Saturday 26th August 2017
Just over a month had passed, since out of the corner of my eyes, I’d observed Craig, Byron, and Callan rutting as three stags for the attentions of my sexy, but spoken for, wife.
Jill and I were snuggled in bed enjoying a quiet and activity-free Saturday morning in bed. No lifts, sports matches, or driving lessons. The well-earned tranquility of proud parents whose kids were making their way in the world, at college or in the world of work. Coffee was steaming, the aroma of eggs, bacon, and croissants was our reward, after our respective busy weeks at work.
Jill and I had shared separate evenings with friends. Jill had spent the evening with Charlotte, Callan’s soon to be ex-wife. Despite Charlotte ‘stealing’ Callan away from Jill twenty-something years ago, they’d subsequently become good friends. Even though Charlotte had been the one to call time on the marriage, sometimes she felt the need to have an evening with Jill, or another friend, to talk through the trauma of splitting from Callan after twenty-four years together. Callan and Charlotte had been part of one of the two local wife-sharing circles. And that had been the genesis of their downfall.
For three years they’d happily swapped, played and experimented. But then Charlotte had hooked up with a young Latin guy called Juan. Six months later, twenty-three years of love and dedication was flushed down the toilet as Charlotte told a broken-hearted Callan that she wanted a divorce and that she was moving out to live with Juan.
Jill had spent the evening drinking and chatting with Charlotte, acting as a semi-sober mother confessor figure to her friend, who was riddled with guilt. Not enough guilt to resist her infatuation for her young Latino lover, but enough guilt to value an evening of semi-confession with her friend.
By a strange coincidence, I’d spent the evening with a friend who had a very different perspective on the swinging lifestyle. Liam and Jessica were happily married and had started into the swinging lifestyle at about the same time as Callan and Charlotte. But if Callan and Charlotte’s experience was a warning, Liam and Jessica’s experience had been uniformly positive. At least that was the story Liam gave as we drank the evening away, Liam regaling me with how hot he found watching his previously staid and repressed wife letting go with various new male lovers.
I’d arrived home a couple of hours later than Jill. Liam didn’t want the evening to end and had plied me with drink, not that I had complained, all the time trying to convince me that Jill and should give it a go. Persistent in his statements that we really didn’t know what we were missing, finally managed to drag myself away from his enthusiastic evangelism at around two in the morning. I poured myself into a Uber and just about possessing the self-discipline to drink a pint and a half of water, and take some dextrose, before snuggled into bed next to my sleeping wife.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As we snuggled on that Saturday morning, Jill and I relayed diametrically opposed stories about the nature and impact of the swinging lifestyle. Or maybe nearly diametrically opposed views. The picture that Liam had painted was one hundred percent positive. And he’d gone as far as several times suggested that Jill and I should try what he and Jessica had found such a fulfilling addition to their lifestyle.
Her sleepy body stretched out in our marital bed, Jill reported back a much more nuanced and balanced picture from Charlotte. Charlotte had painted a convincing picture of how she and Callan had enjoyed three happy years of play and experimentation. Being then honest, about the ups and downs, as she lost her heart to her young Latino lover Juan. About the ups of the new love in her life. About the downs of the pain and distress of a marriage and love torn asunder.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jill’s really not a morning person. And although I’d been the last one to bed, maybe an hour and a half later than her, Jill was the more sleepy of us as her sleepy mind uttered the words that were to set the seed.
“I wonder what we’d have been like if we’d have experimented. I wonder if we’d have been sad and broken like Callan and Charlotte or fulfilled and happy like Liam and Jessica?”
I’ve always been a morning person. And while Jill sprawled and semi-slept like some human-feline, my more than awake brain bit into her careless words.
It was a good ten minutes of mental twisting and turning before I summoned the courage and also knew what to say.
And looking back I wonder how much of Liam’s voice spoke and how much of mine.
“Liam and Jessica. Definitely.”
Jill rolled over to face me. A look and energy in her eyes which was most abnormal for this time in the morning. I was more used to seeing two pupils that would have rather bypassed Saturday entirely and slept until Sunday. But those beautiful hazel eyes were fired up with an energy and inquisitiveness that wanted discussion and answers on Saturday. Sunday wasn’t even a thought.
“Why did you say that, honey?” her inquisitive face asked with a genuinely open mind.
I hesitated to gather my thoughts, surging with confidence at the clarity of my thinking.
“Because of our love. Seeing you with another man, you being with another man, it wouldn’t threaten us like it did Callan and Charlotte.”
As my words ended, I knew Jill’s stiletto mind had quietly observed the missing part of my answer.
“I get that, honey. But are you also saying that you’re like Liam? You’d like to watch me with another man.”
I felt my pulse racing. This was new ground for us. With the two swingers circles such an open secret in the community, we’d touched on this discussion a little bit before. But this was the first time Jill had asked me in such a direct way. And in truth, I had to hesitate before I gave an answer. The mental picture of the three rutting males at the pool party was still strong in my head. Jill and I had known and talked about the swinging circles for more than four years now, but this felt like the first serious conversation about whether we might try something similar.
As Jill’s hazel eyes bored into my soul, I knew I couldn’t lie or obfuscate with her. I’d been lucky enough to win the heart of this smart and beautiful woman. These last twenty-three years we’d built a life together. Made love and raised a family. And now I knew that I had to admit to something that had been building a head of steam these last few weeks.
I took a deep breath and admitted to something that I myself was only just beginning to piece together.
“Ever since the pool-party, I’ve been wondering what it would be like to see you going with another guy.”
That was as much as I could squeeze out from my confused and searching brain, fighting with my masculinity.
Jill didn’t say anything, but her eyes spoke volumes as she gently encouraged me to share more. To go beyond the first layer peeled, to layer two and three and four. As far as was needed until I’d got to the heart of the matter.
“Seeing you there with Craig, Byron, and Callan, it made me wonder if I gave you your freedom, which of the three you’d choose. And how far would you go.”
Jill’s expression softened. She knew me well enough to know what it had cost me to say these words. To go as far as I’d gone. She knew it was her turn to share.
“Honey, you know I love you. Only you. Always, and forever. That’s why I’m asking you what’s behind your question?” her hazel eyes twinkling and backing up her words.
Jill paused, letting the question sink into my mind. A smart and intuitive woman, her timing perfect.
“Honey, is this just some idle mental puzzle. Or is it the start of something else? Something real?” she asked.
I looked straight back at those eyes. Eyes which had been my life these last twenty-three years. Exploring, loving, and committing. Committing, loving, and building.
“I honestly don’t know, honey. It’s like a seed was planted. Watching you with Craig, Byron, and Callan. But I’m all confused and mixed up. Until the party, I’d never thought like that.”
Jill knew this was true. Sure, I’d seen other guys hitting on her a thousand times over the years. Any guy married to a woman like Jill would have known the same experience. But, unlike the few friends I had who’d tried swinging, I’d never seriously entertained the idea of Jill with other guys, until these last few weeks. But something had changed that day – the day of the pool party – as I’d watched Craig, Byron, and Callan vying for Jill’s attentions.
“You’ve never said anything like this before,” Jill gently added in a voice full of tenderness and empathy.
“I know. I don’t get it myself. I’d never thought like this until the other week. I really don’t understand where this has come from.”
Jill looked thoughtful for a moment, and I waited for her to share her thoughts. “Maybe it’s the gradual drip, drip, of all the things Liam and Callan told you over the last few years.”
Maybe Jill had hit the nail on the head. Liam and Callan, and another couple of guys who I knew less well had never stopped extolling the virtues of the swinging lifestyle. Well, at least, not until Callan’s recent troubles. And maybe Jill was right. Their incessant encouragement, maybe, had finally borne fruit.
Jill smiled, reading the moment when the penny finally dropped for me. “I think that’s it, honey. Don’t you?”
I smiled back at Jill, for the millionth time in our marriage, a little over-awed at the intuition and EQ of this wonderful woman I’d married. A thought coming into my head as a response to the gentle smugness Jill couldn’t help but show.
“But anyway, honey, while we’re talking about such things, you know the other week you never answered my question.”
“Which question?” Jill asked, I think genuinely not knowing what I was referring to.
“You know. After the pool party, when Craig, Byron, and Callan had been flirting with you all day. When I asked you which one of the three of them was your favorite that day?”
Jill grinned, my stomach knotting up, knowing her well enough to anticipate her next words. “Honey, your question wouldn’t have anything to do with our last topic of conversation, would it?”
I’d never had much of a poker face, and ’d long since given up trying to hide anything from Jill. She was too damned smart and observant for such foolishness. Taking a deep breath, coughed to the crime – sort of.
“I guess I’m as surprised as you are, honey.”
“So that’s a yes is it?” she playfully teased.
“I guess,” I mumbled, before pushing back. “But you still didn’t answer my question.”
Jill grinned. “Does it have to only be one? Can’t I be a greedy girl? After all, I’ve only been eating chicken these last twenty-three years. And chicken’s very nice. But if I was to eat something else for a change, then it would hard to choose between steak, salmon and veal. Wouldn’t you say?”
Her teasing hand was accompanied by her warm, wandering hand encircling and gently stroking my manhood, as her word and mind games continued.
“So, I don’t think the question should be about which would be my favorite snack,” she beamed. “I think the more interesting question is whether my dietician really thinks I should have more variety in my diet?”
Jill’s sexy teasing game combined with her hand motion had me fully hard and this inevitably had an impact on my thoughts and words. As Jill’s warm fist stroked me up and down, I felt myself shaking as Jill waited for an answer. As she stroked me, Jill was propped up on one elbow looking straight into my face, making me fully aware that there was no escape.
And the truth was that the question Jill had posed had been increasingly on my mind these last few weeks. And my evening with Liam – Liam the swinger who loved sharing his wife Jessica – had brought my conflicted feelings and thoughts to the surface in a way I’d never experienced before. Knowing all about the two swinging groups, and with friends within both circles, swinging was something that Jill and I had talked about several times over the years. We weren’t in any way prudes, and we certainly didn’t look down or judge the people who choose this lifestyle. It’s just that whenever we talked about it, Jill and I always came to the same conclusion – it wasn’t something for us.
But here we were, after all these years, at a very different place. I’d spent the last few weeks thinking about the three jackals who’d been sniffing around Jill at the pool party. Often conjuring pictures in my mind of Jill in bed with one of her poolside admirers. Her long legs wrapped around one of the faceless hunks, listening to the sounds my mind created of her moans and sighs of satisfaction. And listening to Jill’s teasing mind games, my gut told me that I wasn’t the only one whose attitudes and thoughts had changed.
I decided it was time for a serious conversation, and I gently removed Jill’s hand from my throbbing member and looked back into a face which suddenly mirrored my serious look.
“Honey, are we really having this conversation? For real?” I asked her, my voice shaking in a way that reflected just how incredibly nervous I felt as I waited for Jill’s answer.
I was heartened and relieved as I saw, and heard, just how nervous Jill also was. t would have really freaked me out if she’d have been cool and composed. For several long moments, Jill was incapable of giving me an answer. She just looked at me, like me slightly trembling and wondering what to say.
Finally, she spoke. “Honey, yes, I guess we are having this conversation. For real. But that doesn’t mean we have to do anything that either of us is uncomfortable with. That we don’t want to do. We’re just talking, right?”
There was a vulnerability and nervousness in Jill’s shaking tone and also in her words, reassuring me that we both felt the same way. What do they say? – ‘misery loves company’. I felt comforted that she was as nervous and unsure as I was.
Taking a deep breath, I kicked off, not really sure where I was going, but feeling I should be the first one to speak. “Honey, we know it’s worked for some friends, and we know it’s not worked for others. And we always felt we didn’t need the extra buzz and excitement. That things were fine for us in the bedroom. And that’s still how a big part of me feels. I still feel things are wonderful between us – both in and out of the bedroom. But, yes, something’s changed these last few weeks. Although we always said we didn’t want to share and play games, I often find myself wondering about you and other guys. But like you say, just because I’m thinking about it, doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it.”
It felt good to have unburdened myself. To have gotten it off my chest – this oppressive weight which had been building up these last few weeks. Having put it out there, I squeezed Jill’s hand, letting her know it was her turn. In case she had any doubts.
I could almost see her brain working behind those beautiful hazel eyes of hers, as she worked out what she wanted to say and how to say it, before finally being ready, and sharing her thoughts with me.
“It’s hard for me to say this, honey, because I’m frightened it might hurt your feelings. But just like you’ve been wondering about what it would be like to watch me with another guy, I guess something’s changed in me since the twins left for college last fall. I’ve found myself wondering what it would be like to be with another man again. You know, after all these years with just the two of us.”
Jill paused, squeezed my hand and looked into my eyes to judge my reaction. To see if her words had indeed hurt me. She must have seen something there because she squeezed my hand again and started saying things to explain. “Honey, it’s not that I enjoy our love-making any less. It’s not like that. It’s just that we’re no longer ‘mum and dad’ in the same way, it’s sparked some kind of change in me. Some kind of wondering and inquisitiveness. Does that make sense, honey? Do you think I’m a terrible woman for thinking like that?”
Adrenalin was pumping through me as we went deeper and deeper into this conversation. But, at the same time, my heart was warmed as I saw the look of love and concern on Jill’s face. I could see how difficult it had been for her to say these words out loud. That a big part of her was beating herself up and feeling overwhelmed with guilt at the thoughts and feelings that had entered her mind since our twins, Abigail and Sarah, had turned eighteen and headed off to college. Leaving us well and truly empty nesters, as our son John had headed off to college the preceding fall.
My own thoughts and feelings might have been a veritable swirling vortex of confusion, but at that moment my single thought was to comfort the woman I loved, and let her know I didn’t think less of her in any way for the confession she’d just made or the thoughts she was having.
“Jill, honey. Don’t be silly. Of course, I don’t think you’re a terrible woman for having such thoughts. You’re only flesh and blood. It’s only human to sometimes wonder about these things. To wonder about what it would be like with someone else. And anyway, I’m hardly going to be the one to condemn you, when I’ve been having similar thoughts myself. How would that work then? I’d have to tattoo a big red ‘H’ for hypocrite on my forehead if I thought less of you.”
Jill smiled a smile that melted my heart and kissed me. Ever since our first days together, I couldn’t bear to see Jill hurt or upset and I felt a warm feeling spread through my body as I realized my words had eased Jill’s pain and guilt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That weekend marked a turning point. Jill and I had both opened up to each other and over the next few weeks, we often talked about our growing mutual interest in sharing. I think we both knew that we were slowly inching towards making a decision to try a little experimentation. After twenty-three years in a monogamous relationship, this wasn’t a decision that we wanted to rush into. We were both determined to take our time and come to a decision which we were both happy with. Especially, as we had the example of our friend’s Callan and Charlotte, whose marriage had eventually been screwed up and destroyed by swinging.
We didn’t want to end up like our friends, and so it was a full eight weeks, after our first discussions, that Jill and I finally decided to attend our first swingers party. And even then, we decided to only go forward with baby steps. Agreeing that neither of us would do more than flirt and maybe make-out at the party. Also agreeing, that if either of us felt uncomfortable watching the other, or in any other way, we’d immediately stop and hightail it home.
These rules were all ‘two-way’ rules, with Jill insisting that I was free to flirt and make-out. Although I told Jill I really had no interest in another woman, she insisted. Saying it was only fair, and that she happened to know that several of the women in the group had the hots for me. (Living in our little piece of suburbia for so long, there were few secrets, with Jill and her chatty girlfriends seeing to that.) Jill also said she’d feel guilty if she was the only one who was free to have fun. And so, in the end, I gave in and agreed to her rules – although I told myself I was agreeing to keep Jill happy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday 21st October 2017
Jill looked absolutely stunning as she sat at her dressing table applying the finishing touches to her lipstick and eyeliner. Why would a man like me agree to share a woman as beautiful and wonderful as Jill with another guy in any way at all? That thought went through my mind several times as I quietly watched Jill finishing her make-up. She looked as sexy as hell, wearing a scoop-backed tight white dress that showed off her large and braless breasts to great effect.
The shape of her large nipples – nipples which had nursed our three grown children – were subtly visible through the patterned fabric of her dress. The skirt of the one-piece dress was equally sexy and revealing, the hem being around mini-skirt length at around six or seven inches below her hips. The whole outfit finished off with black high heels to add a splash of color and contrast.
It was around seven when Jill and I finally left the house to walk the short distance to the venue for the party. Several times during the day, both Jill and I had nearly called it off. I think the score was around three-each in the ‘chickening out and staying home’ stakes. But finally the moment had come, and Jill and I were walking arm-in-arm to the host’s house. Having told each other that even if we felt awkward, we’d try and stay for at least an hour or two, only bolting out before then, if one of us felt really bad.
We walked down the drive, turned to look at each other, and hold each other one last time before we rang the doorbell and entered. We looked into each other’s eyes, deep in thought, knowing that we’d agreed to separate once we were inside. Having decided this was probably the best way to handle things in this new situation. both knew there’d be plenty of people we knew at the party, so there was really little reason to stay together.
With a final hug and kiss, I took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell – ushering us into a new chapter in our marriage.
(Thanks to Cbears52 for his kind help in editing and proofing.)
