We are fraternal twins, even though we officially share different birthdays: My brother was born a few minutes before midnight, while I was born a few minutes after midnight. After having inhabited the same tiny space for nine months together, it is perhaps no wonder that we are both so close, and always have been. It is often said that twins tend to share some special bond, able to "know" about the other at seemingly all times even when separated by great distances, and that has certainly been the case between us.
Even once our parents had brought us home from the hospital, they would tell family and friends, my brother and I were never content to be apart. We had separate bedrooms, but whenever we were not in direct sight of each other, we would both cry and fuss. After nearly two weeks of virtually no sleep, our parents relented and finally placed us in the same room, but even then, we were not content until we occupied the same crib, against their better judgment... but that was the key to both our happiness and their sanity.
As we grew older, there was very little that one of us ever did without somehow involving the other. Perhaps not surprisingly, we shared a number of similar interests. We typically had the same friends. We even tended to wear similar clothes, and almost always wore all-black outfits. Certainly, we fought on occasion, just like any other pair of siblings, but there was no doubt to anyone that my brother and I were inseparable, and also fiercely loyal to each other in all situations.
Only Siamese twins could be closer.
*****
About a month after our eighteenth birthdays, it was the final morning of a wonderful summertime camping trip together in the forest, just the two of us: just me and my big brother, just me and my twin. We were over an hour from home and a good two miles from the nearest known road, camping in our favorite spot several hundred yards off a little-used hiking trail.
Since well before daybreak, through a variety of positions, my brother had been continually sheathed within my body. The continual bubbling sounds of the nearby stream and the dim sunlight penetrating the thin blue canvas were seemingly the only things that existed outside the confines of the tent.
All that mattered now was that I hold off his inevitable explosion for as long as possible. Somehow, my mind reasoned that the longer we could stay so intimately connected, the longer we could delay our return to civilization and its many taboos.