WARNING: The following story is made for fans of modular/natural body magic/detachment/non-lethal dismemberment/etc. If you are not a member of that community, I strongly advise that you turn back now. Things will get freaky.
-
She straightened up and smiled wide as the door swung open, playfully chirping "What's up, doc?"
The doctor turned, smiling with none of his patient's warmth, and like a switch flipped her shoulders sank, her smile collapsed, and a cold mask with painted on eyes of mud brown and sludge green asked him "Have you had any luck with my diagnosis, Doctor Foster?"
The doctor sat, grunting as his aged knees popped beneath him. He checked the chart like he hadn't already memorized everything important. "Yes, Ms Oro, though I won't lie, it took us a while to accept what we were looking at. The condition's so rare, and... well, technically, you're one in two hundred million, but in many ways you're one of a kind."
"Ooh, am I getting my own page in the textbooks? Wait, do I gotta fill out any paperwork to get my disease named after me, or Rochambeau ya for naming rights?" She asked, raising a fist and flat palm and twisting her face in deep concentration.
"Oh, no. It's not a disease, but a congenital abnormality." Dr Foster explained, not really explaining.
"With all due respect, the suspense is dreadfully theatrical. Please, what's the diagnosis?" She pressed.
"Right. Well, it's still possible you were correctly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and for now you're to maintain your current prescription regimen to avoid changes in body chemistry. However, your CT scan tells a much more interesting story." Dr Foster produced a photo negative from his file and stuck it to a luminescent board, hitting the lights to reveal an x-ray of Vivian Oro, age 24. "This is your heart." Dr Foster said, pointing to a big blob on Vivian's left side. "As is this." He said, sliding his finger over to a mirrored blob on the right. "These are your stomachs." He said, pointing with thumb and pinkie to two organs on either side of her belly. "Each has its own digestive tract, no overlap until the last few inches." He said, tracing a line right down the middle where there was a visible no-man's land between two sets of guts. "The same goes for your uteri, your livers, your bladders, you even have two spines, fused but separated by a thin layer of bone. Same goes for your skull, the left and right hemispheres of your brain share some connective membrane, but..." he tapped on the visible wall splitting the two halves. "only through holes in this layer of bone. And the holes appear to be shrinking, given your increasingly severe mood swings. Each hemisphere is storing and processing thoughts, memories, and streams of consciousness independently."
"Fucking hell!" Vivian said, flabbergasted. "So like... I'm a SUPER Conjoined twin?"
Dr Foster considered how technical he wanted to get. "Sort of. Conjoined twins occur when twin embryos fail to fully separate. What you have is 'Neurological Bisection & Maturation', or 'NB&M' for short; while developing in the womb, the cells forming the brain split, fragments dispersed throughout the body, and when the stem cells realized what happened they built all the supporting systems to sustain an extra brain rather than allowing pieces to whither or attempting to reconnect them."
"I see." Ms Oro said, staring off into space as her eyes flicked quickly around like she was trying to read something in the empty air. "You mentioned this condition afflicted one in two hundred million people. In a world of 8 billion people, that would imply forty people live with NB&M. Yet you say my variety is unique even among them?"
"About 40, yeah. Though, some cases could be misdiagnosed, or remain undiagnosed." Dr Foster explained, flipping through his notes and producing a few pictures. "As for you, most people with NB&M have one brain in the head, and another elsewhere in the body. You, on the other hand... well, there's never been a recorded instance of a perfectly vertical split before."
"Holy shit, it's like a real life cut and paste!" Vivian said, flipping through the photos. The first was of a mustachioed man living in the late 70's judging by his fashion sense, with his upper body resting on the hood of a stylish red sports car while his denim clad lower half was standing to one side bowing to show off a slightly lumpy and scarred stump. Next was a monochrome picture of an afro haired head held high by her decapitated body as she shouted amid a crowd of protesters. Finally there was a contemporary picture, a live stream screenshot of a severed hand resting on a keyboard and playing some rhythm game while the amputee twin talked to and moderated the live-chat. "Uh, are these pics breaking HIPAA or something?"
Dr Foster chuckled. "Hehe, no, they're public domain. Just some people with NB&M living their lives like anyone else. It's a life changing diagnosis, of course, but it won't stop you from having a full, productive, and meaningful life."
"The people in these pictures have all been surgically separated. Would this be possible, given the extent of my connection? I must imagine that it would be quite an involved and potentially risky surgery, splitting an entire person in half symmetrically." Ms Oro said, scrutinizing the pictures.
"Possible? Your body is already trying to make it so with or without a surgery! As I said, your increasing mood swings are the result of your skull naturally splitting up your brain hemispheres; given time, you'd split apart at the seam. It's believed that some supposedly mythical creatures, such as the living torso Manananggal of the Philippines and the headless Hessian horseman, were historical cases of NB&M." The doctor said, collecting his pictures.
"I feel a but coming on, and unlike mine this one's looking to come together as a whole-butt!" Vivian said, whipping her phone out and googling who the heck man-and-gal was.
"Yes, well, surgical intervention to help the process along will be needed. Without medical assistance, physical therapy, and careful oversight, the split might not occur evenly across the body. It's very likely that the reason this condition is so historically undocumented is people simply bleeding out, getting infected wounds, or breaking off some nerve or vein before it was ready and dying from related complications." he explained. Realizing his patient was looking uncharacteristically nervous, he hastened to add "But, I assure you, with modern medicine, we can safely ease your body apart! Applying localized steroids and growth hormones, in conjunction with piecemeal surgeries, we can guarantee an 80% probability of survival!"
"So only 32 of the expected 40 NB&M sufferers are alive?" Ms Oro asked, the brow above her brown right eye raising in suspicion. "Not a particularly comforting figure... is surgery the only viable option? Can my parting be halted? Can I be left whole?"
"Not at this stage." Dr Foster bluntly answered. "If we'd caught it during or before puberty, it's possible we could delay things into your thirties with hormone therapy, but delay is all it would do."
Vivian sighed, closing her eyes in thought. When they reopened, a fire burned behind them. "Well then, best get a move on. Go ahead, split me in two, doc!"
Dr Foster blushed. "Uh, I appreciate your... vivacity at this trying time. But I'm a physician. We'll be referring you to a surgeon for consultation, sending you some risk assessment forms, you'll schedule time blocks with them, schedule physical therapy, time off from work... if I understand correctly, and if not then I'm sure your surgeon will explain all this during consultation, but..."
"Go on, please." Ms Oro ordered.
"An optimistic estimate would put you in the hospital for the better part of the next year. With monthly check ups and adjustments for the year following." He explained.
"Fuck..." Vivian muttered. "Well I hope being a medical oddity pays well. It sounds like my insurance rates will be doubling along with me!"
-
"Heya, Vivi. How's it going?" He asked, awkwardly scratching at his neck.
"You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here... so... uh... sorry, can't remember the rest of it." Vivian said, her voice slurred, raspy, and distorted her eye dulled with medication and her head slowly crumpling onto her right shoulder in exhaustion. Just the right half of her head, that is. The left rested on the left shoulder, her head split down the middle and splayed out like a butterflied fillet balanced on her torso. While the stitching was good and healing up nicely, nothing 'internal' exposed save for a series of tubes inserted into a central neck hole, it was still pretty puffy, and red, and... ugh...
"You probably shouldn't look right at the... surface?" The left half of her head noted, her lone brown eye struggling to meet his gaze. "You've got a pretty light stomach, Mike. I wouldn't want you throwing up or passing out again."
Mike chuckled, graciously taking an interest in his shoes. "Heh, still the same you, I see. Worrying about everyone else even when you're the one in the hospital."
"No, I'm me!" Vivian teased, her head flopping up and falling back down as she weakly giggled.
"I'm... uh... WE... we split the names." The left half said, trying to roll her eye but just managing to dizzy herself. Squeezing it shut, she explained. "I, uh, SHE'S Vivian, I'm, uh, no, yeah that's right, I'm Ms. Oro. First and last names TBD."
"Oh, uh, cool!" Mike said, smiling. "You guys have to rock paper scissors for who got first name?"
"Believe me, I tried. But I'm a stick in the mud." Vivian teased.
"What would I be betting on? I and I agreed already!" Ms Oro pointed out. Her neck and shoulder twitched, unable to figure out how to shake her head in her present configuration. "I... fucking... sorry, still... hard to separate how I talk. Think of me. Us. Especially when-"
Her right arm rose up and gave a weak wave, then fell. Then it rose again, and pointed to the left half of her head as the right said "She did it."
That got a chuckle out of Mike and even Ms Oro. "We both control everything still. Share feeling too. Like I'm still whole. It's weird."
"Yeah." Vivian agreed, sighing deep. Closing her eye.
A machine to her right beeped, startling her. "Sorry, shit, dozed. Heart rate dropped. Doctor's probably gonna try kicking you out. Really worried about how my body's handling the divorce." She explained. "I'm more worried about the voice. I mean, at least I can still talk, but it's so... weird! I thought it'd be like all squeaky, like uh... cartoon character. Helium. That sort a thing. But I just sound like a goddamned... forest witch ghost."
"Vivi, just hearing your voice, alive and fighting... It's beautiful." Mike said, looking up and smiling at both halves of his girlfriend's head.
"Blush." Ms Oro teased, the machinery beeping in agreement.
On cue, there was a single knock on the door and before even a second passed, a curt voice asking "Is everything alright in there?" before the door was swung open.
"Yeah, sorry, situation's under control. Everything's normal... how're you?" Vivian asked, trying to deflect. "I'm fine."
Dr Hill briskly walked to the bank of medical machinery. "With all due respect, you have other visitors to meet before your surgery. I won't put you under, yet, but..."
"Right, shouldn't hold up the line." Mike said, sheepishly. "Just, uh... one more thing before I go." He quickly walked up, raised Ms Oro, and kissed her softly. He felt her lips, short and still open on one side, with a skinny tongue sort of just flopping around in his mouth, kissing back as best they could. For Mike, it was as perfect as always. The machine beside her beeped to report a spike in heart rate.
"SIR!" Dr Hill blurted, "The patient's state is volatile! I was already against her receiving visitors in her condition, so I would appreciate it if you-"
"The patient's got a name, sir." Vivian said curtly, as Ms Oro finished her kiss. "And I don't wanna miss out on my smooch either!"
Mike giggled, and broke off his kiss with the left head to give the right a nice, long, tongue free peck on the lips, followed by a sloppy smack on the cheek. She always liked having her right cheek kissed. And her neck nibbled, though Mike wasn't about to press his luck.
Sensing security would be called to remove him shortly, Mike straightened up and said "I love you, Vivian Oro. All of you."
"You too, but don't dead name us!" Vivian joked. Ms Oro added "Mike, you have no idea how much you mean to me. How much you staying with me, through all this, means to me. I love you, too."
Mike grinned stupidly as he was escorted back to the lobby, where the next of Vivian Oro's guests was gathered. They wouldn't be getting nearly as much privacy as Mike.
While they awaited their next guest, Vivian's smile faltered, and Ms Oro's faded. The right half of head asked her twin "So, did that answer your question?"
"Yeah..." Vivian muttered, sighing deep. "Fuuuuuck..."
"I'm sure he'll understand." Ms Oro said, taking her sister's hand and feeling both sides of the gesture.'
"I don't even understand it. What chance has he got?" Vivian huffed.
"It's really not that complex." Ms Oro said. "You-" The door opened, her parents bursting in along with Hill. Their talk with mom and dad was a novel experience; while they could still feel their body as a whole, their thoughts were no longer exchanged. Now that their head had been split, what Vivian Oro had always mistaken for just an extremely vivid inner monologue was gone. She felt oddly alone in her own thoughts, missing that fundamental connection she'd known her whole life. Existential depression threatened to spoil her meeting, but the sisters couldn't help but be distracted talking to both parents at once. Vivian and her father reminiscing and joking about her halved future, Ms Oro and her mom discussing how she was coping and the procedures to come, even if she couldn't talk long and she ran out of collective breath quickly, it was a great time saver to carry on several conversations simultaneously and speak her whole mind all at once rather than fragmenting everything she wanted to say. Silver linings of the dividing line.
-
"What about this? Can you feel this?" Dr Xi asked, prodding her right hand hand.
"Uh... yeah... sure." Vivian slurred, eye glazed over.
"And what about you? Ms Oro? Can you feel this?" He asked, continuing to jostle the right hand and observing the left half's response.
"mmmmm...uh?" Was the response, not clarifying much of anything.
"Hmm... circulation and drug tolerance appears higher in patient's right side. Signs of increasing physiological differences?" Dr Xi said, some shapeless mass over his shoulder twitching as the sounds of paper being scratched slid through Vivian's stream of consciousness.
"I don't know." Vivian answered, thinking the question had been directed at her. A little annoyed, she ordered "Small words, man. I'm tired."
Noises, far away. "Can you feel this, Vivian?"
"Mbwuh?" She asked. "You..." she continued "Uh?"
"Can you feel this?" He repeated.
"Fingeyyy." Ms Oro noted, weakly squeezing the fingers placed in her palm. "Fingeyyy. Chicken fingeyyy..."
"Vivian, you don't feel anything?" He asked, again.
"Nooo!" She groaned, fed up with his pestering.
"Well then, the good news is that surgery seems to have gone perfectly. Quite remarkable, considering how rarely we are required to unzip someone's spine. Got through the ribs, upper back, halfway done with the separation. We will have to keep you in a medical coma for now. This is one of the most delicate stages of the process, your lower back, shoulders, and spine can't take weight right now, and we don't want you moving around and making anything snap or tear." He explained, mostly to kill time as he upped the anesthetics and waited for her to fall back asleep.
"Fucking pig fuckers I can do what I want." Vivian spat, delirious and short tempered at the doctor's flippancy. He didn't much mind; he'd talked to enough post-operative patients to know she wouldn't remember any of this.
"Heh, fingers. Penises of the hand..." Ms Oro commented, gripping Xi's two fingers and attempting to jerk them off. He quickly yanked his hand away, the shape behind him convulsing and letting out a distant laugh. Ms Oro's hand limply flopped in search of her lost love, and when she failed to find it she mumbled "Mike, nooooo... want... Mike want!..." before crying for all of 3 seconds before dozing right back off to sleep.
"Gonna take you in half youfuckuntingmothberiirrrr..." Vivian growled, slipping into a snore as fuzzy blackness overtook her.
-
"Go ahead, Mal. Ask. I know you wanna." Vivian teased, smiling impishly as her friend appraised her.
"Don't say it like that. You make it sound like I've got a... THING... for..." She grumbled.
"We each have our own catheter bag." Ms. Oro said blushing. "Our bodies are beginning to show physiological differences, so the doctors don't want any cross contamination. Once we're fully separated, our wounds healed, and our orifices reshaped, everything should function as before."
"Spoilsport." Vivian huffed, her half of a tongue sticking horizontally out of her open mouth. She laughed, almost sad that she wouldn't be able to do that any more when all was said and done.
"Your voices sounds better." Malory noted.
"Thanks! Speech therapy. Still a bit weird, talking with my mouth always 'open'. But getting better about rationing air. Taking 'microbreaths' and stuff." Vivian explained.
"Wow, sounds complicated. Anything giving you trouble? Anything I can help with?" Mal asked, knowing the answer was 'no' but feeling remiss not to offer her help.
"Being here for us is more than enough." Ms Oro said, smiling. "I admit, things have been difficult. Going in and out of medically induced comas, taking physical therapy, psychological counseling, speech therapy, tests-"
"And meeting our adoring public!" Vivi piped in, waving her arm at Malory.
Ms Oro wasn't looking. She mistakenly agreed "Oh yes, the press. Seems being a one of a kind medical marvel is big news. I don't know how news got out, but-"
"Idiot, I mean THIS adorable public!" Vivian interrupted. Ms Oro's eye swiveled, seeing only a shape in her peripheral vision but still getting her point across. Curiosity. "Uh, ADORING public! Heh, Freudian slip!"
"Not sure if I'm supposed to say 'no offense taken' or 'thanks', so... I dunno, would 'right back atchya!' work here?" Malory chuckled.
"I think so." Vivi chirped. "We're adorable in that 'eldritch horror' kinda way!"
"No!" Malory said, before giving her friend a good look. Through the course of her surgeries, Vivian and Ms Oro had split down the middle all the way to the hip bone, splayed out like the letter 'Y' with her two torso halves propped up by a series of braces, wires, and pipes to keep her stationary. "I mean... it's more like techno-horror than eldritch. Like a cyborg emperor kept alive by a life support throne after some cyborg ninja tried to assassinate you."
There was a long pause. Malory realized she'd fucked up.
"METAL!!!" Vivian cheered, a twinkle in her eye and a wicked smile splitting the other cheek open.
"And adorable!" Mal quickly added, chuckling nervously. "Adorably metal!"
"Nice save." Ms Oro said sarcastically, giving everyone a good laugh. "So, is there anything else you wanted to know?"
"Yeah. How are your pants gonna work? When you're split I mean?" Mal asked.
"Why, looking to get in them?"
Vivian blinked, stunned. It took her a second to realize that she's the one who said that. Malory, a naturally blushed person, turned a shade of red normally reserved for stop signs.
Ms Oro broke the silence, simply answering "Belt."
-
"Snug." Vivian complained, adjusting herself.
"It'll feel more comfortable in a few weeks." Dr Skye assured, weakly smiling.
"And then we'll be graduated to bigger dilators." Ms Oro noted, squirming in her seat. "This does fucking hurt like a bitch, though."
"Hey, that was my line." Vivian joked, chuckling through the pain.
Dr Skye took both women by the hand, letting them squeeze as hard as they pleased. They'd finally been separated, they were medically in the home stretch, now they just needed to... well, stretch. "We'll be upping your pain meds, I assure you. But it's vitally important that you don't remove the dilators unless strictly necessary. It's important that we keep every hole open while they heal."
"Hey doc, why are we still here? Just to suffer?" Vivian asked.
"I'm sorry?" she asked, caught off guard by the existential question. She knew post-surgical depression was always a possibility, but both women had up to now been taking things rather well.
"I think she means why are we being seen together?" Ms Oro clarified. "If we're two people now, doesn't this constitute a HIPAA violation?"
"You read my mind just like old times, sis!" Vivian teased. "I know we shared the same bits for a while, but it's a bit awkward getting shit shoved where the sun don't shine in the same room as my sister."
"I... I'm sorry." Dr Skye repeated, mortified.
"May we start my physical therapy by having me walk out of the room?" Ms Oro asked, blushing.
-
"So, you may be wondering why I've summoned you here today." Vivian announced.
"Besides celebrating the tremendous progress you've made in physical therapy?" Mike asked, raising a frothy mug of ale in toast.
"Yes, besides that." Vivian said, smiling.
"So we're celebrating the launch of your autobiography? I heard it's topping every chart out there!" Mal cheered, raising her cocktail glass.
"Besides that too, yes." Vivian said. "Augusta did most the work on that anyway."
"Augusta?!" Mike blurted, lurching as he appraised the left half of his girlfriend. "When did you pick your new name? I love it!"
"Read the book and find out." Augusta Oro teased, fumbling at her purse for an almost awkward amount of time before pulling out two hardcover novels for her friends. "Signed copies. They'll be worth a fortune one day."
"Very funny." Mike said, appraising the cover art of Half-Sister: The Incredible Medical Miracle of Vivian Oro. "You'd have to pry this out of my cold, dead hands." He leaned over the table and kissed her, discovering in the months since he'd last been alloweda visit, she'd been getting a lot more comfortable with her modified mouth. When he finished, he playfully motioned for Malory to move aside so he could slide across the booth seating and give his other girlfriend a kiss of her own. Mal acquiesced with a giggle, only for Vivian to shake her head.
"What's up?" Mike asked, looking like a kicked dog.
"Uh, well, what I wanted to announce is, ummm..." Vivian stammered. She'd wrote a whole speech for this moment, a speech which fled her thoughts the instant she needed it. Drawing a blank, her mini heart fluttering, she quickly spat out "I'm gay."
Silence.
Mike looked at Augusta, bewildered.
"Don't look at me, dear. I'm quite literally straighter than ever." She joked, taking a sip of her virgin Bloody Mary and letting her sister squirm. After spending a week ghost writing Vivian's coming out speech, tweaking and touching up and perfecting each and every line in meticulous detail at her manic, unpleasable sister's behest, the least she could do is get some joy out of Vivian throwing the speech right out the window at the first hurdle. Finishing the longest sip in the world while barely putting a dent in her glass, she finally added "You can turn to page 313 if you want the full story. Assuming she doesn't care to elaborate."
"I'm-" Vivian blurted, blushing. She turned to stare dagger at the profile silhouette of her sister, the wound having healed perfectly and leaving a smooth and slightly pinkish patch of skin where her cross section would be. "You-" She blurted, angrier. Augusta had agreed to help her break the news! Was she seriously throwing her to the wolves just because she hadn't stuck to the script? "UGH!"
"TLDR, we thought we were bi, but actually we were just a lesbian and a straight girl trapped in the same woman." Augusta explained, rescuing her floundering sister. Swiveling her eye over the abbreviated bridge of her nose in a side eye, Augusta asked "Want me to drop the next bombshell, or would you like to do it?"
"I'm breaking up with you!" Vivian announced, her eye closed and her fist gripping the table for dear life. Her one ass cheek was unstable even at the best of times, and with her heart pounding and head reeling she felt like she was about to pass out. "Malory I want you to be my first girlfriend!" She pressed on, tearing off the band-aid. "This is a double date. If you say yes. Please say yes."
Silence.
"Uh, sure." Mal agreed, blushing. "I thought... well, this whole time I thought my gaydar was busted. But... glad I was wrong. About being wrong, I guess. Uh, thanks for... the honor?"
"Mike, you gonna be okay?" Augusta asked, resting her hand gently over his white knuckles.
He flinched. Looked in her eye. Saw the same love he always knew. His muscles relaxed, he breathed again. "Yeah... Yeah! Last year you told me you had a one in a billion diagnosis and they were gonna have to cut you in half, and there was a 1 in 5 chance you weren't gonna make it. All things considering, you having a lesbian sister is kinda small potatoes."
"Exactly what I said." Augusta agreed, giving Vivian a smug side eye.
Vivian didn't notice. She'd just ripped off another band-aid. Her first girl on girl kiss.