Chapter 11
She was still sleeping when he left the house in the morning. It was that evening, after dinner, when they finally sat down in the living room together, and Brenda snapped on the television.
"Laugh-In tonight," she said.
"How about a talk-in?" he suggested.
He could tell by her face and the tears that brimmed in her eyes that she wasn't ready yet to talk.
"Not about our quarrel, or our problems," he said gently. "In a way it's about that, but ... Now honey, don't cry, please!"
He couldn't take her any faster than she was willing to go so they watched television and went to bed.
Tuesday night was the same.
Wednesday night he came home determined to have it out with her, regardless.
She met him at the door with a martini and a smile, both encouraging signs.
"Dinner's all ready, I just have to put it on the table," she said. "So let's have a cocktail together and talk."
"Terry's wife called me this afternoon," she went on, "and invited us to a party Saturday night. You remember Terry, the one with the ... " she giggled ... "oversized equipment?"
"I remember him. Which one was his wife?"
"I haven't the vaguest idea! But she was awfully nice on the telephone. We had a long talk about swapping and all that."
"Yes?" He figured he would wait for his opening.
"She said they'd tried it both ways. Meeting strangers from ads, and belonging to a group like this. They really went into it scientifically, Don! I learned more about swinging this afternoon!"
"Yeah?"
"Well, she said they liked this way best. Not really a club ... a more or less informal group ... but mostly the same faces every time. She said a couple would get in now and then and last a few weeks, but if the group didn't like them, they were quietly dropped."
"That makes sense."
"And she said ... this is the interesting part, Don. She said they have all. gotten so close that they're almost like a family. Their house burned down last year and the swappers were just great! Took them in, found clothes for the kids and all that. They had trouble financing a new one, but they got a second mortgage from one of the men, I'm not sure who he is. But that's not the point ... "
Don couldn't help smiling to see her so happy and eager. "Okay, what is the point?"
"She said ... her name is Mary ... Mary said that a group like ours is just like an extension of the family. You know, the way everybody moves around these days and nobody has aunts and uncles and grandparents to help out in an emergency. So your friends fill in for family, if they're the right sort of friends."
"Couples that fuck together, are stuck together!" Then he grinned at her disappointed face and said, "I didn't mean that to be nasty, honey. As a matter of fact, that's one of the things I wanted to tell you. Bill was saying much the same to me."
"It made me feel good," she added.
"I agree. But I'd like to make one more point, honey. Couples that talk to each other are apt to solve their problems more easily. I mean, like you and me talking, as well as confiding in friends."
He didn't want it to sound like one of those speeches about "communication" and let it go at that. Brenda wasn't stupid. She'd get the point, and if she didn't, at least he'd made a beginning.
The week passed in a normal fashion. He couldn't help but wonder if Jenny and Guy would be at Saturday night's party but he didn't bring their names up and neither did Brenda.
When they got to the party, their hostess turned out to be a shapely, vivacious blonde, her hair a mop of silver-white curls. He remembered seeing her at the Grahams; he had admired her dimples and her contagious laugh.
"Come on in and sit down," she said. "Terry will get you a drink."
They recognized most of the faces from last weekend ... but the scene was definitely different. Everybody there was wearing clothes. Don wished he had some sort of guide-map to swapper parties. He thought he had it all figured out and then, bingo! They changed the rules. But he remembered Lita saying something about that. Every part was different, she said, according to the tastes of whomever was giving it.
He certainly hoped it was a swinging party, and not just a neighborhood Saturday night drinking session.
He and Brenda had been to enough of those. Sometimes they were supposed to be cocktail parties; other times, buffet dinners. But what they all amounted to was everybody getting completely soused and necking in the corners with somebody else's wife.
He guessed he was ridiculous in thinking of that kind of party as immoral.
In fact, anybody would laugh to hear him say it. But he'd come to realize that his own personal definition of immorality started with phoniness and went on from there. Whatever the swingers were, they certainly were honest in their desires.
Several drinks later, he'd resigned himself to an ordinary weekend drunk. But as the thought went through his mind, Terry stepped to the middle of the room and called for attention.
"You're probably wondering what the hold-up is," he said, smiling. "I'd planned a little extra entertainment for this evening but one of our entertainers had to be late ... I just heard their car in front a minute ago. So if you can be patient just a little bit longer, I think you'll agree that it was worth the wait. If she doesn't make your juices jangle, I don't know what will."
Naturally everyone turned to the door and so did Don. He was already confused. Neither Guy nor Jenny were there. Bill had waved at him from across the room, but although he'd looked, he hadn't caught a glimpse of Lita. He was a lot more interested in those three people than some entertainers.
Then the door opened. Guy and Jenny walked through it. And everybody clapped. Whatever the big deal was, it seemed that most of those here had seen it before, or at least knew about it.
Jenny was wrapped in a huge cloak that covered her completely. Its collar was turned up around her neck. Warm as the summer night was, there had to be a reason for that.
Jenny disappeared into the back of the house, a drink in her hand. Guy, Don was thankful to note, headed for the kitchen and stayed there or in the far end of the large living room.
He hadn't dared look at Brenda. Guy's name hadn't been mentioned since Sunday morning and he had no idea what his wife's thoughts about him were.
Terry bustled around refilling glasses before he said, "the lights go out." Moments later he flicked off the switches, after lighting a few candles here and there.
Don hadn't noticed the absence of music until the hi-fi came on, with a haunting yet unfamiliar melody. It had an insistent beat but the melody was soft and lyrical, not the heavy rock sound. A hush fell over the room.
It was velvety dark and he strained to see. One moment the center of the floor was cleared, and the next moment they were there ... two slim and graceful figures that glowed with all the colors of the rainbow.
As his eyes adjusted, he realized that there was a source of black light somewhere in the room, and the two were wearing fluorescent body paint.
"It's Lita and Jenny," Brenda whispered, taking his hand.
They were so beautiful he didn't want to think they were human, much less perfectly ordinary women whom he knew. Their bodies flickered and glowed in constant movement, the colors melting into each other. They danced, facing each other but a few feet apart, their arms outstretched. Don wasn't the fanciful type but he thought about magic, about the flight of legendary birds. A hundred other colorful images floated through his mind.
Then as they moved and turned, flowing into each other and gracefully pulling apart, he began to see the fantastically lewd designs painted on the bodies. But every time he identified an obvious, realistic penis painted on one girl's buttock, she moved, and he lost it.
But there was no losing the heavy emphasis on the girls' tits and asses. Concentric circles in glowing purple and red and pink accentuated Lita's breasts ... he could tell now which woman was which. The nipples shone with an aureole of gold and a scarlet center, like a bullseye. Jenny's tits were green and silver and chrome yellow.
The dance was definitely erotic. Their bodies moved and circled with beckoning arms, pelvic bumps, shaking breasts. They swayed slowly, sensually a few inches apart yet not touching. Now and then one would approach, hips moving in a fucking motion, while the other retreated. It was primitive and savage, yet fascinatingly beautiful. The music wove a spell around them and they seemed part of it.
It was like a primitive courtship dance, Don realized. His heart began to bump and he felt an almost irresistible impulse to rush out and join the erotic pair. Hearing little rustlings and indrawn breaths around him, he knew he wasn't the only one affected so strongly.
He had an idea what was going to happen, and it did. As the melody rose to a crashing climax, the two spun to the floor in a passionate embrace. The mouths locked in a long kiss, and then they reversed and attacked each other's genitals almost savagely.
The sounds of their groans and the slurping noises from their tongues could, be heard in spite of the music.
Brenda squeezed his hand. "They're just faking it, aren't they?"
"I suppose so," he lied.
The music ended, the lights came on and the two rose from the carpet, tired but radiant. Everyone crowded around, congratulating and thanking them.
Don wondered what Brenda was thinking.
"Okay, everybody!" Terry's voice rose above the hubbub. "Let's all get naked!"
Don was as spent as if he had been in the center of the floor with the two lascivious women, but he led Brenda into a bedroom where they could leave their clothes.
"They really weren't faking," she said. "Honey, they're not ... not queer," he tried to explain.
"I understand."
He wondered if he did. The way Bill had put it, it was very simple. Sex was sex and although men had strong feelings against homosexuality, women were more sensible.
He didn't think he could explain all that, even to himself.
"It turns a man on," he said, "to see two chicks doing it. And that dance ... wowie! Didn't it excite you too?"
"Yes... I was embarrassed to get so excited from it though."
"That's just because it's new to you," he told her.
Back in the living room, he marvelled again at how easy it was to get used to being naked among company. There was a heightened air of sexuality in the room from the erotic dance, but there was also a comfortable, companionable feeling.
Terry appeared and led Brenda off to get a drink.
Don looked around, feeling like a gourmet in a four-star French restaurant. There were so many beautiful bodies, breasts and asses that he was tempted to reach out and grab a handful of whatever he could reach. He thought about looking for one of the women he knew, Lita or Jenny or even his hostess, Mary. But that's how he started out last weekend. He wanted to do something really outrageous, not just sexy but wild.
He wanted to make love to a stranger; and if he never found out her name, that would be even better.
He zeroed in on a tall, slim girl with short dark hair. Her breasts were small and hard, but her rounding hips promised plenty of action.
"I'll get you a drink," he said, "if you'll walk to the kitchen with me. I don't want anybody snatching you away while I'm gone."
"Snatching me?" She laughed as she followed him, her hand on his arm. "Or didn't you mean to make a pun?"
Don discovered he was a little drunk but he gave the dark-haired girl a drink and found a vacant corner. She was a joker and a giggler but she shut up long enough for a few minutes of intense, exciting love-making. He came with an intensive force and leaned back against the wall while she giggled and chattered on.
Something was bothering him but he wasn't sure what it was.
Except that it had to do with Brenda.
He got to his feet somehow and made her an elaborate bow.
"I hate to fuck and run," he said seriously, "but I have something I have to do."
He left her there on the floor in a corner, still giggling and playing with herself, her hands busily rubbing her cunt.
Three drinks later, he remembered what it was he had to do. He needed to talk to Brenda, to get things straightened out. It had gone on like this too long. Maybe this wasn't the time, he thought, but no time like the present.
He wandered into a scene that reminded him of his experience with Jenny and Lita and Bill ... except that there were seven people involved. His eyes traced the curves of the bodies, trying to decide who was doing what to whom. One luscious looking doll was eating Jenny's cunt while she blew Terry, who had his face in a cunt that didn't look familiar at all. Lots of strange bodies around here, he thought. But none of them were Brenda's.
He was afraid he knew where she was. Or rather, not where, but with whom. The thought grew inside him, and the resentment. Regardless of what he'd decided, regardless of what Bill and Lita said, if his wife was with Guy again that was the end. He knew how stupid it was to be jealous, particularly in a situation like this. But all the same the anger grew inside him, bolstered by the amount of liquor he had drunk.
The party was wilder than last weekend's, more uninhibited, but in some ways it was awfully like the usual Saturday night in suburbia. He discovered this when he went back to the kitchen for another drink and found five or six men there, drinking and talking and telling jokes. Well, nobody could screw all the time! he thought. He stood and talked for a while, putting off the thorough search he knew he was going to make.
Then he blinked and a smile crept over his face. Right in the middle of the knot of men, looking as if he'd been there a while to judge from the overflowing ashtray, stood Guy.
Don's heart turned over and tension drained out of him.
Hastily he gulped his drink and headed for the doorway. This time he'd find Brenda and ... he smiled in anticipation ... he'd do something really different, really startling!
He was going to make love to his own wife!
It had been a long two weeks, or two and a half, he couldn't exactly remember. But whenever it had been that Lita had rung his doorbell and he had screwed her ... at her own invitation, he reminded himself ... his life had been a complete and utter mess.
Once he'd seen Guy in the kitchen, he was ready to admit it to himself. He was afraid of losing Brenda.
He'd never be able to understand why she had to have this thing about one man ... besides himself ... when she could have all the sex and companionship in the world through swinging. But the trouble was, as he'd lately discovered, it all began before they got into swapping. Before he even suggested it to her, in fact.
Don had the happy conviction many drunks have ... that he knew all the answers and could solve all the problems, if people would only listen to him.
He wandered through room after room, realizing that it was a big house but not that big. He wished he had a flashlight. But then, the others probably wouldn't appreciate his going around shining a light in their faces.
He found her at last. She was alone, huddled in a big chair in the living room, its wings and back nearly hiding her from view. Her legs curled up under her, she nursed a drink and looked unhappily into space.
Love for her flooded his heart as he pulled a footstool up close and took her hand. He didn't mean to say what he did, but it just came out.
"If you want Guy," he said roughly, "then have him. I won't stand in your way."
Tears flooded her eyes. "Oh no\ You just don't understand."