Chapter 2: A Taste of Self
The air in the bedroom was thick, sweet with the vanilla candle Lydia had lit hours ago in a futile attempt to create ambiance. Now the scent cloyed, mixing with the salt of sweat and the electric, metallic tang of anticipation. Rose petals, Marcus’s trite idea, were crushed into the silk sheets, leaving bruised pink stains.
Marcus stood naked by the bed, his cock already hard, jutting out with an arrogance that made Lydia’s stomach twist. He was looking between the two of them with the gleaming, acquisitive eyes of a man surveying a purchase. Lydia and her clone—Lyd-2, as Marcus had taken to calling her with a tech-inflected glee that made Lydia cringe—were seated on the edge of the rumpled bed. They wore matching black lace robes, another of his requests. The fabric felt like a costume.
“Okay,” Marcus said, his voice too loud. “Let’s… get comfortable.”
Lydia couldn’t look at him. Her gaze was locked on her own hands, folded in her lap. Then a cool finger touched her chin, guiding her face up. It was Lyd-2. Her eyes, Lydia’s eyes, were dark pools of calm amusement.
“Hey,” Lyd-2 murmured, her voice a private echo. “Look at me. Not him.”
Lydia obeyed. In that mirrored face, she found a strange courage. Lyd-2’s smile was a conspirator’s grin. She leaned in, and her lips brushed Lydia’s—a soft, experimental kiss. It was the most alien and familiar sensation Lydia had ever experienced. The softness of her own mouth, the slight catch of a familiar lip, the scent of her own shampoo. A low, helpless sound escaped Lydia’s throat.
“Jesus, that’s hot,” Marcus breathed. He climbed onto the bed behind Lyd-2, his hands immediately possessive on her hips through the lace. “Keep doing that. Lydia, touch her.”
His command was a glass shard in the moment. Lyd-2 broke the kiss, throwing a glance over her shoulder that was pure, undiluted contempt. But when she looked back at Lydia, the contempt melted into a sly invitation. She took Lydia’s hand and placed it on the robe’s tie. “Go on,” she whispered, not to Marcus, but to her. “See what you like.”
With trembling fingers, Lydia undid the tie. The robe fell open. The body revealed was her own. Every curve, every mole, the silver stretch mark on the left hip from a growth spurt at fourteen. Yet seeing it from the outside, presented with such unabashed confidence, made it feel new, glorious. Lydia’s breath hitched. Lyd-2 merely watched her, a queen on display.
Marcus, impatient, shoved the robe off Lyd-2’s shoulders entirely. He ran his hands over her back, squeezing her ass. “Fuck, you’re perfect. Both of you. Turn over, baby. On your knees.”
Lyd-2 held Lydia’s gaze for a beat longer, a silent question. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement that seemed to mock Marcus’s urgency, she turned and got onto her hands and knees on the bed. The pose was submission, but the arch of her back, the tilt of her head, was all defiance.
Marcus spat into his palm, slicked himself, and without ceremony, pushed into Lyd-2 from behind.
He groaned, a deep, satisfied sound. “Tight. Just like my wife.”
Lydia flinched. She was sitting mere inches away, watching her husband’s hips slam into the duplicate of her own body. The wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin filled the room. Lyd-2’s face was turned toward her. Her eyes were open, clear, and utterly focused on Lydia. She wasn’t moaning for Marcus. She was just watching, a slight, enigmatic smile playing on her lips as her body was jolted forward with each thrust.
“Lydia,” Marcus grunted, his rhythm already growing ragged, needy. “Get over here. Let her taste you. Taste yourself.”
The command hung in the air, crude and transactional. Lydia stared at her husband’s straining back, the muscles tight with effort, and felt nothing. But Lyd-2’s eyes, dark and compelling, pulled her forward. She moved on autopilot, shifting until she was before her own kneeling form.
“Look at you,” Lyd-2 whispered, her voice husky and low, untouched by Marcus’s grunts. Her breath was warm against Lydia’s inner thigh. “So nervous. Don’t be.”
Lydia’s head fell back as a tongue, her tongue, traced a searing line through her folds. The sensation was an electric shock of self-recognition, utterly foreign and deeply known. A strangled gasp escaped her. This wasn’t a husband’s familiar, entitled touch. This was exploration, a mapping of secret geography by its only true cartographer.
Marcus fucked the clone harder, his grip bruising on her hips. “Yeah, lick your own cunt,” he panted, his voice grating. “That’s so fucking degenerate.”
Lyd-2 ignored him. She pressed her mouth fully against Lydia, her tongue flattening and delving deep. The rhythm was intimate, a knowing pulse that found Lydia’s clit without fumbling. Lydia’s hands flew to Lyd-2’s hair, tangling in the identical dark curls, holding on as a wave of pleasure, sharp and clean, began to build from her core.
“Fuck, I can feel her tongue through you,” Marcus groaned, his thrusts becoming sloppy, desperate. His observation was meant to bond them, but it only highlighted his irrelevance. He was a spectator pounding at the door.
Lyd-2 moaned, a genuine, vibrating sound against Lydia’s flesh. The vibration traveled straight up Lydia’s spine. The clone was enjoying this, tasting her, feeling her. Her own hips began to move in a slow, sinuous counter-rhythm to Marcus’s frantic pounding. They were creating a feedback loop of sensation, a closed circuit.
“I’m gonna come,” Marcus announced, a warning and a plea.
Lyd-2 suddenly pulled her mouth away, leaving Lydia aching and empty. She looked over her shoulder, her expression cool. “Then come,” she said, her tone dismissive. “We’re busy.”
The rejection was a physical slap. Marcus’s face contorted, and with three rough, final thrusts, he spent himself inside her with a choked cry. He collapsed onto the bed beside them, panting, a sheen of sweat on his skin. The room stank of sex and his accomplishment.
Lydia barely registered him. Her world had narrowed to the woman before her. Lyd-2 crawled up her body, her skin slick. She kissed Lydia, letting her taste herself on those perfect lips—salty, musky, intimate. “Now you,” she breathed into Lydia’s mouth. “Let me watch you fall apart.”
Lyd-2’s hand slid between them, fingers sliding effortlessly into Lydia’s wetness. She knew the angle, the pressure, the perfect, maddening spiral to trace around her clit. It was self-love, perfected. Lydia cried out, her back arching off the bed.
“Look at me,” Lyd-2 commanded softly. Lydia’s eyes flew open, locking onto her own. In that mirror, she saw raw need, a hunger she’d always suppressed. The clone’s fingers worked her with devastating precision, curling and stroking that deep, sweet spot.
“Oh, god,” Lydia sobbed, the words torn from her.
“Yes,” Lyd-2 murmured, a fierce smile on her face. “That’s it. Come for us.”
The orgasm ripped through Lydia, a silent, blinding seizure that clenched every muscle. It was deeper than any she’d ever had, a revelation that left her trembling and breathless. As she floated down, she saw Lyd-2 watching her with possessive pride. Marcus, a forgotten lump on the other side of the bed, lit a cigarette, the ember glowing in the dim room like a dying star.
Lyd-2 nestled against Lydia, her head on her shoulder, their bodies curved together like parentheses. “See?” she whispered, her lips against Lydia’s damp skin. Lydia’s hand found hers, their fingers intertwining perfectly. They fit.
Marcus exhaled a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “That was incredible,” he said, his voice already seeking validation, already rewriting the event in his mind. “We should do that again next weekend.”
Neither woman replied. The silence that followed was dense, complete, and utterly final. The petals beneath them weren’t just crushed now; they were pulp.