Splitsville (Unedited Draft)

Chapter Eight- Maryanne? No, Mary-Anne

MARYANNE\'S DORM...

Anne was as glad to finally see Mary as Mary seemed to be to see her- that is- Anne responded to Mary\'s enthusiastic welcome home kiss in highly appropriate style. She dropped the grocery sack full of Italian-type food goodies that Nunzio had sent home with her, wound her arms about her twin and pushed them over to the bed all in a rush. Mary tasted strongly of brownies, Anne had known she would- she\'d been tantalized by the flavor for the last ten minutes. Despite having a direct line into Mary\'s health and welfare due to sharing a state of being, Anne still found it comforting that Mary was being her usual hedonistic self as shown by the chocolate and the way she was pulling Anne\'s shirt collar to the side to get at that really sensitive place on their necks.

Anne sat up and off Mary so she could strip down and took the opportunity to try the talking thing again, \"So, what you\'re saying is that you missed me?\"

\"Oh, Annie, so much,\" Mary replied and began unbuttoning her own shirt. \"Let me show you how,\" she promised. Mary popped open her bra and threw both it and her shirt across the room with a cowboyesque flourish. Anne would have laughed it that, but she was too distracted by the long pink slashes that crossed Mary\'s abdomen. The fact that Anne had the exact same scars in mirror image on her belly- and she had checked them out in the Bronxes full length- the fact that she had the exact same scars didn\'t lessen how hard it was to see them on Mary. Anne gave Mary\'s good shoulder a gentle shove and she rolled back onto the mattress.

\"Hey, you brute- what are-\" Mary\'s mock indignation was interrupted by Anne\'s mouth placing a barely there kiss on the very end of one of Mary\'s scars. Instead of being cute and sexy as she had intended it to be, Anne\'s kiss- her kisses for she was gently working her way down the length of the pink slash across Mary\'s belly- instead of being cute and sexy, Anne\'s kisses were sacred and profound- filled with wary joy that Mary still lived and breathed- filed with reverence for how fragile and precious a lover, a sister, a friend can be- how like paper we humans are. Mary found one of Anne\'s hands and held it. Mary stroked her nimble fingers through Anne\'s hair. Mary wiped the tears that fell on Anne\'s cheek and Mary\'s own skin away. \"Shh- Annie, it\'s all right. We\'re fine. We\'re both fine,\" Mary soothed her.

Anne couldn\'t stop herself from crying. It was stupid- they were together again- they were healing- but Mary had nearly died- Anne had failed her- she was supposed to protect Mary. She was the strong one and she\'d let Moores hurt them- hurt Mary. And, she didn\'t know where he was or how to protect Mary from him. It was as if she\'d been asleep when she\'d been at the Bronxes\'- she had felt protected there, but seeing Mary\'s scars woke her up- made her see that they weren\'t safe- they might never be safe from Moores.

Anne tugged at the waistband of Mary\'s jeans trying to get to the lowest end of the second scar to complete whatever ritual this was she was performing. Mary\'s hands worked the button loose and lowered the zipper, then they both were working to free Mary. Anne pulled and Mary writhed and they slipped off Mary\'s hips revealing the spot Anne needed to access. Kissed it reverently and turned her head to pillow it on Mary\'s stomach. After a moment, Mary made Anne scoot up the bed and they laid down, curled up inside each other and slept.

Anne woke up with Mary pulling at her clothes. \"Five more minutes, Mom,\" she said.

\"Funny. Your pants were itching me- take them off so I can sleep,\" Mary demanded.

\"Sure thing, ducks.\" Anne stripped off her unbuttoned shirt and dropped her pants. A moment later she felt Mary\'s hands stroking across her back as she hugged Anne from behind, one arm across the front of her shoulders and the other wound around her waist.

\"You doing better now, Annie?\" her clone asked, resting her chin in Anne\'s shoulder.

\"Yeah. I just missed you.\"

\"Well, I\'m right here.\" Mary\'s hands came away from Anne\'s body and Mary gently pulled her around by the arm. \"Annie?\" She stroked light fingers down the front of Anne\'s chest to circle her nipple.

\"Yes.\"

\"Would it be narcissistic if I told you I think you\'re beautiful?\" Mary asked with a wry smile and an almost pinch to Anne\'s hardening tit.

\"Well, they say it is the greatest love of all,\" Anne replied as Mary gave the same attention to her other breast.

\"Who\'s they?\"

\"George Benson, Whitney Houston,\" Anne informed her and bowed to kiss Mary just on the collarbone and work her way south.

\"Oh them- ohh!\" Mary exclaimed as Anne reached her nipple and sucked it into her mouth.

Anne dropped to her knees for a better angle and worked at finding the right combination of sucking and tonguing verses biting and blowing, not needing Mary\'s gasping vocalizations to know how good it was feeling to her twin- Anne\'s own nipple was peaked and blushed from knowing the feel of her own teeth. Mary\'s hands were gripping her shoulders in an effort not to fall- it all felt so good they were getting a little dizzy. Anne grabbed onto Anne\'s hips and together they managed to keep steady. Then they couldn\'t keep steady and Mary was swaying backwards, so Anne stopped to catch her.

\"How \'bout we go back to bed?\" Anne suggested.

\"Uh-huh,\" Mary agreed and laid down.

Anne crawled over the bed and positioned herself above Mary. She found Mary\'s other titty and tasted it- licking and suckling and loving it- feeling the restless, satisfying sparkle of what she was doing to Mary as well. Anne abandoned her work and placed a few sporadic kisses over Mary\'s scarred belly and down to her hip. There was a tickly sensitive spot in the hollow of her hip- Anne couldn\'t spend much time there since licking patterns on Mary\'s skin there made Anne laugh, too. Anne smoothed her hands over Mary\'s hips, down her thighs to her knees and back up her thighs, gently easing her legs apart.

\"Oh please, yes, Annie,\" Mary whispered her assent, as if there had been any doubt. Anne touched her cheek to the inside of Mary\'s thigh. Then she kissed the same spot finding a path up to the vee where Mary\'s legs met. Anne licked the place where leg met torso and moved just slightly center to delve in and find Mary\'s clit. Oh God! It felt too good for Anne to do very much- she couldn\'t concentrate on pleasing Anne- she felt it too intensely herself. She tried again, slipping her hand down between her own legs to rub at the same place she was mouthing on Mary. Somehow, that made it easier, not that that made any sense.

A very few guys had done this to Maryanne- it had always been unsatisfying- they never knew how to get it right- mostly just concentrating on her clit- over stimulating until she could hardly feel anything and ignoring all the other responsive flesh surrounding it. Anne slid her tongue along the soft folds of Mary\'s vulva and damn! She\'d been missing out for sure. It wasn\'t perfect- it was messy and Anne had to stop once to find the hair that was stuck to her mouth, but it was so much better than Maryanne had ever had it. Anne was shallowly fucking her fingers in and out of herself and she returned to Mary\'s clit, sucked it with a hard rhythm that matched her hand. The meter of it became halting and irregular and then- and then they came, Mary voicing the bliss they both felt- so good.

***

Right after Mary finally caught her breath, there was a loud knock at the door. Annie was snoozing so peacefully and that was good to see after she\'d been so distress at seeing Mary\'s scars. Mary dragged herself from the bed, pulled on her pants and the shirt Anne had been wearing- where had hers gotten to- and answered the door. It was Matt come to check on her. He was such a good guy. Mary pulled the door closed behind her and they went to the common area to talk.

\"How are you feeling, sweetie?\" Matt asked, settling down on the couch closer to her than she would have liked. He was such a good guy, she\'s been relying on him when she was in the hospital- even sort of letting him act like her boyfriend because she needed him while she didn\'t have Anne to help her.

\"I\'m doing really well- very little pain at all now.\"

\"Good. I\'m so glad to hear that. I wanted to tell you not to worry about the investigation anymore. The FBI issued a warrant for Moores arrest and left campus satisfied that he was the one responsible. It\'s good that justice prevailed,\" he told her cheerily as he put an arm around her shoulder.

\"That\'s great, Matt,\" Mary said. She was such a bad person, Mary realized guiltily. Because of Moores, he was putting himself in danger helping her, being close to her at all. She was gonna have to break his heart- she wished it was Anne talking to him. She might be able to do this without seeming the bitch she really was- so he\'d still be Maryanne\'s friend.

\"Do the police have any lead about the attack in the elevator?\" he asked gently.

\"No justice there so far,\" she answered. \"I wasn\'t much help not remembering what he looked like.\"

\"Who would have after what you\'d been through? I\'m sure they\'ll catch him.\"

\"That might just be a miracle.\"

\"Well, listen, I\'d like to help you take your mind off it- how about a movie on Friday? There\'s a Fellini film playing downtown we could catch,\" asked expectantly.

\"Uh- Matt- about the whole dating thing.\"

\"Yeah?\"

\"I\'m such a shit, you know- really bad at this.\"

\"Bad at what?\"

\"At telling you I think we shouldn\'t- you know- date. It\'s totally not you. I\'m just, well, going through some things right now.\"

\"Oh.\"

\"I\'m sorry.\"

\"You know, I understand- about you going through things, I mean. You\'ve been through a trauma- several traumas really- it\'s bound to make you unsure of things.\"

\"Exactly- I\'m very unsure- in fact the only thing I am sure of is that I\'m unsure.\"

\"But I thought that you were coming to rely on me- that I was being the kind of man you could be sure of- I am, you know- that kind of man.\"

\"Oh I know. You really are.\"

\"But that\'s not helpful to you? You don\'t want my help?\"

\"I- Matt I just can\'t keep using you when I know I\'m never gonna be able to give you what you want.\"

\"How can you know that- you\'re unsure of everything? I think we should stay together- I can be low key.\"

\"There\'s someone else,\" Mary blurted out- it was true and it was the kind of thing that might put Matt off and it was the completely wrong thing to say.

\"Oh. Really?\"

\"Yes. I\'m in love- in fact, my lover is asleep in my room right now. We just had sex.\"

\"Wait. How long has this been going on?\"

\"Since just after our date.\"

\"And you just had sex?\"

\"Yes.\"

\"If you\'ve been together since then, where was this mystery lover when you were in the hospital? Why was I the one to visit you all the time, the one to help your parents with whatever they needed while they were in town? Where was you lover then?\"

\"Busy,\" Mary told him meekly.

\"I don\'t think this person exists- I think you made up this boyfriend.\"

\"Matt I didn\'t make up a boyfriend.\"

\"So prove it.\" He stood up from the couch.

\"Matt?\"

\"Let me meet him.\" He strode determinedly down the hall and she followed him. \"Open the door, Maryanne. Let me shake his hand.\"

\"No, Matt.\"

\"Right.\" He nodded and stared walking back down the hall. Mary watched him go for a minute before getting out her keys and unlocking the door. As soon as she turned the knob, Matt was back, jostling her into the room and following right behind. Anne woke with a start at the yelp of surprise Mary had giving as Matt ambushed her. A moment later, Matt gave his own startled exclamation as he saw Mary sitting up on the bed only half covered by the sheets.

***

The first thing Anne thought to herself on waking was that Mary was in trouble and needed her-she had known that the reprieve from Moores couldn\'t last- it had been days. The second thing Anne thought to herself was Oh Crap- Matt\'s here- Anne had also known that Matt wouldn\'t be put off forever- they were eventually going to have to tell him that they weren\'t Maryanne anymore or tell him goodbye. From the shocked look on Mary\'s face- this- Matt seeing them together- Anne all nakie- this had not been her plan. Anne pulled the sheets up a little further.

\"Um-\" Matt said, looking from Anne on the bed to Mary standing next to him.

\"Close the door!\" Anne commanded and Mary jumped to comply.

\"Uh- You\'re twins?\" Matt asked, puzzled. \"Which one of you is Maryanne?\"

\"Oh, well- she is,\" Mary answered, pointing at Anne and then shrugging at Anne from behind Matt\'s back as Anne gave her a dirty look.

\"Matthew, would you mind turning around- I\'m kinda cold over here,\" Anne asked.

\"Oh, right- okay.\" He turned and faced the wall and Anne scrambled to find her clothes. Her shirt wasn\'t where she\'d left it- it was on Mary. Matt was standing on Mary\'s shirt she\'d flung in the heat of passion- sweet Betty- this was gonna be a fun conversation. \"Sis, could you-\" Anne pointed to the closet.

\"Oh. Shit, I\'m sorry,\" Anne apologized and opened the closet door to find Anne a shirt. Mary opening the closet made the mirror on the back of the door showed Matt in reflection- that meant that Anne was in the mirror for Matt. He stared at her naked upper half for a moment before meeting her eyes, blushing and turning his head a little to be polite. \"Here you go, Annie,\" Mary said as she stepped across the room to hand Anne a shirt that matched her rumpled pants perfectly.

\"Thanks, ducks,\" Anne replied, trying to put enough emphasis on ducks to get Mary to think about what she called Anne, but Mary didn\'t seem to pick up on it. Maybe Matt wouldn\'t notice Mary\'s slip. \"You can turn around now,\" Anne stated and he did.

\"So, if you\'re Maryanne,\" Matt turned to Mary, \"then who are you and why did you just call her Annie?\"

\"Uh-\"

\"Matt, you should sit down,\" Anne ordered. It was gonna be useless to try to keep it from him, especially if he was gonna be any help in keeping Moores at bay. Matt moved to sit on the bed, then thought better of it and sat at the desk chair.

\"Okay. Why am I sitting down?\" he wondered.

Anne took a deep breath and began, \"You remember the incident with the particle accelerator- what am I talking about- you remember- of course you remember- sorry. Anyway, that day- that day when Moores did that wacky thing that he did and I said I saw him turn into two Moores, then four, then eight, yadda, yadda, yadda-that day- I left one big detail out.\"

\"Which was?\"

\"Well, you know I passed out- just like Moores had passed out before he got all plural. The thing is, when I came to, I was two.\"

\"What?\"

\"I was two- not to as in awake- as in come to- I was two as in plural as in two Maryannes.\"

Matt held his breath and shook his head, trying to reason out or maybe just parse out what Anne had said. Then he just requested, \"Again?\"

\"What happened to Moores- the replicating thing- it happened to me,\" Anne grabbed Mary by the elbow and pulled her up next to her so Matt could see how the same they were. \"It happened to us,\" she stated.

\"Oh.\" Matt looked consternated for a minute more. \"But why aren\'t you dead?\"

\"No clue. You\'re the physicist, you tell us,\" Anne said, finally finding her voice in this.

\"I- don\'t know. There has to be some reas- Which one of you did I go on the date with?\" he asked suddenly interrupting himself.

\"Me,\" Anne raised her hand.

\"This is amazing- impossible. I\'m insane to even consider that it might be the truth, but- wait- this is one of those things, one of those twin things. Twins play tricks like this all the time, right?\'

\"We wouldn\'t know- we\'ve only been two for a few weeks.\"

\"This really isn\'t a joke?\" Matt asked, looking like he wished that his picture was in the dictionary beside the word gullible.

\"If it was, could we do this?\" Mary asked and took a step to her left and into Anne. Oh that still felt nice- no matter why they did it.

\"Holy shit!\" Matt exclaimed. \"How- oh wow. Can you separate again?\"

Mary nodded, which tickled Anne. Mary stepped right again.

\"Damn, that\'s- I don’t even know what that is, Maryanne,\" he told them.

\"Matt, there\'s mores,\" Anne added.

\"More? What more could there be?\"

\"Moores,\" she repeated.

\"Yes, what more?\"

\"No, not more as in additional-\" Anne corrected, \"Moores as in I\'m a crazy physicist who wants to build a replicant army of myself and take over the world.\"

\"He said that?\" Matt asked.

\"No, he didn\'t- I just made the last bit up.\"

\"Oh. So what about Moores?\"

\"He\'s not so dead as we thought.\"

\"He\'s not dead?\"

\"Uh-huh- he\'s more like wispy,\" Anne elaborated.

\"Wispy?\"

\"Except when he decides to be unwispy and stab the hell out of you in a hospital elevator,\" Mary put in with a shudder.

\"Wait- you mean Moores did that to you? He\'s not dead?\"

\"Not dead and awful mad at me- us really,\" Mary answered.

\"Oh shit- the fire.\"

\"And the gas,\" Anne added.

\"How can he be doing- are you sure it\'s him- you said you didn\'t remember the elevator?\" he asked, looking at Anne. She pointed to Mary and he turned towards her.

\"What was I supposed to say to the nice officers I was attacked by a mad scientist who doesn\'t exist as solid matter except on alternating Thursdays during months with two full moons?\" Mary snarked.

\"No, I guess that wouldn\'t be believable.\"

\"Listen, Matt, you\'re our only hope,\" Anne pleaded. \"You\'re the only other person who knows the whole story and we don\'t know how to stop Moores- not just for us. He also almost killed Professor Drake- he did if you count the heart thing that started with him getting gassed and all.\"

\"Who knows who else he might hurt?\"

\"Will you help us?\"

\"Of course. I- I have to get back to my notes- you, Moores still being around- it changes so much.\" Matt got up and made to leave- presumably for the place housing his notes.

\"Hope it\'s enough, because we don\'t know anything more to help you.\"

\"Oh, hold on,\" Matt stopped with the door half open. \"This secret was why you didn\'t want to date me anymore- to protect your secret.\"

\"That and-\" Mary spoke as she slipped her hand into Anne\'s and raised them for Matt to see.

\"Oh God, that\'s hot,\" Matt breathed, suddenly hoarse.

\"Matt,\" Mary-Anne scolded in unison.

\"Sorry. I\'m going. Bye- uh- Maryanne?\"

\"Mary,\" Anne introduced, pointing at Mary.

\"Anne,\" Mary said, giving Anne a little shove on the shoulder for being deliberately confusingly cute.

\"Okay, bye Mary. Bye Anne.\"

\"Bye Matt,\" they chorused and he went out the door.

***

THE BRUNII BUILDING...

Matt paced his small basement office- it was more a cubby than an office, so pacing took about three steps each direction, but he paced anyway. His brain was afire with all he\'d just learned. Maryanne had been split in two- down to every part of her- down to every cell- down to every molecule- down to every atom- down to her quarks and gluons- she was now they. It was impossible outside the theoretical for something macroscopic to be exhibit anything like that- to actually be in two places at once- to be in two slightly different states at the same time. It was just inconceivable, but it was real. Matt had seen it, seen them both- side by side and, unbelievably, overlapping- intermeshing. And it wasn\'t some kind of visual echo or optical illusion and one of them was lesser- if he understood events correctly, Matt had touched them both, had rational conversations with both of them- Hell! He\'d kissed one of them. Mary, was it? No- Anne- it was Anne he was sure it had been Anne.

He took a moment to breathe and give himself a mental shake. He had to get beyond his disbelief and work this through with everything he knew about what Moores had been working on and what had happened to him and Maryanne. Moores\' notes had shown that he had been just about completely mental. Matt didn\'t have them anymore- they\'d been lost in the fire, but he\'d been able to read through his research- manifesto might be a better word. Moores was convinced that he could achieve immortality through physics. It was hard for Matt to sort the science from the quasi-religious ranting in the work- and really, Matt had dismissed almost all if it as the ramblings of a disturbed mind, but maybe, maybe the science had been sound- maybe Moores had been able to multiply and disperse his particles- his quarks and gluons- disperse them throughout a specific region of the universe, reserving the ability to re-intensify and reintegrate his matter whenever he wanted to influence the physical/macroscopic world.

If Moores had succeeded, then what happened to Maryanne was less intense perhaps because the walls of the observation room and her greater distance from the particle accelerator tempered the effects of Moores\' experiment. Maryanne\'s two parts had certainly gained a measure of protection from injury due to being divided. By their recounting of events Maryanne should have died three times in weeks since the experiment, but there they were- living- and they could reintegrate at will. There had to be a way to force Moores to reintegrate against his will- trap him in one state, in one place, so he could be stopped before he killed Maryanne in a way she couldn\'t recover from. Matt ran that last thought through in his mind again and laughed. Was this not crazy?

Matt sat down, his one leg still fidgeting his excitement and anxiety, and started writing out a few scenarios.