Adventures in Swinging - Prologue

This tale is written as a novella that is episodic and sequential. I wanted to present two real people, in the current day, facing being empty nesters. Both are highly skilled in their profession. There are no issues in their marriage that they are aware of. In fact, they are very much in love after 22 years of marriage. One would call them well-matched for each other.

Present Day- Tomball, Texas

My name is Jared Hansen. My wife Ellie and I met and married in our senior year of college while attending the University of Illinois-Champaign, 'The Fighting Illini.' We were both computer science majors, headed on parallel career paths. I still clearly remember the day we first met in a class outside our major, Introduction to Cosmology 350, to be specific. Just a fun elective to round out the senior year and pick up an easy A or B grade.

It was a very cool fall day when I first saw her. I was racing to reach the building for my next class. I was determined not to be late and pressed through the door into the classroom, not knowing I was right on Ellie's heels. I found a seat up front, looking left and right, gauging the class. Then the intoxicating scent of Giorgio's Red perfume hit my nose, turning my head left to behold the perfect vision of a girl next door. Ellie wore her medium brown hair in a pixie cut with reddish highlights. Her neck was slender and sat atop a swimmer's set of well-toned shoulders. Demure, Ellie was five feet five inches and weighed at most 135 very toned pounds. She had very balanced proportions with a decided curve to her waist that gently sloped out to her hips. Her body was, in all respects, an athletic hourglass figure. She wore a red mock turtle-neck shirt with a cute little gray sweater vest pulled over a pair of black thin-wale corduroy slacks. She wore no socks, her tiny pale feet tucked into an old pair of tan deck shoes. She crossed her legs at her ankles. I would later discover her small B-Cup breasts, hiding under her sweater vest, would barely fit in the palm of my hand. I was smitten. She was just so damned cute that seeing her there that first time, I had to defensively cross my legs to camouflage the stiffening bulge in my jeans.

As for me? I was a typical college geek who could not stand out in a crowd if he tried. I stood five feet ten, brown hair and blue-eyed, barely 150 pounds dripping wet, and un-mistakenly bow-legged. I had little padding to speak of despite being a prodigious beer drinker. Of course, the horse trough swill in those days was beer-flavored water. I cannot imagine the gut I would have put on if today's craft beers were available.

Trust me, no matter how many times I made the dean's list, self-confidence with girls would never be my strong suit. Hard as I may have tried, I could not fathom why a girl would be interested in me. While the jocks were getting the ladies, my nerd friends and I played video games and discussed Babylon Five and Star Trek: Voyager.

Yet here I was in my elective Astronomy class, sitting next to the nearest thing to heaven. I was smitten. We all have that once-in-our-life instant attraction, yet as I summoned my courage to talk to her, I feared her rejecting me outright. It had been that way for me all through middle and high school. Still, I knew I would regret it if I did not speak to this cutie right next to me.

While the class waited ten minutes for Professor Fields's arrival, I cast my vision left and saw my idea of the girl next door as she paged through her textbook. She hardly noticed me, but for a slight turn of her face, her eyes darting to the right to gauge my intent.

"Hi, my name is Jared," I said, extending my hand and then withdrawing it, faking a cramp in my arm. Seriously, only the worst of geekdom meets a cute girl, juts out his hand, and asks, "How are you doing?" It was beyond lame, and I cringed, awaiting a snide response.

"I am Ellie," she whispered. I could see her smile a bit as she scribbled on her notepad. Her voice was a soft soprano, light and airy. I hemmed and hawed, trying to come up with something to say. Rather than stumble with a response, I focused on the class and the lecture.

When class broke, everyone got up; I asked Ellie if she would like to grab a soda. We went outside and walked to the student union, and I do not believe I had ever spoken so much to a girl. She just walked and listened as I described my devotion to machine code. She talked about her studies involving object-oriented programming code. Her concentration was on designing human engrams for developing learning and thinking machine intelligence. I almost came in my pants listening to her infectious enthusiasm and thirst as she described her studies. During that walk for a soda, I asked her on a date for pizza and a movie. I couldn't believe it when she accepted my invitation. We were inseparable from that point on.

I asked Ellie why she agreed to go out with me, and she said, "You have a silly kind of cuteness about you that I think is sweet. Plus, a hint of mischief in your smile intrigues me."

We were both offered jobs before graduation by a firm in Huntsville, Alabama, and a contract with NASA. Our first assignment was with a software development team working up a new code base for unmanned deep space probes. The country was riding the post-Clinton economic gravy train thanks to the information revolution. We both had promising starting careers on the same path, leaving us wanting for nothing. When I work, I have laser focus almost to the exclusion of all around me. You should know ahead of the story that I could be more present-minded. It is the little details of life that I often miss. That is what tripped me one day.

In those early days of our relationship Ellie and I fell into lovemaking at the drop of a pin. Ellie was ever vigilant about birth control. She repeatedly told me that children were not in her plans during our first months together. She simply couldn't allow her career to be derailed by the responsibilities of parenthood. I was so crazy in love I went along. Then it happened.

We must have been crunching on finals because it was a week of continuous writing, programming, and study. Ellie was crunching hard on a paper dealing with Artificial Intelligence. At some time during finals week, she wrote me a sticky note and reminded me to pick up her refill for her birth control pills. In my defense, it was a crazy week, and the stress was mounting on both of us. Between crashing on schoolwork, we dealt with the stress by humping like bunnies.

I just remember dread when I picked up the phone in her dorm. The drug store called to remind Ellie she had a two-week-old prescription for birth control pills waiting for pick-up. Two missed menstrual cycles later, we were going to the university women's reproductive health center. I remember the dread on her face, laying prone on an exam table, draped in a gown with just a little bump showing, and the ultrasound picking up a machine gun firing pattern inside her womb.

"Are you sure the baby is O.K.," I asked. "That is one staccato heartbeat. It seems fast to me." The nurse/technician shot me a glance like I was a moron who had just crawled out from under a toadstool.

"It is fast, sir because your lovely Mom-to-be has two hearts beating inside her womb. You are having twins!"

Ellie's response, ever diplomatic, was, "No fucking way."

Then she fixed her eyes on mine. I honestly believe that if she had possessed Superman's heat vision at that moment, she would have used it to burn my face off. Her look just reduced me to a certifiable moron. To emphasize her displeasure, she turned to me and whispered, "Jare, when I get off this table, you are so dead." Of course, she did not kill me, which I thought was exceedingly kind then, but I would not have blamed her if she had followed through with her threat.

So, with a rapidly expanding baby bump and a shotgun wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Hansen crossed the graduation stage, and off we went over the proverbial cliff of marriage, parenthood, and professional careers at the tender age of 22. It will not surprise you that I was unpopular with my wife during the next 2 years. However, I did my best with the late-night feedings, walking, diapering, and singing to sleep. This was our start to marital bliss. Ellie made it abundantly clear that the twins were the alpha and omega of her baby-making. She threatened to perform a vasectomy on me with a live lobster if I did not see a doctor and get it done immediately to ensure it would never happen again. There was no way she was raising more than two girls, putting her career in a permanent holding pattern. So, the proverbial line in the sand was drawn at two beautiful, though not identical, girls.

I did my duty and received my snip, burn, and stitches. To illustrate Ellie's devotion to her career, she refused to let childbirth stop her career and stubbornly resumed working after only two weeks of parental leave. Yes, this is my Ellie, and she retains this single-minded dedication. When my lady sees something and pursues it, she is all in until she attains her goal.

Secretly, I have always believed Ellie's ultimate AI achievement dream is to successfully code a non-psychotic HAL 9000. Ellie's strength and one key to her success as a wife and computer professional is her adaptability to changing situations. She can turn on a dime and move out in a completely different direction and on a moment's notice if the situation calls for it.

We both advanced professionally, each having a steady, secure income. We were happily focused as parents and professionals over the next two decades. We gave everything we could toiling, parenting, and nurturing our girls. In some ways, the burden of a work-life balance was made easy because both Annie and Hallie were as driven as their mother. For Ellie and me, it was one project after the next and one more school year supported. Before we realized it, 22 years had passed us by.

I always struggled to accept how fast they had grown and how the years passed so quickly. I swear, one moment, they were just two tiny humans who fit in the palm of my hand. The next thing I knew, they had both swept through college, including their school loans, which Ellie and I were paying. My wife and I were always frugal, which helped us remain dutiful in repaying the college loans. Our young ladies were starting well, with Annie going to work for a consulting firm in Fort Worth and Hallie continuing her education to pursue a Ph.D. in astrophysics at Cornell.

Both girls are brunettes, with the most apparent distinction being that Hallie is the thinker and Ann is the stunner. That is not to say my Hallie isn't pretty or Annie is not brilliant. Hallie has never worried a day about makeup, and Annie hasn't gone a year without a boyfriend since middle school. Hallie is a three-dimensional thinker and problem solver like her mother. Think of Ellie on steroids, and you can see where I am going. Annie's strength is in her innate ability to read people and to draw upon her intuitive insights, which are rarely wrong.

Our two daughters could not have been luckier regarding having a great mother. Ellie brought to motherhood a combination of playful curiosity, tender sensitivity, and a nurturing, encouraging nature. I don't think Ellie foresaw what an incredible mom she would become. In short, she is ideally suited for motherhood. Plus, she kept the familiar balls up in the air. Our children were high achievers thanks to their hard work and dedication.

We are proud parents. Our daughters are pursuing their dreams and making their place in the world. We know they will be O.K. They are grounded ethically and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

So, one Friday, my darling wife and I realized we were now empty nesters. I remember talking one evening about how we were free to focus on each other as a couple. We could rekindle the passion we shared as young lovers in college. Something that we placed into suspended animation the moment the girls were born. As is typical with most couples, we looked at our relationship over the past 20 years and identified areas and opportunities we could focus on and expand together.

I believe the secret to our success was our deep connection with each other as lovers and as kindred intellects. This brings us to the subject of sex. Ellie and I have always had a very satisfying and intimate love life. Our lovemaking was fulfilling but not inventive. Our focus on balancing the rearing of our daughters and furthering our technically demanding careers left us little time to be adventurous and explore our sexuality. While our lovemaking may have leaned towards the 'vanilla side,' we never lost our hungry, healthy libidos or expressed boredom or dissatisfaction with the other. I think this stemmed from how connected our minds were. We always worked as a team, and our friends and colleagues would marvel at the Hansen couple that always finished each other's thoughts or sentences.

It is quite a game changer when your two brains can seamlessly share ideas and exchange thoughts with minimal oral communication, like the Binars in Star Trek Next Generation. Our ability to read each other had sustained us through the tough early years as a couple, earning a living and raising our girls. We communicated almost telepathically. We could always engage each other, talking about anything, no matter how challenging the topic or issue.

Our careers became firmly ensconced when we joined government service as civilian computer scientists assigned to NASA's Johnson Space Center. Since that defining moment thirteen years ago, we have called Tomball, Texas, our home. It was here that our family flourished. This morning, as I opened the shades of our kitchen window at the sink, it occurred to me that neither Ellie nor I were in a hurry to rush into the space center. Nor were we in a hurry to fire up our respective laptops to work from home on another lost weekend spent battling against another arbitrary deadline. The truth is, we were both burned out and knew it to boot.

Now, on this Friday morning, I found myself staring with a blank mind out the kitchen window. I finally returned to reality and saw that the backyard had come to life this beautiful March Day in east Texas. The Bluebonnets had exploded everywhere. They were Ellie's favorite flower, and each year she went out of her way to overseed the grass in our backyard, which consisted of islands of flowers in green beds, broken apart by meandering pea-pebble paths. Each path always dead-ended into wildflower patches along the fence.

Our daughters shared their mom's love of gardening, and we certainly missed the touch they brought to the yard since moving away. With NASA advancing our prototype delivery date, we had no alternative but to hire a young horticulturist, Hudson, and apply his education and craft in his lawn care start-up business. So far, he has done a fine job. He would follow Ellie on those first weekends, taking down her directions and yard design. To his credit, the Indian Paintbrushes were popping up in thick clumps exactly where Ellie wanted them.

I snapped out of my daydreaming and re-focused, reminding myself that Ellie wanted a new weather station mounted in the yard's far corner. I looked into the sink, sighed deeply, finished last night's dishes, and straightened the kitchen.

"Jared," my 44-year-old bride called out from the bedroom. "Where are the AAA batteries?"

"They are in the top drawer of my nightstand, sweetie," I replied from the kitchen. I listened as shuffling and rummaging sounds rolled down the steps.

"Are you positive?" she challenged.

"Babe, they are still in their packaging inside my nightstand drawer, look again, please," I implored. After a few frantic grunts from the bedroom, I heard the rummaging through the drawer's contents.

"Yes, found them, honey, thank you," she said.

After a minute of silence, the unmistakable steady hum of my wife's over-engineered, piston-powered vibrator, 'with rapid-rabbit action,' accompanied a steady stream of soft moans.

"Does that hit the spot, Ellie?" I teased. "Ellie, are you─"

"Oh, Jar-sh-sh-shut the fuck up; I need to concentrate," she hissed.

I shrugged my shoulders and finished loading the dishwasher, popping in the detergent pods, and started the cycle. I took a sip of my coffee, set the mug down, and walked upstairs to our bedroom, where my spouse reclined across the crumpled covers of our bed, her feet planted square on the mattress.

Ellie's legs were cocked in the classic sit-up position. Her hips were steadily rocking. Her left hand was strategically positioned at her left breast, her fingers slowly rolling her very pronounced and hard nipple. Her right hand wielded her implement of pleasure, a sizeable dual-action penis-shaped dildo. She kept the rabbit action feature tight against her clitoris, deep in a building wave of orgasmic splendor.

I quietly approached and stared in fascination, Ellie utterly oblivious to my presence. I stealthily approached the bed and sat on the edge, leaning over and maneuvering my head toward her right breast. Ellie's breasts were still as firm at forty-four as in college. Half-dollar-sized areolas contracted atop her thirty-four B cup mounds. She has the most perfectly proportioned chest. I lowered my head to her breast and began a slow suckle, rolling my tongue and increasing the suction, lightly nipping at the tip. Ellie arched her back, opened her mouth, and called to the good Lord above.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God, ohhhh shittttt!" she announced to heaven.

I eased my face away from her breast, rising to a sitting position. I glanced down as her right hand wielded the rapid flicking action over her womanhood. My timing was impeccable, marked with the rare treat of a clear, viscous jet of liquid escaping her pussy as she pulled the rig from her. Arching her back while lifting her hips off the bed, the ejecta arched at least a foot outward.

"Wow, girl, that was a bonus," I exclaimed, measurably impressed. "You may have a new record, honey!" Her breathing slowed, and her face and upper chest still flushed a bright crimson, highlighting the freckles on her face. I placed my right hand over her left, still clutching her breast. I blew soft air across her, which she nodded in instant appreciation. She opened her eyelids, her green pupils still dilated from a rocking climax as she registered my smile.

"Thank you, love," she said. "That was so sweet of you to help me."

I stroked her face and kissed her lightly. Her smile broadened, and her hand caressed my face. "Don't worry about the yard today," she winked.

These last months had been a whirlwind of work, and it caught up with us both. We should have paid more attention to the finer points of relationship management, with physical intimacy being foremost on the list. We're a mentally tired couple, drained from long hours of exhausting work and needing a rest and recreation-focused vacation. The kind of vacation where days roll into each other, and you pursue only the activities you want. We had earned a break after losing over 150 hours of 'use or lose' vacation from the previous year. That was criminal because we both had accumulated that leave through hard work. Worse yet, we had neglected caring for each other, noticeably slacking off in our love life and denying ourselves intimate moments.

In the last year, I could not remember making love more than once or twice in any given month. It was apparent an adult getaway of great magnitude was in order. We both needed some excellent vacation advice from experts. That expertise was obtainable through our best friends, Seth and Heather Barksdale.

We have known the Barksdale's for over 12 years, and they lived a few houses up the street from us. Seth is an investment banker and corporate lawyer. His bubbly, always sassy wife Heather was a stay-at-home mom. They are five years younger than Ellie and I, both thirty-nine. They are a fantastic couple, fit and trim. They were always running with their kids, Lance, a baseball-obsessed fifteen-year-old, and his kid sister Sorsha their red-headed thirteen-year-old. Both are wonderfully loving and attentive parents.