Chapter 10

The mind is the least understood part of the human being. Everybody knows how powerful it is, but nobody really understands how it works. The human mind is responsible for every scintilla of engineering and technology that surrounds us. Every book, every note of music, and all art is the result of the activity of the human mind.

Individually, each mind is even less understood. Some are strong and can endure incredibly negative influences. Others can be broken, leaving the individual to become what appears to be an empty shell. Some people believe the mind can affect the physical world, in terms of telekinesis, and it has been claimed that one mind has been able to communicate with others directly.

In the case of the twins ... and their parents ... the individual minds involved were asked to do something inconceivable. The closest human activity to this is deep undercover work, such as is done by police and spy agencies, where someone is asked to "become" another person. Of course in that situation, this "other person" is usually a figment of the imagination, a fictitious person who is needed for a particular task or set of tasks, and who then can be cast aside as the policeman, or spy, returns to being himself.

Undercover work is, normally, temporary.

But the twins were being asked to become someone else permanently. And they worked hard at doing just that. Everyone in the little conspiracy tried to make that adjustment as complete as possible. Sherry was the best at using their "correct" names, when addressing them. Perhaps that's because she was the least familiar with all the players, and had less to adjust to, relatively speaking.

But there were problems.

One problem was that Jack and Fran Austin loved their children and were not willing, or even capable, of separating the child from the body. In other words, when either of them addressed the body of Carly, they knew they were addressing their son, and could not effectively imagine it was anyone else. They saw the body, but they knew who they were really talking to. And it was the same with Carly. It was as if each twin had put on a costume for Halloween, and the parents knew who was inside the costume.

And so, all that careful deep undercover work was foiled regularly by someone addressing each of the kids as who they "really" were, rather than who they were "undercover" to represent.

Another problem was that ... neither teen wished to become another person. In their minds, they were who they were, and no amount of play acting could change the reality of that. It is something we now hear about people with gender identity issues. People who are gay cannot choose to "just get better" or stop being who they actually are. Those who are not so afflicted cannot understand - literally cannot understand - the problem, because they are not asked to alter the very foundation of who they are.

One way for the average "normal" person to seek understanding is to imagine having sex with someone of the same gender. If you're a man, think of having another man push his penis into your rectum. If you're a woman, imagine some other woman licking your pussy.

If that's repugnant to you ... then you know how someone in the gay community feels when they are encouraged to "get better."

And that was one issue. Carly, perhaps because she had discovered that intimacy with another girl could be tender, and joyous, and welcome, had no problem expressing her sexual feelings toward her former body. In effect, licking her own pussy didn't bother her.

Such was not the case, however, with Craig. It was one thing to handle his penis. It was another entirely to think about taking it into his mouth. Likewise, while he had adjusted to the concept of having something pushed inside his vagina, there was a line between things like Johnny and Roger and his sister's (or Sherry's) fingers doing that, and a real, live, penis.

Basically, Craig was still Craig, deep down inside, and still male deep down inside, and not interested in sexual fulfillment with another male.

Even the male that used to be him.

At the same time, each teen was trapped in a body that they could not ignore. Craig had to deal with female issues, and Carly had to endure what males take for granted. And slowly, as sometimes happens to those in deep undercover assignments, the stresses of trying to pretend to be someone you aren't, began to create in their minds the kinds of stress that has been known to result in someone not really knowing who the hell they are at all. Sometimes, in that situation, the mind is unable to cope and the personality actually does change.

It would have been much easier if everybody in the family could have been hypnotized and the roles impressed on them in that fashion.

But there is no way to know if that would have worked.

In any case, it was this collection of minds that tried to cope with events around them, and prepare for events to be expected in the future, as the last week before school started marched past with a speed that seemed accelerated, and of an unstoppable nature that felt like they were facing a moving mountain, an avalanche of sorts.

You may wonder why we have taken this meandering departure from the path that is the story of Carly and Craig. But it's important to understand what was going on in their minds, because while nobody knows for sure, I am convinced it played a pivotal role in how things played out.

That they were under a lot of stress is a given. There are lots of ways to reduce stress, but most of those take time, and many of them involve interaction with those outside the family unit. Neither of these kids had the time. Nor did they want to brave the exposure to others, and the examination and judgment that would most certainly have come with that.

Sex, on the other hand, is a great stress reducer. And, of course, it can be done in the privacy of one's own home.

Jack and Fran really should have taken some time to reflect on how the kids were dealing with the stress.

But they didn't. Nor did they actually say that, after school started, the kids would be expected to move apart, into their own rooms again.

But this odd mixture of twin/brother/sister/lover had come to a number of conclusions along the bumpy road they'd been required to travel. Their first fumbling sexual behavior wasn't actually for the same purpose that others engage in that behavior. It was to teach the other how to deal with a problem. During that phase of things, each was simply helping the other twin/brother/sister.

When Sherry got involved, they were well aware that things had gone beyond "helping" and had become sexual "doing." But there was still a disconnect there, because they were seeing the bodies they still thought of as their own, and the roles those bodies were playing were traditional ones, that matched fantasies that had already existed. In their minds, they were doing things with Sherry, rather than engaging in incestuous behavior with each other.

Eventually, though, as their undercover training progressed, and they began to adapt a little to their predicament, it was impossible not to reflect on the fact that their relationship as brother and sister had changed.

Dramatically.

They discussed it one night, two days before school was to begin again.

"Is this wrong?" asked Carly.

They were lying in each other's arms, after having given each other a stress-reducing orgasm. As an indication of just how bizarre their situation was, what drew Carly's attention to the issue wasn't that they had just given each other stress reducing orgasms. What drew her attention to the issue were the soft kisses she and Craig had been trading. They were luscious, tender, incredibly intimate kisses.

They were lover's kisses, and there was no other way to interpret them.

It was the first time she thought of either Craig or herself as being ... lovers.

"Probably," said Craig, whose male core cared as much about following rules as any other male. Evidence of that was the soft, loving kiss he gave his sister after he uttered that word.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, overwhelmed by everything.

"Right now, I'm going to go to sleep," he said.

"I mean about us."

He leaned back a little. He felt cool air surround his right breast and the nipple on that breast complained a little by puckering up.

"I'm not going to have a boyfriend, Carly. You can have a girlfriend if you want to. I mean I want you to be happy. I want things to be as normal as they can be."

"I don't want a girlfriend. Not like that," she said.

"You're the only boy I'll ever allow to touch me like this," he said.

"But I'm not a boy. I'm your sister."

He rolled back against her, feeling the warmth of her chest make his nipple happy again.

"Look. We didn't ask for this to happen. And we can't change it. It's probably going to be a train wreck, but we've done the best we could to keep things on the tracks. If you're asking, do I feel guilty because I'm naked with my sister, the answer is no. This is probably the only thing that's keeping me sane. I mean being like this, so close with you, I feel like I can be myself. I don't care what the world would say about it. The world hasn't been changed into somebody else's body."

"Oh," she said, her eyes peering into his.

"If it bothers you, I'll try to stop, but I'll probably get grouchy," he offered.

"Like you were when you had your last period?"

"My first period," he grumbled. "Yeah, probably like that."

"You'll probably do that every time you have a period from now on," she said.

"Don't remind me," he groaned.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too," he said back.

There was another of those soft kisses.

"What are we going to do?" she asked again, her lips moving on his.

"We're going to love each other and try to make it through another day," he replied.

That was the point at which the concept of "lover" became something real, and tangible to the couple. Added to twin/brother/sister, that phenomenon would prove to be unimaginably important in their future.

That future wasn't far from the moment they accepted each other as unashamed lovers. It was, in fact, the very next night.

They had spent the last day before sallying forth into the minefield of school trying to "be" each other. They were pretty good at using the right name to address each other by, at least when their parents weren't around. Their parents almost always addressed them by the name of who was inside the body, rather than the name of the body being worn.

They had resisted doing any public tests, but on this day they felt compelled to see if it could possibly fly, so they went to the mall in Silver Springs, thirty miles away. They both got some looks, but many more went Craig's way than Carly's. Guys looked at Craig a lot, and it was obvious they were checking his female body out. But it was completely different than how guys has sized him up when he'd been in his old body.

It felt creepy.

What made it worse was that Carly said that meant he was doing a good job.

"So my life from now on is being successful by being creeped out?" he groused.

"You'll get used to it," she said.

"Did you?"

She seemed to think about that, before she said, "Yeah. I guess I did."

"Some of the girls I saw were checking you out," he said.

"I know! Isn't that crazy?!" She was animated, happy.

"You're a stud. What can I say?" He grinned.

"Let's go now. I've had enough. Let's get something to eat."

So they drove around until they found the kind of fast food they both liked. They ordered at the drive thru, but then, once they got their food, they parked.

It was quiet for a while as they munched. Finally Carly spoke.

"I think we're going to pull this off."

"You're going to pull it off," said Craig. "I'm not so sure about me."

"You'll be okay. Just remember that if you do something stupid, you can always blame it on PMS."

"I can't have PMS every day of the month," he said.

"Then you can blame it on that imaginary boyfriend you hooked up with over the summer while you were at camp, and who you're madly in love with, and who distracts you so much that you can't think of anything else."

"You mean the one that's supposed to eventually be my fiancé?"

It had been Sherry's suggestion that there be an imaginary boyfriend so Craig could deflect male attempts to engage him in dating.

"It's as good a plan as any other we came up with," she said.

"I kind of like the one where I secretly got married to a Navy SEAL, and he's away on assignment."

"That one's ridiculous and you know it. Besides, you'd have to produce him sooner or later. Where are you going to find a Navy SEAL to pretend to be your husband?"

"I know, I know. It's just more romantic or something."

"See? You're already thinking in terms of romance." She grinned.

They went home and spent the evening with their parents, watching back to back episodes of various iterations of NCIS.

The only reference to the upcoming trial by fire was during a commercial, when Jack asked, "So ... are you ready?"

"As ready as we'll ever be," said Carly, before Craig could voice his doubts. She was tired. The last thing she needed was for her parents to panic and try to spend the night cramming for the upcoming exam.

When the last episode was over, Carly stood up.

"C'mon, Carly. Let's go do our last review and pick out what we're going to wear tomorrow."

"I don't think I'll ever get used to hearing you call him Carly," sighed Fran.

Carly ignored her, other than bending over to give her a good night kiss on the cheek.

Then they went to Carly/Craig's room.

"I wish I could have looked that hot when I was in that body," said Carly.

Craig was adorned in a silk blouse and denim skirt that showed a good eight inches of leg above the knees.

"I can't wear this," he groaned. "You can almost see my ... pussy."

"That's why you wear panties," she said. "And you're going to have to wear a bra. I know you don't want to, but those nipples are like my cock ... hard all the time."

"That's because everything I wear rubs them," he complained. "I mean it feels good, but it makes them get all ... perky."

"That's why you wear a bra, silly," she said.

"But I hate them," he groaned.

"Then you'll have to wear something like this," she said, pulling a heavy cotton shirt out of her closet.

"Fine," he said.

"You'll look like one of those geeks," she warned.

"Like Sherry, you mean?" He frowned.

"Oh," she said, realizing she'd been insensitive. "You're not trying to snag a boy anyway. I forgot that. You just look so hot in that outfit."

"Why do you think I used to get boners for you?" he asked. "You were always this hot."

"Awwww."

She went to him for a hug, and then whispered in his ear.

"You can wear anything you want, tomorrow. Right now, I want to see you naked."

She pushed back from him, grinning.

"How's that? Do I sound like a guy?"

"You get an A+," he said, returning the grin.

"Good. It was easy," she said.

"Why?"

"Because I really do want to get you naked," she said, in a way that was clearly full of feminine coquettishness.

"You just blew it," he sighed, theatrically. "That was as gay as it gets."

He unbuttoned the blouse, baring the valley between his breasts. He was amateurish about his striptease, as he taunted her.

"Let's see if we can get the boy back. How about this, Baby? What does this do to that monster cock you're hiding in those pants?"

He bared his breasts and then cupped them, as if offering them to her.

"It's working," she said, reaching to pat her zipper.

"Prove it," he taunted.

She got naked before he did, and stood with her hips jutting forward, proud of her projecting erection.

"There," she said. "See what you did? Now you have to do something about it."

"That's good," he said. "Always try to blame your boner on the girl, and maybe she'll feel guilty enough to jerk you off. Or even better, give you a blow job."

"Boys are awful!" she groaned.

"Get used to it. You are one now."

"I think I'd rather rely on kinder tactics," she said.

"Like what?"

She went to him and pressed her male body up against his female one.

"I need you," she whined. It sounded genuine, even though he knew it wasn't. "Please help me. I'm not asking for everything ... just a little help with my ... problem. Pleeease?"

"That's good," he said, unable to keep his new loins from pressing outward against his old. That ball of heat had burst into life in his belly. "That's very good."

"I mean it," she said, nuzzling his neck. "Help me feel good."

Less than a minute later they were lying on the bed, in each other's arms, making out like teenagers who were neither twins, nor brother and sister.

"You want me to get Roger?" whispered Carly into Craig's ear. She wiggled the middle finger of her left hand, simulating the action of the vibrator. That finger was plunged deep into her brother's pussy.

"No," groaned Craig, whose hips were lurching without his conscious control.

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