Chapter 3: The Morning After
The first gray light of dawn seeped around the edges of the blackout curtains, painting the room in monochrome. Marcus stirred on the couch, a dull ache in his lower back from the unyielding cushions. The blanket was on the floor. He was hard, a persistent, uncomfortable throb against his thigh. He blinked, orienting himself to the soft, rhythmic sounds coming from the bed.
They were still at it.
Lydia and Lyd-2 lay facing each other in the center of the rumpled silk, a tangle of dark hair and pale limbs in the dim glow of the salt lamp. They weren’t fucking. They were exploring. A slow, map-making of skin with lips and fingertips. He watched, transfixed and seething, as Lyd-2 traced the line of Lydia’s jaw, then dipped to suck gently on her lower lip. Lydia’s hand slid up Lyd-2’s spine, her fingers splaying possessively over the familiar shoulder blades.
A low moan, unmistakably Lydia’s, floated across the room. It was a sound he hadn’t heard in years, not with that particular breathless quality.
“Do that again,” Lydia whispered, her voice husky with sleep and desire.
Lyd-2 complied, biting playfully at Lydia’s collarbone before soothing it with her tongue. “You like that?”
“Mmm. Yes.”
Their dialogue was a private current. Marcus felt like a man pressing his ear to a locked door. He shifted on the couch, the leather groaning beneath him. The sound was conspicuously loud. Neither woman glanced over.
Lyd-2’s hand moved downward, slipping between Lydia’s thighs from the front. Lydia gasped, her back arching slightly off the mattress. “God, your fingers…”
“My fingers,” Lyd-2 echoed, a smile in her voice. “Our fingers. Feel how wet you are. For us.”
Marcus’s own hand crept to his erection, stroking himself roughly through his boxers. This was the show he’d paid for, wasn’t it? This was the fantasy. But the reality was a hollow pit in his stomach. He was an audience of one, and the performers had forgotten he existed.
In the bed, the dynamic shifted. Lydia rolled onto her back, pulling Lyd-2 on top of her. Their kiss deepened, hungry now, mouths open and searching. Lyd-2 straddled Lydia’s thigh, grinding down against it, seeking friction. The soft, slick sound of their bodies moving together was obscenely intimate.
“I want to taste you again,” Lydia breathed, her hands on Lyd-2’s hips.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want to eat your pussy. I want to make you come on my tongue.”
The crude, delicious words, spoken in his wife’s voice but with a stranger’s confidence, sent a jolt through Marcus. He stroked faster.
Lyd-2 moved with fluid grace, sliding down Lydia’s body. She positioned herself over Lydia’s face, holding herself up on her knees. From his angle, Marcus could see everything—the dark curl of hair, the glistening folds, the way Lydia’s hands came up to grip Lyd-2’s ass, pulling her down.
Lydia’s tongue connected, and Lyd-2 threw her head back with a sharp cry. “Fuck, yes. Right there. Don’t you stop.”
Lydia obeyed, her movements eager, learned. She licked into her with a focused passion, one hand slipping between Lyd-2’s legs to press a thumb against her clit. Marcus was mesmerized by the twin views: the clone’s face, contorted in ecstasy, and the earnest, hungry work of his wife’s mouth between her thighs. His own hand worked his cock in a frantic, disconnected rhythm.
“You’re so good at that,” Lyd-2 panted, her hips rolling. “You know exactly how I need it. Harder. Yes.”
Lydia moaned in response, the vibration making Lyd-2 shudder. The clone’s moans grew louder, less controlled. They were not performative. They were raw, ripped from the core of a feeling that excluded him completely.
“I’m gonna come,” Lyd-2 gasped, her fingers tangling in Lydia’s hair, not guiding, just holding on. “Come with me. Get yourself off. Touch your clit. Do it.”
Lydia’s free hand scrambled between her own legs. Marcus could see her arm moving, frantic. The room filled with the sounds of their ragged breathing, wet sucking, skin slapping skin.
Lyd-2’s orgasm hit her like a seizure. Her whole body tightened, a bowstring pulled to snapping. A ragged, sobbing scream tore from her throat as she ground herself against Lydia’s mouth. Below her, Lydia’s body bowed, a muffled cry escaping as her own climax followed, triggered by the taste, the sound, the sheer narcissistic symmetry of it.
They collapsed together in a heap of shuddering limbs, whispers, and soft, satiated laughter.
The silence that followed was dense, complete. Marcus felt his own arousal wilt in his hand, a pathetic, sticky failure. The sight that had been designed to excite him had instead carved him out. He was a ghost in his own home.
After a long moment, Lyd-2 lifted her head. She looked directly at him across the shadowed room. Her gaze was clear, assessing, devoid of warmth. She didn’t smile. She simply watched him, one arm draped possessively over Lydia’s stomach.
Lydia, her face buried in Lyd-2’s neck, murmured something he couldn’t hear.
Lyd-2 answered, loud enough for him to catch. “He’s still here.”
She said it not with annoyance, but with the mild curiosity one might afford a piece of furniture that had suddenly become inconvenient. Then she shifted, pulling the duvet over both of their bodies, creating a warm, private cocoon.
The message was unmistakable. The show was over. The audience was dismissed.
Marcus lay rigid on the couch, the coming dawn illuminating his isolation in cruel, gradual detail. The scent of lavender from their skin lotion mixed with the sharper, muskier smell of their sex. It was the smell of a closed world. A world with a population of two.
Downstairs, the coffee maker he’d programmed the night before clicked on with a cheerful, automated hum. The normalcy of the sound was a mockery. Nothing was normal. Nothing would be again.
In the bed, one of them sighed, a sound of profound contentment. He would sleep on the couch again tonight. He knew it with a certainty that turned his bones to ice.