“Alexis, I’m home!” Helmet in hand, my sister burst through the front door after chaining up her bike on the porch.

“Welcome back, Sis.” From the kitchen, I glanced at her as I was adding the veggies to the stew pot. Biking gloves, kneepads, and other protective gear were left out on the porch with the bike, but as she was crossing the living room, she was already shucking off a sweat-soaked tee shirt. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Leave the stripping and changing for the bathroom, please! I don’t need to see that!”

“‘That’ is just my sports bra,” she demurred, as I pushed her toward the bathroom, nestled as it was between the dining room and laundry room. “You do laundry, so you’ve seen plenty of them, and more besides. Besides,” she smirked over her shoulder at me and made as if to pull herself free from the bra as well, “we used to bathe together, so you’ve seen me in less than this…”

“We were FIVE! That was twenty years ago! Things are different now!” I pushed her into the bathroom, and pulled the door closed, leaning back against the old chest of drawers that held towels, washcloths, bath mats, and spare rolls of toilet paper. However, she opened the door a crack and tossed out her sweaty clothes—from tee shirt right down to the socks, with everything in between—at me, which I caught by reflex. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go get you something to wear from your room.”

On my way to her room, I tossed them in the laundry basket which was, out of habit, in its old location in the kitchen-side doorway to what had been my mother’s bedroom when we last lived here. That room was a bit of an odd design, with two doorways basically side-by-side. One opened into the living room, next to its doorway into the kitchen. The other opened into the kitchen. I suppose it was for extra-lazy convenience by those generations back who built the house—only going through one doorway (instead of two) into the kitchen for a late-night snack—but who knows, maybe it wasn’t originally a bedroom but another room for entertaining guest? Now, however, the room was the library. My sister’s contributions were generally college textbooks and coffee table books, mostly of lighthouses and beaches, but she also had a fairly impressive collection of comic books, graphic novels, and manga. The rest, with more paperbacks than the local library, were mine. That sounds quite impressive until you realize that the local library is a tiny little thing that serves several small towns of around a thousand people each; instead, it’s just mildly impressive. Well, in addition to the textbooks, coffee table books, and paperbacks, there were also three shelves of Little Golden Books and other things we had shared as very little kids. With neither of us having plans for kids, there was no real need to keep the children’s books other than nostalgia, but that’s the same reason we moved back to this old house in the first place, so … we kept them.

A quick detour to the kitchen sink to wash my hands followed. Sweaty clothing isn’t fun to carry around, even (or especially) if it is your twin sister’s sweat. And then, back upstairs to her room. Like me, she had moved back into her childhood room. Fortunately, the upstairs rooms had had some significant work done by the previous owners. After all, growing up, my room was the only upstairs room with an electrical outlet. She had had to make do with an adapter screwed into the light socket back then, but thanks to the intermediate owners, the whole building had been rewired. The gleaming FIVR pod just inside and to the left of the doorway would never have worked, otherwise. Neither would the massive aquarium nor the illuminated display cases showing off her various sporting and other trophies and certificates.

My twin wasn’t one for skirts and dresses, so it was her wardrobe I raided rather than her closet. She did have a couple for occasions that warranted them, but a prom dress, a bridesmaids gown, and a “little black dress” for formal dinners were certainly not needed for a dinner of stew at home nor for hopping into a virtual reality game afterward. Feeling faintly malicious in reaction to her teasing and having to handle her sweaty clothing however, I did grab the girliest other attire my tomboy sister had: pale pink plaid pajama pants and a slightly ruched tee-shirt with a heart-shaped patch of the same plaid. They weren’t something she would have bought for herself, but until recently we were too poor to discard gifts, and this had been a gift from a great-uncle on our father’s side, the one relative on that side who had still kept in touch for the holidays despite the rest of the family cutting us off after the divorce. In theory, I had a matching set, in blue of course, with a star instead of a heart (and no ruching). In practice, it was what Alexandra normally wore to bed, consigning the pink to the bottom drawer of the dresser. For undies, though, I just grabbed whatever was at the top and front of their respective drawers. For all that I did the laundry, I wasn’t comfortable with rummaging through my sister’s bras and panties just to find something to tweak her with.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

A bit later, she was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in pink, and mock-glaring at me in between each mouthful of stew. Her short hair spiky from the shower, she proclaimed, “I’m going to have to get you back for this, you know, Alexis. These are going to find their way into your closet, and perhaps I’ll hide all your briefs and replace them with something lacy or pink. Or both!”

I stood my ground. Metaphorically. After all, I was sitting at the table, too. With a raised eyebrow, I inquired, “Do you even have anything lacy or pink, Sis? That doesn’t seem your style.”

“I’ll buy some, then. We’ve got the money for it, now!”

“Sounds like I know what to get you for Christmas, then,” I shrugged, winked, and then continued, “Speaking of gifts, there’s a surprise in your room.”

“It better not be anything else pink!” She was doing a good job at pretending to pout.

“No. Metallic, for for the most part. The FIVR pods cost enough that I didn’t feel the need to spend an extra fortune on customizing them.”

All pretense at a pout was gone as my twin’s eyes got wide. Spoon half raised to her mouth, but forgotten in the moment, she just stared at me, “We’re going to play ECHO? I thought you said we couldn’t afford it?”

I shrugged again, “I lied. Well, stretched the truth. We are millionaires, after all. Just... don’t plan on buying a fancy new car for the next couple years, not unless you want to get a real job instead of just volunteering and lazing about like me.” She was a volunteer lifeguard and instructor at the peninsula’s swimming pool, a few little towns north, and I spent a few hours a week at the local library, reading to kids and assisting with the library’s literacy program. “If we buy too many things, we won’t have enough in interest payments to live on and we’ll end up tapping into what’s supposed to be creating that interest. And then, in short order, we’ll be thousandaires instead.”

She nodded and was silent for a few more long moments while I finished eating and rose to serve dessert. It was nothing fancy, just pineapple chunks in orange jello, her favorite. You might be able to take the twins out of the poor, but you can’t take the poor out of the twins. We ate just as plainly as we did growing up. Besides, plain fare was simple to make and I was a bit lazy. Finally, she remembered her spoon and took another mouthful of stew, and started speaking before finishing chewing. “I forgive you, this time, little brother. But you’re still getting these pink pajamas, Alexis, since I’ve stolen your blue ones. But you don’t have to wear them any more than I have.”

Little brother. All of fifteen minutes separated us though we technically had different birthdays. She was born at 11:48 at night, and I followed just after midnight—lazy and a night person from day one. And, yes, brother. At birth, we were named Alexandra Lynn and Alexander Lynn, which caused no end of confusion, especially since “Alex” is the standard short form for both. As we grew up and it became apparent that my sister was the extroverted, physically-oriented of the two whereas I was the more shy and stay-inside type, we developed crossgender nicknames for each other. In private, I was “Alexis,” sometimes “Lexy,” and she was “Lex,” sometimes “Luther,” despite not being the least bit villainous. To everyone else—teachers, parents, and especially peers—we were always Alexander and Alexandra, and never any short form.

For a brother-and-sister pair of twins, we were near on to identical as possible. Same middling height, same androgynous facial features, same pale blue eyes, and even (for most of our years) same shortish dishwater blond/e hair. Her hair was even shorter now whereas I’ve let mine grow out into a ponytail.

Things had been relatively easy for others when we were very little, since my mother had been a bit old-fashioned and kept my sister in dresses and long hair up to about kindergarten. After that, she hadn’t much of a choice in the matter. My sister would go to school in her dress, but in her backpack was a pair of my pants and one of my shirts. And a moment’s inattention by the teacher had allowed my twin to use the craft scissors to haphazardly cut her own hair short. Then, for the next seven or eight years, we were nigh on impossible to tell apart: white sneakers, blue jeans, and matching tee shirts except on Sundays. Then it was black dress shoes, dark blue slacks, and white dress shirts—ties, for some reason, not required.

Then high school and puberty made things much easier for others. To Alexandra’s great chagrin, she had inherited the genes for my mother’s prominent bustline (and to my great relief, I, of course, didn’t. My manly pride was spared!). Even though the rest of her figure was almost nearly as boyishly androgynous as mine—no concave waist, no wide hips, no full rear—the very real need for a bra separated our appearances.

Anyway, enough about my sister’s boobs; we have a game to get to!