Peculiar Tales by Ron Miller Page B

circumstances, I was, of course, wholly dependent on Oswald’s continued good health. My life span is fated to be not one second longer than his.
    Of course, as doctors have done since our childhood, this one urged my brother to have me removed. I, for one, can forgive him for, in his innocence and ignorance, he could have had no way of knowing of the brilliant mind that lay just behind Oswald’s sternum, nor of the intimately close relationship we shared. I had no fear, though, since Oswald, as always, flatly refused to consider the matter and that was the end of it. Oswald, although mildly retarded, was of age and in no legal way incompetent, so there was no way for either the doctor nor the law to force the issue. The doctor, like all those before him, assumed that Oswald feared the loss of his livelihood and not the loss of his dearest friend and closest companion. A not unwarranted nor unkind assumption, since it would be obvious to anyone that my brother would be incapable of supporting himself in any other way than as he had been doing all his life. People may have found the idea of exhibiting one’s deformities as a living repugnant...but that didn’t stop them for one second from shelling out their dimes.
    Before proceeding with the operation, the doctor insisted on performing a thorough physical examination—as much for his own curiosity as for Oswald’s well-being. He did so and what he discovered was a considerable surprise—not to say a blow—to us all. Once he began poking around he found that Oswald’s abused glands were the least interesting of his peculiarities. Oswald, he announced, possessed both male and female sex organs. He was, in fact, a nearly perfect hermaphrodite. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with this, he said, and, of course, I immediately realized that this would only make Oswald that much more of an attraction in the sideshow. A parasitic twin attached to a half-man, half-woman would be unique in the business. But unfortunately the confused hormonal stew that coursed through his veins was having a deleterious and potentially fatal effect on his health.
    So, reluctantly, I shrugged what little shoulders I had and let Oswald agree to the operation. Unfortunately, the doctor said, there was no way for him to tell in advance which way the procedure might go. He would have to see which organs appeared to be the most viable and work from there.
    To keep this letter from growing to an intolerable length, I’ll simply say that it turned out that once Oswald’s hormones finally came into harmonious balance, what emerged from the vast billows of fat was an extremely attractive, slim, intelligent young woman. She adopted the name Osweena.
    And Osweena and I soon made some extremely interesting discoveries, not the least of which were entirely new applications for our unique ability to perfectly share one another’s emotions and physical sensations. While my withered-looking arms appear to be useless they are in fact as agile and supple as a spider monkey’s, the fingers long, sinewy and strong as steel wires. There was little of my sister’s body, we discovered, that was beyond my reach and we spent some considerable time investigating just what my limits might be. There were few as it turned out. Needless to say, my sister had no trouble on her part. I was after all, in every part as accessible to her as a lapdog.
    It would be difficult for me to wholly express—even if without the restrictions imposed by the nature of this missive—the degree of pleasure that Osweena and I bring to one another. It is more than the mere physical pleasure I can bring to her and she to me...as I imagine a moment’s reflection on what I have already written will reveal to you. Sharing a nervous system as we do, we experience one another’s pleasure simultaneously with our own. When I touch her, I feel what she feels and, of course, vice versa. This is probably the best moment to mention that in