Dawn and I had got ourselves into a surreal conversation with another couple at an open air gig for a local band, a conversation that ended up with us arranging to meet at the weekend for a sexy get together. We weren't intending to be wife swapping, well probably not anyway, but to have same room sex and to watch each other doing it. We'd found out, somehow during the conversation, that none of us had ever done that before and yet all of us thought it would be a thrill to try, so the arrangements were made.
Saturday seemed a long time in coming. By then we'd gone over and over what happened in the park, both in our minds and in discussion with each other, just to be sure we were comfortable as individuals and as a couple. We had to be absolutely sure that having other people involved wouldn't harm our relationship.
I suppose a big part of it was showing off. I wanted other people to see the beautiful woman that I made love to every night, and see the pleasure that I experienced and go away suitably jealous. It sounds silly, but I wanted others to want her and envy me because I'd got her. We also, both Dawn and I, wanted to push at our horizons a bit, to try things we hadn't, even things we shouldn't, to get maximum enjoyment from sex. Dawn summed it up best.
"Look darling." She said to me finally. "We're involving other people in our sex life, not in our love life. It's for physical thrills, not emotional ones."
We were happy with that, and when we woke up Saturday morning we were both in a state of high nervous excitement.
As the morning wore on we became more and more nervous, scared even. Not because we didn't want to do the things we'd arranged, but because we were so new to it that we'd no idea how to get things going, and Eddie and Ros had said that they hadn't done anything like this before either.
We weren't even sure what we should be wearing to greet them, or even sure that they would actually turn up. In the end we stayed dressed as we were, jeans and sweat shirts.
We had an early lunch. Mostly because we were too nervous and fidgety to relax and wait, and then we sat and fidgeted some more afterwards.
"Andy?" Dawn asked me as we sat drinking coffee. "How come I'm scared shitless and yet I can still have a wet pussy?"
"I don't know, darling." I told her. "But I've got an erection that keeps going up and down like Groucho's eyebrows."
I don't know what made me think of the Marx brothers, but the imagery made her smile anyway.
Eventually we heard a car crunch over the gravel of the drive and we knew our guests had arrived. What happened now was down to us.
If we'd decided to dress down then Eddie and Rosalyn had decided differently. They were both in what is termed as smart casual, Eddie in neatly pressed grey slacks and an open necked white shirt, and Ros in a white summer skirt with a lovely pale green blouse that set of her newly page-boy styled blonde hair. The only thing that jarred in their appearance was the dark red cravat around Eddie's neck, something that, with his moustache and collar length hair, gave him the look of a refugee from the seventies.
"Would you like to come in?" I asked, aware of the absurdity of my question the moment the words passed my lips. My nerves were showing again.
We were soon all seated in the lounge, myself and Eddie nursing beers and the ladies with glasses of white wine, and all of us gazing silently at each other and wondering where to begin.
The conversation stuttered into life but remained, to put it mildly, very stilted for the next half hour or so, with no one really sure how what to say. But eventually, as we began to relax in each others company the chat came around to our meeting in the park.
"How did you feel when you got home and realized what you'd let yourself in for?" Dawn asked Ros.
"I was more embarrassed than worried." Ros answered. "I've never been watched before, but the idea quite turned me on when I'd had chance to think about it."
She looked at Eddie and smiled. "We both really like the idea of showing off, but we do want to see you and Andy doing it too."
"You will." I told her. "That's what today's for."
"Yes I know, and I've been looking forward to it ever since we met."
I figured that we were ready to start things off, and there was one way I figured I could point things in that direction.
"Have you ever played strip poker?" I asked, expecting the affirmative answer that I received.
"Then, do you fancy a game?"
There could be no mistaking my intention and yet the question left the way open for anyone to duck out. At the time I was pleased with my own tact, but afterwards I realized it must have seemed as subtle as a bulldozer. But what the hell, it worked.
Or I thought it had until Ros said no. All eyes swivelled to look at her.
"I know a better game." She told us, grinning at our bewilderment.
We all looked at each other and then looked back at Ros, waiting for her to explain.
"I don't know what it's called and I've never played it, but it should be good because it's random. I came across it in a saucy novel. You need a pack of cards, and you deal them out face up. Now, the person who is dealt the ace of spades must lose one item of clothing, and the person who gets the diamonds decides which item. Then the person who has the ace of clubs does the actual removing, so it's possible for the same person to get the spades and the clubs, and take their own clothes off. Do you follow?"
We all nodded, genuinely interested.
"What about the one who gets the ace of hearts?" Dawn asked, leaping ahead.
"Ah! They're the lucky ones." Ros stopped there and looked at us, stretching the suspense.
"Go on." I prompted. "How so?"
"Because they can, if they want, but they don't have to, kiss the person who has lost the clothing, either on the lips or on any skin that has been revealed by the item just taken off. Oh, and they can't be refused."
Ros looked quickly at both Dawn and myself.
"If you don't object that is, I know it's a bit more than just watching each other, but we can leave the hearts out altogether if you don't like the idea."
I came to the conclusion that our friends maybe had more in mind than just same room sex with our own partners, but I didn't make anything of it.
"I don't see a kiss being a problem, wherever it goes." I told Ros, much to her ill concealed relief.
"So, if I've just lost my knickers." Dawn asked. "Whoever is dealt the ace of hearts can kiss my pussy if they want and I can't say no?"
"Yes, that's about it." Ros told her.
"Sounds good to me, count me in." Dawn told her gleefully.
I had a question of my own now.
"What happens to anyone who has lost everything?"
"Well, they can either drop out and watch or they can keep playing and do a forfeit if they get the ace of spades."
"Any kind of forfeit?" Dawn asked.
"Yes, whatever the person with the diamonds wants."