In The Grace of Liars

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It had been some time since our last real conversation so there were plenty of details to fill in. I wanted to know more about the camp but there would be time for that. Right now I needed to vent a little and she was soaking up everything I had to say about my recently failed relationship with Jennifer. I told her about the troubles that we had been having for the past weeks and the slide in our sex life that took place over the past year or two.

Andi listened. She was good at that. She stayed quiet when she was supposed to, asked the right questions at the right times and offered an insult to the offending parties when it was appropriate. She even laughed when I'd make a bad pun to lighten the mood a little. During the course of the conversation, I noticed that she seemed to be getting closer to me. I was sure I hadn't moved my chair but Andi on the other hand seemed to scoot a little closer every time she reached for the bottle. I kept talking but was suddenly aware of her proximity to me. There was something off. Something different. There was just something about the way she was acting that didn't feel like the old Andi.

I suppose it could have had something to do with her outfit. She had on a T-shirt and panties. No bra, no shorts, nothing else. I knew that's what she usually slept in and it was late when I got here so I hadn't thought much of it when she opened the door. I was certainly used to seeing Andi in various stages of dress (or undress). She wasn't a terribly modest person, especially around me -- We were much more like brother and sister in that respect. Though I'd never seen her naked, she didn't think anything of stripping down to her bra and panties in front of me if she needed to change her clothes. I was always aware that she was a pretty girl but we just didn't think of each other in a sexual way.

Maybe it was the alcohol? Maybe my body was responding to the visual stimuli from earlier in the day? I didn't know why but I was noticing Andi. The way she moved -- not the way that little girl that I grew up with moved, but the way this grown, adult, woman moved. I noticed her thighs, soft and creamy skin that disappeared beneath her T-shirt. I noticed the small peaks of her nipples that tented the front of her shirt. I noticed the graceful, sweeping contours of her shoulders where they met her neck. And the lingering feeling of her lips on mine when she opened the door.

"You're kidding me?! You caught her going down on him?"

"No shit. Look, I got a picture." I showed her the picture that I snapped at Jennifers house earlier that day. She grabbed the phone from my hand and studied the image.

"So then what happened?" she asked, still looking at the picture.

I laughed a little and she put the phone down, grabbing her glass and taking a sip of the cheap stuff. "Well, I waited."

"For what?"

"For her to finish him off," I said.

"Chris, what the hell? Why give him the pleasure?"

"Well, call me an asshole, but I wanted to wait till she had a mouth full of cum before I confronted her. It wasn't about him. Fuck him."

Andi's eyes went wide when I said that. "Go on."

"I walked out there just as he finished shooting in her mouth. He tried to explain himself but I shut him down. Then, while she was trying to wipe his cum off her chin, I gave her an ear-full. I told her to come pick up her shit and never speak to me again. Then I walked back in the house and sent her mother out to comfort her."

Andi threw her fists in the air over her head. "Justice! That's awesome! I wonder what Mrs. Matthews thought when she found her."

"Yeah, I kinda hated to do it, but I figured her mom would get past it a lot easier than Jennifer would so I don't feel too bad."

Then the room went quiet and for the first time since I arrived here things felt awkward. Talking about everything that happened -- saying those words out loud and looking at Andi's body throughout the conversation had an effect on me. My cock was hard and straining under my jeans. I mentally chastised myself for the thoughts I was having about my cousin and decided it was probably best to call it a night. We could talk more in the morning over a cup of hangover coffee.

"I think I better hit the sack Andi. It's been a crazy day and this whiskey's got me tired." I stood up from the table and stretched, then headed for the sofa in the living room.

"That sofa is awful to sleep on. You'll be hurting tomorrow. Want to share the bed like when we were kids?" She smiled her innocent Andi smile.

It was tempting. Her mattress was one of the things I bought for her when she moved in here. It was expensive and comfortable. I thought about it and then thought better of it. We had consumed most of a bottle of whiskey together and things were already weird enough. I didn't want to take responsibility for what might happen if one or both of us let the liquor get the better of our good sense. If things happened - if we let things go too far -- she was my rock. She was my friend. And never far from my thoughts was the fact that she was my cousin! I didn't want to throw that away for a night of drunken... whatever this was. There was no doubt that she was sending signals, but I just couldn't make it right in my head.

"Uh... I think I'll be OK Andi. Thanks though."

"Suit yourself," she said as she stretched in the doorway. Her arms reached up to the door frame and her shirt rode up to above her belly button, exposing her pink cotton panties and pushing her breasts against her t-shirt. I watched, transfixed by her shape as she twisted her body to stretch her back muscles. And with that, she turned in place and disappeared into her bedroom.

I collapsed on the couch and pulled a blanket over me as I rested one foot on the floor to try to slow down the carousel that I boarded at some point earlier in the evening.

###

Morning came too fast, as it always does after a night of drinking. I woke to the smell of fresh coffee and a blurry vision of Andi in the kitchen, still wearing the same t-shirt from the night before. I rubbed my head and held a hand to either temple in a futile attempt to still the throbbing. Andi noticed me stirring and poured me a cup of coffee.

"G'morning. How'd you sleep?"

As I sat upright the ache in my head seemed to spread down my neck and into my back. I was hurting all over.

"Uhg," I mumbled. It was the only response I could muster.

"Back hurt?" she asked.

"Uh-huh."

I think she laughed at me then but I can't be sure. She probably did. "I told you so, dummy," she chided. "Here, drink some coffee and go get yourself cleaned up. You'll feel better after a shower and some food. I'm making breakfast."

By the time I finished showering I was already feeling much better, if not more than just a little ashamed that I had stood in my cousins shower and rubbed one out while thinking about her silky smooth legs and those fuck-me hips. I thought I must really be desperate. The months without sex with Jennifer had my libido cranked into overdrive such that thinking about my own cousin was stimulation enough for me to drop a load of cum on her shower floor.

I choked down my guilt like a bitter pill and focused on returning to the land of the living. The hot water did it's job and washed the whiskey-sweat off of my skin and though my tongue still felt too big for my mouth, the coffee was working its magic as well. I dried off and slipped my jeans on. It was hot and steamy in the bathroom from the shower running and I didn't much care to put my shirt on just yet.

I walked out of the bathroom and headed down the short hallway, intending to go to the kitchen to see what Andi was cooking when I heard a strange voice. Andi was talking to someone. I slowed down and stopped at the end of the hallway, not eavesdropping on purpose but I didn't want to interrupt.

"...just don't have it right now. I just need a couple more weeks. Mr. Dempsey hasn't paid me in a month but he promised he'd have all of my back-pay on my next check." Andi's voice was strained and pleading.

"I'm sorry. You too far past due -- I couldn't take a payment from you at this point if I wanted to. You have a week to have everything out. Which, so you know, is six days longer than I would give anyone else. I'm really sorry Andrea, I like you, I really do -- but I'm not running a charity. I have to answer to the owners and they want to know why I'm allowing a tenant to stay when they aren't receiving any rent payments. I can't keep making excuses for you."

I heard the door thump closed as I walked out into the living room. Andi was sitting with her back to the door and her head in her hands. I crossed the room and knelt in front of her.

"Hey," I said.

She looked up at me then, tears streaming down her face. Uhg. It got me right in the heart.

"What's this all about?" I asked.

I brought her over to the table and walked into the kitchen just in time to save the eggs that were about to burn on the stove. I served us a breakfast of toast, eggs, and more coffee while she explained the trouble she had been having at work. John Dempsey was the owner of the Black Jack Bar and Grill where Andi worked. She was his head cook and came up with the recipes and ideas for most of the items on his menu. Since she had been working there food sales had gone through the roof and Dempsey was making money hand over fist for a while. In the beginning he took good care of Andi, giving her bonuses based on the volume of food sales.

"It all worked out really well for a while. He's a good guy to work for. He's fair and honest and he's really gone out of his way for me," she said.

"Then why did he stop paying you? That doesn't sound fair and honest to me."

"About three months ago his son Jimmy was diagnosed with cancer. He's sucking the bar dry to pay for his treatments. He needs me, and he's been there for me in the past," she said.

Andi always had a generous heart. I felt bad for her boss -- it was a sad story -- but she had to be able to pay her rent.

"Andi, I know you want to help him out but you need a job that pays."

"I know that. He knows it too. I've already told him that I'm looking for something else."

"How much do you owe?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter. You heard her, I'm too far past due. Even if I had the money, I need it for tuition when school starts up again."

"So what are you going to do?"

She shrugged her shoulders and picked at the cold eggs on her plate. "I don't know."

I thought about it for a while. She didn't have many options. She wouldn't go back to her mothers house. After the falling out that they had when she moved out, I doubted that she had even spoken with her mother much since. Then I had an idea.

"Well, why don't you move in with me?"

"Chris that's really sweet of you but it's too far away from school. My car won't make that drive once a week, much less three."

She was right. This was more complicated than I first thought.

"When do you go back to school?"

"Eight weeks. But the way things are going, I'll probably have to skip a semester."

I rolled it over in my head. I wanted to help Andi but I just wasn't sure how.

"Well, we've got a week to figure this out. Let's go see Aunt Marjorie. I need to talk to her."

###

It was another pretty day and another day to keep the rag-top off of the Jeep. After prodding Andi to get dressed, we got in the Jeep and made the half hour drive to Aunt Marjorie's house. She lived in a small house on a large piece of land just outside of town.

During the drive over, I played a few tunes that I knew Andi liked from when we were younger. That seemed to cheer her up a bit. It was nice to see her smiling. At one point in one of our favorite songs, she started singing. Her hair whipped around her head from the wind until I gave her one of my baseball caps to tame her tresses. And then I noticed her again. She had such a simple, delicate beauty. None of her features overpowered her appearance, they just seemed to fit in perfectly with the rest of her; everything in it's place as if each feature had been sculpted deliberately and with the sole purpose of adding to her beauty.

And once again I found my eyes drawn to her body. Wearing a short pair of shorts, she continued the theme from the previous night of showing off her smooth, toned legs. Her hips were nearly as wide as her shoulders and combined with her slender waist she had a beautiful and very shapely -- though trim, figure.

She's you're fucking cousin! I thought to myself. Stop it! It's Andi for crying out loud!

I think she caught me looking a couple of times but made no indication that it bothered her. She just smiled at me and continued singing along with the play list. I couldn't help it. It was as if I had suddenly woken up to the fact that my cousin was smoking hot.

When Andi's song ended she reached over and turned down the volume on the stereo. "So how long has it been, cousin?" She asked.

I almost flinched at the last word. "Since what?"

"You told me that you and Jennifer hadn't had sex in a while. By the way you've been looking at me all day I'd guess it's been a long while, so how long?"

Yep. I was caught. My face turned a bright shade of red as I recalled what I'd done in her shower just a few hours ago. I started to stumble over an apology. "I.. uh... I didn't mean to.."

"Christopher Mason, don't you dare apologize to me for that," she said, doing her best to be stern. Then, her tone softened just slightly, "You can look all you want. It's kind of nice that you finally noticed I have tits."

I don't know what I was expecting to hear her say, but it certainly wasn't that. She wanted me to look? This was surreal. From the moment she answered the door I felt like I was in the twilight zone. I didn't ever remember her being so overtly suggestive; it was all so very strange.

"So how long has it been?" she repeated.

I did a little math in my head. I remembered the last time Jennifer and I were together. It was after a party and she was drunk and horny. I took advantage of the opportunity as I wasn't sure when it would come along again. When I realized how long it had really been it surprised me.

"Uh, well. Going on three months. Something like that."

"I can't believe you put up with that. You can have pretty much any girl you want. She had to know that. I'd think she'd have been more careful to keep you happy."

"Yeah, well. I thought I loved her. She told me she was just having a hard time with some things. I was trying to be the good guy, you know? Trying to be sensitive to her needs. All that shit. Turned out to be bullshit anyway."

"You thought you loved her? What do you mean by that?" she asked.

I thought back to those few moments standing in her parents study, watching her and Brad. "I don't know. It's weird. When I was watching her and Brad out by the pool, something just clicked. It was like, one minute I was head over heels for her, then when I saw them together I got really mad. I got so angry that the love just... stopped. Like one minute I loved her and the next... just... nothing.

"I've thought about that a lot since then. Other than you and the camp, it's been the only thing on my mind. The only thing that I can come up with is maybe I wasn't really in love with her. Maybe I thought I was because she stuck around and mostly kept me happy, you know? I mean, how else could I just all of the sudden not feel anything for her? Does that even make sense? It's sounds kind of dumb now that I say it out loud."

Andi shook her head, "No, I know what you mean. It was like that for me and Tom. We were together for almost a year but when things ended I just kind of kept going. Almost like nothing changed. I cried for a couple of days. I was pissed at him but it didn't really matter to me that he was gone, it was just another day."

"Yeah," I said.

"Anyway, I think it's really sweet that you put your needs on hold for her like that. I'm sorry that she fucked you over, but for what it's worth, I don't think she deserves you."

###

We sat at Aunt Marjories kitchen table sipping coffee and trying to breath through the smokey haze that emanated from the ash tray sitting by her coffee cup. She covered her face with her hands as she sobbed through the story of how she mortgaged the camp to catch up on some debts that had gotten out of control. All of that would have worked out just fine -- she was back on track financially and had almost all of her debts paid off except for the camp. That's when she lost her job at the post office.

"I'm so sorry. Your grandfather would be so ashamed of me. That camp has been in our family for over a hundred years and now I've lost it!"

"Wait," I stopped her. "It hasn't been foreclosed on yet, right?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter Chris," she said through her tears. "I don't have the money to make a payment on it even if they would take one. They're asking for the full balance on the loan -- not just a payment." Her face was a ragged display of desperation and remorse.

Aunt Marjorie was the oldest of the sisters but she was also arguably the prettiest. She was in her late fifties but aside from her smoking habit had taken exceptionally good care of herself. The wrinkles on her face cut perhaps a little deeper now than I remembered but her features were still deceptively young and she kept her hair dyed to further the illusion. Her tears made her look worse for wear and tugged at my heart strings.

A thought occurred to me. A solution that might work out for everyone. "What's the balance on the loan Aunt M?" I asked.

She met my gaze briefly then looked down at her coffee cup. "Sixty-seven thousand."

I leaned over to Andi who was holding Aunt Marjorie's hand and whispered to her, "I'll be back in a few minutes. I need to make a phone call."

I walked outside and over to my Jeep where I had left my cell phone. I quickly dialed one of my fathers old friends -- Jesse Markham. Jesse maintained the trust that my parents had started for me many years ago. I started receiving payments from it shortly after Mom died. It was a requirement that the trust start paying out on my 21st birthday or else in the event of a tragedy -- like both of my parents passing away. Dad died when I was really young and Mom was killed in a drunk driving accident when I was sixteen. With her passing, the requirements had been met so I started getting payments. I had no idea how much money was in the trust but I knew it was a lot. I wasn't allowed to touch the bulk of the money until I turned thirty five but there were exceptions. I didn't know what any of those exceptions were -- as part of his duties as executor he wasn't allowed to tell me. But I had an idea that this might qualify.

Jesse checked in on me from time to time. I guess he felt that he had some obligation to my father after my mom died he did his best to see to it that I was OK. We'd go have lunch or dinner whenever he could make time for it. He took care of just about anything that I needed. He made sure I had a place to stay, money in my pocket, and kept me on the straight and narrow in school. Aside from a disagreement we had about me attending college (that we later smoothed out) he and I were friends. I had his cell number but he asked me years ago to call him on his office line if it was during the work day.

Finally, I got the receptionist at Jesse's office.

"Markham, Jones, and Dunn, how may I direct your call?" piped a voice that I didn't recognize.

"Jesse Markham, please?"

"Mr. Markham is in a meeting at the moment, can I direct you to his voice mail?"

"No ma'am. My name is Chris Mason, Mr. Markham handles my trust and I have a time sensitive issue that I need to speak with him about." Jesse and my father were very close and I never had trouble getting through to him, even when he was busy.