Marriage Vows or Not

When I got married I took my vows pretty seriously. When it said "till death do us part" I meant that. It was my wife who first started talking about open marriage. I didn't even know what that meant at first, but she had been reading books on it and she began to warm to the idea.

I talked about it with some of my friends and I got mixed reviews on the subject. One of my friends, Markus, said he and his wife had been involved in swinging and were enthusiastic believers. Another of my pals said it was totally crazy, that no man in his right mind would allow other men to fuck his wife. It was the recipe for disaster, he maintained.

Another of my friends was pretty noncommittal on the subject: some do, most don't, he said. "Don't think I would myself," he said, "but I am not sure. I'd have to see the other guy's wife," he said with a laugh.

The way it broke down was three for it, five totally against, and two 'I don't knows.' I told my wife how my friends reacted and she said her friend Carol had a lover and was a big supporter of sex outside of marriage. "Carol says, 'You haven't lived until you've had one man in the morning and another that afternoon.' She said she and her husband are closer now that they have lovers on the side,'" my wife explained. She had only talked to Carol, and I wasn't convinced, but my survey hadn't helped my conclusion on the issue at all. Personally, I was skeptical. Wouldn't you feel jealous of your wife getting all hot and bothered over another man? Most people I know are not all that secure in themselves anyway. Seeing her fucking another man and liking it seems like it would be torture. Self torture does not seem pleasant.

What started breaking the ice for me was listening to an interview with a man into wife sharing and hearing him explain how great it was hearing his wife share with him about the good time she had with someone else and saying how close he felt to her having shared with her something she was happy and enthusiastic to tell him about. He actually maintained that he felt he was able to love her more unconditionally after listening to her tell about the sexual pleasure she got from someone else.

He felt released from the bounds of possessiveness and resentment over her receiving pleasure he had not given. "It's like her enjoying an other kind of experience besides sex that I hadn't experienced with her," he said. "Like someone gave her something that made her happy that I hadn't given her. Would I get upset she liked it if I hadn't gotten it for her?" He said receiving pleasure was not love. Giving pleasure was just that. Pleasure isn't what love is based on.

I listened and it made sense. Claire and I talked about it and it seemed reasonable. He had said, "It is like dancing. Your wife can enjoy dancing with someone and not stop loving you because she enjoys dancing with someone else."

"Maybe we should try it with no sexual strings, like dancing. Maybe just a social evening, a dinner, or dancing with someone else?" she suggested.

"Since I don't dance well, I think I'd be more intimidated by someone you like to dance with, than fucking him?" I said with a laugh. She made a face and said to "be serious."

"Seriously," I said. "You know what a fucked up dancer I am. I don't fuck as awfully as I dance." I said with a grin. She agreed, then laughed at my comparison.

"Okay," she said, "let's try it."

We decided each of us would go on a "date" with someone we knew and would evaluate it afterwards to see how we felt about it. Go somewhere we knew we liked and see how we each felt about the other person's pleasant experience without the other of us being there.

It sounded harmless, so we decided to try it and compare notes later. We would see how each of us felt about the other having fun without us. We made the arrangements, told our friends involved what we were doing and why. Claire would go out with our friend Jason and I would do something with her friend Gwen.

When we got back from our 'dates' each of us told the other about the fun we had and what we each did. It was actually enjoyable listening to Claire talk about the fun she had seeing the concert by the group she really likes that I don't care for that much. I found I didn't resent her having fun, even if she was there with Jason. I like Jason and I didn't think he would try to screw her in the parking lot or run away with her.

I told her about my night with Gwen and she listened, then she knocked me over with her next question, "Did you ever think of fucking Gwen last night?" she asked with a straight face. It shocked me that she asked, but it made me think about it. I realized, honestly, I had thought about it many times, although not at all that night. Of course, it made no difference when it was. The truth was I had thought about it and often.

The choice was to tell Claire the truth and see how she reacted. Take a chance? Finally, weighing my words carefully, I said, "I didn't think of it at all last night, but to be completely honest, I have thought about it before." To be honest, somehow made me feel good. Kind of unshackled me, made me feel better for being truthful.

"Oh good," said Claire. "I feel better. You see, I have also thought about what it would be like to fuck Jason. We're being honest here, and depending on your reaction, I think I like it." She gave me a gutsy look and smiled.

"So you have too?" I said. She simply nodded and smiled. We both laughed at the fact that we had both thought about fucking our friends.

"So, be honest, how does that make you feel?"

"Relieved," I said. "Because it's not just me." She said she felt the same. We both were amazed, actually, that we didn't feel any hostility or hurt or resentment.

We both agreed we felt better that we both had had the same feelings. "So, when I mentioned Jason and said I had had sex that night, how'd you actually feel?"

"Honestly, I actually got a little turned on," I said. "Somewhere inside of me I got a bit aroused by the possibility. Strange, but your saying it gave me a bit of a charge."

"Funny, but I had the same feeling when you admitted being turned on by Gwen," she said. "It didn't piss me off, like I expected it would. So, tell me how you would feel about your wife fucking your old buddy?"

"I guess I'd want to know if you liked it," I said, being as honest as I could. "As I think about it, I guess I would be okay with it. I'd be better with that than you telling me he was a good dancer," I said with a shrug.

"He is a good dancer," she said, "but I bet he fucks good too." We both laughed and I asked her if she wanted to find out. She grinned for a minute and then nodded, asked how I would feel about that. "I think it would be fine," I said. "I guess I'd rather you fuck him than dance with him. I think I am better at fucking than dancing."

"You are at that," she replied. "I have always liked your fucking, not so much your dancing." We looked at each other for a long time, realizing we might be on the fringes of a big move in our lives. "I guess it amounts to how much real pleasure each of us gets out of fucking someone else," she said thoughtfully.

It was right then that each of us knew that we were about to enter a new faze in our lives. Each of us was excited by the prospects. If we were going to enter the world of extramarital sex, then we needed to be sure we were ready for the possibilities, the risks. It was possible that it would change us, turn us into something we were not prepared for.

"We need to do some serious thinking about this," I said. "If we're not sure, then we shouldn't go forward with it, right?" Calmly she nodded. Two days later we had marvelous sex, then afterwards we looked at one another without speaking.

Finally, she kissed me and said, "Okay, you ready?" I put my arms around her, pulled her to me and nodded.

"I think we are. No, I am sure we are," I said. Two days later we were explaining things to Jason and Gwen. Happily, they did not disagree. First, she would go out with Jason and then I would go out with Gwen. We decided then that nothing was off the table unless one of us became uncertain, then we would stop. We all agreed that we needed a safe word and decided it would be 'cabbage.' That would be a word not normal to our conversation, if anyone of us said 'cabbage' it would stop right then, without explanation or discussion, with nothing else needed other than the 'safe' word.

Jason and Claire got a hotel room at the Marriott and they would be there until the next afternoon. If that went well, Gwen and I would do the same in the same hotel for the same length of time, given an orgasm or two.

Jason and Claire got to the hotel at four in the afternoon and registered, went to the restaurant for an early dinner, not wanting to waste precious hours of fornication-potential time after entering their hotel room. They had decided once they started the fucking part of their night they didn't want anything to get in the way of the lusty moments before them. Once they started fucking they didn't want to have to stop for anything other than a potty break or two or a catch-your-breath moment of pause.

I heard they started kissing on the way up on the elevator. It seems Jason had been waiting for this moment for years. His hands roamed around my wife's body like a masseuse, exploring and feeling each part of her, massaging her ass cheeks, her breasts, her back, and every crevice he could find.

Once in the room, they began fucking without pause like hungry teens on a first date. He entered her in one quick thrust, pushing his seven inches of erect penis into her pussy and continued to fuck her in steady and quick penetrations that caused her to open her legs as wide as they would go and moan and sigh each time he went into her. They continued like that for half an hour, then they changed position and got into a quick sixty-nine and went at each other's sex like hungry kittens, sucking, licking, and probing with fingers and tongues.

At midnight they rested, then started again when they awakened together and this time she rode him from on top, bouncing and groaning and calling out to anyone close. "Oh god," she cried, "oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes."

Before they left for breakfast they went again with renewed energy and passion. He pushed into from behind her as she stretched on her side with him close behind, spooning on his side and pushing repeatedly into her pussy, rocking her body each time he pushed into her.

When they turned in the key the desk clerk winked at them both as if he was in on the secret, as if he knew of our agreement, and they left hand in hand and thrilled at the time they had had the night before.

Two weeks later it was my turn and Gwen and I registered with no explanation and put off dinner for later, going straight to the elevator. I was almost certain the desk clerk recognize me as to the woman from weeks before, although there'd be no possible way for him to know that. In the elevator I told her about my conversation with Claire regarding any desire I had for her girlfriend's body. She smiled when I told her what I had said about being hot for her body when I confessed to Claire about my feelings for Gwen.

She said she would reward me for that later that night and we kissed before going into the room. We had slow and deliberate sex right away and then later we picked up the pace and it was frantic and energetic, passionate and erotic. I didn't think once of the vows I took with Claire a decade before. When the night was over Claire and I discussed what we had done with Jason and Gwen, and we decided we could enjoy each other's pleasure and could share one another with others. We pledged right then to allow each other the freedom to explore our personal sexuality.

It has been five years since we started this new approach to marriage, and both of us have experienced growth in our relationship, feeling we do love each other unconditionally, vowing we don't need to prove our love by promising to be sexually exclusive. I have been able to see her as a sexual person who enjoys other people as well as she does me. I still don't dance all that well yet, but I am taking lessons and hope to be better soon.