My wife and I had been going through a bit of a rough spell lately. Karen and I were not having marriage issues, just issues in the bedroom. We needed to spice things up a little bit. I'm not blaming either one of us for these issues in bed; it was just that after a few years, things can get a little routine if you know what I mean. Luckily, we were both willing and able to talk about this, and work on ways that this could be resolved.
The other day we talked about fantasies, games we could play, and "different" things we had done previously. Naturally, the first fantasy-type thing I had thought of was having sex with two women at the same time. Come on, don't roll your eyes at me. What normal heterosexual guy has NOT had that thought? Karen wanted me to tell her what I was smiling about, so I told her what was on my mind.
She laughed, then said "Should have known you would say that, that is almost a given response by any man. Of course you know, that also means I get to have an extra guy to join us in bed. It's only fair, right?"
That stopped me right away. I didn't think her idea was nearly as cool as having a woman join us. Like she said, it was fair, just not at the top of my list of things to do.
The next thought to pop into my mind was kind of along the same lines, but not quite as involved. I blurted out "Maybe getting strippers for each other is an option. No sex, just dancing and stripping. Maybe some touching or rubbing."
Karen thought about that for a minute, then asked "So what are our boundaries? How far is too far?"
"I really don't know, babe. I've only thought about it for a minute, and I am not sure how far I would be comfortable going with this. What about you? What is your gut reaction?"
Smiling and staring a hole in the ceiling, she didn't answer right away. "Yes, I could see this happening."
Before I could respond, she moved her gaze from the ceiling straight into my eyes, she followed that up with "We should do it tonight. Right now! Call them already!"
It was tempting, but we had an office party to attend that night and needed to get ready to go because we had to be there in about an hour. Taking a quick shower, my mind was still on our chat from just minutes ago, but also realized that this party we were going to would be an easy way to test out our reaction to some ideas.
We pulled into the parking lot of what looked like a small castle, but was really the house of some top exec from my company. Karen held my arm as we walked towards the castle-house, pulling back slightly to slow us down. "So tell me again what this party is all about" she said. "I didn't really pay much attention when you told me before."
'It figures' I thought, 'damn selective hearing probably only caught the word 'party'' I continued out loud with "This is for a few people I kind of work with. They are from the San Diego office, and we almost never see them; at the most, one of them will talk to me or email me once every few months. But the management here wanted to make them feel special, so there are some people from every department showing up tonight. We just need to stay long enough for enough people to see me so they know I showed up, then we can bail. It's an unofficial company function - I'm sure it will be really stupid and we will be ready to leave in about an hour."
We got to the front door just as I finished, and we put on our happy faces as the door opened to us, with someone from the event staff stood in our way.
"Good evening madam, sir. May I have your name please?"
"Good evening" I replied, "My name is Mark Samuels, and this is my wife Karen."
He put a check mark by my name on the guest list and stepped aside. Waving his arm in, he announced "Please come in, everyone is gathering in the library, just down the hall to your right."
We walked in, mouths gaping at the décor. The inside of the house looked just as impressive as the outside. "So this is where all the company profits go!" I whispered to Karen. "It looks nice, but what a waste of money!"
Hearing noises ahead led us to the library. Sure enough, many other people were waiting here, standing around making small talk. Everyone looked about as bored as I'm sure we looked. There were only a handful of people I recognized. Hopefully this wouldn't take long, this was going to be awkward.
To spare you from the details, most of the night was slow and boring. Dinner was excellent, and everyone was well-behaved. Well, almost everyone. The exceptions were a few people from the San Diego office, and a few local people that I didn't know. Having an open bar was nice, but it also allowed a few guests to get a bit carried away.
They weren't bad, they were just kind of loud. Karen and I sat next to a couple of that group, and kind of surprisingly, we were soon getting along quite well. Sam was from the other office, and he told me that he was quitting in three weeks, so he didn't care if anyone got mad at him. He just had neglected to tell the company about that whole "quitting" part.
Karen and I stayed with them for a while. We might as well since we had to be there anyway, so we may as well enjoy ourselves. We had not planned on drinking anything since we were going to be going so soon, but Sam's wife Kathy brought us a couple drinks and before we knew it, we had each had three or four drinks. As I realized that, it was obviously too late to drive, so now we had to stay until some alcohol burned out of our symptoms.
Our host, Mr. Bixby, came in and said "There are several of you that are in no shape to drive, so if you want, you can make yourselves comfortable in one of the rooms off this hallway, if not, I can arrange to have you driven home. I have some business to attend to, so please make yourselves at home, I shall be gone the rest of the evening."
He said some other stuff about how happy he was with all the people in the company, etc, blah blah blah.
Most of the people got up to leave, and through an open door I saw several taxis and towncars to ferry people away. Just as I started to raise my arm to hail a cab, I had a thought. Catching Karen's eye, I waver her over to me. "We are going to spend the night here. We can have a few more drinks, and we can just go home in the morning without having to worry about driving drunk or coming back for our car in the morning." Smiling devilishly, I said in a lower voice "Besides, things could 'interesting' for us, if you know what I mean."
Karen's jaw dropped open a second later as she caught what I meant. She pulled her jaw off the floor and shrugged her shoulders, turning around and walking away. Briefly she paused to look over her shoulder at me, wearing an excited smirk I haven't seen in years.
Sam walked up beside me asking if we were staying. When I said we were, he paused for a minute then said "Look, this is kind of weird, but we were wondering of you wanted to play some cards with us. There are eight chairs here, but there are only three couples, not counting you. It think it would be nice if you and Karen could come in to even things out."
"Sure, why not?" I answered right away. I didn't even stop to think that neither of us were really any good at most card games.
As I seated Karen at the table, I realized that it wasn't that big of a deal – we were playing for toothpicks. Like I said, we aren't very good, so we were getting to the end of our toothpick collection when Kathy noticed. "Hey Mark, looks like you could use some help with your 'cash' situation there buddy."
Nodding sheepishly, I said "Ya, I never really was very good at this. Most likely, I will be dropping out in a minute since I'm broke. Well, unless you want to give me another handful of toothpicks from your hand, you're kickin ass tonight."
She shook her head slowly. "Sorry honey, it doesn't work like that. These little pieces of wood actually have value, and you are going to want to have as many as you can get your hands on. Tell you what, we can have a little fun with this. Let's take a break and count up our winnings."
Sorting our sticks into piles of tens, I was the first one done, followed quickly by Karen, then another couple that had played as horribly as we had. As the others were still counting, Kathy said "I just thought of something. If you want more of this here pretend money, you have to sell something."
This was weird. "Wait, excuse me a second, what do you mean 'sell something'?" I asked.
Sam chimed in for her. "You will see in a minute. OK everyone, listen up! If you are short on toothpick money, or you just want more, please stand up over by that desk."
Karen and I looked at each other, confused but game for anything. In unspoken agreement, we both got up and walked over. The open bar had lost it's bartender, but the equipment was still around. I had a feeling more of this liquid party enhancer would come in handy, so I left Karen at the desk to make drinks for us both. Turning back after mixing them, I saw another couple was waiting with Karen at the desk. So, the four of us standing, and four of them sitting.
Before I could ask what was coming next, Sam spoke up. "The four of us sitting here have a few thousand sticks, and the four of you standing want some of them. They aren't free. So what we will do now is auction them off. You will announce an item of clothing you wish to give up, and those of us sitting here will bid on them. It is completely up to you when you want to sit back down. Mark – you first please."
Still bug-eyed in shock, my jaw just kind of working itself silently, I had just processed what I had heard. "What the hell" I thought, "why not play along? I will probably never see these people again." Besides, the other woman at the desk was gorgeous, I wouldn't mind seeing a few pieces of her clothes go away. I know Karen and I were not Barbi and Ken, but we were still decent looking. I'm not sure where the game was going, if everyone was just touching with their sight, it could be good for all of us. Looking at Karen, we both shrugged a "sure, why not" type of look.
Stepping forward, I said "The first item up for bid is one left shoe, ladies and gentlemen. What do I hear for one left shoe. Do I hear 100? 100 anyone?"
Dead quiet.
"Ok, too high. For one left shoe, who will pay 20? 20 sticks for one shoe?"
