Jerry was a strapping young kneecap who was out looking for some action, as he did every Saturday night. On the edge of the pavement he rocked from side to side, not that a kneecap really had sides as such.

Out of the crowd another kneecap, tan to Jerry’s pallid form, rolled up beside him. The fraternal twins were stuck in an awkward silence for a moment, both rocking, close to touching, before the approaching kneecap asked Jerry, “You got somebody?”

“No,” replied Jerry, forever nervous even though he had done this a hundred times before. “Not yet. Why? You wanna…?”

“Yeah, sure, why not.”

“Cool, let’s err, let’s go…”

“Yeah, nice.”

That was the beginning.

That pairing was at just after eight in the evening. Soon they attracted a spinal cord that had paired with a large intestine who was so horny that he had wrapped himself about the cord in the most outrageous manner. Then there was a pair of eyes, one blue, one green, who had hooked up online and were prowling for a group. Then there was a coachload of toes who had come to the city especially. Then a brain by the name of Malcolm meekly approached them to ask if he could join as his contact had not shown up at their agreed location, and he was gladly accepted.

By nine-thirty, they had the bulk of a human being in their group. They had voted to be male, and only a couple of parts objected to the extent that they had dropped out. After this result they had to spurn a pair of breasts, who took rejection with little grace and much profanity.

By ten o’clock they were only missing the main part: a willing penis. Penises were oddly hard to attract, as a trend of multiple penises to one group had come about lately to the disgust of many. Some penises and vaginas, or penises and anuses, had been known to group together independently of other parts, which was even more repulsive, the couplet just flopping about on a floor somewhere. The situation had gotten so bad that, rather than free association, some penises were charging for their time, against the traditional spirit of the whole thing.

Eventually the group found a penis of half-decent flaccid length drinking in a craft ale bar who insisted that he was “good to go.” Given that there was nobody else about, they had no choice but to take him.

At half past ten they had a full adult male, and chose to illustrate this to the throngs by walking him—nude of course, as clothing had become the very height of vulgarity in any circumstance—through the streets to the local Two-Hour Hotel, towering over their fellow citizens while occasionally high-fiving a fellow ‘Tall Walker.’

Such was society these days: the Western segment of the human race had become so atomised that even their bodies had atomised, splintered, into discreet biopartlets, the assemblage of the individuated body sapiens forever lost and forgotten except for only the one act: the still sordid and collective process of fucking. For all the micro-muscular nanomanipulation that allowed for autonomous movement (along with self-circulation of the appropriate fluids), holistic digestion through enzyme implantation, microlevel biosealing to prevent any unsightly or fatal leakages, and femtotubic neuro-consciousness containment, for all the uploading, uplifting, and mind-farming, the act of sex was still a necessarily cooperative one. The full “dance sans pants” just simply did not work properly unless it was a complete human being, or the closest thing to one.

It was similarly the case with reproduction itself, but that was a formal process, done through government conscription at the optimal time, the gestation occurring at an accelerated pace within a contracted clinic over a period of a few months. The pan-infant would then be birthed and slowly pulled apart into its neo-natural state, its segments raised separately in the loving homes of volunteers (although perverts were known to manipulate the system for their twisted desires. There was a particularly nasty case of a spleen with a severe nose fetish who got away with it for years…).

However, as Jerry’s group knew, there was nothing about dreaded reproduction going on here: this was about pure sex. No strings attached, collectivised pleasure.

The temporary man went into the Hotel and checked the comboards. The collective realised he needed a name, and after a minute’s spirited discussion settled on “Stan” for the evening.

The comboards ignited further debate, sometimes verging on the bitter, until, after three votes, a reconstituted adult woman going by “Heather,” who had been waiting already nearly fifteen minutes, was chosen.

The picture was taken and sent. “Heather” agreed to “Stan’s” request for a bunk-up. It was all very proper and standardised.

They met in the lobby, booked a room with the receptionist, a wrinkled and laconic thumb without a nail, and rode the lift up to what was supposed to be heaven.

The room was a simple single, well-lit. An elevated boxspring, water-proofed artificial pink skin-wrapped, warmed and humming. The hoses hanging in the ceiling ready for the subsequent spray down.

The two groups discussed a programme, rejected oral sex in favour of just getting on with the “deed,” and decided that starting with missionary then moving on to something more advanced was the best course of action.

The two pseudo-humans, piebald and piecemeal and pinned together, manoeuvred into prime position, “Stan” on top, the contract signed with a kiss.

Yet, at the call of commencement…nothing. Not a thrust. Not a slide.

“He can’t get it up,” the right testicle grimly admitted.

“He’s right!” piped up the prostate.

“What do you mean he can’t get it up?!” raged five organs, eight appendages, and two different layers of skin near-simultaneously.

Solidarity had not brought about solidity.

“The bastard said ‘good to go’!” yelled the gallbladder, and at that the complex of “Stan” collapsed into a riot. Jerry himself, the paler kneecap and initial instigator of the entire affair, rolled off to the side, not fond of any physical conflict.

Not all intercourse through temporal assemblage is successful, obviously. But that’s how it’s done these days…

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Harris Coverley has more than a hundred and twenty short stories published or forthcoming in Penumbra, A Darker Continent (Belanger Books), Exomoons (Rogue Planet Press), and The Black Beacon Book of Horror (Black Beacon Books), amongst many other places. A Rhysling and Dwarf Stars Award nominee, he has also had over two hundred poems published in journals around the world. He lives in Manchester, England.