Counting Heads

3.7

When Mary arrived home, she didn’t even bother to change her clothes but jumped enthusiastically into Concierge’s recommended lessons on the revivification sciences: neurology, genetics, micromechanics, embryology, biochemistry, and histology. She plowed through units on basal nuclei, fast axoplasmic transport, and Flinn-Long glial grafting. Needless to say, the material was far too advanced for her, and she had no luck finding anything more elementary on the WAD. So she swallowed two Smarts and slogged on, hoping for the best.

When Fred came in, he sat next to her on the couch and watched part of a colorful tour of the sarcoplasmic reticulum, an organelle essential to coma management. After a few minutes, he said, “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t either.” Mary laughed.

“I mean, what does this have to do with your companion job?” He was being disingenuous. He knew exactly what this had to do with her work.

“My sisters and I are trying to broaden our horizons,” Mary said by way of explanation.

“By studying jenny work?”

Mary shrugged. When she looked at him, she did a double take. “You’re up to something, Fred,” she said. “You have it written all over your face. What have you done?”

Fred leaned over to undo his shoes, his big brown russ shoes, and hand them off to the waiting slipper puppy. “I suppose I did do something,” he said.

“Are you free to tell me about it?”

“It’s not really work-related, so I guess I am.” It would be a relief, in fact, to tell her. “Lately, things have got me wondering about clone fatigue.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“I know, but it got me thinking about how we russes are afraid to try out new things and to open up to each other.” He told her about brown shoes and searching the HUL for secret files and about starting the Book of Russ. He told her about launching a provocative discussion to challenge his brothers to contribute their personal stories without, however, revealing to her the sexual content of his challenge.

When he was finished, Mary pondered his news for a while, sifting the nuances, and then, identifying the real issue, as usual, she said, “What kinds of things do you want to try, Fred?”

Fred leaned over to put on his slippers, hiding his face. “Nothing in particular. Just new things in general.”

“Because you know you’re free to try out new things. No one’s stopping you.”

Fred opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Because you’re not my prisoner here,” she went on.

“Really?” he said, plunging blindly ahead. “You’re not just saying that?”

She glowed with sincerity. “If you had your heart set on—you know—something, it would be wrong of me to try to hold you back.”

“You’re too good to me.”

“I’m just trying to be realistic, Fred.”

Fred nodded his head. “Because there was something,” he confessed. “Something—well—not proper.”

Mary paused a moment to read him. She seemed a little afraid, but she said, “Tell me about it.”

“I—can’t.”

“Yes, Fred, you can. You can tell me anything. You know that.”

He looked away from her again. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “if you’re sure you don’t mind, there’s this one thing I’ve always wanted to try.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve always wondered—”

“Go on.”

“What it would be like to do this.” With a smooth motion, he stood up, leaned over, picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder.

“Fred!” she cried.

“I don’t know if this is clone fatigue or not,” he said and carried her toward the bedroom, her chin jouncing against his back. She pounded him with her fists and bit him.

“Ouch! Easy there,” he said and slapped her ass. But they passed the bedroom door without going in.

“Where are you taking me, Fred?”

“To try something out.” The apartment passed by upside down. Mary saw the tiled floor of their small foyer. “Door,” Fred declared, “unlock yourself.”

The bolt of the front door disengaged.

“No, door!” Mary shrieked. “Lock yourself!”

The bolt engaged.

“That fountain on 450,” he said. “The one with the kissing centaurs—door! Unbolt I say!”

The bolt disengaged.

“Door, lock and double lock!”

The bolt shot back and forth. They laughed to think what someone in the hall must think. He turned her right side up and, not letting her feet touch the floor, pulled the rip tab under her collar and tore her clothes open down the front. Used his teeth to tear her panties.

They liked to watch each other when they came. That evening, he saw in her eyes a circus of clowns and jugglers, hoops and tigers, a heavenly chorus rising in the bleachers. To my brothers cloned: Those eyes. Those eyes.

THEY LAY IN bed later and ate dinner. Watched a dumb vid. When he fell asleep, she got up and threw on a robe. She stood over the bed and watched him for a while. This Book of Russ thing was potentially very serious.

She went to the living room and closed the bedroom door, turned on the flatscreen and did a lesson on the physiology of the mesencephalon.