Anew: Book One: Awakened (14 page)

The woman in the mirror looks like a creature of pure
carnality--without mind or will or reason, her existence entirely focused on
her vagina, her clit, her nipples, anywhere, everywhere the man chooses to make
the focus of all sensation. The hours of ecstatic torment have left her a slave
to the endless, unrelenting cycle of arousal and release. And yet gleaming deep
within her eyes is the glow of primal satisfaction, a kind of freedom in its
own right that will not be denied.

Ian gives a final thrust, his head thrown back, his mouth
open in a roar of pleasure. My body arches weakly as yet another orgasm ripples
through me. All I can manage is a faint moan. Slowly, he lowers my exhausted
body to the bed and undoes the belt from around my wrists. Rubbing the soreness
from them, he leans closer, his breath warm on my ear.

“Sleep now,” he whispers.

Obedient to his command, I let go of the last shreds of
consciousness and tumble gratefully into sated oblivion.

~~~~~~~~~~

When I next open my eyes, the sunlight of late morning is
streaming into the room. I blink and struggle to orient myself. My head is on
the pillows and a light cover is drawn up to my chin. Still not entirely
centered in my body, I feel at once exquisitely shaky and deeply content.

Memory floods back, a kaleidoscope of images and sensations.
Ian…myself… Ian… My face flushes as I am swept equally by disbelief at my own
daring and quivering shock at what I experienced in the hours after he took
back control.

Shifting a little, I discover that although the muscles of
my inner thighs are stiff and sore from being spread wide for so long, I can
move my limbs. Slowly, with care, I ease myself from the bed and stand, holding
on to one of the columns at the foot of the bed until my balance steadies.

I take a step and feel the stickiness from my cleft all the
way down my legs, around my ass, and even over my breasts and throat. I am
saturated with the evidence of our mutual lust, marked in the most primal way.
Marked, too, by Ian’s hands as I see when I finally make it to the bathroom and
look in the mirror there. Staring at my flanks, I remember him taking hold of
me. Remember, too, all that followed.

A shiver runs through me, inspired as much by carnal
gratification as by shock. I already knew that he is a ruthless, if generous
lover but to go to such extremes? What could possibly have driven him? Did
giving up control to me even for such a short time affect him that greatly? Or
did he have some other motivation?

For long minutes, I stand under the steaming hot water as I
become steadily more aware of how sore and used my body feels. And how
strangely satisfying those sensations are. The heat eases my strained muscles
and goes some way toward restoring me but it can’t banish the questions
clamoring in my mind.

Finally, I rub body wash into my hands and begin to clean
myself carefully. My skin is still extremely sensitive all over. My nipples are
tight and hard, my breasts engorged. The folds between my legs are puffy and
tender. The slightest touch there makes me quiver.

When I’m finally clean, I dress quickly. On some level, I
want to remain hidden in the golden room until I have a chance to recover. But
far more urgently, I need to find Ian. Our night of unbridled excess has left
me shaken and uncertain. I need to know how things stand between us.

I delay only long enough to compose myself as best I can,
dressing with care, taming my hair which is even wilder than usual, and adding
a few touches of make-up in the hope of concealing the lingering evidence of my
own willing debauchery.

I am half-way down the wide, curving staircase when I hear
voices. Or more correctly one voice--a man’s--shouting. The other is far more
muted but I think it is Ian’s.

“What the hell were you thinking?” the man demands. “You
should have told me the moment you found out!”

I can’t hear Ian’s response but quickly the man says, “I
don’t give a damn about the law! And as for protecting her, I have far more
right to do that than you ever will!”

They’re talking about me! Someone else knows of my existence
and he clearly has strong opinions about it.

Without stopping to think, I speed down the remaining steps
and cross the entry hall to the door of the library. It stands partly ajar. I
can see Ian beside his desk but I can’t make out his visitor.

I take a breath, square my shoulders, and push the door
fully open. Both occupants of the room turn toward me at once. Ian looks as
starkly compelling as always, dressed in his usual black jeans and T-shirt. But
I can’t help noticing that his eyes are shadowed. He is clearly surprised by my
sudden appearance but there is something else in his gaze. Something that looks
strangely like regret. Even guilt?

I have no chance to think about that. Seeing me, the other
man gasps, at once drawing my attention. He is in his late twenties, tall, well
built, and handsome with chestnut hair and… His eyes are the same distinctive
shade of aquamarine as my own.

The implications of that have scarcely occurred to me when
he says, “My God, it’s true!”

He spears a glance at Ian that combines both anger and an
unmistakable warning. Stepping forward swiftly, he takes both my hands in his.
His touch is gentle, his voice even more so.

Softly, he says “Please don’t be afraid. I understand that
you don’t know me but I’m Edward McClellan, Susannah’s brother.” His gaze is
intense and his smile, when it comes, makes me feel unaccountably warm and
safe. Gently, he adds “Which means that I am also yours.”

Before I can even begin to grasp that, his hands tighten on
mine. With implacable determination, he says. “Amelia, I’ve come to take you
home.”

Amelia

T
he landscape slips by
beyond the tinted windows of the limousine, countryside giving way to hamlets
and small towns. Under other circumstances, I would be excited to see more of
the world but I gaze out at it sightlessly. All I can really see is the moment
in the library when I turned to Ian, stunned and shaken as I was by the
discovery that I have a family, only to confront his impenetrable gaze.

“You’re free to go, Amelia,” he said.

The world dropped out from under me with those words but
worse still was the casual shrug that accompanied them. Where did his I-own-you
possessiveness go? What happened to his claim that he would never be able to
get enough of me? Apparently, he has. I think of the erotic excesses of the
golden room and a bitter kernel of shame forms within me.

“You look far away,” Edward says gently.

I swivel my gaze to him and manage a smile despite the
tightness in my throat and the constant threat of tears that I struggle to
resist, afraid as I am that once I start to cry I won’t be able to stop.

“Sorry, it’s just a lot to take in all at once. I haven’t
seen much of the world beyond the palazzo until now.”

I don’t see any reason to mention my excursion into the
wilderness. The tension between him and Ian was obvious enough without throwing
that into the mix.

My discretion notwithstanding, Edward’s mouth tightens. It’s
clear that he’s made his own assessment of what I have and have not
experienced. Despite my best efforts, my appearance when I burst into the
library might have something to do with that.

Still he is a gentleman so he says only, “Ian should have
contacted me as soon as he found out that you existed rather than waiting until
this morning to call.”

He called Edward this morning. After the night we shared.
The hollow well of pain inside me widens. But despite everything else I feel, I
am undeniably curious about the circumstances surrounding my awakening and all
that proceeded it. If nothing else, they provide a desperately needed
distraction.

“You had no inkling of what Susannah had done?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “None at all. I didn’t even know there
was a clone. Our parents kept that strictly to themselves and Susannah never
said a word about it.”

Ah, yes, the parents who would have gladly sacrificed me in
order to save the version of me they regarded as their actual child.

“Do they know yet?” I ask, not relishing the thought of
having to confront them.

Edward looks surprised. “Mom and Dad were killed eight years
ago in a plane crash. There’s only me and our grandmother.” His expression
turns wryly affectionate. “You may want to brace yourself. Adele is beyond
thrilled. When I left to come get you, she was already putting the wheels in
motion.”

“What wheels? What do you mean?” I ask with more than a
little apprehension. I have no idea of what to expect when we reach this unknown
place called ‘home’.

“You’re entry into society, of course,” Edward replies. A
frown slips across his face. “You didn’t think we were going to keep you hidden
away, did you?”

I wonder if that is another implied criticism of Ian but I
let it go. Instead, I ask, “Isn’t that asking for trouble given the widespread
condemnation of human cloning and especially of the replica process?”

He raises an eyebrow in surprise. “Ian told you about that?”

“No, I read about it on the link.” I hesitate but decide
that my only sensible course is to be direct. “At best, I’ll be regarded as
some sort of freak.” I shudder inwardly at the thought even as I realize that
far worse could happen. “But I could also become a target for those like the
members of the HPF who think that violence is the solution. That would put
everyone around me, including you, at risk.”

His face hardens and I get a glimpse of the man he is
capable of being apart from a caring brother--hard, determined, as ruthless in
his own way as is Ian.

“You needn’t concern yourself with any of that,” he says
with casual arrogance that I can only think must be the product of generations
of wealth and privilege. “So far as the world is concerned, you are my cousin,
Amelia McClellan, newly arrived in the city. There will be curiosity about you,
of course, but nothing more.”

I’m shaking my head before he finishes. “People will believe
you have a cousin who just happens to look exactly like a younger version of
your late sister?”

“Fair point,” Edward concedes. “But you should know that the
moment I saw you, I was struck as much by the differences between you and
Susannah as by the similarities.”

I look at him uncomprehendingly. “Our DNA is identical
except for the mutation that was removed. Physically, I should be an exact copy
of her.”

“And perhaps you would have been,” Edward allows, “if not
for several factors. When she was seven years old, Susannah broke her nose and
cheekbones in a bad fall from a horse. The surgeons worked from holographs of
her and did an excellent job of reconstruction. But there must have been
lingering effects that altered how her features developed from that point on,
effects you never experienced. In addition, being sealed away from the world in
the environment that you were for so many years was bound to influence your own
physiology. The end result is that while you certainly look like Susannah, you
also look like yourself, different features and expressions, different body
language. Even the timbre of your voice is different.”

I stare at him, wanting to believe yet afraid to do so.
Several times, I caught Ian looking at me with what seemed like puzzlement but
this is the first I have heard that my appearance is truly my own. I hesitate
to let myself hope for too much but perhaps Edward is right and it will be
possible to conceal what I am.

“Still, won’t people wonder when I pop up out of nowhere?” I
ask.

Grudgingly, he says, “About the only thing Ian has done
right recently is to put an identity for you in the works. It will be ready in
a day or two. When it is, anyone curious enough to look will find everything
necessary to convince them that you’ve had a perfectly normal life from birth
to the present day.”

“Can it be that easy to construct a false identity?” Given
what I gleaned from the link about the scarcity of anything resembling privacy
for most people, I have trouble believing that.

“It isn’t,” he acknowledges. “Let’s just say that Ian has
the necessary resources.”

I want to ask how that fits with a business focused on
developing high tech defense technology but Edward moves on quickly. He begins
to fill me in about what I can expect in the coming days. The spring social
season is getting underway. The non-stop whirl of activities is the perfect
opportunity to introduce “Cousin Amelia” to the world, or at least the
wealthiest and most powerful part of it that claims the city of Manhattan as
its own.

I find the prospect daunting but I have to admit that it
also excites me. To be out in the world, to have the chance to meet new people
and have new experiences. As profoundly as Ian’s dismissal of me hurts, I am
deeply glad to have a means of occupying myself that involves more than just
brooding about how wounded I feel. And even worse, how much I already miss him.

The car turns onto an elevated highway and picks up speed.
Miles whip past, little more than a blur of small cities interspersed with
suburban communities. We move into a specially designated lane and begin
travelling even faster. Traffic around us thins, becoming mostly delivery trucks
and a few other luxury vehicles like ours.

Suddenly up ahead I glimpse a wall of gleaming glass and
glittering spires so unlike anything else I have seen that for a moment I think
I must be hallucinating. But the vision remains in front of me, growing in
intensity.

Sunlight dances off the peaks of buildings that don’t so
much scrape the sky as boldly thrust into it. I have a moment, scarcely more,
to take in details--metal twisted into ornate shapes, glass shot through with
color, impossibly delicate lattice works of steel, crystal domes reflecting
entire cloud banks, liquid light spilling down steep cavern walls in shimmering
falls of pure energy.

A story embedded in my mind casts up a single word: Oz. But
this is so much more, a dream of a city, the triumph of power and beauty that
not even gravity seems able to restrain.

Then it is gone, vanishing as we are swallowed by a tunnel.

“Almost there,” Edward says. His face appears pale and stark
in the harsh light that leaves no space for shadows, nowhere for anything to
hide.

“This tunnel and another like it to the south are the two
major routes into and out of Manhattan,” he says. “No vehicle can enter either
without a special pass. There is a handful of bridges but they are similarly
restricted.”

I understand that he’s telling me this because of the
concerns I’ve voiced about my safety but the information raises more questions
in my mind. What kind of world is it where the wealthiest and most powerful
possess a private playground of unparalleled opulence set apart from everyone
else? What makes them feel the need to seclude themselves to such an extent?

The car begins to slow as we get farther into the tunnel. I
can make out raised platforms to either side manned by armed guards who look as
intimidating as Ian’s men.

With a start, I realize that I’ve gone from the heavily
guarded palazzo to an equally well protected enclave of the elite. Either one
offers luxury and security but both are in their own way prisons. I have to
wonder if at some point in my life I will be able to experience genuine
freedom.

Before I can dwell on that the tunnel is behind us and we
are out into sunlit, tree-bordered streets that look as though they must be
scrubbed down nightly. Neighborhoods flow past distinguished by rows of elegant
brick townhouses mingling with larger loft buildings until they are overtaken
by the soaring towers I glimpsed earlier, faced in marble and glass, hinting at
vast, opulent interiors. Edward smiles indulgently as I stare in amazement.

The most startling sight is the people themselves. They are
divided into two distinct groups. One is richly dressed, the men no less
striking than the women, both given to extremes of fashion.

I can only gape at the sight of multi-colored silks and
satins crafted into wildly ballooning trousers, fitted velvet vests from which
gossamer wings extend, jackets with absurdly exaggerated shoulders, impossibly
high boots, tightly girdled waists, hobble skirts that require the wearer to
mince along, gossamer veils that drape the entire body but more than hint at
the flesh beneath. Everyone seems engaged in a competition to be more outré,
more visible, more sensually outrageous.

“Is a carnival going on?” I ask Edward.

He looks surprised, then chuckles. “I’m afraid not, although
there will be soon.” He gestures at the passing scene. “This is just the city
in all its frivolous glory. You’ll get used to it.”

I will try but I have no interest in making any such
spectacle of myself. Edward’s quietly elegant appearance reassures me that not
all the privileged elite are fashion mad.

“What about the others?” I ask.

He raises a brow. “Others?”

“The other people, the ones who are plainly dressed.”

They are by far the larger in number and are wearing drab
colors, mostly muddy browns and various shades of grey, in simple, strictly
utilitarian garments. As we slow at a corner, I notice several of them step off
the sidewalk into the street to make way for a boisterous group wearing what to
my eye look remarkably like clown costumes complete with wide frilled collars
and parti-colored jumpsuits.

“You mean the workers,” Edward says. “Their liveries
designate their functions and to which household or corporation they belong.
You’ll learn to recognize them quickly enough but basically they include
everyone from domestics to office workers below the highest professional
levels.”

I nod but I’m really far from understanding. “Why do they
dress alike?”

He hesitates and I sense that he is uncertain how much I can
grasp this soon. But finally he says, “The city is a hierarchy. The wealthiest
and most powerful are at the top and everyone else is arrayed below. There’s
nothing new about this. With few exceptions it’s how human societies have been
arranged for thousands of years. On the one hand, people know their place and
what’s expected of them. That provides a sense of security and stability.”

“And on the other hand?” I prompt.

He looks reluctant but admits, “It can become stultifying
and there is always the potential for discontent. However, there is a safety
valve of sorts. It is still possible to rise within the city to a degree that
is achievable almost nowhere else. As a result, the most gifted and ambitious
compete to be here, and do whatever they have to in order to stay.”