Your eyes immediately fly towards the tallest of them all. “I want Rachel,” you say with eerie determination.
“Ohhhh...” Tessa exclaims with delight. “Excellent choice.” She leans near your ear, purring. “Just between you and me? She’s my favorite.”
You look at her amused face, finding it hard to believe. “Is it? And you’re giving her to me?”
“I made a promise, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but you said she’s your favorite. Won’t you miss her or something?”
She caresses your chin, grinning. “You truly believe I’ll miss her? Quite the contrary. I think I will enjoy her companionship now more than ever.”
Tessa stretches her arm, grabbing Rachel’s skin for you. She delivers it with almost fervent reverence as you cradle her in your arms. “Follow me, my dear. There is something I must show you.”
--
You are in Tessa’s bedroom, the door locked for greater privacy. Rachel’s cloned skin is on the bed as you help the lady by pulling a trunk hidden out of sight. She unlocks it and opens, revealing a mound of flesh wrapped all around.
As she draws it, you see Rachel, identical in every way to the one you brought. She carries it to her bed, staring at it with longing. “Would you forgive me for being so vain?”
“Why would you say so?” you ask as you sit beside her.
“Because I stole their beauty for my own ends.” She sees you and chuckles. “Oh, I must be waxing poetic! I presume you heard from Cassandra about the fates of these women.”
“The skins there are all clones,” you relate. “Ones you use for your... ‘escort’ service.”
“For my business of providing happiness, my dear. Have you already forgotten?” She caresses Rachel’s skin, comparing it to her counterpart. “But you’re right. I made them from the originals, ordering them to give them their memories. And then, I erased that memory – unaware of their dutiful dopplegangers.”
“How?” you wonder.
“I have a method,” the lady insists. “But that’s not relevant right now. What is relevant is that I did so because I envied their beauty. That is why they are stored in that basement, stacked in hangers. To dress in their beauty as I do with the silk and gossamer I wear.”
“Yeah,” you say in agreement. “I think most guys would do this if they had the chance.”
“But perhaps not to earn a coin from awakening them like puppets.”
“But not all of them are puppets,” you clarify, recalling your previous experiences. “Caitlin chose to work for you, didn’t she?”
“Yes! None wished to work for me but her. Willingly, even – and dutifully. And I admire that dedication – a tigress who bares her fangs before its hunter.”
“And what about Rachel?”
She takes a deep breath, touching her as if a lost daughter. “She didn’t. But while I was satisfied with stealing the beauty of the others, I had to make her mine. So I turned the real one into a skin, and hid it here.” Her gentle look grew increasingly possessive, her words increasingly mad. “Her beauty unmarred. Forevermore.”
“But you cloned her skin. Wasn’t that enough? Why keep the real one?”
She stares at you, mortified, then realizes the reason. “That’s why I asked if you’d forgive my vanity. Can you imagine seeing the woman of your dreams married to a complete stranger, while you retain only a facsimile that can barely mimic her?”
“You mean, like Leah.”
“Indeed.”
“Yet you give her to me willingly. Why would you...?” As you say it, a stray thought clears your mind. “You know Rachel will never love you, despite your obsession, so you hold her against her will--”
“My dear, that is so cruel!”
“But it’s the truth. You know she’ll never love you, so you deny her existence so that no one else can claim her. That’s not vanity, madam. That’s jealousy.”
“Perhaps,” she debates, “but ultimately, it is vanity. You're right in that I’m jealous that someone else will claim her, but it is the reason itself that’s vain. For what greater vanity than to fall in love with a projection of what I desire, rather than with reality?”
“Yet you give her to me. Why? Do you expect me to become that projection you love?”
“No.” She grabs your hand, and you see the pain in her eyes. “I cannot force you to. I know the Rachel that lives in my dreams and my heart will never manifest. What I want is for you to destroy that dream and replace her in my heart. I want you to love me – by your own choice, without duress. I want to see what will Rachel become when she belongs to you in body and mind.”
She hands you the flesh of Rachel O’Leary with the same reverential respect as before. “And I want to see if that Rachel will ultimately love me.”
You take a deep breath. What Tessa asks of you is a great undertaking. She wants you to embody a version of Rachel that can love her. Though you could argue this would be easy – there are many things that obsess you about such a distinguished lady – you recognize that any failure will earn you a fate worse than death.
But the only thing worse, you believe, is to decline. To fear what you will become because of your mixed feelings. Why would she sacrifice her most jealously-warded belonging to you, knowing she would fail. No. She trusts in you. And you cannot fail that faith she has placed in you.
You slide your leg inside Rachel’s, until your toes meet hers. You glance at Tessa, and you see her grinning with delight. Then you slide the other, feeling how the Irish-descended ginger welcomes you inside her. You think of everything that will be yours once you let Rachel swallow you whole.
A home, all for yourself, where you can do what you desire. A wardrobe full of attire that accents your new beauty. Even a friend – for a given definition of the word – in Leah.
But most importantly? A beautiful banging body all for yourself.
As you pull her soft, angelic face upon yours, you open your eyes to a new reality. You turn to Tessa, seeing how she admires you, ogling you from top to bottom. You even see how she clenches her legs tight and bites her lip.
You take a moment to exploit the very weakness Tessa Wright has revealed to you, pushing her back to the bed. You mount her, letting your hair fall so that her eyes can only meet your face. You press your new weight on hers, rubbing your crotch near hers, and as your face almost touches hers, you embellish her with sweet words. “Do you like what you see, my dear mistress?”
She grabs your chin and smiles with divine delight. “Yes, my Rachel. I love what I see.”
Rachel. It’s only now that you noticed. She has refused to call you by your name. It has been long since she called you “David” - only “my dear”. But now, she called you by her name. She no longer sees you as a teenage kid that stumbled upon her plans and took pity upon herself.
She sees you as a beautiful woman. And not just any woman. She sees you as the woman of her dreams. The one she was unwilling to part with.
You close your eyes, smiling at her as you accept your new reality. She has remade you into Rachel O’Leary. And she expects you to deprive yourself of the vestiges of your old life so you can fully embrace your delightful new self.
But that can only be complete if she bestows you one last thing. Her mind. The very thing that will erase any doubt that you were reborn as – nay, that you reclaimed being – Rachel. “Then I will need all of myself. I need my memories, mistress.” And you grow bolder, for you ask something else. “And I want Leah for myself.”
Tessa doesn’t even flinch. She steals a kiss from you, entranced by you. “Yes. Yes, my love. But if you want all of your memories...” She hands you the copy of your own flesh, pushing it towards you. “You need to reunite.”
“What? How?”
As you grab the copy of your skin, she explains her odd request. “I want you to wear that skin. But before that, I want you to claim her mind as yours.”
“And then?”
She grabs the brown pen, pointing it at you. “You will see, my dear Rachel. You will see...”
--
Is this what deja vu feels like?
You are once again adjusting your – Rachel's - face to yourself. But unlike before, when your skin reattached to yourself, this feels like wearing a cheap costume. Your breasts are pushing its chest outwards and your hips are stretching the legs, preventing the skin from closing.
You shiver as you see the green pen in Tessa’s hand. You can’t recall why, but you know – it was what she used to extract that skin you outwardly wear in the first place. You should feel dread, but it is an alien dread – as if told by someone, rather than experienced. (Because it is. And you know the reason why.)
“Now,” Tessa demands. “Try to hold it close.”
“What will this do, my mistress?”
“I don’t know,” she confesses. “But I want to see what it grants you.”
Soon, she clicks the pen, and you feel nothing at first. But then, you notice how the outer layer of skin compresses into you, and you feel your skin burning. The sensation is quick, and you soon feel that layer as the only one.
But you also feel about to faint. Something within you screams in anguish. A realization that something terrible has happened to you.
And then, you remember. Those days of work, serving your mistress dutifully. And that week where you could feel as yourself.
The day you first experienced what was to be Rachel O’Leary.
The week where you decided – where you discovered – why you needed to be her.
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