The Clone and I (gxg)

Chapter 1

"Your chariot awaits milady!" intoned my friend Tim in a fake English accent as he held the door open to his Jaguar. It was impossible to miss the small group of girls waiting in front of the school almost drooling at the sight of him, but for whatever reason he never looked back. Strike that, I knew the reason, I just wish it wasn't persisting. He was a very handsome man, a bit over 6' tall, and I knew his warm brown eyes probably drew in a lot of admirers. But not me.

Nonetheless, I couldn't help but grin at the silly accent and slid into the seat, thankful not to be waiting outside in the frigid air of upstate New York in February. "Thank you, Jeeves. Shall we head for home?" I looked back at the girls to make sure that none of their drool had formed any icicles, that would have been awkward!

"We could, unless you want some frozen yogurt," he suggested.

"Nah, not today. But thanks!" Truthfully, I didn't want to keep taking advantage of his offers, because I knew that the reason that he was ignoring the girls at school was me. But seriously, Tim used to babysit me, we used to do family dinners together, he really felt like my cousin, and not a guy I would date. The worst thing was that my mom really wanted me to date him too. I guess he spent so much time at our place that she already considered him like a son. I knew he liked the way I looked. I wasn't so modest that I didn't appreciate my own blue eyes and brown hair, or my hourglass figure. But compared to the girls at school, I thought I just didn't compare. But, then again, many of them were literally made that way.

"Madelyn, you're not going to worry about your weight again, are you? You know you look great to me!" Tim protested. "There is no reason to not have a treat now and again."

"It has nothing to do with that!" I assured him, while not getting into the real reason. "Besides, half the school would happily go to get an after school snack with you, and you know it."

"And you know I only have eyes for you. Besides, a lot of those girls are clones, and are off limits," he reminded me.

He did have a point in that. Twenty years ago, a small company named Couture Cloning started cloning humans. They didn't ask permission, or get it licensed or anything. They went with the old it is better to ask forgiveness than permission route, and it worked for a little while.

Their position was that if they could get the DNA of a person in a public place, then they could own it, much like the police can go through the trash and look for evidence without a warrant. Now, did they only do that, or did they resort to other means? In many cases, they had DNA provided to them via secondhand methods. Several times, the assistant to a Hollywood actress, or to a pop star would provide the DNA on the sly without anyone knowing and get a finder's fee.

Over the next five years, thousands of clones were made. Why would the company do this? Well, because they had buyers for the clones before they were out of the test tube. In some cases, it was people trying to get the clone of a famous actor or actress, or music superstar, hoping that they could replicate their success when they got older. They thought of it as an investment in a money making venture.

But not all.

For several years, it was a status symbol for wealthy families to give their sons a new girl on their 16th birthday. Yes, their plan was that the sons would then be 34 and then marry an 18 year old clone of a sexy woman. If there was a Victoria's Secret model, odds are they made clones of her. It was the same with almost any woman that was considered beautiful in the world. This was almost exclusively a male dominated event, as the parents very rarely did that for their daughters.