. For example, no one even stopped or questioned her as a certain scent guided her deeper into the belly of the warehouse. She pathfinded like an ant in a maze, the perfuming smell unrelenting in its call. Once Mia reached the source through the endless corridors, she was ready to keel over and die. But that last bit of determination stuck through the torment—Mia limping forward towards her goal, which even she wasn’t sure what exactly that entailed.

Her cracked, baggy eyes then gazed upon the prize: a singular pill lying within a tray simply titled: “stress test.”

If this were any other day, she would have stopped right there. But today was different. She had been pushed to her limit. Her animalistic instincts for survival were surpassing her desire for etiquette. She dry swallowed the pill, groaning in relief as the sensation of something passing down her throat quelled her demanding stomach.

Then as soon as she had arrived on the scene, she was gone.

Mia awoke in her bed, everything she had just done was a mere haze within her mind. Was it all a dream? It had all happened so fast, everything felt so surreal. Had she really just eaten some random pill she found? No. It must’ve been a dream.

“Ugh, seriously mom? Your dumb ass got fired? I guess I should’ve expected that,” came her daughter’s “inside” voice from the hallway.

So it wasn’t a dream.

It wasn’t long before Clover barged into the room without knocking, rattling Mia’s notice of termination in front of her face.

“What are we—no, what are you gonna do about this, mom? This isn’t my fault, this is all on you!”

A million responses flooded Mia’s mind. Retorts she wanted nothing more than to empty onto her incompetent, overzealous daughter…But in came that mental block again, the one that told her not to shout at her own flesh and blood, to once again bottle up the abuse and merely take it.

However, Mia suddenly felt something slip out. As if the wall she had built up for over twenty years suddenly willed a door into existence, one that wasn’t even locked. One that was just an empty frame, open for any stray thoughts to slip out.

“Well, maybe it’s time you start acting like a twenty year old and go out and get a job to help support this family.”

While it wasn’t the most punchy response ever, Clover was left stunned regardless. Her mother had never talked back to her. Never.

Mia’s immediate thought was to back-track, to say that she didn’t mean what she just said. But her mouth wouldn’t let her. She suddenly found that wall reinforcing itself to prevent the knee-jerk apologia from escaping.

While on the inside she was terrified, fearful of her daughter’s fury, on the outside, she appeared as if she had finally left the realm of her fellow invertebrae.

“I— Y-you— you better get a new job soon!” was all Clover retort with. It lacked the emphasis of her usual rage, the unwavering confidence that came with every word from her mouth. Mia had finally stood up for herself and her daughter was unable to cope with that fact in the moment.

She slammed the door behind her in a rage, leaving Mia alone with her thoughts. Her poker face immediately faltered, twisting into one of terror. She had just snapped at her own daughter! And worst of all—she enjoyed every second of it!

This wasn’t how mothers were supposed to act! She was probably still fatigued and hungry from yesterday! But, she knew hunger. She knew fatigue. This wasn’t either of those. She felt… energized.

Letting all other thoughts fall to the wayside, she took a deep breath in. What a refreshing breath it was! She could hear the satisfying crack of her joints as the crisp air flowed through her body.

In fact, what was she doing lazing around in bed? She should be out there, seizing the moment! A glance towards her closet and a smile grew upon her face—the sight of a faded shoebox peeking out from underneath a pile of old clothes reminding her of the life she had left behind.

Maybe… that’s a life worth trying again… Mia thought to herself. She had worked so hard, an entire half-life spent sucking up to others, and she had nothing to show for it.

Perhaps—just perhaps—she deserved a little time to herself doing what made her happy.

Meanwhile, Clover was stewing over what her mother had told her. Find a job? No way! She was perfectly content with her life as is! If she was ever in a tight spot, her fling of the week would usually help bail her out. What was all this sudden “responsibility” crap!?

Worst of all, now she was hungry and Mia was nowhere to be found.

“Mooooom! MOOOOOOOOM!” she shouted into the empty house—no response. But she was hungry now! Where the hell was Mia? Checking the bedroom, her mother was nowhere to be found; same results for the kitchen and the living room.

Thirty minutes passed and Clover had turned the entire house upside-down looking for Mia. She then dropped her weight upon the couch, fatigued and defeated, only for her mother to walk through the front door, breathing a sigh of relief as she felt the cool air conditioning once more.

“Mom!? Where the hell have you been!?” asked a dumbfounded Clover, springing up from her slump in anger. “Dinner was supposed to be made ages ago!”

“Sweetie, I was out jogging,” Mia replied, somewhat out of breath. “If you were so hungry, you could have made dinner yourself. There’s plenty of pre-made meals in the freezer.”

“You… were out… jogging?” her daughter clarified, as if what Mia said was wildly unreasonable, unable to even focus on her mother’s retort about dinner.

“That I did! Felt good, too! Even if the neighbors had some less-than-kind things to say about my weight…” Her regretful eyes then drifted toward her flabby stomach and muffin-top. “I’m even thinking about making jogging a morning routine of sorts!”

“Morning routine? What about your fucking job, mom!?”

That reset the status quo rather quickly.

“I-I’ll get on it soon, sweetheart,” Mia responded, knowing her daughter was right. She didn’t have time to dilly-dally. Hell, she still needed to file for unemployment.

Perhaps her dreams of jogging and getting in shape would have to be reserved for another day.

That day would end up being tomorrow.

When Clover woke up, she was greeted with a full homemade breakfast, one far more impressive than anything Mia had cooked prior. Not only that, but her mother seemed… slimmer than when she had seen her yesterday.

“M-mom… how did you do all this?” said a flabbergasted Clover, in disbelief at the banquet hall of food before her on the tiny table.

“Oh sweetie, it was easy, really. I was trying to fall asleep last night, but I couldn’t. So I didn’t!” Her sing-songy voice delivered that sentence with such a cadence that it almost sounded normal. “I got right to work on a big breakfast for the two of us! And when I was done, I still had enough time to go on a brisk morning jog! There’s nothing quite like the cool air of five o’clock AM!”

Her daughter’s eyes narrowed. “And just how did you afford all this, mom? With what job?”

As if on cue, Mia perked up. “Well, Honey, that’s the beauty of having ten extra hours a day! I found myself a nice call center job! It’s salary-based and I’m more than qualified for it, given my decades of experience.”

Clover racked her brain for something to complain about, but found herself coming up woefully short. In the absence of a retort, Mia went for the kill.

“I’ve got a job now, Clover,” she said in a friendly tone. “What’s your excuse?”

The next several minutes were silent—Mia was enjoying the food she had prepared, but Clover couldn’t even stomach a single bite. She just empty-stared at her full plate, unable to speak, practically unable to process what her life was quickly becoming.

What her mom was doing—it should have been impossible! Right? No one could go that many hours without sleep and be this functional! This must’ve been some sort of prank, a reality TV show perhaps. Clover quickly checked every angle of her view for hidden cameras, just waiting for the moment where it was revealed that a secret crew of caterers prepared this meal while her mother got a good night’s sleep.

The reveal never happened, leaving the young heartthrob to frantically speculate about just how Mia did it all. Her mother was too busy enjoying her food to notice Clover’s mental mind-games.

“Well, that was fantastic, if I should toot my own a bit!” Mia then stood up and took a long, pleasurable stretch. “Woof, I think I might need to work off all these calories, care to join me for a jog, dear?”

“You’re going to need more than just a jog if you want to burn all those calories, mom,” Clover replied spitefully under her breath.

But what her daughter saw as an insult, Mia saw as a challenge. Her mind immediately drifted towards an ancient memory, one she had long since repressed until now. Within the attic was one of the few relics of her past relationship: a weight set, complete with adjustable bars and the works. It wasn’t the most glamourous piece of gym equipment, but for her purposes, it would more than serve its function.

~

A week had passed without Clover seeing her mother. She wasn't actively avoiding Mia, their schedules just didn’t happen to line up with Clover attending college during the week. At least, that’s what the spunky twenty year old kept telling herself.

The truth bottled up within her brain was that she was afraid—afraid of this abrupt shift in power dynamics. Her mother was actively resisting her once-effortless authority, even countering it in unexpected ways.

But Clover found a way to calm the noise in her mind. Even if she loses a ton of weight, that won’t magically fix her ugliness! She’s still a 50 year old who looks 60, after all!

Feeling confident enough to confront her mother once more, on her off-day from classes she lounged lengthwise along the couch, lazily browsing social media and taking a few selfies for her followers to gush over. When the front door opened, Clover didn’t even look up from her phone.

“Phew! That exercise set was just what I needed! I feel fit as a fiddle!” Mia exclaimed with a satisfied sigh.

Clover smirked as she mentally pictured what her mother looked like. Mia was probably still flabby as fuck, this sudden boost in self-confidence merely mental. Or, if she had actually lost weight, her age would reflect that, leaving her body appearing wrinkly and unappealing with stretch marks on every square inch of her form. Finally peeling her eyes away from her screen, expecting her assumption to be vindicated…

…Somehow, Mia looked younger.

Clover did a literal double-take, her brain unable to properly process the information her eyes were sending it—something Mia took note of.

Despite being fifty years of age, she could be easily mistaken for forty. It looked as if she was wearing makeup… no, makeup after a sweaty jog would just be runny and nasty—that was just how her face naturally looked! The swell of her breasts seemed more pronounced as she adjusted the synthetic top of her outfit. Her hands ran down the curves of her greatly improved body as she admired herself in the mirror, stopping once they reached her tight, firm ass. And underneath that ass… her legs! Was she… taller!? No, that couldn’t be true. Had her legs really lengthened from exercising? That didn’t sound possible. No matter where she looked, Clover seemed to be surprised by a new aspect of her mother’s body wherever she looked.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? Surprised at how sexy your mother’s become?” asked Mia, her face not even looking away from the mirror.

“Pfft, as if.” Clover replied dismissively, returning her attention to her phone. “No matter how fit you get, you’ll never beat my father’s genes. Face it, mom, you hit the wall years ago.”

“Oh, is that so? Why don’t we see what public opinion has to say about it then?”

“What do you mean by tha-“ before Clover could finish her thought, her phone was effortlessly swiped out of her hand by Mia.

“H-hey give that bac—Oof!”

Once again, Clover’s speech was cut off, but this time it was from Mia lifting her pronounced leg up and dropping it down atop Clover’s stomach, pinning her to the couch.

“Just stay right there, honey. This won’t take long.

The younger girl twisted and flailed, but Mia’s firmly-planted foot wouldn’t budge. It felt like Thor’s hammer had been placed atop her and Clover was unworthy to wield it. Since when had her mother been this strong!? Clover recalled a time when Mia needed her help to open a jar of pickles.

“Ugh! Get your fat-ass foot off of me! H-hey don’t touch that!”

Her efforts to escape ceased as the inherent horror of what Mia was about to do breached her consciousness. Her mother was posing for a selfie! To be posted on her account!

Mia turned the phone so that her unruly daughter could witness the devastation she had just unleashed: A cutesy photo of Mia sporting a kissy face and a peace sign, angled downward slightly so that the audience could catch a full display of her improving body. She had worded the caption as if her daughter had written it.

My mom came home from her workout and thought she was feeling pretty. What do you guys think? She worked really hard on her body, so be nice!

“Great. You’ve made your point,” said Clover with a pout, crossing her arms and dropping eye contact. “Now get your tree trunk of a leg off of me!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, not so fast, Clover. As soon as I free you, you’re just going to delete the post. Why don’t we wait until it gains some traction, hmm?”

Aware of her lack of leverage, Clover turned silent, letting her angry expression express her feelings for her.

“Aww, don’t be so grumpy, sweetheart! I’m just having a little fun! Besides, it looks like this post is already taking off!” Sure enough, the post had almost broken the hundred-like threshold, almost at the same speed as her other photos. There was no way all of them had been pity likes!

Proving her point, Mia finally released her effortless hold on her daughter. Immediately, Clover wasted no time trying to get her phone back, but her efforts were ultimately in vain.

Those sleek, slim legs of Mia added extra height, an attribute she was abusing to play monkey in the middle with her daughter’s phone.

“Mooom, c’mon! Quit playing around! Give it baaaack!”

“Only if you promise not to delete the image. And if you do, I’ll take the phone back and post another photo of me. You might be prettier, but we’ll see how much I improve in the coming weeks. I bet the last thing you want is to be outshined by your own mother who’s over twice your age, hmm?”

Finally securing the phone back into her grasp, Clover felt anything but elated. What if Mia was right? What if she did end up surpassing her own daughter in beauty. It shouldn’t have been possible, but then again, neither should the body of the woman standing right in front of her!

Conceding defeat, Clover retreated to her room. Her mind left stewing with anger as she tried to make sense of this strange new normal.

~

Another week went by, and Mia’s jogging sessions were quickly becoming marathons. What was once an agonizingly stressful car ride through busy streets to get to her job was now a calming sprint through empty sidewalks to her former job.

Even though it was mostly to test her limits, she found solace in striding past the old warehouse. Every since she had been fired, it had been hit with a litany of lawsuits from angry investors, culminating in today’s crowd of reporters and cameramen.

In the front of the crowd, standing on a pedestal above the rest, was a rather meek-looking scientist. He was trying his best to squeak out an explanation, but it was ultimately lost in the cacophony of noise from the overeager reporters. Well, lost to everyone but Mia’s superior ears.

She wasn’t sure how it happened, but she found herself able to focus her hearing on whatever she pleased. Honing her eyes onto the scientist, she tuned her ears into his specific verbal frequency.

“The energy that stress from the human brain can produce is unparalleled, that was what my research was—” that was all Mia needed to hear. Her improved mind immediately put the pieces together into a satisfying conclusion. Her smile turned upwards into the smuggest of J-curves as she jogged away, satisfied with what she could now confirm was happening to her.

Arriving back at the house, Mia paused to stretch in the sunlight. Clover couldn’t help but observe how the light reflected her sculpted arms and chiseled abs, how her longer, toned legs added even more inches to her breathtaking form. Mia hadn’t grown an inch in over thirty years, and now suddenly she had added half a foot to her height. There was no way weight lifting and jogging were the sole reasons she was seeing these results. Not to mention, Mia looked even younger than she did a week ago. Her 55th birthday was literally 2 months ago! How the hell did she look thirty!?

Every inch of Clover’s body burned with envy. If this kept up, she’d be surpassed by her own mother in no time!

Noticing a nearby portrait on the wall, Mia further rubbed salt into the wound. “Oh my, just look at how unsightly I was in my thirties, sweetie! Time has been good to me!”

Clover couldn’t deny the results. The full-body portrait of Mia on the wall simply looked like an entirely different woman. Her mother was taller, fitter, bustier and more beautiful.

“Anyways, I’m feeling a bit peckish, what do you say we sit down for some dinner, hmm?” Mia then looked her daughter up and down, quickly stifling a grimace. “Oh, though maybe we should eat healthier tonight, you’re beginning to look a bit pudgy there, Clover.”

Clover’s mouth fell agape. Sure, when compared to her mother’s chiseled abs, she had fat in her stomach—but she wasn’t pudgy!

Yet all it took was a simple observation to make Clover paranoid. The unattainable beauty standard was no longer some boob-job’d bimbo on a magazine cover, it was quickly becoming her very own mother! The very same mother she had demeaned and called ugly and fat. Come to think of it, the neighbors had been mighty quiet as of late.

A fixed scowl on Clover’s face remained all throughout dinner.

“Don’t frown so much, honey. That’s a surefire way to get early wrinkles!” Mia remarked, much to her daughter’s chagrin. “Anyways, would you like some desert? I’m going to sit down and watch the news otherwise.”

Mia practically smiled preemptively, knowing exactly what Clover’s response would be.

Putting the ice cream away after scooping herself a big bowl, Mia sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. The news blared with a story, exaggerated in horror. An experimental pill had been reported stolen from the factory Mia once worked at, the news finally leaked to the public through a whistleblower scientist. While the TV was just enough out-of-earshot for Clover as to where she couldn’t hear exactly what the effects of the pill were, she could see a wicked smile twisting upwards upon Mia’s face.

She had stolen that pill! That explained her suddenly looking twenty years younger! Her breath heavy with rage, Clover conceived a plan that would turn the tides on this battle of beauty.

That bitch probably had a stash of them hidden within her room. Ever since Mia had secured that new call center job, she would spend long amounts of time in her room. That was where she popped them! No doubt about it! Clover would just have to find where they were and secure them for herself.

Unfortunately for her, there wasn’t an extended period of time she could think of where Mia wasn’t in her room. She only lifted weights and jogged in thirty minute increments, nowhere near enough time to do a proper search of the room.

That only left one option, and it was one Clover dreaded the most. But she had no other choice.

~

Clover tried her hardest to stifle a yawn as she waited silently for Mia to fall asleep. Her ear was pressed against the door, waiting for her clackity-clack of the keyboard to cease. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but as her consciousness waned, she hoped Mia would pass out eventually.

And then, the noise within the room ceased. Clover went on high alert, pressing her entire body weight against the door as she tried her hardest to listen for sounds of snoring or any other indication that Mia was sleeping. But her mother, proving to be even more silent that she could possibly fathom, opened the door, causing Clover to lose her balance and collapse into the room, face-planting.

“Sweetie, what are you doing out here? You know I need my beauty sleep,” Mia said, as if she even needed sleep anymore.

Fed up with her rapidly-approaching obsolescence, Clover admitted her position immediately. “I-I want that pill! Mom, give me whatever you took!”

Mia looked confused for the briefest moment, only for her confusion to be replaced with elation. She erupted with laughter, palming her forehead in an almost comical fashion as if Clover’s demands were simply the funniest joke she had heard all day.

“S-stop laughing! I want that pill and you’re gonna give it to me! I know you have a stash of them in there somewhere!”

That made Mia laugh even harder. If she weren’t so pretty, a feature that carried over into the cadences of her giggles, she would sound borderline maniacal.

“I don’t have any extra pills, Clover. There was only ever one pill. Fortunately, my life was so shitty that one was all I needed.”

Clover raised a sculpted eyebrow.

Mia responded to her daughter’s confusion with a knowing smile, flashing a set of perfect teeth her way. “But that’s not even the funniest part, even if I did have extra pills, they’d do nothing for you. It converts stress into energy—which you have middlingly little of. Your pristine, perfect life that I ensured for you… it has become your own downfall, I’m afraid.”

Shock became a near permanent fixture on Clover’s face as Mia dropped that bombshell. The mental toll was too much for her to bear. Every day, as Mia continued to improve, Clover found it harder and harder to compete. Becoming desperate, she resorted to every trick in the book. She bought the highest of high heels and stuffed her bra with whatever she could find, yet her mother saw right through her tricks and playfully teased her accordingly.

“Aww, you wanna look just like your mother, don’t you?” Mia playfully teased, pinching Clover’s cheek with a bit too much force.

“No! I wanted to look like me!” Clover lamented in response. “You don’t deserve such perfection!”

“Is that so, well, the local magazine seems to disagree. In fact, they want my photo on the front cover. Photoshoot in an hour.” She held up a letter of request in front of her daughter’s face, much in the same way that Clover dangled Mia’s notice of termination from her old job just weeks prior.

That was the breaking point. Clover seethed in rage upon reading the fine print, spit bubbling from the gaps in her teeth as her entire body shook uncontrollably.

“Welp, I’m off to the warehouse,” Mia said casually, not caring that her words had utterly broken her daughter. “You know the drill, dinner’s in the freezer if you’re hungry.

When Mia got home from the photoshoot, Clover was gone. She checked her shared bank account—the one that as soon as her daughter was able to, Clover demanded that she have easy access to it—all the money had been taken. Back then, Mia would’ve been silently devastated, unable to conceive how she raised a girl capable of such cruelty.

But now, Mia hadn’t expected anything less from her daughter. It wasn’t like the money mattered, anyway. Her human needs were more human suggestions nowadays. If she didn’t enjoy eating and sleeping so much, they’d be easy to cut out from her life. After all, her reservoir of stress provided more than enough power for twenty lifetimes.

One thing she couldn’t quite cut out was her desire for pleasure, as if she needed to make up for the last 50 years of being quiet and subservient to others.

The mental satisfaction of feeling desired—having eyes gaze upon her perfect body—was unmatched. The exuberance of money from the photo shoots were a mere bonus.

She was young, she was sexy… and now, she was truly happy.

~

Another day, another new pain. Clover thought to herself, applying a Herculean effort to pull herself out of bed. During her morning routine, she actively avoided looking into the mirror. She knew whatever she saw in it would only make her more miserable, as her overworked body slowly betrayed her with age.

Her husband didn’t look her in the eye, avoiding her much like her reflection. While he didn’t say it, even he knew that what she initially sold herself on wasn’t worth much nowadays.

It had been ten years since Clover parted with her mother, but the world kept spinning. The money she had taken from Mia had run dry, the bank account long going dormant. The money Clover was actually making was nowhere near what she needed, barely scraping by with her husband’s two jobs that were taking up most of his life, causing the two of them to become distant over the years.

At 32 years of age, she didn’t need to look in the mirror to tell that wrinkles were forming on her face. Clover’s best years were far behind her. Hearing a knock at the door, she once again attempted to avoid looking at the windows, should they show her a horrifying vistage of her painfully average body.

But when she opened the door, all that avoidance had been for nothing.

“What’s wrong, Clovy? Can’t even spare a ‘hi’ for your younger sister?”

Clover just stared at the “younger” girl before her, unable to bring any words to her mouth. But this unexpected guest wasn’t about to wait for an invitation.

“Younger sister?” her husband inquired from the kitchen. “Clover, I didn’t know you had a—”

The exact moment that his eyes caught a glimpse of this girl was the moment he too became speechless.

“Oh, I suppose I don’t blame her for never telling you about me. She’s tooootally jelly of my pickup skills, even at the ripe age of twenty I’m still swinging about! I bet she wishes she had my good genes!”

She strutted into the house, closing in on Clover's husband. “The name’s Mia. Do you wanna tell me your name now or afterwards?” she spoke, adding a sultry wink at the end of her sentence.

A shake of her hips and he was completely at her mercy. Clover knew she’d never get his attention back. If her “sister” wanted to, she could lure him out of the house and he’d never return. Mia knew that would be too merciful. With another wink in his direction, her youthful, shapely body retreated back outside. Her husband was left blue-balled for the rest of his life.

“Well, I just wanted to stop by and say hi! Have a nice life, Clover!”

She’d never see or hear from her “sister” again, except on magazines, television, the front page of google, and in her dreams every single night.