The Girl in the Mirror Pt. 08

Cassie and I stood silently on the sidewalk in front of my building as we waited impatiently for our Uber to arrive. My foot tapped anxiously as I checked the app again. Turning to look up the street, I gave a small sigh of frustration as I searched for the car which should have already appeared at the corner.

"There it is!" I cried, pointing at a white Prius that had just turned in at the end of the block.

The car pulled up in front of us and we both hurriedly clambered in and fastened our seat belts. I heard Cassie's phone ding as we took our seats and she pulled it from her pocket as the car moved away from the curb.

"Aw shit." She groaned as she read the message.

"What's wrong?" I asked, giving her a concerned look.

"I forgot this weekend is my grandmothers eightieth birthday!" Cassie exclaimed with a look of dismay on her face. "I'm supposed to head home to my folks after work and not get back to the city until Sunday afternoon. With everything thats happened over the last few day, I completely forgot."

"It's alright," I said, trying to comfort her. "I'll still be here on Sunday."

"Yeah, I know." Cassie gave me a shy grin before continuing quietly. "I was looking forward to showing the mirror to that couple from your building."

I grinned at her conspiratorially. "I know, me too."

Seeing her look of disappointment I changed tact. "You know though, there's no guarantee they'll even turn up. They probably won't even show and all you'll have missed is me going to town in front of the mirror for a couple of days."

"I'd still like to be there for that!" Cassie replied as she cast her eyes up and down my body suggestively.

I gave her a saucy smile in return. "Don't worry, you can see that when you get back on Sunday."

Cassie gave a resigned sigh. "Promise me you'll keep me updated on how your weekend is going?"

"I promise."

She gave me a small smile and we spent the rest of the trip sitting in silence.

After what felt like a lifetime, the car came to a halt in front of Pizzazz Marketing.

Cassie and I leapt from the car and charged towards the front entry. We slowed our pace as we reached the front door, passing through it at a brisk walk.

"Late again Lexi?"

Mr Benson was standing at the front desk, pointing to the clock on the wall. It read five past eight.

"And now your tardiness seems to have rubbed off on Cassie." Benson shook his head sadly. "You know I can't turn a blind eye to this sort of thing Lexi, issues like this need to be passed up the chain." His eyes locked on mine as he finished the sentence. He continued to stare down at me coldly, an almost mad glint of triumph in his eyes.

There was nothing I could do. I stared back, keeping my face neutral, even though I was seething inside. God I wanted to beat his big stupid bald head with a baseball bat. But a part of me was also angry with myself. I'd put myself in this situation and now I had no excuses. Really it was Cassie's fault for having such a delightfully perfect pussy, though I could hardly blame her for that.

"My apologies Mr Benson, it won't happen again." I kept my voice level as I continued to return his stare.

He gave a small pretentious laugh. "Well we've all heard that before." He turned to the receptionist trying to get her to nod as if they were sharing a joke. The poor woman just stared at him with an uncomfortable look that said 'hey, leave me the hell out of this, I just work here.' Eventually she caved and gave him a small smile back, though it looked more like a grimace.

Benson returned his eyes to us. "Get to your work stations then. Now!"

We both gave a small apologetic nod of acceptance and then filed past the desk, heading for our booths.

From this point our day seemed to follow its normal trajectory at least that is until 12:30p.m in the afternoon.

"Ding." My computer beeped as an email hit my inbox. I thought nothing of it as I opened up outlook, but this email was about to change the course of not just my day, but my entire week.

Dear Lexi,

This email is a reminder that you have a rent inspection at 2:00pm this afternoon at room 435 at Towers Estate in Richmond.

Kind regards,

Sonja Stevenson

My mind froze, so did my body. I stared at the email in sheer horror as I comprehended its contents. Surely this couldn't be true. A groan of disappointment escaped my lips.

I guess I should explain. Sonja Stevenson was my landlord. She owned the entire apartment complex that I lived in. Sonja was the daughter of millionaire philanthropist Miles Stevenson. She had been given our apartment complex as a twenty first birthday present by her father.

Now I know what your thinking, rich white girl gets gifted a fortune. That sucks, but it's not the end of the world. Here's the thing though, Sonja was the absolute worst. I know it sounds dramatic when I say that, but that was the reality.

Imagine that person who you hate most in life. Maybe it's the boss who constantly belittles you in front of your peers. Perhaps it's your mother in law, constantly critiquing your every decision and holding you to a standard that you know she, herself could not maintain. I don't know, maybe it's your co-worker who constantly plays down your contributions while simultaneously exaggerating their own.

My point is, in life, everyone has a kryptonite, a person who can disarm all of their defences, regardless of the situation. I know, right now your probably picturing someone. They're that person who always seems to have an answer in an argument, that person who keeps you awake at night as you think up witty responses to arguments you've already lost. We've all had this person at some point in our lives, and Sonja was that person to me. She made a habit of sending reminder emails, informing me of impending rent inspections. They always referenced emails or letters that I had never received, but I was always too anxious to call her on it. Not to mention the fact that with the current rental crisis in Melbourne, I was just grateful to have a roof over my head.

In short this woman was my worst nightmare, she dominated me whenever we met and left me cowering in submission anytime we crossed paths. I'm sure at this point you're probably judging me, with thoughts like "What a pussy!" Or "She needs to stand up for herself!"

What you need to understand is that I was not alone in my fear. The rental market in Melbourne is currently atrocious, with over thirty applicants for every available home open. This means that I and all of my fellow tenants live in constant fear of eviction.

Because of this, Sonja rules with an iron fist. As I said before, she inherited this apartment block from her father, but that was twenty five years ago. Two years after being given this block, Sonja used the equity to acquire two other apartment blocks nearby. Since then, managing them had become her full time occupation as she sought to show her father that she could make it on her own.

Unfortunately, for all the tenants like me, that meant running an exceptionally tight ship, especially now that the market had become skewed so heavily in favour of landlords.

I know it sounds like I'm being dramatic. I mean how many tenants actually like their landlords right? Not many. But Sonja was far worse than your average landlord. That woman was like a bloodhound. As I said before, she completely managed three apartment complexes herself and she treated every single expense like it would cost her the last five dollars she had in this world.

When Mrs Henderson down the hall missed her rent because she was in hospital having heart surgery, Sonja cancelled all of her utilities and sent a debt collector to see her the day after she returned from hospital.

I know what you're thinking, maybe she didn't know, and after all she was entitled to the money. Well I can tell you with certainty that she was aware of Mrs Hendersons situation. She just didn't care, and I can also tell you that after Mrs Henderson paid her bill, it still took two weeks for her utilities to be restored.

Not convinced? That's okay, take Mr Garibaldi down the hall. He was in a motor vehicle accident on the way home from work. The man was in a coma for four weeks. When he woke up Sonja had dumped all of his things out on the curb and evicted him a week prior.

The woman was terrible, and if that wasn't all bad enough, she kept a commemorative shrine to herself in the foyer of our building. The shrine consisted of a small wooden cabinet with a glass door. Behind the glass was a framed picture of a fresh faced twenty one year old Sonja shaking her fathers hand in front of the building. Beside it was a smaller frame that contained a portrait photo of Sonja wearing a white shirt and blazer on her first day in charge. Surrounding the photos were a selection of newspaper articles detailing Sonja's rise up the real estate ranks. She had started out with one apartment block, but over the years she had expanded her empire to include two other buildings.

Now some would say that this was a result of her being a savvy business woman who made shrewd decisions, but I suspect she was just fortunate her daddy could go guarantor on all of her loans and bail her out anytime she needed it.

Sonja's shrine seemed to get vandalised almost every other week. She never locked the glass screen, so tenants were free to access it anytime they wanted. And access it we did. Some people smashed the photos, others drew on them with marker, giving the young Sonja a hitler moustache or writing 'slut' across her forehead. But every time, the pictures and paper clippings would be replaced with fresh one within a couple of days. The only conclusion I can draw is that Sonja must have a store room somewhere that's filled to the brim with pictures of herself. Some of the tenants wondered why she kept leaving it out or whether she was secretly surveilling the spot to see who vandalised her shrine. I don't think so. I suspect Sonja enjoys it when it gets vandalised. She had put that shrine there to openly gloat to all of her tenants, to remind us that we're under her thumb. She let people vandalise it so that they could think for a day or two they had one upped her, only for the shrine to be completely restored. It was a show of power, no matter what we did, her smiling young face would be there goading us as we left for our morning commute each day.

I say young, but the Sonja of today was no longer the young woman from those photos. Now I must begrudgingly admit that twenty one year old Sonja was beautiful, she had long blonde hair and striking blue eyes, coupled with a slender figure. Modern day Sonja however, looked like the same woman if you had purchased her on wish. She was now in her late fourties. She still had the blonde hair and ice blue eyes, but her body was not the same. Sonja had tried desperately to turn back the hands of time with more cosmetic surgery than you could poke a stick at. Her face looked like it was made from wax and I don't think she could have smiled, even if she wanted to, her skin was stretched so taut across her face. Her perky young breasts had been modified and supersized to the point where they must have at least been DD's as Sonja tried desperately to compensate for her lack of personality. I'd never seen the rest of her body, but I can only imagine the amount of money she had spent keeping everything in its place.

Anyway, I feel like I may have gotten off track here. The point is, that woman is the devil and the one person who turns my mind to pulp and makes all the words jumble up in my mouth. Every time I interact with her I find myself lying in bed late at night thinking of all the things I should have said, if only I had the courage or wit in the moment.

Sonja's message said she would be at my apartment at 2:00 this afternoon for a rent inspection. It also said I'd been notified of this two weeks prior by letter, which I hadn't, but what could I do?

I checked the time. I had just over an hour to get out of here and get home. Even if I got an Uber, it was going to be tight, but I had to make it. My mind started to fill with terrible possibilities. What if she saw the mirror? What if she saw my dildo sitting on the bedside table? What if she took the mirror? The thought was too terrible to comprehend. Frantically I gave a garbled explanation of what had happened to Cassie, before rushing to Mr Bensons office. I knocked tentatively at his door.

"Come in," I heard him call.

Hurriedly I opened the door and stepped inside. Mr Benson stared up at me from his desk, his bald head gleaming in the lamp light. His face twisted into a grin as he immediately sensed my discomfort.

"Yes..." He asked with a sneer.

I felt small. I felt insignificant. All the confidence from the last two days seemed to have evaporated from my body.

"I'm sorry to b-bother you Mr Benson." I stammered out. "I've just had an urgent appointment come up and I was wondering if it would be okay if I use some of the 'time in lieu' that I've saved up." The words tumbled out of me meekly.

"I see," Mr Benson leant back in his seat and pressed his hands together in front of himself, pretending as if he were considering the request deeply.

My request wasn't an unreasonable one. People used their banked time for appointments regularly. I had over one hundred and fifty hours saved up and had literally never used any before today.

Finally, Bensons eyes left his hands and came to rest on my face. "You may go if you need to Lexi. But just so you know, leaving at such short notice like this had better not become a regular occurrence. I will have to inform my superiors of this, I hope this doesn't reflect badly on you before the big interview on Monday."

He leered at me now, a wicked glint in his eye. I stared back at him devastated.

He was going to use this to sabotage my job opportunity and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to go, there would be other jobs, but there was only one magic mirror.

"Thank you, Mr Benson." I whispered meekly before turning on my heel and heading for the exit. I had forty five minutes to get home and based on my journey planner I would make it with five minutes to spare.

The planner was pretty close. By the time I'd arrived at my building and raced up four flights of stairs, not wanting to risk taking the lift, I found myself standing in front of my door with two minutes to spare. I fumbled for my keys in my pocket. They kept getting caught in the fabric, then when they finally came free I dropped them on the floor.

Why do keys always do this when you're in a hurry? Finally I was inside. Now I needed to figure out what to do. I couldn't hide the mirror, there was no time, besides Sonja was so anal in her inspections, she would see it for sure.

Panicking I raced to the cupboard and grabbed out a decorative beach towel that I was given by my Mum at Christmas. I hooked one end over the top of the mirror, allowing the towel to hang down to the floor, covering the mirror completely.

I stepped back to examine my fix. I'd hoped it might look artsy, but it just looked tacky and a little bit bizarre.

Knock, knock!

My thoughts were interrupted by someone at the door I heard a key enter the lock before I could even move. That was Sonja's way, giving you as little time as possible before barging into your home.

The door opened and there she was. The bully. The tormentor. The bitch.

Sonja stepped inside, her high heels clicking loudly on the entry way tiles. There she was, mutton dressed as lamb. She wore a tight black pencil skirt that flirted with the line between business and slutty. It was complemented by a white business shirt and a black blazer.

Sonja cast her eyes around the room, surveying the space like a queen presiding over her kingdom. Finally her eyes came to rest on me.

"Good afternoon, ahh..." she cast her eyes down to the clipboard in her hand, "Lexi."

I'd lived here for over three years and had multiple, regular interactions with her in that time. Yet I was so insignificant to her that she hadn't even bothered to remember my name.

"Good afternoon, Sonja," I responded shakily.

"Right, let's get this inspection underway."

Sonja had no time for pleasantries, especially not with an underling like me.

"Of course." I gave a timid nod and motioned for her to begin.

I wanted to say "No Sonja, not today. You haven't given me the required notice, so you won't be stepping foot in my apartment." But instead I just stood there meekly watching as she walked around my kitchen. I hated myself in this moment. Where had the sexy confident goddess from the last few days gone? Why had she deserted me in my time of need? How could one person affect me so much?

"This kitchen is not up to scratch!" Sonja's words cut through my thoughts.

"S-sorry," I stammered. "I didn't realise you were coming today. I never got the letter."

"That's not my problem," she replied bluntly. "See this soap scum?" She pointed at a small mark at the bottom of the sink. "It's disgusting. And don't get me started on the oven. I don't care if you're having an inspection or not, this apartment needs to stay clean!"

Sonja turned to glare at me commandingly. She was the same height as me with her heels on, but in that moment it felt like she was towering over me.

As I stared at her forlornly, she seemed to look at me for the first time. I saw a flash of surprise in her eyes as she registered the change in my appearance. The rest of her face didn't change, but I suspect that was probably because it was incapable of portraying any emotion after so many years of Botox injections.

Sonja stepped closer to me, her rant forgotten as she studied my complexion. Then her eyes shifted down to my breasts.

"Where did you get these done?" She motioned towards my chest.

"Ah, they're just natural... I guess I'm a late bloomer," I said blushing.

I could see the scorn in her eyes. "What nonsense. They're clearly fake and the work you've had done on your face must have cost you a small fortune. Clearly I'm not charging you enough in rent if you can afford all of this."

Her eyes cast around the apartment looking for anything out of the ordinary that might give a hint to how I had afforded such expensive cosmetic surgery. "Let me guess, Onlyfans." She said it more to herself than to me.

"Ah ha! What's this?" Her gaze had settled on the towel.

"N-nothing... Just a wall hanging."

Her eyes filled with scorn as she looked at me.

"Take it down." I stared at her in dismay before slowly crossing the room to comply. Gently I removed the towel, letting it fall to the ground.

"A mirror?" I could hear the surprise in her voice. I think she had expected some sort of home camera set up.

"Just an old mirror I found out on the verge. It's really nothing special." I rambled breathlessly.

Sonja just ignored me, walking over to stand directly in front of the mirror. My stomach filled with dread as the moments drew out. As I watched, Sonja gave a small gasp and placed her hand on her face. "What is this?"

"It's just an old mirror," I said meekly, stepping slowly closer.

Sonja's reflection came into view and I could see why she was so mesmerised. The reflection looking back at her looked exactly like the twenty one year old Sonja who's face I'd seen portrayed in the foyer down below.

"If this mirror was on our verge, then it's the property of the land owner. As in me. I'm going to have to confiscate this Lisa." She spoke without malice, not even looking away from the mirror. In her eyes it was a forgone conclusion. She saw what she wanted and she took it.

My stomach seemed to fall from my body as dread overwhelmed me. I stepped up beside Sonja and gave her a pleading look.