That night

That night, Eve lay awake listening to the sound of Dawn breathing, and made a decision. It was not based on fear like her forwardness this afternoon, but on the secure knowledge that Dawn had become more than her friend. Much more. Dawn had somehow sensed her uncertainty, and managed to turn her down as well as spare her feelings at the same time. She knew the other girl thought Eve wasn’t ready and managed to sweetly ignore Eve’s inexpert flirting throughout dinner and while they were getting ready for bed.

She slipped her hand under their nightgown to their left breast and began to slowly stroke it, much the same way that Dawn had a lifetime and two days ago. Her ministrations were light, soft; fear of waking the other girl up and a desire to do so kept her hesitant.

"Don’t say anything yet, just listen," Eve murmured. "I’ve been lying awake for over an hour thinking this through and I want it. I want you." She kneaded her nipple harder and felt a groan from the other woman, knowing that Dawn was feeling the same pleasure. "I’ll stop, but only if you tell me that you’re not interested."

Eve had a moment to think that somehow this time ‘bitch’ had an altogether different and more pleasant meaning than last time Dawn had used the word, then thought vanished as Dawn began to knead their right breast. "Harder," she moaned to Eve. "Do it harder, it feels better."

Eve pawed herself to the point of bruising and Dawn sipped air through clenched teeth. Simultaneously they craned their necks to look at each other. They smiled as their eyes met, and Dawn stretched her neck out even further to gently brush Eve’s lips. Eve was a bit taken aback at first, but strained to meet Dawn halfway for a second try at the kiss. Their lips met a little tighter this time and they held it as first Dawn’s hand, then Eve’s touched their pussy. Eve wanted to finger herself the way she’d felt Dawn do it that night, but the brunette pushed Eve’s hand away and began to trace their vaginal lips with a feather-touch.

"Yes," Eve murmured back, this time cupping the breast on Dawn’s side and kneading hard. Dawn’s hand began to rub, then began a slow thrusting in and out; much slower than last time. Eve, beneath the levels of passion, understood the reason for the difference. Last time Dawn was just masturbating for herself; this time, Dawn was making love.

Dawn had made love to women before, but it was never this good. To feel every inch of her lover’s body, experience its passions as her own because it was surpassed any sexual experience she’d ever had. Their kiss alone, feeling her own lips as they locked onto Eve’s lovely mouth, was worth every gawk and stare they’d gotten today and all the days besides. Her desire to bring them to a slow orgasm evaporated and she was soon fisting herself hard. Eve whimpered against her mouth, eyes practically rolled up in back of her head, past any other external stimuli. When the dam broke, Dawn’s consciousness swam from the sensation; she thought she screamed, could swear Eve did scream.

Reality returned slowly as Eve and Dawn, sheathed in perspiration, shared a tender smile. Dawn brought her hand up, and the two took turns licking it clean.

The two girls giggled about that for a bit. Then Dawn grew serious. "Even if we get stared at or otherwise treated like freaks for the rest of our lives?"

Dawn nodded. "No arguments here. We still have a few things to take care of., though. Your dad and my mom seem to be have a handle on it, but you’ll notice that at the surprise party they kept referring to us like the other one wasn’t even there."

Eve sighed. "I suppose if we hit them over the head with it hard enough they’ll come around. Actually, I think there’s a bigger problem we need to consider." She said a name, and Dawn nodded emphatically.

Evening had fallen outside and Carl continued to fight with his computer. "Stupid machine," he growled. "Can’t give a straight answer even when you’re told what the answer is." Papers were piled up on either side of the finished-oak desk written in programming code. It was a tongue that had caused insanity in people before; Carl wondered if a computer could go crazy. Its monitor face glared back in reproach as if to say I already gave you one miracle, now you want another one? He repressed a sudden urge to put a sneaker through it.

His buzzer complained; Carl ignored it and went back to studying a ream of printouts. He almost managed to lose himself in them when he noticed the buzzer hadn’t stopped complaining, like someone was leaning on it Curious despite the apathy, Carl meandered over to the door to peer out the keyhole.

Instantly his whole manner changed; his slouching posture straightened, his eyes brightened -- he was even smiling as he yanked the door open to reveal a man in a police uniform. "Officer Bechilde -- Mike," Carl smiled, "you don’t know how happy I am to see you."

The man looked briefly startled at Carl’s eagerness, but recovered quickly. "That depends on the evidence. Detectives say there’s no probable cause, but I got them to reopen the case. I just want your story before I start."

1 Carl giggled hysterically. "You don’t know how long....why don’t you come into my office; all the evidence you’ll need is in there." He made his happy way to the room in question, never noticing that Mike had left the door open. Nor did he notice the strange shadow being cast in the hall. He dug through his records to find the damning section of code and brandished it.

Carl nodded. "And then some. But I’m getting ahead of myself; why don’t you sit down? I’ve told this story already but the other policemen wouldn’t listen to me."

Mike just nodded and glanced at the papers. Behind him, in the main room, the strange shadow crept up on its owners’ soft-shoed feet to listen.

"I met Eve and Dawn literally on the same day," Carl began. "Eve when I started work at the homeless shelter and Dawn at one of my regular Goth haunts."

In answer, Carl fished a pair of overlarge shades with glitter paint covering its frame out of his dresser drawer. He held it up for inspection. "The Shadesman, at your service."

Two very faint noises came from the shadow; one was the start of a surprised squawk and the other the sound of aforementioned squawk being abruptly stifled.

"Oh, on the surface they appear to be as opposite as two people get," Carl conceded, "But past that, they are very similar. Consider that both girls are the same age, within two months of each other. Both are good students and hard workers, putting in fifty-hour days to go to school on scholarship and putting away spending money. Eve’s mother left her father when she was fourteen and likewise for Dawn’s father. They both blamed the parent they remained with and set out to remake themselves into an image that was the opposite of what they saw that parent as being like."

Carl beamed at him. "Exactly! Which leads me to their biggest problem; each was making the same mistake in different ways. Both girls thought that their behavior would entice their prospective absentee parents back. When that didn’t work, they started to upscale it. Eve began to turn into a judgmental zealot and Dawn started to gravitate to the Goth drug scene. It was just starting, so I had to move fast."

"First of all," Carl said, "that wasn’t the intention; second of all, I don't know -- I’m not a biologist. Intention or not, though, I was the cause. Have you heard of machine telepathy?" Mike shook his head. "No surprise there. It’s cutting edge computer design that uses the operator’s brainwaves to control the system. Currently, they’ve managed to get it to the point where you grab a ‘sending device’ and think at a word processor program and it will type -- slowly, mind you, but it will. I’m involved in the projects geared towards developing it further. In the course of my research, I stumbled onto a breakthrough; thought-sharing between two people, using the computer as a medium."

"Sort of," Carl nodded. "My plan was to show Eve and Dawn someone else in their situation, so different and yet so like them, in the hope they’d reevaluate their life choices and change before it was too late. So, I modified my car with a computer and a ‘sender’ in the ignition, and Dawn’s car with another sender."

"Babel has a policy about drunk customers driving; they don’t let them. One evening as Dawn was getting escorted home I stayed after hours to do my tinkering. Eve’s father believes in home security, so I couldn’t get near it for the amount of time I needed."

Mike frowned. "Still sounds dubious. I mean, it was sheer chance that Eve’s car was in the shop when Dawn broke down..." he paused, seeing Carl’s too-innocent expression. "Not chance, I take it?"

"Nope," Carl said. "Fake recall notice was all it took to put Eve’s car in the shop. A locator in Dawn’s car told me when and where it was moving. The rest as they say, is history."

Mike rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "So I see. Well, the cars in question were thoroughly destroyed so there’s no evidence, can’t get you there. Boys in the crime lab passed your notes around the staff ofwhere you’re working, and they couldn’t verify your device does what you say it’s supposed to. Even if it does, there’s no way that it could conjoin two people, right?"

"Look," Carl insisted. "I don’t know why that happened. Maybe because they were such a contrast of opposites, and yet connected by their similarities. If you shoot a poisonous spider about the bite someone and hit the person, it’s still attempted murder!" He began to pace the office frantically. "It was my fault! Don’t you see?"

A quick whispered consultation and the shadow stepped into Carl’s office. "We see a lot of things differently these days," Eve said.
Carl jerked in the direction of the unexpected voice, a puppet on strings of grief. Framed in the doorway, wearing a blue strapless tube dress was Eve and Dawn.

Full circle, Carl thought and began to giggle. How appropriate; Mike had brought Carl’s victims to their maimer for their pound of flesh. He knew the man wouldn’t let him down. "Did you hear?" He giggled again, like he couldn’t stop.

"Good," he smiled, a trembling sickly thing. "I’m glad. You....you two deserved to know." The mask of raw guilt on Carl’s face eliminated any ill feeling that the girls had towards him. He seemed to be unaware of the change in their faces from indifference to pity. "This farce has gone on long enough. The police don’t believe me, everyone thinks I’m crazy. You two know different."

They spoke no other words; rushing forward, the two girls gathered him up in a hug as tightly as they could manage. Carl wept and cursed himself with passion while Eve and Dawn murmured forgiveness.
"It’s okay, Shadesman," Dawn soothed in one ear.

Eve and Dawn held that hug for a long time; Mike slipped from the room and closed the door to give them privacy. It took a long time, but Carl learned an important lesson; it’s hard to punish yourself when your victims refuse to withhold absolution. It was the only lesson they could give him, so Eve and Dawn taught it as hard as they could.