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

by Lawrence Block

  It didn’t work. Oh, it wasn’t unpleasant. In a purely physical way it was enjoyable. For that matter, my sexual relations with my husband were still enjoyable at this stage. Later in the marriage that relationship deteriorated as well, but at the time it wasn’t that I failed to enjoy what my husband and I did in bed. It was just that somehow it wasn’t enough to satisfy me.

  Neither was the roll in the hay with his friend. Good, but not what I’d wanted. And then I said, fuck it, and made up an excuse and went down to the Village one night, a bar I’d hung out at years ago, and I ran into a couple of girls I had known before but had never had a thing with, and one of them cruised me gently and my knees buckled, and I knew I’d come home. I went to her apartment and it was fantastic. At this point, though, I wasn’t prepared to break up my marriage. It still seemed possible for me to preserve the marriage, and to have lesbian affairs on the side. I thought it was possible that I would be able to get this urge out of my system by giving into it from time to time, which is a little like breaking the tobacco habit by smoking a cigarette whenever you feel the urge for one. The more sex I had with women, the more impossible it became for me to be passionate with my husband.

  Anyway, we were going through a lot of changes in our marital relationship that didn’t have anything directly to do with sex. I think that even if I hadn’t had this special situation with bisexuality, we would have broken up before long.

  I drifted through a couple of affairs while the marriage went progressively to hell. Then I met a girl and the affair wasn’t so casual, and I saw her as often as I could and hated my husband for every minute I was forced to spend in his company instead of hers. And at that point it became inevitable. I moved away from him and moved in with her and a divorce was arranged.

  Shortly after that—oh, a couple of months, I guess it was—I began being attracted to men again.

  • • •

  If group sex is a sine qua non of swinging, then Erica cannot be properly termed a swinger. She has had a handful of experiences with group sex and has concluded that the scene is not for her.

  • • •

  It would seem like a logical answer, wouldn’t it? But—I don’t know whether it’s a matter of inhibition or what, but I can’t really get it on with more than one person at a time. Ideally, I like to be in love. Even when it’s not love, I want to be completely wrapped up in one other person and have that other person completely wrapped up in me.

  I was at what you’d probably call an orgy on one occasion, about twenty or twenty-five people all naked and rolling around on the floor. Guys with guys, guys with girls, girls with girls, all sorts of combinations. The public nature of all this was a turn-off. I don’t like to watch other people fuck, frankly. It turns me off. And if I want a man, oh, I don’t want any other women to be around. And if I’m drawn to a woman, the last thing I want near me is a cock.

  I guess I’ll just go on like this, at least as far as I can predict. It’s not as horrible now as it used to be, because I’m sufficiently aware of the pattern not to be thrown by it anymore. And I enjoy sex very much, and I enjoy most of the relationships I get involved in very much. They don’t last, but some of them have a good long present even if they don’t have a future, and in a sense nothing lasts, anyway. At least I enjoy myself most of the time.

  As far as how I feel about being bisexual, I don’t really know. I think there’s a great advantage for a person in being all one way or all the other. It makes your life simpler in certain important ways to have your options limited to that extent. It’s easier to determine who you are and to organize your life accordingly.

  This doesn’t mean that a person couldn’t be bisexual and have a successful marriage. I’m a special case in that respect, I’m riding this eternal pendulum, but for other people I know that it can work. And it’s possible I’ll get somewhat less compulsive in my own behavior as I get a little older, and I might be able to have some sort of permanent relationship with someone, male or female, however it turns out. I’m not sure it could happen, and I’m not sure it’s what I want, but I’m no longer absolutely convinced it’s unattainable.

  Paul

  The double life of the married solitary swinger comes easiest to the person who spends a large portion of his time away from home. The American businessman, a paragon of fidelity at home and an unabashed philanderer on the road, seems to be less the exception than the rule. Technology has changed the central figures of our sexual myths from traveling salesman and farmer’s daughter to traveling executive and stewardess, but the basic scenario runs about the same.

  It’s not terribly difficult to understand this. It’s far easier to remain faithful where infidelity carries heavy risks of exposure, much easier to commit adultery where no one knows your wife, or even that you have one.

  It would be stretching our definition of swinging, such as it is, to label every adulterous traveler as a swinger. But some closet swingers who lead their double lives on the road do fit the scope of this book, participating in group sex scenes away from home while maintaining monogamous lives otherwise.

  I know Paul only through correspondence. He is, as you will see, a man who enjoys going into detail in his letters, and at one point I became somewhat suspicious that he was inventing details of his sex life as a form of some sort of literary exhibitionism. (In a section of a letter not quoted here, he admitted that on paper; elsewhere, as you shall see, he mentions the satisfaction of being able to tell everything, if only through the impersonal medium of a letter.) But for a variety of reasons which I won’t bother to go into, I’m completely convinced that what he has written is the truth.

  Dear Mr. Wells:

  I have read several of your books, including your latest, Beyond Group Sex. I found this latest particularly impressive. You have handled some complex subjects with sensitivity, and in such a way as to suggest you have a sympathy for all people, whatever their sexual peculiarities.

  I have been interested in the practice of swinging and group sex for some time. As for myself, I am not sure as to whether or not I would properly be considered a swinger.

  I am thirty-eight years old, married, two children. I have a job with a plastics firm—you would no doubt recognize the name—which keeps me on the road a large portion of the time. It is during my road trips that I do my swinging, if indeed you would be inclined to call it such. By this I mean that I have had some involvement in group sex but that my wife is not at all involved.

  Frequently in your books you write about men who have tried to talk their wives into swinging with other couples, either with or without success. You have also made mention of men who state that they know their wives would not be interested in swinging. In my own case, to be honest, I do not really know whether or not my wife would swing, as we have never discussed it. My marriage relationship is fine just the way it is, as far as I am concerned. When I am at home I am a hundred percent faithful, and it could be said of me that I never look at another woman.

  Perhaps this makes me a hypocrite. I don’t know, and do not see it that way myself. It is my feeling that, when I am at home, my wife has a complete claim on my affection, and that she should be my whole sexual outlet. When I am a few hundred miles away, however, I am depriving my wife of nothing by having sex with another woman, as I could not have sex with my wife at that time and I see no way in which her ends would be served by my being deprived of sex entirely.

  Of course, I keep this a secret from her because I am sure she is better off that way. “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is an old saying, but that makes it no less true . . .

  Do you suppose my experiences would be of any interest to you or your readers? I realize there are probably thousands of men living the life I live, so I will not take offense if you are not interested. But if you think what I have to say would be of any value, I will gladly write and supply full details on any points you might wish clarified. Please write to me at my Post Office Box; for obvio
us reasons I can’t have personal correspondence directed to either my home or office! And do not be put off if I am some time in replying, as I am often out of town—and having a ball!

  Sincerely,

  Paul

  I replied affirmatively, suggesting that a great many men in Paul’s position have wanted to lead the sort of double life he described, but have had great difficulty in gaining entree to group sex activities. I wondered, too, whether his rationalization of committing adultery while away from home encompassed a willingness for his wife to do likewise.

  Dear Jack:

  I was glad to hear from you. To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect you to write . . .

  Sorry not to have replied sooner, but I have just returned from two weeks’ worth of travel throughout the Rocky Mountain states. I managed to attend two parties in that time, as well as to enjoy a couple of single girls, including one I met on my last trip to Denver. A little honey blonde with melon-like breasts and an insatiable appetite for cock—in this instance, my cock! While there is literally nothing this creature does not enjoy, she is especially fond of eating it, and who am I to deprive her of such pleasure? Especially when she does such a wonderful job at it. I have been sounding her out on the idea of attending a party with me, and I think she is going to go for it before too long. It is funny, Jack. This girl has the morals of a mink in heat, and knows it, but she is very nervous at the thought of being with more than one other person at a time. She says it seems decadent to her. To be honest, I didn’t think she knew the word. Here she is, with my cock halfway down her gullet, talking about decadence, and of course you know the old line—I wanted to tell her it wasn’t good manners to talk with her mouth full!

  But to get back to the points raised in your letter. Yes, I am well aware that there are a lot of men who want to get into group sex on their own and who are unable to do so. You bet I am aware of this, as for several years I was one of them! So that gives me an extra motive for this correspondence. Perhaps other fellows in the same boat will read of my experiences and learn how to make it all work for themselves.

  You also raise the point of my wife having sex while I am on the road, and how I might feel about this. Naturally, this is something I have considered myself. As a matter of fact, I have no way of knowing that she does not have a lover when I am on a road trip. As for my feelings, let me say this. If she is doing this, I would not want to know about it. I am sure that sounds hypocritical but that’s the way it is. I know I am not consistent on the subject. I do not say it would be a big deal for me to find out, I do not think I would be upset to any great extent, but I would prefer not to know about it, much as I am sure she would prefer not to know of my own swinging activities.

  Also, and perhaps I am just rationalizing, I think it would be more difficult for her to carry on and be discreet about it, as we live in a closely knit suburban community where everyone is an authority on everyone else’s business. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in the suburbs, but if you have you know what I am talking about. I don’t say that she couldn’t cheat on me without the neighbors knowing, but that she would have to be pretty shrewd and pretty lucky to get away with it. On the other hand, I do my dirty deeds far afield, so it is not just that she does not know about them, but that no one knows. As a matter of fact, the name I signed to my last letter—and that I’ll sign to this one as well—is not my own. It is the pseudonym I used to rent my Post Office Box and one by which I am known to the bulk of my swinging contacts. I even have a wallet full of false identification in that name . . .

  To get back to the subject of swinging, it is true as I said that I was interested in this long before I managed to get involved in it. This is not to suggest I was true to my wife all this time. Jack, I am sure there are men who are able to be faithful to one woman all their lives. I am simply not like this and could never be like this.

  I married at twenty-six and am thirty-eight now. I led the life of a carefree bachelor before marriage and had a great deal of sexual experience before marriage. My wife had very little previous experience; in fact, her only sex partner before me was her previous husband. She was married at twenty and divorced at twenty-two. I married her three years later. Our marriage was excellent from the start and has never been less than excellent, but after less than a year of marriage I realized I had made a mistake in thinking I could be faithful to her forever. At the start I had really believed this. I suspect most men believe this at the beginning, but sooner or later most of them learn different.

  Well, the only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow at the beginning was lack of opportunity. I was very concerned about doing anything and having my wife find out. I was also concerned about catching a disease from a prostitute, although even without this possibility I would not go to a prostitute, as I do not find the idea of sex with paid prostitutes exciting or attractive . . . Though I did engage in a flirtation with a girl at the office, and could have had her if I had decided to go ahead with it, I wisely decided to drop it before anything got started. (As far as I am concerned, any man who has an office affair is an idiot.)

  For all these reasons, nothing happened for another two years, when my job changed to put me on the road a great deal of the time. Before, I had not done any business travel. On my first business trip, all I could think of was that I had a perfect opportunity to get laid. It was just an overnight trip to a nearby city, and as luck would have it, I was unable to find anyone. But not long thereafter I was on another jaunt and dated a stewardess right off the plane. We went out to dinner, had a couple of drinks, and went straight back to my room, and she was a crazy little brunette, one-quarter Osage Indian, who liked nothing better than to fuck. I was more than happy to oblige her.

  I thought I might feel guilty about this but felt nothing of the kind. I felt wonderful about it with no guilt at all. It seemed to me that I had found the answer to my situation. No worries about discovery, because I was in a town where no one knew me. No worry about the girl making trouble, because she did not know my right name or my address. No worry about getting involved in an affair, because I would not be around long enough for that kind of involvement. Also, when the girl knows you are from out of town she does not expect more than a pleasant evening.

  I operated in this fashion for several years, Jack. A large number of the girls I met were stewardesses, and in many respects I grew to prefer them, as they generally know the score. Not that all of them are game for what I was looking for, but they know the score, as I said, and either will play or won’t and usually let you know early on. Sometimes, of course, I would have no luck with the girls on the plane, or none of them would appeal to me. In that case I would generally try a couple of logical places. First of all, the Holiday Inn, which is where I almost always stay. In the largest cities this may not be a good bet, but in the great majority of cities and towns it is the place to meet people, the place where all the local action is. This is for a very good reason. It’s where most businessmen on expense accounts stay, so it draws the girls who want to meet men of that sort. If the Holiday Inn was a washout, I might try the airport motel, which catered to flight crews, always a good place to meet stews looking for a good time. And, as time went by, I had established quite a few contacts, and I could call a girl up and tell her I was going to be in her town that evening, and what about getting together?

  At the risk of boasting, I’ll have to say that I have always been good at picking girls up, and at getting something started once I’ve picked one up. My business depends entirely on getting along with people, sizing them up quickly, and making a good impression upon them. As you can see, that’s much the same talent required in getting places with women. I don’t mean that I’m a Casanova. I take a sincere interest in any woman I’m making a play for and believe women sense this sincerity.

  I believe this is important not only for getting a woman into bed, but for getting her to express herself fully once you are in bed. The same woman will
be a lousy lay for one man and a great lay for another, and it doesn’t depend so much on being a great lover as it does on encouraging the girl to do everything she’s capable of. I could give you some suggestions on the subject if you think your readers would be interested . . .

  Well, that’s enough for one letter, I guess. Thanks again for your courteous reply, and let me know if this is the sort of information you want. If so, I’ll keep those cards and letters coming.

  Sincerely,

  Paul

  Dear Jack,

  Good to hear from you and glad you found my letter of value . . .

  Once again I’m back from a trip. And once again it was a ball, with plenty of balling! The highlight was the last night, and it’s a shame I didn’t have more time there, as I would have loved a repeat of it. Yours truly and two beautiful girls, a tall blonde and a short redhead. I believe the redhead’s hair coloring comes out of a bottle, but the blonde is the same sweet color everywhere . . . What made it all especially exciting was that the redhead had never been involved in a group scene before—in fact, she had never had anything to do with another woman. You wouldn’t have believed it, though, to see her slurping away at the blonde’s pussy as if she had been eating hair pie since the day she was born!

  Jack, that leads me right into the real point of my letter. I wrote you last time about bringing out a girl’s true personality in bed, and you were kind enough to ask my further views on the subject. Well, I’ll be glad to oblige.

  It’s my discovery that women are just like men in that they have fantasies of things they would like to do in bed. But getting them to own up to their fantasies is the problem. I discovered over the years, especially in my relationship with my wife, that encouraging a woman to tell you her fantasies and then helping her act them out not only gives her the best time she’s ever had in bed, but it also gives the man involved a hell of a ride.