Destiny

Our intimacy wasn’t a hinderance to the procedure. All went as planned. Now we just had to wait.

Abby gave birth on April 27 the following year to a baby girl who was genetically identical to my wife. She named her Destiny.

My continuing affair with Abby didn’t complicate things, not at first. Abby and Sophia were my only two girls. Abby didn’t know why I had asked her to be a mother to a cloned child. I said it was for my own private scientific research, but she had her suspicions, which she kept to herself. But she was a good mother to Destiny. The generous stipend I gave her allowed her to stay home and remain free from any career. Easily enough, she attracted a few boyfriends. I didn’t mind. At least, that’s what I told myself. Abby was not the point. Destiny was the point.

When she got older, I hired a private investigator to keep tabs on Destiny — and Abby. I didn’t see the kid much. I didn’t want to. As far as I was concerned, Destiny — the girl I was trying to create — would spawn into existence at 18, the same age I met her mother. Her real mother.

Abby was a good mother. She mostly behaved herself. In the intervening years, Abby was a fun mistress to keep. I balanced my work life, my home life with Sophia, my sex life with Abby, and my future escapades with her clone perfectly. Everything was compartmentalized flawlessly.

As the months and years passed, my interest in Abby had dwindled. She could tell. It made her jealous. Funny, coming from a woman who had a sugar daddy, a boyfriend, and yet another boyfriend who didn’t know about the first two men. But her feelings didn’t cause a problem until almost a decade later when our daughter (that’s what she called her, anyways) was in elementary school.

Abby had recently turned 30, and she was not handling it well. She dressed more sluttily, going out to bars and picking up men. Her two boyfriends didn’t know about the several one-night stands she’d had. Gerard’s PI knew, and Abby still hadn’t given any indication she knew that Gerard was keeping tabs on her and Destiny beyond their regular doctor visits.

Abby started asking about my wife more and more. My PI told me she’d been obsessively searching her online. Then, one day, she showed up at our front door.