Chapter 7

I went through my morning classes without too much thought for what was being taught. As I headed for lunch I looked around at my fellow students and wondered if I was surrounded by a small army of cousins. I just didn't know what to think, exactly. Given what we'd found the previous evening, then any of the kids with local origins might be related to us. It was a strange set of thoughts to be contemplating.

I found Katrin with Tom just outside the doors to the lunchroom. As I joined them I looked back up the hallway and saw Lori approaching us. Some guy I didn't know was walking beside and talking to her. She was shaking her head in response to whatever he was saying. I started walking towards them and saw him grab Lori by the upper arm and stop her. Lori gasped and yelled. She seemed to grimace in pain. He was hurting Lori! That got me moving fast - dodging through students who were turning around at the sound of Lori's struggle.

As I about to crash into the guy I heard Lori. "Wayne! Let go of me!" Lori was trying to pull away him and finally succeeded by stomping her heel on one of his feet. He yelped and hopped backwards as he released his grip on her shoulder.

I stepped in front of Lori and stared at the idiot, waiting for him to try something. I'd only been in a few fights my entire life and I'd lost just about every one of them. But, I was mad and I was going to protect Lori from some asshole who was bothering her.

"Get the hell outah here, you geek! This is between my girlfriend Lori and me."

At the same time I heard Katrin ask Lori if she was OK. Lori must have been listening to the idiot asshole named Wayne rather than Katrin. "I'm not your girlfriend, Wayne! I've told you that every time you've bothered me! I've already got a boyfriend! Now leave us alone!" Lori sounded pissed off and annoyed with the idiot.

That's when I noticed Tom standing beside me. Oh yeah, I'd heard Katrin asking Lori something. They must have followed me.

The idiot didn't seem to get the message that Lori had just delivered to him. "Lori! I'm the only guy who wants you! Which one of these two is the one who thinks he's your boyfriend? I'll make him forget about you!" With that the idiot Wayne stepped towards Tom and me. He flinched as he put weight on the foot that Lori had stomped. I had to figure this guy was slow, what with Lori having just hurt him like that.

But, he seemed to want to take on both of us. Like I said, slow. And he wasn't paying attention to anyone other than us.

That's when Lori's old pal Kyle walked up behind the idiot and dropped his hand on a shoulder. Kyle was smiling in what I thought might be a tight, dangerous way as he spun Wayne around. "Wayne, are you bothering Lori again?"

"What!? No, Kyle! Those guys were bothering her. I was trying to help her! That's all." Wayne had what now looked like a worried expression on his face. He was trying to smile but couldn't quite pull it off. I immediately got the feeling these two had a history.

Kyle smiled. "Oh, Lori's cousin and her boyfriend were bothering her?" Kyle turned to where Lori and Katrin were standing in front of a small crowd of students who'd stopped to watch what was happening. "Lors, is that right? Were Tom and Mark bothering you?"

Lori practically sneered at the idiot Wayne. "You're a pathetic liar, Wayne! You're the one who grabbed me and wouldn't let loose." She addressed her next comments to Kyle. "I had to stomp on his foot to get away from him. Mark got in between Wayne and me and Tom stood beside him. They were keeping him away from me!"

Kyle smiled yet again. It was a really cold sort of smile. "OK, so Wayne was bothering you - again. And he was lying about who was bothering you. By the way, which foot was it you stomped?"

"His right foot, Kyle."

"You mean this one?" Kyle kicked the foot in question.

Wayne squealed in pain.

"Yep, that must be the one." Kyle's smile got colder as he held onto a writhing Wayne. Suddenly, Kyle whipped Wayne around and slammed him into the wall of the hallway. Lots of the students gathered around us gasped at the sudden impact. Wayne moaned and slumped down to the floor.

Kyle kneeled down beside Wayne and grabbed him by the jaw. "Wayne, Lori doesn't like you. I despise you. Now a whole lot of people around here are gonna know you're a bully who can't hear it when a girl tells you no."

Kyle pressed hard on Wayne's jaw and shook his head around a bit. "But, Wayne - that's not your biggest problem. Nope, you biggest problem is that if I ever hear that you've bothered Lori or any other girl then I'm gonna fix you up so that you can't walk. Do you understand me, Wayne?" Kyle shook Wayne's head again. "Do you understand, Wayne? Answer me!"

Wayne's eyes had gotten big and round by this point. He nodded. But, he didn't say anything.

Kyle's hard smile had completely disappeared and had been replaced with a very hard scowl. "I said answer me, Wayne!" He shook the idiot's head again.

Wayne flinched and then muttered that he understood Kyle. "Yeah, Kyle. I understand."

"Good, Wayne. 'Cause you don't want me coming after you. Oh, and it might be that several of us would come after you. I've got friends. Mark has friends. Tom has friends. We might make a party out of you, Wayne. Remember that and think about it." Kyle patted Wayne's face with his open hand and stood up.

Kyle smiled at everyone standing around us. "Hey! Ain't it lunchtime? I'm hungry. Let's go get something to eat!" Kyle walked over to where Lori and Katrin were standing.

I turned around with Tom and watched as Lori gave Kyle a big hug. "Kyle, you are my best friend. If you weren't with Vicky and if didn't love Mark, I'd be dragging you home with me!" Lori smiled at me as she said it. I smiled back. I couldn't really disagree with what she said. Kyle was a great guy to have as a friend. Especially when idiots like the moaning Wayne didn't understand a simple word like no. Lori let go of Kyle and came to me.

I took Lori into my arms and asked her about whether she was hurt. She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I might have a bruise on my arm, but that's nothing new. Wayne's done that to me and couple of my friends in the past. He grabs hard and doesn't want to let go. I went on one date with him and learned he doesn't understand no. His hands were all over me. Ever since he's thought he owned me. I'm so glad I've got you, now! And you came to my rescue!" She smiled and hugged me tight, pressing her breasts into my side.

I looked over to see Katrin giving Tom an impassioned kiss. I realized that some of the other students nearby were grinning at the sight. I decided my sister had a good idea. Since Lori said she OK, then I felt I good give her a good kissing. And I did! Lori moaned into my mouth as our tongues got tangled up. After a short while I had to come for some deep breaths. Lori looked flushed as I pulled back a little from her.

I looked over to Kyle and nodded my thanks to him. He grinned back at me. As we walked back down the hall towards the lunchroom I thanked him for dealing with Wayne. I admitted that I wasn't a very good fighter. I turned to Tom and asked him if he any experience with fights. The answer surprised me.

"Mark, I've never been in a single fight. But, I do spar with Kyle sometimes. We're both trained in martial arts. We have some fun when we go at one another. If Wayne had continued towards us I would have laid him out on the floor." Tom grinned at the rest of us as he walked along with one arm draped over Katrin's shoulder.

"Well, why did Kyle step in and do what he did if you could have dealt with Wayne?"

"Oh, that's easy to explain. He's bothered Lors and several other girls before. One of them is Vicky's sister. He said he wanted some 'chink slit' and tried forcing himself on her. He didn't realize that Vicky and I had followed him and were watching and listening as he tried to rape Wendy. I pulled him outah his car and beat him up real bad. I thought he'd learned his lesson, then. But, it seems like Wayne's slow to grasp concepts like pain." Kyle just shook his head at what he'd found necessary to do. I wondered how any guy could be as stupid as Wayne seemed to be. Grabbing Lori in a school hallway had to be just about as idiotic an act as he could have chosen!

Nobody paid any attention as the moaning asshole idiot started trying to get up and move away from his place of punishment and humiliation.

The five of us went on into the lunchroom and got us a table by ourselves. I stopped by and told our crowd that we were going to sit by ourselves and talk about some stuff. I caught Timothy's and Greg's knowing looks and slight nods. The rest of the crowd just agreed that it was OK with them.

Kyle sat with us four. As we began to eat I turned to Lori. "Tell Kyle about what we learned last night. He might see something that we've missed."

Lori, Tom, and Katrin stopped eating for a moment and then they nodded at once. Lori told Kyle about how we were related as cousins - maybe cousins several times over. Kyle stopped eating his lunch at one point and his eyes actually got big and round as we all contributed bits of information about the whole, weird thing. Having seen the cold, steely Kyle of only a little while earlier suddenly turn goggle-eyed was strange. Kyle sat there for about a minute and seemed to be thinking about things.

"Lors, what about your father? You didn't say anything about his ancestry."

"Oh! That's easy to explain. My Dad was adopted. My grandparents aren't really my relatives. My father's kinda a dead-end for us. I didn't even think to mention that last night. Tom knows, of course. But there's not much about his family that he'll tell us. He knows who his mother was. She got pregnant and Dad's biological father abandoned her. She had dad as a single mother back in the bad old days. She married after she gave him up for adoption. Dad has a couple of younger half-brothers that he wouldn't ever tell me about. Well, except that one of them died a few years ago. Dad went to the funeral, but wouldn't ever tell me about who his half-brothers were.

This was sounding too much like something familiar.

I looked over at Katrin and saw it in her eyes, too. At our father's funeral a man who'd looked a lot like our father and uncle had hugged our mother Doris and told us how sorry he felt about how we'd lost our father. He'd said he was a relative of our father who'd grown up not knowing him. He's said he'd only met our father as an adult and that they'd become friends over the last several years. And we hadn't seen him since the funeral.

I turned to Lori. "Do you have a picture of your father on you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Let me see it, please."

I noticed that Tom was beginning to look worried about what I might be getting at. Katrin looked like she might get ill. Kyle had a seriously creased frown on his face, with his eyebrows hunched down over his eyes.

Lori dug down into her book bag and pulled out what appeared to be a small purse and organizer. She opened it up and smiled for a moment as she showed me the checkbook I'd found in her car. She laid it aside and pulled out a small picture folder. She flipped through it and pulled out two pictures. She turned to me and gave them to me. "These are pictures taken about two and ten years ago - I think. You can see how my Dad has aged a bit."

I looked at the two pictures and the appearance of Lori's father brought back my childhood memories of my father's funeral. I knew this man. Without saying a word I handed them over to Katrin. My sister took one look at the older picture and gasped. I'm not sure how I looked, but Katrin's eyes got wide. She kept looking back and forth between Lori and me.

There seemed to be a ringing in my ears. I could hear Lori draw in a fast, ragged breath. I watched as Tom wrapped his arm around Katrin. I noticed Kyle seeming to hunch down a bit in expectation of what the two of us had realized. I slowly turned to look at Lori. She was staring at me wide-eyed. I think she must have been coming to realize what Katrin and I were reacting to. I had to tell her. There wasn't any way around it.

"Lori. Your father was at our father's funeral. He hugged our mother. He looked a lot like our father and uncle. That's what I thought when he spoke to us. He said he was some sort of a relative. He said he hadn't known our father when they'd been growing up. But, he'd met our father as an adult and he said that they'd become friends over several years. Uh, we haven't seen him since the funeral. Well, except for now."

"Mark, why do you think my Dad attended your father's funeral?" She glanced between me and Katrin, seeing from our expressions that we knew why he was there.

I sighed. I had to tell her. "Lori, I think your father is my father's older half-brother." Lori looked flabbergasted. And then she started to look like she might go into shock. This got interrupted as she started speaking.

"Oh my god. Ohmygod! OH MY GOD! I thought it was so funny that we were kissin' cousins. What was I thinking!? My Dad is your uncle! What have we done!? That's INCEST! What have THEY done to us!? Our own mothers pushed us together! What could they be thinking!?" Tears had started to run from her eyes.