For Me (Pt 3)

Lauren dropped the phone on her coffee table, shuddering, her body flooded with adrenaline. She was nervous, scared, excited, aroused, shocked and confused, all at the same time.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, held it, then breathed out slowly. Then she did it again… and again… and once more. Gradually her heartbeat began to slow, her pulse settling.

Then she opened her eyes to see Anna’s face in the mirror looking back at her. The reflection spiked her pulse again, but she fought to calm herself, to think, to understand as best she could.

What the fuck was going on? How, why and again, why was Anna doing this?

She had a photo. Lauren knew that. A photo of a moment in her recent life she wasn’t proud of. It was only one photo, but one was enough to send Lauren into a blind panic.

It was taken from a security camera mounted in the upper corner of her bedroom. Her king size bed was framed in the center of the shot.

Lauren was in the center of the bed, naked, astride a man.

She was pictured in mid-moan, her hair tousled, her hands caressing her ample breasts.

He was seen in mid-thrust, pushing upwards, entering her.

The angle of the shot was from behind, but it was her, without a doubt. Lauren Hudson, the heiress, the society gal.

Being fucked, hard, by a man who wasn’t her fiancé.

///

Anna had power over her now, Lauren knew that. If anyone in her family – or her fiancé’s family, or god forbid the media or lord help us the internet – saw that image, everything would be over.

The wedding wasn’t even the most important thing. While it was dubbed “the society event of the decade”, with a guest list in the hundreds, a week of planned activities and a final cost that would cripple some small countries, the event itself wasn’t the important thing.

It was what the wedding would unlock. What the marriage would represent.

The final union of two ancestral dynasties. The thawing of relations between their squabbling patriarchs. The potential for their two empires to finally become one.

All of that relied on Lauren saying “I do” to Joseph K. Warren, Jr in front of several hundred of their closest friends, family and business associates.

But if that one image was made public, it would be over. Joseph would be crushed. The families would separate, the resentment would resume. And Lauren would become a pariah, forever exiled from the family.

That couldn’t happen. No-one could ever know.

Even the people who ‘fixed’ things for the Hudson family couldn’t be involved in this one. What Lauren had done wasn’t just indiscreet, it was almost incomprehensible. It just didn’t happen.

Hudson ladies were faithful. Hudson ladies were demure. They weren’t wedding night virgins – Hudson ladies were also practical – but when the engagement ring went on, it was an unspoken family rule that any ‘extra-curricular activities’ stopped.

But Lauren was a millennial, brought up in a less restricted world than her grandparents or even her parents. She’d also been drunk, and maybe a little high, and he was cute, and he said the right things. And it was only a kiss, then only a shared limo, then only one drink, then only a bottle of red, then only a desperate race to the bedroom, then only an hour of half-remembered, half-enjoyed sex.

Lauren had passed out either during or not long after, waking alone in the middle of the night with only a discarded prophylactic evidence that she’d at least made one good decision.

It was a one-time event. She never saw him again, didn’t even know his surname. But it didn’t matter.

“One time is all it takes,” she whispered.

///

The consequences of that image being seen were terrifying enough that when a complete stranger had presented evidence of her ‘indiscretion’, Lauren was prepared to do almost anything. Even put on a mask of her best friend’s face, as bizarre a request as that had seemed. She would have done more if asked.

But now she knew the voice on the phone wasn’t a stranger after all; it was her best friend. The woman whose face she was still wearing, who she saw in the mirror. Anna Webster, Lauren’s future maid of honor.

Did Anna really want to blackmail Lauren, or did she just want her to wear a mask? Why was she doing all of this? Why was she wearing a mask of Lauren’s face? How had she gotten the security footage?

Lauren had more questions, and Anna had all of the answers, but she’d hung up before Lauren could ask anything.

She stared at her phone. The lock screen reminded her of the time – late and getting later – but being awake in the middle of the night wasn’t what she was worried about. It was that photo, that single image.

And also, that her fiancé Joseph was going to return to their apartment in just over twelve hours, fresh from a European skiing trip.

Before then, Lauren had to know what Anna really wanted, and more importantly, she had to know that image would never be seen again. All of it depended on Anna calling her back.

She checked the phone’s ringer volume was at maximum, ensured the vibration feature was on.

“Call,” she said to herself, hearing Anna’s voice say the word. Sighing, she stood, beginning to pace, needing to expel her nervous energy.

She caught her reflection in the living room mirror. Anna’s reflection. Her friend was looking at her curiously, as if she was innocent, as if she wasn’t holding Lauren’s life in her hands.

The reflection moved closer to the mirror. Lauren stared at her body, her robe, just below Anna’s face. Somehow it seemed like the clothes weren’t hers. Like Lauren wasn’t there; Anna was. Borrowing Lauren’s robe. Here just for the night. Crashing in the spare room.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

It was Anna’s voice, but those weren’t Anna’s words. That wasn’t how she spoke.

“You don’t care, right babe?”

That was better. That was what Anna would say.

Anna would put her hands on her hips, too. She’d cock her head to one side. She’d smile, knowing that Lauren would allow her to stay, knowing that she was always welcome. She’d still ask. But she’d know.

“You’re the best,” she would say, as she did now, smiling, head cocked. “Thanks a million. Babe.”

Anna’s hand reached up, threading between the folds of the robe. She pulled, lifting her throat once more.

“You’re welcome,” Lauren’s voice said quietly.

Anna took a step closer to the mirror.

“It’s incredible,” Lauren said. “It’s fucking incredible.”

Anna smiled, saying nothing, acknowledging Lauren’s amazement with silence.

“I don’t know why you did this,” Lauren continued, “but I’m really glad you did.”

Even with what Anna knew, even with what she held over Lauren… this was worth it, perhaps. A new feeling, a new sensation she’d never experienced before, even with all the experiences being impossibly rich grants you.

She lowered her hand, smoothing down her throat, turning her head a little, feeling her skin shift over her skull. “You’re welcome honey,” Anna said, in the soft, husky way she would sometimes.

She was so close to the mirror now, her breath was fogging it slightly. As the condensation came and went, she stared at the illusion before her. The skin. The hair. The shape of her jawline. The curve of her lips. She was entranced, falling into the image, becoming one with the mirror.

Her body was smoldering, a guttering flame that was beginning to burn once more.

How did this thing exist? How could it even be possible? How was it that she was wearing it, that she had been allowed to do so? It was uncanny. Incredible.

The mirror fogged again. She wiped it clear immediately, wanting to stay with Anna. Her head tilted, the dark hair moving in response. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips curled into a smile. It was Anna, but it wasn’t Anna. It was Lauren, but it wasn’t Lauren. It was something in-between.

There was only one thing that gave her away. Her eyes were a gunmetal grey; they should have been brown. Mildly irritated, she bit her lip, feeling the skin move beneath her bite.

The phone rang, a sudden clamor shattering her thoughts. She grabbed it.

“Hi there,” said Anna’s voice calmly from the other end. “How are ya?”

Lauren stood agape for a moment, unable to form words. Then she saw the image of her in bed, felt the cold stare of her father, heard her mother crying, saw Joseph slam the door and her anger rose up, boiling through her.

“How am I?” she yelled, hearing Anna’s anger and suddenly wanting it gone. She yanked at the throat of the mask. “My best friend wants to blackmail me and for some reason I’m wearing a mask of their face,” she said in her own tones, “but other than that, I’m doing great!”

Anna laughed. “You certainly sounded like you were doing great earlier. Or, were about to. Admit it honey. You were going to go get off, am I right?” She laughed again, knowingly. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to admit anything to me. I’m not gonna kink shame. And don’t worry about that whole ‘blackmail’ thing too. Did you really think I was going to fuck with you like that? You’re my girl. Honestly, we should be celebrating.”

Lauren almost screamed at Anna’s nonchalance. “Celebrating? Why the fuck should we be celebrating?”

“Because this is going so much better than I expected, babe,” Anna said, sounding completely unconcerned at Lauren’s rage. “I thought I’d have to keep up the whole ‘blackmail’ thing a lot longer, but you took to it like a sex addict to a brothel.” She chuckled. “Saves us both a lot of time!”

“But,” Lauren began, before realizing she had dozens of questions, so settling for asking “why?”

“Because, babe… I want to be you, at least for a while,” Anna said calmly. “It also seems pretty obvious that you want to be me.”

Lauren wanted to say that wasn’t true, wanted to say Anna was crazy, wanted to hang up the phone and block Anna’s number.

She also wanted to see Anna wearing her face again.

“We should talk,” Lauren said. “Face to face. No pun intended. Can you come over? Now?”

“Girl, I’m almost there,” Anna said, laughing.

///

Lauren paced up and down her hallway, feeling like it was her senior prom night all over again. Then it had been nerves over whether the cute boy she’d asked to escort her was going to show up at all. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about Anna arriving, and what she was going to look like.

The buzzer for the front door sounded and she pounced on it. Whoever was out there was leaning in close to the camera, a baseball cap pulled low to cover their face. Was it even Anna?

“It’s me, I promise,” Anna’s voice confirmed. Lauren buzzed her in without a second thought.

Moments later, she heard a knock at her door. She checked the peephole; same person, same ball cap. She still couldn’t see their face. She paused for a moment, unsure; then compromised by keeping the chain in place as she unlocked the door.

Peering out, the person she assumed was Anna kept her head down, the cap’s brim shielding her face.

“Anna?” Lauren said.

The woman looked up, and Lauren saw her twin.

“Depends who you ask,” she said, grinning Lauren’s grin, but speaking with Anna’s voice. “Well? Aren’t you going to ask me in, honey?”

Confused, uncertain but also strangely excited, Lauren slid back the chain and admitted her double inside.

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