Kiss Me Once, Kiss Me Twice is to date my favorite fantasy story (for adults) that I have written because, quite simply, it is the story and the history of my soul. I didn't know that when I wrote it, of course.

My original intentions behind the story

I have always been fascinated by Siamese twins. It seemed to me that they symbolize something special, spiritually, and I was right. I imagined them being so close that they shared a body, really. They must be the same in so many ways. They must, to some degree, even share thoughts.

The English major in me wanted to explore a first-person narrative with two voices that were indistinguishable from each other. I wanted a first-person narrative done by Siamese twins. So I set out to do it.

At the time that I wrote this story, I had a more pessimistic world-view. I imagined the takeover of not just world government, but interestellar government by corporate interests, so that The Corporation (the result of endless mergers) became the government.

But politics aside, I wanted to explore a universe in which science had made so many birth defects (mostly) obsolete, through genetic engineering and other methods. I wondered to myself what we lost as a race without the so-called "misfits" or, a more vulgar term, "freaks." I felt that they gave us a gift we did not appreciate or fully understand.

Having said that, do not think that I am in any way against science or medicine improving our lives. If Siamese twins can be separated, it's a good thing. If birth defects, etc. can be prevented, they should be. I was simply musing about a world with none of these.

So I had to create a planet that was a backwater where a disability could slip through the governmental cracks. Lily and Daisy did this, and they became a symbol of the underclasses and other people who wanted reform and liberation from an ultra-conservative, genetically-based class system.

My heroines, the twins, are seemingly unaware of how they are being used politically, and how they are eventually dismissed when the conservatives retain power. However, I don't really believe that they are as naïve as they seem. They simply choose to live joyfully and don't care about the politics.

My twin soul

Several years after writing this, my ex-husband and I moved to Portland, Oregon, where I now reside. Not too coincidentally, we moved into the apartment above my twin soul. We met fairly soon after my arrival, and we were inseparable from the start. I gave her a Reiki attunement, and during one of our sessions, she began to channel our spirit family.

My twin soul and I have been together in so many lifetimes, in so many ways, and in this we were destined to become wife and wife, which we now are. Lily and Daisy had found each other.

In this lifetime, my twin soul, Ahnna, has a disability—she was born with mild cerebral palsy, so she walks with the aid of crutches. In this one lifetime, her disability is the physical manifestation of the injury that was caused to us when we separated ourselves before coming into this plane of existence. As it relates to the story, however, there is the theme of physical disability, or deviation as that fictitious society sees it. Being with Ahnna gives me a greater appreciation for those who are different, and I have to say that the way she is treated by others can be very enlightening.

But then there's Christopher, right? Well, the longer we were together, the better our psychic abilities became, and we were able to remember more past lives than we can count. Somewhere along the way, the spirit of my ex-husband entered into our karma, and we have had a karmic triangle with him for several thousand years now. Poor Christopher. No matter how we live it, the twin souls are still the closest and still choose each other over Christopher. Thankfully, with this last, we are now done, and have parted as friends.

As for the singing, neither of us can sing a note, but perhaps I was inspired by the memory of a previous life in which we were both classical opera singers in Vienna. That was a fun one! One of many...