Sex Without Strings: A Handbook for Consenting Adults (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior)

by Lawrence Block

  Your good friend,

  Marv

  Kate

  In the preceding chapter, Marv writes of Pat, a woman who more or less has her husband’s permission to swing. This is by no means uncommon, nor is it rare for the permission to have an element of more-or-less about it. Often the permission is given because a couple has tried swinging and one party has found it unsatisfactory in one way or another while the other party has enjoyed the experience. The attitude of do what you want but leave me the hell out of it amounts to a compromise, and sometimes a viable one.

  In other instances, essentially orthodox couple-with-couple swinging has led to a less structured open-marriage arrangement. One young woman, who swings quite frequently with her husband, suddenly decided that there was no reason why she should be sexually deprived during her husband’s frequent extended business trips. She discussed this with him and was told, a bit reluctantly, to go ahead and enjoy herself, and has certainly done so; she does not limit herself to times when he is absent but also slips out for an occasional afternoon at a motel when her husband is at the office. I have not met the husband and cannot say with assurance how he feels about this; my impression is that he’s not crazy about it.

  Kate’s an example of another sort of arrangement. She has not only her husband’s permission to swing as a single but his active encouragement. Because she and her husband share a particular enthusiasm for troilism, specifically for threesomes composed of two women and a man, Bob happily sends his wife off to swing with another couple—and can look forward to having his wife and the other wife in his bed on a future occasion.

  Kate is twenty-eight or twenty-nine, with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes that give a vaguely Oriental cast to her face. Her hair is dark and cut short. She is a tall girl with a fine figure, although she talks frequently about wanting to lose ten or fifteen pounds. I cannot imagine why, or from where. She’s a former nurse. Her husband sells medical supplies to hospitals and clinics. They’ve been married six years and have two small children.

  • • •

  Bob became interested in swinging very early in our marriage. At the same time he was a little unsure about it, and, for that matter, so was I. Actually, we had both had quite a bit of experience before we were married. I guess I had slept with about a dozen men before I met Bob, and he had had a great deal of experience. He’s eight years older than I am, so you can figure it out, he was over thirty when we got married, and he led a life right out of Playboy magazine.

  So the idea of having sex with another man didn’t shock me the way it shocks so many wives when they first consider it. Or when their husbands first suggest it. As a matter of fact, I had wondered before we were married whether it could possibly be enough to sleep with just one man for the rest of my life. We were open about this; we both talked about our concerns on that score.

  The idea of swinging fascinated me from the beginning, but I was still very nervous about it. One thing, it all seems so stylized, so mechanical—you sleep with my wife and I sleep with yours, that whole bit—and also the idea of going to bed with strangers, people you may not have anything in common with outside the bedroom . . . well, it all seemed a little off-putting to me.

  Those elements still seem off-putting, actually, but in anything you have to take the bad with the good and weigh them together and make your decision, and for all the contrived aspect of swinging, for us the good very much outweighs the bad.

  Our early swinging experiences were both good and bad. It was an education. I guess it is for everybody. The educational aspect, it was not just finding out what goes on but finding out what we liked and didn’t like. For instance, we found out immediately that we did not like large gatherings. We made our first contacts at a swingers’ bar in Manhattan and one of our first times we were invited to a party out on Long Island. We went, and there were about a dozen couples there, which isn’t even considered a large party by people who go in for mob scenes, but as far as we were concerned it was ridiculous. There were men I had sex with that night whose names I did not even know. I had been introduced, I guess, but how can you meet twenty strangers all at once and remember all their names? The whole thing made me feel like a whore. It was very impersonal and I didn’t like it, and Bob felt the same way.

  There was one thing, though, one thing that happened at the party, and it made a tremendous difference in our lives. There were two women having sex together. They were bisexual, obviously, and they were making it with each other right in the living room so anybody who wanted to watch could. I didn’t really see much because it frankly made me uncomfortable just standing there and staring at them, and I wasn’t cool enough to not stare at them, so I went to another room. But Bob watched the whole thing and got terribly excited and screwed one of them as soon as they had finished their performance. I don’t know if it was what she had in mind, but I think Bob would have raped her if he had to, he was that turned on by the whole thing. He got excited by remembering it later that night when we were home, and he got me excited, and we had a very nice time, screwing like minks.

  It was afterward that Bob told me his ultimate fantasy was to have two women at once. Now, that’s not the most unusual fantasy in the world. I think it’s harder to find a man who doesn’t have that fantasy. And as he fantasized it, both the girls would be completely bisexual. And I would be one of them, of course.

  I’m trying to remember just how I felt about this when he told me. I know I was shocked, but I don’t think I was all that terribly shocked. What went through my mind really was that I just didn’t think I would enjoy it.

  I had never had what you could honestly call a homosexual experience. There was one time before I met Bob when I was nursing at St. Vincent’s and I was sharing an apartment with a girl on Jane Street. I had not known her before. She had an apartment to share and I answered her ad and that’s how I came to know her.

  There was one night when the two of us went to bed together. But it wasn’t actually sexual because nothing really happened. The problem was that she was terribly depressed, she had just broken up with her boyfriend, she was being hassled by her parents—anyway, to make a long story short, she was very down in the dumps and we both drank a lot of Chianti and went to bed separately, and then she came into my room and said she couldn’t sleep, she was too uptight, and could she get in bed with me.

  It didn’t occur to me to think of this as sexual at the time because I knew this girl, I knew she had just finished having an affair with a guy, so I knew she couldn’t be a lesbian. The possibility that she was bisexual did not occur to me because I didn’t understand the whole concept of bisexuality. I thought everybody was all one way or all the other. Now I’ve come to the conclusion that everybody is basically bisexual and it’s just a question of whether or not your hang-ups keep you from expressing the full spectrum of your sexuality.

  Anyway, on that occasion, as I said, nothing really happened. She cuddled up next to me, and I put my arms around her and comforted her a little when she started crying. And then for a while she put one hand on my breast. I was wearing a nightgown. I think at that stage I was beginning to get the slightest bit uneasy about the whole thing, but I had also had quite a bit to drink and wasn’t at my very all-time sharpest, myself. She didn’t do anything more and after a while I guess she got up and went to her own room, because she wasn’t there when I woke up the next morning.

  I don’t know if you would call that a bisexual experience or not. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but it came to my mind when Bob brought up the subject. He insisted I tell him about it, and he said the fact that I wasn’t turned off by her touching me, that I didn’t have an unpleasant reaction, probably indicated that I had the potential to be bi.

  For a while it was just something to think about, because nothing happened. We would always state that we were both strictly heterosexual, so even if a woman we met was bi she would know not to bring the matter up. Then eventually we were with
a couple we had swung with on a few previous occasions, and I think Bob said something about female bisexuality, I guess to the effect that he found it exciting. The other couple exchanged glances, and the woman admitted that she was bisexual on occasion, with a woman that was her type.

  I watched her face as she told me this, and I remember being both embarrassed and excited, because from the eye-contact she was giving me I knew she was indicating that I was her type, and that she would like to ball me.

  I had a lot of hesitancy on the subject. First of all, there was the hang-up of doing something abnormal. Not that I mean I think bisexuality is abnormal, because I don’t, and not even that I thought so at the time, but when you’re brought up to regard anything other than heterosexuality as perverted, it’s hard to overcome those inhibitions. Of course, it seems to be much harder for men. When we first started swinging Bob got uncomfortable in the presence of other naked men. He didn’t want to look at their genitals and he didn’t want not to look, and all in all he found their presence inhibiting. In fact, he preferred closed swinging at first for primarily that reason. He decided he would rather be in another room with the wife of the other guy than be in a room where there was another male. He’s very able to intellectualize on the subject and understand his hang-ups, but the thought of any sexual contact with another man puts him off completely. I’m sure that’s a major factor in his preferring threesomes to foursomes, although there’s surely more to it than just that.

  I’m getting ahead of myself. To get back to the evening I was telling you about, I had that hang-up to overcome, and I also was not sure I could go through with the physical act of going down on another woman. I knew what it tasted like because naturally I had now and then touched myself and licked my fingers, and I never thought of it as a displeasing taste, and more or less figured that somebody else’s wouldn’t taste all that different from my own. But I just wasn’t sure I could do it. I figured I could let another woman do me, but it seemed tacky to not want to do it to her in return.

  You could say my feelings were very mixed. Through all the thinking about it, and Bob with his fantasy and everything, I had a really strong urge to do it, if only to find out what it was all about. Also, although I was a little reluctant about eating pussy, I had had it done to me so many times by guys, and I was curious as to what it would be like to do it. The act itself held this fascination for me, in addition to the more special idea of crossing the line and actually having physical intimacy with a woman. In other words, I was interested by both the concept of sex with a woman and the concept of getting physical with a cunt.

  Well, as it happens, I did go through with it that night. I wanted to put it off and take time to think about it, and I suggested that, but Bob asked me what the hell I wanted to wait for, and his encouragement made the difference. I also would have preferred to go off in private with her. I knew Bob wanted to watch, and I knew it would excite me to have him observe me, as I have a certain amount of exhibitionism in my make-up, but I wanted the first time to be by myself, or rather just me and the woman, I guess because of embarrassment or something at the prospect of actually doing it.

  It was really terrific. Much much better than I expected. All I really expected was that it would be interesting, and that the men would be so excited that the fucking afterward would be wonderful. I got a surprise. First of all, whatever my mental reservations, I had no physical reservations at all. My body liked what was happening to it. The first thing she did was kiss me, a regular open-mouth tongue kiss, and I think if I had known she was going to do that I would have been uptight about it. But she did it before I had time to think of it, and it seemed perfectly natural to me to kiss her that way, and it was really very nice. Woman are always kissing each other on the cheek and all, but this was a frankly sexual kiss and it worked.

  Everything she did worked. We didn’t have any clothes on to take off, and she began touching my body and stroking me, handling my breasts, and I responded fully. And I discovered that instead of being reluctant to take an active role I particularly wanted to take an active role. It was very nice to have her touch my breasts, certainly, but it was far more interesting to touch her breasts. I had never touched a woman’s breasts before. I think it’s very natural for the breast to be regarded as beautiful and fascinating by both men and women. I wanted to touch her tits, then I wanted to kiss and suck them, and then I knew I wanted to do everything there was to do.

  Basically, in a bi scene I am more interested in doing than being done. Of course, I enjoy both parts of it, but the major excitement for me consists of playing with a girl and eating her up and make her come. This is less true in heterosexual scenes, but with another woman I get more pleasure out of her orgasm than I do out of my own. And that’s saying a great deal. I’m a very sexual person and I have orgasms readily and I enjoy the hell out of them. This woman made love to me, which is to say she ate me, and it was wonderful, but I held back a little because what I really wanted was to be eating her and finding out what it was like. As soon as I had come I told her it was my turn now and we changed positions on the bed. She lay on her back and I crouched down between her legs and had her.

  I really liked it. She had a very nice taste to her. In fact, I always like the way women taste. In my experience, swingers are invariably clean and hygienic. They always bathe before going out for the evening, and in fact some of them at the larger parties dash into the shower every time they have sex.

  So I went down on her, and apart from being exciting, it was very interesting to do it. Because this was something I had had done, by her and by any number of men, and I knew what I liked, and it was interesting to do to her what I liked to have done to me.

  That’s another thing about bisexuality. In certain ways it’s a lot like making love to yourself. This is something I’ve found especially in sixty-nine. I’ll be eating another woman while she’s eating me, and it’s like the whole thing is a perfect closed circle, as though my cunt is feeling what my own mouth is doing. I don’t know if I’ve explained that too perfectly, but I think you must know what I mean. While I was doing her, her husband came around behind me and began to fuck me. At the time I really wished he would cool it, although I usually like that combination. But this was my first time and I didn’t want any distractions in the shape of a rigid penis. I think a rigid penis is one of the nicest possible distractions, ordinarily, but at the time I wished he had kept it to himself.

  As far as I was concerned, that was it, I was converted. Now a lot of girls have had a similar experience and enjoyed it in the same way and afterward in the next couple of weeks they have a lot of second thoughts. Quite a few women have told me this. It didn’t happen this way with me. I honestly never had second thoughts.

  I think the husband’s attitude has a lot to do with it. I think that even when a husband finds bisexuality exciting in a woman, and even if he’s the one who talks her into it, he still may find himself wondering if he hasn’t made a mistake and worrying that his wife enjoys girls more than she enjoys him. Bob did not have this worry, or if he ever did he kept it to himself. And it’s odd, because in a way he is jealous when I’m with another man. Not exactly jealous, and not worried that I’ll meet somebody who’ll turn out to be a better lover, but he certainly prefers threesomes to foursomes, because he would just as soon be the only man in the room.

  But when I’m with a woman there’s no jealousy at all. As far as he’s concerned, bisexuality is the sign of a more highly sexed woman. It’s not just that it turns him on. He approves of it. And I would tend to think that had a lot to do with my not having any second thoughts.

  • • •

  After Kate embraced bisexuality wholeheartedly, the pattern of her swinging remained more or less the same, with the added bisexual element. She and her husband would see other couples, contacting them either through the mail or, increasingly, through referral by mutual friends. Gradually both of them decided that what they really wanted was a
threesome with another woman.

  • • •

  We decided on this quite a while before we managed to arrange anything. You know how it is—there are so many ads placed by couples looking to swing with single girls and so few by single girls looking for couples. Probably two out of three ads nowadays are couples advertising to swing with “couples or single girls.” We did answer a couple of ads placed by single girls but none of them panned out. I suppose they already had more action than they could handle.

  One evening we were seeing a couple we were friendly with, and the subject came up, and it turned out that they were in the same position more or less. They also would have preferred a trio with an extra girl but had trouble arranging them, although they had done it several times. Half jokingly I said we could make a pact—the other wife could swing with me and Bob one night while her husband stayed home and worked on his stamp collection, and I would visit them sometime while Bob stayed home and built a model airplane.

  I really didn’t expect anybody to take it seriously, I don’t think, but to my surprise all three of them thought it was a great idea.

  So we decided to do it.

  We made a date for a week later, and I have to tell you that it was comical to me the way Bob and I were so excited about it in anticipation. I say it’s funny because we had swung with this couple several times, Bob had fucked her and I had had sex with her and we had all done just about everything but swing from the chandelier. The only element of novelty was a negative one in that her husband was not coming along. I realized at the time that this was funny but it didn’t change the fact that our anticipation was really at a high pitch.

  The evening lived up to expectations. You know, I would have trouble explaining why it is, but a threesome is just more exciting than a foursome. To me and to Bob, that is. I can understand why it might be so for Bob, the thrill of being the only man with two women, and also any hang-ups that the presence of a second man might cause are not present. And I suppose my reaction could possibly be explained by my picking up his vibrations. But I think there’s more to it than that, and I don’t pretend to understand all of it.