Who Knew?

"But you understand, right, that we can never do this again? It was what we needed, to re-establish our connection, or tend to our psychological 'loose ends', or whatever. But I'm your mother, and you're my son, and you're a married man. I won't come between you and your wife, or compete with her for your affections. Understood?"

"Understood, absolutely. And if it helps, I'm crazy about my wife."

"As you should be."

*****

I flew home the next day, and Janet met me at the airport. By the time we got home, it was late at night. Janet took the babysitter home, and I was already in bed when she returned.

"Did you have a good visit?" she asked me.

"It was really amazing," I said. "We got reconnected on some really deep levels."

"That's wonderful! So, how long until life gets back to normal?"

"I don't know. Probably not too long. She really wants to meet you and the kids."

"That would be nice. Especially if she wants to be in our life as 'Grandma', or something like that."

"Uh-huh. That's what she wants."

I rolled toward my wife and pulled her tight to myself. "I have missed you," I said.

"That would be two of us," Janet agreed.

Soon she was straddling my hips with my rigid cock buried inside herself, riding me happily. "Don't ever leave me for six days, again," she groaned. "I need frequent seminal injections to help keep my sanity."

"I know what you mean."

Soon, Janet was squirming through her first orgasm in nearly a week, while I sent another load of my semen into her. When she was finally sated, she fell on top of me, and we lay together, holding each other, for a long time afterward.

"It's good to have you home," Janet cooed.

"Mmmm-hmmm," I agreed. And we both fell into a happy, contented sleep.

For the next few weeks, I was hornier than I'd been since just after we'd gotten married. At least once a day, and often twice, I was dragging Janet off to bed for another round of conjugal communion.

"Not that I'm complaining in the least," she said, "but -- what's gotten into you?"

"More like I've gotten into YOU," I chuckled.

"You know what I mean," she said, with a sly grin.

"I honestly don't know," I said. "But somehow, this whole birth-mother thing is touching me at a very elemental level. Whether it's that I'm finally touching the beginnings of my life on this earth, or making contact with my genetic origins, I really don't know. Or, maybe, my world has been rocked, and I'm turning to you for some familiar, stable security. . ."

"Or (d) -- all of the above?"

"Yeah. . ."

"Well, I'm here for you, babe. Like I said, I'm not complaining."

"I appreciate it," I said, with a sly wink.

In the fullness of time, all the sex that Janet and I were having, issued forth in its predictable natural result, and Janet became pregnant with our third child, a daughter who we named Andi, after her newfound grandmother. Which pleased Andrea to no end, when we told her.

*****

That summer, Andrea flew out to spend a week with our family. We had a wonderful time showing her around the area where we live, but mostly, she just enjoyed meeting her grandchildren. A look of wonder would cross her face when they would sit on her lap, or ask her to read to them, or whatever.

"I knew I had a son 'out there'," she said. "But it never occurred to me that I might have grandchildren. I mean, I'm not even 50 yet. I'm not sure I'm ready to be somebody's grandma."

"Get used to the idea," I laughed. "Because they're not going anywhere."

Andrea seemed to form a particularly tight bond with Janet, for a number of reasons. On one level, I think Andrea knew that, if she wanted to have a good relationship with me, she couldn't be the 'evil mother-in-law' to Janet. But, on a more basic level, the two of them just hit it off, and instantly liked each other, which worked to my great benefit.

One afternoon toward the end of the week, Andrea and Janet and I were sitting together over glasses of wine. Andrea turned to me.

"It's time I told you about your birth-father," she said.

"OK," I said. "I know his name was Tom, and that you loved him, but he freaked out when you got pregnant."

"But you want to meet him, don't you?

"Sure, I suppose I do. But he didn't treat you very well."

Andrea sighed. "We were both young. He wasn't wicked, just scared and stupid. He was my first, and still most memorable, lover. And he's your father. You only got half of your DNA from me; the other half is from Tom. You really should meet him. I want you to."

"OK," I allowed. "So, how do I meet this Tom?"

"Well," she said, "his name is Tom Delaney. We met at UW; as far as I know, he stayed in school, and got his degree. I haven't heard a thing about him since I went to Oregon. I did see him once, after you were born, and I told him that you were a boy, and that I'd given you for adoption."

"Wait a second," Janet said. "Did you say his name was Tom Delaney?"

"Mm-hmm," Andrea nodded.

"And he went to UW?"

"Yes."

"How old is he?" Janet pressed.

"He was two years older than me," Andrea said, "so that would make him around 52 now."

"Holy shit," Janet hissed.

"What?" I asked. "Is something wrong?"

"Don't you get it, Kevin?"

I shook my head. Then, slowly it dawned on me. "My god. . ."

Now Andrea was confused. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"My maiden name is Delaney," Janet explained. "My father's name is Tom. He went to UW, and he's 52 years old. I suppose there could be more than one man named Tom Delaney who fits that profile, but if it's the same Tom Delaney. . ."

"Then Janet and I are half-brother-and-sister," I said, finishing her sentence. "Before we get too crazy," I continued, "we should probably call your dad.

Immediately, Janet picked up the phone and called her father. "Dad?" she began, "I've got kind of an odd question for you."

"Okaaaayyyy," her dad said, wondering what was up.

"Does the name Andrea Mills mean anything to you?"

Deafening silence emanated from the other end of the phone. "Why do you ask?" he finally responded.

"Well," Janet said, "There's an Andrea Mills sitting here at our table. She's Kevin's birth-mother, and she just told us that his birth-father was named Tom Delaney."

"Holy shit," said my father-in-law. "That would mean. . ."

"Well, Dad, if you're that Tom Delaney. . . then I married my brother."

"Holy shit. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Better bring Mom with you."

"Good thought."

Janet hung up the phone and gave Andrea an odd, quizzical look. "You had sex with my dad?"

Andrea gave a thin smile and shrugged. "Well, he wasn't your dad yet. . ."

*****

From our house to Janet's parents' was about a two-hour drive. While we waited for them, Andrea and Janet and I started to work through the implications of the new information.

Suddenly, certain things were becoming clearer to me. For one thing, the uncanny 'resonance' that I had with both Janet and Andrea, now seemed to be a clear function of our respective genetic connections. No wonder Janet just 'got' me, on that deep, unconscious level.

Andrea raised a different, more troubling question. "Can you even be legally married to each other?" she asked.

Janet grimaced. "Oh shit. . ."

"It's a little late for that, isn't it?" I rejoined. "I mean, we got married legally and in all good faith. How were we supposed to know that we were long-lost half-siblings? How was anyone supposed to know? Now we've been married for six years, and we've got three kids together. Breaking that up at this point would just seem cruel."

"But. . . you could have children with two heads! Or, you know, something weird like that."

"Maybe I should get myself snipped. But the kids we've got seem normal enough, and at any rate, we can't send 'em back, can we?"

Janet just gave a low whistle. "Man, this is so weird. You're my brother!"

"Half-brother," I corrected her. "But yeah. And my father-in-law is also my father."

Andrea turned to Janet. "Did you know about Kevin? Well, not Kevin personally, but did you know that Tom -- your dad -- had fathered another child?"

Janet laughed. "One time, when I was in my teens, Dad got drunk and rambled on, something about having a son before he and Mom had gotten married, but I never thought to take it seriously. And now -- good grief! -- I'm married to him!"

*****

When my in-laws arrived, Tom -- who I'd taken to calling 'Dad' just as an affectionate shorthand, since he was my father-in-law -- walked through the door tentatively, almost cautiously. When he and Andrea saw each other, there was instant recognition.

"Hello, Tom," Andrea said, with a calm smile. "It's good to see you again. Although, I have to admit," she said with a chuckle, "I never imagined the circumstances."

"No shit!" he responded. "Andrea, I am so sorry for how I treated you when you were pregnant. I have no excuse. Can you ever forgive me?"

Andrea smiled. "I've long since forgiven you," she said. "We were young and stupid. And I haven't had a bad life, after all. By now, I even have mostly fond memories of you, and the time we were together. And you seem to have done all right, yourself. You and your wife have been married for a long time, and you've made a lovely daughter -- and a lovely daughter-in-law for me. So, thank you for that."

Tom and I turned to face each other. "I really don't know what to say," he said. "I always knew that, somewhere out there, I had a son. And I always hoped that I'd meet him someday. But now. . . I've known you, and you've been a part of my family, for years, and I never knew it was you. . ."

"It's a little shocking," Janet's mom chimed in. Then, turning to Janet with a pained look, she had one more revelation to add to the already-bizarre mix. "Janet," she began, "you've probably figured this out by now, but I was pregnant when your father and I got married."

Janet's eyes got wide. "I never even thought about that," she said, as she counted the months from her parents' anniversary to her own birthday, finishing just short of six. "Mom!" she exclaimed, with a giggle and a wink.

Andrea looked at Tom. Her face was somewhere between shock and bemusement. "You mean, you did it again? Got another poor girl pregnant out-of-wedlock?"

Tom grimaced, and hung his head. "Well, at least I learned from my first mistake, and married Marie. . ."

Andrea laughed, and her mirth was contagious. "Well, aren't we just the oddest, most decadent group of people! Tom knocks up the two of us, and then his two kids end up marrying each other! Perfectly perverse!"

"I'll drink to that!" Tom said, raising his glass.

In the midst of all the mirth, my mind took a serious turn as I contemplated the whole picture as it was all laid out before me. "Maybe it's best," I mused, "if we all don't dwell too hard on Janet and me having the same birth-father. I'm still part of the Schmidt family that adopted me, and we got married on that premise. It's a really weird twist, and we don't need to pretend it doesn't exist, but it doesn't have to be central to our lives, either. Does it?"

"Well it certainly can't get much stranger," Janet chimed in. "But. . . it is what it is. . ."

"For sure," we all agreed. "It is what it is!"

*****

Later that evening, after Janet's parents had gone back home, and Andrea had turned in for the night, Janet and I were sitting together on the couch, still dizzy from all the bizarre revelations of the day. But none more bizarre than that, out of the thousands of people I'd met in the course of my life, I had met my own half-sister, not knowing who she was, fallen in love with her, and married her. It all made my head hurt.

I turned to Janet. "Well, sis. . ." I chuckled, "What do you say we go to bed? I'm thinking we could use some really good stress relief."

"That's just the best idea I've heard all day," said my wife. Who, I was still struggling to grasp, was also my half-sister.

And the two of us stood up, walked down the hall, and went to bed. . .