How We Got Involved in Swinging - Part 3

Things continued along as they had for the previous 3-4 years until about mid 2000. By this time, I had discovered computers and the Internet, and was surfing the web like most everyone else I knew. I discovered various local 'groups' online that catered to swingers, and we chatted with several people that way. We had also met our good friend through Lin's job by this time (I'll call him Tim for purposes of discussion.) Tim told us about this local on-premise swinger's club, where people were welcome to make use of a special 'party room' for sexual play. Of course that intrigued both of us. We got directions to the club and went a couple of times, but we just watched and never participated. To be honest, we were both too scared to do anything if we had been invited to.

If you've noticed, up until now, I've never mentioned another woman being involved in our extra-marital sex play. There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, the primary focus of our whole exploration of polyamory was Lin, and her fantasies. Second, I just wasn't interested in another woman. Oh sure, I looked at other women - every man does. But I was more than happy with our sex life together, and still am. I had never tried to get Lin to consider another woman, because that just wasn't what we were looking for. One thing we discovered, however, was that it seemed that the overwhelming majority of people we met online, or found in local swinger's ads were couples looking for couples, or that elusive single bi female. Sure there were several single males looking to get involved with women and couples, but we also discovered that the majority of them were actually married, and were just looking for 'a little on the side,' and didn't care how they got it. We heard every kind of sob story imaginable, and a few that weren't even imaginable, to justify their cheating. We really became quite disillusioned, and rather disgusted with the whole ordeal. We continued to go to the swinger's club, but we only watched other couples, and never participated with anyone other than each other. Eventually we relaxed enough to actually have sex with each other there while other people watched.

It was about this time that I started chatting with a man online who lived in a city about 3 hours away from us. He seemed like a nice guy, and Lin found him to be attractive, based on the pictures he sent us. He was very up front with us about everything, and told us that he was indeed married, that they were both swingers (I'll call them Fred & Ethel for purposes of discussion.) He told us that he did indeed have permission to play alone when he was in our city, and had done so several times. This whole topic of discussion soon led to the possibility that I would play with another woman. At about the same time, during one excursion to that swinger's club, we bumped into a woman I worked with, and her husband. We spent quite a bit of that evening talking about life, the universe, and everything (not to mention the 'oh my God, what are you doing here' factor) but we didn't get together.

Lin and I realized that my playing with another woman was becoming a real possibility if we continued on the way we were going. This led to our backing off from all of our extra-marital activities for a while and re-assessing our relationship, wants, desires, fantasies, and feelings. I never pressured her in any direction, one way, or another. Truth be told, I was too busy evaluating my own feelings about the subject.

At first Lin was dead set against it, and I was fine with that. Over the course of about a month, however, she started to change her mind on her own. I had changed jobs during this time, so I didn't see that co-worker of mine 4 times a week anymore, but Lin was still uncomfortable with me being with her. She was more concerned with the woman becoming emotionally involved with me, and wanting me to come over to her house for play while Lin was gone, than anything else. While I reassured Lin that would never happen, she didn't want to get to the point where it could ever even come up, let alone happen. I was fine with that.

One evening, I got an IM from Fred & Ethel, telling us they were coming to our town to do some Christmas shopping at one of the big malls here, and they wondered if we'd come to meet them over sodas in the food court (they were bringing their 3 teen-aged children with them, so things had to remain innocent.) Lin and I talked it over for a bit, and we told them that we'd love to meet them. We met this couple, and their kids, and hit it off immediately. They were genuinely a great couple, and ones we would have loved to hang out with on a social basis if we all lived closer together. By the end of that evening (we chatted while their kids shopped) we were all completely relaxed with each other, and were talking like we had been friends for years. On our way home later that night, Lin shocked the holy hell out of me by saying, "Now HER I would have no problem with you being with." I almost wrecked the car.

We talked about it the whole way home, and the next day. We then dropped the subject for a couple of weeks to give ourselves time to sort out our feelings. One weekend, after the New Year, Lin told me that she had decided that she'd be interested in the 4 of us getting together. She decided that her main problem with getting together with anyone who lived close by was the possibility of emotional involvements. She figured that since Fred & Ethel lived 3 hours away, that was enough distance between us all that it wouldn't be a factor. Once we were both certain that we really wanted to do it, I called Fred and talked to him on the phone. We made arrangements to drive to their town and rent a hotel room, then call them to invite them over. We did, and we did - then we did it.

On the way home the next day, we were both quiet at first. Then we both started talking at the same time - it was actually rather comical. By the time we got home, we both decided that we'd had a good time, and that things were not only still fine between us, they were wonderful. Lin told me that she was nervous right up until the time I first crawled under the covers onto the bed with Ethel. After that, she said something that surprised me - she told me that she hadn't felt any jealousy at all, and was in fact kind of proud of me. When I asked her what she meant by that, she told me that she had listened to us on the other bed (our room had had 2 queen sized beds,) and heard all of Ethel's reactions to what I was doing. She said that the fact that I could give Ethel that kind of pleasure made her proud that she was married to me. I took the compliment with a bit of embarrassment, but accepted it just the same.