My partner, Diane, and I had lived in the small country town for about three years and had made quite a lot of new friends, but common interests had thrown eight of us together in an especially close group. The women met often and conspired like witches in a coven whilst the men did the same, usually with a glass of something in our hands at the local pub. All of us were professional people and, even if I say so myself, fairly attractive. We enjoyed a pretty open and broadminded friendship, which led to lively times when the whole group met together. However, these "get-togethers" were nothing compared to what transpired on the 10th June.
It had been Sarah's thirty-second birthday on the previous Wednesday - the 7th June - and her husband, Steve, had asked Diane and I, together with Dave, Holly, Pete and Rosemary to go over for dinner on the following Saturday evening.
We duly arrived around 7:30pm and presented our birthday gifts to Sarah along with our contributions to the bar. Steve served the ladies a drink and pointed us in the right direction to help ourselves. This we did and, so armed, we fell to chatting amongst ourselves.
At dinner, conversation was lively as the drink loosened our inhibitions. Village gossip ruled as the women recounted, for the men's benefit, the various scandals to have surfaced since our last meeting.
Needless to say these scandals revolved around the rapacious sexual behaviour of certain male and female inhabitants which, during the course of each tale were systematically and methodically sexually dissected.
"Apparently Martin Jones is divorcing Jane," put in Sarah at one point and then added, "Apparently he found her in bed with his brother, who was staying with them."
"She says that it was a mistake. That Tom, the brother, climbed into her bed in the dark after a couple of drinks and she thought it was Martin and gave him a fair seeing-to before Martin came in and found them."
"Yeh! Yeh!" jeered Holly, who had demolished the best part of a bottle of red wine at this point.
"As if she wouldn't recognise whose appendage it was between her legs."
Everyone exchanged amused glances.
"One cock is much the same as another," argued Sarah, less afraid to call a spade a 'cock' and Diane, laughing, agreed.
"No, No, No - they are like fingerprints," slurred Holly, "Each one is different."
"You're an expert are you, then?" asked Dave mischievously, who had said little while his wife was propounding her theory, but was curious to hear about her experiences.
"I'm just saying that that I would know if it was Dave who was - you know, inside me"
"Well I'm not sure I would," said Sarah - and Diane agreed again, leaving Holly out on a limb.
"I bet you anything you like you wouldn't." argued Pete, who had joined in just to wind Holly up. But Holly took the bait.
"I bet you Β£1000 I would," she countered not realising the significance of her statement.
"You're on, Holly!" responded Pete mischievously.
Silence fell on a grinning dinner party until, feeling someone should say something, I said,
" Fine. So all we have to do is turn out the lights and let each of us supply Holly with a sample and let her tell us which cock was Dave's."
Everyone laughed and Steve said, "You talked your way into that one, Holly."
"Well! I know I could," she quipped peevishly looking at Dave. He shrugged.
After a while Rosemary asked light-heartedly , "Are you sure that this isn't just a ruse to sample every man here, Holly?" whereupon Sarah, seeing the possibilities, pretended to reverse her opinion and said, "On second thoughts I think I could tell as well."
Diane, who was on Sarah's wavelength, agreed, looked towards me and smiled naughtily as she said it, probably seeking some sort of approval.
The group fell silent again for a while until I said simply, " Well? Are we going to solve this or not?"
" Not unless Holly is prepared to go through with a test?" taunted Pete.
"It's not just Holly, it's all the men here, plus their wives," I cautioned
The mood had changed. Everyone was excited - but nervous. They had also been loosened up by the drink and made horny by the talk, especially Holly who had, by now, finally taken in the concept of being fucked by four virile males and was probably feeling hornier than the rest of us put together. However, she still needed some encouragement.
"What do you think?" she asked Dave. He sniffed theatrically and replied, "Holly, do what you what. We are amongst friends here, but don't expect "seconds" when we get home."
This lightened the atmosphere and Rosemary asked tentatively, " Well Holly, are you up for it. Judging from the bulging groins around this table all the men are?"
"What about us?" mewed Sarah, "Holly and the boys all get fucked and we have to watch - thanks a bunch!"
"We could all take turns," put in Diane looking flushed and excited at the prospect.
"Well, I've played some party games in my time but this one will take the biscuit," said Pete.
I took control, " I think before we go any further we ought to make sure everyone is comfortable with what is being suggested here. Is everyone agreed we go ahead? I think I speak for each of us when I say that if any one of us feels unhappy we should stop, here and now and, just so we do not make anyone feel as though they are being railroaded into it, I think we should have a blind ballot."
Several faces frowned until I asked Sarah whether her kids had one of those games that uses red and yellow counters. She said yes, realising what I intended and went to fetch it and a cloth bag. When she returned she placed them both on the table.
I asked everyone to take both a red and a yellow counter.
"OK," I said, "I will come to each of you and you will put a yellow counter in the bag if you wish to continue or a red one if you don't. You can hide it in your hand until it is in the bag so that no one will know how you voted and if we get a single red one, we stop.
Is that agreed?"
They all nodded their assent and I collected a counter from each of them. They held the other one discreetly hidden in their other hand.
When all counters had been collected I shook the bag and said, "Well, here goes, then," and emptied the contents of the bag onto the table.
Eight glowing yellow discs tumbled from the bag.
I suppose that each one of us had expected a least one red disc and so gave a little gasp at the result. I collected the remaining counters and Sarah took them all away again.
"You seem to be a good organiser, John. What comes next? " Said Dave.
"Well, the first thing is that we get a drink and move through to the lounge. That will allow the girls to clear the table." I added, being unintentionally patronising.
Steve and Sarah had a square spacious lounge with a wide arch at one end that led into their dining room through which most of us paraded to take up a comfortable seat. With four hands at work the remains of the meal was cleared quickly and the girls soon joined us in the main room.
I found myself sitting like Hans Christian Anderson, surrounded by children eager to hear another story and I smiled quietly to myself.
"I think the first thing to get out of the way is Holly's silly bet. I don't expect we want to make her stick to it, do we?"
"Everyone shook their heads."
"Besides it seems that all the ladies want to take a turn - is that right?"
They all nodded, Diane rather eagerly, I noticed, and I raised an eyebrow to her. She responded by pushing her tongue out cheekily.
"Right, this is how it will be played." I said authoritatively, "Sarah, I want you to cut four identical pieces of card and write the numbers one to four on them. Then we place them in the bag and each man takes one. This will determine who goes first, second etc. Then, because it was Holly who started the whole thing off, she can be the first lady but the other three can draw for it like the men - using three cards but removing the number one, of course. Ok, let us do that now."
Sarah disappeared again and returned with a post card, bag, scissors and a pen and began the task.
When she had finished, she took out the number one and replaced the remaining cards in the bag and offered them first to Diane. She drew number two, then Rosemary drew number four leaving her, Sarah, to take third place.
She handed the replenished bag to me and I invited each man to take a ticket,
"Don't show or tell anyone," I said - thatβs what Holly has to guess and we will draw again when each girl's turn comes.
As we drew our cards, something struck Pete, "Er, Umβ¦.I don't know about you guys but it has been a couple of years since I did it four times in one night let alone a hour or so."
Rosemary quipped, "Before my time then," and fell into laughter with the others.
"Good point," I acknowledged, " We will have to limit each turn to a certain number of, well, strokes - how about twenty?"
"How about a hundred and twenty?" shouted Holly, determined she was not going to be short changed.
"Steve has never done a hundred and twenty strokes in his life, have you Steve?," laughed Sarah, pulling a face at him.
I held my ground. "I think we will stick to twenty, OK?"