Chapter 2: another birthday
The jasmine candle on the nightstand had burned down to a nub, its sweet, heady scent woven permanently into the fabric of their bedroom. A week had passed since his birthday. The clone—Clara never named her, calling her simply the other one—had been deactivated after that single, seismic night. They didn’t speak about the strange quiet that followed, the way Elias sometimes stared at the activation hub as if it were a sleeping predator. They just returned to their normal rhythm: her work at the botanical gardens, his writing, their quiet dinners, their familiar, tender lovemaking.
Now, it was her turn.
“My birthday request is simple,” Clara said, stretching her arms above her head on the silk sheets. The morning light caught the auburn strands in her hair, turning them to fire. “I want you to do for me what I did for you.”
Elias, propped on one elbow beside her, traced the line of her jaw. “You want your own clone?”
“No.” Her green eyes fixed on his, bright with cunning and warmth. “I want your clone. I want two of you.”
He felt a jolt, a mixture of anticipation and that same, lingering disquiet. “You’re in charge,” he said, the words a surrender and a promise.
“I know,” she smiled. “That’s the point.”
The process was surreal from the other side. He stood naked before the hub, its scan a cool blue wave passing over him. There was no pain, just a fleeting sense of profound dissociation, as if he were being photocopied at the soul. A hum, a flash of light in the pod’s translucent cylinder, and then there he was.
Elias looked at Elias.
The clone stepped out, naked, his body a perfect mirror—the same slight scar on his right knee from a childhood fall, the same pattern of hair on his chest. He looked at the original, his expression a blank slate of mild curiosity.
“Jesus,” the original Elias breathed.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Clara said, circling them like a curator assessing sculptures. She wore a deep emerald green robe, tied loosely. “He has all your memories, your instincts, up until the moment you stepped into the scanner. He knows he’s the copy. He knows his purpose.”
She stopped in front of the clone. “Do you want to please me?”
The clone’s eyes, Elias’s own eyes, found hers. “Yes.” The voice was his, but flat, devoid of his own layered anxieties.
“Good.” Clara untied her robe and let it slide to the floor. She was magnificent, all creamy skin and confident curves. She pointed to the floor at the foot of the bed. “Kneel.”
The clone moved immediately, dropping to his knees with a supplicant’s grace. The original Elias felt a heat that was not entirely arousal pool in his gut. This was different. This was him being reduced to an instrument.
Clara hooked a finger under the clone’s chin. “Look at him,” she said, nodding to the original Elias still standing. “He’s the real one. You’re the fantasy. Your only function tonight is to facilitate my pleasure with him. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” the clone said, his gaze flicking to the original. There was no resentment there, only a hollow acceptance that made Elias shiver.
“Then start.”
Clara parted her legs. The clone leaned forward, and without preamble, buried his face between her thighs. The original Elias watched, frozen, as his own head bobbed between his wife’s legs. The wet, rhythmic sounds were obscenely loud. Clara’s head fell back, a low moan escaping her.
“He’s good,” she gasped, her fingers tangling in the clone’s hair. “Technically perfect. But he’s not you. He doesn’t have this.” She locked eyes with the original Elias, her gaze burning with possession. “You. Come here. I want you in my mouth.”
He moved as if pulled by a string. He stood beside the clone, whose attentions were relentless, and Clara took his hardening cock into her mouth with a hungry pull. The dual sensation—watching himself service her, feeling her hot mouth on him—was a psychological avalanche. He cried out, his hand coming to rest on the clone’s shoulder, feeling the muscle move under identical skin.
Clara pulled off him with a lewd pop. “On the bed. On your back.”
He obeyed, scrambling onto the silk. The clone continued his work, a dedicated machine between Clara’s thighs. Clara climbed onto the bed, straddling Elias’s hips. She positioned him at her entrance, slick and ready from the clone’s ministrations.
“You watch him,” she commanded the clone. “You watch how I take the real you.”
The clone lifted his head, his chin glistening. He watched as Clara sank down onto the original Elias in one slow, devastating motion. She was so tight, so impossibly hot. Elias arched beneath her, a guttural “Fuck!” torn from his throat.
“Yes,” Clara hissed, beginning to move, rising and falling with a powerful, grinding rhythm. “This is what I wanted. To have all of you… and to choose.”
She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, riding him harder. “Clone,” she said, her voice strained with pleasure. “Your tongue. Now. Don’t you dare stop.”
The clone moved instantly. He positioned himself between their bodies, his mouth finding Clara’s clit as she fucked the original Elias reverse cowboy style. The added sensation made Clara scream, her movements turning frantic. Elias was trapped in a feedback loop of unbearable pleasure—the visual of his own double licking his wife, the feel of her violent clenching around him, the raw, exposed vulnerability of being so completely used for her satisfaction.
“You see him?” Clara panted, looking down at Elias, her hair a fiery curtain. “He’s nothing but a toy. You’re my husband. This is your cock. This is my come. He just cleans up the mess.”
The obscenity of her words, the visceral truth of the scene, shattered the last of Elias’s restraint. The clone’s tongue was a relentless, skilled pressure on Clara’s clit. Her inner muscles fluttered, then clamped down in a series of violent, rhythmic spasms.
“I’m gonna come!” she shrieked, slamming down onto him one final time.
Her orgasm triggered his. White noise filled his head as he erupted inside her, his own shout joining hers in the perfumed air. The clone didn’t stop, licking and suckling through her quakes and his pulses, until Clara collapsed forward, sweaty and sated, onto Elias’s chest.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of ragged breathing. The clone rested his head on Clara’s thigh, awaiting instruction.
Clara finally rolled off, lying beside Elias. She looked at the clone. “Deactivation sequence. Now.”
The clone stood without a word, walked to the hub, and stepped into the pod. A soft hum, a dimming of the light within, and he was gone, the cylinder empty.
Elias lay staring at the ceiling, his heart a jackhammer against his ribs. The physical euphoria was already fading, replaced by a deep, unnameable hollow.
Clara turned on her side, her hand cool on his chest. “Happy birthday to me,” she murmured, satisfaction a purr in her voice.
He turned his head to look at her. Her expression was one of absolute, triumphant love. And all he could see was the blank, obedient face of the clone—his face—watching him from between her legs. He had enjoyed it. God, he had. Every degrading, perfect second.
But as he pulled Clara closer, breathing in the jasmine and sex, the question from a week ago echoed, mutated, and took root.
If the clone was just a toy, why did giving the order to erase it feel like murder?