Clone U

While walking across campus one night, Rich finds a futuristic device that lets him clone his mind into the bodies of his friends in Clone U, available on Body Swap Stories, Smashwords or Amazon.

Rich has a close knit group of college friends: Brendan, the outgoing one. Nicole, the cute wallflower. Lucy, the adorable nerd.

When Rich witnesses a robbery at the campus science center and finds a piece of equipment dropped by the thieves, he changes all their lives as he discovers that this device can copy his mind into other people’s bodies.

Soon, his desire outweighs his caution, and he gradually takes over his own group of friends to explore his new bodies.

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“An anonymous, orally transmitted, musical narrative poem focusing on dramatic events with repetition and refrains is called a…what?” Rich asked, looking up from his laptop at his friends who were splayed around the common room.

“I don’t know, man, I’m so fucking fried,” Brendan said, before shoving the last bit of pizza crust into his mouth and wiping his short black beard with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, I think I’m done, too,” Lucy agreed, closing her laptop and pushing her thick, black-rimmed glasses up to rub her eyes.

“A popular…ballad,” Nicole replied between yawns.

Of the three of Rich’s friends, Nicole was the closest in nerdage to him but even she had reached her limit. Rich’s own eyes were heavy and he closed his laptop in defeat.

“All right,” he said with good humor, “but don’t blame me if you all fail tomorrow.”

“Don’t think so, Rich,” Brendan replied, sitting back in the cushiony couch beside Nicole and clasping his thick, stubbly fingers over his belly. “It’s English lit. Once you get past the multiple choice it’s just an essay of bullshit.”

Nicole tittered and stretched her whole body, her slender arms rising in the air above her as she raised her legs and pointed her toes. Her mousy brown hair matched the color of the light brush of hair on her legs and as she stretched her body Rich’s eyes were drawn to her shirt as her small breasts pressed up the fabric until she relaxed back down. She was the shortest of the group of friends, a shy wallflower who preferred staying in the background and only chiming in once in a while with a clever comment.

It had been Rich’s idea for this last minute study session and Brendan had volunteered his place because then he didn’t have to walk. It was now past midnight and they’d spent part of the time studying and most of the time hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. As far as Rich was concerned, this was the best part of college.

Rich had met Brendan in one of his first cinema history classes, which Rich had taken because he was interested and Brendan had taken because it was easy.

“A class where all the homework is watching movies?” Brendan had said that first day as he sat beside Rich in the small classroom. “Count me in.”

They were an amusing pair. Rich was scrawny and with bland looks that would make him perfectly suited as a background extra in films. Long-legged, blonde and cleanshaven (he’d tried to grow a beard once, but after two weeks he’d only managed embarrassing patchy scruff). Brendan, on the other hand, looked like a hipster lumberjack. Shorter, stockier and beardier than Rich and with short, curly black hair. He was the more outgoing of the two and had brought in Nicole to the group, who in turn had brought in Lucy. In no time the four were inseparable to the extent that the following semester, Rich and Nicole had become roommates in a little place just off campus.

While the two women hadn’t originally seemed like Rich’s type, getting to know them had increased their attractiveness. They weren’t ugly but nor were they conventionally attractive. There was something about them, though. Little things. Things Rich only noticed after being around them for some time. Like the way Nicole’s nose scrunched up when she laughed. Or the way Lucy grinned and made her whole face light up.

Rich kept his budding desires a secret, not wanting to split up the group nor cause acrimony with his roommate, but continually tried to keep his feelings under control while not flirting too blatantly. Just another reason to feel guilty for checking out Nicole when she yawned that night.

Brendan was the extrovert of the group and, consequently, the best with the opposite sex. At the last party they’d gone to, Brendan had offered to be Rich’s wingman, and then ended up almost having a one-night stand with the girl Rich had been flirting with. Rich didn’t really blame him. She hadn’t been flirting back and had clearly been more interested in Brendan. Being a skinny, nerdy beanpole was no one’s idea of the perfect man, and sometimes Rich wished he had his friend’s ruggedness as well as his magnetic personality.

The foursome packed up the two pizza boxes and Rich went to stuff them in the trashcan. They didn’t fit and needed to be bent in half so Rich set them on the rim of the trashcan and did a cartoonish karate chop — complete with a sharp “Hiyah!”— to bend them. Nicole tittered at his antics, nose scrunching adorably, which made it almost worth the pain it caused his hand.

Nicole dumped her laptop into her backpack and hauled it on, tucking her thumbs beneath the straps as Brendan and Lucy finished putting the room back together. Then Lucy picked up her laptop and hugged it to her chest.

“We’ll walk you home,” Rich volunteered to Lucy.

Lucy lived in a dorm on the other side of campus.

“Are you sure?” Lucy asked.

“Really, it’s no problem,” Rich insisted, hoping that the two women would see his chivalry and it would make them realize how much they liked him and it would end with all of them together in bed. A thought that made Rich almost immediately cringe and blush. God, he just needed to masturbate so he could focus.

“Okay. Cool,” Lucy said.

“Have fun you crazy kids,” Brendan said as they left.

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