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 beautiful 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 said, smiling, 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 an 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.