Final planning and yet more sex.
Well after that evening we knew we had to do it.
The days were full of people ringing with their lists of invitees. We would take them and check them off against the master list to make sure that no-one else was going to invite them first. We also asked them to have a reserve list, which they could check at short notice if they got refusals.
We had a tricky timing problem now. It was about 7 weeks to the event, do we tell people immediately and hope that no-one gossips about it, or leave it to nearer the day and risk people being booked up.
We decided that it would be hard to free people up at short notice but compromised by printing out on a home computer the invitation which would say on the bottom, 'As a practicality please only discuss this party with the people who invited you. It is inevitable that if people gossip about it, expectations and gossip will soar and before you know it there will be some people who may know little about it but rumours, that will disapprove and will put pressure on us to cancel it. Others may be disappointed that they have not been invited. Discretion gets over both of these problems.'
The invite would give the reason for the party in big letters with the words 'give generously' just below it plus the date, time and venue. RSVPs by email please to speed the process along. Last but not least the dress code. 'Dress - to impress, and undress.'
The eight of us who were organising things did not have the opportunity to get together for another couple of weeks, so we arranged a couple of Saturday nights, the first in November and the week before the 'do'.
The invitations were out. And two weeks later we had not heard a word coming back to us through the grapevine.
The second wave of invitations had also gone out to replace people who had turned down the first one. We were delighted that without exception we understood that no-one had turned it down on moral grounds. A few couples on financial and some who were already booked up with things they really could not cancel.
I was quite surprised to note that a few early middle-aged couples had invited sons and daughters with their partners. It worried us enough to send around a note putting an age limit of 21 on the event.
That saved any problem over the alcohol being served but also kept it adult on a moral basis. It did mean that there were at least half a dozen attractive young girls being invited, so I was happy. Oh and their partners I guessed. That would keep the wives happy.
The eight of us met at our house on the Saturday in early November.
We laid out a table full of drinks, stocked the fridge full of beer and white wine and laid out another table full of snacks and little bites.
'This lot will have to keep you busy all evening,' Jane said. 'We have a lot to discuss.'
We started planning the evening, from soup to nuts, as someone described it.
Taxis would arrive between 7.00 and 7.15 and everyone had to be in the party room with a drink in their hand by 7.30.
I would be MC again and Evan treasurer. It would be his job for the first part of the night to collect any money due apart from the tickets, which would be paid in advance. He would also have to collect at a later date the money for auction prizes. Guests would be asked to bring with them enough money for raffle prizes. We would also circulate people in advance and ask for suitable gifts for the auction. The tickets would be sold as they first walked in the door so that they did not have to keep a lot of money on them. We would also take signed IOUs, and ask their hosts to collect the money later.
The next thing was the un-dressers. How would that work?
We had agreed to auction the positions of un-dressers. As MC I would start it off to show everyone what would happen. The logic would be that four highest bidding men and four women would buy the opportunity to undress twelve other people. I would stay up on stage to hurry things along.
I would first auction the places and select one each of the buyers. They would help undress each other and then another eleven of the opposite sex, at the same time as each other. Lets face it all the men will be watching the undressing of the ladies and the ladies will all be watching the men. It would speed things up to have it happen at the same time. We didn't want to be doing it all night. We would be allocating table places and the undressers would, effectively, undress the opposite sex on their table and one other. Coat hangers and coat racks would be supplied to take the clothes. We would then hand over to the next pair of bidders and so on down the line. We would leave an hour for undressing and if it was quicker than that we would have some silly games ready. Drinks would be self-service at all times from a bar at the end of the room. The meal would be organised for 8.45 to give everyone a chance to sit down.
We had changed the layout so that there were eight long tables of twelve. Jane would do a table plan available at the door. Each of the dozen original chosen couples had invited another three couples each. Eight people. That meant that every one of that eight could be seated on a separate table, making the flirting easier. There would be no worrying that your partner, or any of your invited guests might be sitting next to you. For the undressing I would ask people to come up in their tables, two tables at a time, twelve men, twelve women, twenty four in all. I would have men to one side of the stage, girls on the other and get them to come up one by one to the middle. I would just have to hope that there was one auction buyer from each pair of tables. It was never going to happen exactly like that so after eleven I would pass the last one over to someone else and let them join up with their table a moment or two later.
It had been decided that there was to be no choice of starter so the Parma ham and melon starters would be on the tables to start with and everyone would queue to serve themselves their choice of main meals and desserts. The men on each table would be responsible for keeping the wine and soft drinks flowing on the tables.
Kay who was pretty musical would provide an MP3 player to plug into Georgio's amp and speakers with dance music, starting two fast and one slow, merging into eventually one of each and then all slow. The music would finish at twelve thirty, taxis to arrive no later than 1.00.She would provide another MP3 of background music for the stripping and over dinner. We would need no more than three hours of dance music with the last hour and half all slow.
Sue would organise the raffle and solicit prizes. Raffle tickets would be sold strictly in the first half hour while people were dressed and the raffle drawn quietly, but by a couple of people who had not been on the organising committee, while the dancing was taking place. Prizes would be collected from a table by the door on the way out.
The last item we had to discuss was the auction of promises.
We needed to keep it fairly short so as not to take up too much of the evening, but if it was done right it could be a big money spinner.
It was probably around midnight before we got our teeth into the problem.
It had been suggested that we ask each of the dozen couples if they could come up with an auction promise.
'The problem with that,' said Frannie, 'is that we will not be able to stop lame prizes being offered.'
'Or maybe even downright perverted ones,' said Evan. 'Can you imagine pulling one of the prizes and telling the donor that it was perverted. Suppose I offered to bath a family's children every night for the next week and they had a ten year old girl.'
We laughed but I did start to worry, less about the prize than about Evan.
'The other way,' I said, 'is if we offered eight prizes, one from each of us. What about that? Would we all be happy to do something?'
They mulled it over quietly.
'I guess I would,' said Frannie 'providing it wasn't too outrageous. I wouldn't offer to be a sex slave for a week.'
Three of us desperately started scrabbling for money, shouting out numbers, one thousand dollars and then two thousand dollars.
Frannie laughed. 'Dream on guys, for Brad Pitt maybe, for you guys it would have to be a lot more than that.'
'Well how about we come up with eight prizes that we can all agree on, four for the girls and four for the boys and each draw one out of a hat to see who does it,' said Jane.
We thought about it and agreed that this was the only logical solution. It had the added advantage as none of us were particularly rich, that we did not have to be seen bidding for our own prizes.
We came up with a few suggestions like gardening in the nude but could find nothing that we were all comfortable with. Still we had seven weeks.
