Kinktober 2022 #11: Size Difference

No one expects to meet their long-lost identical twin. Up until a few months before, I hadn’t even realized I had a long-lost twin. Thanks to all the new consumer DNA databases, though, we’d happened to discover each other. Through a series of foster care fuck-ups, Ariana and I had been separated at the tender age of two months and been adopted by two different families, neither of which knew the other twin existed.

No one had meant to, but we’d accidentally become secret to each other. When I found out, it hadn’t really made my whole life crumble or anything. We talked over messages on the DNA database site at first, neither of us really believing it at first. Was there some kind of mistake? Then we fell into the camaraderie of stranger-sisters.

Ariana told me all about her life in California. She lived on the coast and taught tourists how to surf. I told her about mine: the cozy house I’d just bought with my husband in the little town in Minnesota where I grew up, the diner I worked at where I knew everybody.

We agreed to meet. For some reason, I never looked her up online. It didn’t seem important. I was meeting my sister! My twin! For all that we were so different, I was expecting to meet someone just like me. Or at least, someone who looked like my twin.

Things don’t always work out quite how we think they will, though. She flew out to see me in the winter. I was finishing up a shift at the diner when she walked in. Seeing her was the oddest kind of disorienting. Almost uncanny valley. Everything about her looked so deeply familiar to me – her hair, her nose, the color or her eyes. I hadn’t ever seen a photo of her before, and I knew it was her, because I could see myself.

The only difference between us was, oh, 250 pounds or so.

For some reason, I had never imagined that I would be the fat twin, even though I knew very well that I was fat. Maybe it was silly, but since we had the same genetics and all, I figured she’d look just like me. Maybe with more of a tan or something, but still the same. So even though I looked at her and saw so much that was familiar, it was like looking into an alternate reality. One where I had a tiny waist and no butt instead of the massive rear I was used to hauling around every day.

She didn’t show an ounce of surprise when she saw me. Instead, she pulled me into a bear hug, surprisingly strong for her size. “Bella! I can’t believe I finally get to meet you. What’s it been, twenty-five years?” she joked.

I finished up my shift, and we grabbed a table together, catching up over an early dinner. Again, I was amazed at how alike we were. Without my even suggesting anything, she ordered my usual. Ariana ate without thinking about it, unashamed in her enjoyment. I was quieter about it. I felt comfortable in the diner, but I’d been yelled at in public while I ate enough times that I tried to avoid attention as much as possible.

We headed out to our cars. She wasn’t dressed for winter at all, while my winter coat was so puffy it made me look like the Michelin Man. “It was 68 degrees when I headed to the airport this morning!” she chirped, teeth already chattering before she got into her rental car. I laughed at that. The thought of 68 degree weather seemed so distant in the middle of December.

We arrived at my house. Without thinking, I showed her to the guest room and headed to the kitchen, ready to make something hot to drink for both of us: hot chocolate piled with a little mountain of mini marshmallows. She came out to the living room in her pajamas, eyes lighting up when she saw me carrying the drinks in. “Oh my god, it’s so weird how alike our brains are. I was just going to ask if you had something warm and sweet to drink.” She took a sip out of her mug, licking at some of the melted marshmallow. “So gooood. I haven’t had hot chocolate in so long. I try and stick to tea at home, trying to be good and stuff, but this is heavenly.” The self-deprecating part of me wanted to chime in and say it was just Swiss Miss and generic marshmallows, but I took the compliment.

My sister and I stayed up talking for hours and hours. Hot chocolate led into glasses of wine. And as we sat and laughed, both a little tipsy, she asked, “So like, what’s the deal with your ‘salads’?” She used air quotes. “‘Cause like, lowkey they terrify me. We have fresh greens year round so calling something a ‘salad’ when it’s just Cool Whip and candy is bonkers to me.”

I cackled at that. “Ariana! You’re really coming into my house and insulting my whole culture?” I got up from the couch, a little wobbly on my feet. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a good Snickers salad.”

“You’re just saying words! It’s not a salad if it has a chocolate bar in it, Bell-aaaa,” she crowed.

Of course, I already had a whole Snickers salad in the fridge. I’d intended to bring it to an event benefiting our local middle school where my husband worked that weekend, but I was a little drunk and it was past my bedtime and my belly was rumbling. And I had something to prove. (And don’t come after me because it wasn’t hotdish in the dead of winter – they asked me to bring a dessert.) I pulled the big plastic tupperware out of the fridge and spooned out two big bowls, one for me and one for Ariana.

I handed her the bowl and she stared at it for a long while, then looked up at me. “Are you fucking with me?” she asked, half-serious.

“Language!” I said, spooning a bite into the mouth before I flopped down onto the couch. “And no, I’m not. Try it.”

“It looks so…” she paused, unable to find the right word. She downed the rest of her wine. “...weird,” she finished.

“Don’t be a snob, Ariana, just take a damn bite.”

“Language!” she said, imitating my faux-aghast tone perfectly. She did take a bite, though. The moan she let out made me blush a little, though thankfully the wine had already turned my cheeks a cherry red. She took another bite, and another, and soon was halfway through her bowl. “You were right,” she said, the last bit partially muffled as she shoved another spoonful into her mouth. “Why is this so good?”

I shrugged. “It just works.”

She devoured the rest of her bowl, then disappeared into the kitchen and returned with another bowlful. As she sat and ate, looking happy as a clam, I felt proud to have shared something she liked so much. Then things got a little weird. She was licking her spoon between bites and said, “Y’know, I think I get why we’re so different now. I don’t know anybody who cooks like this.”

I poured myself another glass of wine. “Different how? Feeling like you betrayed all your year-round fresh greens?”

“No, I mean like.” She gestured her arms out to her sides in a wide circle and puffed out her cheeks. “Like why we look different. I don’t think I’d be able to fit into my jeans after a week of this.”

I was shocked at her bluntness. At first, I was hurt, and about to get mad.

But then she said, quietly, “I’m a little jealous. You’re so cute, and you’ve got a husband who loves you, and you keep big ol’ things of candy fluff in your fridge and you can just enjoy it.” She scraped the last little bit out of her bowl with her spoon. “I’m so scared of food a lot of the time. It all just sticks to my hips so I’m really careful. I’m on vacation so I’m trying to relax, but it’s hard to tell myself it’s okay, you know? But seeing you… I dunno, it’s like you already won that fight.”

She was so sincere I felt bad for laughing, the tension breaking a little. “Won what fight? The fattest twin contest?”

She rolled her eyes. “No! I mean the happiest twin contest. You just seem like such a grownup to me. I wanna be like you. Living the good life.”

“So you’re coming from the land of endless summer where your whole job is to surf at the beach all day to tell me you’d give it all up for more Snickers salad? Even at the expense of an ass too big for most chairs?”

“I mean, the weird fake salad and the cute husband and the cute house in the little town… You’ve got it pretty good.” She stared out the window dreamily. It had started to snow. She looked cozy. And, even though she was way too tan for December, she looked like she belonged. Maybe it was the little pooch of her belly stuffed with diner food and sugary goodies.

“I’m gonna get another helping,” she said. She reached out her hand for my bowl.”I’ll get you a refill too, if you want?”

I nodded. Her hips swayed a little as she walked into the kitchen. I wondered how right she was. How long would it take for us to actually look like twins if she followed my example? A decade? Or, going by her appetite, maybe only a couple years? Shoot, what if I ended up being the skinny twin?

There was much to think about. But right then, enjoying another bowl of Snickers salad was far more pressing.