Claire and Rachel were nervous. This was unusual for them as they were redheads, and in their society redheads were not meant to be publicly nervous. It was nearly midnight, and at midnight they would be legally twenty years old. Adults. Not teenagers any more. And there was a special ritual for identical twins to undertake – special, because they were special. It was believed that God had thought so much of this particular person that He had created another immediately; at conception.
This ritual was a closely guarded secret, and of course the twins had heard many stories – each one being more fantastic than the last. They were, it was said, to be ritually fertilised by the head of the church; they were to be bathed in goat’s milk; they were even to be beheaded and returned to Heaven where they’d come from – a sacrifice to God. The twins’ liked the one that said they were to be given wings and turned into Angels, to help guard the planet from the evil one. Having been a crack Unreal Tournament team (if a pair of players can be a team), that appealed to them.
It was strange, to non-twins, that the girls almost pre-emptied each other. It was, at times, almost as if you were dealing with a meta-human – one supermind spread into two bodies. The twins knew this was not so, but they did like the non-verbal communication that went between them, but they were individuals with different tastes and thoughts. It irritated them immensely when people called one of them the other, and they deliberately wore different styles of clothing and hair and makeup. Claire was the wild(ish) one, and Rachel the gentle butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth one. However, as normal human beings this could all change. In other words, they were just people.
The clock in the hall began to chime the hour, and on cue the twins, who were dressed as nearly identically as possible (as was the way), left the Room Of Waiting to enter the Chamber Of Accomplishment where they would become adults. The room was mostly bare, with pastel walls and a large bed in the middle. The twins had been instructed to lay, side by side, on this bed. They did so, and the Mistress Of Ceremonies entered.
“Welcome Adults To Be,” she said. “You are special, and only special ones can be joined. This is not a torture chamber, so put all nervousness out of your minds. We are here to celebrate you, not spoil you. Do you wish anything to eat or drink before we begin?”
The girls shook their heads. The lights dimmed, and the Mistress, in one action, swept her arms up and back, throwing off her cloak onto the floor behind her. She was naked underneath, and unadorned with any artificial additions; no ear-rings, no rings, no makeup, no studs, no hair clips or gel, no body paint and no underwear whatsoever. 100% naked.
“As I am, so you must be. Please remove your clothes and place them on your side beside the bed. When you have done that get back on the bed and lie on your back, but as close to your sister as possible, touching all down one side.”
The girls did as they were told, and when they were settled against each other a slight shock ran through their bodies, and then a sensation of peace. They relaxed totally, and smiled back at the Mistress. She wasn’t moaning, or doing strange Druid-type things, or anointing herself with oils. She just stood at the foot of the bed, facing the girls, with her arms spread wide, and started to move them towards each other very slowly, as if doing a very slow clap with out-stretched arms.
This was where the girls started to Join. Slowly, inexorably, where they touched the sisters started to melt into each other. There was no pain, just a feeling of peace and that this was natural. It was if their bodies were clay, as they melted into each other. The inside arms melted into the side, then disappeared, which in turn attached and grew into one torso. The legs naturally merged into one leg, The shoulders became one collar bone link between two necks, absorbing the shoulder blade into the back/ribs, and the touching breasts become a single middle one. The bodies internally were becoming one as well; the blood supply flowed around the new body, pumped in perfect unison by two hearts, and other organs either merged or shared. This new being had four lungs, two windpipes, one large stomach with two tubes from two throats feeding it, and this fed into one large digestive system. The central merged leg remained, thus leaving two sets of genitals and anuses. The central foot had five toes, with a big toe on each side.
Clap! The hands met and the girls heads looked around, as if waking from a dream. They looked at their joined bodies, but it all felt natural and correct. Hey ran their hands over the places where the two bodies had become one, and both learned the sensations of feeling another’s body as your own. Rachel felt her genitals, and Claire felt it as well. The nervous systems had joined and sorted themselves out in next to no time, and decided that all signals should go to both brains. This would make it easier if one girl was asleep, then the other could ‘drive’ them both. It would take a little time, sorting out who would drive when both were awake, but that would come naturally and quickly. In fact they moved to the side of the bed without much pulling and I-wanna-go-this-way problems. The Mistress approached them and knelt before them.
“You will not be joined forever, so make the most of this, the most intimate knowing of another person you can possibly have. What you will learn goes beyond normal Humanity, and when you write your memoirs of this experience it will add to the sum of human knowledge.”
“What happens now?” asked Claire, or was it Rachel, for the personalities were also merging in some ways, and normal thought seemed to be function of both brains. They were still individuals, but cooperated as intense lovers do when copulating, moving together and thinking together.
“That’s up to you. You are free to live your life without interference, in the Village Of Experience. Nothing will be too much trouble for us to supply for you. I will leave you now, for half an hour, so you can get used to your body. You will learn to walk, talk, exist as one in that time. Apparently that is plenty of time for those such as you. Your intelligence has not exactly doubled, but grown considerably as a result of two minds working together. For the next few weeks you will be revered and even worshipped, but you will still be human and subject to our laws and culture.”
Claire burst out “So no humping two men at once?!” Rachel smiled.
The Mistress smiled as well. “If you want. There will be plenty of contenders for that. Apparently the main problem will be fitting them in!”
They all laughed. Then the Mistress left and the girls quickly learned to be a body.
The time was up. The Mistress returned with some fishnet stockings, red high heeled shoes, black long-armed gloves and a red double-width outfit. “It’s traditional,” she explained. “Every joined pair wants to be photographed as a sexy object; something with creation of body-image and self-sexuality. So this is the sexiest outfit we’ve got, so see if you can get dressed.”
It took a few minutes to sort out who was going to control what arm and to do what with what, but soon they were standing in front of the camera on the tripod, ready to be entered into posterity. It helped them to feel they were a sexy body, a living and breathing being.
Then they went off to begin the Days Of Exploration.
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