Chapter 1

“Your twin dropped by today,” Aaron said casually. My head snapped to attention, and my response was faster than I would have liked.

“Oh yeah?”

Madison and I have always been competitive - it’s a twin thing - but I really thought I’d gotten over it. For some reason when my housemate mentioned her, it was like it all came rushing back. The years of seeing who was taller, smarter, faster, of who had bigger breasts ... it was like it had returned, and been turned up tenfold.

I suddenly had that burning urge to be better than Madison. I wanted Aaron to like me better than her.

It was weird - I don’t even like Aaron ... I mean, I like Aaron, but not in that way ... but suddenly I needed to know everything. What she’d said, what they’d done...

“Yeah, she just wanted me to have a look at her computer.” Aaron replied, his tone suggesting it didn’t matter, his glance at me making it obvious that my reaction was important.

“What was she wearing? Did you like it? Was she sexier than me? How long did you talk for?”

A stream of questions wanted to rush from my lips, but I wasn’t going to give into them. I was going to quash this competitiveness once and for all, if it were the last thing I did. I just nodded, and went back to putting butter on my toast.

Aaron watched me, a smile dancing around his lips. I wasn’t looking at him, but I could feel his eyes on me, wanting to know if I’d break. I have no idea how he knew about my competitive side - like I said, it’s been absent for a few years now - but he just expectantly waited for me to ask some of the questions that he knew were burning up inside of me.

Finally, I looked up again, to find him - just as I’d thought - staring directly at me.

“How is she?” I asked. I was trying so hard to ask the questions casually ... so of course it came out as forced and awkwardly as possible.

“She’s good, good...”

He paused, and that smug look came back on his face. Aaron’s never been particularly perceptive, so I have no idea how he was suddenly managing to play me so well, but he was. I kept eye contact, my mouth practically twitching with unasked queries. Finally, I snapped.

“How did she look??”

“Good, good. She’s, uh ... you guys are completely identical, yeah?”

Identical twins. Of course we had to be identical - as if being a twin wasn’t bad enough. But yeah, me and Madison - identical.

We’d gotten our fair share of trouble from it, growing up - guys who wanted to fuck both of us, or dare us to make out or whatever. We never did - I know the idea grosses me out, and I assume that she felt the same way.

Aaron’s normally a nice guy, but right now I hated him. I don’t know if it was deliberate or not, but the way he’d phrased the question just served to feed my competitive side. Of course we were identical - what was he suggesting? Did she look better than me?

I just nodded, and he continued, agonizingly slowly.

“It’s just ... well, she looked more, y’know.”

“What?”

“Maybe it was the top she was wearing, but she looked like she was ... well, I’m not saying you’re small or anything like that, but...”

He trailed off. Even he realized that he’d gone too far. You never, ever insult a girl’s boobs. And you never, ever, ever compare them to her sister’s.

My glare was so fierce that for a second I thought he was going to fall over backward, but as if he had no survival instinct at all ... he just kept going.

“I mean, it’s only because you never show any cleavage! She was ... that’s all I was...”

There were so many things that I wanted to say or do to Aaron right then, but I took the higher moral ground. I left the room, glaring at him the whole while. He didn’t say a word, of course, and when I got to my room, I sat on my bed, took a good hard look at myself in the mirror, and had to admit that perhaps he was right.

I dressed professionally. I’m a professional, after all ... and an unintended side-effect may, in fact, have been that so much attention was drawn away from my breasts that it looked like they weren’t even there.

Not that I wanted to look like a slut, or anything, but ... well, who wants to be the twin with the small tits?

I rifled through my wardrobe for a few minutes. It seemed that I only owned two tops that gave me any cleavage at all, and one of them was far too fancy for everyday use.

It seemed that it was time to go clothes-shopping. I’m overdue for a new outfit anyway, I told myself, but in my head a mantra was forming, and repeating itself over and over again.

I must be better than my twin...

“Madison dropped by again today,” Aaron said. Tempted though I was to throw him another glare, I just raised one eyebrow, and gestured for him to continue. He just sat there, though, this dumb grin on his face, and so I rolled my eyes and broke the silence.

“What is it this time?”

“She came by again today - she managed to download another virus, somehow. She ended up making some lunch for the two of us as thanks. Best Mexican I’ve ever had!”

A part of me thought that he must have been deliberately pushing my buttons - he knows how much I pride myself on my cooking - but it didn’t matter. I was suddenly hooked. I needed to be better than Madison.

Our shared love of food was one of the main reasons Aaron and I decided to live together - he’s a foodie, I like cooking ... I don’t get a chance to make us food too much these days, between work and my boyfriend Mike, but Madison? Madison could barely boil water without setting the kitchen on fire.

“Mexican? What’d she make?”

“Well I was just going to have a sandwich, but she said she’d learned some kind of new tortilla recipe. She raided the cupboards and half an hour later, we were eating these amazing burritos ... seriously incredible.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, it was great. Man, living with her when you were growing up must have been the best...”

“Yeah ... for her! I used to cook all the time - she would just eat!”

“Oh right, I forgot that you like to cook. You should get her to teach you some stuff.”

I was suddenly so mad that I could barely speak, but I didn’t say a word - I just got up, went to the cupboard, pulled out the mixing bowl, a wooden spoon and some corn flour ... and went to work.

Mike was annoyed when we went out later that night that I wasn’t hungry, but he didn’t complain too much. Side-effect of showing more cleavage: it’s suddenly much, much easier to keep your boyfriend happy. Who knew?

“Does your sister run?” Aaron asked, out of the blue. I was in the middle of removing the frittata from the oven - I’d cooked dinner every night that week. I was going to prove that I was a better cook than Madison if it was the last thing I did.

I had to be better than Madison.

“Mmmm ... no, I don’t think so.” I said. I’d almost dropped the tray when he spoke - there was something about Aaron talking about my sister that really got into my head. I was trying to sound nonchalant, but every fibre of my being was buzzing to hear what he was going to say next...

“When she was cooking the other day, I just noticed her legs ... she’s so fit! I figured she must run, because ... well, damn!”

“Oh really? I have amazing legs too!” I wanted to scream, but focused on serving Aaron dinner. Most nights he’d come home and I’d cook - he’d offered to help once or twice, but I’d told him to just sit there so he could really focus on the quality of my food.

Back in the day, I would have had him do the dishes in exchange, but I didn’t think Madison would make him do that. She’d set the bar, and it was up to me to beat it.

“Nah, I don’t think she runs,” I replied, proud of my self-control. Then, of course, I went and ruined it by adding, slightly smugly, “I do, though.”

“Oh really?”

“Uh huh.”

“I guess I just never noticed, because of the way you always cover your legs up.”

That night, after another routine date with Mike, I found myself sorting through my wardrobe again, and looking at my bank statement. I’d gone a bit overboard the last time I’d gone online shopping, but when the tops arrived, it had been totally worth it. And Aaron, annoyingly, was right again - I didn’t own a single item of clothing that showed off my legs.

Screw it, I thought, opening up a new browser window. What’s the point of running if you don’t even show it off?

I was home, the next time that Madison came ‘round. I’d casually mentioned that I was going to be cooking, and that she could drop by if she wanted.

Even though I knew it was immature, I wanted to rub her face in the quality of my cooking. I wanted her to see that I was better than her. The thought had started worming its way into my head all day, every day ... no matter what I was doing, I’d mentally chant, over and over again, “I must be better than my twin.”