Banned Clones
Josh Dugan

It was so amazing to see Dale cloned. He was a brilliant student and wanted to 
be a psychiatrist. He would be the type that everyone would want to sleep with 
- a wonderful smile, mobile features and a beautiful aquiline face with full, 
sincere lips. The lips would form beautiful vowels as he spoke -- an "o" 
brought out their fullness and highlighted the appealing hollows of his 
cheeks. An "s" displayed perfect white teeth, living in enviable intimacy with 
Dale's beautifu lips. There was pain and caring in the eyes, and the face was 
the face of a beautiful friend, a blonde angel.
Few knew or would ever know that the Presidential ban on cloning was both too 
little and too late.
It had happened shortly before the ban, under strictest secrecy. Dale had been 
the perfect volunteer candidate because of his advanced studies in psychiatry, 
his soundness of mind and body and the fact that he was accustomed to secrecy 
as a matter of his chosen profession.
When the cloning project had to be abandoned, there was little else to do than 
to give Dale back his clone. Records were forged, and for all the world knew, 
there were a couple handsome twins at large.
Dale took it in his customary stride, and with a secret joy: it would be an 
unparalleled moment, a chance to know himself as no one ever had or ever 
would.
It was quite a beautiful sight to see the two of him jogging together in the 
morning, playing tennis together or, with sweating bodies, pounding out a game 
of raquetball in the gym. 
Both of him sported the same handsome, heavily muscled god's body, with the 
same easy-going nature dwelling within.
In speedos he was awesome, and as his flushed, dripping wet bodies raised 
themselves out of the pool, there was beauty in the extended hand of one 
helping the other up from the waters.
He laughed easily as he snapped his towel at his clone's wonderful 
hind-muscles, and the two of them laughed and jostled each other's handsome 
bodies as they headed for the showers.
"I've found the perfect workout partner," Dale smiled, his arm around the 
other Dale's neck, pulling it towards him affectionately. And work out they 
did, spotting for each other and checking each other's bodily development with 
unusually expert eye.
The University's records had been professionally altered, and both pursued 
studies with Dale's relentless enthusiasm.
I realized they were falling in love when one night during a study session in 
their apartment they shared the same beer while poring over the same set of 
notes, arm in arm in the leather sofa, all four legs crossed comfortably on 
the ottoman. I realized Dale wasn't fully aware that he was in love with 
himself. While both of him looked extremely relaxed and comfortable with the 
broad-shouldered bodies draped together on the sofa, the eyes kept to the 
books. Only the bodies seemed aware of each other - hands rested together, 
legs and feet found comfotable nestling spots among each other. 
While both necks crained towards the same paragraph or illustration and both 
sets of lips moved as the eyes followed the same caption, the minds tracked 
the subject matter. The bodies, comfortably relaxed together, seemed to wait 
achingly for the moment that the minds would meet each other.
It was somewhat odd as the days passed, as both Dales worked and played 
together. There was natural interplay, much like friends or even siblings. And 
there were other signs that something deeper was developing. I didn't know how 
to take it sometimes, although I felt arousal at seeing it happen. Seeing Dale 
in speedos being given a horseback ride to the showers on his clone's bare 
back. Or was it the other way around? There was more than ordinary joy as his 
strong, handsome hands held the long legs wrapped around him, with the other 
Dale's arms wrapped around his shoulders.
They did become highly developed specimens as they ran together, lifted 
weights together, and swam together.
They would rest each other's glorious bodies together in the pool's shallow 
end after endless hours of swimming together like sleek mermen. And on one 
occasion, I came into the steam room to find the two of them nakedly alsleep 
in the gentle embrace of  their sweat-glistened bodies.
And they would talk far into the night, sharing foot massages and wine.
The talking was where I saw them truly taking on one another, where their eyes 
truly began to meet. They would discuss their studies at length, arguing and 
comparing thoughts, sparring and parrying with one another
In addition to the advantage they shared with their identical bodies, they 
shared memories. "Remember the bike I got for my fifth birthday?" Dale asked 
his clone as they rested together arm in arm after a swim and a workout, the 
books aside for the moment. "I sure do," he answered, and I remember almost 
running into the garage wall before I learned to use the brakes!" The two of 
them laughed with the discovery of the shared memory. Many more followed in 
the weeks ahead as they re-lived their common past.
It was during a discussion of bonding and commitment before a chapter test 
that Dale and Dale finally mated. Perhaps there had been a bit more wine than 
usual, and a bit less clothing on that warm evening.
"No, you don't understand," Dale was saying, holding his Dale by the shoulders 
and looking him in the eye. "You have to love yourself before you can love 
another. Or it's not love." "True," Dale answered, noticing Dale's eyes on his 
lips as he said it. "So if I'm you, you would love yourself if you love me. 
'Sall the same thing," he smiled, mussing the other's hair with his long 
fingers.
"Oh, I'm confused," Dale said, resting his head on the other's broad shoulder. 
"How do I know if I love you because I love myself first?" "I know I love 
you," the other Dale said as he held Dale gently against him, his mind slowly 
realizing what their bodies had known early on. "I know because I could easily 
kiss you." "I could kiss you, too," Dale answered, lifting his head up from 
the shoulder and looking his beautiful clone in the eye. "I want to kiss you. 
But am I kissing me or you?"
Dale's clone manfully took Dale's beautiful face into his strong, gentle 
hands. There were tears in his eyes as they searched his face. His breath was 
sweet and the lips, sweet even in their sadness, tried to smile. 
"Both," he said.
The lips met, wonderfully, sweetly. "I love you, Dale," he said. "Oh, I love 
you, too, my other self, my Dale. Oh my god." They became lost in their kisses 
and strong, wonderful embraces. The wonderful, muscular bodies rejoiced as the 
minds joyfully met. Come spouted powerfully forth on its own, from both of the 
beautiful male bodies, as they and the minds found their happiness in each 
other. There were more tears, more kisses, and more gentle, long embraces, and 
a beautiful night asleep together, in heavenly nakedness.
There would be other, more artful love making as Dale truly accepted and loved 
himself in the person of his clone. But this was the first.