He laughed at it; laughed, laughed as if he’d never been to a doxy room before, never seen anything like that.
He undresses himself, with an impatient eagerness that gives me no time to do more than react—to his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, his golden skin.
Then he undresses me, and he takes his time: he takes his time to explore my skin, my heavy breasts, my curvaceous legs. He tastes, touches all of it, before bringing me down to the bed with him, before laying between my legs, before shouting with joy above me.
“What’s your name?” I asked him, as he pulled his underwear and pants back on and fastened the buttons of his retro shirt.
I’d never asked them that. One doesn’t. But this time had been different, different in a way I couldn’t even say.
He looked at me, his eyes veiled and blue and mysterious, like the midnight sky over the ancient sea. “John,” he says.
I should have known. They all were John.
After the shift, when I slid into my mercifully solitary bed in the dorm, I dreamed of John. John, with his broad shoulders, his golden brown hair, his blue eyes.
Why would a man like that go to a doxy?
For the dream, I supposed, the dream that I was her, the illusion of making love to a twentieth century sex goddess.
But he’d never asked. He’d never asked about them.
The next night was cooler, the breeze from the sea heavier, nearer a gale.
Fewer cars glided by.
The other Marilyns and I—all twenty of us who worked this street—walked back and forth smiling, smiling, but not a car stopped for the first two hours.
I was jealous of the Marilyn who stood on the little square grate on the pavement, the warm air blowing from the grate blowing up her skirt while she pretended to try to hold it down and laughed. At least my legs would have been warm.
But that was not my beat, so I walked back and forth, wiggle, wiggle, click, click.
“Hello?” He stood a few steps away from me, as if he’d followed me from behind, for a while.
“Oh. Hi there,” I said, and smiled. “John, isn’t it?”
He nodded, and grinned, really big, and handed me the gem. There were sixty cred units in there, and I could have kissed him, and cried with relief, because he was taking me off the streets for the night.
He undresses me slowly; he undresses teasingly.
Like the children in those vids at the crèche, we explore each other’s body like we’re unwrapping Christmas gifts, savoring the suspense as much as the discovery of what’s really inside.
And then we make love, slowly, slowly. We make love. Not screw and grunt, not pump and jerk. Love. Slow. In every permutation.
Afterwards we lay together, in each other’s arms.
“I was hoping you’d get me again,” I said, as I lean on his broad, sweat-slick shoulder, and smell the scent of worn out male, the scent of love making thick in the air.
He looked up at me, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
“Me and not one of the other Marilyns,” I said, nuzzling his neck, at the edge where the soft skin became rough with closely shaven beard.
He blinked. “I was looking for you.”
For me. I’d dreamed of that, but it was nonsense. “You couldn’t have been,” I said. “We’re all alike. All the Marilyns.”
He grinned. “No, you’re not. I know the way you walk, your expressions. That’s learned. Not what you get from being someone’s clone.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. No one who hadn’t worked with clones knew we were different from each other at all. Or different from the originals. “You know a lot about clones. What are you? A genetic engineer at one of the fancy labs around here?”
He laughed. He laughed a long time, and then had trouble recovering his breath. When he did, he said, “No. No. I’m just visiting town. I’m not from around here.”
Afterwards, I called myself several kinds of idiot. What genetic engineer would use a disposable credit gem with only what he must pay for a doxy service? Engineers were rolling in credits, had expense accounts on company credigems.
He didn’t come back the next night, nor the next. It was just the regulars, the other Johns, who emerged from those egg-like multicolored cars, and bumped and ground by the hour.
Then one night, two months after, a dusty, travel-stained car stopped, near me, and as I turned, swaying my hips and smiling, he emerged.
“John” I said.
He smiled. “You remember me.”
He had enough for the night.
We make love like castaways on an alien shore, who grasp each other in desperation. We cling and writhe in the sweaty bed, the sanitation band broken, the sheets wrinkled and thrown onto the floor in haphazard joy.
“Where did you go?” I asked him, laying spent beside his golden, sweaty body. “Where did you go?”
He laughed, a laughter that betrayed joy, not amusement. “Missed me, babe, did you?”
I nodded.
“I went…. To other places. I’m…. I lecture… In schools,” he said.
I thought that explained the retro suit, and I didn’t say anything.
Later in the night, though, he asked me how old I was.
“Twelve,” I said. “Seven years out of the crèche, two years to go.”
He looked grave, serious. “How do they do it?” he asked. “How do they do it, when they choose to end you?”
“When senescence sets in, they give us a lethal injection,” I said. “It saves us the pain of aging and the troubles of old age.” Straight out of the book from the crèche.
“Bullshit,” he said. “Bullshit. It saves them the trouble of feeding you, of looking after you in your old age. You make them all the money they want, and then they just put you down, when your tissues start degenerating, as the tissues of clones will.”
I looked at him, surprised. Humans don’t usually care that much.
He took a deep breath. He looked like a drowning man. “I am fourteen,” he said. “They put us to death by shooting us. By recreating his assassination. Big to do in Dallas. Every year.”
His features fall into place with an almost physical sound, an almost physical pain. That’s who he is, I think, Jack.
I blinked at him.
“Just another clone, you’re right,” he said. “Just another clone.”
“But….” I said. “The credigems, the car….”
He grins. “I take them. I figured out how to glitch the system long ago. We sleep in these temporary buildings, while we’re touring, and I have figured out how to tamper with the alarm.
How to tamper with the computer, too, so that the sensors on my bed tell them I’m still there.”
“But….” I said. What company would put up with it? They paid big money for the tissues of the people they cloned. Probably a lot bigger money for his than for mine. They would have to get their money’s worth, right?
He shrugged. “I’ve heard them talk once. They say its in the baseline personality that I’ll break the rules. So they have to put up with it.” His eyes filled with tears, as he turned to me—his eyes like the sea rising. “Do you still want me? Do you still want me now that you know what I am?”
I shrugged. “You’re nothing I’m not.” I buried my face in his hair and nibbled at his ear.