Have you ever seen that painting technique where the picture is made up of thousands of tiny dots of various sizes, and it only looks like a complete picture from a distance? Pointillism, I think it is. Well imagine the technique come to life. Twice. I've met them.

Not only were they freckled to the point of unreality, as though the small bronze spots were the basic building blocks of their faces, but the two of them were identical. Not just genetically, but intellectually, aesthetically, motivationally. And then they had something really interesting. It was as though they shared a thoughtstream, a consciousness. Not physically, but philosophically Siamese, a living mindmap.

I'd known Alice and Olive since we were all innocent. Hell, we probably were still wearing nappies. I remember when we started calling them Alpha and Omega in school. The three of us used to hang out through the years. My dark hair providing some separation between their brilliant red mops, my common sense blunting some of their more insane plans. But only some of them. Alice voluntarily showed me her cute behind (yes, freckled) when we were nine, and Ollie felt obliged to match the offer. I was required to bare some of my own skin in return, but the girls weren't much interested in a rear view. Somehow I talked them into showing me the rest of their equipment before I dangled my then tiny apparatus before their investigative eyes. At least that's what I thought then. I realised afterward that we had done exactly what they wanted. We always did.

And then, just when we were all getting old enough to appreciate what the three of us had, they left town. The twins' parents had gone through the time-honoured divorce process, and their mother felt obliged to drag them off to some strange town too far away to visit, and give them a fresh start. They tried to talk her out of it. I tried too. Hell, I even got my mother to try, but she was insistent, and soon they were gone.

My twins (yes, that was how I saw it, don't interrupt) disappeared from my real life, and assumed the centre-stage role in my late night solitary thoughts right through high school. Oh, I met some other girls, even went out with a few, and there was one who takes pride of place as my first real live sex partner, but even though my penis was fully involved in that escapade (and I have no complaints) my heart wasn't in it.

The fact is, I'd loved these two girls forever. It never crossed my mind that there was anything wrong with loving both of them. It seemed natural. And in any case, even after all those years, I could never tell which was which, so how could I love one more than the other? I know they loved me too, though nothing of the sort was ever said.

Anyway, all of that is ancient history. Since then, I've managed to destroy my sports career, with a disastrous and preposterous accident playing tennis against my cousin. Reduced to a slowly improving slow limp, I took the least likely path, and became a librarian. Yes, a librarian. And I really like it. No, it's not exciting, or dangerous, or loaded to the brim with money, but I enjoy it. I get a buzz out of finding things that people want, and somehow I've developed a near-photographic memory for books, authors and locations. I can't help but think my memory was trained in two ways by the twins, albeit accidentally.

Firstly, I have a knack for details. I can see the smallest difference between supposedly identical things, especially red-headed twins. And secondly, I can recall with incredible clarity things which I have not seen for a very long time. Again, especially red-headed twins.

So now we're up to date. Life is good, work is good. Relationships haven't been great, and I find I'm most comfortable giving them a miss. My right hand seems to remain my best companion, even though he doesn't get such a frequent workout these days. Okay, he gets his fair share. Enough said.

Nice stable, relaxed, contented life, right? Wrong. It would be, except that yesterday, as I was arranging some shelves in the library, two tall, slim, attractive women turned up at the enquiries counter looking for me. Two red-headed women. With freckles. Yes, Alice and Ollie had returned to town.

We only had time for a few words but they agreed to meet me tonight, so that I can show them the hotspots (such as they are) and we can catch up on what everyone has been doing. Somehow their appearance concertinaed the last ten years into an apparent ten minutes, and I couldn't believe they had ever left, except that they looked even more attractive now than then.

As the day rolled by, I went through the motions at work without really noticing. I thought about the twins all day, and by the time I left the library I was a mess.

Straight home for a shower, and then I jumped in the car, and drove far too fast to the home of a mutual friend, where they had arranged to stay for a few days, until they worked out where they wanted to live.

The girls weren't ready to leave when I got there, and they left me quietly drinking a beer while they went and prettied themselves. I can assure you they were in no need of improvement. As the girls disappeared upstairs to change, they called to me from the landing. I turned around, and they both pulled their jeans down off their hips, and wiggled their butts at me, laughing loudly, and proclaiming that this was for old times sake. It was all I could do to keep my trousers arranged tidily around my instant erection, and I hoped they hadn't noticed.

They returned back downstairs fairly quickly, showered and changed, a nice delicate perfume pervading the air, and their beautiful bodies tastefully arranged within simple peasant dresses in two different shades of green. I hesitate to say it, but they looked even better than when they were in jeans. And I didn't think that was possible.

The next few hours went by in something of a blur, at least for me. We stopped for a quick drink in most of the bars that dotted the town, and then moved to a restaurant for a nice meal. It was a strange feeling, being with the twins, in places that were familiar to me, but either an old memory or completely unknown to them. They asked endless questions about all our old school friends, and we met one or two of them in our meanderings, but Alice and Olive didn't seem interested in spending too much time with any of them. That suited me. The more time I had them to myself the better.

The meal complete, and on our second coffee, we reached the end of the first set of questions, and our discussion turned to plans for the rest of the evening.

"Shall we tell him, Al?"

"I think so. He's waited all these years, you know."

"You think?"

"I know."

"Alright then. Listen Felix, we have a specific plan in mind for tonight." I think that was Olive. Let's call her that for now.

"You do? What's that then?" I was intrigued, but had no real idea what they were talking about.

"Oh, don't drag it out Olive. We want to..."

"... go home with you."

"If that's alright with you."

"If you want to."

"You can just tell us..."

"... if you don't."

"Just tell us..."

"... Straight."

Having absolutely no way to adequately reply to that lot, I just sat there and stared. My tongue was flapping like a dog's tail, and my other tail was stiff as a lamppost. And I still stared.

"Oh, Ol, perhaps we've shocked him?"

"He's just a..."

"... smalltown boy..."

"... after all."

"No, I'm alright," I stammered out with some difficulty. "I'm not shocked. Well, not in a bad way."

"See Alice, told you he could take it."

"You win that one Ollie. You better tell him the rest then."

"You think?"

"I know."

And they proceeded to explain to me that despite the good times they had in the big city, and the many experiments with other boys, and then men, they both wanted to come back to me, to see how I felt, and hopefully to make love with me. With them. Both of them.

"After all," Alice (I think) finished up: "Don't you want to see all the rest of our freckles?"