Elements of this story could qualify it to be in Group, in Erotic Couplings, or perhaps some other category. I put it in Novels or Novellas because there it doesn't tell the reader what the focus of the story may be. If you are reading it after 28 Sept. 2011 you are reading a revised version of the story. As always I encourage feedback, especially feedback that may help me improve as a writer.
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I just wanted to make things better for my family. When Shanna and I'd been married five years we managed to buy a house. Not a big house. Not even a new house. Three bedrooms, two baths with a good sized back yard, a lemon tree, and a two car garage. The year we bought that house I realized the universe pays attention to what people do. I'd heard the old saying that nature abhors a vacuum. I'd heard it tied to the other saying I first heard at church. The Devil has work for available hands. They made the two sayings mean that we ought to always be doing something good or the Devil will find something to fill the time and or space.
When we bought our house we bought a three bedroom house. We only needed one. Practical, levelheaded people would have closed two bedroom doors and left them closed. We thought having three bedrooms prepared us, in case someday we decided to have kids. In the midst of moving in we had fun in our new home and that included having sex in every room of the house. More than once!
We began moving in on September seventh. We painted every room, bought used furniture so none of the rooms would be empty, and had our own private sex parties in every room. On October twenty-eighth I came home from work to find a candle lit dinner on the table and Shanna all dressed up, beaming like she had won the lottery.
We were pregnant.
The very next October I came home from work and found a candle lit dinner on the table and Shanna standing beside the table, holding our five-month-old daughter in her arms. She was smiling, wearing the same red dress she had worn the year before and together they gave me the news; Nature had filled all our bedrooms. Jake was born May sixteenth the next year. Eight days after we celebrated Lynn's first birthday.
That October I was a bit concerned on the drive home each day. We'd filled the bedrooms. I didn't need or want a candle lit dinner. I had joked with Shanna that the candles were the cause of pregnancies, not our oft repeated sexual antics. The candlesticks didn't show up at dinner. In fact they never were seen on our dinner table again.
Jake was born seventeen years ago. Long and lean is how I'd describe him now. I'd say handsome but that would be a proud Dad saying it. Instead I'll just say he never lacks for attention from the young women at school, church or anywhere he goes. Lynn is now eighteen. She eased into puberty at about ten and by twelve was being mistaken for a high school cheerleader. They both are athletic looking and very healthy. Lynn loves wearing her strawberry blond hair in a ponytail and walking so it swings.
Our neighbors, for all those years, were Wally Clarke and his wife Carolyn. They had the house next door. They had the house all the kids in the neighborhood loved. It wasn't the same as our house.
Oh, it was built by the same builder, at the same time and almost the same floor plan as ours. But Wally hated cutting grass and pulling weeds. Wally put in a pool in his back yard. He became the favorite adopted Uncle of every kid in the neighborhood. He taught all the kids how to take care of the pool and how to swim. He was willing to supervise the kids in the pool almost any day. He got the sounds of laughing, happy children around him and he never had to cut the grass. What tiny bit of grass he had in his front yard one of the neighbor kids willingly cut for him. Often that kid was Jake.
The year Lynn turned eight and Jake seven Wally made some changes at his house. The law in our area requires that any backyard with a pool be fenced with at least a six-foot fence. When Wally had the pool put in he had it fenced with a cinder block fence. In April of the year Lynn turned eight a crew arrived and extended the wall up. It became a ten-foot high wall. It was topped with broken glass imbedded in mortar. Wally did not want anyone crawling over that fence!
He had meetings with all the kids who used the pool and their parents. He let us know what the change was all about.
"Last summer, in my brother's neighborhood, some kids didn't want to wait for him to get home to go swimming. They climbed his fence and went swimming. A ten-year-old drowned. My brother decided to fill in his pool with dirt. He had to go to the funeral of a kid he loved. I don't want anything like that to happen here. No one goes swimming without a Lifeguard present. At the moment I'm a certified lifeguard and so is Carolyn. That means either we supervise or no one gets wet."
We got the message. He even put up a sign in the pool area saying no one was allowed in the pool without a lifeguard present. Then he added one more change. From noon on Sunday until three in the afternoon on Monday there would be no one under eighteen allowed in the pool area or in their house.
Lynn's birthday that year was on a Sunday. She asked Wally if she could have her party at his house. He said yes, if the party was on Saturday. Sundays were now adults only days. She agreed. The party was great and everyone had a great time. On her actual birthday our family of four went to Disneyland.
Shanna and I were invited to a pool party for adults on the first Sunday of that June. We made the proper arrangements for child care for Lynn and Jake and went to the party. Wally grilled salmon, burgers and steaks. Carolyn made a great salad and ten adults enjoyed an afternoon and evening without children. Our conversations were about children, about work, about money and about the future. Two weeks later we were invited again.
At least once a month Shanna and I were invited to the adult pool parties at Wally and Carolyn's. The list of participants changed almost every time. We enjoyed the adult-to-adult time together and looked forward to the gatherings. Up until the adult parties started Shanna had two swimsuits. By the end of that summer she had four.
As the weather cooled in November Wally turned on the heater and we swam in warm water. His skill at the barbecue increased and our meals together were very enjoyable. The Sunday after Thanksgiving was to be another change.
We were invited for dinner for the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving. Just Shanna and me. Carolyn made lasagna and a salad. We ate and cleaned up much as we usually did when we ate together, except the kids were not included.
After dinner we sat in their family room. Wally began the meat of the evening by saying, "I'll bet you've been wondering what's going on. Well, it's time you learned."
Carolyn took over. "Wally and I love having all the kids around. We put in the pool more for them than for us. In the last couple of months we've had an experience that got us both thinking. We went with my sisters to an event in Las Vegas."
Shanna interjected, "They live in Vegas, don't they?"
Carolyn and Wally both nodded as Carolyn continued, "At that event over three hundred people had a pool party at a hotel. There was food, music, dancing, swimming and no kids."
"We had a great time." Wally said, "And since there were no kids around the party got a little more adult."
Carolyn added, "What Wally's saying is that some of the swimsuits disappeared. Many of the women went topfree and many of the men went naked."
"Topfree?" Shanna asked.
"They were bare chested." Wally said, smiling.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yes! At first we were a little shocked, but the longer we stayed the more we liked the environment. The adult nature of it. By that evening we were both participating."
"Hold up." I said. "If this is going where I think it's going you're inviting us to a pool party where being naked or topfree is going to be Ok. Right?"
"The first Sunday of every month from now on our adult pool party will be clothing optional." Wally said.
"And you are invited." Carolyn added.
"And the party this Sunday?" Shanna asked.
"Everyone invited to this Sunday knows about the first Sunday parties. If everyone at this Sunday agrees then this Sunday could be clothing optional." Wally said.
Carolyn said, "Let me clarify. Clothing optional means that people can be clothed or naked or partially naked as they choose. Someone can come to a first Sunday party and stay clothed. It will be Ok."
