“Pretty sexy,” was my answer, instead of “fine.”

“What does that mean?” he asked. Another standard response to anything I might have said.

“I'm just lying here in the bathtub. We've been making love all afternoon.” There was a moment's pause, which made me smile. He had obviously left a space in the recording, which was clever of him.

“He's bionic, Steph. He's not real. He's entirely man-made, synthetic from head to toe, and he doesn't mean a thing he says. And whatever he does, it's strictly a mechanical performance.” From my experience, that made him fairly typical of his breed. Nothing unusual about that, or about what Peter was saying to me.

“We just did a triple flip.” Try producing a standard response to that. The conversation was slipping rapidly away from what Peter might have expected when he made the tape.

“He wasn't supposed to do that, Steph. He was just supposed to keep you entertained till I got back. That isn't what we programmed him for at this end. It sounds like things are getting out of control there.” He sounded worried and I grinned. The joke was on him now.

“I'd say things are very much ‘out of control’ at this end.”

“You're making me jealous, Steph. You sound as though you think he's real.” He didn't sound pleased about it. In fact, he sounded almost sad, which unnerved me.

Touching vastly impressive parts of him gently with my foot beneath the water in the tub, I nodded with a mischievous grin. “I believe he is real.”

“Well, he's not. We programmed him for that ridiculous little stunt, just for the hell of it, but I told him not to try it. He could hurt someone. Besides, I never expected him to do that with you.” This was not the standard answer I expected, and listening to Peter at the other end, I frowned.

“What did you just say?” I asked, feeling nervous suddenly, and staring at Paul in the tub with me, as he closed his eyes innocently, and looked as though he was drifting off to sleep. Maybe he was a ventriloquist, or, if nothing else, psychotic. A sociopath at the very least. But how could this be? This didn't seem like a recording I was talking to, it sounded much too real and much too worried.

“I said, he wasn't supposed to do any of that with you. I thought he'd just hang around with you and the kids, and amuse you. Besides, I told him not to try the double flip, or the triple, with you, or anyone, on this trip. The damn fool even talked about wanting to try a quadruple, in the tryouts. Steph, if he even looks like he's going to do that, get out of bed immediately or he'll hurt you. But it doesn't make me happy to know he's fully operative. He was only supposed to be partially operative with you.”

There had been nothing “partial” about what we'd been doing, and I felt suddenly immensely guilty. What's more, it really did sound like Peter on the phone and not a recording after all.

“Peter? Is that you?” And then, by sheer reflex, I prodded Paul nervously with my foot, and he woke up with a start and started talking to me at the same time. This was no trick. Unless he was feeding me magic mushrooms, and I had hallucinated the entire afternoon.

“Of course it's me,” he said, sounding a little tense. “Look, Steph, I'm glad you're happy. I wanted you to have fun with him. But not quite as much fun as I think you're having. He's not real at least. Just think of him as a giant toy, a kind of talking blow-up doll to keep you amused while I'm out of town.” He was trying to be sensible and fair about it. After all, he had unleashed Paul on me.

“Peter,” I was starting to feel sick again, and my head was beginning to reel. “I don't understand this. I don't know what happened … I thought it was a joke … that he was you.”

“He is. They cloned me. Actually he's a hybrid of sorts, a clone tempered by bionics. It's something very new I wanted to share with you. He's nearly perfect, except for a few minor kinks. Look, just enjoy him. Take him to parties. Let him play with the kids.” Was he kidding? Was it possible? How could he do this to me? Was he insane? Worse yet, was I? If not yet, I knew I would be soon. Paul was a clone “tempered by bionics”? Maybe these were all dreams as the result of a major head injury from the double flip. It was beginning to seem that way to me.

“What about me? How could you do this to me? I don't love him, I love you.”

“I love you too. And you're not supposed to love him. He's just supposed to keep you company, while I'm away. But not quite as much company as he seems to be keeping.

“Where are you going to have him sleep now?” With all I'd said to him, it was obvious where he'd been sleeping up till then.

“In the guest room. He slept there last night, after …” I couldn't finish the sentence, having already described our sexual exploits, thinking that the voice on the phone wasn't real. I had been lured, tricked, into an obscene situation, and all I wanted now was to disappear into oblivion forever.

“Good. Keep him in the guest room. And stay away from that goddam double flip.” Christ, now he was jealous. With a body like his, and Paul's, what did he expect? Mother Teresa couldn't have resisted him, and as I listened to Peter, Paul reached out and touched me, and I found myself longing to try the forbidden quadruple flip. “I'll be home in two weeks.” Suddenly, it sounded just a little bit too soon. What on earth had I gotten myself into, and who were these people? Clones … bionics … fully operative … double flips? I was trapped in a high-tech nightmare.

“I'll be here, sweetheart,” I said weakly. And then what? Would Paul disappear? “How's work?” It was the only thing I could think of to say, other than to ask about the weather in California.

“Fine. Where is he now, by the way?” He still sounded a little worried, but it was his own damn fault. Klone indeed.

“He's here,” I said vaguely, as Paul lathered soap suds down my back, and erotically across my chest.

“Where are the kids?”

“At school. They'll be home soon.” Unfortunately. There was barely time to try for another triple flip. I didn't care what Peter said. I couldn't give up Paul now, even if he was bionic.

“I'll call you later,” he promised. “I love you, Steph.”

“I love you too,” and what's more, I meant it. The Klone was fun, but I had only let myself give way to him because I thought he was Peter … in fact, I had been so sure. And now I had to face what I was feeling, and what I had done with him, bionic or not. Peter said he was a toy … but what a toy he was! Never in my life had I had a toy like him.

“How was he?” Paul asked when I hung up. I was staring at him in confusion, as he lay looking at me in the tub.

“He's fine,” I said vaguely, thinking of everything he had said, with no idea how to make peace with myself, or the situation I was in. “He said to say hello.” In fact, he hadn't, but what else could I say? I was in way over my head, and I knew it.

“He hates that double flip. I think it just bugs him because he can't do it He's always afraid I'm going to tear some wires, or blow out my fuses, especially on the triple flip.”

“I think you blew out mine.” I smiled, still having difficulty believing it was all true. But there was no hiding from it now. I knew it was, the conversation with Peter had convinced me, especially the fact that he was jealous. “He said you weren't supposed to be fully operative,” I said, chiding him gently, sounding like I was scolding Sam about his homework, or the dog.

“I forgot,” Paul said, smiling broadly. “Champagne does that to me.” We knew what it had done to me, certainly. And he appeared to be entirely without remorse about it. “We'd better get dressed before the kids come home from school,” he said responsibly, as though to atone for the sins we'd committed. “They're really nice kids.”

“Peter likes them too,” I said wanly, staring at him again. He was the perfect likeness, and such an exquisite imitation that no one would ever have suspected he wasn't real. “What's it like?” I asked, unable to resist the question, but like Peter, he was bright, and quick.

“Being a Klone? I like it. It gives me a lot of freedom. He usually lets me do what I want. I get a lot of off-time when he's around, and a lot of fun when he's gone.” Not to mention a lot of sex whenever he wanted.

“Have you done … uh … this for him before? I mean like this?” I wondered how many of Peter's girlfriends he had slept with, how many afternoons like this there had been, when he'd been “fully operative” instead of “partial.”

“No,” he said, facing me squarely, looking hurt. “I haven't. This is the first time I've visited a woman. But they've done a lot of rewiring and corrections on me lately. He's only used me in business till now, and on a few friends. Just like you, they thought it was all a big joke. They love me at his office, but he gets nervous when I go in. I made a couple of pretty sketchy deals for him last year. But this is the first time he's ever trusted me with anything as important as this.”

There were tears in his eyes as he said it, and in mine too. How had this happened to me? God only knew. It had been such a normal, innocent romance until Paul walked through my front door. I didn't know what to do. Paul had gotten under my skin in a terrifying way in a few brief hours, but it was Peter I was in love with. Of that I was still sure.

“This is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me, Paul,” a vast understatement at best. “I don't know what to think, or what to do.” I couldn't stop myself. I started crying and he held me in his arms and gently stroked my hair. There was something so endearing about him, even if he was bionic.

“It's okay, Steph … it's new to me too. We'll work it out together … it'll be all right, I promise … he travels a lot.” What he said turned my tears into sobs. What was I going to do? It was like being involved with two men, one I knew and loved, or thought I did, the other totally outrageous, unbelievably sexy … but then Peter was too. It had been a cruel trick to play on me, and made Roger seem like a schoolboy. All this high-tech stuff was just too much to deal with, or even imagine. How was it possible? I was in love with a twisted genius, and sleeping with a bionic clone. Who would have believed me if I'd told anyone? Like those stories of ordinary people kidnapped by UFO's. I had a new respect for them, as I looked at Paul.