Anew: Book One: Awakened (10 page)

“Take off your robe,” he says.

I eye him nervously. “Why?”

“Because you have a beautiful
body and I like to look at it.”

I’ll be damned if I’ll let him
see how unnerved I am. Two can play this game. “Fine, you take off your robe,
too.”

His brows arch above gleaming
amber eyes. “Why?”

“For the same reason.”

I can’t possibly be the first
woman to tell him how gorgeous he is but my bluntness catches him off guard. He
regards me cautiously.

“You’ve turned into quite a bold
little thing, haven’t you?” he observes.

Without waiting for a reply,
which is fortunate since I don’t have one, he unties the belt of his robe and
shrugs it off.

My breath catches. I’ve held
this man in my arms, in my body, felt him along every inch of me but I’m still
unprepared for the sight of him. He is so…everything. Beautiful, graceful,
male, primal…perfect. Without even noticing, I lick my lips.

Ian gives me a lascivious grin.
“Your turn.”

I have more than a little
trouble getting my robe off, not in the least because my hands have become
disconnected from my brain, but I manage finally. It drops in a pool at my
feet. I kick it away and lift my head, meeting his gaze. It’s ridiculous for me
to feel shy in front of a man I wiggled my posterior at in the shower but I
can’t help it.

That same man now surveys me
with cool, even infuriating thoroughness, going so far as to walk all the way
around me, taking in the view from every angle until I’m squirming under his
regard.

Finally, he stops in front of me
and taps a finger against his lower lip thoughtfully. “I can’t decide what I
like best. Your breasts are incredible, so full and ripe. They’re a perfect fit
for my hands and your nipples…they just beg to be sucked and bitten. But I love
how I can make you quiver when I stroke my tongue over your taut stomach and
abdomen. You’re incredibly sensitive there. The same with the silky skin on the
inside of your thighs, especially when that delicious pearly juice from your
pussy is running down them.”

His blatant carnality makes me
gasp. It turns my breathing ragged and sends a wave of molten heat through me.
The muscles at my core clench.

“Then there are your hips,” Ian
continues, “excellent for holding onto when I’m pounding into you. And your
amazing legs. I can’t make up my mind whether I’d like them wrapped around me
or stretched all the way apart, completely exposing your sweet hot pussy.”

Without warning, he captures my
fevered gaze. “I love seeing your pussy when you’re on your back under
me--pink, swollen, and dripping wet from my tongue and your own juices. But
it’s every bit as delightful a view between the spread cheeks of your gorgeous
ass.”

I’m gaping at him, I can’t help it.
He hasn’t even touched me and I’m acutely aroused. The way he’s talking-- The
images he’s putting in my head--

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen
anyone blush as prettily as you do,” he remarks. “And all over, too.”

I’m trying and failing to come
up with an appropriate response when without warning his manner changes.
Seductive Ian disappears. In his place is someone altogether colder and more
remote. His face hardens--not, I can’t help but note--the only part of his body
doing so. His erection is long, thick, and more than a little unsettling. I
still have difficulty believing that I’ve held that inside me.

“You want to know if you have a
will of your own when it comes to me, isn’t that so?” he asks.

Cautiously, not daring to look
away from him, I nod.

“Let’s find out. Get on your
knees.”

“What?” The memory of how he
used his mouth on me in the golden bed stirs provocatively. I think--I
hope--that I have an idea of what he wants but he takes me by surprise.

“On your knees, face down on the
rug with your gorgeous ass in the air.”

“W-why?”

“Call it another experiment. I’m
going to fuck you, Amelia, hard. I’ll enjoy it but you won’t because you don’t
have permission to come, not this time. Right now, it pleases me to withhold
your orgasm. Understand?”

Gaping is getting to be a habit.
“You can’t be serious. How am I supposed to not come?”

My unintentional acknowledgement
of his prowess coaxes a grin from him but it doesn’t linger. Without a hint of
emotion, he says, “If you really are designed to please me, you won’t have any
choice. You won’t be able to come until I tell you to. In fact, you won’t even
want to try. Just giving me what I want will be all the satisfaction you
crave.”

In what universe? “Of all the
arrogant… If you think for one moment that I’ll--”

He eyes me coolly. “Do you have
a better idea how to find out what you really are?”

I want to say that anything
would be better than what he’s proposing but the words are swamped by the dark
lure of desire that is building in me. With it comes an agonizing realization.
I want to be on my knees in front of him. I want to submit to him. I want him
to own me and use me completely.

I feel sick. Slowly, praying
that I wouldn’t be better off never knowing, I sink down onto the rug.

The moment I do so, Ian kneels beside
me. His hand strokes lightly down my back from the nape of my neck to the small
hollow at the top of my ass. The caress is oddly reassuring.

He repeats it as he says, “How
about it, baby? Can you do anything other than please me? Are you capable of that?
Or are you just what you called yourself, a fuck toy with maybe a few glitches
to work out?”

Shivering under his touch, I
murmur, “Sex toy, that’s what I said, not fuck--”

He shrugs dismissively.
“Whatever.” His palm settles between my shoulder blades and he presses me
forward. “Face down, sweetheart… Put your arms at your sides… Raise your ass… a
little more… Spread your knees… I want you completely open for me… Good.”

Inch by reluctant inch, I do as
he says. Nothing can protect me from the awareness that the posture I assume is
one of utter submission, designed to turn me into nothing more than a
receptacle for his release. My throat tightens painfully.

This is--is not--who, what I
want to be. The conflict is almost too much to bear. I squeeze my eyes shut,
determined that I am not going to cry.

Softly but implacably, Ian says.
“I’m going to fuck you hard and fast. Knowing how frustrated and needy I’ll be
leaving you pleases me. I may let you come later, I may not, but you can’t now.
You can’t even want to because nothing matters to you except serving me,
satisfying me, giving me pleasure. You don’t exist for any other purpose.”

The thought flashes through my
mind that what he’s describing may be heaven for him but it’s hell for me. I
know all too well what it feels like to be controlled in a completely
dehumanizing manner, treated as an object solely for the benefit of others.

If I could, I would end this
right now but I can’t get past the fact that I am desperate to know the truth
about myself no matter how agonizing it may be. I take a breath, holding it,
and hope that I can endure whatever is about to happen.

Ian positions himself behind me.
I feel the warmth of his powerful thighs covered with fine hairs like rough
silk behind my buttocks. The velvety tip of his penis strokes my cleft. I’d
like to believe that I’m only wet because of what happened in the shower but
the gathering of tension in my groin says otherwise.

He eases into me slowly. As he
does, he leans over me so that his broad chest rests lightly against my back.
Close to my ear, he begins a low, seductive chant, keeping time with his long,
deep thrusts. His voice is low, smooth, inviting. It resonates within me. My
muscles begin to vibrate in response, fluttering to the lustful rhythm of his
words.

“I love the way your tight
little pussy feels as it stretches to take my cock…

In…

“I love how deep inside you I
can be and how full I make you…”

Out…

“I love your helpless whimpers…”

In…

“The way you smell and taste…”

Out…

“How you clench all around me
when you come…”

In…oh, God, so far in!

Without warning, he closes his
teeth on my ear lobe, sending sweet pain lancing through me. “But you’re not
going to come, baby. You don’t even want to, isn’t that right? Because you know
I don’t want you to.”

He’s picking up the pace as he
speaks, thrusting faster, harder, impossibly deep. His hands grip my hips,
controlling every movement.

Faster…harder…

“Nothing matters except pleasing
me, right? That’s what you’re made for, every inch of you inside and out. I’m
going to possess all of you in every way possible. Before I’m done, it won’t be
Susannah you’re imprinted with, it will be me.”

Faster…

I can feel the warp of the
carpet against my cheek and breasts but Ian is everywhere else, inside my body,
inside my mind. I feel his power, his hunger, his demand. His hand fists in my
hair, using it to pull my head back. My neck arches, my shoulders come up off
the floor. He bows my body even as he claims it, reshaping me to his will.

Harder…

His breath rasps from deep in
his chest as his grip on me tightens even more. He’s battering against my womb,
stretching me almost unbearably. Tears well up in my eyes again and this time I
can’t stop them. They pour down my cheeks as the thick, heavy length of his
penis jerks suddenly inside me, gushing semen in a hot stream that goes on and
on and--

I come, so hard, so fast, so
utterly that everything else, even my own heart, seems to stop. My vision
darkens, then is replaced by brilliant, exploding lights. I’m hurled so high that
there is no air, no gravity, nothing but endless revolving space, the universe
itself, in that instant revealed in all its exquisite, infinite beauty.

I come and come and come in
orgasmic waves beyond anything I’ve yet experienced or would have thought
possible made all the more glorious by their ringing affirmation of who I truly
am.
I, Amelia.
My own self.

As a submissive vessel designed
solely for a man’s pleasure, I’m a failure. But as a woman, I no longer doubt
myself. I exist. I am real.

Take that, you would-be
orgasm-denying jerk!

A cry of triumphant ecstasy
erupts from me. At the sound of it, Ian softens his grip. He gives a grunt of
satisfaction and slumps onto the rug. He’s breathing hard but he still manages
to throw a heavily muscled leg over both of mine, his hand cupping my breast
possessively.

With perfect understatement, he
murmurs, “Well, what do you know? You have a will of your own after all.”

Strangely, the idea doesn’t seem
to displease him. This is so starkly at odds with how he taunted me just a few
minutes ago that I’m at a loss to understand it. With some difficulty, I twist
my head around and look at him.

“Is this a game to you?” I
demand. “Figuring me out? Because if it is, you should know that it’s far more
to me. I couldn’t live being what I was afraid I was. That’s why I ran
yesterday. I was trying to run from myself, from what you said I was.”

His grip on me tightens
fractionally. “You’re not going to run again, are you?”

The question surprises me.
Haven’t I given my word that I won’t?
Unless he gives me reason to.

What is he thinking? That I
would run because he compelled me to confront my true nature? Granted, what he
did was harsh but considering how it worked out, I’m not inclined to hold a
grudge.

Softly, I say, “I’m not going
anywhere.” I wiggle a little more. “I just need to breathe.”

He relents and eases his hold,
turning me so that we are face to face. I feel his quick gasp when he sees the
evidence of tears on my cheeks.

“You cried,” he says. I could
swear that his voice is laced with concern and even regret. His finger strokes
my face gently. “I don’t want you to cry. I just want…” He blinks, his eyelids
growing heavy. “…keep you safe…some bad stuff out there.”

I stiffen and want to ask what
he means but it’s too late. He nuzzles my neck, sending a wave of heat through
me, and slips into sleep. It takes me a moment to realize what’s happened, so
completely do I associate him with inexhaustible strength and passion.

Despite the night in the golden
bed and everything that has happened since, this is the first time I’ve been
able to look at him without him being aware. It was worth the wait. He is an
extraordinarily handsome man under any circumstances but asleep he appears
younger and more approachable. I find myself wondering how someone who looks
the way he does and who was born to privilege became as tough as I sense him to
be, a man so determined to always be in control.

That will have to wait for another time. Far from sharing
his exhaustion, I’m energized by what I’ve discovered about myself. It takes
some effort but I finally manage to ease my way out of his arms and stand. For
a few moments, I gaze down at him with what is undeniably a touch of smugness
before leaving him to his well deserved rest.

Amelia

“Y
our
pardon, Miss Amelia,” Hodgkin says, “but would you happen to know where Mister
Ian is? There’s a call for him.”

I look up from the link I’m
using and squint a little to see the kindly gentleman who has gone out of his
way to treat me with respect and courtesy. It’s mid-afternoon. I’ve been curled
up on the floating bed in the pavilion for an hour or so, enjoying the view and
getting to know a little more about the world in which I find myself.

“He’s taking a nap.”

Hodgkin looks at me
dumb-founded. “Pardon?”

“Ian’s taking a nap,” I repeat.
Apparently, this is an event on a par with the appearance of a unicorn. Hiding
a smile, I add, “If it’s urgent, I can wake him.”

The steward coughs, takes a
moment to collect himself, and says, “Uh, no, miss. Let’s not interrupt the
lad’s rest. May I bring you something? A drink, perhaps a snack?”

“No, thank you. I’ll wait for
Ian.” The reference to Ian as a lad makes me smile. “You’ve known him a long
time, haven’t you?”

“A dozen years, miss. It’s a
privilege to work for him.”

There is so much that I would
like to ask Hodgkin about Ian but I sense that doing so would make us both
uncomfortable. Instead, I say, “This is such a beautiful place. Do you know
when it was built?”

“The main wing dates from the
early 1900s, miss. It was a bit of a wreck when Mister Ian found it five years
ago. He had it renovated as well as restored and built the adjacent wings.”

“Did Miss McClellan help?” I’m
treading on thin ground but surely a question about the house, even one that
involves her, is all right.

Hodgkin gives me a long look
before he says, “Miss Susannah and Mister Ian were not yet together at that
time. However Mister Ian’s mother and sister offered their advice.”

He has a mother. Well, of course
he does. So far as I know, I’m one of the very few people who has never had
one. And he has a sister. I can’t help but wonder what she’s like. Younger,
older? Does she look like him? He must get along with them both or they
wouldn’t have helped design the house. Do they know about me?

No, of course they don’t.
Despite my new found confidence, I cannot imagine Ian telling his mother and
sister about my existence. A replica designed to satisfy his every desire? His
property? At the very least, they would be shocked, if not outrightly repelled.

But they must have known
Susannah. Were we to ever meet, they would be bound to see the resemblance at
once. In the absence of any other explanation, they could suspect the truth. So
could others who knew the woman who Ian cared for very much, as he said, but
lost.

A weight grows in my stomach.
The future suddenly seems all too clear. Either I remain a strictly private
part of his life, compartmentalized away from everything else, or…

Now that he’s discovered that I
really do have a will of my own, why should I assume that he wants a
relationship with me? Just because we have explosively hot sex?

I can hardly be the first
partner he’s had that with. And by his standards, I must be woefully
inexperienced. Theoretical knowledge, after all, is hardly a substitute for
real skill.

I can’t shy away from that or
its implications. The plain fact is that I have no legal identity, no history,
no credentials, no resources, nothing. For the foreseeable future, I’m
completely dependent on Ian.

But how can I accept either his
charity or being hidden away by him, to be visited occasionally when he feels
like fucking me? How can I live like that? Either alternative is unbearably
bleak.

“Is something wrong, miss?”

Hodgkin’s gaze is all too
perceptive. Quickly, I say, “No, not at all. Please let me know if you want me
to wake Ian.”

He nods and takes his leave but
not before I get the sense that he understands more than he’s letting on.

Desperate for any diversion, I
turn back to the link. Ian said something about wanting to protect me from ‘bad
stuff’. I skim several on-line news sources, discovering more about a world not
exactly in turmoil but hardly at peace either.

The world’s population, having
peaked at about nine billion a few years ago, is finally on the downslide
thanks to historically low fertility rates on every continent. However, those
same people who are having fewer kids are demanding better standards of living,
with the result that there’s more competition for resources than ever before.
Inevitably, the struggle for control of arable land, water, energy, and so on
is often violent.

Nothing about that surprises me.
I have a working knowledge of history and events from as recently as a year
ago. Catching up with the rest isn’t hard. Before long I can understand why
Ian’s defense technology company is so successful. Every large global concern
has its own “security” force that rivals the militaries of all but the very
largest nation states. In addition, local police departments have morphed into
pseudo-military forces in their own right.

Given all that, there must be a
huge and ever expanding market for the tech and whatever else he sells,
especially since his concepts of defense and offense seem a little blurry at
the least.

Until I really understand more
about the world, I’m not about to judge what Ian does. I’m even willing to
admit that I’m glad he can so obviously protect himself and everything he
values. But I still wonder at the exact source of his concern regarding my
safety.

I decide to search for
information about human cloning. Almost at once, I wish I hadn’t. The headlines
are all too clear:

84% of Americans say anti-human
cloning laws not sufficiently enforced

***

Nobel-prize winner calls
‘replica’ process misuse of neural mapping

***

People’s Populist Party demands
destruction of existing human clones

***

Brave new world threatens God’s
plan for humanity, Vatican declares

***

Fire destroys Mumbai human
cloning facility. HPF claims credit.

HPF? What is that? Thanks to the
link, I have the answer in seconds.

The “Human Preservation Front”
is a shadowy group dedicated to opposing what it claims are forces bent on the
destruction of “natural” humans and their replacement by slave armies of clones
serving a privileged elite. This elite, HPF asserts, no longer wants to share
the planet with the billions of ordinary people who they regard as nothing more
than a source of violence, chaos, and environmental degradation.

They are plotting to trigger a
huge human ‘die back’ through enforced sterilization that will bring about the
extinction of most of the human race. Secret replicas are being infiltrated
into every aspect of human society in order to make this happen. For humanity
to survive, every replica and the clones that could be transformed into them
must be destroyed.

Holy cow!
Could people
actually believe this stuff? Slave army? Conspiracy to drive humans into
extinction? This is straight out of the fever swamps but the more I read, the
more I realize that the idea is gaining some traction.

Public awareness that human
cloning has been going on for decades despite laws to prohibit it has grown
significantly in the last few years. Moreover, the revelation that the neural
mapping process can be used to create replicas has sparked huge public debate.

And there is worse.

In the past year, the HPF claims
to have carried out at least half-a-dozen violent attacks against cloning
facilities and scientists believed involved with the creation of replicas.
There have been eleven fatalities, dozens of serious injuries, and billions of
dollars of property destruction but no arrests.

Bad stuff indeed. And here I
thought my biggest worries were having no legal identity and no way of taking
care of myself. Obviously, Ian and I will have to talk about this but I’m not
looking forward to bringing it up with him.

Rather than dwell on that, I
succumb to temptation and ask the link for information about Ian himself. I
expect to see innumerable hits but instead surprisingly few come back. He is
the head of Slade Enterprises. He is mentioned in a report presented to
Congress regarding the Special Forces. He’s shown up at a political dinner or
two. That’s it.

When I try to find information
about Susannah, I get even fewer results. What’s going on?

I broaden the search, asking for
information on everything from ‘Manhattan social scene’ to ‘past-times of the
rich and famous’. I think I’m being particularly creative with that last one
but all I get in return is gossip about various actors, music stars, and the
like. As for Manhattan and anything that goes on there, the link hasn’t a clue.

Finally, I get it. In an age where
information is ubiquitous and privacy is the scarcest commodity, only the
wealthiest and most powerful can live beyond the public eye. As much as I
understand the urge to do so, I can’t help but think that it comes at a cost.
By sealing themselves off in such a way, they make it easier for the HPF and
others of the same ilk to spread their wacko conspiracy theories.

Being stonewalled so effectively
brings me to a full stop. I set the link aside, lean back on the bed, and close
my eyes. I’m wondering if perhaps I need a nap, too, when my skin prickles with
awareness. The air feels suddenly charged. My breath quickens and a languorous
warmth spreads through my body as the bed dips to one side.

I hear the whisper of my name
before Ian’s full weight abruptly settles on top of me. That quickly, I am
pinned beneath him. In the same motion, his legs thrust between mine, making a
space for him.

His elbows hold my arms tight
against my sides. His hands clasp my head as his mouth takes mine. Yet his kiss
is unexpectedly gentle, a slow, deliberate savoring that surprises me. We have,
as he so bluntly says, fucked. But this gentle, coaxing exploration of my mouth
hints at a sensuality more tender than I have experienced until now.

The need to touch him explodes
in me, joined by frustration that I can do so only with my own mouth, my
tongue, my breath. The intimate dance leaves me burning for more.

Finally, he relents, sucking on
my lower lip and biting it lightly before releasing me. As he lifts his head, his
eyes meet mine. There is no pretense in his gaze, no evasion, only hot carnal
need and something more. Relief?

“You’re here,” he says. His
voice is low and ragged, rippling through me.

Because he allows it, I manage
to wiggle an arm free, raise my hand and gently, tentatively stroke his face.
The stubble of his day's growth of beard is both soft and prickly. The memory
of it against my nipples, between my thighs, everywhere almost undoes me.

On a thread of breath, all I can
manage, I remind him again, “I gave you my word.”

He closes his eyes for a moment
at my touch…at my words? I can’t tell which affects him more. Gazing down at
me, he catches my fingers in his and carries them to his mouth, sucking the
tips in a caress that sends a jolt of pure pleasure through me

“And I gave you mine,” he says.
“Then I pushed you really hard.”

“Are you saying you regret what
you did?”

Or is he sorry for what we have
both learned about me? Would he rather have gone on believing that I had no
will but his?

“I regret making you cry.”

I remember how he looked when I
refused the collar, how much the prospect of hurting me horrified him. There is
a tender side to this man even if he hasn’t shown it very often.

Daring greatly, I ask, “What
about the outcome? You weren’t disappointed by that?”

“That you came? Hardly.”

He rakes his teeth along my chin
and jaw line to my ear lobe. The tip of his tongue touches the small bite mark
he inflicted earlier, stroking it gently. I have to press my lips together to
keep from letting the moan in my throat escape but he feels it all the same.

Looking up, he gives me a smile
that goes right to my core and makes my muscles clench. “I’ve always preferred
a challenge.”

A horrible possibility occurs to
me. If he’s actually glad that I am the way I am, am I really free or just
designed to seem like that for his benefit?

As though he can read my
thoughts, Ian strokes a finger along my cheeks and says more gently, “Don’t
over think this, Amelia. Nobody really knows what free will is or even if it
exists for any of us. We’ve just decided that it does because otherwise people
couldn’t be held responsible for their actions and society would pretty much
collapse overnight. So let’s just agree that you can make your own choices and
leave it at that, all right?”

He can’t possibly be as casual
about that as he seems. Apart from upending all his assumptions about his shiny
new toy, if the replica process can produce individuals with free will, the
implications are staggering. What will the consequences of that be for humanity
in general?