There are benefits to being a pioneer in the art of cloning. Cloning itself is a science–it is in the application of that science that it transcends into art. I know, believe me, it sounds pretentious, but just bear with me.

Let me give you a practical example. You’ve heard of cloning, everybody’s heard of it. You can get it done in a convenience store, waiting less time than it used to take to get a passport photo. Those booths? Patented. By me. Yes, that’s right.

Well, you have to understand, once the patent for the technique I created expired and the whole process went generic, I had to start getting creative. So I, you know, set aside some funds to bribe the FDA, set the expectations of the public that, yes, one in five clones might not come out just right–I mean, for God’s sake, the process is taking place on the same aisle as toilet paper and butane lighter refills, right? But you know, nobody complains because they usually just want them for their organs anyway.

Now…that keeps us nice and rich like we like it…but it’s…I don’t know, there’s none of the art involved. I wanted something with a little bit more finesse.

So…clone therapy. Well, that was mine too. It seemed simple enough..as long as we can make a copy of you and recycle that copy as quickly as we used to do paper…why not use it to make people feel better?

Again, the right amount of bribe money in the right accounts, and…well, you should see some of the sessions I’ve seen. We’ve helped save marriages–women and men who really want to do somebody else other than their spouses bring in a sample of the person in question and…viola! We give them a little privacy and a few hours later (or a half hour for guys), they leave feeling better because they’ve gotten it out of their systems. The real person will never know that a copy of them just commited adultery in another part of town because, well, we can grow you from a piece of hair. A bit of skin. Fingernail clipping. Done. Person goes home, clone gets reduced to composite atoms, spouse is none the wiser–everybody’s happy!

We’ve had guys who need to work out some self loathing just beat the ever-loving shit out of themselves. We’ve even done some more extreme therapy.

Take for instance, this young couple. Wife has had affairs. A lot of them. Serial adulterer. She’d sleep with some guy behind her husband’s back for a few months and then move on. Perfectly happy at home, she just needed variety. In reality, she has a serious sex addiction and needed some help. If only someone had gotten her some.

Because, you see, he found out. He found out and was absolutely crushed. He was this big guy, but gentle and caring. He could have just…I don’t know, broken her neck if he had ever let himself get mad enough. But he didn’t. Not even after catching her. He blamed himself, the poor bastard. They went to counseling and tried to make it work.

Story doesn’t end there, though. He’s miserable…all the time. Just miserable. And he doesn’t know why. Sure, she cheated on him (not that he, I don’t believe, ever knew about any others but just that one) but that was behind them and they should have been happier than ever.

But he wasn’t. After going to some solo therapy sessions the shrink decided that he, deep down, was furious with his wife. And he needed to get that out of his system in order to get on with things and be happy again.

Well, he couldn’t bring himself to say or do anything to her. Gentle giant, remember? Loved her dearly. So one of his buddies gave her my card. I think the buddy had used my services to fulfill a fantasy he had about this pair of pop-singing twins. Won some of their hair off of eBay. Anyway, that’s besides the point. Point is, he came to see me.

I listened to his story with great interest, and I knew instantly what I could do for him. I’ve done this before, of course. We could grow him a copy of his wife and let him take out his frustration on the copy, then go back home as though nothing had happened.

He was resistant at first, but his wife genuinely, I think, felt bad for what she had done, and had told him to do whatever it took so they could be happy again. So he engaged my services.

A few days later, he came back and we let him into a soundproofed room with the spitting image of his wife, sitting in a chair. When she sprang up to ask him what in the hell she was doing at my office, he backhanded her. I think he surprised himself by this, because he broke her jaw really nicely, but once he started up he didn’t stop. He even started using the tools I had laid out on the table for him. Took the better part of an hour for him to, you know, get it all out of his system, but he did. Yes, he did.

He came out of the room covered in what was left of her and I asked him how he felt. When he said, laughing a little, that he felt better–much, much better–I told he should celebrate with a little wine. I poured, we drank, and he almost split his head open when the sedative hit him like a freight train. He was a big guy, after all, so I used a lot just to make sure he went down.

He woke up in his home to the cops breaking down his door. I had transferred him, the tools, and the remains of his wife to his bedroom. The blood was a genius touch, if I do say so myself…I was able to replicate a spare bucket to gore up the bedroom so it looked like he had actually butchered his wife there, then curled up and gone to sleep after the deed.

His story was flimsy. That was by design. I told the police yes, he had come to me to do some extreme clone therapy but I told him he had to have the clone created on our premises. As I tried to explain to the gentleman, I told the officers, who’s to say that the unconscious woman you’re carrying isn’t your wife and not a clone? You could be trying to implicate me in an actual murder, I said. And the cops believed me. Of course they did. A lot of them had used my services before and they knew me well.

I didn’t know she was married. For the whole five months she was seeing me, she never told me. She just got tired of me and moved on. I was naive, but you have to understand: working with copies of people all the time, it was nice to have a real person who loved me. It’s a shame that it was all–all of it–a lie.

I have the video of the husband’s “session.” Like I said, it’s art. True art. Sometimes, though, I want a little bit more than a video, so I grow copies of the two of them, set them up like little wind-up toys and watch it happen again. Sometimes I change out the tools, just for a little variety. I even managed to fabricate copies of their wedding rings, and I put them on them for that final touch of realism.

After she was caught, she really did turn over a new leaf, I understand. It was hard, but I don’t believe she had ever gone behind his back again. Like I said, she had a serious problem with sex. It’s a shame nobody ever helped her out.