Stacy and I had talked about going for years. She was a country music fan and we lived relatively close to Nashville but we'd never been there to visit. We'd gone other places to celebrate our anniversary in March. We'd been to New Orleans twice. We'd been to Charleston, Savanah and even Dallas/Fort Worth but we'd worried about the hit or miss weather in Tennessee in March.
I finished backing our 26 foot camper trailer into the site and then used blocks to level it side to side. I unhooked it from my Ford F150, leveled it front to back and then started to set up camp while my beautiful wife organized inside the trailer. We had our routine and it worked well for us. Once I had the electric and water hooked up Stacy put out the slides, made the bed and put away any food or supplies we'd brought from home. While she was doing that I hooked up the black and grey water tanks and put our outdoor rug, camp chairs and our Blackstone griddle where they belonged around the fire pit. We usually traveled with our two dogs Ollie and Sadie but knowing we'd be gone sightseeing all day and drinking all night we had left them both with our daughter back home in Kentucky.
Once we were set up both inside and out Stacy and I changed into some nicer clothes and freshened up before she summoned an Uber to take us to Downtown Nashville. My wife was the planner and she had our first night mapped out. We had a nice steak dinner at a good local steakhouse before we hit the bars to listen to some live music and drink.
We were at the second bar of our impromptu pub crawl when I saw him standing with a small group of similarly dressed men. It was large relatively crowded venue with an abundance of tongue and groove yellow pine on the walls and high top tables surrounding a horseshoe shaped bar on the right. A four piece country band was playing on a decent sized stage at the back of the room with a spacious dance floor in front of it. Several more high top tables flanked the dance floor on both sides and he was on the right near the stage with a hallway to the restrooms behind him.
He was a tall, powerfully built black man in faded jeans, a tight black tee shirt, cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat. He was standing beside a table with a group of guys drinking a draft beer and listening to a pretty good country band. I saw him give my wife the once over and I grinned.
Stacy was a good looking woman with a curvaceous body and warm bedroom eyes. She was a conservative and reserved woman by nature but she had recently lost a good amount of weight and she was dressed sexier than usual in a short and low cut dress that hugged her feminine curves, a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, both of which she had picked up when we had visited friends in Texas the previous year. I was dressed more casually in my favorite Grunt Style tee shirt, dark blue jeans, a trucker hat and a pair of gray Hey Dudes shoes.
The black cowboy's eyes met mine and he nodded at me. Then he smiled and brazenly checked out my wife again. His confidence and devil may care attitude made me shiver for a moment though I wasn't sure why. Stacy and I were a pretty traditional couple. We certainly weren't swingers but we weren't exactly vanilla either. We had some kinks and fetishes. We dabbled in bondage and dominance. We occasionally watched porn together but we were monogamous and while we had, on occasion, used toys to role-play and simulate a threesome she was pretty resolute that she could never do anything like that in real life. Stacy had been raised in a catholic home. She'd gone to an all girls catholic high school and she took her wedding vows seriously but she was far from a prude or a complete square.
"That guy over there was checking you out," I teased as we waited for our beers at the bar.
"Which one," Stacy giggled playfully. She flipped her long auburn hair behind her left ear and her pretty golden brown eyes followed my sight line to the black cowboy.
"He was," I said with a subtle flutter in my voice. Her self confidence had returned after her recent weight loss and there was something in the tone of her voice that excited me, though I couldn't pinpoint it.
"Ooh, he's cute. He reminds me of a more muscular Darius Rucker," my wife said as she looked him up and down while I watched. I was not usually a jealous person largely because she hadn't give me a reason to be. She had been a bit of a flirt when we were young but we'd been married for 25 years that month and together for almost 30. We had met during high school and we'd started dating halfway through our senior year. We'd remained faithful throughout college and married soon after graduation. When we were college she would occasionally flirt with guys to try to get a rise out of me but it never worked and once we were married that had ended. She was a loving and faithful wife and while our marriage was far from perfect I loved her and she loved me.
The black cowboy looked over at Stacy and they both smiled. It was rather surreal. I could immediately see the mutual attraction between them. Stacy bit lightly on her bottom lip as he unabashedly undressed her with his dark glimmering eyes. It only lasted a few moments before she realized what she was doing and looked away almost demurely.
"That was interesting," I joked as I reached out and touched Stacy's arm. Her cheeks were flushed and she seemed more than a little flustered. It was a side of my wife that I had never seen before and it was rather exciting to witness.
"Sorry," Stacy replied meekly. She still seemed a bit out of sorts and I was feeling uncharacteristically insecure. I reached for her hand and looked at her with love in my eyes as I gave it a squeeze.
"I love you," I said softly as I held her gaze. We'd had our ups and down but unlike most of our friends we had stood the test of time. We'd raised two children through adulthood and we were just beginning the empty nest phase of our life. We'd been in a bit of a rut sexually of late but my love for her and our friendship was unwavering.
"I love you too Baby. Sorry about that. That was a little weird and very rude."
"It was kinda weird but it was kind of hot," I mused. "I have never seen you like that."
Stacy smiled and we made our way to an empty high top table closer to the stage and sat down to enjoy the music. I deliberately sat with my back mostly towards the black cowboy which forced Stacy to look towards him if she looked at the stage and for the next hour we sat there drinking and listening to the music but I was also watching Stacy. I could tell when she was looking at him by the way she grinned and I was getting a perverse thrill knowing that they were still making eye contact and flirting from opposite ends of the stage. I'd had a few fantasies over the years that involved sharing my wife with another man or woman but I'd had no delusions that she'd ever do anything like that because of her upbringing. She hadn't been to church in years except on Christmas and Easter but she was still a spiritual person.
After an hour I told Stacy that I was going to the bathroom and to get us another round of drinks since it was clear the wait staff was overwhelmed. I had to walk past the black cowboy's table but he wasn't there and I figured he had moved on. I returned to my table several minutes later with two beers and an empty bladder but Stacy was no longer alone. The black cowboy was standing beside her chatting her up as if she was a single woman in town to pick up a man. He seemed unfazed as I approached and I was surprised to see two empty shot glasses on the table in front of them.
"Oh, hey Baby," Stacy said with a warm smile as her eyes met mine. "This is Shawn from Texas. He's in town for a show. He brought me a shot of Tequila." It seemed like an overstep but I wasn't upset. I was however curious to see what he would do with me at the table.
I reached out and shook his hand as I introduced myself. I'm a big guy. I stand 6'3" tall and weigh 220lbs but he made me feel small. He was at least 6'5" and likely weighed more than 250lbs of what looked like pure muscle. His hand was enormous and dwarfed mine and he spoke in a deep baritone that sounded commanding and authoritative.
"Pleased to meet you," he said confidently with a firm handshake. He looked at the logo on the arm of my shirt and nodded. "Did you serve?"
"For 23 years. US Navy retired. How about you?"
"I did four years in the Marine Corp out of Camp Pendleton," Shawn said proudly and I invited him to join us.
Shawn sat down and the three of us started talk. I could tell Stacy was a little buzzed after consuming a few glasses of wine at dinner followed by several beers and a shot at the two bars we'd been to. She was being much more outgoing and flirtatious than usual, both with me and with our new friend Shawn. She laughed heartily at his jokes and her gaze repeatedly lingered on him for a few extra moments, sending an unspoken message that she was into him. It was rather surreal to watch but for some reason I was okay with it. I was enjoying sharing war stories with a fellow serviceman and oddly enough I was having fun watching Stacy interact with him as well.
It was after midnight and the band had just ended their last set. The beers and shots had flowed steadily and Shawn and I had shared most of our war stories. He had done two tours in Iraq in the early 2000s and I'd done two in Iraq and two in Afghanistan during my 23 years with the SeaBees. Stacy's flirting with both he and I had increased beyond the innocent. During her more animated moments she would touch our hands and there were several times that she and Shawn shared knowing, lingering looks. I had this weird feeling something monumental was going to happen.
"Let's find another bar," my wife giggled. I could see by the look in her eyes that Stacy was a bit drunk and I knew from experience that could go one of two ways. She would either hit a wall and want sleep or she would get loud and want to party all night and I had a hunch it was the latter.
My suspicions were confirmed moments later when Stacy slid down from her seat and grabbed both Shawn's and my hand. We'd already settled our tab and she led us out onto the street.