Multiversal Maddie

When Nate was twelve, he had seen a UFO. Or at least, he had called it a UFO. When he told Maddie about it, she insisted that what he described was actually a satellite. Red in the face, Nate had pointed out that neither of them could know for sure it had been a satellite, much less what kind it was, which meant that it was still unidentified. His sister laughed at him.

Nate was sullen for days afterward. It felt like his sister had stolen something from him. Wonder, perhaps. He wanted so badly to have experienced something impossible.

So you would think that when he watched his naked older sister vanish into thin air on a Tuesday morning, he would have found the affair fulfilling.

Nate remained seated in his sister's computer chair, clutching his slowly wilting penis, waiting for an explanation. He didn't know who would be providing it. It felt like he'd just seen a magic act performed, and that if he stayed vigilant might glimpse the hidden wires or the glass wall making the trick possible. The logic had to be there somewhere.

But nothing happened.

Eventually, Nate closed his porn tabs, zipped his pants, and left the room.

XxXxX

The day passed like any normal summer Tuesday would. Nate, who had summer classes Wednesday-Saturday, spent much of it studiously working on his homework and not thinking about shining doors of light that briefly emerged from nowhere to swallow up vexed siblings. His parents did not ask where Maddie was because, of course, she was at work. There was very little to remind Nate than anything was amiss until dinner.

As was their custom, the Flitts waited until all four members of their clan were present to break bread. Nate, Sophie and Sam all gathered promptly to eat at six in the afternoon, past when Maddie's shift at the store was meant to end.

Twenty minutes went by. Still no Maddie.

Sophie was quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion. "Do you think she was on the interstate for some reason? I saw there was a terrible wreck this morning."

"Relax, babe," Sam said, "Maddie is an excellent driver. ...But maybe I should give her a call."

"Would you? I'll try texting her manager."

Nate sat in silence, watching the lasagna his father had cooked cooling on the table. Should he tell them? What was there to tell? His sister had vanished and he had no reason to believe she would return. Maybe he should just tell them he had been whacking off in her room for the last two months and she had finally caught him and wouldn't be coming back. It was true enough.

His thoughts continued in a fatalist direction until the dining room door suddenly opened.

"Sorry I'm late! Traffic was terrible. Oooh, did Dad cook tonight?"

Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. "Maddie dear, why didn't you call? Your father and I were terribly worried."

The girl took her seat at the far end of the table. "Lost track of time. My bad!"

Dinner started and everyone dug in. Nate, however, found his appetite impeded. He kept watching his older sister out of the corner of his eye. Her hair was longer than it had been earlier. That shirt wasn't one he'd ever seen her wear before. Most audacious was the change in her bust size. On a good day, his sister was a B-Cup. This girl had to be a C. And then there was that thing...

"Hey Maddie, what's that on your wrist?"

"Oh, this?" Maddie held up her right hand, showing the thick black bracelet that was wrapped around her wrist. "It's just some fad accessory. Picked it up at Wal-Store on my lunch break."

Sam blinked. "You mean Walmart?"

Maddie tapped her forehead. "Right, Walmart. Don't know what I'm saying. I must be tired."

Nate looked down at his place, contemplating. "Have you called Aunt Marsha lately, Maddie?"

Sophie shot him a warning look, and was about to say something, but Maddie spoke first. "Nope. Don't think we've talked since Easter. Why? Is something going on with her?"

The sounds of silverware died as everyone stopped to stare at her.

"You could say that," said Nate. "She's dead. The funeral was in February. You were there. We cried."

Maddie stared at the fork in her hand, eyes wide and vacant. Under her breath, the girl whispered "Dirty, rotten trick..." No one but Nate was close enough to hear.

She pushed herself away from the table and stood up. "Wow. I must really be out of it tonight. Sorry guys, I think- I- I'm going to bed." Maddie left the room. Nate didn't hear footsteps on the stairs.

He caught hell from both his parents that night. Both of them wanted to know why he would bring something like that up, knowing how close Maddie and Marsha had been. He couldn't explain himself.

When Nate went upstairs to get ready for bed, he knocked on his sister's door. "Maddie, can I come in?"

No response.

He pushed the door open, wide enough that the hallway light streamed in.

Maddie's bed was empty.

XxXxX

The next day, Nate came home from his summer classes. Both of his parents had work on Wednesday, so he was surprised to hear noise coming from the kitchen.

He went to investigate, and found his sister digging through the fridge. Well, his "sister." This version at least had the right hair and highlights, but wore very un-Maddie-like clothes. Her skirt was so short that, as she bent over to investigate the lowest shelf in the fridge, Nate was able to see her white panties. The white top she wore was opaque. Standing behind her, Nate could make out the yellow strap of her bra.

Nate tried to talk, but all that came out was a choked, coughing sound. Maddie stood up and turned.

Her legs were bare beneath the skirt, and he didn't know what that shirt was for since he could clearly see her bra and navel. She put her hands on her hips like they were squaring off, but smiled. "Hey Nathan! How was your day?"

"Fine..." His eyes focused on the black bracelet on her right wrist. "Have you been to Wal-Store lately?"

"You mean Walmart?"

"That's good, that's very good," said Nate. Ignoring the confused looks from Maddie, he went up to his room and did not leave it until dinner.

The family congregated around the table once again. Nate made sure to sit opposite his sister, that way he could keep an eye on her. The dining room was silent, any normal conversation stifled by the tension between the two.

Sophie broke it when she addressed her daughter. "Maddie, your manager phoned. She said you had skipped work for the second day in a row, and that she hadn't been able to reach you. Do you have anything to say about that?"

Maddie's eyebrows rose in alarm, but she didn't skip a beat answering. "Sorry, Mom. I had been meaning to tell you. I had an... incident with one of my coworkers. I don't feel comfortable going back."

Sophie frowned. "I understand how you feel honey, but I wish you had told your manager or me about this. Maybe something can be done about this coworker. The store has been a good place for you. It would be a shame if you lost that job."

"You're right Mom. I'll call Joanne tomorrow. See what we can work out."

With the smile of an accomplished mother, Sophie went back to digging into her mashed potatoes. And just in time too.

Nate watched as his sister laid her hand on the table, open in a waiting grasp. The saltshaker slid six inches under its own power into her palm. Maddie lifted the shaker over her plate with no sign on her face that anything was the matter. Nate coughed pointedly.

The two siblings locked eyes. Nate's were wide as saucers. He slid his eyes from Maddie to the salt shaker and back again. Then he slowly, shook his head.

No

.

Maddie's expression was squeamish, like someone who had almost meandered off of a cliff's edge. She put down the shaker without using it and numbly ate her meal. Anytime she had to move her hands she did so slowly and with clear forethought.

When Nate checked her bed that night, she wasn't in it.

XxXxX

On Thursday, after class, Nate came home to study with Lana.

He and Lana had been friends since grade school. Both of them dwelt in the social purgatory between being nerds and being underachievers. The burnouts thought they were annoying because they didn't like sports, cars, TV, or drugs. The geeks looked at them with disdain for having Cs and Ds. It was a lose-lose situation.

Nate was surprised Lana hadn't found cooler friends before junior year. While he wasn't entirely ugly, he couldn't understand how she didn't qualify as hot. She had tits like volleyballs, perfect skin, long black hair, and tended to wear shorts and skirts that left her long, glistening legs exposed. He liked her red glasses too.

If Nate wasn't a complete sicko, he supposed he would have a crush on Lana. Maybe they'd even be an item. But no, he had to have an undying lust for his sister with the washboard chest. A situation which had only become more complicated over the last three days.

"And what is the government's executive body?" Lana read off of a notecard. She was dangling off the side of Nate's bed as though it were a horizontal-lying chair. Her legs were on its surface, her thighs and butt against the side, and the back of her head touching the floor as her hair flowed across it.

Nate pretended he wasn't watching her skirt lose its battle with gravity as he tried to remember the answer. "Is it parliament?"

She looked back (or up, from her perspective) at Nate. "We don't have a parliament, Nate, that's the U.K. And some others, I think. Have you done any of the reading?"

Nate slouched against the wall and rolled his eyes. "I've been doing plenty of reading. I've been reading Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Claudia Gray, Brian Michael Bendis, everything that isn't our U.S. Government homework and dull as dishwater."

Lana shuffled through the notecards in her hand. "Maybe dishwater wouldn't be so bad for you. If you drink it all now, you won't have to in the fall semester. Learn to like the taste. Besides, maybe you could use some dishwater to wash out whatever has been stuck between those ears."

"You've stretched that metaphor way past my comprehension. What?"

"You obviously have shit on your mind. You haven't been acting right for days. And you won't talk about it. I've been your best friend for eight years, dude. If you can't tell me, who can you tell?"

Nate sighed. "It's a little hard to explain-"

The door opened.

The young man didn't notice them when he walked in. He was six and a half feet tall, at least. He had styled red hair, a similar shade to Sophie's. And as the man cast his towel to the floor, Nate found that he was also blessed with an impressive six pack, and rippling muscles throughout the rest of his body. Nate estimated this new guy was at least five times the man he was.

Perhaps for that reason, Nate had trouble articulating what to say to this strange intruder. It wasn't until he opened Nate's closet, the motion of his hand drawing Nate's attention to his wrist, that the boy was able to speak.

"Hey," said Nate, "The hell are you doing?"

The man jumped and twisted around to face him. Nate and Lana were blessed with a glimpse of the naked figure's full package. Nate wondered if the man was naturally hairless below the neck or just a zealous shaver.

"What are you creeps doing in my room?" demanded the stranger. He raised his hands as if he expected a fight, not bothering to cover himself.

"Oh, just enjoying the view," Lana said. Nate felt a spike of jealousy at the wistful tone in her voice.

When the man looked at the girl, his combative stance dropped. "Wait, you're familiar. Are you Landon's sister? I think you have the wrong room, girl. Natalie is next room down the hall."

Nate put the pieces together. "Oh. I think you're in the wrong house."

"No no, he should stay," Lana said, rising from the floor.

Nate kept his eyes trained on the man. "Pretty sure my sister, Maddie, would disagree."

The man wrinkled his brow. "But my name is Mad-" He stopped.

As abruptly as he had entered, the man picked up his towel and exited the room, fiddling with his black bracelet as he left. Lana chased after him, but the hallway was empty.

XxXxX

It had been a full week since Maddie's disappearance.

Nate sat on his bed, editing the journal he'd started compiling over the weekend. Every night, a different Maddie had joined his family for dinner. So far there had been Wal-Store, Telekinetic-Maddie, Man-Maddie, Italian accent-Maddie, Cowgirl-Maddie, Longer hair-Maddie, and No tits-Maddie. With each, Nate had noted some incongruence with their behavior or appearance and they had disappeared of their own accord. And so far his parents still hadn't realized anything was wrong. Sophie had brought up at dinner a call from Maddie's manager informing them that she had officially been fired, but No tits-Maddie had simply told them that she would start looking for a new job. Crisis averted, apparently.

Over the course of this bizarre week, Nate had constructed a number of theories. All of them were patently ridiculous. He theorized that aliens were attempting to replace his sister, and doing a really crap job. But the errors these "alters" made were less alien-not-understanding-Earth and more typical human error. Maybe this was all an elaborate prank his sister was pulling to get back at him. But how the hell was she modifying herself to appear so subtly yet definitely wrong?

He could have written novels about what significance the black bracelet might hold.

The boy closed his eyes and threw his head back onto his pillow. He was no detective, or a science-fiction protagonist. He was an eighteen year-old, C-average high school student. This shit was beyond him on every conceivable level.

Sounds of movement came from the next room. Maddie's room.

Nate cringed. He considered ignoring it. He would run into her at dinner anyway. Why force himself into further awkward circumstances that necessary?

He pushed himself off of his bed and trudged dutifully into the hallway.

Maddie's door was partially open even though it had been closed that morning. She must have left it ajar coming in. Nate pushed his way in. "Hey, whoever-you-"

He froze.

This Maddie was a dead-ringer, more than most. She was just over five feet tall with B-cup breasts and light brown eyes. Her brown hair had been tipped with golden highlights, and ended at neck-level. She had the thin but toned form of a gymnast, and the same plump, pink lips as his sister.

She was also stark naked.

As Nate's eyes traveled from her shaved pussy to her exposed breasts to her familiar face, he was struck by a sudden sense of vertigo. Had she come back? Had she ever been gone? Had he been hallucinating? Was he about to be called a pervert again? His knees weakened and he thought he might fall.

Then he noticed a distinction that stabilized his reality.

On her left wrist was a black bracelet.

The corners of her lips lifted in a nervous smile. "Hey Nate. Uh, need something?"

"I know it isn't you," he blurted. "Or that you aren't her, I guess."

She exhaled deeply, her shoulder sagging. "Okay, great. It was going to be a pain trying to act. Out of curiosity, what gave me away?"

"The bracelet," said Nate. He regretted it as soon as the words came out. What if these were aliens, and he'd just given them the key to blending in? "Also, clothes. Most people aren't comfortable being naked around others and would act embarrassed if someone walked in on them."

"I figured it was one of those." She turned to look over her shoulder. She had covered the top of her bed with his sister's shirts, leggings, skirts, panties, and bras. "That really sucks. Where I'm from clothes are pretty passe. Most people forgo them, unless they need protective gear."

"Well, you don't

have

to wear clothes," said Nate, surprising himself yet again. "I mean our parents will be home soon and you can't streak around them without giving the game away. And I wouldn't recommend leaving the house naked unless you feel like getting arrested. But when our parents aren't around, there's no law saying you can't go naked here."

Maddie smiled at her little brother. "That's what I like to hear! Thank Christ, I really need a world to crash on. If this place is like where I'm from, Mom and Dad will be home in less than an hour. Will you help me pick out an outfit for dinner?"

"Sure, but first I need you to tell me something."

"Name it."

"What's going on? People like you, girls who look like my sister, keep popping up. And then they disappear. Who are you people, and where do you come from? Where's Maddie?"

The young woman bit her lower lip, which he found remarkably sexy. He wondered if she had noted the tenting in his grey sweatpants.

"That is a big question. I can't explain everything. Like, at all. What I can tell you is that I am your sister in every way that matters, and the original is probably safe somewhere out there. I know that's still incredibly vague, but can it be enough info for now?"

That was incredibly vague. If she was being honest, it did rule out his alien invasion theory. That was a comfort, at least. Nate wanted to press further, but things were going well and he didn't want to scare off his favorite of the alters.

The boy nodded. "Okay. Let's pick some clothes for you."

Maddie wound up in leggings and a t-shirt with no underwear. Nate was insistent that this was typical home attire, and the nudist Maddie didn't argue. Dinner went smoothly, with both of Nate's parents demonstrating their usual levels of obliviousness.

Before Nate went to sleep that night, he stealthily cracked open his sister's door. For the first time in a week, the bed wasn't empty.

XxXxX

Nate woke up late the next morning. His parents had already left to their respective occupations. His sister's door was open again, and she was absent.

Clad in only his sweatpants, and commando beneath them, Nate quickly made his way downstairs. He felt an urgent need to know if his sister had disappeared again. Interesting as the previous week had been, losing this sensuous and accepting version of Maddie was not something he wished to contemplate.

Nate sighed audibly when he reached the kitchen. Maddie was there, fully naked once again. And there was a pan cooking on the stove.

Maddie turned to her brother with a smile. "Good morning, baby bro." With a spring in her step, the young woman approached him and wrapped him in her arms. Reflexively, he embraced her in return. Nate's heart pumped violently. After all the months of imagining, he was now feeling his older sister's bare tits pressed against his chest. He could detect the exact points where her pert nipples made contact with his flesh. Nate tilted his head down slightly so he could better smell her shampoo.

Maddie lifted her face to plant a peck on his cheek before withdrawing. She quickly returned to the stove. "I wanted to celebrate my first day in my new home. I thought I would make breakfast for us. You still like pancakes on this Earth, right?"

Under the circumstances, Nate decided to ignore her specification of "this" Earth. "They're my favorite."

His new older sister smiled.

XxXxX

"Trust me," she said. "Once you try it, you'll feel stupid for not doing it earlier."

Nate was blushing profusely. "Are you sure it wouldn't... bother you?"

Maddie rolled her eyes. "Oh come on. The me from this place must have been crazy uptight. Just do it!"

Nate considered mentioning how the earliest iteration of his sibling had seen his dick once only to be swallowed up by the thin air. But he was worried that might kill the mood.

So he complied with her request and dropped his sweatpants.

They were in the dining room at the time, and Nate was still very erect from the attention of his naked sister. He waited with bated breath as she appeared to examine his exposed genitals. He searched her face for disgust or anger. All he detected was slight amusement.