Joanna knocked on the door and then looked back at me, smiling and widening her eyes briefly in a look that said everything. God knows how we'd got here, but we had, and now in about ten seconds someone was going to open the door and invite us inside to a party where the expectation was that we would swap partners.
In truth this was my fault. In the two years that we'd been together it was me who had persuaded Joanna to go to a nudist beach and watched as she'd exposed her beautiful body to our fellow beachgoers, and it was me who had coaxed her into talking about being with other people, telling her it was 'the natural extension' of what we had been doing at the beach. Two or three times on our last holiday Joanna had opened her legs further when she knew someone was looking at her beautifully shaven pussy, and I'd gone from taking shy glances at other women around us to flagrantly exposing my penis to them as I stared at their nakedness, once even getting hard as I looked at a lady lying next to us.
And so how far away was touching, and being touched by them? I had thought this a thousand times, but it was only now, outside the door to the house, that I realised just what a distance that was.
The door opened, and silhouetted in its frame was a woman of about 40 in a long black evening dress which hugged her like a glove from the top of her breasts to her thighs, but then split, revealing a firm thigh and calf on one side.
"Good evening," she said, smiling and openly appraising my girlfriend. "You must be Joanna and Paul? Welcome, come inside and get yourselves a drink and then I'll show you around."
This was Helen, I assumed, who Joanna had talked to on the phone last week and listened as she explained that 'we'd never done anything like this before, and didn't actually know if we wanted to,' and who had replied that we could come and see what we thought with no obligation to do anything at all, and then after giving her some rules and advice, had given us their address.
And now here we were, walking into the hallway of their house, taking in the perfumed air, light music and sound of whispered laughter from the rooms that surrounded us. 'I was glad I'd worn a shirt and trousers', was oddly my first thought, as I realised that of the two men I could make out in the shadows, both appeared to be wearing suits, and our host looked dressed for a ball. Joanna, for her part, looked stunning. She was wearing a blue playsuit which hugged her body in all the right places, making her firm 34c breasts jut out and the curve of her bottom look amazing. Being a playsuit, the material ended just below her buttocks, giving way to her firm tanned legs, topped off with silver heels. She never dressed like this for me anymore, a fact that made my stomach spin even more.
"Something to drink?" Helen said as we reached the kitchen.
Joanna and I looked at each other before simultaneously saying 'beer' and 'white wine?', then nervously laughing.
Helen smiled knowingly and then made up our drinks, handing them to us and saying: "Come on, I'll show you around," as she ushered us back into the hallway.
"It's very simple; there's four bedrooms upstairs, should you wish to use them, and two bathrooms. Then down here you've got the kitchen, dining room here, and two reception rooms, which is where all our friends are at the moment if you'd like to go in and say hello?" she said, opening the door to their lounge. "We've still got another 3 or 4 guests coming so I'll stay here and then come and say hello again later, ok?"
I nodded nervously and we walked past Helen into the lounge and sat down on a couch as far away from anyone else as we could. Looking up, I noticed three or four small groups of people all chatting and enjoying themselves. Some members of the groups (mostly men) had turned to look at the new members of the party. Some smiled, some just looked us up and down. Joanna turned to me.
"You ok?" She whispered, giggling a little into her wine.
"I'm not sure." I honestly replied, my stomach turning summersaults as I sipped my beer.
"Oh come on it's fine!" Joanna continued, taking the opportunity to glance around at the other guests. "In fact, I'm quite excited."
"What?" I said, looking up at her.
"Yeah, I mean, we're actually here! Let's just enjoy ourselves. We love each other don't we? And we both want this don't we? Hell, it was YOUR idea.."
"I know it was." I snapped back at her, "I'm just not so sure I want to do it now."
Joanna sighed and stood up. "Do you want another drink?"
I nodded and pointed to my beer's label before she took my empty bottle off me and walked through to the kitchen.
After five minutes or so had gone by and I had nervously smiled at a couple of people who had caught my eye and decided that that had been way long enough for her to prepare two more drinks, I decided to go and find out where she'd got to. I walked back through to the hall and immediately saw her chatting to a tall, muscular and again, suited man, at the sink. I stopped for a moment as they chatted, and she laughed, and then something he said made her blush, and then I decided to go and get my beer.
"Oh hey baby." Joanna said, a slightly unbalanced note in her voice revealing the fact that she knew she'd been caught out. "I couldn't get the top off your bottle and then John came over and saved the day." She continued as she smiled at the man next to her who then extended his hand to me.
"You must be Paul? Nice to meet you mate," he said with a hint of an Australian accent as we shook hands.
"We've just been talking about travelling and stuff. John's been to a lot of the places in Thailand that I went to."
"Ahh cool," I replied, my best false smile plastered to my face. "Can I have a quick word with you, in private?"
Joanna looked confused. "Sure, hang on John I'll be right back." We walked back out into the hallway.
"I think we should leave." I whispered to her as soon as we'd got out of earshot.
"What? Why?"
"I'm just not enjoying this. I thought I would but I'm not, so I'd like to leave."
"Eurgh, baby, why do you do this? It was you who wanted to come here in the first place. It was you who persuaded me that it would be fun, I didn't even want to, but now I'm here, well..."
"It looks like you've changed your mind?" I replied, nodding briefly in the direction of John.
"Look, I'm just as nervous as you, but I'm not going to let that ruin the chance of meeting some nice people and having a good time."
I looked at her, not sure what to say. She leaned in and kissed me on the lips. "Look baby, why don't we go back in the lounge and have another drink and just relax a little? Ok?"
I nodded apprehensively, and we went back inside to the now busier lounge and sat down next to two girls and a guy. I heard Joanna introduce herself to them, and I nodded and smiled as she introduced me. Both of the guys were similar in build to me and seemed like nice enough guys. The first thing I noticed about the girl apart from how beautiful she was, was that she clearly hadn't got a bra on beneath her chiffony top as her hard little nipples would periodically poke up against the top as she turned her attention from one guest to another. My breath caught in my throat as I watched them jiggle and sway, and I realised that maybe my second beer was kicking in a little.
After five or ten minutes had passed, and one of the guys had got me another beer we heard a commotion behind us and turned to see a tray of sambucas making their way over peoples heads to our little group.
"Hey hey! Sambuca time everyone!" The Australian voice said, accompanied by whoops all round from Joanna and our new found friends. As John lowered the tray, everyone took one. Joanna passed me one with a smile, and then in seconds they were all empty and the whoops had begun again.
"Wow, that's strong stuff," one of the guys said.