Tish and I were spending most, if not all, of our time together.  Everything we both liked to do, we did together, and most of the things only one of us like, the other one grew to like.  We started changing into two different parts of the same person.  The others were starting to use the C word.  You know, “couple.”
     One night, we were sitting on the couch watching TV.
     “You know,” said Tish, “we’ve been together for a pretty long time now.  In a couple of weeks, it’ll be a year, and I’ve been thinking about what we might want to do for the big anniversary.”
     “Well, the first anniversary is supposed to be paper, but that’s for marriage.  What did you have in mind?”
     “I think I know what I want you to give me.”
     “What’s that?”
     “Brian, it’s been almost a year, and I think I’m finally ready for a prosthesis.”
     “You know, Tish, a prosthesis is just an aesthetic decision.  It’s not supposed to be any kind of status symbol or coming-of-age thing.”
     “Yeah, I know, but it is something I’ve been putting a lot of thought into lately.  I had always thought it would be cool to have something like that, but I could never think of anything I really wanted.”
     “And I agree.  There’s nothing about you I’d want to change.”  I gave her a kiss on the neck.  “So, what did you come up with?”
     “Well, you know how you gave Felicity a prosthetic tail, and James and Christina have prosthetic wings, and Minerva has prosthetic arms?”
     “Yeah…”
     “What I’d really like is a prosthetic…me.”
     “Wait, a what?”
     “I thought there ought to be a way to create an entire replica of me that I can control somehow.”
     “Well, it’s not really like mind control, Tish.  It only works if it’s attached to you somehow.”  Then, it hit me.  “Which means that I’d have to create the prosthetic in two parts, divide you in two parts, and switch the halves so each ‘version’ of you has a real half and a fake half.”
     “So, you’re saying that you can actually do this?”
     “I think so, and either way, I’ll enjoy finding out.”
     The show was over, so Tish got up and headed toward the bedroom.  “Come on, Brian.  Come tuck me in.”  She flowed down the hall.
     “Yes, ma’am.”  I was right after her.  
     The very next morning, I scanned Tish in and got to work designing her prosthetics.  The legs and arms were no problem at all; I’d done dozens just like them.  The real challenge was the head, specifically all of the moving parts it needed to have.  Facial muscles weren’t necessary, since the plastic face would move naturally on its own.  I’d done eyes before, so that part was simple.  The vocal cords were a challenge, though.  I pretty much needed to design a resonant system inside the head with a diaphragm in the chest to create the timbre of the voice properly.  I also needed to make both halves of the prosthetic as flexible and limber as she naturally was.  It was certainly enjoyable to have such a difficult job in front of me for a change.  I was spending so much time working on it, in fact, that I was kind of oblivious to Tish during the day.  I think she understood, though.
     Finally, the big day arrived.  We closed the shop early for our anniversary, and Tish was like a kid at Christmas.  I had expected her to want to close the shop earlier than we did just so she could unwrap her present.  When the front door was locked, she all but dragged me into the workroom.  “All right, Brian, it’s time for you to work your magic.”
     “Okay, okay.  Do you have a spare set of clothes?”
     “Oh, my God!  I totally didn’t think of that!  Hang on, I’ll run upstairs.  Don’t go anywhere.”  She ran from the shop and was back with a spare set of clothing in under three minutes.  I took the time to measure once more just where I needed to divide her.  I didn’t want to mess up my first first-anniversary gift.  
     When she came back into the workroom, she dropped her change of clothes in a pile in the corner and hopped up onto the chair.  “Come on, come on, come on.  Get your sword out!”
     “All right, I’m coming.  Keep your shirt on.  Well, actually, lift up the bottom of it.”  She exposed her waist, and I made the cut.  I then walked over to the storeroom door and wheeled out a push cart with two shapes covered in bed sheets.  “Okay, here you go, Tish.  The new you.”  I whipped off the sheets.  Lying on the cart were two halves of something that looked an awful lot like Tish.  Tish started squealing on the chair.  I took the pants and undergarments she had brought down and put them on the prosthetic lower half.  I turned the legs and hung the feet over the edge of the cart, and then I went over to the chair and strapped Tish’s legs down.  I then took Tish’s upper half, pressed a joint into the cut surface, and set it on top of the legs and connected the joint.  
     Well, Tish got up from the cart right away and started walking around the room.  Her own legs were struggling against the straps, but I had put them there so she wouldn’t be trying to use both pair at once.  Pretty soon, though, she seemed to figure out what to do, and her natural legs stopped moving.  She walked over to me.
     “So, what special tricks can these things do?  Did you build in anything like your sheath?”
     “No, I didn’t think to put in anything like that, sorry.  I was spending a lot of time on the head, because I’ve never done that kind of thing before.  I did put in the OLED coating like I already gave you, though.”
     “Oh, that’s fine.  I hadn’t really wanted any bells and whistles.  Besides, you can always do something after the fact, right?”
     “Sure, it’s possible.”
     “Okay, well, get on with it.  You’ve got some more work to do.”  She went over to the rest of her clothes and dressed her prosthetic upper half.  “God, this is weird.”
     “Well, I think it’s about to get weirder.”  I unstrapped her legs and carried them over to her prosthetic torso.  I installed a joint, laid them in place, and attached the joint to the prosthetic.  Then, I turned back to Tish.  Well, the one with the real top half.  “And there we go.  So, what do you think?”
     She smiled at me.  “Look behind you.”
     I turned back to the cart, and I was shocked.  Tish got up from the cart, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed me hard.  All I could do at the time was kiss her right back, and I did, a lot, but when we broke I just couldn’t say anything.  
     “Happy anniversary, baby.”
     “Damn straight it is.”  I kissed her again, and she came up behind me at the same time and started rubbing me back.  Holy crap, a year ago I hadn’t had hardly any contact with a woman at all, and here I was being loved by two at once, kind of.  
     “How did you do this?” I asked.
     “While you were working on these, I went and talked with Vincent and Leah.  I told them what I had in mind, and I asked them if there was anything they could teach me to make it easier.  They said they couldn’t teach me anything, but they did introduce me to a woman who could teach me remote sensing.”
     “You mean she taught you how to, like, spy on people without their knowing it?      
     Were you watching me work the whole time?”
     “No, I wasn’t spying on you, because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.  And I wasn’t using it for spying.  I wanted practice at seeing and hearing things apart from my body.  A couple of days ago, I finally got good at seeing what was in front of me while seeing something else at the same time.”
     “But how did they teach you to do magic?  I thought you needed to be born with it, or play around with some magical object like I did.”
     “Yeah, I asked them the same thing.  They told me that something like cutting people in half needs heritage or something major, but remote sensing isn’t such a big thing.  You could get enough mojo to do it just by having magic performed on you enough times.  I told them what you had done on me, and apparently being divided in half with bare hands is worth a lot of mojo.”
     “But why did you put so much outside effort into learning how to use these prosthetics?  Were you that anxious to start using them?”
     “No,” she said.  “I wanted to put just as much effort into this as you did.  I wanted to give you something for our anniversary, too.”  She sauntered out the back door of the shop and towards the elevator, and then she came around from behind me and gently led me by the shoulder.  I headed upstairs with my girlfriend on my arm as I followed my girlfriend into our room.  I guess it was time to open my anniversary gift.