Splitsville (Unedited Draft)

Chapter Four- Mary/Anne

MARYANNE\'S DORMROOM...

Anne slipped back across campus to her dorm with only a few curious stares at the singed state of her clothing. So much for her cute top and new sandals, right? Mary wasn\'t in the room when Anne got there and it made her anxious. Instead of pacing the floor waiting for Mary to get back, Anne did what she could to comfort Mary- that is to say that she didn\'t know where Mary was but, Anne could feel that she was still very cold, so she took a long hot shower and dressed in her heavy sweats to help Mary warm up. Then, she broke out the chocolate cookie stash from her underwear drawer and got Mary\'s energy up. Finally, she sung a lullaby her mother used to sing to Maryanne when she was a baby. It was off key because Maryanne was tone-deaf, but it didn\'t matter- it was a comfort anyway.

On her third chorus, Anne heard Mary\'s keys jangling in the door and rushed over to open the door herself. \"Oh thank God, you\'re okay!\" Mary and Anne said in unison as Mary came inside, half bounding in herself and half being pulled in by Anne. Mary was still shivering in her wet clothes and Anne began stripping her automatically.

\"I wasss- I wasss af-frrraid you were d-dead,\" Mary stuttered through teeth that wouldn\'t stop clicking together from the cold as Anne led her to the bed and pushed her down onto it.

\"Shh, I\'m fine. You\'re the one with hypothermia,\" Anne scolded and laid down next to Mary pulling up the covers. Then, without needing to discuss it, each woman shifted gently towards and then into the other. Anne gritted her teeth against how cold Mary felt around and all through her. The discomfort didn\'t matter- getting Mary warm was all that mattered. Anne began singing that old lullaby again and, after a time, Mary\'s ragged breathing slowed and her body didn\'t feel quite so cold to Anne. The sweet tingle that being joined up as they were had brought that morning started to take over and Anne felt Mary slip quietly into slumber. Anne breathed a sigh of relief and let exhaustion take hold of her as well.

Anne woke to a sharp knocking at the door. Mary didn\'t stir as Anne sat up and out of her to get the door. It was Matt. \"Maryanne. I\'m so glad you\'re okay. I was so worried about you.\"

Anne didn\'t let him inside, but instead hurried herself out the door and closed it securely behind her. Matt pulled her into a suffocating hug and, when he eased up, he leaned in and kissed her. It was not a I\'m gonna shag you silly kiss. It was more of a I\'m glad you weren\'t burned beyond recognition kiss. It wasn\'t too bad, but Anne was relieved when it ended. Matt was nice and he was the only person who they might eventually trust with the whole being split in two thing, but it still didn’t mean she wanted him drooling on her. Not that he actually drooled on her- he just didn\'t kiss her the way she liked to be kissed.

\"Mmm, yummy,\" she lied because, how could she risk making him hate her for rejecting him, when he was their only ally with knowledge of particle physics.

\"How did you get out of the building? The whole place went up,\" Matt asked as Anne led him to the couch in the common area down the hall.

\"Oh- well, I smelled the smoke before the way was blocked,\" she responded, sitting next to him. It was sort of the truth. \"I went out that side way you showed me before.\" Also the truth.

\"I can\'t believe I got you into all this again,\" he said apologetically. \"I\'m the kiss of death.\"

\"No. No you\'re not the kiss of death,\" she assured him. \"The kiss of singeing, maybe-\"

\"I\'m so sorry, Maryanne. I wish I hadn\'t left you alone.\"

\"It\'s all right. I was kidding, really.\"

\"Still, I wish I could make it up to you. At least you didn\'t have to deal with the FBI.\"

\"The FBI, really?\" Anne asked. \"Why were they there?\"

\"Well, Professor Drake\'s project is federally funded so, technically, the particle accelerator belonged to the government and the government is investigating.\"

\"And they questioned you?\"

\"They questioned everybody who had access to the accelerator. The fact that I\'m the only one who was in the building both times caught their attention, so I\'m on some kind of short list.\"

\"But they know it was Moores who, who- who did whatever the heck it was he did down in the lab yesterday, right?\"

\"Only on my say so that he was in the lab a few minutes before it happened. If they decide that they think I\'m lying, I\'m screwed.\"

\"But you\'re not lying.\"

\"But the only way I could back that story up is to have you corroborate my story, which would mean we\'d have to tell them that I snuck you in, which is a violation of the regulations. I should have had you cleared by security first, but I didn\'t.\"

\"But I didn\'t do anything to the machine.\"

\"I know and they\'d figure that out after they talked to you for a while, I\'m sure, but that\'s not the point. The point is that I broke the rules and then I covered up that I broke the rules when I didn’t admit it when I talked to campus security yesterday. I lied. Twice. So why would they take anything I said as true? Why would they take anything you said as true then either? It\'s all tainted.\"

\"So, you\'re a suspect in both the explosion yesterday and the fire today?\"

\"Uh-huh and one of the FBI agents really doesn\'t believe me. I can tell by how she looks at me- like I\'m an errant schoolboy and she\'s the vice-principal.\"

\"You think she knows something we don\'t want her to?\"

\"No, I haven\'t let my story change, but I think she can see that it\'s a little off. She just makes me so nervous, I stammer- even over the stuff that is completely true.\"

\"So, what are we gonna do?\"

\"You\'re not going to do anything. I\'ve dragged you into this too much. I\'m just going to stick to my story. I didn\'t do anything wrong other than the security thing- and the lying, of course.\"

\"Oh, Matt.\"

\"Really, they can\'t do much to me except keep asking questions. I\'ll be fine.\"

\"Do they have any idea what happened to start the fire today?\"

\"From their questions I think they think it might have started in Moores\' office. Agent Culpepper implied that maybe it was set to destroy evidence of tampering with the accelerator- or maybe to look like it was set to destroy evidence and put more suspicion on Moores. She was really trying to rattle me, you know.\"

\"But you were out running that errand for your advisor- you couldn\'t have set the fire.\"

\"The word accomplice was used, but there\'s no way. She was just fishing.\"

\"Are you sure?\"

\"I can take whatever she dishes out. I won\'t crack.\"

***

Mary woke alone, famished and wondering where Anne was. She got up and put on some comfy clothes- she was finally warm enough again, but the idea of letting herself get cold was really unappealing. She noticed the second ruined outfit in two days- the clothes Anne had been wearing in the fire- she noticed them in the trash. She bent down and picked them up- oh, even her new sandals had burn marks. She had been so close to losing Anne. She couldn\'t loose Anne- Mary couldn\'t manage without her.

Mary went to the door and peeked out into the hallway. She could hear Anne\'s voice somewhere down the hall. Satisfied that Anne was fine, Mary closed the door and sat on the bed to wait for Anne to come back. She wanted to go out there and see Anne for herself, touch her, be sure her other half was all right, but someone might see them together and there would be questions about Maryanne\'s never before mentioned twin. It would be like Mary\'s life had changed genres from comic book to daytime soap opera, complete with the sudden appearance of a long lost twin.

A short time later, Anne came in and they shot odds verses evens with their fingers to see which of them would go eat and which of them would wait in the room. Anne won, which, really, Mary was glad of because it meant that she could go back to bed and sleep. As she drifted off, she felt her belly filling with veggie soup, macaroni and cheese and cinnamon apples- comfort foods. Anne was so good to her. Later still, Mary felt the bed dip as Anne got under the covers, slid up next to and then comfortably into her, the satisfying shimmer of joining up with Anne putting a glossy shine on her sleepy dreams.

***

Nearly a week later, Mary and Anne had worked out an easy schedule to accommodate all Maryanne\'s classes as well as all the volunteer work they wanted to do. To be fair, Anne attended almost all the classes while Mary did all the reading and homework because Anne\'s skill at backwards writing still left something to be desired. They took turns as who got to eat so that Anne could balance Mary\'s sweet tooth with a few green vegetables each day and they alternated showering because- well, just because they alternated showering. A few days earlier, Anne had come home with a couple of cell phones so that they could keep better track of where each other were and avoid being in the same place at the same time anywhere other than Maryanne\'s dorm room. Things were settling in nicely.

There hadn\'t been any word on the investigation- either investigation- the FBI\'s investigation of Matt or Matt\'s personal investigation of what Moores had done to the particle accelerator. Matt had lost most of the data in the second fire, so he was reconstructing all he could from his memory. Basically, he was stalled on it. Oh and he could rabbit on for weeks about the woman from the FBI- Agent Culpepper- the one who was out to prove he had something to do with the destruction of the particle accelerator and the fire. Matt hadn\'t changed his story and his alibi for the fire was good- he\'d actually been in Professor Drake\'s office at the time the fire investigators had pinpointed as when the fire started. Aside from that, the only thing much Mary and Anne had heard from Matt was that he was still interested in that date Maryanne had said yes to, and he was getting a little antsy about it. Anne finally agreed to dinner and a movie with Matt on Friday because putting him off any longer was just too impractical.

\"I\'m so, so glad it\'s you going on this mercy date than me,\" Mary told Anne as they rifled through the closet looking for an outfit that said I think you\'re brilliant, but let\'s just be friends. Unfortunately, such an outfit wasn\'t easy to come by.

\"Don\'t worry, you\'ll be going on the next one,\" Anne warned, standing in her skivvies, pulling out and rejecting another skirt.

\"Aww, do I have ta?\" Mary moaned, offering Anne a completely mismatched outfit.

\"Yes you do, young lady and- what the hell makes you think I\'d wear plaid with stripes?\"

\"Are you kidding? This is just the outfit to make Matt look elsewhere. Really, it will work,\" Mary stated, nodding vigorously.

\"If course it would work- he\'d be embarrassed to be seen with me.\" Anne pulled out a baby blue sleeveless dress. \"I\'m wearing this.\" She pulled it over her head.

\"But we look good in that one. He\'ll be all over you,\" Mary complained.

\"What, are you jealous?\" she asked, finding her strappy blue shoes.

\"Of you getting drooled on by Matt again, hardly. Like I said, so, so glad it\'s you and not me.\" Anne smoothed her hair, checked her make-up, and put her keys, wallet and cell in her clutch.

\"Well. I\'m off like a prom dress. Don\'t wait up,\" she teased as she walked out the door to meet Matt downstairs.

The date was a disaster- Matt had a great time. He loved the chick flick Anne had picked out hoping to bore Matt into a stupor- an Italian surrealist piece about three fat women who die in a freak Wurlitzer accident in the first ten minutes and search for the entrance to heaven for two more hours as they analyze their lives and recite existential poetry. Then they went to a macrobiotic restaurant for dinner which was meant to put him off, but just served to show him how much he liked pickled plums and mung beans. Plus he laughed at all her jokes- all her jokes- even the ones that weren\'t in any way funny. And then there they stood, outside Maryanne\'s dorm room with Matt looking expectant and Anne stuck either letting him kiss her or risking hurting him.

She let him kiss her. It was a disaster, too. He really did drool that time and he was all the wrong kind of aggressive and hands-y, licking the roof of her mouth too hard and pulling her hair without noticing. Once it was over, she quickly told him goodnight and rushed behind the door so he couldn’t ask her out again. Mary was inside laughing her ass off. She had obviously felt how bad the kiss was, too.

\"Shut up, you ignorant slut, I don\'t see you getting us any good nooky,\" Anne mock scolded as she stormed the bed and tackled her gigglish and quite possibly evil twin.

After a moment of tussling, they lay side by side catching their breath. \"It wasn\'t actually that bad a kiss- he just didn\'t do it the way I like, you know?\" Anne complained.

\"Too rough,\" Mary agreed.

\"Exactly, and too much tongue.\"

\"And his lips were too big- like he might suck in your whole face and swallow you.\"

\"Eww, nice imagery, Mary.\"

\"Kinda true, though, right?\" Mary argued, rolling onto her side to face Anne and absentmindedly brushing that itching wisp of hair off her twin\'s neck.

\"Yeah, but how often are you gonna find someone who is nice and smart and interested and can kiss just right? We should probably give Matt more of a chance- he\'s a good guy,\" Anne reasoned.

\"We don\'t need a man, Annie. We don\'t need to settle. Besides, how complicated would that be at this point anyway? Hi, my name is Mary and I\'m only half a person. Wanna have an impossibly complicated relationship with me and my mirror-image subatomic clone Anne?\"

\"So, we don\'t get to have anybody? We\'re just alone for the rest of our life?\"

\"Annie, we\'re never alone anymore,\" Mary replied, slipping her hand gently up Anne\'s arm and letting her fingers sink in just above Anne\'s elbow. The tingle was a nice reminder of how each other they were.

\"Okay, you\'re right, but that still isn\'t the same as having a boyfriend to kiss and get all naughty with.\" Anne pouted.

Mary smiled wryly and answered, \"But it could be.\" Then she slid close to Anne, putting her hip up against Anne\'s hip and slinging a leg across Anne\'s leg.

\"Mary, we couldn\'t. It would be so wrong,\" Anne contested, but she still shimmied closer, wrapping her arms around Mary.

\"But, I know just what you like. You\'ll never find anyone who\'ll know what you like the way I do.\" Mary said and then she placed a sweet close-mouthed kiss on Anne\'s lips.

\"But, it\'s incest or something, don\'t you think?\" Anne asked before kissing Mary back just a might harder than the first one had been.

\"Maybe it\'s masturbation.\" Mary initiated the next one, gently opening her mouth and giving Anne\'s mouth a little lick as it finished.

\"Maybe.\" The next one, Anne opened her lips too, tasting Mary- so sweet. Mary rolled on top of her.

\"And masturbation is normal,\" Mary added. A deeper kiss, still slowly slick and gentle and Anne wrapped her legs around Mary\'s to keep her close.

\"Completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of,\" agreed Anne. Mary sat up, and Anne pulled open Mary\'s shirt, heedless of the buttons that went popping off in all directions.

\"Part of a healthy life- oh God!\" Anne took charge, pushing Mary off of her so they could strip with quick but shaking fingers. Anne couldn\'t tell which of them was the nervous one and which of them was the excited one, but who cared? Mary\'s mouth had been amazing- she could feel everything Mary did to her and everything she did to Mary. Double your trouble, double your fun.

And then they were naked, which was hot and that was oddly weird, since they\'d changed in front of each other for over a week and had shared the same body for twenty years before that. Anne guessed it was the fact that they both knew what they were planning to do that made it sexual then. Mary stepped in close to her and slid a hand down the outside of Anne\'s arm, just a steadying touch and Anne leaned into it, wrapped her other arm around Mary, feeling her soft warm skin, feeling her own hand caressing her back and kissed Mary hard and deep, like she might suck in her whole face and swallow her and Damn! It was so good.

Mary steered them to the bed and guided Anne down kissing her and knowing her mouth just the right way. Mary sat next to Anne on the bed, stroking back her hair and asked, \"Can we try something a little different?\"

\"More different than having naughty, naughty, naked, masturbatory, lesbian sex with our molecular doppelganger? Sure, why not!\" Anne giggled.

\"You\'re such a good sport,\" Mary complemented and laid down on her back and into Mary, joining them- lined up all shiny tingles. Then Mary rubbed her hands softly over their bellies. Mary\'s fingers traveled teasingly over their bodies, sometimes over them both, sometimes only over one of them and sometimes slipping gently into Anne\'s skin to paint burnished swirls in her flesh.

They were moaning. Moaning and grunting and sighing and trying to express a feeling that no one else had ever felt, and so the words to express it hadn\'t been invented yet. No that they needed words- Mary knew what Anne was feeling, knew what Anne needed, for it was the same as she needed. Mary finally let her fingers drift down to where their legs met, where their hips lay lined up and opened, ready for sweet touches traced over eager wetness.

\"Please, please, yes,\" Anne whispered encouragingly.

Mary stroked lightly over their clits, making two sets of hips buck up toward the contact and when they returned to the bed, Mary let her hips fall just a smidgeon off center, so she could stroke over both of their keen, hot buttons. Mary\'s touch felt infinite- like the mirror\'s echo- a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. They bucked their hips into it, each in her own rhythm creating a maddening syncopation.

\"Titties,\" Mary said and Anne knew it for the direction that it was. Anne moved her idle hands up to fondle and pinch peaked, aching nipples- she wasn\'t sure who\'s they were anymore- maybe one of each. A few ragged hip thrusts later, they tumbled over into orgasm in perfect tandem, hoarse and breathless moans from both of them filling the room.

\"Oh, we are bad, bad girls,\" Anne sighed, when she had breath to speak again.

\"Oh yeah, Annie,\" Mary granted, \"really bad girls.\" They lay basking a few more minutes.

\"Mary?\" Anne waited for an answer. None came. \"Maaaryyy,\" Anne sing-songed. Nothing. \"Are you really asleep already?\" Anne asked and still got no reply. Oh well, Anne though to herself and got up to find her bathrobe and toilet kit to get them ready for bed. Anne might be able to sleep without brushing her teeth, but Anne couldn\'t let them stay all plaque-y and get any rest.