The Institute: Body Double

This story is set in the near future. Some of the medications, procedures and technical advances detailed within have not been introduced -- yet.

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Chapter One

I had never believed in love at first sight until the brunette with the mesmerizing gray eyes appeared. She arrived late; the party was already well underway. She wasn't supermodel stunning; more like girl-next-door pretty. Beyond those eyes, her wide hips and lush, rounded bottom, sheathed in a tight print dress, would have made anyone sit up and take notice. At a party like this, she was clickbait for any guy with a 'pointer'.

That would be Eddie Matthews. He was currently winding down his fifth year of college, no degree in sight, majoring in Drinking, Debauchery and Terrorizing Pledges and Other Underclassmen. He had been the bane of my existence from the moment I moved into the house until the moment I moved out. At that moment, he was, as was his wont, stupid-drunk. The object of his afflictions dismissed him with a toss of her dark-haired head. I didn't have to be an expert lip-reader to see hers form the words "Take a hike, Buddy".

Déjà vu. I had the feeling I had seen her somewhere before, but I couldn't place her for the life of me.

Then our eyes met. I had drawn my fair share of attention from women before, although I didn't seem to be anyone's 'type'. This woman's reaction to me was completely new. Her eyes sparkled. Her nostrils flared. Her mouth curled into the most come-hither smile I had ever seen. The bigger surprise was that she made her way towards me, the expression on her face unchanged. Even from this angle, the sway of her full hips was hypnotic. My first impression was we were nearly the same height, but she currently towered over my five-foot-seven-inch frame in the sky-high heels she wore. That didn't seem to deter her in the slightest.

"You are Michael Bennett," she avowed without preamble. "My girlfriends and I watched you win the conference cross-country championship last month."

Huh? Reality Check: No one but runners and coaches attends cross-country events. At best, we get a one-inch box story on the back page of the Sports section - unless that big sporting goods chain has pre-empted us with another full-page, four-color ad. We are the Black Hole of intercollegiate competition. We runners have come to accept that as a fact of life. Besides, if this woman had been anywhere near the finish line, I would have remembered. She sensed my thoughts and ratcheted up her smile a notch.

"Okay, I confess. We only saw you because the finish line was on the green, right across from Bradley Hall. We had a good view from our fourth-floor window. Even at that distance, I thought you were the prettiest boy I had ever seen. What's not to like about that tight, compact body and all that thick, sandy blonde hair? You are even better up close and personal. Those azure eyes are simply amazing and that dimpled smile makes me tingle all over. You belong on a runway in New York or Paris."

"Thank you," I acknowledged; the only thing I could think to say. Then I added: "How did you know my name?"

"I asked around," this amazing woman responded. "One of my sorority sisters mentioned you were a member of this house. I wouldn't have shown up tonight otherwise, but if there was even a chance you might be here..."

'Nuff said. We found a quiet corner, sipped, rather than guzzled our obligatory cups of punch (I know what goes into "Velvet Hammer"), conversed -- and canoodled. Me? Canoodling with an attractive woman who was stone-cold attracted to me? That only happened in my dreams.

Don't wake me up.

Her name was D'Arcy. She was a graduate student in Business, which meant she was a year older than me. She was sardined ("cozy", she called it) into a townhouse near the business school campus with five other Wall Street wannabes. Three bedrooms, six women, one bathroom. Yeah, that'll work...

"That's not too far from me," I commented, perhaps more hopefully than informatively. "At least it's closer than this place."

"You don't live in your house either?" she queried, amazed at the coincidence.

"Nope," I chirped. "I am fulfilling my filial obligation to show up. I'll give them at least that much. After three and a half years of this madness, I bailed. You met one of the reasons why when you came in."

"I see what you mean," she posited knowingly. "I had only been here five minutes and I wanted to grab an assault rifle and go postal. In that case..."

She took my hand in hers and squeezed.

"... I feel doubly-blessed we hooked up tonight."

She looked down at our hands, then held them up, palm to palm, comparing the two.

"We have the same hands," she noted. "You have such long, tapered fingers for a boy. You would make a good pianist."

"I've never played," I admitted.

"Never played?" she challenged, eyes twinkling. "We'll have to change that."

Like most fraternities, the living room was decorated in Early Thrift Store. In front of us sat this old, ratty ottoman which weighed a ton. We were using it as a kinda-sorta coffee table, as everyone else had through the years. If the cup spilled, the stain would blend right in with all the rest - until the next Hell Week, when some hapless pledge would be assigned to clean it with an upholstery shampooer. I had.

When the music wasn't abjectly awful, we got up and danced. Although we gyrated our way through a couple of fast numbers (I didn't embarrass myself too badly), we really liked the slow songs. D'Arcy danced close; real close. During one number, we spooned; my front to her back, my hands on her hips, our lower bodies rocking in sync. She reached behind my head with one hand and pulled me in even tighter against her, gazing at me through heavy-lidded bedroom eyes over her shoulder. Up close, her dark hair was thick, lustrous and smelled of lavender and perfume. Even I could tell this, whatever it was, was something special.

We had just returned to our seats when Eddie staggered up, got right in my new acquaintance's face and insisted she just had to dance with him the way she had with "the twerp". As zoned-out as he was, it was amazing he could stand up at all. In his imagined glory of stealing my girl away from me, he didn't notice the ottoman was right behind him. It only took one little push with the flat of my hand against his sternum. Doofus cartwheeled over backwards, arms flailing in empty air, only to land with a resounding thump like the proverbial sack of potatoes.

Remember that old commercial?

I've fallen and I can't get up!

Yeah, it was like that.

"Nicely done, my prince," my companion commented appreciatively, studying the spud stud laid out at our feet. "Now, be my knight in shining armor once more and rescue me from the rest of these drunken louts."

Her kiss convinced me the night was young and so were we. I had a car. It was nothing fancy; four wheels and an engine that ran. My place was closer than hers; a one-bedroom with no roommates. I had lucked into it. A friend had graduated early; I took over the lease. We spent the night together, cuddling and getting to know one another. An only child, D'Arcy had been orphaned two years previously, no thanks to a drunk driver. Her parents' life insurance and the meager equity return from the sale of the family home were keeping her in school, but she pinched every penny. She had to do well in her studies; there was no fallback option.

I, too, was an only child - and had been an 'oops' baby. My mother gave birth to me when she was fifteen. A party, too much alcohol and a smooth-talking older boy had been all it took to change the attractive, precocious teen's life forever. The baby daddy hadn't even given her his real name. Mama continued living at home with her parents and older brothers, earning her diploma via home schooling, then attending the local cosmetology academy. Upon completion of that curriculum, she went to work as an operator in her mother's salon, House of Benét. The name had been Gramma's idea. She thought the French version of our family surname added a certain panache.

As she matured, my mother became a real 'looker' and had dressed and acted the part; lots of makeup, hair out to there and clothes that showed off her rocking body. Even at a young age, I was aware of the effect she had on men. I had overheard more than one calling her a "bimbo". I didn't know what that meant, but it had to be a good thing because they told each other they "wanted her so bad." She dated serially and lusted the same way; this time, on birth control. Mr. Right Now never seemed to morph into Mr. Right and she was okay with that. She now had her career, secure income and me. Once burned, twice skeptical as Hell.

Grampa and my uncles came to terms with the fact I would never be football player material like them. They appreciated the fact I was a good distance runner, but runners didn't get scholarships, and they determined I was going to college, like them; that was non-negotiable. More to the point, I would be going to this school, our state university, whose main campus was in our home town. They had, I would; simple. That meant I would have to work hard in high school and make good grades. I did, and won a National Merit Scholarship.

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"You shave," D'Arcy gushed in surprise, noting my depilated body.

"I run," I reminded her. "This is a lot more comfortable when I get hot and sweaty, especially in summer. Actually, I had the hair permanently removed. That isn't too much, is it?"

"Nooooo," she drew out the demurral, her twinkling eyes drinking in every inch of me from head to toe. "I could get used to this real quick. I'm into fur as much as the next girl, but not on my bedmates. Besides, you more than make up for it with all that thick, rich hair on your head. I get shivers running my fingers through it. You cut that off and we're done. You hear me, Mister?"

It's college, right? You are expected to experiment, try new things. I had allowed my hair to grow to shoulder length. With its natural heft and body, it was relatively easy to manage, as long as I shampooed and conditioned it every day. Yeah, I took some grief from the other guys about my Fabio-like locks, but they cut me some slack because of my quasi-fame as a sports 'star'. Other women had flirted and complimented me on my 'look', but D'Arcy was the first to act upon her attraction and state it in no uncertain terms.

In the early morning hours, we chose to make love for the first time. She was actually worried I would think less of her because she had already given up her cherry. There had been others before me, she informed without going into detail, except to report they hadn't given her what she was looking for. Was that a problem for me? Are you kidding me? The past was the past. If they couldn't see what a jewel they had given up, I could.

I was less experienced, but knew enough to use lips, tongue, teeth and fingertips to bring her to two very satisfying orgasms before mounting her and riding her to a third.

We cuddled and talked in the afterglow. The way she gazed at me, I thought she was going to nominate me for sainthood. The missing quantity in her previous relationships had been twofold. First was oral sex. D'Arcy was crazy for it. Her previous boyfriends were totally on-board with receiving her blowjobs, but had paid 'lip service' at best (pun intended) to returning the favor. At worst, they wouldn't bring their mouth within a country mile of a woman's sex, declaring it "un-manly." Perhaps they were afraid of getting 'cooties'. The second factor had been orgasms, or complete lack thereof. From what she said, her previous lovers had basically used her to masturbate, as though she was some glorified blow-up doll.

"Really," she groused disconcertedly, "I might as well have been doing my Statistics homework while they were humping me, for all I was getting out of it."

Huh? Who does that to a total babe like this? I set her straight; I had no such reservations about it and would worship her 'temple' to her heart's content.

"I'm gonna hold you to that, Mister," my lover chirped saucily.

She did. In the following weeks, D'Arcy took full advantage of my offer, lovingly teaching me the oral and tactile techniques that drove her into a thrashing, screaming frenzy. I could spend an hour or more laving her into a shuddering puddle of goo before entering her and giving her the good, hard male-on-female seeing-to she needed to feel really complete. In that department, she teasingly pronounced me "more than adequate."

"Go to the head of the class, Prettyboy," she purred contentedly one night, as she lay euphoric in my arms, "Suma Cum Laude."

She, in turn, taunted me with long, lingering blowjobs that left me begging for release.

Suddenly, I was the only man in the world for her. I already knew she was the only woman for me. Whenever she was with me, she was the flashiest dresser I had ever seen, loving to flaunt her curves for me in tight, revealing outfits and her much-adored high heels. As I was to discover, D'Arcy's exhibitionism was a 'tell'; a not-so-subtle hint to her deliciously kinky streak, which she loved to exercise behind closed doors.

Exercise it, we did; role-playing, toys, bondage and domination, we tried a little bit of everything in the precious moments we were able to spend together between our hectic schedules. That was how we found out really big dildos, like oral sex, made her crazy with lust. Enter the Manhandler; a thick, veined, beyond-lifelike ten-inch latex dildo with bull balls and a ribbed rubber handle at its base. It was a favorite in the Gay leather scene and quickly became one of D'Arcy's favorites as well.

Chapter Two

I graduated with a degree in Finance and scored a good job as an analyst at Maitland and Associates, a top-tier downtown investment brokerage. Brock Maitland, the founder/Managing Partner, was already a legend in the industry as well as our city. A football star and graduate of our university, he had, according to the urban legend, eschewed the NFL and started the firm with a loan from his father. He wasn't a billionaire -- yet -- but he wouldn't be clipping coupons anytime soon. His uncanny record for navigating the twists and turns of the stock market was eclipsed only by his charismatic personality, matinee-idol good looks and hard-core body-builder physique. If you stared directly at his zillion perfect teeth without eye protection, you would be flash- blinded. It was said a private elevator in his plush office suite gave him direct passage to both the basement parking garage and his sumptuous Penthouse condo with all the creature comforts, including an infinity pool on the patio deck with an unmatched view of the city.

Brock had yet another legendary reputation; that with the ladies. Because of his wealth and standing in the local business community, plus his photogenic good looks, he was a regular feature in the gossip columns, Internet blogs and television fanzines - as was whatever nubile young plaything occupying his attention at the time. He hosted semi-formal company social events twice a year and Friday night 'office parties' every month, at one nightclub or another, as a token of his appreciation for our efforts. I couldn't remember ever seeing him with the same strumpet hanging on his arm (and every word) two events running. The legend spread, echoed on well-lubricated lips at our company events: Big Cock Brock, the love 'em and leave 'em stud who could go all night.

Oh, I wished that I could be Richard Corey...

Whatever I thought of him personally, I couldn't speak ill of the man. He was an alumnus of our fraternity and our Chapter Advisor. In our house, his undergraduate exploits were told and re-told; the stuff of post-pubescent male fantasy. I hadn't known it, but he had been keeping an eye on me. After I had distinguished myself as both runner and scholar, he recruited me to work for his company. He cautioned me I would be a probationary employee, like all new hires, but I would be a star 'probie'.

"I dunno about all that hair," he had mused, shaking his head, "but the media eats it up and I am all about good publicity. You prove you have a good head under that mane and I suppose we can work with it -- but tie it back or something. You hear me, kid?"

Yippieeeeeeeee!

I proved my worth many times over with my own keen interpretation of which companies' values were on the rise and which were going to tank in short order. Ours was a high-turnover business, with lesser talents disappearing overnight. Bob Martin, one of my fellow analysts, made the observation our boss was dumb as a post himself when it came to market dynamics. His true talent lay in surrounding himself with real savants such as ourselves, jettisoning the ones who didn't add value to his brand on a regular basis.

Bob was gone the next day. I learned the lesson and kept my mouth shut.

Brock took note of my successes for the firm. The promotions and bonuses followed. He had dropped a couple of hints of late; I was being considered for bigger things and an office in the Executive Suite to go with it.

What a difference disposable income makes! D'Arcy moved in with me and I supported her through the rest of her studies. She attended company social events with me and was adored by everyone. We knew marriage was in our future, but we wanted to wait until she was done with school and we were more settled. To that end, we stayed in our current apartment and saved money towards buying our own home.

Living together exposed me to a couple of D'Arcy's endearing little quirks. She did occasional Girls' Nights Out. It had been natural enough with her sorority sisters during her undergraduate days. She now did them with her girlfriends from her business classes. She regarded her nights out as a "mental health exercise", both to relieve the stress of her studies and to maintain outside interests so she and I wouldn't get on each other's nerves. I was already used to the practice. My mother had done them regularly and still did. I was totally supportive now.

Okay, I admit it; when my lover came home from one of these little soirees, the sex was off the charts.

D'Arcy's mother had been an über-fan of Dynasty, the 80's television series about wealth, power and conspicuous consumption. As a child, D'Arcy had watched re-runs with her mother -- and caught the fever. She now had several seasons worth of DVD's and had all but worn them out from repeated viewings. The object of their mutual obsession was Joan Collins as the bitchy, ambitious, serially-married Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan.

"Not 'bitchy'," D'Arcy huffed indignantly at my suggestion. "She is strong, assertive, sure of herself, what she wants and where she is going in life. She loves her men, but on her own terms and won't tolerate them taking her for granted."

Such had been the depth of her devotion, my girlfriend's mother had named her daughter D'Arcy Alexis. That their family name was Morrell made it all the more kismet to her.

What is it with these women? My mother was also a fan of the show, so I was already familiar with it. Yes, there was that whole "Moravian Massacre" thing (jumped the shark there, did we, Mr. Spelling?), but mostly it was amusing. I scored major points with D'Arcy by watching episodes with her and enduring the Byzantine plot twists. I scored again, even bigger, with the perfect Christmas gift: Dynasty: The Complete Series, Collector's Edition.