"Double Trouble" by Rondu. To understand and enjoy this story, it is important to realize that it is science fiction. If readers don't understand the rules of this imaginary world, the story comes across as sheer nonsense or as advice to do things that are threatening to children. As part of the author's literary style, the rules of this imaginary world are not stated up front; rather they become obvious as the story unfolds.. However, I don't think I am ruining the story by telling you these rules. Here they are. The main characters in this story live in a world where the following changes are made in the laws governing human nature: (1) One twin is able to communicate through mental telepathy, even across great distances. He can tune into other people's brain waves pretty much at will; and they can communicate reciprocally with him, if he wants this to happen. (2) The other twin has extraordinary powers of empathy. He can understand the emotions of other people better than those persons can themselves - but only if he is in their immediate presence. (3) At least one adult authority figure (the narrator of the story) can engage in sexual intimacies with 9-year-old children without any negative side effects whatsoever. In all other respects, their world closely resembles that of Western civilization around the end of the 20th century. Reputable scientists would deny the validity of all three of these premises; but once we assume that they are true in this imaginary world, we have a pretty interesting story.

The story is well written. The author writes with an obvious admiration for and understanding of many of the joys of childhood - not just sex with children. The narrator comes across as a mixture of an adult who is still a child and a dysfunctional man who cannot relate to little boys without focusing on the beauty of their tight little asses and longing to have sex with them. In normal society this person would perhaps be dangerous, but in this imaginary world he provides the basis for interesting complications that go well beyond ordinary pedophile stories. These complexities build around the question of how an adult who is attracted to them would interact with a pair of children whose psychic powers have enabled them to achieve an unusual combination of sexual maturity and innocence.

I'm sure there are flaws in the logic of this story, just like there are flaws in most good science fiction involving children, including Peter Pan, E.T, and the various time travel movies.; but these flaws occur largely because of the complexity imposed by the three rule changes. It's just plain hard to imagine a world like this - largely because most reasonable people have see legitimate dangers in ordinary pedophile behavior. The third rule requires that we temporarily cancel in our minds one of the main taboos of our society - a taboo that nearly all social scientists would say has a great deal of validity behind it. In other words, to enjoy this story, it is necessary to suspend reality enough to believe this all could really happen and to read the story without automatically asserting that this is the way that children "should" or "should not" grow up in the real world. If you do this, you'll find a good story. If you read it as a "really great tale about how this old guy screwed a couple of children," it's a pretty weak story.