“Alright, here we go.” Ellen brandished the magic zipper. She placed it at the top of her head and began zipping downwards. “Boy, that really tickles.” She giggled, as the zipper passed over her face. Sophie and Emily watched in fascination as Ellen brought the zipper all the way down to her crotch, then after passing it to her other hand, started unzipping her way up her back.

“Ta-da!” Ellen announced. As she finished the unzipping, the left and right sides of her body jumped apart, struggling to keep their individual balances. She had unzipped herself vertically into two halves. Both halves unceremoniously flopped down onto the couch, unable to maintain their balance.

“Nice.” Sophie chuckled, even as Emily screamed a little.

“Thought you might like that.” Ellen laughed. The two halves of her head turned to face each other. “This is freaky. So, who’s first?”

“First?” Emily questioned.

“Why not both be first?” Sophie grinned. She nudged Emily, who got the idea. Sophie went and picked up Ellen’s right half, and Emily picked up Ellen’s left. They slid Ellen over the corresponding halves of their body.

Soon, Sophie and Emily were both half-Ellen. They grinned at each other.

[Can you both hear me?] Ellen asked in their heads simultaneously.

“Yeah.” came the echoed reply from both of them.

[Awesome! Being worn by two different people is… crazy. I can see myself! Well, half myself and half of you two, too.] Ellen babbled on in their heads.

“Awfully chatty for a girl who’s just been split in half.” Emily noted.

“And worn like a skinsuit.” Sophie giggled. “Or two halves of a skinsuit.”

[You should go out like this.] Ellen suggested.

“No way, we’d get such weird looks!” Emily said in horror.

[Oh, psh.] Ellen laughed it off.

Sophie meanwhile, seemed deep in thought. “Something on your mind, Soph?” Emily asked quizzically.

“Just wondering what it’d be like if Ellen still controlled her half.” Sophie pondered out loud.

[What if you took off your other half too, and then we tried zipping ourselves together?] Ellen suggested.

“That could work!” Sophie brightened up. She peeled Ellen off herself and quickly made her way to the zipper. She repeated Ellen’s procedure with surprising speed, and discarded the right half of her body to the couch, where she propped herself up to watch.

Ellen and Sophie hopped up against each other as best they could, and Sophie ran the zipper along their pushed-together seams. As the zipper joined them together, it sort of blended their heights together as well.

Emily watched in fascination. Sophie still looked smaller, but somehow, the amalgamation of the two girls stood evenly in height. “Did it work?”

“I think so…” Sophie said. Her left half took a shaky step forward.

“We seem joined, alright.” Ellen took a step forward to follow Sophie.

“This is… interesting.” The pair of them said together.

“Did your… minds fuse or something?” Emily questioned, spooked out by the bizarre way they finished their last thought together.

“Nah, nothing like that.” Ellen waved her off.

“It’s like… even though I can only control my half of the body, I can still feel everything Ellen feels on her side!” Sophie exclaimed. She reached over to Ellen’s half of their face and pinched her cheek.

“Ow!” they both exclaimed simultaneously.

“Why you…” Ellen muttered, and pinched Sophie’s hip.

“Ow!” they cried again.

Emily stared at the two as they squabbled. It was weird. Occasionally, their lips would sync up when they decided to say the same thing together, but otherwise, each half of their face was moving totally independently of the other. Their eyes also moved in totally different directions.

“You guys look weird as hell.” Emily interrupted them, giggling.

“You’re one to talk!” Ellen exclaimed.

“Yeah, you’re also half-Ellen!” Sophie jeered. “That’s automatically weird looking!”

“Hey!” Ellen protested. “I’m not weird looking!”

“Tell that to your face.” Sophie giggled, “You can see half of it over there!”

“…I mean… I’ve been watching us from there too, and yeah, we are pretty weird.” Ellen giggled.

“So half-Sophie and half-Ellen is less weird than half-Emily and half-Ellen?” Emily wondered out loud.

“Duh.” Sophie said, “Sophie is awesome.” Ellen rolled her eye.

“Then how about I also put your other half on?” Emily giggled, heading for the couch.

Sophie’s right half practically leapt up in excitement. “Yeah!”

Ellen slipped her arm and leg into Sophie’s right half, and pulled it on as best she could. Even as she got full control over her new half though, something didn’t feel right.

[You look weird in the middle. The seam’s not right.] Ellen and Sophie said in her head simultaneously.

“Ahh! Don’t do that!” Emily yelled suddenly, “Both of you in my head at once is too much.”

“Sorry.” They said simultaneously, from their mouths.

“Try zipping up the seam.” Ellen said, tossing the zipper to Emily.

“Alright.” Emily zipped herself firmly into the Ellen-Sophie skinsuit. “There. That does feel better.” Emily looked herself up and down. “Whoah. I’m speaking in both your voices. This is weird.”

“So, we’re literally half-Ellen and half-Sophie.” Sophie giggled.

“But I’m a full Emily made of half of Ellen and half of Sophie!” Emily cheered.

“Three girls became two!” Ellen exclaimed.

The three girls burst into laughter over their strange predicament.

As the laughter died down, and the girls lay on the couch in near silence, Sophie suddenly piped up. “What if we became one girl?”

“What, like I put on you two again?” Emily questioned.

“I’d rather put ourselves on.” Ellen giggled, “Then me and Sophie would be wearing each other, but still be half-and-half.”

“But that leaves me out of it.” Emily pouted.

“Oh, right. Can we divide ourselves into thirds then?” Ellen wondered.

“No, no, no.” Sophie shook their head.

“Why not?” Ellen whined.

“I mean, we could, but that’s not what I meant.” Sophie chuckled. “What if two people got into one bodysuit?”

There was a long pause as Ellen and Emily considered the idea.

“Well… we know that we can fit anything, even mismatched parts, in us…” Emily began slowly.

“That might work.” Ellen perked up, “Let’s try it!”

“But who gets to be the suit?” Emily asked.

“Don’t tell me you want to be the suit. You said you didn’t want to lose full control!” Ellen piped up.

“Yeah, well, I’ve changed my mind. This is fun!” Emily giggled.

“But, I want to be the suit!” Ellen protested.

“Wait, it was my idea!” Sophie exclaimed.

After no small amount of bickering about who got to be the suit, and a long series of unzipping and rezipping, the three girls finally stood whole, back in their own flesh and blood bodies, with no zipper seams to be seen.

“Okay. So Emily gets to be the suit, since she hasn’t been a full suit yet.” Ellen said, as she tossed the zipper to Emily.

Emily squealed in delight as she caught the zipper. “I also haven’t been split in half yet.” Emily grinned, as she started unzipping herself down her middle.

“Wait, yes you have.” Ellen frowned.

“Not this way!” Emily laughed, as she ran the zipper around her back. She fell apart the moment she finished unzipping herself, and collapsed to the ground, perfectly bisected. “This is awesome!”

“Well, you’re about to be whole again anyway.” Sophie grinned, as she helped half of Emily pick herself off the ground.

“Darn. But I’ll still be a skinsuit!” Emily giggled happily, as Ellen slid her limbs into her own.

Soon, Ellen and Sophie stood as half-Emily. “I hope she’s stretchy enough for this.” Ellen bit her lip.

[I probably am.]

“Right. How do you want to do this?” Ellen asked Sophie.

“Legs first seems best.” Sophie nodded, as she poked with her own leg at the seam where Ellen ended and Emily started. She slid her foot in, down Emily’s leg, alongside Ellen’s.

“This isn’t hurting you is it?” Ellen asked Emily, worriedly. It was an incredibly snug fit, she could feel Sophie’s leg pressing up tight against hers.

[Not at all, keep going!] Emily urged them on.

With her encouragement, Ellen and Sophie continued to struggle to get into each other’s half of Emily. Soon enough, the two of them had managed to pull Emily on both of themselves. However, their current arrangement seemed to be distending Emily’s body greatly.

“This might not be working.” Ellen said, voice muffled by Sophie’s hair. “Why do I have to be in the back?”

“Because deal with it.” Sophie grimaced, struggling to move in the suit. “Maybe it’ll work once we zipper ourselves in.

[Worth a shot.]

Together, Sophie and Ellen reached Emily’s arm down for the zipper, and with great effort, began zipping themselves both into Emily. As the zipper closed up the seam, they noticed it was becoming easier and easier to move, until they finally zipped themselves up completely, and Emily’s body had formed normally around the two of them.

‘Emily’ dropped the zipper to the floor. She looked perfectly normal, now. There was no sign of Sophie or Ellen, inside her body or out. She looked around.

“This is fucking weird.” ‘Emily’ said.

“You said it.” ‘Emily’ replied.

[So, did it work? Are you both Emily?] Emily asked in their head.

“Yeah. We are.” ‘Emily’ replied.

“Moving is… confusing. We’re sharing control of your body.”

[I can’t tell who’s talking, you both have my voice!]

“I’m Sophie.” ‘Emily’ said. “And I’m Ellen.” ‘Emily’ added.

[That really did not help at all. I’d facepalm, but you have both my face and my palm.]

“It sucks that we can’t communicate mentally like you can. Even when I’m the one talking, I can’t tell if I said that.”

“This is so disorienting. My body keeps moving on its’ own.” “OUR body.” ‘Emily’ corrected ‘herself’.

[This is a complete mess.] Emily giggled. [You’re both terrible at being me.]

“Well, it’s hard to be one person if you’re two different people!”

[You were doing alright before!]

“That was different, we could each feel everything from the other’s side.”

[How is that different from now?]

“Um..” ‘Emily’ paused.

[Figure it out!]

‘Emily’ spent some time walking around the apartment, picking things up, sitting down. Practicing moving in general.

“Okay, this isn’t too bad. We’re… just…” “We’re both Emily. One Emily.”

[Having you two stumble over controlling my body is hilarious, by the way.] Emily giggled.

“Yeah, well, you try it then!”

[I control my body every day, thank you very much.] Emily snorted at her own bad joke.

‘Emily’ groaned in concert with ‘herself’.

“Alright, this is getting tiring.” “Yeah, let’s unzip ourselves out of this mess.”

[No, wait, this is fun!]

“First you don’t want to be a suit, now you want to stay a suit?” “Make up your mind!”

[No, you two make up ‘my’ mind!] Emily giggled madly.

[Aww.] Emily pouted mentally in disappointment, as ‘Emily’ grabbed the zipper from the coffee table, and stuck it to her forehead.

‘Emily’ dragged the zipper down. But, nothing happened. No unzipping sound, and no seam. “Um…”

[What?]

“It’s not working.” “Oh, god.”

[What?!] Emily screamed mentally. [I don’t want to be stuck being worn by you two forever!]

“Relax, the spell just wore off on the zipper.” “Oh.”

[Oh. Whew. Alright, so refresh it.]

“I… don’t remember it. Do you?” “…nope. Not off the top of my head.” “Our head.” “Don’t start with that now…”

[…please tell me you brought the spell with you.] Emily begged.

“…nope… just the zipper.” “The tome’s at our place.”

There was a brief period of silence.

“Crap.” “Crap.” [Crap.]