The Mirror Can Be Cruel

I can't take credit for this story. The following pages I found in a notebook left at Bristol Temple Meads Station. There was no name or address so I couldn't return it. I enjoyed reading them a lot. I hope you enjoy them, because they took me ages to type up.

Mother, if you are reading this, stop now. This isn't for you, this is for me. I've read online that people who've been through traumatic and life changing experiences benefit from writing out what happened to them. Apparently, something about the process of writing things out helps you see things clearly. I certainly need some of that.

So, Mother, stop reading. There are going to be things I don't want you to know, and I am sure there are going to be things that you won't want to know. If you read any further then I promise I'll never speak to you again. I will know if you have read it. So please, for once, respect my privacy.

I am not a cow! Sure, I have confidence issues (who doesn't these days?), but I am still comfortable enough with my looks to say 'when I am made up and dress up I am hot!' Don't forget that I was a popular blogger. I had forty thousand followers. How could I possibly post all those pictures of myself to a blog if I wasn't confident? Also if I was so unattractive, then surely I wouldn't have received so many unsolicited dick pics. Guys (and girls!) like curves, and I have a lot of them. Big boobs, big hips, big ass, narrow waist, big hair and a pretty face.

So I'm not sure where I should begin. I suppose this story really starts on the day my life ended. Or at least my life as I knew it. I will never forget the 19th January 2015. Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. It might have ended that way, but it certainly didn't start that way. I was happy that morning. I had so much to look forward to.

I was planning on picking up my wedding dress on the weekend. Mum and I had chosen it before Christmas, and it had finally been delivered. My wedding was booked for June 25th. Both Duncan and I were on diets, so I'd only had a small breakfast. My diet was working, and I was starting to finally lose weight: something my blog readers had commented on. Duncan's diet hadn't been so successful yet. I still think he was snacking somewhere.

I'd had a delivery of gorgeous-looking underwear at lunchtime and I was looking forward to blogging them. I had the best job in the world. I would receive parcels of luxurious underwear in exchange for photos and a review on my blog, which had been getting more and more popular. Just the week before, I'd made the Independent Newspaper's list of "25 Plus Size Blogs that you need to follow." I was number twenty-four. Duncan was set to get it framed on the weekend.

He'd had even stopped being jealous of the blog, and had come to see it as a turn on. He liked seeing me in the new underwear sets, sometimes not waiting for me to get out of them before violating me in the naughtiest ways. His coming around had made everything so much easier.

We'd spent the night before working on the invitation design. We were on our tenth design and it still wasn't quite right. In the end, I decided to change a few of the colours, to make them perfect. The guest list was finally close to being sorted. Duncan just had to compromise on leaving some of his friends off the meal to accommodate some of my family, but I'd reminded him that my mum was paying a couple of thousand. I'd even finally got him to agree to not go into a strip bar on his stag do. Life was good.

Then it wasn't. I got a call from my mother that night.

"Duncan has hung himself," my mother said, without even saying hello. "I'm so sorry."

I always thought if someone close to me died, I'd know straight away. Maybe I'd get some sort of feeling, or inkling. My Duncan, my future husband and biggest supporter, died at 9:15am on 19th January 2015 alone in his childhood room. He remained there, alone, until 4.30pm when his 65-year-old father, Brian, found him.

Brian called the ambulance first, then his wife Cheryl, then the police. They forgot about me, his fiancé, completely. Around 6 pm they left a voicemail for my mother. She didn't call them back until 6.30 pm and then she spent half an hour working out how to tell me. "Duncan has hung himself," was apparently the best she could come up.

I've never forgiven Brian and Cheryl for that. They didn't like me, but they still should have told me.

I'd spent the day dreaming of a life that was already over. I'd even planned what I would wear for him when he got home. It was a lace purple bralette and matching lace boy cut panties that looked fabulous on me. A whole day of preparing for things that could never happen. He was already dead and growing cold. Duncan, the life and soul of every party, the man with the smile that would light up the room, was all alone at the end.

"Duncan has hung himself." I don't remember much after those words. I don't know what I said, or what my mother said in reply. It was as if a black hole had swallowed me up. I can remember in detail the whole day before that call, but from 7pm onwards there is nothing.

Suicide is selfish. It is a simple as that. It does so much damage to the people left behind. Brian has never gotten over finding his son hanging dead amongst all his childhood memories. All of Duncan's friends will never get over the hole he left in their lives. I will never ever get over the failed dreams.

I don't know why Duncan didn't try and speak to anyone about things that were troubling him. It was just another Monday morning, with nothing to tell it apart from any other day. He left no note, no message. The police found nothing in his search history or in his emails. It was senseless. What am I supposed to do with that?

One moment he was my life, then he wasn't.

I don't remember the funeral. I know I wore a black dress with matching tights, black shoes, a wide shiny black belt around my waist and a big coat with a fur collar hiding it all. I remember getting sore feet, and I remember getting drunk at the wake, but that's all. I couldn't tell you what was said, or how I got there, or how I got home, or what happened in the days before and after. The only reason I remember the outfit is that I did a blog post that morning, complete with pictures.

I've tried rereading that entry, but it doesn't make sense. A string of unlinked sentences. Included in the post was three pictures of me in the underwear, though I've deleted that now. I don't know why I thought that putting a picture of myself from the neck down (as in all my lingerie posts), in underwear, on the day of my fiancé's funeral, was appropriate.

My blog is my memory for the six months after that. I took time off from my job, and I barely went out. I drank more. I'm not sure why no one checked on me to see if I was ok. Maybe they did. Maybe I pushed them away. All I have is a series of blog posts at random times and intervals, all of my body in more and more risqué lingerie. I even stopped blurring my nipples in the sheer underwear.

A month later, I woke up in the hospital. The nurses told me that I'd tried to kill myself. My mum says she found me in my underwear with enough empty vodka and pill bottles lying around to have killed a small horse. If I'd been any thinner, I think I'd be dead.

When they released me, I went to live with my mum. I hated it. I had to leave my door open so that she could check on me. I couldn't even lock the bathroom door if I had a bath. It felt like I was on suicide watch. Which, I guess, I was.

There was no room for the four wardrobes full of clothes and underwear that I'd been sent over the years, so that all went into storage. The house sold within three months.

A year after Duncan's death, I went back to work. My easy job as a claims handler was gone, and I had to retrain as an administrator. A whole two grades down. One of the girls, Victoria, whom I'd trained, was now my boss and training me.

Victoria was in her early twenties. She was a thin brunette who wore too much makeup, loved to go out drinking and flirted with all the males in the office. In her first week, I spoke to her about her lifestyle when she had come in late with a hangover, and she relished the turning of the tables a little too much.

"I'm so sorry for your loss Amanda," Victoria said on my first morning together, but she couldn't stop smiling while she said it. "I'm sure you can work your way back up to your old position once you've learned all the new systems. We got rid of all the old ones that were... less than ideal." The old systems she was talking about had been my project, and there was no way that she didn't know that.

One morning, about a month after I started back, a random delivery of underwear came. I was running late for work otherwise I'd have missed it. Most suppliers had stopped sending me stuff after Duncan's death, but this was an obscure brand from Poland. My jaw dropped; a Scantily Surrender basque.

I no longer cared that I was late. I took the box and ran upstairs to my room. Within moments I was naked. I pulled on the basque and the panties and looked at myself in the mirror for a long time. It was beautiful. Usually, basques don't fit me. As any reader of my blog knows, the cups of basques are usually woefully inadequate for my prodigious breasts. If the cups are big enough then the rest of it isn't tight enough for my waist.

It took an age to get the basque on, there were so many hooks. In the end, I spun the basque back to front, did the bottom hooks up and then turned it back around, putting my breasts in their place and then doing up the other hooks.

This basque was made of sheer, opulent fabric, with harness straps connected in the middle by a rose gold ring. The straps would go around the top of my breasts perfectly, highlighting them and shaping them fantastically. The matching briefs were peephole at the back, offering a peek of my butt while the sheer fabric over the cups would allow a sneak view of my nipples.

For the first time in almost a year, I felt special again.

"Haven't you gone to work yet, Amanda?" came my mother's voice from the stairs. If she was already back from the local shops, then I was very late. There was no time to take off the basque, but the briefs were too tight to leave on all day. They were definitely bedroom only wear. The briefs came off and without even thinking I put them into my work bag, taking out my lunch to make room. I would be going shopping for stockings on my lunch break, not eating.

It turned out to be the longest morning ever. I could hardly concentrate on my computer screen. I would find my fingers gently sliding between the buttons of my blouse to trace the seductive straps with my fingers. I knew my followers would love this outfit and I couldn't wait to get pictures online.

I didn't end up waiting. On my lunch break, I bought brand new stockings and a pair of four inch high heels from Primark. They were cheap but perfect for the look. Then I raced back to the office.

By the time I got back from Primark, I had thirty-five minutes left of my lunch break. I took the elevator up to the sixth floor, the meeting rooms, and I let myself into the ladies bathroom. It was distinctive, the nicest bathroom in the whole building except for maybe the one of the executive floor. The tiles were a dark grey colour that gleamed, and the lighting was from a flood of tiny downlighters embedded in the ceiling. You couldn't ask for better selfie lighting.

I took the largest cubical and stripped to the basque, not bothering to fold my clothes and just dumping them on the floor in excitement. I felt like myself again. I felt like I was a real person, not a ghost.

I pulled on the stockings next. I was careful with them. They were cheap and I didn't want to ladder them. Finally the small briefs.

The cups were perfect for my breasts. My small nipples were just teasing through the mesh material. I turned around and looked at my ass. It was as big and beautiful as ever. I looked good and I felt great. I even started to get aroused.

Of course I took pictures. Just my usual blog pictures, maybe eight in total and none of them showing my face. All the standard poses. I uploaded them to my Instagram with my hands shaking slightly.

Then, sadly, I took off the briefs and heels, and got dressed again leaving the stockings and basque on. I had this desire to post pictures of myself at my desk. Maybe with a few pictures of my blouse undone showing off those harness straps as they vanished down between my one-of-a-kind cleavage. I knew men and women alike would love the posts, they'd be my most liked ever. Show just a little bit of the office behind me. It was delicious. If I waited until later in the afternoon, the natural lighting would be amazing.

By the time I was changed, my Instagram was going wild with likes. Twenty within the first ten minutes, and by the time I was at my desk it was up to fifty.

About an hour later, Victoria came around and said, "Amanda, can you come up to the meeting room please?" My heart sank.

I followed her upstairs, wondering what this was about, but there was something about the small smile on her face, something about the way she'd walked over to the desk, that said, 'Gotcha.'

I followed the skinny bitch into the smallest meeting room. Diane, one of my colleagues, a similar age to me, was sitting there with a notepad in front of her. Before Duncan left me, she'd been friendly to me. I'd hardly talked to her since I'd returned as an admin.

"Is this you?" Victoria asked, pulling up my Instagram picture on the giant projector screen in the room.

For just a moment it was thrilling to see my body larger-than-life on the wall of the conference room. I did look incredible. My curves were perfectly showcased by the basque. I remember thinking how good I'd have looked if it had fitted me a little more tightly around the waist. In the back of my mind, I started thinking about using that projector more when there was no one else around.

"Before you think about lying," Victoria sniped, "this is your Instagram account, and there can't be many other people of your size who are happy to put nudes online."

"It's hardly a nude," I said, answering quicker than I should have. I should know better than to answer in anger, but I never learn. I never learn.

"It might as well be a nude, Amanda! I can see your nipples clearly," Victoria said, cutting me off as if I was a child. "It is definitely not appropriate work wear," she added. "And this was taken here in the toilets on this floor."

"I was on my lunch break," I snapped, feeling my cheeks burn with a mix of humiliation and anger. She just left the picture of me up there on the screen. I really could see my nipples. They looked so pink and huge. I always wanted bigger nipples.

"So you agree that this is you, and you took this photo here on the meeting level before posting it online on your public Instagram account," Victoria said.

"Why are you doing this Victoria? What have I ever done to hurt you?" I said, wanting to be powerful, the bigger person. "Are you stalking me?"

"Yes or no, Amanda? Is this you? Was this picture taken in this floor's toilets today?" Victoria asked again.

I looked at Diane for help, but she just kept her eyes on the pad.

"Amanda?" Victoria asked again, more emphatically. She looked like she was loving this.

I looked back at her and, for once in my life, held my tongue.

"Ok fine, Amanda," Victoria said, then she walked to the door, opened it and pulled out my work bag.

"Hey," I shouted. "That's my bag! You've got no right to have that."

"Didn't you draft the staff manual, Amanda? Did you forget that you added a clause that we could search all bags brought into the office?"

God that smile. That infuriating smile. Treating me like an idiot. She was enjoying every second of what she was doing to me. I wanted the ground to swallow me up as she opened my bag in front of me. It might not have been too bad if she dumped out the bag in one go, but she didn't. She lay out the items one by one. First the heels.

"These look like the ones in the picture. What else do we have?" she said.

Then the stockings.

"Primark? Really Amanda? You spent all that money on a corset and then cheap out on the rest of it?"

Then the briefs. Victoria's hands were holding them, her fingers wrapped around where my pussy had been only an hour before. Could she feel how wet I'd gotten?

"It is me in the picture. I took it on my lunch break," I said.

"Hm. Size XL," Victoria said looking at the label and then up at my picture still on the projector, as if trying to humiliate me further. "They looked so tight in the picture as well." Then she added, "And it feels like you really did enjoy wearing these."

I blushed bright red and glanced at Diane. She was also bright red and looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. She wouldn't look at me.

"How fucking dare you fat-shame me," I said, my voice low and laced with menace. I don't really know where it came from. I guess Victoria had pushed me into a corner.

She smiled.

"Amanda, you are suspended effective immediately on the grounds of bringing the company into disrepute and for being disrespectful to your line manager. Please leave the building immediately. Your belongings will be brought out to you. You will receive a letter notifying you of your disciplinary hearing within two days." She had the biggest smile I'd ever seen.

"I need this job, It's all I've got now," I said, tears forming at my eyes. "I don't know what I've done to you, or why you are acting this way."

"Goodbye Amanda, have a good life," Victoria said, "Make sure you don't do anything stupid tonight."

Did she know about my suicide attempt, was she mocking me?

I was about to reply when she threw the briefs at me. I caught them instinctively, and it was my turn to feel how wet the crotch was. Very, very wet. I blushed bright red. I really had enjoyed my brief glimpse of freedom, and now it just felt stupid. A big stupid mistake.

I put my notice in before the official disciplinary. Victoria didn't even reply. At least my CV remained intact. The lingerie went into a box under my bed and I deleted the Instagram post. Not in time to stop two unsolicited dick pictures being sent to me though.

"So what now?" my mother demanded.

It was a good question; what now? I should apply for jobs but what as. According to my CV, I was now just an administrator. That downward step would do me no fucking good. My plan to work my way back up to management now looked stupid. I was in my late 30s, I had no references, and had no choice but to look for low paid admin work. Add to that I was living with my mum, in my old room, in my old single bed. I was a disaster. A fucking joke.

Why had Duncan done this to me? In just over a year, my good life was just a distant memory. Everything had ended that morning. I blamed him. I blamed him for everything, and I cried.

I cried silently, I didn't want my mum to hear. Night after night, I would go to bed later after watching endless reality TV. I would look at the pictures of me trying on my wedding dress, then I would look at pictures from my blog. Sexy pictures where I looked hot. Some of them from just before or after the picture Duncan had been fucking me. One or two I'd taken with Duncan's cum still inside me. It had given me a thrill at the time.

Now? Nothing.

I would hover with my finger above delete, but I wouldn't delete them. I couldn't delete them. The pictures were memories of who I once was. They were my legacy. Why didn't they turn me on the way they'd used to? Why couldn't I look at pictures of myself and masturbate myself into oblivion anymore?