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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Elspeth's world is upended when her rich husband dies, leaving her and the rest of his harem of nearly-identical wives on their own.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Terra Incognita #5, 2000
Fictionwise Release Date: July 2002

46 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [44 KB], eReader (PDB) [21 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [7 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [7 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [60 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [78 KB], hiebook (KML) [47 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [35 KB], iSilo (PDB) [6 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [8 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [36 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [14 KB]
Words: 2141
Reading time: 6-8 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"...a pretty good piece about the wife of a newly dead man. Details slowly build about their relationship: he had several wives, and he was very rich, and they all look like some ideal woman he was trying to create. Add in a certain kinkiness, and the interesting technological detail he used to "create" his wives ... it's interesting stuff, odd, and a bit disturbing."--Rich Horton, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

Elspeth was the only one of Howard Walker's wives who didn't cry at his funeral. When the other wives jostled for positions by the grave, Elspeth quietly took a place toward the back of the crowd of onlookers. She stood straight-backed and silent, steadfastly ignoring the reporters and their holo-cameras.

One by one, Howard's other wives stepped forward to place a white rose on the coffin. The youngest wife went first, the others following in turn. They looked like a set of black-haired, brown-eyed Barbie dolls, each the same height, each wearing a thin-strapped dress and high-heeled shoes, their long hair pinned back by identical gold clasps.

For a minute, Elspeth felt disoriented, as if she were watching clips of one woman traveling through time, a year passing unseen between each clip. It took a conscious effort for her to pick out the differences between the wives: Marybeth's narrow chin, the slope of Lisa's shoulders.

Even now Howard twisted all their lives. His will stipulated that each wife would receive eight hundred thousand dollars per year, provided she maintained the Walker image and neither married nor had children. Elspeth tried to summon a surge of anger to carry her through the rest of the funeral, but she had no anger left.

Howard had worked so hard to control everyone and everything he touched. If he had been a happier man she might have managed to hate him for that. As it was, something very like sadness welled up inside her. It had taken a long time, but in the end she and Howard had been friends after a fashion.