They began to kiss and embrace each other like possessed houris, writhing about on the lawn. Miriam knew only motion and the exquisite flowing of a powerful sensual continuity that gradually became a mounting flood of orgasmic sensation as both bodies merged and fused, sex to mouth, mouth to sex, both of them finessing little effusions of sweet creamy come from the other's cunt.

And, finally, her cunt exhausted and lips and tongue strained, Miriam opened her eyes and saw what she had somehow known all along. Her lover, drawing back to smile at her, removed her mask and wig to reveal that she was indisputably Miriam herself.

Miriam stared at herself in the soft moonlight. They were identical. Every contour of her body was repeated in the woman's figure—the same slender arms and legs, the exact full roundness of her breasts with thickly peaked nipples in broad tea-colored aureoles, the pubic thicket so lush with densely massed curls that it extended in twin hedges along both sides of her cunt to the brink of the perineal gorge, and the choppy tangles of wavy honey-colored hair that tumbled down to the curves of her chin.

Miriam closed her eyes again and lay back, feeling the beating of her heart, and waiting for . . .something.

"My love," she heard herself whisper into her ear, and she felt her fingers on her body, touching her throat, her breasts, fingers rippling the taut nipples, trailing over her stomach and into the mulled flux of her sex, stroking her arms, legs, the lightly sweated fragrance of her hair as the wig was discarded. And as she caressed herself, she heard herself whispering, "Yes, love. . .you, I came through the mirror for you." It was the sound of her own voice (which a lover had once described as volcanic ash and gold dust), and now she heard the familiar sound of her own laugh, then, "My love, I'm really you. Remember the scientist you dated? The biochemist. Remember?"

Miriam remembered David, a lover of months ago; it had been one of those brief and failed affairs, just a fragment of the past now. "David," Miriam's own voice whispered, "needed only one cell, just one of your cells, love, to recreate you, to clone you, to make me so he could let you go and have you as well. . . ."

The words were like veils of moiré through which Miriam glimpsed, waveringly, a spellbinding vista.

"But I love you, Miriam. . . ."

Drifting into somnolence with the flow of whispered words, and delicate caresses, Miriam receded into the depths of her mind and body, enclosed by shadows.

Some time later she opened her eyes and sat up to discover herself alone under a full moon, wearing only her stockings and mask. She stood up and remained motionless for a long while as the odd dream replayed itself in her mind like a film running backward—the ineffable pleasure of the lovemaking, the descent to the backyard, the first sight of her other self at the party. A sound of party activity came from the apartment—music and a mingling of voices and laughter.

Miriam dressed. She was eager to be back inside, to disperse the strange memories with conversation and drink.

Then, as she glanced about for her boots she felt a sudden chill, sensing even before she discovered it that the boots had been replaced with a pair of shiny black satin pumps.

She put the shoes on, knowing they would fit perfectly, as they did. Looking at them, she flexed her toes comfortably, admiring the mirrored gloss of the black satin.

"Miriam, what the hell are you doing down there" she heard Vale's voice from the porch. "I thought I saw you leave out front..."

"I—" Miriam began. "I—I'm coming..." She waved to Vale, then started up the steps, wondering, wildly wondering how long it would be before her phone rang at home, how long she would have to wait before she called herself to whisper the words she knew she would hear herself say..."

---