She Needs This
Emily balanced her keys, purse, briefcase, bills, and the package from EvolveBox as she made her way up the stairs to her apartment. She was slightly annoyed that, for the third month in a row, she’d forgotten to cancel her subscription to the boxed snack service, but yet again was slightly curious about what they’d sent. The first month had been honey-roasted crickets, seaweed cookies, and aloe juice.
Maybe the second box will have something edible, she thought as she slid the bills onto her kitchen counter. Emily opened the box and looked inside. She reached in to find what was under the vacuum-sealed bag of dried durian and felt something warm and strangely soft. She recoiled in surprise, but with little hesitation she picked up what looked like a solid black egg, sagging slightly in her palm. It was soft in a way that food generally wasn’t. When Emily poked it, it gave way instantly to her finger and then clung gently for an instant when she pulled out. It gave off an odor she couldn’t identify, but Emily’s mouth began to water as she stared at it in instinctive revulsion. She decided to set it back in the box but found herself rolling it around in her palm instead, marveling at how soft her skin felt where the egg had touched.
“Fuck it, why not,” she muttered as she put the thing in her mouth. It felt as if it wriggled on her tongue back toward her throat, and with a conscious effort she swallowed it down whole. It seemed to expand as she swallowed, and she gagged at the sensation, bracing herself on the counter. It tasted amazing, Emily was sure, although the moment she’d swallowed it she had a hard time determining just what the egg had tasted like.
Setting the other snacks aside, Emily went about her evening routine, watching TV on the couch while she ate some leftovers. She wished she had another one of those eggs, disturbing as the texture had been. She went to bed for the night feeling a little woozy.
That night Emily dreamt that she was in a featureless void, unable to make out her surroundings. As she peered into the darkness, she realized with a start that she was unable to feel her tongue or lips. She reached up, with the slow movement of dreams, and pressed two fingers to where her lips should be. Shockingly, she instead felt featureless flesh with the same gooey texture as the egg from her snack box. Her fingers sank into her lower face with just a slight push, feeling as if they were blended with the tacky substance of her mouth, and she felt a strong, sudden desire to keep pushing and consume her entire hand. She awoke sitting bolt upright in bed, her hand racing to feel her still very much intact lips and mouth. It was so early it was still dark out, but Emily put on a pot of coffee and began her day anyway.
At work that day, Emily seemingly could only think of her mouth. She was barely able to focus on the ledgers she was working with, as the feeling of a formless mouth from her dream kept creeping into the edges of her consciousness. It didn’t help that she was ravenously hungry, snacking all afternoon even after grabbing an enormous lunch at the office cafeteria. When she drove home at the end of the day, she felt exhausted from trying to keep her attention on her work and collapsed into bed after eating two frozen dinners in quick succession.
In her dreams, Emily found herself again in a black void, but this time she could make out a faintly shimmering field in front of her. She sensed a presence on the other side of the field, but when she looked forward the form seemed to dim, like faint stars in the night sky. Still, she felt compelled to search for structure in the darkness, and the longer she stared, the more certain she became that a human form was opposite from her. She tried to keep in mind where its torso must be, despite that torso seeming to fade whenever she looked at it directly, and she dragged her eyes upwards to where a mouth would be. She felt the darkness viscously press in all around her. After staring helplessly for so long, Emily could finally make out the hint of a smiling pair of lips just like her own. Emily awoke in a cold sweat, realizing she had begun sucking on her finger at some point in her sleep as she dragged it out from between her lips.
That day at work went by in a daze. At one point she realized she’d been staring at a balance sheet long enough that a long line of drool had formed from her mouth down to her blouse, and by mid-afternoon she’d chewed through three pen caps in addition to two lunches. She told her boss she wasn’t feeling well and headed home early, certain that something about her had changed.
When she got home, Emily sat in front of the mirror at her vanity and carefully looked herself over for anything that looked different. She let her lips part as she stared first at her mouth, then at her eyes, seeing nothing strange other than maybe some unusual dilation. Then she carefully inspected the reflection of her hands, enraptured as she watched them through the mirror and gently undulated her fingers. As she watched, she started to feel as if she was watching someone else on the other side who was just matching her movements. Her fingers continued to dance, tapping her collarbone and stroking her breast, and Emily fantasized about the other her in the mirror putting on a show just for her as she began to exaggeratedly suck on the knuckle of her index finger. With an amused smirk, she thought, Maybe I should just have a date night with mirror-Emily. Then she sat upright, realizing how good that really sounded. She should get more familiar with mirror-Emily. She remembered there was a bottle of merlot in one of her cabinets, and soon enough she was watching herself drink an overfull glass in the mirror. Emily enjoyed seeing every detail, from the way the wine stained the creases in her lips to the way it dribbled down her chin as she drank quickly and eagerly. She wanted to expose herself completely in the mirror, drunk and open and vulnerable.
After finishing the bottle in long gulps, with a leering smile on her face by the end, Emily stood up and did a messy strip tease for herself. She then sagged down onto the floor of her bedroom in front of her full-length mirror with her legs spread wide, and she began rubbing her clit as her eyes roamed between her crotch, her mouth, and her lust-ridden eyes. It was wonderful to watch this other woman touch herself while mimicking her actions. She plunged two fingers inside herself, amazed at just how wet she had become simply watching herself drink at the vanity. Her pussy gave way easily, and Emily thought again of how her finger felt inside the egg the day before. She began to speak out loud as she continued to alternate between stroking her clit and pumping her slick fingers in and out. “She needs this.” Emily twisted her face in confusion as she realized she wasn’t sure if she meant herself or mirror-Emily, but she knew it felt good to say.
“She needs this,” she repeated, and her head began to feel even thicker with lust and drunken abandon. The words kept spilling from her mouth, over and over, as she moved her fingers more firmly and insistently. She loved dragging her eyes up and down mirror-Emily’s body, watching her tense and writhe as she touched herself along with Emily. Her gaze eventually settled on the other woman’s mouth as they chanted in unison, “She needs this. She needs this. She needs this.” She tensed her body, raising up on her heels, but made sure to stay exposed to the mirror no matter how much she wanted to writhe away as the pleasure built within her. Let her look, she thought before falling quickly into dreams.
Emily dreamt again of the figure across from her, a shimmering field between them. It was easier to make out this time, featureless but clearly emily-shaped and emily-colored. It traced a finger from where its mouth would be to its abdomen, and Emily realized she had matched its movements perfectly while staring in rapture. It drew zig-zagging lines out as Emily felt her own finger dragging along her skin from her navel. As she watched, she saw the jagged triple-spiral shape of a triskelion form in black ink and knew without looking down that the same pattern was painted on her flesh. Then the scenario seemed to repeat from the beginning: the figure on the other side from her repeated and looped, drawing the figure on both their bodies over and over again. Emily realized as it continued that what they were drawing together was a name. When she awoke in the morning, the carpet damp beneath her in front of the mirror, she immediately grabbed a pen and pad of paper to draw other-emily’s name. Her hand moved with artful strokes born out of long practice.
She sent a quick text letting her boss know she was still feeling unwell and then called around for a while to find an available tattoo artist in town. She drove to her appointment excited to take this step. As she lay back in the chair with her stomach exposed and ready for marking, she smiled thinking of becoming more closely bonded to the woman on the other side. Other-emily wasn’t the right label, she realized. She began to correct herself and consciously think of the symbol when she thought of her new partner. Emily luxuriated in the pain as the tattoo took shape in her skin, thinking of how good it felt to mark her connection to [symbol] with sacrifice and permanence.
When she got home Emily immediately sat down in front of her full-length mirror again with a take-out box of chana masala. She watched herself eat, thinking that it was good to show her counterpart more of how she behaved, how she acted, and to begin to better match the movements of her other self in the mirror. The pain from her fresh tattoo required sitting very carefully, but every time she shifted and winced, she realized the pain was another exposed bit of vulnerability. She smiled, thinking of showing more and more of herself to [symbol] so that they could become more and more alike. Once she finished eating, she stripped and—disobeying her tattoo artist’s instructions—removed her bandages and caressed her tender abdomen. She loved seeing the name she shared. She began to speak, realizing how much she had in common with the thing on the other side of the mirror.
“I watch and am watched,” Emily intoned, staring into her own eyes. She had begun to idly rub her clit, knowing that her arousal brought more of her true nature to the surface, to be shared and blended. “I hear and am heard. I rule and am ruled.” She realized she didn’t quite recognize her reflection’s growing smile as her own any longer. Then the thing on the other side of the mirror stood up for both of them.