Chapter 6

Part I

THE DAMNED LINES OF THE PLOT JUST KEEP ON INTERTWINING...

Those were my thoughts as the four of us worked both Katrin's and my computers and figured out a damned tangled web of relations.

Lori and I had showered and dressed after our afternoon of lovemaking and then our discussion of the things that I'd remembered.

Katrin and Tom had also cleaned up shortly after we'd done so. They'd checked in with us and we'd explained what I'd recalled and what we suspected.

Both my sister and Lori's cousin had simply gone bug-eyed. They just couldn't believe that our mothers (well, not Tom's late mother) had arranged things to try and get Lori and me together.

Still, we agreed that this was something we needed to check.

We'd divided up our tasks. Katrin and Tom initially went downstairs and fixed up a dinner for the four of us and Mom. We ate in a hurry and got back to our investigations.

Mom came in from her extra-long day at work and found that we were working on a research project. We told her we'd gotten interested in a new research program at school and were trying to research potential projects that would allow us to participate in it. She was pleased to hear that. None of us really felt any need to tell her that she had become one of the subjects of our very interesting research project!

She was glad to find that she had a fresh dinner waiting for her. She asked about who'd prepared it and Katrin had said that Tom was the evening's chief chef. Mom complimented Tom on his cooking.

We all grinned at one another. And we kept on digging into what we were finding on several genealogical sites.

I had quickly found the material that my uncle's cousin had posted online. He had a webpage dedicated to several families in our county and surrounding areas. We all lived in Richmount, which was in Richland County. It seemed my own family had been in the area for five or six generations. I quickly found our branch of the family and we started working back from my parents (who were listed) to grandparents (still living) and further back. Then, not having seen anything about a Hargraves relative, I ran a search on the website and quickly found what we were looking for. Mrs. Hargraves was a younger first cousin of my paternal grandmother. My dad's grandmother had been a sister of Mrs. Hargraves' mother. I'd never known that!

But, that probably explained why she'd been my father's baby-sitter. And it confirmed a portion of our suspicions. That probably explained her laxness in disciplining Lori and I and why she kept interacting with us so nicely.

And it likely explained why I was assigned to be Lori's tutor, if our mothers really were old college friends. Or, so I thought.

While we were searching back through Katrin's and my dad's ancestry we also checked our mother Doris' ancestry. My maternal grandmother was named Josephine. When Lori and Tom saw that they remarked that their maternal grandmother was also named Josephine. That was odd. What was weirder was they and our respective grandfathers all lived in the neighboring down of Springfield. Springfield was the other large town in Richland County. We compared their names and appearances and what they'd done in life and realized that they were not the same old ladies. That was a relief! For a moment we'd all shared the unreasonable fear that our parents might be siblings and us cousins. Well, Tom wasn't too worried about that - his dad was the older brother of Lori's mom.

We checked back a couple of generations and found that Katrin's and my grandmother Josephine must have been named for her own grandmother. We found that we had a great-great-grandmother named Josephine.

That's when Tom mentioned that their families had been in the county for five or six generations. It seemed possible that our families had been here for a similar length of time.

That's when I remembered my uncle's cousin having talked about family histories at a big family barbecue. He'd mentioned how families often used and reused the same names over and over, again and again.

I then asked Lori and Tom about their grandparents. It took only a couple of searches and I found them listed on another genealogical website.

We then went back through their grandmother's parents. Well, that was interesting! Lori and Tom's great-grandmother had the same maiden name as Katrin's and my great-grandmother.

I clicked on the link that took us back to Lori and Tom's gg-grandparents and we all sucked in big breaths. They were the same couple as were Katrin's and my gg-grandparents! Our two grandmothers Josephine are first cousins! Our mothers are third (or whatever) cousins!

We just stared at one another for a minute or so.

Then, it got worse.

I asked Tom about his mother. His maternal grandparents were still alive. We searched their names and arrived back at the webpage that my uncle's cousin had created. We all stared at one another. Tom said only one thing. "Nnnoooooo..."

Katrin and Lori both hugged him as I searched the site. It was easy to find the link. Tom's mother was related to both my father and Mrs. Hargraves.

And it got worse. There were three other families displayed amongst those genealogical lines who had contributed to our shared ancestry. Three other families shared among us - all four of us.

We were all related to one another. We were cousins - maybe several times over! Maybe as many as SIX times over!

Lori summarized it best!

"Just what the HELL is going on!?"

We sat there awhile and considered our options.

Clearly, things had been concealed from us. Anyone seeing the relationship that had developed between Lori and me would have thought that we should be made aware that we were somehow related.

But, no one seemed to have thought that was necessary. Mrs. Hargraves probably knew exactly how we were related. She'd known my dad all of his life and clearly knew my grandparents.

Just then we were interrupted by one of the co-conspirators. Mom came in and asked us how our research was coming along.

Katrin said we'd discovered some interesting things and were discussing where to take our research. Katrin said that so smoothly.

Recall how I mentioned that my little sister was evil. And smart. Add smooth to that list of adjectives. Hhhmmmm, maybe she'd been paying some attention to the stuff Timothy had been doing to the rest of us. He was always very smooth with delivering his wry and clever comebacks. And Katrin had been around us so much, with her teasing of us.

While this was going on I noticed that Mom's face seemed a little flushed. Then I smelled the wine. She'd had some along with her dinner.

Mom smiled and said that sounded like a good approach. She yawned a bit and said she might be going to bed soon. She asked Lori and Tom about when they were heading home.

Lori answered first. "Mrs. Jacobs, I'd just as soon stay here. I'm tired of sleeping in an empty house!"

Lori turned her head towards me ever so slightly and winked at me.

Mom brightened up at that. "Well, that's OK with me, Lori. I know you and Mark have become lovers. I have no problem with you sleeping with Mark."

Katrin looked at me. She nodded. Yep, that sounded like our mom was in on a conspiracy.

I saw Katrin nudge Tom and she glanced at his cellphone. He nodded.

He looked up at Mom. "Mrs. Jacobs, if my dad OKs it then can I stay here overnight?"

Mom's smile got even broader. "Well, I suppose that would be alright, Tom. But, I want to hear your father say it's OK."

Tom pulled out his cellphone and punched in a speed-dial combination. In about twenty seconds he was talking to his father.

After a short explanation of what was happening, he handed his phone to Mom. Things got momentarily interesting.

"Hi Tom." That was Mom.

Mom listened to something from Tom's father.

"Tom, it's no problem. I'm sure that everything will turn out fine."

Mom listened again.

"OK! Great, I'll tell him."

And with that Mom hit the end button before she gave the unit back to Tom.

"Your father said it was fine if you stayed with us this evening."

Mom yawned. Very theatrically. I'd never seen her yawn so expansively in my entire eighteen years.

Katrin and I exchanged glances. We both recognized motherly acting when we saw it. It was a put-on. Maybe a slightly tipsy act. There was that smell of wine.

Mom smiled at us. "You all be good, tonight. I'll see you in the morning." With that she turned about and went down the hall to her room.

We all sat there and looked at one another, yet again.

Katrin said it. "Mom was putting on an act. She's not as tired as she acted."

"Yeah, and she's been drinking. Did you notice how she addressed Tom's father? I think she slipped up. I think they already know one another."

Tom had a comment of his own. "My dad didn't even ask me anything about why I was here. He just wanted to talk to Mrs. Jacobs." He especially looked at Lori when he said that.

Lori just nodded. "It fits in with what Mom said about her college friend Doris and how we heard them discuss things on Tuesday evening. They really do know each other!"

I thought about what we'd found. I decided we needed to save everything and encrypt it. I was getting to be really paranoid.

Surprisingly, Lori, Katrin, and Tom agreed with me. Tom mentioned wanting to get independent confirmation of what we'd found online.

I agreed with him. We'd need to check records in the county courthouse. That's where most of what we'd found was originally recorded. If we found the same things in century-old records, then we'd know that what we suspected was at least partially true.

We kept up at it for a while longer. However, this was burning up our brain cells. We all four got tired at about the same time. Lori joked about it. "We all used up our energy this afternoon!"

Tom and Katrin looked at her quizzically.

I judiciously kept quiet.

Lori smiled at them. "You didn't close the door all the way."

Katrin can flush bright red better than just about anyone I've ever seen. Tom blushed, too. Only, he didn't suffer the nearly painful whole-body flinch we saw with Katrin.

Katrin was switching back and forth between staring at Lori and me. "You didn't!"

Lori smiled. "Yeah - three times. It looked like you two were enjoying yourselves as much as Mark and I enjoy our times together."

I cut in at this point. "Just remember to close your door from now on."

Tom chuckled at this point. "Oh, I don't think I'll forget about that."

Katrin looked at him. "Yeah, no kiddin'."

With that we broke up and I secured the files we'd downloaded. I dumped one copy of the encrypted file to my working directory on the server at the school board. Then I sent a copy to Timothy and simply said to hold on to it for me. Timothy and I had done similar sorts of things in the past. We covered for each other. That's what pals are for.

Lori and I stripped and got into bed. We spooned together. It was a wonderfully intimate experience. A spoon between kissin' cousins were my last thoughts as I drifted off into sleep.

Part II

When I awoke it was a while before the alarm was set to go off. As I glanced at the clock Lori turned around and looked into my eyes. We both smiled at each other and snuggled together for a nice kiss.

When we separated from the kiss it was Lori who spoke first. "How are you doin' cuz?" Lori grinned at her reference to our previous evenings' discoveries.

"I'm doin' just fine. I've got my lovely nekkid kissin' cousin wrapped up in my arms and she's just the best thing that's ever happened in my life."

Lori's grin turned into a really broad smile. "Ditto for me. You're the best thing that's happened in my life, too."

"Wanta take a shower together?"

"Yeah."

We got up and entered the bathroom together. Lori got one of those shit-eating grins and took hold of my buddy. She pointed it at the bowl and shook it. "Come on Mark, show me how you do it. I wanta see it again."

I groaned. Then, I decided to get into the spirit of the thing and smiled. I let go of my bladder and watched as Lori directed my stream into center of the bowl. Then she grinned up into my face and ran my stream around in a pattern. She drew a heart with my piss. It was kinda lovable seeing her do that.

Once my stream was reduced to a dribble she shook my buddy. My last few drops were sprinkled into the bowl and Lori turned to me and gave me a nice, sweet kiss.

And that's when she replaced the kiss with her shit-eating grin and turned around in front of me. She put down the seat on the toilet. She sat down and spread her legs apart to give me a view of her action. As I watched she sprayed her pee into the bowl to mix together with mine.

I decided to have some fun of my own. I reached over to the paper roll and pulled some off and started folding it. I smiled at Lori as she continued peeing. She smiled back at me. "Are you going to wipe me?"

"Yeah. Front to back, right?"

"Ooooohhhhhhh, yeah!"

I carefully and gently wiped her three times. She leaned into me and hummed her delight at my gentle drying of her pee-damp slit.

We then showered together. Lori and I took very good care of each other. We lathered up and shampooed each other's hair. We rinsed off the shampoo and then Lori got that same ol' grin.

She kissed me and then dropped down to her knees. My buddy was about three-quarters hard when she engulfed him. It only took a few bobs of her lips over my buddy's glans to bring him up to full length. She then wrapped the base of my cock with her right hand while cupping my balls with her left hand. It was a wonderful way to experience a shower.