Stuart lay there, looking at the prone figure lying naked at his side. He couldn't believe he'd done it

again. He'd promised himself, one drink, in a public place, and they'd go home to their own separate

beds. He couldn't keep letting this happen, to either of them.

It had started six months ago. He'd been at the Annual Adoption Convention, just like he had been

every year since he'd found out Mum and Dad weren't, as such. Mary and Robert hadn't lied to him.

They said they wanted to wait until he was old enough to understand, but also have passed the

horribly hormonal and tumultuous adolescent years. Truth be told, he͛d been quite a sedate

teenager; kept his head down, did well at school, had that sweet girlfriend throughout secondary

who pretty much kept him out of trouble. Sadly, they'd enrolled at universities 300 miles apart, and

had quickly discovered that young love wasn't forever, and hey, that was OK. Then, at the tender age

of 21, fresh out of uni, he'd begun his life as an orphan.

Anyway, there he was, choosing his cereal at the breakfast bar, and there she was, this girl - 6 foot

tall, blond, just majestic to look at - and their eyes met, and fixed, and melted. He felt this desire

bubbling up inside like a volcano, and there it was, he felt like that hormonal adolescent he'd never

actually been.

Her name was Sarah. She was, of course, adopted. She͛d never met her birth parents, nor did she

want to, but she'd come to the convention under the advice of her counselor, who she͛d been

seeing with depression-like symptoms for about a year. She wasn't depressed, she told me over

coffee, she just had this strange emptiness inside her. Like something was masking her true self, and

she didn͛t know what. Her ex had pointed it out to her, oh so callously, as he threw his things into

boxes and fled her life. You're missing something, Sarah. You're not a whole person. You're a good

person, but you're not right͛.

She'd cried. For days. But she knew he was right, and in a strange way, she was grateful to him for

articulating it. That was when she͛d started seeing Dr Webb. Of course, they'd gone back over her

whole life story – a happy one at that – and it seemed that the only explanation was her orphan

status. So she'd signed up, hopped on a plane, and there she was, at the breakfast table opposite

Stuart, drinking coffee and basically summarising exactly how he had always felt but also never

realised.

It hadn't taken them long to realise that they were twins. Good god, they looked as alike as two

people of opposites sexes could look, and birthdays on the same day left no doubt. And that pull,

that magnetism, the voids in each of their lives being filled by the other's sudden, unexpected, and

oh-so-perfect presence in one-another's lives, in each other's beds.