Growing up in the brothel in Brussels, I never had an inkling that I had a sibling, or that I shared a womb with one. My mother worked long hard hours keeping all the maidens’ rooms clean at Maison d’Orange and there were enough innocent distractions like books, dolls and the occasional stray puppy dog to keep me from wondering about relatives I never knew existed. When mother died, and Trixie Knickerbocker became my caretaker, life became exciting and so thoughts of a sibling never entered my mind. I mean, my mom was dead, so how could I have a brother or sister. Trixie had vowed never to become pregnant, and remained true to that vow despite all the billions of spermheads that must have swum in her body over the years. Condoms don’t work every time, do they?

Every once in a while I did think about my father. Who he was? Where he lived, and what he was doing? But the even bigger question, the question that kept me up on too many nights to count, was why he didn’t take her (and me) with him back to wherever he came from? Of course, if he did, I would have never become Trixie.

My biological mother said he was a man from far away. She said he was a kind man and treated her nicely but then just disappeared. I thought maybe the Soviet army captured him and he was hanged. The Russians were scary to a four-year old. He had to be dead if he never reappeared. I have a friend from the Ukraine who I met at the boarding school in Geneva. She still thinks the Russians are scary.

When I turned five years of age, and before she died, my mother told me my father was born in America, but where in that large country she wasn’t sure. His name was Jim and she had met him at a market in Ganshoren. My father might have had some Indian blood in him, but she couldn’t remember from what tribe. I remember going to the library and researching Seminoles, Apaches, Cherokees, Navajoes and tons of other Native American tribes. I watched a lot of John Wayne movies to see all the Indians and wondered how my hair turned out to be blond. Well, my mother’s was.

Trixie had no knowledge of my father’s personage, or at least that’s what she led me to believe before she sent me to a boarding school in Switzerland. There was no reason to doubt her. Trixie wasn’t close friends or really even friends with my mother. It was me she cared for and only after my mother died.

No possibility of The Parent Trap existed. There was no mother for my identical twin to search because Marie Fontana was dead. And I, Danelle Fontana, like she, the girl who grew up in America, had no inkling of the improbable, if not the impossible.

There were plenty of girls in the Geneva boarding school that I resembled, and plenty who resembled me. High cheek bones, long thin legs, blond hair and lips on the impoverished side of thick. That was it. No girl was identical to me. But sometimes the impossible happens. It did to me. And to her.

– – – – –

Her name is Lavender Longbreast. She grew up in the States, in Colorado, but I wouldn’t find out about her for a long time. I guess my birth name could have been – should have been – Danelle Longbreast. By the time I found out about my sister, I had already changed my name to Trixie Knickerbocker in honor of the woman who raised me after my mother died.

I hate to tease, so I’ll give you the short version of how I learned about my womb-mate. I was staying with some friends in Los Angeles, California. At that time I was twenty-seven years old. So was Lavender, but I didn’t know that either.

My friends, Laura Brisbane and Janice Jennings, who everyone called JJ, and I were hanging out at Manhattan Beach. The day was a scorcher and we were wearing our string bikinis. At about five o’clock, we walked through the hot sand to one of the bars that populate the strand, sat down on the shaded patio and ordered a large pitcher of beer. We had some wings and ordered another pitcher. An objective observer would have described us as happy. Horny college kids would have described us as easy prey. Jimmy Buffet would describe the horny college kids as sharks that can swim on the land. There were definitely fins to our left and fins to our right. We loved it.

As we ordered our third pitcher, a guy in red swim trunks rolled up to me on an electric blue long board, sprawled his sun-screened back across my lap, put his hands behind my head and brought his lips to mine and started kissing. The kisses were deep. He stopped for a moment and said, “My parents took Dov Lochem to the park.” I wondered what a Dov Lochem was but then his tongue was back in my mouth sliding around the deepest part of my throat. I wasn’t sure if he tasted like beer or if I was tasting what my own mouth tasted like. Don’t ask me why, maybe it was the beer, but I let him kiss me for a good minute or two but when he reached for one of my breasts I slapped his hand away. Then I looked toward his midsection and further eye movement showed that his legs were stumps below his knees. I freaked out. I might have yelled something like Yeww! or Eek! and pushed him away. He fell to the wooden-slatted floor with a sickening thud.

He bounced right up but looked up toward me in utter bewilderment. “What’s wrong baby? You never seen a cripple before? You fuck one every night.”

Now remember, my English wasn’t like the English the California girls spoke. I had a relatively strong French accent and some French escaped with my answer. “I certainly do not, monsieur. Qui est vous? You just can’t come up to a strange girl and kiss her.”

Pressing his knuckles to the floor, his knees swinging in the air and staring like he was, or I was, an alien from outer space, he let out a soft moan and turned his head the way a dog does when he’s confused.

Janice, who was wearing the skimpiest bikini of us three chimed in, “I didn’t see you stopping his tongue action.”

I smiled and said, “The kissing was all right. But the groping, I don’t think so.” I tried to pretend I never noticed his shortened legs.

Laura, who was still unaware of his missing limbs, said, “That’s a felony in California, son. Without consent.”

Janice pointed, the movement loosening her top. As she secured the black bra before she was topless on one half of her body, JJ said, “Laura’s in law school. You’d better watch out.”

Now he was back on his board. It had red acrylic wheels and his height was about equal to us when we were sitting. His chest was hairless, broad and tanned.

“Felony, Hell. Lavender always consents. She loves it when I grab her tits. I’m her life, aren’t I, honey?” He looked at the girls who were sitting with me. He didn’t recognize any of them. “Where’d you find these girls? And why are you talking so funny?”

Laura stood up and saw that the long board was holding the man up as high as he could go. “He’s got no legs.”

“They’re just a little short, but tell ‘em, honey, what I can do in bed.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Trixie said indignantly, “I don’t know you from Adam.”

Janice, now secure in her black bikini laughed and said, “She never knew Adam either but probably gave him a hand job on the first date.”

As tipsy as I was, I shot JJ a shut your trap look and turned my attention to the beach boy. “Why would you come up and kiss a total stranger? And why do you think you can grab my boob?”

“All right, I don’t know what you’re doing with your voice, but this isn’t funny anymore, Lavender.”

“And why are you calling me Lavender. My name is Trixie.”

“Stop bullshitting. I came down here to tell you something. My folks are coming into town and they want us to go to dinner with them at eight. You weren’t answering your cell phone so I grabbed my board and surfed the strand ‘til I saw you. Your boss said you took the day off. Actually, several days off.”

My eyes scanned from the man’s crown to the floor and I saw the way his stumps seemed to affix to the electric blue long board. “So, you weren’t surfing in the ocean, n’est-ce pas?” I looked at my friends and they both shrugged their bare shoulders.

A Hip-Hop ring tone sounded and the man said, “Oh, you’re me calling now.” He looked at my hands and did not see a phone. “How’d you do that?”

“Do what?’

“This!!!” He showed me the screen on his phone. What I saw blew me away. It was me. But it wasn’t me in my red bikini so he couldn’t have shot a quick picture and set it up in his phone to trick me. It was me with longer hair and wearing a sky blue halter top, kind of leaning forward so my cleavage was readily exposed. I stared for what felt like hours but then he pulled it away and brought it to his face and said, “Hey! I’m putting you on speaker. I think I just fucked up royally. There’s a girl on the strand who looks like you, not just like you but exactly like you. And I kissed her.”

Laura, the law student, shouted so whoever was on the other end of the cell could hear, “Let’s be precise, he did more than that.”

“What are you talking about? Who did you kiss? I’m at Hennessy’s with Misty. I didn’t feel like working today.”

Jason wondered why today was any different than any other day but let it go. Besides, it was in the evenings when his woman made most of her money.

Janice almost spilled her beer. “Give that girl a French accent and she’s you. Let me see that picture.” Janice got up, secured her black top once again and looked at the screen on the man’s phone. She grabbed the phone from the red trunks’ hand and showed Laura. Laura just whistled and downed the remains in her mug. She poured herself another glass and then she handed the phone to me.

From the speaker, my voice with an American accent asked, “Who were you kissing? What else did you do?”

His name was Jason. He took the phone and snapped a picture of me. Not the best photo I ever gave. Then he messaged it to Lavender. I knew I wasn’t Lavender so that’s who he had to message it to. A few seconds later she said, “Who is that? Is that me? When did you take this. I can’t see what I’m wearing. Is that one of my suits? What’s wrong with my hair?”

“I’m telling you, Sweetcakes . . .”

“. . . Don’t call me Sweetcakes, at least don’t call me that in front of people I don’t know.”

“Okay. No Sweetcakes. But this girl looks just like you. No, she is you. I don’t know if her breasts are exactly like yours, she wouldn’t let me go that far. But her tongue is pretty close.”

“I’ll be right over. Stay there. And don’t touch her anymore.”

I looked at my friends and directed my voice toward Jason’s cell phone and said emphatically, “Don’t worry he won’t.” I raised my hand and received high fives from Laura and JJ.

The speaker shut off and the screen returned to his normal wallpaper which was a telephoto shot of Jason with his knobby legs surfing inside a giant swell. He grabbed the sides of a chair and lifted himself high and plopped down beside me. “Wanna see some pictures?” He brought up the gallery. I didn’t have a chance to protest as he flashed the phone in front of my face.

Every picture was of Lavender. Lavender and Jason at Disneyland. Lavender and Jason at Sea World. At restaurants. And some pictures of them together with a cute little boy.

Then came the pictures that made me feel queasy. A topless picture of Lavender at the beach. A racy picture of Lavender with Jason on top of her, his weight distributed between his stumps and his hands pushing up on her bare breasts.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like someone had transported me to another world, left me alone with the crippled man and then showed me pictures of what we did together. I wanted to say stop, halt the slide show, but my curiosity overtook my nausea.

The next picture showed Lavender stark naked on her bed. Kind of in a Marilyn Monroe pose like in the first Playboy. She had very little pubic hair. At least, I thought, I’m not, she’s not, spread eagle.

I took the phone from Jason. He relinquished it willingly. I scrolled back to the first picture where Lavender was topless at the beach. Those are my breasts. Those are my nipples. I started to sweat. He’s seen me naked.

I scrolled forward to the naked siren on the bed. It was me. No, it was all her. No, no, no, it is all me! I scrolled to the picture of Jason with his shortened legs set on her abdomen and his hands pushing forward on her breasts. My trance was interrupted when Janice yelled, “Let me see.”

– – – – –