"Twin" by Deirdre. Many moons ago, I stated in this column that Deirdre deliberately writes with several different styles. I made that observation because the style of the narrator in the story I was reviewing was not one of my favorites. In her disclaimer to the present story Deirdre herself says: "It's possible that you have noticed that for some of my main character/narrators, the elevator doesn't quite reach the top floor. (If you are just now learning English, then there's an idiom you can study) The problem is that I prefer to write stories with the main character narrating, but I also like to keep secrets from the main character. Thus if I let the reader in on a secret, then the main character isn't thinking things through very well. If I'm lucky, they just seem distracted. Otherwise . . ." Deirdre put it better than I did (elevators usually are better metaphors than moons), but for once I was more succinct. This subtle aspect of Deirdre's style (adapting the language and logic to that of the narrator) is one of the strengths of her writing.

On to the present story: "Twins." One night, the narrator's usually passive girlfriend starts fucking his brains out in an unusually aggressive, passionate manner. This is fine with him; but midway through the second performance, he hears a noise in the house. He goes looking for a prowler, but he finds a naked woman bound and gagged in another room. His girlfriend hastily explains that this is her twin sister, who has come to town and would do anything to keep her (the girlfriend) from being happy. "Best to leave her gagged and teach her a lesson by fucking her in the ass," says she.

Now, go ahead and guess the rest of the plot. Under these circumstances, were I the boyfriend and granted that we have twins here, I would at least entertain the possibility that it is the girlfriend who is bound and gagged on the floor and the evil twin sister who has been fucking my brains out. Instead the guy says to himself, "Gee, my girlfriend sure is talking different!" and proceeds to sodomize the damsel in bondage.

Well, I've given away the secret to the story; but that's because my elevator goes higher than this guy's has gone in many moons. But you would have figured out the secret yourself anyway, and there's still another half of the story to go. Here's another secret: according to her disclaimer Deirdre _expected_ you to figure this out; and for the rest of the story you get to participate in a sort of dramatic irony by knowing something the boyfriend doesn't know - or do you? It gets pretty interesting trying to figure out whose bones the guy is jumping, who he's marrying, and who it is that has him tied spread-eagle on the bed. (Rating: 10)