I, Alexandrina Read online

  I was glad Caroline had called me that one morning. Glad that she could forgive me for turning a blind eye to my younger son. I learned many things that morning Caroline called, and I knew what I had to do about Abasa. Be honest, even if it meant the end of the monarchy. Lies only hurt people.

  I sat at a table and began to write.

  “People of Britain, I am your queen, and I implore you to come together once again…”

  I, Alexandrina

  A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one.

  -Queen Victoria

  “Do you remember telling me that you want to go to the stars?” Caroline asked.

  I nodded.

  “It can start today, if you want, with a girl called Abasa Mehmedovic. But…I do not know if I do the right thing by telling you this,” Caroline said.

  I gathered the fabric edging my red dress and squeezed it. Caroline looked terrible, but even in her terribleness was exquisite beauty. I had constantly replayed her kiss on my neck in the bathroom at Potsy’s.

  “Then don’t tell me,” I challenged her. Whatever she had to say frightened me. It had caused her to flee from Potsy’s hours ago and to seek refuge in her husband’s arms.

  “Oh? Don’t tell you? Is that so?”

  I had found another pornographic film a few hours ago. There were many, in fact, but this one stuck with me. A woman wore a red dress, as I was now. Her boyfriend was about to leave her, break up with her, so she unzipped his pants, got on her knees, and took him in her mouth. I could do something similar with Caroline, could I not?

  “Stand, please, Caroline.” Drums beat inside my body, and the noise was no comparison to that of Potsy’s. I felt like I had stepped outside myself, but at the same time, I was crazily and incredibly alive.

  “Ah…okay.” Caroline stood, and I got on my knees. They pressed into the carpet, and I lifted her dress. She still lacked underwear. I breathed her in, the musky, female, very female, smell of her, and it swept my senses.

  “Alex, wait. Oh, Jesus! I’m not here for that.”

  “I don’t want to wait.”

  “Oh, Alex! Alex! No. What I have to tell you is very important.” Caroline sounded more turned on than distressed. I pushed her legs wider open, and she moaned. Slick white liquid trickled from her closely shaved vagina. It was the same slickness I got sometimes. Caroline’s hips arched toward me. Oh, why had I gotten on my knees? I was not a star of pornographic films. What should I do? Where exactly did I put my finger or my tongue?

  I sucked in a breath and dared a lick of the slickness on Caroline’s thighs. Her muscles clenched. “Ohhh,” she groaned. “I can’t…the sofa. I’m gonna sit.”

  We moved the few feet back to the sofa, Caroline sitting with her legs spread. Very spread. I remembered her ankles as she rummaged through the refrigerator, and I moved my focus there. I kissed her left ankle, and her body shook. “Alex! Jesus!”

  I returned to her groin area and darted my tongue back and forth. Caroline groaned and screamed. She pressed my head into her, and I drowned in the exotic, female taste of her. I licked her as if she were a most delicious lollipop. Desire rose and rose throughout my body. My vagina was on fire. So was Caroline’s, but my ache! My ache! It was unbearable. I was going to explode, but I did not know what to do.

  Caroline took care of the problem. As gently as she could, she laid me on the carpet. She straddled me, our vaginas pressing into each other. Mine was like one of the alarms back in Marslavia. Insistent beeping. Pulsating need. Ratcheting desire.

  Caroline claimed my lips to hers. I tasted the vodka on her tongue, and our tongues danced the prelude to a mating ritual begun hundreds of thousands of years ago. For a fleeting instant, the world was okay. Whatever Caroline had to tell me would not be too bad. I might marry Albert. I might not. But this moment was ours. Ours alone. Just two women named Caroline and Alex, kissing, our bodies on fire. We clutched at each other, pleasure skidding outward. I explored her mouth, her lips, her tongue. Her body was warm and moist. Velvet. Her kiss gentle. Oh, it was wonderful. Writhing, groaning, moaning. We danced in our special way.

  “There is a woman in Marslavia called Abasa Mehmedovic,” Caroline said at last through heavy breaths. “She is also a Victoria clone.”

  Another Victoria clone? What? Caroline moved her hips in a circular rhythm, and it heated up my beeping.

  Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

  Oh God

  Oh

  Boom. Boom. Explosion. Something inside my body howled, ripping forth in a tremendous wail.

  “Ohhhh,” I screamed. “Caroline!”

  She swept my hands up in hers and rode my waves to cascade her own peaks. We bucked shamelessly, and we did it again after that, finding our waves and riding them. We did this, our bodies becoming hot and slick with sweat. Then she told me about Abasa Mehmedovic.

  **

  “Do you remember me telling you that Philip is good with faces?” Caroline said. Sweat glowed on her face, and our bodies were tangled on the carpet.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “He brought Abasa to our room for…for pleasure. For him. He knew who she was from the beginning. I did not, and I interacted with her only a short time.”

  It was a strange, strange tale. And then the clincher. Caroline wanted to leave today for Marslavia, but it should be my decision whether Abasa was retrieved. Abasa could be queen, she was quite fond of Albert, and if Abasa came back, I might have to relinquish some of my claims. It did mean I might be able to have a real life. A free life. I could do more than dream of the stars. But if I perhaps did want to be Albert’s wife, if part of me did want to be queen one day…

  “I do not know how this might work,” Caroline said. “Did you read The Prince and the Pauper?”

  “Yes.”

  She stroked my cheek and gazed into my eyes. She laid the softest of kisses on my lips. “It could be like that. The two of you could switch places. I don’t know.”

  Could it be true? I have a sister! I have a sister! Logically, I knew that Abasa was not my sister, only another clone of the same woman, but already, my heart loved Abasa as my sister. “I’m going with you.”

  “You can’t. It will be tricky enough for me to sneak myself across a few countries and into Marslavia. And then sneaking Abasa out!”

  “How do you plan to do it?”

  “Bribery. Money. Jewels. False papers. But it won’t be enough. It’s…I don’t know.” Her shoulders slumped. “It won’t work. It can’t. Queen Louise might be able to pull some strings and get things done, but she could not handle this kind of news. Another clone. It would kill her.”

  “Is there any other choice?” I asked. “She is the queen, and secrets have a way of coming out. What if there are clones after Abasa?” I knew from my pornographic films that concealing the truth was risky.

  **

  Caroline called Louise on a different kind of phone than I had seen on the airplane. I had seen it on TV the past few days. It was called a cellphone, and you could even watch TV on it and send letters on it.

  They talked a long time. Caroline sat on my sofa, her blond hair tousled, her dress pulled up to her torso area. She smelled of sex. Hot, sweaty, wonderful sex.

  I wondered if we would do it again. I wanted to. Oh yes.

  **

  Caroline and I, along with quite a few bodyguards, were on a plane that evening to Marslavia. Everything was hush-hush. Louise was angry, very angry. The angriest Caroline had heard her. Up until now, governments such as that of Britain and the United States had tried to give the government of Marslavia the most benefit of the doubt. Marslavia insisted it had not known about the cloning operations until 2016 when Russ Brendel and John Jameson announced their secret to the world.

  And after that? Well, Marslavia stayed neutral. Nothing in its laws necessarily forbade cloning and profiting from it, and officials refused to let foreign authorities into the country to arrest Russ and John. Relations had
been a stalemate for the past couple of years.

  Perhaps not anymore. Marslavia was letting us in, and after we (hopefully) had Abasa secure and out of the country, Marslavia agreed to talk about extraditing Russ and John on a long list of charges. The alternative, as Marslavian officials well knew, was a potential invasion and attack on the country by military forces much superior to theirs. Apparently, cloning was okay. Lying about how many clones you had—not okay.

  Philip stayed in Britain. He did not know what was going on, and Louise agreed it was for the best.

  The plane ride. Oh, the plane ride. We flew on the same aircraft as we had a few days before, and at first, Caroline kept a few seats’ distance between us. As the hours wore on, she relaxed. I moved to her and dared touch my hand to her shoulder.

  Her eyelids fluttered, and I remembered the feel of her grinding into me, the waves we rode together, the screams of ecstasy. I took a deep breath and rested my hand on Caroline’s knee. “Are we okay?”

  She could not quite meet my eyes. “It…oh, Alex. It was amazing. But it should not happen again.”

  “Why?”

  “You have such a bright future ahead of you. I’m not the person for you. I’m married. I have a boatload of baggage.”

  “And I don’t? My baggage is why I live with you!”

  “I drink too much.”

  “That’s fine with me.” I had noticed that Caroline left her alcohol behind. She had drank in the car on the way to the airport and then set it aside.

  “I’m gonna do this sober,” she had said.

  I nestled into her and rested my head on her chest. The touch of her so close and yet so far was unbearable. No more kisses? No more heavenly smells of the lime and coconut scent she wore now?

  “I need to save you from myself,” she muttered.

  “Let me make my own decisions.”

  “We’re not having a relationship. We can’t.”

  “We can be friends. That’s all we need to be. I won’t ask for more.”

  High-pitched laugh. “Friends with benefits, huh?”

  What that meant I was unsure, but it sounded good. “Yes. Precisely.”

  **

  We landed at nine p.m. Wosnia time. “Let’s find her!” Caroline declared.

  Oh, home. Home! I had been away from Wosnia only a few days, but my heart ached as I passed the brown church steeple. A government van took Caroline and me (both of us in disguise), two guards and a Marslavian government official to the cafe where Abasa said she hung out.

  “Abasa Mehmedovic,” said the government official. “Where is she?” He spoke in Russian.

  A conversation in heavy Russian ensued. I had lived in Marslavia all my life but in a walled-away part that ensured I never learned a word of any native languages.

  “He says that she is staying in a building up the street,” said the government official at last. We went there, and he told us to get a room at the hotel where Caroline had stayed before. I could tell she did not want to let the government man have Abasa alone. He could say he never found her, that she was made up, and meanwhile kill her and make sure no trouble happened.

  We got a room at the hotel, and one of the guards waited outside for Abasa and the government official. The wait seemed interminable. At long last, though, the government official was back—alongside the small figure of a woman.

  Caroline had not been kidding. She was a mess. Ribs, tattered clothes, grime that had settled under her skin for years. If I was not looking for her, I would never have noticed the resemblance. Even then, I thought she must be the wrong person. Yes, her height and frame fit, but that was it.

  “Abasa,” Caroline said with a smile, taking off her wig.

  Abasa’s eyes lit up. “Your Royal Highness!” She started crying. “Oh, Your Royal Highness. I knew you would come back for me. I just knew it!”

  She noticed me, and I removed my wig as well. I did not know if she would recognize me since the Marslavian government censored its news so heavily. But she did, her eyes widening.

  “Victoria,” she said in a breathy whisper. “Oh my. Is it you?”

  “It is I.” I walked toward her and took her to the sole mirror in the room, a tiny creature. “Look. What do you see?” Our reflections stared back, and the fact that the room had but a dim bulb did not help matters.

  “I see an exquisite creature and a rat of a woman.”

  “You shall shower and look again. For, Abasa, we are the same. We are sisters. We are identical. We are both part of the glorious woman called Alexandrina Victoria.”

  In her eyes as she processed the news, I saw many things. I saw bewilderment, of course. But I also saw strength. Perhaps it was a strength I lacked, for I wanted to soar to the stars, while Abasa was strong enough to guide a country through poverty, wars and hopelessness. Even the way she stood was different than how I stood. She was assertive from years of living on the streets. She could get things done. I knew, looking into her eyes, that I was gazing upon the countenance of the woman who would be queen of England after Louise.

  I curtsied. “Your Royal Highness,” I whispered.

  **

  The time is now. “Your Majesty,” I whisper as I curtsy to the same woman forty years later. Louise, aged ninety-six, died yesterday. Britain’s Prince Albert and Princess Victoria (Abasa had chosen to be called Victoria) are king and queen.

  The occasion is solemn as the nation mourns Queen Louise. She had earned tremendous respect by being honest about Abasa. She even told how her son Philip had come to meet Abasa in Marslavia. Louise’s deepest fear was the fall of the monarchy, and she knew if that if she kept quiet and these secrets came to light later, the monarchy would surely, surely fall. And fast.

  I look over to Caroline, and my wife grins. I was finally able to make an honest woman of her in 2030. She sent me to America to stay with her parents near Pullman, Washington, so I could study the stars at Washington State University, Pullman. She was with us holidays and for weeks in the summer. I did not pressure her, and we made love and enjoyed being “friends with benefits.”

  Then she got on her knee and with tears in her eyes, asked me to marry her. I said yes. Best decision I made. We settled down in Ellensburg, Washington, where I teach astronomy at Central Washington University and Caroline runs a specialty advertising firm. We shrugged off our royal titles long ago and enjoy living as “regular people.”

  I love my wife, and she loves me. We love our children, Margaret Florence “Flossie,” age twenty, and Abraham Todd, age eighteen. As far as we know, no more Victoria clones exist in the world. Russ Brendel and John Jameson were extradited to the United States in 2019 and sentenced to death. They were executed in 2030.

  How did Abasa Mehmedovic come to be? Russ and John refused to say. Theories continue to run rampant. Some say that Russ and John had multiple women pregnant with clones from the same DNA sources, and sickly babies were killed off. Other people theorize that Russ and John sent their clone backups to places around the world, and for whatever reason, Abasa stayed in Marslavia. Perhaps the sickly babies theory is true and someone smuggled Abasa out to save her life. My secret theory is that Nanny Flossie was responsible for the care of all of the Victoria clones. Rather than sentence them to certain death, she got them out somehow. Abasa was found. How many others are there? I will probably never know, as Nanny Flossie was never tracked down. As for Heather Rubberstone, the name must have been an alias.

  Last year, a woman came up to me after one of my classes. I knew her right away, and tears leapt to my eyes. “Mary!” I said. “Is it you, Mary Todd Lincoln?”

  “It’s Eliza now,” she said, laughing. “Eliza Wilkerson.”

  We embraced, and two men, grinning ear to ear, came into the room. John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln, now known as Robert Wilkerson and Lincoln Scott. Slowly and quietly but surely, we clones are finding one another again. We are thirty-four in number (thirty-five if you count Abasa). Someday, we hope to be fifty a
gain. What a reunion that shall be.

  For now, I, Alexandrina Victoria, am happy. I am alive. I have my wife, my children and my job.

  And my sister, my dear sister. Long live the king. Long live the queen!

  Credits

  Author’s Note

  Frogmore House continues to be uninhabited. The royal family still uses it for public and private occasions.

  Ride the Rainbow Books

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead or actual events is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced without the permission of the author. I, Alexandrina. © 2016. Q. Kelly

  Q. Kelly on the Internet

  http://qkellybooks.com

  facebook.com/qkellyauthor/

  Email Q. Kelly

  [email protected]

  Q. Kelly's Novels

  Reality Lesbian and Reality Lesbian 2

  Waiting

  All in the Family

  Third

  The Odd Couple

  Switch

  The Strange Bedfellows series

  Q. Kelly’s Novellas

  Woman Behind the Mask

  The Girl Prince and Her Princess

  Love’s Spell

  One Hour

  Q. Kelly’s Short-Story Collections

  The Old Woman and Other Lesbian Stories

  Cupid Pulls a Prank and Other Lesbian Tales

  The Green Pill, One Hour and Other Lesbian Stories

  Miss Lucy Parker and Other Short Stories

  Check out The Girl Prince and Her Princess

  If you enjoyed I, Alexandrina, check out the beginning of the fairy tale novella The Girl Prince and Her Princess. You can purchase the book in its entirety at retailers such as Amazon.

  Blurb: This fairy tale is set in the kingdoms of Athena and Qax. It’s a magical brew of a big ol’ juicy problem, generous dollops of secrets, castles, kings and queens, princesses and villains.