Two Halves of a Whole: Part 1

PROLOGUE: TWO HALVES OF A WHOLE

There are two women that have defined my life as a seventeen-year-old boy: my twin sister, Ally, and Patricia. Ally and I have known each other since we were in the womb, sharing heartbeats and kicking rambunctiously into our pregnant mother’s insides. Everyone knows how close identical twins can get, and Ally and I were no exception. Those twins you see on TV that finish each other’s sentences? Yeah, we’re one of those sets. The insufferably adorable, and kind of creepy pair of look-alikes that seem to share a single mind. But we don’t share a single mind; at least, not Ally and I. No, my mind is shared with another: Patricia. And Patricia is closer to me than Ally ever will be, because Patricia is me.

That’s right folks, I’m a schizophrenic. Half of me is Jake Bronston, shy and average, and the other half is Patricia (Trish for brevity’s sake), adventurous and bold. When we were children, Trish and I were a symbiotic organism. I’d be in the driver’s seat during most of our conscious state, and Trish would take the wheel when daring action was required. I, Jake Bronston, would never stand up for myself, but Trish…Trish would kick Jordon Christianson square in the balls. Ally loved Trish and I equally during our youth. She’d share adventures with Trish, and then confide in Jake when she was feeling the need for a softer friend. It was all great, and my duality never posed a serious problem. That was, until puberty hit.

I am a man, goddamn it! A red-blooded, American piece of testosterone-driven violence and insecurity! But, I share this hormone-fueled body with a woman that is (to put it nicely) a complete slut. Trish hit puberty like Wiley Cayote hit a brick wall painted as a tunnel. One night, she’s planning an adventure of a lifetime through the Michigan backwoods, the next, she’s finger-fucking my asshole and moaning the names of the middle-school basketball players! One hour, I’m chatting up Jenny Laughton on messenger, the next, she’s looking up sex-change operations in Mexico! Do you see my predicament?! The symbiosis stopped, and my mind became a battleground for the two personalities that desired control of it. We were no longer partners, but rivals.

Ally, bless her heart, has always taken my side of things. Ally pulled Trish back from the brink of a lot of situations that would have ruined me. She stopped Trish from going to a gay bar glory-hole stall, she stopped her from asking out boys in school, she even stopped Trish from doing the unthinkable with a paring knife in the garage. Yeah…it’s been a rough couple of years. I finally had to cave to my unknowing parents and seek help. I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to betray Trish, but this horny bitch wanted my genitals gone, and I’m very much attached to them. With extensive shock therapy, daily meds, and the threat of a lobotomy, me, and a team of psychiatrists, managed to lock Trish up in the back of my mind. I’m the only one in control now, but I can feel her testing my defenses. Not only is Trish relentlessly daring, she’s cunning as hell. And now, she’s pissed off. All it will take is one slip-up by me, one missed dose, one missed session, and Trish will be out of the box.

This is the story of Trish coming out of that fucking box.

CHAPTER ONE: THE SKITZO, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE

Yeah, Ally’s a witch. I didn’t mention that in the prologue, because a skitzo boy with a self-mutilating counter-personality seemed like enough of a pill to swallow in four paragraphs. Speaking of which, I need to take my meds.

Anyway, in my modern-day America, magic is rare, but not unheard of. In my America, the Salem Witch Trials were justified, the Spanish Inquisition was legitimate, and burning at the stake was practiced regularly in the nineteenth century, (mostly in Alabama). Witches managed to latch themselves to the feminist movement of the fifties, and became a protected class in the late half of the twentieth century. Ally was fortunate to be born during the open-minded year of 2000, where being magical didn’t automatically mark you as a freak.

Ally’s power is transformation; she can alter the structure and appearance of organic life. One day, when we were eleven, a drunk BMW driver almost hit me. Were it not for Ally’s quick reflexes and magical powers, I would have died. Ally trimmed the legs off the driver, sending him skidding to the side of the road and into a nearby tree, killing him. Using magic against another person is a serious crime, even if it’s self-defense, or the defense of another. Our parents had enough clout to get a great lawyer and a sympathetic judge, but it wasn’t enough to exonerate her completely. Ally was forced to put on regulators, which are magical inhibitors. She was crushed when they did it. Her identity as a sorceress was stripped from her, and she became just another person. She never admitted it, but I always got the sense she resented me for it. I didn’t know how much it had driven a wedge between us until that fateful August morning, when the regulators came off…

“Oh, fuck.” Ally said in a dismayed murmur.

The regulators fell from her temples and dropped with a metallic ping on the kitchen floor. The wired devices cracked upon their downward impact, sending valuable government property spraying its circuit board-guts all over the white tiles.

“I was just adjusting my headband,” Ally said as she stared at the pieces of her court-ordered mental handicap, “I didn’t do it on purpose! Jake; they’ll think I tore them off!”

“Just sit tight and we’ll call your parole officer,” I said calmingly as I picked up the pieces, “I’m sure this kind of stuff happens all the time; they’ll understand.”

“I need to get out of here!” Ally cried, her panic rising as her mind ran through the consequences for regulator removal, “Only a specialist is supposed to be able to take them off. They’ll think I did it on purpose! Jake, you gotta get me the fuck out of here!”

“Ally, calm the fuck down,” I said, laughing, “if they came off from just adjusting your headband, then they’re definitely bullshitting you when they said it’s that hard to take them off.”

The house phone blared out its obnoxious ringing tune. Ally and I both jolted upright, a sense of dread filling the air as the speaker announced the incoming caller: Federal Bureau of Sorcery. Ally’s already pale face grew paler. I put a calming hand on her shoulder and gave her a confident smile before picking up the phone.

“Hey,” I said in my best everything-is-fine voice, “this is Jake Bronston, I bet you guys are calling about the-”

“Ally Bronston, you are charged with the tampering and sabotaging of Class B Inhibitor Regulators,” the authoritative automated voice said, “this is a felony with a mandatory twenty-year sentence. Remain in your home while local authorities secure the premises. Local and federal personnel have been issued an auto-warrant to search and seize any and all property and/or persons pertaining to your violation. Nonviolent compliance will be met with leniency. I repeat: nonviolent compliance will be met with leniency.”

“Let me talk to a person, please,” I said, my voice still calm but my eyes darting nervously to Ally, “can I talk to Parole Office Shanahan?”

The phone speaker droned a dial tone for a few seconds, and then the clicking sound of someone picking up.

“Sergeant Carrie Shanahan speaking.” Ally’s parole office spoke.

“Sergeant Shanahan,” I said, “I just wanted to say that Ally’s regulators came off on their own, and she’s freaking out. I told her this must happen all the time, and I’m assuming the automated voice message is just-”

“Jake, I suggest you leave the premises immediately,” Shanahan said sternly, “we don’t want a hostage situation on our hands.”

“A hostage situation?!” I laughed, “Look, Officer, Ally’s regulators just came off, I was there when it happened.”

“Is Ally Bronston with you now?” Shanahan asked, a hint of concern filtering through her stoic voice.

“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Ally, “she’s here right now, and she’s scared shitless. I’m telling you, Shanahan, she didn’t-”

“Jake, listen to me, and do not react at all to what I am telling you,” Shanahan said through the phone, the concern in her voice now readily apparent, “our diagnostic team tells us that Ally has been subtly tweaking her regulators for months now. This was not an accident, this was premeditated. I don’t know how she knew how to do it, but-”

But I know how, the sultry, seductive voice of my counter personality spoke in the back of my mind, how ya doin’, Jake?

I hadn’t heard that voice in four years, and it chilled me to the bone.

Hey, Trish, I replied nervously, nice to hear from you. Long time, no see.

You’re always so good at hiding your fear, Jake, Trish smirked in my mind, but you can’t hide it from me.

How did you…how the fuck did you…

“Trish is a telepath, Jake,” my sister’s voice said behind me as I felt the cold rim of my dad’s pistol pressed against the nape of my neck, “she’s magic, like me.”

But you’re not, Trish laughed, I truly am, your better half.

“Turn around, Jake,” Ally said gently, but sternly, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I slowly turned around, the sound of Sergeant Shanahan’s voice still crackling from the phone speaker. Ally stood before me, her straight blonde hair brushed behind her ears, her pale face flushed at the cheeks, her pointed nose dotted with a few freckles, her big, blue eyes staring steadily at me, and her full, pouting lips pursed together, with the hint of a frown creeping from the corner. Her chest heaved beneath her t-shirt in adrenaline-induced breaths, her amble bosom expanding with each inhale. Her legs were spread in the stance our father taught us when we were aiming a gun, and her thick thighs flexed in preparation, forcing her supple glutes to protrude vulgarly from the outline of her figure. The barrel of the gun stared into my right eye, unwavering in its regard for me. Ally meant fucking business.

“Ally,” I said, trying to keep my composure, “what are you doing?”

“Trish can explain it all to you,” Ally said, “get in the car.”

“They’ll catch us,” I said, “Ally, there’s no way we’re getting out of this.”

“Jake,” Ally said as she hammered back the slide, “you know me better than anyone, so you know when I’m not fucking around. Get in the fucking car.”

I stared at my sister for a long moment. The look in her eyes was telling me she was right, she wasn’t fucking around. Did I think she’d kill me? No, but I suspected she wasn’t opposed to putting one in my shoulder. With her regulators off, she could put hole after hole in me, and then just change the molecular composition of my bullet wounds until they were healed.

“I’ll get in the car, Ally,” I said as I slowly backed up and took the keys off the counter, “I’ll drive you to where you want to go, but I want you to put the gun down. I love you more than anyone, and if running away is what you think you need to do, then I’ll help you escape.”

Oh, Jake, Trish laughed, You’re coming with us, you know that, right?

What the fuck!

I jolted upright in surprise and was blinded by the muzzle flash before the bullet plowed into my shoulder. Blood splattered against my face and I went down in a scream of agony.

“Why the fuck did you do that?!” Ally yelled at me, “You knew he would freak out! Why the fuck did you tell him!”

I couldn’t resist, Trish howled in pain and mirth in my mind, I wanted him to get a taste of the hell he put me through over the past four years. How does it feel, Jake?! Do you feel helpless and alone? Are you scared and in pain?! How do you think it felt to be stuck in the darkest corner of your mind for four years?!

“C’mon,” Ally said as she pressed her hand to my wound and helped me to my feet, “you still need to drive us.”

“You fucking shot me!” I screamed, welcoming the sounds of approaching sirens.

“Trish made me do it!” Ally yelled back, “I told you I wasn’t fucking around, and then all of the sudden you jumped up…no sudden movements, Jake! Haven’t you watched television?!”

All I could do was groan as Ally’s hand healed the hole in my shoulder. She dragged my limping body out to the driveway and half-shoved me into the driver’s seat. She wheeled into the passenger’s seat and leveled the gun to my shoulder.

“I don’t want to shoot you again, Jake,” Ally said, “but right now, we’ve got the cops, and soon the feds rushing toward us. I’m not spending twenty years in Baraga Maximum, so put your foot on the gas and become an accomplice.”

“I’m your hostage!” I spat.

“Half of you is,” Ally smiled back, “but I’m hoping you’ll come around with Trish and I.”

“You know this is the end of us,” I snarled as I put the car in reverse, “you know I’ll never forgive you.”

“Yes, you will,” Ally said, “you’ll fucking thank me when it’s all over. Explain it to him, Trish.”

Are you ready for an exposition dump? Trish asked me as I floored it down our cul-de-sac.

Give it to me. I grunted mentally as I screeched around the corner and through a nearby alleyway.

When you put me through hell by casting me back here, Trish said with a venomous tenor, I was lost and alone. I was left in the darkest corner of your mind, where only the truly strange, violent, and perverse thoughts you carried dwelt. Needless to say, it changed me. The only glimpses of our mind that I caught were the feelings you kept locked away. Feelings about murderous revenge, feelings about nihilistic indifference, feelings about your twin sister, you perverted little boy, you…

What the fuck are you talking about? I yelled back at her as I swerved past a tan coupe and merged onto the county road.

Oh, just the occasional thought of bending your twin sister over and shoving it into her ass, Trish said nonchalantly, Sometimes, it’s a little romantic diversion, but most of the time, it’s an anal rape fantasy. Maybe you get these late at night when you’re watching that BDSM shit on your laptop. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re frustrated with women because they pay you no heed. Whatever it is, you can’t handle these thoughts, so you stick them back here, where you think they’re forgotten. But they’re not forgotten, Jake, you had these thoughts, and now I have them. They’ve manifested themselves as part of who I am, and it’s corrupted me.

Look, Trish-

Don’t worry about that now, Trish said, the point is, you fucked me.