
   The Master's Project - Randy and Kathy 

   By Beating Off Bob

   Someone once said that, if you sit a chimpanzee at a computer keyboard,
eventually he'd write War And Peace, or one of those big long novels.  What
that meant was that, given enough time, random events will result an
outcome that, otherwise, could not be predicted.

   Somebody else said that truth is stranger than fiction.  I'll let you be
the judge of that, after you read this narrative.

   It was a crisp autumn afternoon when I wrapped up the interviews with
one of the last couples in my study.  I stopped off at Wal-Mart to get a
box of Little Debbie cupcakes, something I had a particular weakness for. I
don't know if it was because they tasted good, or because of the company
slogan: "Little Debbie Has A Treat For You".  I saw that on the side of a
truck once upon a time, along with a picture of "Little Debbie", whose
panties were showing.  I confess I had evil thoughts about the "treat"
Little Debbie might have for me.
Anyway, when I got out of the car to go inside, I grabbed my clipboard,
for some reason.  It was probably habit, but I realized I was carrying it
about halfway to the store and turned around to take it back to the car. 
My shoelace was untied and I stepped on it, tripping, so I bent over to tie
it up.  As I stood up, I saw motion out of the corner of my eye and looked
to see the very startled face of a young woman staring through the
windshield of her pickup truck, whch was coming out of a parking slot
frontways as it struck me.  I remember turning at the last second, so that

it hit my butt, instead of my hip, and then the world spun.

   You know how they say you can see stars when you get a good whack on the
head?  They aren't lying, folks.

   Things got fuzzy for a few seconds.  I remember a falling sensation and
some very hard pavement.  Then there was a pair of women above my face,
screaming for help and, just as I realized the two women were actually only
ONE woman, things just faded to black.

   ==========================================

   I woke up in the hospital.  It was very comfortable and I didn't want to
open my eyes.  But the beeping of machines and the low jumble of voices
told me where I was.  The smell too.  I blinked my eyes open and turned my
head, which was the wrong thing to do, because lightning suddenly struck
and forced this odd sound out of my mouth.

   "He's awake," came a calm female voice that I knew wasn't all that loud,
but still sent more pains shooting through my head.  I felt like I had the
mother of all hangovers.

   Then there was somebody shining lights in my eyes and holding them open.
My arms were under blankets and I couldn't move them, so I told whoever it
was in no uncertain terms that I was not happy with the situation.  I'm
told it came out something along the lines of: "Mfph sumbah lily phoombah
grahb!"

   "Yes," said the doctor, as if he understood every word.  "You have a
slight concussion.  There's no real damage, though.  We're going to keep
you here overnight, just to keep an eye on you, but you'll be fine with a
little rest.  Do you feel up to having a visitor?  Your girlfriend has been
waiting to see you."

   My mind toyed with the idea that I suddenly had a girlfriend.  Then that
face was hovering over me again.  The last time I had seen it was through
the windshield of the truck that I remembered bouncing up onto.

   "Are you all RIGHT?" she asked quietly.

   "Yrg ran oberme," I mumbled.

   "Yes," said the doctor wisely.  "You were hit by a car.  Don't worry
about that, though.  Your girlfriend says she got the license number, so
I'm sure the police will catch the culprit.  You just lie still for a
while. You need to remain calm.  Would you like a sedative to help you
sleep?"

   I shook my head, primarily because I was trying to marshall my thoughts
and voice to explain that this woman was NOT my girlfriend, and the reasons
she knew the license number of the 'car' that had hit me was because it was
HER license number.  Shaking my head, though, was a bad idea, as it turned
out, and led to amazing pain, which led to vocalizations that promptly
brought a sting to my arm and the world faded away once more.

   ========================================

   This time when I woke up I felt a lot better.  The pain in my head was
only a dull ache now, and I was able to roll my head to one side without
pissing off Thor.  The woman who had run me down was slumped in a chair,
sleeping.  There was a young man sitting beside her in another chair,
reading a magazine.  He looked up and his eyes widened.  Thankfully he
didn't squeal or scream.  He just poked the woman, who woke with a start.

   "He's awake," said the man.

   The woman's eyes went wild for a second or two, and her head swiveled
like she was looking for the lion that was about to pounce on her.  She
stood up and leaned over me again.

   "I'm SO sorry," she said, her voice hushed.  "I didn't see you and then
all of a sudden you were just there, and I couldn't stop, and then you
rolled up on my hood and I was so scared, an I know you hate me, but I
didn't mean to hurt you, and OH PLEASE don't call the police."

   She took a long shuddering breath, which wasn't surprising, seeing as
how she had spoken for almost forty-five seconds straight.

   "We'll pay for everything." she said meekly.  Her eyes stared into mine
and there was pleading in them.

   The man's face appeared beside hers.

   "You feeling better?" he asked.

   I nodded.

   "They kept you overnight for observation," he said.  "We found your
clipboard, and it had your name on it, so we knew who to ask for.  They
wouldn't have let us see you if Kathy hadn't pretended to be your
girlfriend."

   I liked this guy.  He had told me more in thirty seconds than anybody
else had told me the whole time I was there.  He went on.

   "They say you'll be fine.  You're a little scraped up, but no real
damage.  Kathy's a little impulsive.  I hope you'll be kind to us about
this.  It really was an accident."

   Well, I wasn't in any position, just then, to assert my victim's rights,
or whatever the bleeding hearts would call them, but then again I didn't
feel all that badly.  I tried talking again.

   "Nothing broken?" I croaked.

   He got a cup of water and held it to my lips.  That helped.

   A nurse came into the room.

   "STOP THAT!" she scolded, taking the water from him.  "You're not
supposed to give fluids to someone with a concussion!"

   I didn't like her.  I was dying of thirst and my mouth felt like it was
stuffed with cotton.  I wasn't crazy about the girl who had run me over
either.  The guy I liked.  He had done something nice for me, even if it
broke the rules.

   "When can I leave?" I asked.

   The nurse got all official on me.

   "The doctor will decide that.  You just lie there and get some rest."

   "Correct me if I'm wrong," I said, "but haven't I been resting since
yesterday?"

   When they don't have a snappy official answer for you, they just turn
around and leave.  Nurses look good in their uniforms, and they're good for
a fantasy or two, but in real life they're just mean, nasty women.  Trust
me on that.

   OK, I know that's not fair, but that's how I felt at the time.

   Anyway, for lack of anything better to do, I lay there and got to know
my attacker and, as it turned out, her husband.

   Randy introduced himself and Kathy, and then explained that, while he
was wrestling a new 27" TV out of the store, Kathy ran ahead to drive the
truck around to the door, since they had backed the vehicle into the
parking slot and couldn't get to the trunk.  That's when she and I met the
first time.  I knew I had been tying my shoe, and that bent over like that
it was likely she hadn't seen me.  In other words, it really WAS an
accident.  That and the fact that nothing much hurt except my head, made it
seem less traumatic than it had before.  I told them I wasn't mad, and
that, as long as it didn't cost me an arm and a leg for the hospital visit,
I wouldn't make any trouble for them.

   Then I remembered the clipboard, which Randy said he'd found, with the
sheaves of paper on it that, instead of leaving safe at home, I insisted on
carrying around with me.  Suddenly things were traumatic again.

   "My papers?" I asked.

   Randy leaned over the arm of the chair and came up with the clipboard,
all the papers still on it, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

   "What IS all that, anyway?" asked Kathy.  She was amazingly upbeat, now
that she knew I wasn't going to come after them for everything they had,
which probably wasn't much.  They were young, and dressed pretty much like
I did.

   "Research project," I said shortly.

   "Boy, that must be SOME research project," she said giddily.  "I mean
all those notes about people doing all those things and stuff.  It reads
like a pornographic book or something!"

   "It's about marriage," I said.  I was still a little miffed at her, even
though I knew she couldn't have helped what had happened.

   "We're married!" said Kathy brightly.

   I looked at her face and saw lingering fear in her eyes.  I realized she
was babbling ...  trying to be sociable.  I felt a little empathy for her.
It must have been traumatic for her too.  Too many people have a simple
accident that screws up the rest of their life.  Shit happens, but even so,
it always smells bad.

   "Relax," I said.  "It was just an accident."

   "I know," she said softly.  "But I still feel bad."

   To divert her attention I told them about my research project.

   "We don't look much alike," said Kathy when I was done.  "You'd think we
would but ..." She stopped so suddenly that it caught my attention.  That,
and the fact that Randy tensed up and shot her a look that was full of
warning.

   "I guess we just don't look much alike," she said, blushing a little. 
She darted her own look back at Randy.

   "How long have you been married?" I asked.

   Kathy took a breath, but Randy put his hand on her arm and she didn't
say anything.

   "It's been about five years," he said.

   What seemed odd about that was his characterization of the time as
"about" five years, and her lack of response that he didn't know to the day
how long they'd been married.  It wasn't so odd that he didn't know.  What
was odd was that she didn't react to that.

   "Not everyone in my study looks alike," I said, just to keep the
conversation going.  "Lots of those types of couples seem very happy."

   "Oh, we're happy!" said Kathy, perking up, like I had suggested they
weren't.

   I still don't know why I said it, but the fact is that I did: "Well,
would you guys like to join the project?"

   "What would we have to do?" asked Randy, looking a little guarded.

   "Oh, it's just an interview process, where I ask you questions," I said.

   "The questions that were on your papers?" Kathy blushed.

   "That's the ones," I said.

   "And people didn't mind answering them?" She looked startled.

   "Most of the time it was no problem.  I guarantee confidentiality.  When
I publish the paper there won't be any names in it," I explained.  "Not
real names anyway."

   "What if we're not ...  like other couples?" asked Randy.

   That seemed like an odd way to look at things.  The philosopher in me
responded to that.

   "Well, no two couples are the same," I said.  "Everybody is different."

   "Yeah," was his only response.

   I could tell that they were uncomfortable for some reason, and I didn't
really need anybody else in the study, particularly if they had only been
married for a short time, so I dropped that line of conversation and we
talked about various other inconsequential things.

   The doctor came sweeping into the room, along with three other younger
people in white coats, and he picked up my chart.  He began going over it
out loud and I realized that those with him must be students, or interns or
something like that.  They talked about me like I wasn't there for a while
and then all agreed that the tests they had run indicated no lasting brain
trauma, and that I could go home.  Then they left.  Not once did any of
them speak to me directly.

   When they were gone Randy offered to give me a ride back to Wal-Mart,
where my car was still parked.  I got up out of bed and, as I staggered a
little bit, the hospital gown, which was on me like a robe being worn
backwards - and not tied - drifted off my shoulders and slid down my arms.
I was dizzy, and ended up falling back onto the bed, unable to break my
fall because my hands were all tied up in the gown.

   "Oh!" squealed Kathy.

   The gown had covered my face when I fell, and I dragged it off to find
that my lower torso - my very naked lower torso - was exposed to both of
them.  I pushed my gown-covered hands down to cover my groin.

   "Maybe you're not quite ready to go after all," commented Randy wryly.

   "I'm getting out of here," I said firmly.  "Just give me a minute to get
used to standing up."

   Kathy scurried out of the room while Randy helped me find my clothes and
get dressed.  The nurse came in and barked at me for getting up, and I
barked back at her because the Doctor had said I could go home.  I ended up
in a wheel chair, being pushed by Randy as we picked up a subdued Kathy and
they took me out to the entrance of the hospital.  Once I wasn't in the
building it was suddenly just fine for me to walk, and I got the hell out
of there before they decided to hog tie me and do more tests, or whatever.

   ======================================

   The trip from the hospital back to Wal-Mart wasn't nearly as
uncomfortable as I thought it would be.  Kathy, other than being a bit of a
motor-mouth, was really ...  well ...  cute, I guess.  Some women affect a
man because of their looks, at least initially.  But most women have a much
stronger affect on a man based on their personality, in the end.  I can't
tell you how many times I've been around a beautiful woman who was wrapped
up in promoting that beauty above other, more practical things.  Kathy was
one of those women who just loved life, and she loved everything about
life. She had a positive attitude and was interested in all the things that
comprised her life.  She could find "meaning" in almost anything.  She was
one of those people who counted her blessings fairly continuously, and
celebrated each one.

   The best example I could give you is her conversation on that trip. 
After they arranged to pay the bill at the hospital, and we got to the
parking lot, Randy said "I'll drive," in that way men have of saying "I'll
drive, because the last time YOU drove, you ran OVER some poor shmuck." She
knew exactly what he meant - both of us did - but she took it all in
stride.

   "Fine.  That will give me more time to talk to Bob," was her reply.

   She sat in the front seat, but turned sideways so she could talk to both
of us.  She didn't seem to be the least bit offended that she had been
stripped of her driving rights.

   "This is all kismet, you know," she said, once we had gotten moving.

   "Kismet?" I asked.

   "You know ...  fate.  I ran over you for a reason." She said it like it
was obvious.  "There was some reason we sere supposed to come together like
this."

   "Couldn't we have just bumped into each other and said 'Hi'?" I asked.

   "She DID bump into you," said Randy wryly.

   Kathy was unfazed.

   "Joke about it all you like," she said brightly.  "But the fact is that
things happen for a reason.  I believe that firmly."

   Then, like her running me over, and the 'fact' that it was ordained by
the stars, wasn't nearly as important as it had sounded, she changed the
subject and asked me all kinds of questions about where I lived, and what I
was studying in school, and what I was going to do AFTER school and things
like that.  That morphed into questions about how I felt about this
political situation, or that story in the news.  She jumped around with the
verbal alacrity of a late-night TV comedy show host, talking first about
one thing, and then changing subjects for no apparent reason.  At first I
thought she was just still nervous, but it didn't take long to realize that
she was just a happy-go-lucky person wino was interested in almost
anything. She wanted to express her own thoughts on things, and was
interested in mine.  It was suddenly like we had known each other for
years.

   Randy was a little different.  With man-to-man relationships, it usually
hinges on the competition factor.  Men tend to compete with each other.  If
they can't compete on the basis of looks, then the urge to compete
manifests itself in other ways.  They'll compete about which football team
is better, or which way of navigating through the city is better, or even
who knows the most obscure facts about something nobody cares about. 
Sometimes they'll even compete over something so simple as a handshake.

   Randy, though, was more comfortable with who he was, and the competition
factor just didn't play into things.  He just drove, and made a comment
here and there.  He didn't have to ask any questions.  That was Kathy's
department, apparently.  I hadn't shaken his hand yet, but by the time we
got to Wal-Mart I was sure that when I did, his grip would be firm, but not
strong, and that he'd probably give a double shake.

   Women don't understand the importance of shaking hands.  The roots of
the handshake go back to ancient days, when an open hand was a sign of
peace, because it didn't hold a weapon.  The clasping of hands made it so
that neither hand COULD snatch up a weapon and kill the other guy. 
Handshakes were a sign of trust and vulnerability back then.  The military
salute is based on the same concept.  An open hand is shown and offered in
respect.  It wasn't intended to BE a competition.  Somehow we men have
turned it into that, at least sometimes.

   When men compete in a handshake, grip is the first part of that.  There
is sometimes a subtle squeezing, as if to find out which one can crush the
other without actually doing any crushing.  Then, if one of them feels more
powerful than the other, there is a single shake, as if to say "There!  You
now know who is the stronger!" If both men feel like they've won that first
round, the shake will often go on, for three or four shakes, as each one
says "There!" over and over again.  Often that is punctuated by what sounds
like a compliment.  "Wow, what a ham," translates to "OK, you're strong,
but I can take it." Sometimes a man knows he can't compete, and presents a
limp hand to his opponent, as if to offer something that will creep out the
stronger man.  The intent there is not so much to just submit, as it is to
communicate "Let's just get this over with, OK?" Some men DO submit, and
that is usually communicated by a frenzied multiple shake kind of thing,
where one of them has the urge to snatch his hand back.

   But not all men compete in a handshake.  Sometimes it is really an offer
of courtesy.  That is the firm-but-not-strong grip, with a double shake
that says "I don't mind touching you, and in fact, I'm glad we got this
opportunity to show each other respect."

   A good handshake announces cooperation, not competition.

   I tell you all this because, when we DID get to Wal-Mart, and I got out
to get in my own car, he DID give me a good handshake, along with a simple
"Thanks," which I understood meant "Thanks for understanding that accidents
happen, and for not ruining the day of my mate, whom I love dearly, even if
she drives like a woman."

   I tell you all this because I want you to know how smart I am, and how
on top of things a sociologist is when he enters into relationships with
strangers.

   I tell you all this so you'll be impressed, and overlook the fact that I
was completely clueless as to how important this couple would someday be in
my life.  I'm trying to distract you with socio-babble, so that when you
find out how clueless I really was, you won't pay any attention to that.

   Kathy, no doubt still feeling guilty for what had happened, said: "You
have to come over to our house for dinner.  I probably owe you a month of
dinners to make up for almost killing you."

   Poor college kids never turn down free food.  I may have mentioned this
before.  So I accepted.

   "OK," I said.

   "Saturday?" she asked.  "Lunch?"

   "Deal," I said.

   I had forgotten all about ...  kismet.

   CHAPTER TWO

   Saturday, at that time of year, at least in their household, meant that
football was on TV when I arrived.  Some people turn off the TV when a
guest arrives.  That's supposed to signal how important they think the
guest is.  In other situations, the TV is left on.  That can mean one of
two things.  Either what's on TV is more important than the guest, or the
guest is just accepted as an extension of the family, who will either watch
or not, as his tastes determine.

   In THIS household, it was none of the above.  Randy and Kathy had a
habit of choosing one of the games that was being televised, and then each
one supported a different team.  I was to find out later that this went
back a long way, and had a very practical basis.  The most basic reason for
doing this was that there was always a 'winner' after the game was over. 
That meant that one of them was happy, and had bragging rights.  THAT meant
that one of them was 'unhappy', which meant that he or she needed cheering
up.

   The cheering up happened in the bedroom.

   They did it with football, and basketball, and ice skating and beach
volleyball.  They had cable, and had at least three sports channels.  They
weren't really into sports, though.  What they were into was sex.  Sports
just facilitated the sex.  It was a game that had served them very well.

   But as I said, I didn't find out about that until later.  In fact, I was
there for the fourth time when, after a game in which Kathy's team had won
a crushing victory, handed me a soda and said "We'll be right back.  We
have to do something." She dragged a moaning Randy to the bedroom, and
fifteen minutes later they came out, flushed and happy.  That was when I
learned about that particular tradition of theirs.

   I don't mean to jump around, but that helps you understand the way in
which they lived their lives, which will help you understand some other
things that happened before that, and which was important later on.

   Anyway, that first time, Kathy made grilled cheese sandwiches and bean
and bacon soup, which she put in these oversized coffee cups, and she
served it to us on TV trays with cold bottled beer, and we all sat around
and watched the Eagles get trashed by the Bears and talked about the
commercials and stupid stuff like that.  In other words, we just had fun
hanging out.

   The second time I went over, we played cards ...  Hearts, in this case.
I didn't realize the importance of it then, but that was another kind of
competition in which there was a winner and a loser, and somebody was
'unhappy' when it was all over.

   It was also the first time that things began moving like a locomotive,
inching forward, and soon to be moving heavily faster, until it would end
up as a racing thing, impossible to stop before it had gone much farther
than ...  well, more about that later.

   When you play cards you talk.  I wasn't interviewing this couple for my
Master's project, but I HAD been interviewing couples for months.  I guess
it was just habit to ask them some of the same questions.

   "So how did you two meet?" I asked, leading diamonds for the third time
and expecting to see the queen of spades slam down on the table,
accompanied by a crow of "Take THAT!"

   "We grew up together," said Kathy, playing a lower diamond.

   Randy threw the queen, but didn't crow about it.  I should have realized
that meant something, but didn't.

   "Really?" I asked, scooping in the cards.

   I led the queen of clubs, which I had saved.  I was trying to shoot the
moon, and was trying to distract them with talk.  The queen of diamonds was
still out there, though, and I needed somebody to sluff that card, to take
them all, because all I had left in diamonds was a seven.

   "What were you ...  neighbors?" I asked.

   Randy unloaded the card I was looking for.

   "Something like that," he said, glancing over at Kathy with what I
immediately recognized as a warning look.  It was pretty obvious to me that
he didn't want to talk about it, and that made me curious.

   Kathy dropped the ten of hearts on the pile.  I was elated.  I had the
queen, king and ace in my hand.

   "We've known each other since we were little," she said, watching me
pull in the trick.

   The way she said it fed my curiosity.  Most people would have launched
into an account of how they had become attracted to each other, maybe after
being disgusted with the whole idea.  That happens in a lot of cases when
two people grow up together.  First they are playmates.  Then, just before
puberty strikes, they can't stand each other.  Puberty has a tendency to
turn things around, though, often with some funny or interesting stories
attached.  They didn't talk about that, though, and that made me even more
curious.

   I led the queen of hearts.

   "So it wasn't love at first sight?" I suggested.

   "He's going for it," said Randy.  He played the four of hearts.

   "I knew I was in love with him when I was ten," said Kathy, dropping the
eight of hearts on the pile.

   I struck hard, leading the king and then the ace.  Randy sluffed
diamonds.  Only Kathy and I had hearts left.  I tried to remember how many
had been played, but couldn't.  I had been trying to distract them, and had
distracted myself in the process.  I reached for the tricks I had.

   "No looking, Bob," chided Kathy.

   "Come on, they're my tricks," I said.

   "No looking, Bob," she said firmly.

   We dueled with hearts and I got her with each one until all I had left
was the two of hearts and that seven of diamonds I had forgotten all about.
If she had another heart, I was toast.  I tossed out the seven of diamonds.

   She took that trick with the nine of diamonds and the last trick with
the five of clubs.  She ended up with one heart - and I got twenty-five
points.

   "How did THAT happen?" I asked, amazed.

   "You weren't paying attention," said Kathy smiling widely.  "You were
too busy poking into our background."

   I paid attention after that.  We teamed up against Randy, and he lost
the game.  He took it pretty well, from my point of view.  Of course I had
no idea that she would make him feel all better as soon as I left.

   Had I known that, I might not have paid so much attention to the cards.
I don't mean to say that I lusted after her, or anything.  Kathy was one of
those women whose features were just a hint off kilter, when compared to a
"better looking" woman.  By that I only mean that her eyes were a skosh
wider than optimal, and that her pug nose might have looked more
appropriate on a girl of thirteen, instead of the twenty-four years old she
was.  Her hips were maybe just a little too wide to be in complete
synchronization with her breasts, which were probably in the range of being
32, with a C cup.  Her hair was a lighter shade of brown than her eyebrows,
which were dark enough to call attention to themselves on her face.  Her
smile was a little crooked, almost like she'd had a stroke or something. 
One corner of her mouth turned up, and the other stayed right where it was.
It made her smile look sardonic.

   But she was attractive in a hundred ways that made her looks
superfluous. Her always-positive attitude and her interest in almost
anything made her fun to be around.  And any time it's fun to be around a
woman, you can't help but think of ...  other ways ...  she might be fun.
It's a guy thing.

   Anyway, I didn't probe any more that day.  It wasn't until the third
time we got together, and it was plain that we all had simply added to our
circle of friends, that I asked some more questions.  On that day, when I
arrived, Randy was working on the garbage disposal, which seemed to have
gone belly-up.  Kathy was watching him, and asking questions and offering
advice.  I was snacking on some summer sausage that, along with chunks of
cheese, were on the counter.

   "Try it now," called Randy from under the sink, where his lower torso
was protruding.

   Kathy flipped a switch beside the sink and there was a humming noise,
but not the right humming noise.

   "It's not turning," said Kathy.

   "I KNOW it's not turning," grumped Randy.

   "Daddy used to stick a thingy up into a hole in the bottom and turn it
backwards," she offered helpfully.

   "I DID that, Kathy," came his muffled voice.  "I think the motor's
gone."

   "Well, didn't you help him put in a new one, one time?" she asked.

   Randy wiggled out of the tight space under the sink.  He looked
disgusted.

   "Yes, but I was only fourteen back then, and I'm not sure I remember how
he did it." He looked at his hands.  "And it was pretty messy, as I
recall."

   "I'll make it worth the trouble," she said coquettishly.  Then her
attitude changed.  "Besides, if you fix it you can wash your hands."

   So I ended up in the car with Randy, and we went to get a new garbage
disposal.  The question I asked seemed innocuous enough.

   "So, you got along with Kathy's father when you were fourteen?"

   He darted a look at me, but didn't answer right away.

   I misunderstood completely.

   "I only meant that a lot of fathers, when a kid is fourteen and
interested in their daughter, are a little stand-offish.  You know, they
don't like a boy hanging around their daughter too much."

   He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

   "It's complicated," he said.  He didn't say it mysteriously, but it was
VERY mysterious.  I think that's the first time my radar lit up with this
couple.  My curiosity was now aroused in a way that made it uppermost in my
mind.

   "Complicated," I repeated.

   "Yeah," was his only reply.

   I knew enough to let it lie for the present.  I couldn't imagine why he
would be so reticent about things, but I decided to be patient.  I had
heard a lot of strange stories in my interviews, but, of course, he didn't
know that.  And we had only known each other for a little more than a
month.

   We got a disposal, and took it back home, and I learned how to install
one by helping him.  Kathy was right there with us the whole time, handing
us tools and reading the instructions that came with the thing.  That
didn't help.  It's not helpful when someone says: "Now, one must administer
the flange with a generous helping of the plumber's compound.  It is
necessary to be hand tightening it until the putty is evenly distributed.
Be remembering to use the cardboard gasket on the upper side of the flange
between the basin and the flange nut."

   The reason that wasn't helpful was because we didn't know what a flange
was.  We weren't too clear on what the basin was either, and the
close-but-no-cigar translation from Japanese into English didn't do a lot
to help.  We basically looked at the old pieces, and put it back together
the same way.  In the end, it worked out, though, and we were both proud,
strutting a little for Kathy, who was appropriately complimentary to us
both.  I even got a kiss on the cheek.

   "As good as Daddy could have done any day," she said, kissing Randy on
the lips.

   That, apparently caused him to remember our earlier 'conversation' about
'Daddy', and he pulled her to the bedroom, saying he'd be back in a minute.

   When they came back, only a minute or two had passed.

   "Bob?" prompted Kathy.  "Randy tells me you've been asking questions
about us again."

   I wasn't prepared for that.

   "I'm not trying to pry," I defended.  "I guess I'm just used to asking
people those kinds of questions." I shrugged my shoulders.  "My research,"
I added.

   "Yes ...  your research," she repeated.  I couldn't tell what she meant
by that.  "Sit down, Bob," she ordered.

   I sat, and they sat, and we just looked at each other for a few seconds.

   "Do you like us?" asked Kathy.

   What kind of question was that?  I kept coming over and watching
football with them, and playing cards and helping fix plumbing.

   "Sure," I said glibly.

   "What if there was something about us that was ...  different?" she
asked.

   "Different?" I repeated.

   "Maybe something ...  socially unacceptable," she added, not helping a
bit.

   I went into my role as psychologist automatically.

   "There are lots of ways to look at things as being 'unsociable'," I
started.  "But a lot of that is based on culture, and the likes and
dislikes, or biases of the observer.  That doesn't mean there's anything
wrong with you.  It usually just means you're different than the majority.
I've interviewed lots of couples who were very different than most of the
other couples I talked to, and some of them did things that a lot of
society would frown on."

   "And did you frown on them?" asked Kathy intently.

   "It's not my place to judge," I said firmly.  "A researcher gathers
data, and then uses that data to make a point.  Data isn't "good" or "bad".
It can be used in good or bad ways, but the data itself is just ...  data."

   "I don't think we want to be part of your research," said Kathy.

   "That's fine," I said shrugging my shoulders again.  "I'm not trying to
make you part of my research."

   "Then why are you asking questions about how we met and things like
that?" she asked.

   I looked at Randy.  He was just sitting there, looking uncomfortable.

   "I don't know," I admitted.  "I guess I'm just curious about stuff like
that.  Call it a habit.  I'm really not trying to pry into your lives."

   "Randy and I love each other very much," said Kathy.  It seemed like a
defensive kind of thing to say.

   "Of course you do," I agreed.  "Anybody could see that."

   "But we're different than most couples," she insisted.

   "I don't know why you'd think that," I said honestly.  "I think the two
of you are just as normal as apple pie."

   Kathy looked at Randy, and then back at me.  I somehow sensed that she
was in control of ...  something ...  at that point, but I had no idea what
it was.

   "We're friends," she said.

   "People in a good marriage are usually friends," I said supportively.

   "No, I mean Randy and I are friends with you," she said.

   I blinked.  I wasn't sure what she was talking about any more.  I tried
to go with the flow.

   "OK, I agree with that." I tried to lighten the mood, which suddenly
seemed pretty serious.  "Even though our friendship started with you
running me over."

   She didn't smile.  Instead she seemed to come to some kind of decision.

   "We told you we'd known each other all our lives," she said.  She looked
at Randy, who seemed to know what she was going to say next.  It seemed to
make him very nervous.

   "That's because we lived in the same houses all our lives," she said,
looking me in the eye.

   Don't ask me why, but the word that leapt out at me in that was
"houses", as in multiple dwellings.  It seemed like a very odd way to say
it.

   "Houses?" I asked without thinking.

   "We were adopted by the same people when our parents died," she said.

   She leaned back in her chair and Randy sighed softly.

   "Randy is my little brother," said Kathy.

   CHAPTER THREE

   Maybe you're not shocked by the idea that a sister and brother could
fall in love and then live together as husband and wife.  But a lot of
people would be shocked by that.  I had been through enough by this time
that I wasn't.  In fact, I had even suspected that Micky and Susan might be
brother and sister, before I met them.  I hadn't been shocked about that,
but of course it turned out they were both women, so the point had been
moot.  Still, I wasn't shocked when what I had thought about with them,
came true with this new couple.

   The reason I know I wasn't shocked is that, after Kathy told me the man
sitting at the table with us was her brother, what I fixated on was her
characterization of him as her "little" brother.

   Part of that is because he looked the same age as her, if not a little
older.  Maybe that was because the bulk of his body was larger than hers. I
don't know.  But the sociologist in me heard her comment as a distinction
between having 'a brother' as in "I married my brother", as opposed to
having more than one brother, and marrying the younger one instead of the
older one(s).

   What all this did was flit around in my mind, as I thought about things
in a helter-skelter sort of way, not able to concentrate on any one facet
of the bombshell she had dropped.  It was a little like trying to identify
and see each piece of shrapnel as the bomb goes off.  As a result I didn't
say anything.  I was thinking so fast and furious that I didn't vocalize.
Part of that chaos was because of something about my own background that
they didn't know about, but which leapt into the fray that consisted of my
fragmented thoughts.

   "I told you this would be a bad idea," said Randy.

   Kathy just looked at me.  I got the impression that this had all
happened before ...  that they had told other people their secret ...  and
that she was waiting to see what my whole reaction was going to be.

   "You're adopted!" was what came out of my mouth finally.

   Kathy looked surprised.

   "Yes," she confirmed, looking a little confused at what I was
concentrating on.

   "Me too," I said.

   "What?" asked both of them together.

   "I'm adopted too," I said.

   Kathy looked at Randy, unbelieving, and then back at me.

   "You're not shocked that I married my brother?" she asked, incredulous.

   "Well ...  I guess that's interesting ..." I said.  "I mean yes, I
suppose I'm a little startled.  But I've never interviewed anybody else who
was adopted."

   "You're not interviewing us, Bob," reminded Kathy.

   "Of course!" I said hastily.  "Bad choice of words.  It's just that I
wasn't prepared."

   "For us to admit an incestuous marriage?" she prodded.

   "No," I said softly.  My mind was still whirling.  I hadn't thought
about my own past for a long time now.  Some pretty strong memories and
emotions were flooding into my mind.  "I don't think much about my
childhood.  It was ...  difficult." I said.  "What you said made me
remember things I haven't thought about in a long time."

   "Oh!" said Kathy, her tentative smile back.  "So you don't think we're
perverts?"

   "Like I said, it's not my role to judge things like that," I said,
marshaling my thoughts as the psychologist in me struggled to take charge
of my brain again.  "I've seen a lot of strange relationships." I was
immediately sorry I'd used the word 'strange', and changed it in my next
breath.  "Different, I mean ...  unusual".

   "Oh, believe me, we know just how ...  unusual ...  we are," said Kathy.

   It suddenly occurred to me that they had told me a deep, dark secret
about their lives ...  a secret that could cause them real trouble.

   "Why did you tell me that?" I asked.

   "We're friends," said Kathy simply.  "Friends don't keep secrets."

   "Do you tell ALL your friends about ...  this?" I asked.

   "Of course not," she said, a frown furrowing her brow.  "I suppose we
don't have all that many friends, really.  But then you came along and I
knew there was some reason for it, and you're so nice and everything, and
we like you, and ..." She trailed off, looking a little surprised, as if
she had just discovered that she had actually confessed everything to me.

   I thought about this couple.  Everything I had seen had been based on
love and an easy-going relationship that a lot of people would be very
jealous of.  I had never seen them argue heatedly, or do anything that
suggested they had as much of the normal uproar in a marriage as most
people had.  I had expected, before I met them, that Micky and Susan might
be an incestuous couple, and that hadn't stopped me from talking with them.
I had been way off base, of course, in my assumptions about them.  It had
finally taught me not to make such quick assumptions.

   "I don't think you're perverts," I said.  "I DO admit that I'm very
curious about how it happened, but I'm not grossed out by it or anything."

   Randy gave out another of those breathy sighs.

   "I was afraid you'd get all pissed off at us and walk out," he admitted.

   "You see why we can't be in your project," said Kathy.

   "Actually," I said smiling, "the thought of interviewing incestuous
couples has crossed my mind before.  I was even thinking about doing my
doctoral dissertation based on a project involving only incestuous
couples."

   "I don't like to think of us as ...  incestuous," said Kathy softly.

   "I'm sorry," I said automatically.  "I just don't know another term for
it."

   "It just seems natural and normal to me," said Kathy.  "We've always
lived together, and he always made me feel good, and I've loved him for as
long as I can remember.  It's like we've always been married."

   "Can I ask you some questions?" I asked.  "Just out of curiosity ...  as
a sociologist?"

   "No," said Kathy, standing up and going to the fridge to get something
to drink.

   Randy and I both slumped a little as the tension in the room returned.

   Kathy turned around, looking at me.

   "But you can ask some questions as our friend."

   ========================================

   I stayed all afternoon, and long into the evening before I finally went
back to my apartment.  The conversation was eerie in a lot of ways.

   A lot of what we talked about was being adopted, and the things we
remembered, or knew about our real parents, or our real homes.  That word
"real" isn't a good one in this context, because for all of us, we didn't
remember much at all about our "real", or birth parents.  We all had
parents who had raised us, and who we loved, and who were our "actual"
parents, and our memories of "home" were associated with the people we
thought of as our parents.  But when you're adopted, you can't help but
wonder about what life might have been like ...  the other way.

   What made it eerie were the similarities in our respective stories.

   I had been six when my birth mother - I didn't remember anything at all
about my birth father - had gone away.  I knew, later, that she had died,
but no one ever told me why, or how.  Kathy had been five, and Randy four,
when they were whisked away to a new place.

   "I was very sad," said Kathy, her eyes going unfocused as she remembered
one of the few things about her life at that age.  I had another brother,
an older one, and he kept the bad men away from us before they came and
took us away."

   "The bad men?" I asked, feeling a chill run up my spine.

   "Yes, they shouted and were mean," she said, her eyes focusing on me
again.  "I remember Ange taking Randy and me in the closet sometimes, to
hide from them."

   "Ange?" I asked.

   "That was his name," she said.

   "Odd name," I commented.

   "Maybe, but that was it," she said firmly.

   "That's weird," I said.  "I had a brother and sister too, and I did
exactly the same thing.  There were men who came to see my mother, and they
hit her sometimes.  I used to take my brother and sister to hide behind the
couch when things like that happened."

   Kathy's eyes widened.  "Us too!" she said.  "Behind the couch, I mean."

   I peered at her.  "What else do you remember?"

   "Nothing much," she said helplessly.  "They were nice to us at the new
place, but I missed Ange."

   "I guess it would be normal to hide behind something big," I said
uncertainly.

   It was just spooky that our memories were so similar.

   "What were your brother and sister's names?" asked Randy.

   "I can't remember," I said.  They looked surprised.  "When I went to my
new place I wanted my brother and sister to be with me, but the people
wouldn't let me see them.  They said I was starting a new life.  My new
family had seven kids in it, when I got there, and I was the youngest. 
There were some very dark years in there where I think I was mentally ill.
I don't remember a lot about that time and I think I blocked out my brother
and sister because of it.  My parents were actually only foster parents,
though I thought of myself eventually as having been adopted.  I found out
later they only took kids in for the money.  It wasn't the best part of my
life," I finished explaining.  "I saw college as a way out, and managed to
graduate High School when I was seventeen.  I got a full ride at a
university and never looked back.

   "That's sad," said Kathy.  "Randy and I got really nice parents."

   "I like to think it toughened me up," I said.  "Once I got well ...  in
my head ...  I excelled at surviving.  I think the interplay between all my
foster-brothers and foster-sisters is why I went into Sociology."

   "Did you ever think about ...  sexual things ...  with any of your
foster-sisters?" asked Kathy.

   "Not even," I said firmly.  "It was dog-eat-dog in my family.  Too much
competition for scarce resources.  I don't even keep in contact with any of
them.  Kids kind of came and went in that household."

   The conversation lagged a bit, so I asked them about what their adoptive
parents had been like.

   "They were older," said Randy.  "I remember Dad having gray hair the
whole time.  I was embarrassed that he was so much older than the parents
of my friends."

   "They had lost their own kids in an accident," added Kathy.  "They kind
of used us to fill that void, I think.  They'd never admit it, but I think
that's why they adopted us.  It turned out all right, though, except that
now only mom is left.  Dad died a couple of years ago."

   "How did things ...  happen ...  between you two?" I asked.

   The fact that I didn't judge them must have made them able to talk about
it more easily, or maybe, like a lot of deep, dark secrets, they just
wanted to talk about it to somebody.  For whatever reason, they shared the
most intimate and amazing details with me.

   Kathy took the fore in the conversation.

   "I was so distraught at losing Ange that I wouldn't sleep in a room by
myself.  I had to be able to see and touch Randy or I just screamed.  So
they ended up putting us in the same room.  We had separate beds, but I
wouldn't use mine," she said.  "I crawled in with Randy every night.  Mom
found us like that in the morning.  As the years went by she tried to stop
that, but it didn't work and eventually she just gave up.

   "When I was eleven I rolled over one morning and my leg straddled one of
Randy's.  It pushed my ...  it pushed me against his knee, and it felt good
to press against him there, so I just kept doing it."

   Kathy's cheeks went a little pink and she darted a look at me.  I just
sat there.

   "Anyway, I sort of did that every morning after that."

   Randy took over.

   "A couple of years later, I woke up one morning and she was rubbing
against my knee, and I got a hardon."

   Kathy smiled, and her eyes went unfocused again.

   "I bumped into his erection with my knee, and felt it, and my hand just
went to see what it was."

   Randy leaned forward.

   "It felt so good when she grabbed it that I asked her to keep grabbing
it.

   Kathy blushed harder.

   "The next thing we knew I was masturbating on his knee, and my hand was
masturbating him, and we were hooked." She looked down at the table.  "Of
course we had no idea what we were doing, back then, but it felt wonderful,
so we just kept doing it."

   Randy chuckled.

   "I still remember the first time I heard about masturbation.  It was in
health class, and the teacher said it was a bad thing to do, because it
would give you pimples.  I looked around, and everybody I saw had pimples.
That night I asked Kathy if we were 'masturbating'.  She about had a fit."

   Kathy shrugged.

   "I had heard the same speech the year before." she said.  "That was in
the late seventies, and attitudes about sex were changing, but I knew it
was wrong for a brother and sister to be involved in sex together. 
Masturbating was part of sex, and I didn't want to think of us as being
involved in sex.  I just liked what we did.  I was afraid Randy would make
us stop if we called it masturbation.  I insisted we were just hugging."

   Randy laughed.  "No WAY was I going to make her stop.  I loved it.  We
were both having orgasms by then, and we had sort of automatically adjusted
to the circumstances.  I took a washcloth to bed every night to catch my
mess."

   "I remember the first night you used your fingers on me," said Kathy
dreamily.  "You were really good at it right away."

   "I knew the sounds you made before you got all happy," he said smiling.
"All I had to do was rub until I heard that sound getting closer."

   I was fascinated by their story.  "What about ...  other things?" I
asked.

   Kathy blushed furiously.  Randy kept going.

   "The first time we actually had sex was a complete accident," he said.
"We had figured out that naked felt better than hugging with PJs on, so we
slept naked.  I had found out how good it felt to lie on top of her.  We
weren't trying to have sex or anything.  It was more just rubbing against
each other, because that felt really good.  One night I had a good stiffy
and was rubbing it against her and it just sort of popped in her."

   He looked at his sister fondly.

   "She squealed like a stuck pig, but I had never felt anything that good,
so I stayed right where I was, and pretty soon she wasn't unhappy at all."
He grinned.  "She still squealed, but it wasn't in pain any more."

   "You were a beast," she growled at him, covering her face with both
hands.  She was beet red.

   "You loved it," he laughed.

   "I know that!" she said through her hands.  "But you were STILL a
beast!"

   "You sure wanted me to do it again," laughed Randy.  He looked at me and
winked - a man-to-man wink.  "Every night, as I recall."

   "Of course I did, you beast," Kathy dropped her hands.  Her eyes were
flashing.  "You conquered me!  You made me your slave!  I couldn't resist
you after that."

   "Hey, I'm not the one who woke up in the middle of the night and crawled
on top of you," laughed Randy.

   Kathy held her head up high and sniffed.  "A girl has needs when she's
been ravished like that.  It's biological."

   Randy laughed, while I had the sense to remain silent and look somewhere
else than at Kathy.

   "You never got caught?" I asked.

   "Oh yeah, we got caught," said Randy, looking sober.

   "I got pregnant," said Kathy softly.  Her face was sad.  "Mom had a fit.
She knew we were still sleeping together, and she was smart enough to know
who had gotten me that way.  Daddy was so old by then, and sick, that he
didn't pay much attention to anything any more.  It was strange."

   Her eyes went out of focus again.

   "Mom was more upset than I was when I lost the baby," she said.  She
looked at Randy.  "I miscarried at four months." She looked at me.  "I
didn't even know what was happening, really.  But there was pain, and blood
and doctors, and finally I knew what it meant.  Mom said it was a sign that
what we were doing was wrong ...  that we were being punished."

   Her eyes were wet suddenly.

   "But she cried with me, and held me, and said that everything would be
all right some day.  She was just as sad about losing that baby as I was."

   "That's the only real hole in our relationship now," sighed Randy. 
"We've taken precautions since then.  That was too hard to go through
again. It's too bad we're so closely related."

   The mood had been broken, in pretty much an unrepairable way at that
point in time.  We wrapped things up and I announced my intention to go
home.

   "Will you come back and see us again?" asked Kathy timidly.

   "Of course," I said.  "Why wouldn't I?"

   Her smile was something I'll always remember.  I got another one of
those good handshakes from Randy too, along with his own smile.

   CHAPTER FOUR

   Randy's comment about their close relationship, and the inference that
that was what caused the miscarriage, made me curious.  I didn't know that
much about incestuous relationships, but I knew from my Sociology studies
that incest wasn't nearly as rare as most people thought it was.  I also
knew that there had been a lot of babies born from such joinings over
thousands of years.

   So I did a little research.

   There isn't that much information out there about incest.  Not only is
it taboo in the majority of all societies on earth, it isn't even studied
very often.  To study it would mean you have to agree that it exists, and
nobody much wants to do that.

   But there are estimates, and our forefathers wrote down a whole lot more
about the product of incest, in terms of people born from incestuous
couples, than they probably realized they were writing down.

   It is estimated that twenty percent of siblings engage in incest
routinely.  Routinely means consensually, in this case, and repeatedly. 
There is much more incest that is the result of experimentation, or
curiosity, and a darker side associated with rape.  All these statistics
are interwoven with each other.  The estimates are based on the known
episodes of each kind of relationship.  They don't break down estimates
along what the familial relationship is, IE father/daughter, or
brother/sister, or cousins, and even less is known when the female is the
elder of the two, such as in a mother/son, or aunt/nephew kind of thing.

   But the point is, that consensual, loving incest is much more prevalent
in almost all societies than the average person might think.  And a lot
more happy, healthy babies are born from such relationships than is
reported in official files.  It's kind of like the masturbation thing. 
People used to make all kinds of dire warnings about the ill effects of
masturbation, when, in fact, there aren't any.  People warned each other
not to have their brother's babies for much the same reason. 
Scientifically, the only reason not to have your brother's baby is because
of the slim chance that the genetics will conflict.  Usually this means an
extra set of chromosomes is donated to the baby, which can cause admittedly
terrible consequences.  What they don't tell you is that the instance of
such complications is only a teensy bit more common between closely related
persons than it is between unrelated couples.  In fact, it is pretty safe
to project that Downs Syndrome, for example, is MORE often the result when
the parents are NOT related, than it is when they ARE related.

   As I say, the research on this is slim, but if you look at the total
population of humans with Downs Syndrome, only an idiot would assume that
the majority of their parents were incestuous.  Common sense has a place in
looking at things, in addition to science.

   Information on miscarriages is a bit more common.  Literally dozens of
things can cause a miscarriage, from physical trauma, all the way down,
according to some researchers, to simple stress.

   I wasn't involved in medical research - I admit that up front - but I
also didn't find any strong scientific indications that it was unlikely
that Randy and Kathy couldn't produce a healthy baby.  I also couldn't tell
them they WOULD have a healthy baby, if they tried, but, then again, you
can't promise that to ANYBODY.

   I didn't talk about that right away, though, the next time I went over.
Instead, I asked them how they managed the marriage license, and getting
married when everybody knew they were brother and sister.

   "That was easy," said Randy, flipping through the channels to find a
game to watch.  "We already had different last names.  When we went to
college, nobody knew we were related."

   "Really," I commented.

   "Yes, really," he confirmed.  "When we were adopted my last name was
different than Kathy's.  I guess we were actually half-brother and sister.
Our fathers must have been different men."

   "Really," I commented again.  "And your adoptive parents didn't have you
take their name?"

   "No," he said as Kathy came into the room.  "I asked Mom about that once
upon a time, and she said that they thought we should retain our given
names ...  to have something from our past."

   "They talked to you about your past?" I asked.

   "Not really," said Kathy, sinking into a chair.  "They wouldn't tell us
anything about our previous life.  Mom always said it was too sad to talk
about.  By the time we grew up and were capable of dealing with 'sad', she
said it was too much in the past, and not to dwell on it.  All she'd tell
us was that our parents were dead."

   "But nothing about how that happened?" I prodded.

   "I got the impression she didn't really know that much about it, or
maybe that she was just saying that to keep us from trying to find our
birth parents." said Randy.

   "Where were you raised?" I asked.

   "Templeton, Iowa," said Randy, finally deciding on a match between the
Colts and the Redskins.

   "And that's where you were born?" I asked.

   "No, the town was different when we got adopted," he said.  "Templeton
was where mom and dad lived, and we went there to live with them."

   Kathy asked me why I wanted to know about that.

   "I don't know, I was just thinking about things," I said.  "I haven't
thought about being adopted for a long time.  Now I'm curious.  I've
thought about going back to see if I could find out anything about my own
parents, and my brother and sister."

   "How would you do that?" she asked curiously.

   "I don't know," I said honestly.  "I guess I'd start with newspapers ...
in the library."

   "Where were you born?" asked Kathy.

   "I think it must have been Jackson," I said.  "I can still remember my
address.  I had to have it memorized when I went to school the first day."

   "Really?" asked Kathy.  "You can still remember that from way back
then?"

   "Sixteen-nineteen Wall street, Jackson, Iowa, one-one-six-three-two." I
was surprised at how smoothly it slipped off my lips.  "My telephone number
was Skyline six-six-nine-four."

   "Skyline?" asked Kathy.

   "That was back when people had a word that identified the first three
numbers of a phone number.  You dialed S, K and Y ...  for Skyline, and
then the rest of the numbers." I suddenly felt old.  Micky and Susan had
made fun of me for being a quarter of a century old.  Now I felt like it
for some reason.

   "It's funny how you remember things like that," said Kathy.  This time
of year, as I anticipate Christmas, I remember a building from the first
place we lived, before we were adopted.  Besides Ange, it's about the only
thing I can remember from back then.  It was across the street from a candy
store that I used to stand in front of and stare into the window.  There
was all this candy and it looked so delicious.  The building across the
street was really tall, and it had lights all along its outline.  I can
remember it like it was yesterday, with its round dome roof ...  and all
those beautiful lights."

   I felt a chill run up my spine.

   "With red clay tiles on the roof?" I asked, not believing that her
answer could possibly confirm what I was suddenly thinking.

   Her eyes had gone to that place where you see things that aren't there,
but the snapped back to mine.

   "Red squares ...  yes!  How did you know that?" she asked, her voice
tight.

   "And the candy store," I drove onward, the chill now running both down
and up my spine.  "It had a gingerbread house in the window that looked
like it could feed ten kids."

   "YES!" she squealed.  "How could you possibly know that?"

   "I remember the same thing," I said, my voice just above a whisper.

   She sat there, eyes wide for a few seconds.  Then she got up suddenly
and went to the china cabinet, which had drawers in the lower part.  She
opened a drawer and pulled out an atlas.  She sat back down and opened it
up.  Her finger traced down a list on the side of the page ...  a list of
cities and towns ...  and then went to find the number and letter that
would locate the town she had stopped at.  She gasped.

   "Jackson is only thirty miles from Templeton!" she said.  "You came from
a town only thirty miles from where Randy and I grew up!"

   I felt something that was a mix of dread and insane hope clutch at my
heart.

   "You had a cap ...  it was pink ...  with bunny ears on it ...  and it
tied under your chin ..."

   Randy muted the television.  Both of them were staring at me now, mouths
slack.

   "You couldn't possibly know that!" gasped Kathy.

   "Unless ..." I let that hang out there, unable to give voice to the rest
of it.

   "You can't be serious," whispered Kathy.  "That's beyond all
possibility. It's been twenty YEARS since I wore that hat.

   "It was fuzzy and warm," I said woodenly.  "You cried if you didn't get
to wear it.  I had to drag you away from the window of that candy store
because we weren't allowed to go in there."

   "You're my BROTHER?!" Kathy's voice broke on its way to the highest
register her vocal chords would support.

   Randy dropped the remote on the floor as his hand went limp.

   "I think ...  maybe I am," I sighed.

   ======================================

   Well, of course there was a lot of "That's impossible" type talk.  We
were all three stunned by even the possibility, but as we kept digging at
our memories, more things turned up that were similar, if not almost exact
in those few memories we all had about that time twenty years back.  There
wasn't much.  Most of us can't remember much about when we were five or
six. I remembered a metal truck I had gotten for my sixth birthday, and
Randy remembered wanting to play with it, but I wouldn't let him.  Kathy
remembered the pattern of the wallpaper above her bed, on the slanted roof,
and both Randy and I remembered that too, from huddling in her bed while
adults yelled and there were loud noises ...  thuds that we now realized
were things being thrown.

   And we all remembered hiding behind the couch, of course.

   In the end, though none of us felt we COULD believe that something so
strange and unlikely could happen - siblings being re-united after twenty
years ...  by ACCIDENT - we let things just percolate in our minds because
we WANTED to believe it was true.

   My own emotions were in a complete turmoil.  I had shoved the fact that
I had a brother and sister back deep into my subconscious.  I had been
locked in a closet because I tried to run away to find them.  I was beaten
unconscious when I broke a window and screamed for them.  That's when I
sunk into a black depression and pushed them so far away that I couldn't
even remember their names.  Later, of course, I knew they were out there
somewhere, but I also knew I'd never see them again.  They were in the same
classification as my mother, whom I knew I'd never see again either.

   Kathy couldn't sit still.  She paced and verbalized what had happened
again - how we had met - and then she stopped, rigid.

   "KISMET!" she yelled.  "I TOLD you it was kismet!"

   "Now hold on," I cautioned her, standing up.  "We need to look into this
further, yes ...  but let's not go making assumptions just because of a few
memories."

   "But BOB!" she shouted.  "You're my BROTHER!  I just KNOW it!"

   Then, quite suddenly she flung herself at me.  She was sobbing, and her
embrace was so tight that I almost couldn't correct from her weight
slamming into me.  We almost fell.  Randy was suddenly there, supporting us
both, his arms around us both, and he was crying too.  Despite my best
efforts to remain calm and objective, my own eyes filled with unshed tears.

   I have no idea how long we stood there in that frantic grip.  I can't
even remember much about what flooded through my mind.  It was too
overwhelming, and I think I just blanked out for a while.

   Finally, though, probably through exhaustion, as the adrenaline that had
flooded our systems began to abate, we slumped apart and stood uncertainly.
Something momentous had happened, and I don't think we knew just where to
go from there.  It's impossible to go from being a friend of the family, to
a brother to two virtual strangers, without there being some trauma to work
through.

   "I'm going to do some checking," I finally said.

   "They won't tell you anything," warned Kathy.  "Adoption records are
almost impossible to get into."

   "I can approach it as a researcher," I said immediately.  "I just won't
tell them I might be in their records."

   And, in fact, that's exactly what I did.  I went to Howard County, Iowa.
I took the bus, because that's the only way I could afford to get there
from the West coast.  It was a three day trip, but I slept on the bus and
ate as cheaply as I could.  I put on the sports coat I had gotten from a
second hand store, with the leather patches on the elbows, and trimmed up
my beard.  I had a pair of glasses I had once worn in a play, with just
plain glass in the frames, and I took those two.  I took a briefcase and,
when I presented myself, and explained that I was doing research on the
frequency in which siblings were separated during adoption proceedings, the
lady at the desk took me to a small room and started bringing me boxes.  I
told her I was going back to 1960, to document how Social Services had
changed procedures over the years.

   "I shouldn't let you see anything with names on it," she cautioned. 
"You can't take notes on any names."

   "Names won't be necessary for what I'm doing," I said calmly.  "Other
than verifying that children really were siblings when they were adopted."

   "I just feel so badly for them when they get torn apart like that," she
said, wiping her eye.  It's just so unfair that they lose their parents and
then get sent to different places too."

   "I hope to show that the trend is reversing that," I said.  There are
several groups that would like to see legislation that keeps siblings
together when they are adopted."

   She kept an eye on me for a while, but when she saw that I was just
writing down numbers and dates, she felt safe to leave me alone.  When I
finished a box, I took it to her and she brought me another one.  I had to
go through them all.  It would have been suspicious if I hadn't.  But I
cheated quite a bit.  If something just popped out at me, I made notes on
when the adoption happened, and whether or not siblings went to the same
adoptive parents.  I wrote down ages too, but I skipped over a lot of data.

   My palms were sweating when I got to the box for the year I knew my
brother and sister had been taken from me.

   Our file had a police report filed with it.  One of the men my mother
had taken into the house had killed her in a drunken brawl one night.  They
had found us kids hiding in my sister's room, and had taken us that night,
never to return.  On the applications for adoption - theirs and mine - all
that was listed about our mother was "deceased".  It was surreal to see my
adoptive parent's name on the application, and I suddenly smelled my
"mother" in the stuffy room.  I had asked the usual questions as I grew up
- kids are naturally curious about their real parents - but my foster
parents had simply said my mother was dead, and that my past was not worth
digging into.  They had said that they didn't know where my brother and
sister were, because they had been adopted before I was, and the files were
sealed.  I felt a little better when they said that, if they had gotten
there sooner, they'd have taken all three of us, but there was nothing I
could do about it back then.  I had closed that part of my life off, and
tried to forget about it.

   Now, though, looking at the papers with Kathy's last name, which was
different from Randy's last name, which was different than my own last
name, I knew what my mother had been.  She had been a sad, lonely woman,
divorced, according to the police report, and who had searched fruitlessly
for a man to replace what she'd lost.  She'd apparently had two more
children, after me, by different men, and had put the men's names on the
birth certificates, possibly hoping that would chain the father to her.  It
hadn't, though.  The name of the man who killed her was different than all
of our names.

   But our names were all there.  Kathy's ...  Randy's ...  and mine.  It
was true.

   I scribbled some notes that I stuffed in my jacket pocket, and then
forced myself to go on with the "research".  I had sixteen pages of notes
when I finally called a halt.  I presented them to the woman for her
inspection, and then bullshitted her about what I had "learned".  I thanked
her and left, my feet dragging.

   I did stop at the library on the way to the YMCA, where I had reserved a
bed for the night.  The microfilm reader provided a second page account of
the murder, and the plight of the survivors, listed as "three minor
children, removed from the home." The address I remembered so clearly was
in the account, as was our mother's name, and that of the man arrested that
night.  I thought about trying to research the court records, but somehow,
it just seemed fruitless to dig any deeper.

   It was a long trip back to Washington.  I had good news, but the bad
news fought with it incessantly as the miles rolled by.  There was cause
for great joy in our lives, but the taste of sadness wouldn't leave my
mouth.

   I didn't spend much on food on that return trip.

   CHAPTER FIVE

   I called Kathy, to tell her I was coming over.  I told her I had news,
but wouldn't talk about it on the phone.  She did manage to get out of me
that what we had suspected was true.  Against all odds, the siblings had
been reunited.

   She met me at the door with a hug that almost knocked me over, and a
kiss on the lips, as her fingernails almost pierced my light jacket.

   She pushed me away but held onto me with hands that would have easily
matched a man's competition grip during a handshake.

   "My big brother," she sighed, looking at me with wet eyes.

   "Half-brother," I corrected her.

   "I don't care!" She grinned.  "As far as I'm concerned, you're my
brother and that's all that matters."

   Randy was equally excited when he showed up behind her in the door.  We
hadn't even gone inside yet.

   "It's true?" he asked.

   "There's some bad news too," I said grimly.

   We went inside, and to the kitchen, where I spread out the meager
documentation I had brought back.  My crumpled notes from the adoption
papers lay beside copies I had copied of the newspaper account of the night
our mother had been taken from us.  It was pitifully sparse information, in
one sense, and yet it established something we had all hoped for, and was
therefore priceless.

   "Our names were all different!" exclaimed Kathy as she read over the
papers.

   I explained what I suspected about our mother's vain attempts at making
a life for her, and us.

   "It's so sad," she moaned, fingering the copy that had the only
photograph of our mother we knew to exist.  It must have been taken from
her High School yearbook, because she looked much too young to have had
three children.  Her smiling face didn't look all that familiar to any of
us.

   "But I'm so HAPPY!" she yipped, jumping up out of her chair and hugging
me from the side.  Her breasts pressed into my shoulder and I felt a little
guilty because it felt so good.

   "Hey," she said into my ear.  "If this is all true ...  and I know it is
...  but anyway, why did I call you 'Ange'?"

   I looked at the papers on the table, and pointed.

   "My middle name is Andrew.  My adoptive parents called me by my first
name, Robert, and remember I didn't like that at first.  I think maybe I
went by my middle name when we were little.  'Andrew' would be pretty hard
for a four year old to say.  The 'an' part of it wouldn't be so bad, and
just slurring the rest of it seems reasonable for a yound child."

   "Well, I know you as Bob now, so I guess that's what I'll call you,"
said Kathy effusively.  "I'm so happy!"

   I remembered the other thing I had looked into.

   "You and Randy can have children, if you really want to," I said,
smelling her hair.  "I did some research on that too.  Especially since you
are half-brother and half-sister, the chances of real problems are slim."

   That set off another round of exclamations and yips and yells, and not a
little dancing, once I convinced her that it was highly unlikely that her
miscarriage had been the result of their blood relationship.

   We talked late into the night, and at one point I said: "I'm pooped. 
I'd better go home before I'm too tired to drive."

   "Stay!" pleaded Kathy.

   "Yes, please," agreed Randy.

   "You know what I want to do?" asked Kathy, her voice trembling.

   "Hard telling," I said to her.

   "I want us all to get under the blanket together, like we did back then,
when we were hiding from the bad men.  I want to sleep huddled up like that
again."

   It was a silly idea, really, but somehow they talked me into it.  We
went to bed fully clothed, except for shoes, of course, and Kathy piled two
comforters and a quilt on top of us, even though they weren't really
needed. She snuggled between us, demanding that we face her, our arms
across her torso, my hand on Randy's shoulder, and his on mine.  Then we
talked some more, until there were those long pauses between comments that
mean everyone is drifting off to sleep, but is trying to stay awake.

   I awoke sometime during the night.  It was dark, but I could smell
Kathy's hair against my face.  She had turned toward me in her sleep, and
our fronts were pressed together.  One of her legs was thrown over mine and
I realized that what had awakened me was a subtle rubbing, where her crotch
made contact with my thigh.

   She had told me this was how she and Randy had slept, when they were
young ...  that she had masturbated herself on his leg for years.  I knew
she was asleep, because her breathing was slow and measured, but something
deep inside her was reliving those younger years, albeit with the wrong
brother.

   I kissed her forehead and she murmured something in her sleep, snuggling
closer to me.

   I drifted back to sleep.  I don't think I had ever felt that good in my
life.

   The next time I woke up her back was to me, and her leg was thrown over
Randy's.  Her hips were still making those slight movements as she rubbed
herself against him.  I realized my left hand was draped over her and was
cupping a breast.  Her arm was on top of mine, bent at the elbow, with her
hand lying on Randy's shoulder.

   I started to withdraw my hand, but her arm clamped down.  Her head
moved, turning towards me.

   "You're awake," she said softly.

   "Yeah," I breathed.  I tried to pull my hand away from her breast.

   "Don't," she said.  "I like it there."

   Something in me shivered and I gave her breast a little squeeze.

   "Mmmm," she sighed.  "I wonder why I get so turned on by my brothers?"

   "Mmmf?" came a snort from Randy.  He lifted his head.

   "You want to make a baby Randy?" she said, kissing him.

   "With Bob here?" he asked, rubbing his eyes with one fist.

   "He's family," she said, kissing him again.

   Randy got up on one elbow and peered over Kathy at me.

   "You mind?" he asked.

   "You've got to be kidding." I laughed at the craziness of it all.

   "I don't want us to be apart any more," said Kathy, putting her hand
over mind and pressing it to her breast.

   "You're married!" I said, squeezing her breast again.

   "Call it part of your research project," she said, rubbing her pussy
against Randy's leg harder.

   "I thought you weren't IN my research project," I said wryly.

   "That was then.  This is now," she said.

   I felt her hand at her blouse buttons and finally she let my hand go.

   "Help me," she commanded, getting the blouse unbuttoned.  I pulled it
off of her left arm and she half sat to pull it off her other one.  "Unhook
me, please," she said.

   My fingers fumbled at the clasp of her bra and it snapped apart.  She
turned to sit between us as she worked her pants and panties down and off.
Randy came unglued and began taking his own clothes off.

   "This is weird," I said inanely.

   "Everything about us is a little weird," agreed Kathy.

   I was staring at her breasts.  She put her hands behind her and arched
her chest.

   "Do you like them?" she asked.

   "They're gorgeous," I choked out.

   "Randy likes them," she said, staring down at her stiff nipples.

   "You're married," I reminded her again.

   "If we'd have all stayed together ..." She didn't finish it, but her
meaning was obvious.

   "You don't love Randy because he's your brother," I said.  "You love
Randy because he's your husband."

   "I loved Randy long before we got married, and it was because he was my
baby brother, who I was closer to than anyone.  Now I have two brothers
again, and I'm closer to them than anyone." Kathy sounded very sure of
herself.

   Randy was naked now, and, with no shame at all, he crawled on top of
Kathy.  There was a liquid sound as he slid into her and she moaned.

   "I like this a lot better without a condom," he groaned.

   "Ohhhh me tooooo," she moaned back.

   "You feel so hot," he moaned.  "I don't' think I can last, baby."

   "You don't have to," she panted, thrusting against him.  "Bob will
help."

   "I will?" I asked, unbelieving.

   "You're not circumcised, are you Bob?" she gasped.

   "How did you know that?" I asked.  My mind was whirling.

   "In the hospital ...  you fell down on the bed ...  I saw you ..." Kathy
panted.  "I've never had anybody's in me except Randy's.  But I'm curious,
Bob.  You'll help us ...  won't you?"

   "Help you ..." I said stunned.

   "Have a baby, Bob.  I've waited so long to have a baby," she whined.

   "Oh baby!" groaned Randy.  His buttocks clenched and he drove into his
sister ...  my sister ...  our sister, where he froze as he fertilized her.
"Uhhhhh I love you baby," he grunted.

   "Can Bob help us?" Kathy hugged Randy to her tightly.  "You wouldn't be
jealous of Bob, would you darling?"

   "Uhhhhh" Randy grunted as he spurt into her over and over.

   He collapsed on top of Kathy, and she trailed her fingers along his
spine lightly, cooing in his ear about how good it was to feel his warm
spend in her pussy again.

   "I missed that feeling Randy," she whispered.

   He rolled off of her, and she lay, splayed open, her pussy wet looking
in the dim light of the bedroom.

   "Bob?" she called, reaching towards me.

   "But ..." I stammered.

   "I want my big brother," she moaned.  "I want my big brother to love
me."

   "Of course I love you," I objected.  I couldn't keep my eyes off her
sex, which was weeping our brother's spend.

   "Then show me how much you love me," she purred.

   This was all going so fast, I wasn't at all sure that it wasn't going
TOO fast.  Only days before these people were just friends.  Now I had seen
them make love, and she was demanding that I make love to her too.  I was
afraid she was just on an emotional high ...  that she might feel different
later.  I was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger, and it just didn't
seem like Kathy to act like this.

   But Kathy didn't see it that way.  All her life she had been in love
with her brother, and her only memories of me were just as strong as the
feelings she had for him when he was the only one with her.  For Kathy,
blood was much thicker than water.  And, despite what the world might think
about things, I knew that Randy and Kathy were just as married in their own
minds as any other couple on earth.

   As if he knew what I was thinking, Randy spoke.  "It's OK, Bob," came
his low voice.  "I can't believe I'm saying that, but it's really OK."

   "I don't know," I pleaded.

   Kathy bounced up off her back and landed on her knees.  She covered her
pussy lips with one hand, sealing herself closed, while the other hand went
to my shirt, to pick ineffectively at the buttons.

   "I do," she said.  "I need both my brothers." Her hand went to my neck
and she pulled me toward her.  "I'm not asking you to marry me too." She
grinned.  "Randy and I will be married forever.  But I need you in my life
too, Bob.  I lost you for so long, and now, like a gift, I have you back.
Please do this thing for me.  Just this once at least?"

   You know, it was harder to do what she asked than any other situation I
got into during the Master's project.  It wasn't because she was my sister.
That part didn't bother me.  And it wasn't because I was afraid Randy would
be hurt.  He sounded completely sincere when he gave me permission.  I
think it was harder because I had something at stake with this woman.  The
others were friends, and if those friendships ended badly, it wouldn't
really matter all that much.  I'd be sad, but it wouldn't be the end of the
world.  But if things didn't work out with Kathy, I'd be losing her a
second time, and I didn't think I could take that.

   But, in the end, I did do what she asked.

   She was almost frantic, as I lay down on top of her.  Her hips were
thrusting and moving so hard that there was no way in the world I could hit
the target.  She was unhappy about that, and reached for me with strength
that was painful.

   "LIE STILL!" I ordered her.

   It was like a switch had been thrown.  She went limp and let go of me.
Her eyes glinted, though, as she stared up into my face.

   "Take me," she whispered.

   I can't say I "took" her.  There wasn't anything forceful about what I
did that morning.  She was like hot butter, and her moans and cries were
music to my ears.  I was worried right up until I slid into her warmth, but
the things she said in my ear, and the welcome that was obvious as her body
meshed with mine, convinced me beyond any doubt that she really wanted
this.

   "Just this once," I whispered, going in her as deeply as I could.  The
urge to fertilize her was almost impossible to deny.

   "We'll see," she moaned.

   "You said just once," I grunted.

   "I'm a woman," she grinned, biting gently at my shoulder.  "We get to
change our minds."

   "Randy should be the father of your children," I said, withdrawing and
shoving back in deep.  I felt her cervix give way and she gasped.

   "I can have lots of babies." She shuddered and I felt her pussy muscles
begin to milk me as she tumbled into an orgasm.

   "I knew you'd feel different," she whined.

   "Of course, you silly woman," I panted.

   "Oh YES!" she squealed as she shook and flopped.

   I felt nothing but contentment then, as my balls let loose and that
soothing feeling told me I was adding to Randy's spend.  She now had the
sperm of two half-brothers in her womb and something told me it would NOT
be the last time that happened.  I looked over at Randy, who was grinning
from ear to ear.  He leaned in to kiss Kathy and she almost ate his lips.

   I stayed most of the day.  We stayed in bed for another couple of hours,
lying there and talking and necking.  She explored my penis, which she
pronounced not only different, but handsome, and then alternated sucking at
Randy's cut member, and then at mine while she played with the foreskin. 
Finally I got up and told them to stay there, while I found something to
make breakfast with.  They argued, but I pulled rank as the elder sibling.

   I heard her have another of those amazing orgasms while I fried eggs,
and smiled.

   Life was suddenly good ...  very good.  I had family again.  And there
would be children to call me Uncle who would be in my life forever.  True,
there were other children who would call me Uncle in the years to come, but
the connection between me and them wouldn't be as close as it would be with
Kathy's children.  That my son or daughter might think of me as "Uncle"
didn't bother me at all.  Kathy and Randy had found happiness together, and
I wanted them to have that happiness for the rest of their lives.  I wasn't
all that old, after all, and it was beginning to seep into my head that I
had traits that people found attractive.  Women did, anyway ...  a lot more
women than I would have believed a year before.

   Maybe I should think about dating again.

   We'll see, I guess.  For now, I need to wrap up this project, and get
the paper done and through peer review.  There are plenty of women in my
life right now - more than the average guy deserves.

   I thought I could be content with that.

   Yes, there was only one more interview that I hadn't started yet.  That
one was a favor to another couple in the program.  It was an odd situation.
I laughed as I thought about how I could think of anything as "odd" again.
"Odd" had become part and parcel of my life.
   
