Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

It was indeed the usual room. It was so usual Michael could not be sure if it really was the same room or not.

His stomach felt feathery, as if he had missed breakfast. He was, he realized, a little bit afraid of what he was going to do next. He started unbuttoning his shirt, knowing it was a delaying tactic. Every episode was a delaying tactic. He should just forget all of it, go to Alaska Street to get his rocks off and hope the whole thing would go away.

But then he would never know what this thing had come for.

Look, how can it hurt you? How can it hurt you, that is, any more than you have hurt yourself? Just do it and then you'll know, and that will help you decide to forget it, write it off. Just do it.

Michael called up a copy of himself.

The air wavered, parting to admit the newcomer. He was tall and stocky at the same time. You only noticed on the second glance that he was not fat, but really quite muscular: the hair on the arms disguised the definition.

Immediately, Michael felt sympathy for him. There was an air of caged and baffled decency about him, a slight scowl, a hopeful smile. In fact, he was not at all bad-looking, what Michael called a black Celt: slightly sallow skin, a heavy beard and black eyes.

Michael fancied himself. It's a well-known syndrome, and it had afflicted Michael far worse than most: daughters meeting their long-lost fathers for the first time; sisters and brothers separated at birth meeting on a course. There are two great triggers for sexual desire: extreme but complementary genetic difference, or extreme genetic similarity. You either find someone completely different to complete the genetic puzzle, or someone who is kindred.

So here he was, dragged back to the seat of his neuroses: himself.

'Oh,' said Michael and Michael together.

Then they both chuckled shyly and looked down at their shoes in unison.

'Um,' they said in unison, embarrassed. They looked up at each other and two pairs of black eyes sunk into each other.

'Oops,' they said, understanding each other perfectly. They wanted to fuck themselves.

With that unspoken agreement, they both began to undress. Love finds faults endearing. For the first time ever, Michael saw that he only combed his rich black unruly hair in front. The back of his head was practically in dreadlocks. The back of one trouser leg was tucked into the top of his socks. He looked back around and it was true of him, too. Oh well, he was a bachelor.

The Angel turned back to face him, and viewed as a stranger, he stirred Michael's heart with forgiveness for what it means to be human. Here was a man of 38 winters, crepe paper around the corner of his eyes, and it was not until you held him that you realized all that flesh was solid. Somebody should tell him about his choice of knickers. And socks. The white Y-fronts were slipped to one side, and there was a penis that was in no way as tiny as Michael thought: it had a nice round head that was beginning to swell and weep.

'What…' they both began, and broke off, with a chuckle and a shrug. They were going to ask: what now? They didn't need to.

A lover who really understands you? Who really knows what you are thinking?

Michael had not felt such a surge of desire since he was sixteen years old: heedless and irresistible. With no discussion, they were pulled towards each other, to embrace, in the French sense of the term: to kiss.

Suddenly his copy jerked his head aside, lips pressed shut. He was frightened of AIDS. It was insulting, disappointing and childish.

The original Michael said, 'We can hardly give each other something we don't already have.'

And immediately there was a sense of parting, very slight like a tangerine being peeled. They were no longer exactly one. Their histories were now very slightly different.

That's true,' said the copy, trying to look amused. He was stiff and awkward, and gave Michael a peck on the lips. Did Michael feel a slight echo somewhere, like a double image? Did he not very slightly feel his own lips peck someone else's, while they themselves were being kissed?

'Sorry,' the copy said and gave Michael a little cajoling shake.

'Old habits die hard.' He planted another chaste kiss on Michael's cheek. Michael felt a falling away. He let his own penis drop, and looked down and saw his copy, thrashing uselessly away at himself.

That was always the pattern. He'd start out well, with a promising swelling, gallons of lubricant, and then the sudden irretrievable collapse.

'We're not going to be much use to each other are we?' the original Michael said.

'We could just cuddle,' said his copy, hopefully. Michael had done enough cuddling. He looked at his own body and asked it: why? It's a beautiful body, everything else about it works.

'Shall we try again?' Michael asked himself.

'OK,' chuckled the copy, weakly. It was lie, Michael knew. He was ashamed and now simply wanted to escape. This Michael was an amazingly disheartening sexual partner. But Michael was determined to persevere, for both their sakes.

It is a very strange thing to kiss yourself. There is no change of taste, and you know exactly what the tongue will do, how it will respond. I'd never realized, thought Michael, how useful my lips are. I hated my fat lips. But they're great for kissing.

If only this Angel would move them.

Michael leaned back and looked at himself. He was surprised at how angry he felt. He had been moved, roused, and then let down. It felt like rejection, it felt personal. He made a soft fist and gave his partner a gentle, chiding thump. There was a distant disturbance in his own shoulder, as if someone had thrown a pebble into a pool some distance away.

'Now you know how other people feel,' said his copy, something dark and steely creeping into his own eyes.

'Oh, Jesus, let's sit down,' said Michael. They sat next to each other on the bed. His partner looked defeated, mournful. Michael put an arm around his shoulder to comfort him, and they lay side by side, comrades rather than lovers.

Michael changed the subject. 'You feel anything? From me?'

'A kind of a buzz.'

'It wouldn't hurt you, would it?'

The copy scowled. 'I don't think I would know what it was.'

'I just wanted to know if I could hurt people.'

The Angel sighed. 'It would give them a turn if they showed up at your flat and met themselves by mistake.'

'I'll remember that.'

They turned and looked into each other's faces, like brothers, like friends. They both had the same dark eyes, and his copy's eyes were black and sad. Do I always look this mournful having sex? Isn't sex supposed to be fun?

The Angel asked, 'Do you have any idea how we got this way?'

The focus of Michael's vision seemed to shift and he saw something in the face, and jumped up, and scuttled away. 'Jesus Christ, you look just like Dad!'

Michael turned back around, and the bed was empty. Even the baggy Y-fronts had gone.

Can Angels do work?

Back at work, Ebru asked Michael, 'Where do you go in the afternoons?'

Her smile was rueful, teasing, an evident mise -en-scene. Because her eyes were saying: you're supposed to be running this place.

'Lunch,' replied Michael. 'Why, was there a problem?'

She was leaning as if relaxed across her desk. She sprawled. It was a difficult posture to read, because it seemed friendly but was also disrespectful.

Her voice drawled; she sounded sleepy. 'The University called. You were supposed to be teaching a course today.'

Oh shit, oh no, of course, it's Thursday.

Ebru looked bored. 'What could I do? I told them you would call when you got back.'

'Oh, Jees, was it Professor Dennis? Oh dam. OK. I'll give her a call.'

'Could you leave me with your number please where you will be when you go out?'