I first met Karen at a swinger's party that my wife and I were hosting. I was tending "bar" in the kitchen, and Karen was sitting alone and sipping a drink, not really engaging with anyone else at the party. It was kind of an odd way to behave at a swinger's party, where everyone is presumably there to hook up, to some extent, so I started up a conversation with her.
"Did you come here with somebody?" I asked.
"Yeah, my boyfriend. He's off getting what he came for, I guess," she said with a sigh. "I'm just here because he wants to fuck other women occasionally but has hang-ups about cheating, and well, people don't come to these things alone, do they."
"Not typically, no. Solo men aren't invited," I agreed. "You didn't want to watch?"
"Watch him fuck someone else? Ha. No thanks, doesn't do much for me, does it. No, I'm just here for emotional support, I guess." She took another sip of her drink. "What about you?"
"My wife Emily and I live here," I explained. She laughed, and we did proper introductions.
"Where's she?" Karen asked.
"Drunkenly...I don't know. Maybe fucking someone, maybe sucking someone off," I said. "Who knows, maybe she and you're boyfriend are together right now."
"She fucks around, but you don't?" Karen asked.
I shrugged. "Someone ought to stay sober enough to make sure no one makes bad decisions. We get one night a month to do whatever we want. The rest of the time it's just a normal marriage."
"So do you ever indulge?" Karen asked.
"On occasion, with the right person. Or I'll fill in, in times of need."
An old friend, half undressed, came into the kitchen to get another drink, and she interjected, "Don't let him sell himself short. He's not my type, but the one time he ate me out, I felt like jelly afterwards."
I laughed and Karen blushed. My friend got her drink and went back to whatever she had been in the middle of.
"If you don't mind my saying so, you don't seem like a typical swinger," Karen said. "I mean you're not middle-aged, you're not a horn ball. How did you end up hosting this type of thing?"
I told her the whole story. "Emily and I got married when we were teenagers. You see, we were taught that you were supposed to wait until marriage, and our bodies were telling us it was time, so it was a simple deduction that we had to get married. Our parents tried to talk us out of it, but we were convinced it was the right thing to do, so we eloped. Then after college, we started realizing that because we had only ever been with each other, maybe we were missing out. So we started coming to parties here, at this very house. Another fellow owned it back then. Once we worked out the jealousy stuff, I was like a kid in a candy shop, I couldn't get enough. Then owner of the house wanted to sell, and we were looking to buy, and buying it from him directly, we got a sweet deal as long as we agreed to keep hosting these parties."
Eventually Karen's boyfriend reemerged, looking exhausted, drained, but vibrant. He was a tall, lanky fellow with a chain around his neck. He kissed Karen on the lips, and then they said goodnight and left.
I wasn't sure if I would see her again. Some people try swinging and find that it isn't for them, or doesn't work for their relationship. But the next month, the two of them showed up again. It didn't take her boyfriend long to pair off with someone, leaving Karen and I to have another long, personal conversation together in the kitchen. I noticed that she rejected guys' advances, so I didn't try to make any moves myself, but I was starting to like her. Karen finally met Emily, before my wife went back to one of the bedrooms to give someone a blowjob, I forget who.
Karen and her boyfriend showed up a third month in a row, practically making them regulars. At one point I took a break from tending bar, and we sat on a couch together. We talked about everything. But when the conversation hit a lull, I leaned over and kissed her.
After the kiss, I tried to gauge whether I had crossed a line. "I'm sorry," I said.
"No it's okay, I wanted that," she said confidently.
"Is there anything else you want to do?" I asked, suddenly hopeful.
"No, that was it. And it was perfect," she said with a reassuring smile. That was her in a nutshell. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she knew how to not get carried away and end up getting more than that.
Two weeks later, my wife Emily got in her car and left for work, and a minute later the doorbell rings. I go to answer it, and Karen is standing on the doorstep.
"Hi Karen, what's up?" I asked, confused but pleased by her presence.
Without warning, she kissed me passionately on the lips.
"I...I can't stop thinking about you, and I didn't want to wait a whole month," she said. We had never exchanged numbers or anything, but she obviously knew where I lived. I guess she had waited for my wife to leave.
I kissed her back, taking her into my arms. Quickly we went inside the house. Just like that, we weren't swinging, we were having an affair. We started getting together every chance we could get.
Karen and her boyfriend kept coming to the parties at my house. Ironically, that one evening a month was the one time where we could kiss and hold hands and be a couple out in the open.