Three bodies. Two physical copies of myself, but copies still controlled by me. I move them as an octopus moves each of its limbs, aware of every sensation, in command of every desire. The sensation of being three places at once, of tasting her lips, her neck, and her hips, at once. I considered my experiment a great success, even if it only lasted one weekend.
One dizzying weekend. My wife never left my sides. The way my three bodies coordinated and worked together, instead of competing—Clara said she’d never felt anything like it. The way I massaged her shoulders, even as I felt my way along her bare thighs, even as I unclasped the front of her bra. The way I teased my cock between her legs, side to side without entering, in the exact same rhythm as she teased my cock with her tongue. The way I timed kisses on impossibly distant parts of her body, even as she shook and moaned and pressed herself against my mouth; she reached down to hold my head between her legs and reached up to pull me in for a kiss. She moaned into my mouth and at the same time I tasted her cum, like warm jasmine. And at the same moment I stood back and watched her arching back, her right leg bent midair, her breasts pressed between her arms, and I touched myself, I touched myself, I touched myself.
One unstoppable weekend. On Saturday I made sandwiches. Cucumbers and tomatoes. As I spread the mayonnaise, Clara gave me a hug from behind.
“Take off this shirt,” she said. “I like the way your arms look in this shirt. I don’t want it stained.”
I pulled it over my head and kept cutting vegetables as she ran her fingertips along my back. She moved her hands around to my stomach and was reaching for my belt buckle when I stopped her. I came up behind Clara with my second body and grabbed her wrists, gently pinning them behind her back, against the fabric of her lemon sundress. She glanced back over her shoulder as I pressed her against my bare back with my bare chest.
“Harry!” she beamed. She wriggled her ass against me. “The pants, too, please.”
I undid the buckle, lifted the short hem of her dress, and fucked her from behind as she nibbled on my shoulder blades.
An unstoppable weekend, but with occasional moments of rest. A Saturday night movie at home. A drama, nothing sexual. Clara curled into the crook of my arm and fell asleep after just ten minutes.
“That was good,” she mumbled after I nudged her awake during the end credits. Still sleepy, she stretched and sighed and fell back against my arm.
“Harry, do you ever wish you could just magically be in your pajamas and in bed?” she asked. “Without having to do a thing.”
I lifted her from the couch. She smiled without opening her eyes. In the bedroom, I laid her back on the bed and, with all six of my hands, unbuttoned her crop top and shorts. She stirred but didn’t wake. With all six of my hands, I pulled the clothes away from her body. With all six hands, I carefully dressed her in one of my large t-shirts. I pulled the fabric across her nipples, across her stomach, and let it drape against her white cotton panties.
But all this effort was for naught. The sensation of so many hands—I watched her thighs squirm slightly, I watched her lift the shirt toward her navel, and I saw a faint spot of wetness through her underwear.
I undressed for bed, but it was several hours before we slept.
On Sunday, Clara insisted on going to church. She wore her most modest dress, the hem a few inches below the knee and the neckline nearly brushing her chin. It looked itchy, frankly. When she returned, she asked for help undressing. Pulling the zipper down along her back revealed a black bra and black thong. We ordered takeout—spicy thai—and I waited for the delivery man in the living room as Clara gave me two handjobs in the shower.
Just one lovely weekend, because on Monday I found my duplicate bodies unresponsive in their hibernation baths. Their members shot forth from the water, an enormous grin frozen on their faces, but they were unresponsive all the same. My experiment: cut short by my wife’s insatiable appetite.
“*My* appetite,” Clara said over breakfast. She downed a glass of water and poured herself some juice. “You’ve dehydrated me.”
“I’m not blaming you,” I said. “I just think it was too much, too soon.”
Clara shrugged, cutting into a grapefruit.
“If you get a bicycle for Christmas, you ride it all day,” she said. “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do to, you know, stimulate them? Shock them back into coherence?”
“What could be more shocking than what you did with the tablecloth last night?”
Clara laughed, her eyes widened. “Where did that come from? I couldn’t believe it either!”
She held her glass out to me and I filled it with more water.
“Well,” she said. “Back to the drawing board, I guess.”
“I guess,” I said.
Clara took a bite of grapefruit and stretched her neck. “I’m so stiff, too.” She pushed her robe to one side a bit and massaged her collarbone. I watched as she rubbed the clavicle on one side of her neck, then slid her fingers across to the other side. She squeezed one shoulder, then the other. She lifted one leg, then crossed it over the other. She brushed her hair behind one ear, then the other.
“Do we have a second grapefruit?” I asked.
“Just the one,” Clara said. She smiled apologetically and took another bite. She looked away, but I watched her lick the juice from each of her full lips, one after the other.
“Although, it could be a chromosome issue,” I said to myself.
“What could?”
“It’s just an idea. But it’s possible, possible, that the Y chromosome isn’t stable enough. That it interferes with the artificial components or the transistor or who knows.”
“Your doubles are doomed to a single weekend because they’re men?”
“Impossible to say.” I took a long sip of coffee and watched Clara wrap her lips around her spoon, watched her top lip lie across the waiting bottom. “We’ll have to rule it out.”