Multiples, by Robert Silverberg (sci-fi prose, 1983)

[lb_lee]

“There were mirrors everywhere, making the place a crazyhouse of dizzying refraction: mirrors on the ceiling, mirrors on the walls, mirrors in the angles where the walls met the ceiling and the floor, even little eddies of mirror-dust periodically blown on gusts of air through the room, so that all the bizarre distortions, fracturings, and dislocations of image that were bouncing around the place would from time to time coalesce in a shimmering haze of chaos right before your eyes. Colored globes spun round and round overhead, creating patterns of ricocheting light. It was exactly the way Cleo had expected a multiples club to look.”

Blurb: A singlet who desperately wishes she were multiple goes trawling the multi bars in San Francisco, trying to pick one up. Short story.

Why is it worth your time?: This is a goofy weird one. It apparently won a bunch of sci-fi awards, but I don't know that I would call it good. Reading it feels like watching a movie from another country about what they THINK your society is like. But I mean, if you want to read about a subculture of multiples trance-ing out in bars to mirrors and disco, building their own cultural norms and liberation, this is the only story I've read about a multiple society.

Plural Tags: plural community, switching, fusion (though a very turned-on-its-head version), plurality on purpose, no abuse mentions

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: Available in ebook and paper forms. Translated into Croatian, French, Serbian, and Romanian

Miscellaneous Notes: This short story has been published in various anthologies since 1983, but the easiest one to find is the compendium of Silverberg's short stories called Multiples: 1983-1987.

Comments

Content warnings

[lb_lee]

Characters have sex in this story, but it's not porny or explicit. There is a moment where the singlet (who's faking multiplicity) pretends to switch during sex, only to then have her ostensible headmate reinitiate sex with her multi boyfriend, only for it later to come out that he knew all along that she was faking. So obviously this isn't the healthiest relationship.

The main character wants to be multiple so badly that she undergoes experimental therapy to induce it, but it doesn't take. She returns to singlethood over the course of a few weeks. Also, squicky depiction of headmates of different ethnicities.