Chapter 5: The Belly Grows, the Distance Widens
The hum of the refrigerator was his new companion. Marcus stood in its glacial light, eating leftover Chinese food directly from the carton. Three months. The sentence had been passed, and he was serving it in the liminal spaces of the house he still paid for. His bedroom was the couch. His bathroom was the powder room off the kitchen. His world had shrunk to the margins.
He dropped the empty container in the trash and walked back to the living room doorway. They were there, a tableau of domestic bliss that felt like a curated insult. Lyd-2 was propped against the plush arm of the sofa, legs outstretched. The change was undeniable now. The firm, gentle swell of her belly strained the thin cotton of her grey tank top. It was a perfect curve, a planet in its first quarter.
Lydia lay with her head in Lyd-2’s lap, her cheek pressed against that taut slope. One of Lyd-2’s hands rested on the back of Lydia’s head, fingers idly threading through her curls. The other was splayed possessively over her own navel. A documentary murmuring about sea anemones painted their faces in blue light.
Marcus’s gaze snagged on the bump. A riot of conflicting sensations erupted in his gut. Fury, white-hot and familiar, at the usurpation. A deep, biological awe at the evidence of his own progeny. And beneath it, unbidden and humiliating, a thick current of arousal. His child was in there. And the vessel was the undiluted, unabashedly sexual copy of his wife—a version who had never needed him, never worried about him, never let him down. The paradox made him dizzy. His cock thickened, pressing against his zipper with a traitorous insistence.
Lydia’s eyes shifted from the screen. They found him in the doorway, tracked down to the obvious bulge in his pants, then back to his face. Her expression didn’t change into anger. It solidified into something colder: disdainful comprehension.
“Dinner’s in the fridge,” she said, her voice devoid of even the warmth one would use for a delivery driver. She turned her head, pressing her ear more firmly against Lyd-2’s stomach, and closed her eyes. A silent command: Listen. This is what matters.
Lyd-2 didn’t look at him at all. Her thumb stroked Lydia’s temple. “He’s active tonight,” she murmured, a secret for Lydia alone. “Little gymnast.”
Marcus stood there, trapped in the amber of his own shame. The heat in his groon was a vile counterpoint to the ice in his wife’s eyes. He forced himself to move, a stiff retreat back into the kitchen’s darkness. He leaned against the counter, gripping the cool granite until his knuckles ached, trying to will his erection away. It was no use. The image was seared behind his eyes: the two of them, locked in a circle of touch from which he was permanently barred.
Their voices drifted through the wall, low and intimate.
“You’re getting so round,” Lydia said.
“I feel huge.”
“You’re perfect. You’re glowing.”
“It’s sweat. I’m a furnace.”
A soft laugh. Then silence. A different kind of silence, charged and familiar. Marcus knew that silence. It was the prelude to the sounds that now haunted his nights. He edged closer to the doorway, his own breath loud in his ears.
He peeked around the frame.
The television was off. The only light came from a single floor lamp, casting a pool of gold over the couch. Lydia was on her knees on the rug between Lyd-2’s spread legs. Lyd-2 had pushed her loose cotton shorts down to her ankles. Her tank top was rucked up under her breasts, baring the full, beautiful arc of her pregnant belly.
Lydia’s hands were on Lyd-2’s inner thighs, holding them open. She was leaning in, her mouth hovering just above the other woman’s cunt. “You are a furnace,” Lydia whispered, her breath ghosting over the dark, neat curls. “I can feel the heat from here.”
“Then cool me down,” Lyd-2 breathed, her head falling back. One hand remained anchored on her stomach. The other fisted in Lydia’s hair.
Lydia dipped her head and licked, a long, slow stripe from perineum to clit. Lyd-2 jerked, a sharp gasp escaping her. “Yes. Just like that.”
Marcus’s hand was on his own cock now, palming himself through his jeans. He was frozen, a captive audience to his own ruin. He watched, helpless, as Lydia buried her face between Lyd-2’s legs. He saw the muscles in her jaw work as she sucked and licked. He heard the wet, messy, obscenely intimate sounds of her mouth devouring the clone’s pussy.
“Fuck, your tongue,” Lyd-2 moaned, her hips pushing up off the couch. “Right on my clit. Don’t stop.”
Lydia didn’t stop. Her movements were practiced, worshipful. She devoured Lyd-2 with a focused hunger Marcus had never inspired. She licked into her, she sucked the swollen bud of her clit between her lips, she fucked her with her tongue. All the while, Lyd-2’s hand roamed over her own belly, as if soothing the child within even as her body was wracked with pleasure.
“You taste perfect,” Lydia mumbled, her words slurred against Lyd-2’s flesh. “Salty and sweet. Fuck, I could do this forever.”
“Do it then,” Lyd-2 panted. “Come on, make me come. I need it.”
The command lit a fire in Lydia. Her hands slid under Lyd-2’s ass, gripping, lifting her higher onto her mouth. The sounds grew louder, slicker. The squelch of Lydia’s relentless tongue, the slap of skin, Lyd-2’s escalating cries that were raw and unfiltered.
“I’m gonna come! Oh god, right there, right there!”
Lyd-2’s body bowed, a perfect tense arc. A ragged, torn shout ripped from her throat as she climaxed, her thighs trembling violently around Lydia’s head. Lydia kept sucking, gentler now, drawing out the aftershocks until Lyd-2 whimpered and pushed her head away, oversensitive.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing. Lydia rested her forehead against Lyd-2’s inner thigh, her lips glistening. Lyd-2 gazed down at her, her expression soft, satiated. She tugged gently on Lydia’s hair.
“Your turn,” Lyd-2 said, her voice husky. “Up here.”
Lydia rose, her knees cracking, and settled onto the couch. Without a word, Lyd-2 swung her legs, swiveled, and knelt on the floor in front of Lydia, mimicking the position exactly. She pushed Lydia’s leggings and underwear down in one motion and dove between her legs with the same desperate hunger.
Marcus watched his wife’s face. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slack with pleasure. Her hands came down to clutch at Lyd-2’s head, fingers tangling in hair identical to her own. She was moaning, low and continuous. “Yes… just like that… eat me… fuck…”
He was jerking himself off now, fumbling with his zipper, pulling his cock out into the cool air. He stroked himself in time with Lyd-2’s movements, his own touch rough, punitive. This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Two of them. Two mouths, two sets of hands, the endless, narcissistic loop of pleasure. The reality was a hall of mirrors where he was forever on the wrong side of the glass.
Lydia’s orgasm was quieter, a series of sharp inhales and a long, trembling sigh. She sank into the couch, boneless. Lyd-2 crawled up beside her, nestling into the curve of her body, her back to Lydia’s front. Lyd-2 guided Lydia’s hand back to her stomach. They lay there, spent and intertwined, a completed circuit.
They lay there, spent and intertwined, a completed circuit. The quiet was thick, humming with latent energy. Then Lyd-2’s eyes, which had been closed, slid open.
They found Marcus, still half-concealed in the kitchen shadows, his hand frozen on his exposed cock. She held his gaze, a slow smile spreading. It wasn’t kind. It was analytical, like she’d discovered a forgotten tool in a drawer.
“You’re still here,” she said, her voice cutting through the post-coital haze. Lydia tensed against her.
“Ignore him,” Lydia murmured, nuzzling the back of Lyd-2’s neck. But Lyd-2 kept looking at Marcus. Her expression was one of pure, idle curiosity.
“He’s so hard he’s practically vibrating,” Lyd-2 observed clinically. She shifted, turning onto her other side to face him fully. The curve of her belly was a prominent silhouette. “It’s pathetic, really. All that anger and it just feeds right back into your dick.”
Marcus couldn’t move. Shame and desire held him in a vise.
“Lyd-2, don’t,” Lydia said, a warning in her tone.
“Why not?” The clone shrugged, a careless motion. “Look at him. He’s a faucet that needs to be turned on and off. A maintenance fuck.” Her eyes, dark and knowing, locked onto Marcus’s. “Come on, then. If you need it that badly.”
He didn’t understand. He stood, stupidly, his cock throbbing in the cool air.
“You’re offering…” he began, the words thick.
“I’m bored,” Lyd-2 clarified, as if talking to a child. “She’s sleepy. I’m still wired. You’re here. It’s a logistical solution.” She patted the space on the couch in front of her. “But just the plumbing. Don’t look at my face.”
A tremor of pure, degrading need shot through him. Lydia had gone utterly still, her back a rigid line. She didn’t turn, didn’t consent, but her silence was a cavernous acquiescence. Marcus walked forward, his steps echoingly loud on the floor. He fumbled with his belt, pushed his pants down his thighs.
He knelt on the cushion before Lyd-2. She was already spreading her legs, one arm draped over the couch back, the other resting on her belly. She looked past him, at the blank television screen. Her cunt was glistening, swollen from Lydia’s mouth, the curls dark and damp.
“Well?” she prompted, an edge of impatience in her voice. “Hurry up.”
He positioned himself, the head of his cock nudging against her slick entrance. He pushed in. The heat was immense, a tight, wet grasp after months of nothing. A groan was torn from his chest.
Lyd-2 sighed, a sound of profound disinterest. She shifted her hips minutely, as if adjusting a grocery bag on her lap. “There. Now move. Just… get it over with.”
He began to thrust. It was a mechanical, desperate rhythm. Each drive into that delicious, accepting heat was undercut by her complete detachment. He stared at her neck, at the pulse point there, because she’d forbidden her face. Her skin smelled of Lydia’s perfume and their shared sweat.
“Faster,” she instructed, tone flat. “You’re not trying to make love to me. You’re trying to empty your balls. So do it.”
He slammed into her, the couch creaking in protest. The wet slap of their joining filled the room. He was chasing a release that felt increasingly hollow. His hands gripped her thighs, and he noticed she’d picked up her phone from the side table. She was scrolling with her free hand, her thumb moving slowly up the glowing screen.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered, not to him, but to something she read. She gave a short, humorless laugh. Her vaginal muscles clamped around him involuntarily with the laugh, a cruel mimicry of pleasure.
The dissonance was catastrophic. His body was screaming yes, every nerve ending firing at the visceral reality of being inside her. But she was browsing a furniture website. He saw a photo of a nursery rug flash by on her screen.
“Lydia, do you like this grey chevron pattern?” Lyd-2 asked, her voice perfectly even aside from the slight jolt of his deeper thrusts.
“Mmm?” Lydia’s response was muffled by the cushion.
“For the baby’s room. This rug.”
Marcus fucked her harder, a furious, punishing pace. He wanted to break her concentration, to make her feel him. Sweat dripped from his brow onto her stomach.
“It’s fine,” Lydia said, her voice drowsy. “Order the sample.”
“I will.” Lyd-2 tapped the screen. She tilted her head back finally, but not in ecstasy. She was looking at the ceiling, calculating paint colors. “You’re getting close, aren’t you?” she said to Marcus, the question devoid of any erotic charge. “Your breathing’s getting ragged. Just don’t come in me. Pull out.”
The command was so cold, so administrative, it somehow tipped him over the edge. His orgasm crashed through him, a convulsive, shuddering event that felt more like a system failure than a peak. He gasped, his hips stuttering, and wrenched himself out of her. His semen spilled in hot stripes across her lower belly, over the taut skin that housed his child.
He collapsed back on his haunches, spent and dizzy with self-loathing.
Lyd-2 glanced down at the mess on her skin. She made a faint sound of distaste. “Lydia. Pass me a towel from the floor, would you?”
Lydia, moving like a sleepwalker, leaned over and retrieved a crumpled shirt. She handed it to Lyd-2 without looking at Marcus. Lyd-2 cleaned herself with efficient, unhurried wipes, then dropped the soiled shirt on the floor beside the couch. She settled back into Lydia’s arms, who instinctively curled around her, a hand returning to the warm mound of her belly.
“Turn off the lamp on your way to the kitchen,” Lyd-2 said to the space where Marcus knelt, her eyes already closed. “And pull your pants up. You look ridiculous.”