The Wife-Swap Report (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior)

by Lawrence Block

  PAUL: You’re really making a thing out of this, aren’t you?

  SHEILA: It was a thing. I don’t—

  PAUL: I mean, for someone who’s come to dig the gay scene as much as you do—

  SHEILA: But don’t you see, that’s the whole point of it!

  PAUL: How?

  SHEILA: I must have sensed the potential for this in myself, and I must have been repressing it. You know. I must have been secretly afraid that I would go overboard if I once started, and for that reason it was a big thing for me. Doesn’t that make sense to you?

  PAUL: I suppose so.

  SHEILA: And another thing you have to understand. Lesbian relations seemed like a giant step beyond what we had been doing. Swinging, the adulterous aspect of it and even the actual techniques we were using, they were what we had been brought up to regard as morally wrong, but the acts themselves seemed healthy enough. But having relations with another girl was what I had been conditioned to regard as unnatural. This was a big difference.

  PAUL: That I can understand. That makes sense to me.

  SHEILA: Well, thank you, kind sir.

  JWW: To continue, I gather that you let the three of them coax you into having relations with Jan?

  SHEILA: Oh, from the moment she gave me that smile I don’t suppose the issue was ever seriously in doubt. I was pretty well trapped. I ultimately agreed that there was no valid reason not to try it.

  JWW: This was the same evening?

  SHEILA: The same evening. We never abandoned the subject from the moment Jeff brought it up.

  I agreed to go along with it, although I protested that I wouldn’t know what to do. Jan rode right over that. She said I didn’t have to do anything, that she would do everything and all I had to do was relax and enjoy it. If I felt in the mood to touch or kiss or caress her, I could join in the action, but all I really had to do was be there. I was glad that she said that because it seemed to me that it would be much easier to endure something than to participate actively in it. If all else failed, I could just lie there like a corpse until she gave it up as a bad job.

  PAUL: You were the most active corpse in history. Instead of embalming fluid they must have used cantharides on you.

  SHEILA: Well, we all make mistakes, don’t we? I have to admit, though, that it was pretty fantastic. Jan suggested that we go to one of the bedrooms by ourselves, that I might be less inhibited if the men weren’t around. I wanted to do this, but I preferred to rationalize that we were just doing this so the men could get their jollies watching us, so I said, no, we would stay right there, which is the way it happened.

  We got undressed. For me, it was as if I was seeing Jan’s body for the first time, which was patently ridiculous, because ever since we had started swinging I had seen her body about as often as I saw my own. Now, though, I was seeing it as a love object, as a source of sexual pleasure and satisfaction, and this was something new.

  I was embarrassed beyond belief. I even felt strange being nude in front of Jan because of what we were going to do and the way she was looking at me. I was on the couch, and she came over and sat next to me and I felt unbelievably silly. She put her hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye and told me I was beautiful.

  I said she had a much better figure than I did. She said she liked the way I was built.

  Oh, it just seemed so ridiculous!

  When she kissed me, it was just too strange for words. Women, you know, kiss each other all the time, and it generally means no more than when men shake hands. But this was different, obviously, and it felt odd. Her mouth was so soft, and her aroma . . .

  I pushed her away and said that it was all just so silly. “You have to give it a chance,” she told me. She was very serious about the whole thing and her voice had an odd husky quality to it. Obviously she was already getting into the mood.

  I decided I just had to go through with it and that it would be best if I did everything I could to enjoy it. I asked for another drink and somebody brought it to me. I think it helped. Jan kissed me again, and this time I closed my eyes and told myself I would just pretend that she was a man making love to me.

  It started that way, in my mind that is, but it didn’t go on that way for very long. It was very confusing, very strange. I opened my mouth and she put her tongue inside. I found myself getting involved with the kiss. I don’t know how to explain this, it was very strange, very odd. On the one hand I was a woman and she was like a man kissing me, and at the same time I was a man making love to a girl. I was feeling both sets of emotions, not exactly both at once but alternating back and forth, first one way and then the other. Of course the fact that I was pretty well on the way to being drunk had something to do with it. It loosened me up and it made it easier for me to turn my mind off and let my body do whatever it wanted to do.

  We lay down on the couch. I was on my back with my eyes closed and she was on top of me kissing me. I felt her breasts pressing against mine and thought how odd it was. Odd but nice. I really enjoyed that, enjoyed the sensation.

  I was imagining how the two of us looked together. Seeing us in my mind.

  We lay there kissing for along time. She stroked my breasts and kissed them and sucked the nipples. I wanted to do this to her but I didn’t. Her touch was very sure. I remember that I was impressed by how soft her hands were. At one point I did actually take her breasts in my hands. I had impulses that made me want to do more than this, but I also wanted very much to remain as passive as possible and simply to experience the sensations and respond to them.

  She was arousing me by then. Definitely. But I couldn’t quite identify what I felt as sexual excitement because it was so different from what I had experienced with men. Completely different . . .

  • • •

  As she speaks, Paul leans forward in his chair to listen to her words carefully, his face mirroring the intensity of his concentration. He truly hangs on every word. Before, he had been somewhat detached, chiming in with observations and clever commentary, doing facial double takes for my benefit. Now he is too caught up in the flow of her narrative to behave in this fashion. It is almost as though he is trying to immerse himself in her words to the point where he will be able to recapture his original excitement at observing the two women together. Sheila, for her part, goes on talking with her eyes half-lidded, her voice halting as she searches now and then for just the right word to convey the particular nuance of the situation. I am reminded from time to time of psychiatric patients recalling the past under hypnosis.

  • • •

  SHEILA: Ultimately I became completely involved. Completely caught up in it. She went down on me. She got between my legs and started to eat me. I felt her hair brushing my thighs, her long hair. And her face was smooth on the inside of my thighs. Men have beard stubble, they’re scratchy, nice but scratchy, but she was soft, soft—

  She knew just what to do and how and when. She knew everything there was to know.

  God—

  Somewhere along the way I got lost. It all . . . I don’t know. Everything got lost and I forgot where I was or what was going on. It was just sex then, just passion. I got completely into it and completely out of myself, out of my situation. I came in colors, just oozing and exploding all over the place . . .

  PAUL: It was the most fantastic thing—

  SHEILA: And before it was completely over—I was still glowing and pulsing with it—and the two of them were on us. Jeff was with Jan and Paul was with me, getting on top of me and inside of me and absolutely fucking me like a mad stallion.

  PAUL: That’s a nice couth way to put it.

  SHEILA: It’s what you did. At first I didn’t want that. It was about the last thing I wanted, but then I got with it and went swinging off to the moon again.

  What a fantastic night.

  I wanted to return the favor, to do the same for Jan, but I still felt odd suggesting it. But later—you have to realize the effect that had on all of us, how it sent e
verybody’s passion soaring, to the point where we really balled incessantly for hours.

  PAUL: It was pretty extraordinary. I had what amounted to a permanent erection that evening. No matter what we did or how often, I never wanted to quit. Now that I think about it, it’s amazing I didn’t screw myself into the hospital, or have a stroke or something. That much sexual excess has to be physically dangerous.

  SHEILA: Well, you were younger then, dear.

  PAUL: You may think you’re kidding, but to be perfectly honest I’d be terrified to go through that kind of evening again.

  SHEILA: Do you think you could?

  PAUL: Probably not, and I’m just as glad, because I don’t think I would live through it . . .

  SHEILA: Later that same night we were all four on the floor in a catch-as-catch-can group grope. And then I had the chance to return the favor. I don’t think I actually planned it, but there was Jan and there I was, and I managed to get my mouth on her and give her a good frenching. I was being taken from the rear at the time by one of the men, and the other man was being sucked by Jan, so it was more a case of a real tangle than what you would call a real Lesbian thing. It was an orgy more than anything else, but it gave me a chance to get used to the idea of performing actively on a girl.

  JWW: Did you enjoy it?

  SHEILA: Enjoy it? I don’t think that really entered into it, as a matter of fact. There was too much else going on to compartmentalize it, for one thing, and also there was the fact that the evening was so highly keyed and we were all so sexed up that I probably could have had an orgasm by patting my tummy with a washcloth.

  PAUL: Don’t knock it—maybe it’s a kick.

  SHEILA: But I had wanted to do it, and I didn’t feel bad about doing it; and afterward I was glad I had done it to her. And I did make her come that way, which was exciting and gratifying for me. In that sense, then, you could say that I enjoyed it.

  • • •

  Another time, a weekday afternoon, I am again at the Gordon house. The two older children are at school, the youngest is taking a nap, and Paul is at work. Sheila and I sit together and she once again reminisces about her early experiences with Lesbianism. She is more detached this time, less involved with her memories.

  • • •

  SHEILA: Jan and I got much more intimately involved sexually than either of us intended. Much more deeply than Paul was ever aware, I think, although I didn’t consciously keep anything from him. But he couldn’t have understood quite how far it went. He knew that I wanted him all the time, and that I enjoyed sex with Jeff as well, and so I don’t think he could understand what Jan and I were caught up in.

  Part of what made it so exciting and fulfilling for me, I’m sure, was the forbidden-fruit thing. In a way everything else that we had done, all of the swinger games we played, all of the changes we worked on the one basic theme, were all just that—variations on a theme. They were just extensions of the basic sexual relationship that Paul and I had established long ago. Just variations on the basic man-woman thing and nothing more.

  I’m not knocking it when I say that, not by any means. But they weren’t as totally different as having sexual relations with another girl. That was utterly different, and it was even . . . oh, let’s say it was kinky in a different way.

  As an example, although I don’t know if this is a particularly good example or not, we could take the photographs. We weren’t as queer for pictures as some swingers are—my God, Paul and I have met people who literally get more of a thrill out of looking at pictures of what they’ve done than they do of the actual balling. We’ve had people say as much to us—and you’re left with the feeling that they only swing so that they can look at the pictures afterward. We weren’t any of us like that, but the Polaroid camera was a sort of fun toy and we did get a kick out of looking at pictures of ourselves in the act. Until you get used to it, it’s kind of bizarre to see yourself having sex. It takes a lot of getting used to.

  But it was one thing to see a picture of myself making love with Jeff or Paul, or even in a threesome, and it was another thing entirely to see a photograph of myself with Jan. Even if we weren’t doing anything all that wild. Even if it was just a picture, say, of one of us petting the other’s breasts or something.

  And this special excitement I felt with Jan scared the daylights out of me. I never said as much to Paul, and while I don’t keep it from him now, I would probably avoid stressing it so heavily if he were here now. Because he has always made light of this. He always turns it into a joke or asks me why I always want to do it with girls nowadays if I’m so scared of it. He simplifies the entire subject, and that’s not like him, he’s not by any means a simplistic person. I could probably figure out the reason for this, for his acting in an atypical way on this one subject. I could suggest that it’s a latent thing on his part, or a virility anxiety thing, I don’t know what, but to tell you the truth I’d just as soon not go into it. During the bad times, when not only our marriage but our whole lives and psyches seemed as though they were about to come apart at the seams, both Paul and I found ourselves looking perhaps too deeply into what made us tick. A little of this goes along way. I’m sure to a certain extent this sort of self-analysis is valuable, but I think after a point it becomes destructive and self-defeating. You can always find a dirty and unpleasant motivation for every human act, and it may be perfectly valid, but why dig out the unpleasant all the time? It’s not pollyannaish to avoid that kind of probing. It’s a simple matter of self-preservation. Look too closely at the way you are and you can very easily go insane or kill yourself or just fall apart. I may tend to exaggerate the dangers involved because of my own experiences, which God knows are enough to make me turn green at the thought of a psychiatrist’s couch. Remember, though, I did try to kill myself. Not once but twice, and they say three times is the charm, and it was really terrifying . . .

  To return to the situation with Jan, though, I think in retrospect that what was really scary about that relationship was the extent of it. How involved we were.

  Paul and I have never tried to become as close with another couple as we were with them, with Jeff and Jan. Partly, as I think we said, or Paul said, because that negated the idea of seeking variety, which is an integral part of swinging. But also because there is such a thing as getting too close, too involved. It’s hard enough to stand close, intimate involvement with one person in the framework of a marriage—that’s why so many people get divorces. It’s harder to be married to another couple as well.

  Yet the thing that makes me, personally, most anxious to avoid getting that close with another couple is the idea of the female relationship, like I had with Jan.

  JWW: I’m not sure I understand. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it was my impression that your current swinging includes Lesbian relations almost as a matter of course.

  SHEILA: That’s right.

  JWW: Then I don’t—

  SHEILA: Not as a matter of course. Only if both of us are in the mood, and if there’s a mutual attraction. But I would say that more often than not the conditions are right and it happens. Either as a part of some general scene or as a two-shot.

  JWW: Then what sort of female relations are you anxious to avoid?

  SHEILA: Oh, maybe I didn’t express myself clearly. I want to avoid—I have to avoid—not relations but a relationship. The closeness, the intimacy, the long-term nature of it.

  Jan and I were really too close before she made love to me. I suspect there was an undercurrent of homosexuality in our friendship from the beginning, don’t you think? Since she had had experience in this area before, and was drawn to me and knew enough, was experienced enough, to recognize this in herself. And of course swapping is supposed to have homosexual components. The idea of sharing your mate with another girl, you know, with your mate as a surrogate-self . . .

  Finally, with the original friendship and then the swapping and finally our becoming lovers, we were just involved with each othe
r in too many different ways. And the simple proximity element—she was always around, you see. Men go out of the house, they go to the office and see different people all the time, and there are loads of strangers around, and thus they get away from things. Women don’t. Women stay home with housework and children, and children may be a joy but they aren’t the best conversational companions, especially when they’re small. And housework doesn’t take all that much time unless you’re a fanatic, and as you can see I’m not a fanatic.

  So it got so that she was always in my kitchen or I was in her kitchen. Coffee and conversation every afternoon, five afternoons a week. And sometimes love. And this was just too many ways to know a girl, and too much of a good thing. She was a girlfriend and a mother and a daughter and a sister and a lover and a co-wife and my husband’s mistress and my lover’s wife—it was confusing.

  JWW: I see.

  SHEILA: I really don’t like the idea of making love on a weekday afternoon, just the two of us together without the men around. It felt like cheating, like adultery, which is a feeling swinging should not have. It bothered me.

  JWW: Then why do it?

  SHEILA: It felt good.

  JWW: Really?

  SHEILA: No, of course, that wasn’t the motivation. Of course not. I’m not like that. I suppose that would be hard for a civilian to understand. Hard for anyone to understand, perhaps. That a person can be an all-out swinger without being motivated primarily by a desire for physical pleasure as such.

  You want it, of course. That sweet, happy little tickle, you never outgrow wanting it, thank heavens. But if that was the main thing you wouldn’t need different people or different ways or anything. As far as that goes, you could use a candle in the bathroom.

  Of course it was the closeness that I needed, that we both needed. The woman-woman closeness which you can never have with a man, not as completely, not really. There is a very real qualitative difference.

  When I talk about this with Paul—I used to, I don’t any more—he seems not to understand. I don’t think he wants to understand.