Fantastic Metropolis

Drew frowned, wondered if perhaps he had left too much intelligence in the female clone after all. He couldn’t have her crawling all over his apartment, learning to walk, perhaps. Getting into things. Maybe he could sedate her, but anyway, Sol would be picking her up in a little over a week, so it wouldn’t be a problem long.

Her rear was to him, bare, the dark cleft inviting, her drying hair spread across her back. Jesus God, what was he waiting for? He knew it was inevitable. He couldn’t be embarrassed about his desire, could he? After all, it would be no more than his usual masturbation, would it?

Drew set aside her clothes, moved across the room, knelt down behind the clone. He began to rub her back; so smooth. He cooed to her, soothing baby-talk, as if to a kitten. She looked around at him, perhaps at the sound of his zipper. He pressed against her, and something like a drugged, foggy wariness—not quite alarm—came into her eyes, but he was slow, easy, did not want to harm her, had no intention of raping her. If she found it pleasurable, too, he would be ecstatic. It would prove him all the more successful.

He could not determine how she felt about it. She did not resist as he pressed her into the sofa cushion, wrapping his arms around her, with her bottom spread against his belly. Their pallid skin tones matched precisely, and though she was so different from him, he saw something on her face that unnerved him, interfered in his pleasure so that he had to look at her back instead. Her head lay on the sofa, on its side, her eyes staring without apparent emotion. And on her temple was a small mole, just a dot, really, exactly like the one on his own temple. Something so tiny, so unimportant, that all of his clones must have had it and yet it had never consciously called attention to itself before. But now…now…it seemed to glare, like another eye, staring back at him.

 

HE KEPT HER in bed with him in the nights that followed, as much to be aware of her movements as to enjoy her flesh. He didn’t leave the apartment much, afraid that she’d get into his equipment like a curious toddler, but that was okay, too. Sol called. Drew told him that the clone had come out well, and that was all he said. He did not tell Sol that yesterday he had dressed the thing and found a perverse delight in taking her out for a hot dog sold by an automatonic street vendor.

He did not tell Sol that last night, he had awakened in the dark to feel the clone’s face nuzzled in his neck as she slept, her arm draped over his chest.

As much as he enjoyed the sensation, he had pushed the thing off him gently.

Tonight, he would sleep on the couch. She could have the bed. After all, she was only to be a guest for a few nights longer.

But later that evening, he called Sol back.

“This client, Sol…what’s he have in mind for this clone? Is it for a party?”

“I don’t think so; just a wealthy couple buying some artwork for themselves.”

They had requested a female—that had been their idea. At first, they had wanted a clone of a woman they knew, but Sol had informed them that Drew only did clones of himself. But Drew had been inspired, rose to the occasion. The work of art they sought would be all the more special, valuable, for having been made a woman in this manner.

He pressed Sol. “Don’t you know anything about these people? Are they going to exhibit her in a showcase? Bring her out at parties? Take her to bed —what?”

“Drew-man, I don’t know. That’s not unlikely. Even some of your most grotesque pieces have been used for that. Why, isn’t she capable? Drew? Is there a problem with that?”

Drew glanced over his shoulder at the clone as she knelt on the floor staring at a movie on his old 2-D VT. “They aren’t going to…hunt her or anything, are they?” he asked. “Tie her up…burn her with cigarettes? Strangle her while they rape her? That kind of thing? Can you find out?”

“Look, I can’t do that. What’s the matter?”

“Can they wait a few weeks? For another clone? This one…I’ve become too attached to. It’s my finest work of art. I can come up with another one, just as nice.” Just a little more like a starfish, though, he thought.

“Look,” said Sol, “make another clone for yourself, then, but we have a deal, and I have a deal with them, and it’s too late. Sorry. Don’t make me disappoint them, Drew—they’re looking forward to this. And you need their money a lot more than I do, remember.”