Family Reunion

She looked up at Dan. "I have to tell him and you have to be there to explain what happened and why... and why this is all your fault."

Dan nodded his agreement. "Okay," he said. He was nearly as shaken as Sara. But deep inside he could picture his handsome, physically fit son and his wife making love. Okay, okay, he told himself, this is a big social taboo, but I wonder who enjoyed it more, Tom or Sara? Dan realized that kind of thinking wouldn't help this situation.

"Oh shit!" Sara just had another thought. "You and Tom need to meet Terri and, all things considered, I don't know if I can hide what I did with her brother from her. She's quite intelligent. "Shit! We might as well all get together and get it out in the open."

"What! Wait a minute!" a startled Dan exclaimed. "Who's Terri?"

"Oh yeah, you don't know you have a daughter. I was pregnant again when you left. She's nineteen now and also a student at River City U. She's a math whiz."

"A what?" Dan flinched. "A math whiz? Sara, are you using your family name, Hensley?

"Of course," After the divorce came through, I changed my name back, and I put Terri's last name down as mine, since I was a single mother.

"So your, um, our daughter's name is Terri Hensley?"

"Yes. Why, do you know her?"

"Yes," Dan whispered. "She's in my Advanced Math class. One hell of a student." And, he thought to himself, one hell of a lover.

"Brace yourself, Sara," Dan said grimly. "I have more bad news. Terri and I have been lovers for a few weeks ourselves."

"You what?" Sara screamed.

Dan looked up and down the street and at the houses close by. No one seemed to have heard Sara.

"Sara, she came into my office after hours. I thought she wanted to talk about math, a problem she might be having. But, uh, well the truth is, she came there to seduce me."

"Oh I'll bet that took a lot of work on her part," Sara said with bitter sarcasm.

"Oh, this is just great, Daniel. I'm fucking our son. You're fucking our daughter. I wonder if they have a special place in hell for people like us."

"Since when did you get religion?"

"I didn't. It's just an expression, dick head. After all, incest is prohibited in every society in the world and has been since forever."

"Strictly speaking, that's not completely true."

"Oh shut the fuck up, Daniel!"

Sara dug into her purse and came out with pen and paper.

"If you're going to write down your address, I'll save you the trouble. I know where you live."

Sara's mouth dropped. "Oh my God! You fucked our daughter in my house?"

"And where did you fuck Tom?"

Sara turned her face away from Dan, but he could see her blush with shame. She turned back to Dan, took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay, you know where I, Terri and I live, we've all got to meet there as soon as possible."

"But I have a meeting downtown." Dan looked at his watch. "In fact, I'm going to be late as it is."

"No, Daniel!" Sara said emphatically. She pointed a finger at him. "Cancel everything. Tom, too. I'll call my office now," she said, pulling out her cell phone. "This is a whole lot more important than anything we think we have to do."

"Okay. Okay," Dan said. He straightened up and pulled his own cell phone out of his jacket pocket. "I know Tom's schedule, so I'll let him know where to meet us... ASAP."

"That's right, Daniel, ASAP."

When Tom got his father's urgent message to meet at the address he knew was where Terri and Sara live, to skip his classes and get there as soon as possible, he thought to himself: Well, it seems like the shit may have just hit the fan.

As Tom pulled up behind his father's Beemer, he saw his father was still in the car. Both Terri's and Sara's car were in the driveway. Dan got out of his car when Tom got out of his.

"Hey, this is where Terri lives," Tom said.

Dan's head snapped around towards his son. "Terri Hensley? You know her?"

Tom didn't know how much his dad knew, but he wasn't going to try and hide his relationship, his love for Terri. "Well, yeah," Tom grinned. We met in the school's cafeteria a while back and hit it off. We're dating and, well I guess you could say that we know each other in the Biblical sense.

"Oh my God! You're fucking her!"

"Hey," Tom responded hotly. "Yes, we're lovers. There's no reason to be crude about it, Dad."

"Well, that completes it. Oedipus didn't have anything on us."

"Huh?"

"Okay son, I'm going to be brief before we go in there. I'm going to leave out a lot, but all that will be filled in once we go inside."

"What are you talking about, Dad?" a puzzled Tom asked.

"I'm about to tell you. To begin with you've been having a sexual affair with Sara Hensley."

Tom was torn between anger and curiosity. Maybe something had happened between Sara and Terri and the truth had come out and then Sara, or Terri had called his dad.

"You know that Terri and Sara are mother and daughter?" That was a rhetorical question. "And you've been having sex with both of them."

"Yeah, and you're Terri's lover also."

Dan gave his son a shocked look. "You know about that?"

"Dad, Terri and I aren't stupid and we're not liars and we love each other, so we decided to be honest with each other. So, yeah. I knew about you and her and she knows about me and her mother. Okay. It's just sex. No big deal. Okay?"

"Ah. Well, Tom, it is a big deal. Much bigger than you can imagine. You see, son, I lied to you all these years. Your mother never ran away. I did. And Sara Hensley is your mother."

Tom's mouth dropped open and he felt a strange tingling in his body.

"And further," Dan continued, "Terri is your full, biological sister, my daughter that I didn't know existed."

Tom started giggling.

"You think this is funny?" Dan hissed at his son.

"Sorry. Sorry. I guess I'm a little hysterical. But, Dad, you know that this makes me a motherfucker, don't you?" Tom started giggling again.

"Well, listen," Dan said a second later, ignoring what his son had just said, "that's the situation and we are probably going to go in there and face two very hysterical women. Also, Sara doesn't know that you and Terri are lovers, eh, were lovers. That will only make things worse. Ready?"

Tom took a deep breath. "Yeah, Dad, I guess so. Let's go." But his mind was still trying to grasp the fact that he'd been having sex with his mother and his sister. A part of him was shocked. Another part of him was looking at it calmly. They were good looking women that he had been attracted to and didn't know that they were his mother and sister. Did it really matter, he wondered?

When the doorbell chimed, Sara was pacing up and down the living room explaining some things to Terri. She'd just finished her first scotch and soda and still held the glass in her hand. "And that's what happened to your father and brother, and why I never told you—I'll get that. It should be them."

Saved by the bell, Terri thought, at least for now, from having to tell Mom that, on top of everything else, Tom and I are lovers too.

Actually, Terri's mind was racing. In spite of being totally surprised by this turn of event, she was trying to put it all together logically. She took logic classes to go along with her math classes. Tom, too, she'd found out, had taken a couple of logic classes.

Okay, girl, she thought, let's analyze the situation from a purely logical point of view. I bet I can get Tom to help me too and Dan... Dad? The thought of Dan being her father hadn't set into reality in her mind yet, nor Tom as her brother. I'll bet Dan can help out there, too... if Mom's anger at him doesn't shut him up."

Sara stalked back into the room, followed by Dan and Tom.

"Hi guys," Terri said cheerfully, with a big dimpled grin.

"Hi guys?" Sara was incredulous. "What is this, a walk in the park for you, Terri? We have a very serious situation here for God's sake!"

"I don't know about God's sake, Mom, but we can get around to that, too, in a little while."

"What?" an openmouthed Sara stared at her daughter as Terri got up out of her chair and walked over to Tom.

"So you're my big brother, huh?" Terri said then planted a big passionate kiss on his mouth.

Nearly hysterical, Sara cried out, "Stop that, Terri! Stop it right now!"

Terri turned to face her mother. "Mom, Tom and I are lovers, too." Sara's face turned ashen and she started to gulp the rest of her drink and realized her glass was empty. Terri continued. "We've been fucking for several weeks now. So I guess that makes this family completely incestuous." Terri was grinning again. "You all know that old saying, 'the family that plays together, stays together."

Tom started chuckling. If this was his sister, and his father wasn't denying it, he liked her even more. Dan had to cough and turn away to hide a smile. Incest was a serious thing, but that was mostly because of adults molesting, forcing, coercing, small children. Not adults who might agree to it. Of course, he and Terri hadn't agreed to commit incest. They hadn't known. But did that really matter? Both Tom and his father were thinking that Sara might have miscalculated her daughter and how she would react to this situation.

"You think this is just a joke, Terri?" Sara was getting angrier by the second. "Well let me tell you—"

"No!" Terri interrupted emphatically. "You're getting hysterical. You're way too emotional. This situation needs to be analyzed from a purely logical point of view. Consider the facts and the facts only and leave your personal moral values, learned from society, out of it."

Tom grinned and started to relax. Logic. He could understand that. He wasn't sure where Terri was going, but he was sure he could back her up if need be.

Dan began to relax, too. Terri had just brought three of the four people in the room onto firm ground. And this young woman, my daughter, he thought, still amazed by it, was obviously going to control the direction of this conversation. He was willing to wait and see what she could do.

"First, Tom and I need to be filled in on some facts. How and why did you separate? And why, Dan," she wasn't able to call him Dad just yet, "did you take Tom and leave and never contact us?"

It took Dan and Sara nearly an hour to tell their children about their past, about the free love/ group sex mentality, their swinging younger days. Sara also told them that she'd told Dan that her little sister was off-limits, how he betrayed Sara and how she caught him in bed with her eighteen-year old sister, how she had fled in rage and hurt and how she refused to be reconciled and filed for divorce.

Dan's story was simply that he was afraid that Sara would take little Bobbie, now Tom, from him, that he would only have limited visiting rights, that she would remarry and move and that he may never see his son again. He was also angry over the fact that, after all the sex they'd had with other people, together, by themselves, and in groups, that Sara had snapped merely because he fucked her little sister, who, as he reminded Sara, was of legal age and had come on to him, "As you should know if Dora told you the truth," he said.

"Well it doesn't matter, you took Bobbie and I never heard from you again."

Terri gave Tom a mischievous look as both Sara and Dan kept referring to him as "Bobbie."

Tom rolled his eyes.

"I tried to track you down but couldn't do it," Sara accused.

"I had a friend in New York who knew about changing identities. I was able to buy new ID for me and... uh, Tom."

Dan went on, saying he knew he needed more education and, after a long hard struggle he got his BS in mathematics, which he discovered he had a talent for. Then he got a teaching position and worked on getting his Master's Degree in math, after which he worked on getting his Ph.D. in math. He eventually he got a position at Portland State U. When Tom had decided to go to River City U., Dan had applied for a position in the mathematics department and been accepted. He was a tenured professor now.

Sara explained that she had moved herself and Terri to River City several years after Dan had grabbed his son and fled. Sara started out as a receptionist in a chiropractic office and went to night school to get a degree in business management and finally worked her way up to managing a multi-doctor office.

The story was told and no one said anything for a few moments. Then Terri spoke up. "Mom, did Aunt Dora tell you that she came on to Dan?"

"Well, uh... yes, but—"

"You forgave Aunt Dora, Mom. You must have because you still talk to her on the phone and visit her occasionally. She comes to visit us. And you both have a great time together."

"Yes, I forgave her," Sara said somewhat petulantly. "But she was my baby sister."

"Yeah, like in hello baby," Dan smirked.

"Stop it!" Terri yelled before her mother could respond. "That's not being helpful, Dan."

"Okay. You're right. I'm sorry. But Dora, like your mother, was quite a babe. A babe and a half, as I used to say."

"Was?" Sara inquired archly. "Our son still finds me to be quite attractive." She looked at Tom with a wistful look, realizing that she wished he wasn't her son.

Dan looked Sara over. "Actually, you're still a babe and a half. If anything, you've improved with age. I can see why Tom was attracted to you. What normal, heterosexual man wouldn't be?

The temperature in the room seemed to go down by several degrees while the sexual tension went up and Sara, for the first time that afternoon, sat back in her chair. There was the faintest of smiles upon her lips.

"But you couldn't forgive Dad?" Tom asked Sara.

Now Sara looked nonplussed. "But I made him promise... and he broke that promise!"

"Yes," Tom said, "he was wrong. But, if, as you say, your sister came on to him, that is, he wouldn't have gone to bed with her if she hadn't enticed him, then shouldn't you be equally angry and unforgiving with her?

Terri gave Tom a secret smile.

"But she was family," Sara protested.

"Yeah, but you were married to Dan," Terri said. "That's family, too, or should be. And according to what you both just told Tom and me about your swinging life style, you must have seen him having sex with lots of other women. You guys even had a group of swinger friends that you met with on a regular basis where all the women, including you, Mom, were bisexual."

Tom grinned at this bit of news.

Sara shot Dan a look.

"She was asking me about my sexual history," Dan said, "and I told her, among other things, that I'd been married before and that we were swingers, had our regular group we met with on a regular basis, and that my wife was bisexual, loved going down on a woman as much as I did, maybe even more."

"But listen, Mom," Terri probed, "what was so special about Aunt Dora? I mean, she was of legal age. Why couldn't you have just accepted her into your group and be done with it? Then Dan's fucking her wouldn't have been a big deal.

"But Terri, dear, like you said, I was bisexual. All the women were. If Dora had been in our group I was afraid that... well, you know."

"I know exactly what you mean," Terri said amusedly. "And we'll get to that later. But, if you could have accepted her into your swingers group, then Dan and her going to bed wouldn't have been bad, would it?"

"No. You're right. And, looking back on it now, I really think I did overreact. But then so did your father," Sara said, giving Dan a dark look.

"I agree with you one hundred percent, Mom," Terri said.

Sara looked somewhat mollified.

"So, Dan... I still can't get used to calling you Dad," Terri said.

"That's okay, Terri. That you are my daughter is still quite a shock to me."

"So, Dan," Terri began again, "you agree that you overreacted and that you were completely wrong to take Bobbie—er, Tom like that, never to be heard from again?"

Dan looked at his daughter, then his son, then his ex-wife. He returned his gaze to his daughter and looked her directly in the eyes. "Yes," he said sincerely. "I was wrong. It was the wrong thing to do. It was stupid of me." He looked at his son. "Tom, I'm so very sorry I took you from your mother, lied to you about her, did what I did." Dan then turned to look at Sara. "I mean that, Sara. I was wrong, so very wrong. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

Sara nodded and her eyes misted up.

"Dad," Tom said, "this is all quite a shock to me. Well, to all of us. But I love you. I mean, you're a good man. You raised me and always treated me right and supported me in what I wanted to do. I just can't get too angry, or even angry at all, for what was done and can't be undone. What you did, at the time, to you, seemed like good reasons. So, if you want my forgiveness, too, then I forgive you." Tom went over to his father and gave him a big hug.

"Thanks, son. That's more than I deserve."

Sara spoke up. "Like Tom said, what's done can't be undone. I choose to believe that you really are contrite so... Oh shit! I forgive you, too."

"All right!" Terri and Tom said together.

"Kiss and hug," urged Terri.

"No!" Sara said.

"Come on, come on," Tom said. "You two have to kiss and hug. Look, notwithstanding all that has happened, we are together again, alive, healthy, and I, for one, am happy."

"I'm happy, too," Terri said.

Dan looked at Sara with a small smile on his face.

Sara wasn't sure about the happiness part, but they were together again after all these years, alive and healthy.

"You two have to kiss and hug," Tom repeated. "It's a physical thing, deeper than mere words." He pushed his father towards Sara.

Terri took her mother's hands to pull her up out of the chair. Sara rose, somewhat reluctantly. Then Terri pushed her towards Dan.

Dan and Sara stood there, staring at each other. Then Dan held out his hands. Sara stepped into his arms and they embraced. Tentatively, at first, then with strength. Sara tilted her face up to Dan and he kissed her on the mouth. A quick, friendly kiss, then another. The third time, Sara parted her lips and they kissed, open-mouthed, briefly.

"Yea!" Terri shouted. "It's now an official family reunion."

"Okay, okay," Sara said as she disengaged from Dan's arms. "But we still have this big problem of, of... incest hanging over us. We have to resolve that."

"Not a problem, Mom," Terri said giving her mother a big dimpled grin.

"What do you mean, not a problem?" Sara asked, more curious than outraged.

"If we apply logic, not emotions, we will arrive at the solution. And it will satisfactory to us all." But Terri, herself, wasn't sure that she believed that herself. She was just hoping.

Chapter 10

Friday, December 5, continued

"Well, I'm listening, Terri," Sara said. "What do you have in mind? How can you fix this horrible problem?" By now, Sara had fixed herself a second drink. She nodded towards the sideboard cabinet that held the booze and mixers and an ice bucket and indicated to Dan and Tom to make themselves one if the wanted to, which they both did.

"First of all, Mom, I don't see a problem, horrible or not."

"What! Wait! Wait! Wait!" Sara almost shouted.

The men sat back with their drinks, happy to let this discussion be handled by the women, at least for now.

Sara continued. "How in the name of everything that is civilized can you say that our incestuous affairs, albeit unknowingly, but incestuous nevertheless, is not a problem? You had sex with your biological father, more than once I can assume."

"Yeah," Terri said with a big grin, "and really good sex too." Sara rolled her eyes and started to say something but Terri quickly continued. "And, you had weeks of sex with Tom, your biological son. Good sex, too, I hope. And Tom and I, biological siblings, fucked our brains out several times. So what's the matter, Mom, didn't you enjoy sex with Tom?"