Dating another guy seemed perfectly natural. The idea of Jon and his clone trying to go out with him at the same time was odd... but if anything it was odd because without there being two of Jon there it would have been absolutely normal. What could be more natural than Jon spending time with a guy she liked? They flirted, had popcorn together, watched the movie, and made small talk later before making out. Eventually Joseph walked the two girls most of the way home.
Jon stared at her clone uncomfortably as they walked into their house. "That was fun, but..." she said. "The way we did it. I think I just messed up my feelings towards you. I don't know if I want to have Joseph alone without you or whether I want us to both be his girlfriend since you're me and we share everything... but there's one thing that we shared that I just can't imagine us sharing any more."
"Me neither," said Jonnie. They went into their room, which still looked as it did when they were both wished into girls. "Let me give you a hug." She did, a very sisterly hug, and asked "Does this make you feel any better?"
"Yeah it does," replied Jon. "It still floors me though. We're comforting each other over the fact that going out with a guy means losing the person we were going out with before, which is also each other."
"I know," said Jonnie. "Let's pretend that we're just sisters. Or that we're one person. We happen to have two bodies."
"So I'm hugging myself?"
"Well, you would if you could, it's just that only we can." Jonnie chuckled.
"Do you think he's pretty cute?"asked Jon.
"Of course I do," replied Jonnie. "I'm you, remember? There are two of us."
"But there's only one of my boyfriend," said Jon. "This isn't going to work until we clone him..."
"Hey, you can't get together with Joseph. You have to be a guy and be with me, because I'm still carrying your baby!" She seemed inordinately proud of it, like a girl imagining starting a family with someone she liked instead of a guy whose body was doing things utterly foreign to him.
Jon touched Jonnie's belly. "I don't see anything there."
"You won't until all these wishes wear off."
"Well, only one wears off by itself and after that one I still won't. I have to be a guy for you to have a baby. I'll still be a girl, and everyone will still expect me to be straight even if I have my old mind. You too. We may have to keep using wishes for each date or shopping trip or stuff.
"Yeah, we'd better clean this makeup off. It's all messed up."
Going to bed was awkward. Everything looked almost normal but it felt to Jon as though something had changed. Pretty much in the way they had discussed. And they had twin beds, not one big one. Jon missed going to sleep in the same bed with her boyfriend... Girlfriend, she thought. When she was attracted to her clone her clone was her girlfriend, not boyfriend. But even though intellectually she understood that, just the idea of having a girlfriend seemed completely foreign. All she could do was imagine what it would be like if her clone was a boy. That would be familiar.
The next morning the alarm clock rang. Jon was the first to wake up and turned off the alarm clock. He was in a female body, but he felt a lot more like himself now. The other night seemed sort of gay, in hindsight. He had thought he was a girl. A real girl. Fantasies about Joseph, or about his clone as a boy, anything from dancing and kissing to being penetrated as part of sex. Wearing skirts and makeup and liking it. The very idea was preposterous.
Jonnie was thinking almost the same thing. She had had a female body ever since the cloning, making her situation a bit different, but she always thought of herself as a guy. What she felt towards Jon when he was male was a very limited wish that never carried over to other things--in all other ways she was just a guy in a girl's body. Last night was just so... so girly.
"Again?" said Jonnie and moved towards Jon. They hugged and kissed and this time it was more than sisterly.
