Chapter 6: It Takes Two - Donnie's Story

Dee Dee called me on Monday night. My sister had a new assignment in Cleveland, at a division of some company headquartered in Akron. We both work for the same company. We both do the same kind of work. We make the same salary. We own a house together. We've been together forever and it will remain that way, forever.

We're not just sisters. We're twins; identical twins. We're identical in every way. When we grew up no one could tell us apart. Momma used to dress us in identical clothes, so everyone knew they couldn't tell us apart. When we got old enough to know better, we insisted on separate wardrobes for each of us. That way people could tell us apart.

Well, that way people could think they could tell us apart. We regularly wore each other's clothes and pretended to be the other sister. It always worked, because we are truly identical. But now people thought they knew which one we were because of our wardrobe. Mine leaned towards pants and dresses. Dee Dee wore skirts with tops.

Except when Dee Dee wanted to be me or I wanted to be her for a day. Then we would dress in each other's clothes, go to each other's classes, date each other's boyfriends. No one caught on. Not ever.

Momma couldn't tell us apart. We never mentioned that we wore each other's clothes, and she never asked, though I think she may have suspected. No one else ever suspected. Daddy was helpless, he called both of us "D". "Hey D. Come give your Daddy a hug" he'd say. He never had a clue which one he was hugging.

I'm Donna, but my family calls me Donnie. My family has this odd thing about it. It's hereditary, I suppose. It must be something in the genes. If it's not in the genes, then it's something from the Twilight Zone. Because in our family, we only have girls. We only have twin girls.

Momma is a twin. Her twin was killed when she was only five years old, hit by a car while riding a tricycle. She admits that all the time, everyday, she feels that something is missing. She knows what it is. It's her sister.

Momma's momma was also a twin. And her momma before her. It's hard sometimes to trace our family tree back very far, because sometimes people kind of hid what was happening in our family. Besides which, we have no single family name to trace. We have maternal bloodlines in a patriarchal society.

Our family tradition is that the girls stay together, even after marriage. We have to. We wouldn't be complete without our sisters. I can't explain it any other way.

Dee Dee told me Monday that she was working with a very handsome young man. She said he was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. I could tell that she was infatuated with him.

Tuesday night Dee Dee told me she was starting to be obsessed with him. He was so hot she could hardly stand it. She said that he kept exhibiting the gallant reaction. That's what we called it back in high school when some boy got hard in class. Neither of us have much of a sex life anymore. When we accepted our positions with the company we knew that our social life was going to come to a halt.

Well our social calendar wasn't that full to begin with. We are thirty-five years old and I think we can now officially refer to ourselves as 'spinsters'. We are realistic about our prospects. The biological clock is winding down. Maybe our particular branch of the twin family tree is about to end.

Dee Dee asked if I would mind if she took him to bed. We do this. We talk about our prospective sex partners. We have to. We share everything and eventually if things get far enough along, we may have to share even that.

What is the likelihood of both of us finding husbands at our age? No, we've pretty much decided that if one of us finds a man, he will have to take care of both of us. I know that sounds odd, perhaps even perverted. We aren't. I mean perverted. Dee Dee and I love each other like the closest sisters you ever knew, but that's as far as that goes. Any sharing we do of any real or imagined man we might eventually end up with will be male-female only, if you know what I mean.

She wants to seduce this young man. Well I'm okay with that. I'm even a bit jealous of her good fortune. But my jealousy is ridiculous in light of the fact that her good fortune will eventually lead to my own good fortune.

She called me Wednesday night at midnight. She doesn't usually call that late and I was getting tired. But I knew she would call so I waited, watching Letterman.

I picked up the phone and before I could even say hello she said "Donnie, he was wonderful! I thought he was gong to kill me. Death by fucking: that's all I could think about as I lay there afterwards, almost in a coma."

I was shocked. I was excited. I don't remember hearing Dee Dee use that kind of language before. This guy must be great. I needed to know the details.

"Donnie, we made love twice. Nothing in four years, then twice in one evening! And Donnie! Not only that, he also, uh, you know..."

I didn't, uh, know. I'm as sexually innocent as she is. "What did he do, Dee Dee? I have no idea what you are talking about."

"He put his mouth, you know, down there!"

"Oh my God! Did you like it? Was it good? Or was it awful?"

"It was wonderful. We looked into each others eyes the whole time he did it. And he did it forever. It was like he was doing his favorite thing in the world. The only reason he stopped is because I made him stop. Otherwise I think I'd still be lying there with his tongue in me."

I shuddered at the image. "Oooh that's gross!" I said. But I knew it wasn't gross. I was wet just imagining it.

She said, "Don't knock it until you've tried it. I'm thinking about becoming an addict. Donnie, I think I've fallen in love with him. You've got to help me!"

"You want me to stop you from falling in love with him" I asked facetiously?

"You've got to come up here. I need you now." She sounded like she had it bad. "He doesn't know about us. I told him I have a sister, but that's about it. He doesn't know about us, about how we live, how we need to live."

I said "You know you can't be getting serious about him before you tell him the truth. But I don't know if I can come. You know this project I'm working on is important. Call me tomorrow night. If you are still desperate, I'll see if I can take Friday afternoon off and fly to Cleveland. But I'm not sure I can. They need me here in Indianapolis."

"Donnie you have to. You have to meet him. He's amazing."

Yes. I'll believe it when I see it. I've pretty much given up hope of any kind of romantic future for myself.

"Oh, Donnie. Did I tell you? He's twenty-five years old!"

Oh my God! "Twenty-five? Are you out of your mind? What does a twenty-something stud want with an old hag like you?"

"I know, I know! I haven't a clue what he sees in me. But he finds me irresistible. He told me it's a chemical reaction or something and we're not capable of fighting how we feel. I think he's funny; he always has these odd little theories to explain things in life. The 'chemical reaction' thing is how he explained 'us'. Maybe it wasn't 'chemical reaction'. Maybe it was 'chemical attraction'. I don't remember."

"But Donnie, what if he's right? Had you thought of that?"

"Thought of what, Dee Dee? Why does it matter if his little pet theory about why you two are an item is right or not?"

She was excited. She said "Well you and I have the same chemistry, don't we? We're clones or something, aren't we? Doesn't it stand to reason if he is chemically attracted to me he would be chemically attracted to you and vice versa?"

I felt a chill run down my spine. I was already soaked 'down there' from her talk of oral stimulation. Now I knew I was just going to have to take care of myself as soon as we got off the phone.

I couldn't wait to meet him. But when I spoke to Dee Dee, I tried to sound reluctant.

"I don't know, Dee Dee. Maybe I can make it down on Friday, maybe not."

She wasn't buying my act. "Don't try to fool me baby sister. I know you're almost as excited about him as I am, and you haven't even met him."

I hate it when she calls me baby sister. It's always when she's trying to prove that she's right and I'm wrong. I'm only her baby sister by forty-five minutes. That doesn't exactly give her seniority.

Thursday night she called again. She was in tears. I could hear it in her voice.

"What is it, honey?" I asked. Oh no, the 'item' must have fallen apart.

Instead she said "I'm sorry, Donnie. I couldn't help it. He tortured it out of me."

I said "Tortured you? He tortured you? What is he some kind of sicko? What did he torture out of you?"

Now she was mad at me. "Don't you dare call Andrew sick! I don't ever want to hear you talk about him like that again!"