Epilogue: Just the Two of Her

Stacy had an imaginary friend. At least, that's what her parents thought when she was still at the age where that was expected.

It started off innocuously enough, even if it didn't fit the standard for such practices. The fact that her friend was also called Stacy was a little disconcerting, but not nearly as much as the casual belief that they acted in place of each other. Usually imaginary friends were there to be played or conversed with, but Stacy often seemed perfectly content to sit by herself in the sun in complete silence. When asked what she was doing, she would say that she was talking to Stacy - an explanation her parents soon lost the will to question.

The other odd thing was that it never stopped. Most kids grew out of their imagine friend phases, but not Stacy. Stacy and Stacy were together through preschool, primary school, high school and college, though she quickly learned to keep the existence of the other Stacy a well-guarded secret. People were very quick to get the wrong idea otherwise.

It didn't make a terrible amount of different to her life overall: She did better than average in her studies (Stacy helped her) and despite often preferring her own company, suffered none of the severe effects of social isolation (ignoring the persistent belief in the other Stacy). She had dated a few times, even had one or two relationships that verged on the edge of committed, but everyone she dated got the definite feeling that she was only partially with them at any given moment.

Because there really was, in fact, another Stacy: Two souls sharing one body, one name and one face. There was never any confusion, conflict or animosity; in fact throughout their entire life the only feeling they had towards each other was a deep and burning love. What Stacy and Stacy enjoyed was an intimacy closer than any other human could experience, and she knew it.

She knew it when she looked at herself naked in the mirror and saw the lust of her other self in her own expression. She felt it in the way her body trembled when she touched herself, how her own voice whispered to herself in her mind and how her hands would take on a life of their own when she let them.

She felt it in every movement she made, every word she spoke and every pleasure that she indulged in that she was two people experiencing a single life.

And she didn't question it. She was just glad to be together with herself.