The Crossing: Wife Swapping at Sea

The First Day: Southampton, England

It was not the most logical thing we ever did. It being flying to London and starting a trip back to New York the next day.

My wife of over thirty years and I were in a cab between the Southampton Station and the dock for Cunard's Queen Mary 2. A retirement gift from our children. They were grown and our grandchildren were growing. My wife and I had retired or semi-retired a few months before.

Once in a lifetime opportunity

they kept saying, and once my wife joined the chorus I was doomed.

Who are we? I'm Jim Brady. I grew up in Brooklyn. I had taught law at a law school in New York and went into semi-retirement when I turned sixty at the end of the spring semester. I plan on doing writing and consulting work, but for all intents and purposes, I can do what I want to do when I want to do it.

My wife is Diane Brady. She, too, taught, but it was mathematics at a small liberal arts college not far from our home in a suburb just north of New York City.

For some reason, our kids decided Diane and I needed to get away, For Christmas, they gave us a joint present of a trip on the ocean-liner. I didn't particularly want to do it, but Diane confessed she'd brought the subject up with one of our daughters and that the three kids ran with it. It was only after Christmas that Diane began to work on me, and I confess that I was increasingly interested as she showed me brochures and videos. By the time we'd book all the travel details, I may have been more excited about the getting away in luxury angle than she was.

From boarding the flight at JFK to the night in London and the train and cab to the dock, I was more and more excited.

As we approached the ship, I knew Diane was right about this adventure. We'd be on board for seven days. At times, we'd be too far from land to be rescued even by helicopter. At least we weren't worried about icebergs.

So. Seven days in the North Atlantic in October. It is one of the year's final crossings. Only a few take place when the North Atlantic turns ugly as winter nears. Neither of us has been on a cruise ship before, let alone an ocean liner. The QM2 is built for ocean crossings. Stronger and more stable, according to Cunard, than a ship that plies the Ft. Lauderdale-Caribbean beat.

The cab dropped us and our baggage at the dock, Soon we were on board. Like an old, black-and-white movie. Cunard built it that way, but photos and videos don't do it justice.

The cabin. It was on the fourth deck. It wasn't large but it had a large bed and decent-sized bathroom. Best of all, a small balcony. It has boards on either side so it is private. There is a railing with a covering so people don't slip into the ocean. My mind immediately thought of how to take advantage.

The Second (First Full) Day: Somewhere in the North Atlantic

The QM2's first "formal" evening was on Monday, our first full day at sea. We'd spent the day trying to familiarize ourselves with where things were and how things worked. We both had our

sea legs

, and enjoyed afternoon tea, it being a British boat--it is the RMS, or Royal Mail Ship, Queen Mary 2 after all.

Perhaps more than anything, though, we were looking forward to formal dining. The ship's formal evenings are pretty much what they sound like. Men are expected to dress in a tux and women a gown. That's for the main dining room.

It's all meant to give a, I don't know, Roaring 20s or Elegant 30s look. We sat at a table for eight, with two couples our ages and two a decade or so younger. And we danced and we drank and we had the times of our lives. In a sense, it's the point of the whole trip.

At night's end, we returned to our cabin. We don't go formal often so this was special. I opened the sliding door to our balcony. The brisk air gave us new life. I asked Diane to keep her gown on. It was a glimmering blue. She wore matching sapphire earrings and a gold necklace, all complementing her blue, drownable eyes. Her left hand had her engagement ring and wedding band. She displayed a simple sapphire-and-diamond cluster on her right ring finger. Her hair was short, but she'd styled it nicely. She slipped easily into becoming a dream. Soon she would be my dream.

I kept my tuxedo jacket on and swapped places with her in the bathroom. When I returned, she sidled up to me in that sapphire gown and matching eyes. She put her arms around my neck and pulled my mouth to hers. Like looking at her, kissing her never gets old or tired or boring. More than anything was the moment her tongue invaded my mouth as mine tried to keep up. There was moaning, though I'm not sure whose, completely out of line for a couple married for thirty-two or so years with three kids and four grandkids. No, not appropriate at all.

Of course, one can't account for being alone with a beautiful woman in a sapphire gown while wearing a tuxedo. There are dreams. There are fantasies. But sometimes real life is far, far superior.

I felt her ass and realized she'd removed her panties. She smiled when I pulled back with that realization.

"You like?"

"Me like."

Of course, a problem with a gown is that it's long. I so much wanted to slip my hands beneath its hem so my fingers could run across her exposed pussy, but I couldn't.

She smiled again. The cabin has a curved desk near the door to the balcony. Diane turned and reached for my hand, and I took hers. She led me to the desk and turned. She again wrapped her arms around my neck and I again put my hands on her ass. She pulled me down for another kiss, before pushing my face away.

"I hope this is strong enough."

She bent down and pulled the gown up until its front was above her waist and bounced back onto the desk. There was a moment's hesitancy, but it seemed strong enough.

"Wait a sec," I called to her as I ran to the bathroom for a towel. She hopped off the desk and hopped back on once the towel was in place.

"My ass thanks you."

It was gorgeous. Her pussy. Still in my tux jacket, I knelt before her and between her open legs. It never ceases to amaze me. As with looking at her sleep, looking at

her

is transcendent. I've spent many hours exploring her, always rewarded by her increasing arousal. I ran my tongue gently up her folds. While normally she'd have her hands on my head, she needed them now to maintain her balance on the sliver of the desk that we were taking advantage of.

Her mouth, though, was distracted in a completely different way and she was quickly chanting "Oh my God." Her legs, still in thigh-high stockings, encircled me and her feet with her sapphire heels crossed each other behind my back.

My hands were on either side of her thighs and my shoulders were keeping them apart. While my tongue lapped at her opening, my right middle finger began bisecting her folds and tapping her clit repeatedly and randomly. I knew how she loved that but she cut me off.

She pushed my face away. I saw magic in her eyes, and I stood so she could undo the clasp of my tuxedo pants. She was wobbly on the desk so I intervened, stepping back, and undid and unzipped my trousers so I could push them down, with my briefs. One of the benefits of being our ages was that we didn't need to think about birth control. That night, with my tux jacket still on like fucking James Bond, I moved between her legs. She put her hands on my now-bare ass and pulled me closer before taking her right hand and directing me inside her.

It is in that moment, every time, when time stands still. The perfect moment when I am inside her and there is nothing more certain in the universe than that that is where I am supposed to be. Coupled with her as she places her forearms on my shoulders and uses her hands to pull my mouth again to hers. Yet much as I savor kissing her like that, as I know she savors kissing me, it fades quickly as all I am is a dick penetrating my wife's pussy.

I hold it. We both like that. Till she breaks the kiss.

"Fuck me."

And I do, pulling her slightly forward so I have complete access to her. We're not kids and the pace is slower, more deliberate. But so much more satisfying than those manic early days when we feared her roommate would knock or her parents wouldn't. It's like one of those smooth jazzy numbers, choreographed to a soft and stylish saxophone.

It never lasts. Soon the tempo picks up and we both start improvising. I vary the speed of my entry and she curses me for it. Which was happening in our cabin that night. When I knew she was

almost

there, I pull nearly out and hold myself there. The only reason she does not kill me then and there is that we both know from experience how to edge one another and that we

always

make it to the other side.

But I'm afraid the alcohol and the formal dress were too much. It reached the point where neither of us could hold onto the edge and we came nearly at the same time guttural before collapsing in our bed. Asleep and naked.

The Third Day: Somewhere in the North Atlantic, Further West

It's interesting...No.

It's a thrill that you can see the same woman nearly every day for over thirty-five years and still find your breath taken away as if each of those days provides a new, pleasant revelation about her. I stood on the small balcony attached to our cabin after our first night on board, a day out of Southampton. There was nothing to see but for the endless blue green of the North Atlantic on a mid-October morning. I was caught by the slight roll of the ship and the swish-swish of the water being cut by its bow.

Wearing the plush terry-cloth robe and holding a cup of coffee I'd made in the in-cabin machine. I turned and looked into the cabin. I studied her. I don't do it often enough. One or the other of us, usually both, are always rushed when we awaken. The kids are grown and gone, and their kids are growing but except for the occasional Saturday or Sunday, we don't linger.

This morning, though, I could study her. She looked much like she did when we met nearly forty years before. Yes, she treats her hair to defeat the gray, but otherwise she is who she was. Only better.

One benefit of her pale, smooth Irish skin was an aversion to spending time in the sun. Unlike many our ages, now suffering from lines on lines. Her small breasts not suffering from the inexorable pull of gravity. She was lightly snoring in the bed, with a sheet over her. I could hear her blowing small bubbles through her lips, her variation on snoring. On her stomach with her hands under the pillow, she slowly and slightly rose-and-fell with each breath.

Soon she was up and we were dressed and ready for our second full day aboard.

* * * *

Is it ever

not

embarrassing to leave your cabin to go to breakfast after a night of blow-the-roof-off-the-joint sex and run smack into the couple in the cabin on the other side of the wall on which your wife hit her head once or twice?

It's not when your sixty-one and your wife thinks you're a--

"Get that smirk off your face before I do it for you."

A wife who knows what you're thinking before you do.

But even with the smirk gone, there was a spring in my step.

Still. I was sixty-one and she was sixty and, well, we both knew we had to space things. In a sense, we both felt some relief after that Monday-night-session because it meant we could spend two, maybe three days not thinking about whether we'd be having sex that night. Or at least not obsessively. We were on an ocean liner with all manner of things to keep us busy, an ocean liner full of people and what seemed like ten crew members for each passenger.

Still, the more people there were, the less we noticed them. The experience was that magical. It's designed to be a holiday and while there were events around-the-clock, we spent an inordinate share of our time lounging next to one another. On the deck. In one of the cafés or restaurants. In the extensive library.

And in our cabin napping, generally with me spooning her as we nodded off.

The Fourth Day: Still At Sea

My good intentions did not make it to dinnertime on Wednesday. We were napping, as old people do in the afternoon. I was spooning Diane. We were both on our left sides and neither of us was asleep. Fully clothed. I felt her right hand pull mine down her front, until it was at her pussy, albeit outside her slacks and panties. I unsnapped and unzipped the former and put my hand through the waistband of the latter. No headbanging. No

Oh my God

s. Just me slowing rubbing her folds and inserting one finger then another inside her as she gripped my hand to hold it to her.

Neither of us moved or spoke except for my fingers, held by her hand. I felt her hips roll slightly and her breath shorten with her arousal. Until she came. It was a simple, intimate orgasm, the type only two people as familiar with the other's body as with their own.

I kissed her on the back of the neck and heard her

thank you

as she pulled my hand to her lips and kissed it, then licking my fingers clean. She could, I'm sure, feel how hard I was. But I told her I was fine. And I was. And then she fell into a post-orgasm nap, and I continued to hold her as I too fell asleep.

The Fifth Day: Past Midway

In theory, the QM2 can make the crossing in four days. But it takes its time so passengers can enjoy it. And themselves. But when we got up on Thursday, our fourth full day, our luck had changed. We'd hit a North Atlantic storm, and the seas were rough. Fortunately, our cabin was about halfway between the bow and the stern, so the rocking was not as pronounced as it was elsewhere. What had been routine on Wednesday became an adventure twenty-four hours later.

We braved the deck briefly, stopping to look at the Atlantic's swells and white caps atop passing waves. We'd packed, as suggested, rain slickers, and feeling Ahab-like we wore them to breakfast. The restaurant, as with the rest of the ship we explored, was half-empty. Fortunately, neither Diane nor I suffered seasickness, but we stuck to eggs and toast and coffee.

Things calmed considerably by early afternoon, and the Captain assured us that the storm had passed. He expected clear sailing into New York. All was calm by the time dinner rolled around. It was another formal event. Again, I was in my tux and Diane was in her gown. This time we sat at an even larger table, for twelve, including two of the couples from the prior formal night and one we'd met at breakfast. This time we decided to dance. But we didn't care. I suggested a post-dance show, but she said she had a surprise for me. "Back in the cabin."

Which is why she was on her knees and I was in a chair on the balcony wearing only my tuxedo shirt and tie. She, I should mention, was naked, and kneeling on a towel. She laughed when she had me where she wanted me.

"Damn right you're 'fine,'" said a moment before her lips encircled the head of my dick. It was cold but it was the most sensuous moment we'd shared. A gorgeous naked woman worshipping my dick as a wind whistled by the ship and the wave kissed the hull of a huge ocean liner that might as well have been empty for all we cared.

Soon she'd engulfed all of me. We both knew I couldn't last. First, of course, because of the setting and the build-up and that she was worshiping my dick. Second because we were getting cold. I didn't last long. She squeezed my balls and pulled her mouth from me, and I shot over her tits and chest. Four bursts.

I hadn't recovered when I saw her great ass shooting through the door into the cabin and then into the bathroom. By the time I got inside, the shower was heating up. I stripped as quickly as I could once the balcony door was closed. By the time I got inside the bathroom, she was being warmed by the shower's cascading water.

It was a small shower, with a glass door and not a lot of room. I joined her. She was covering her chest with soap. I turned her so I was behind her, the water flowing off her head and down her front. I ran my right hand around her middle before moving it to her pussy. This time I went straight inside her with three fingers. She was wet from a combination of her arousal for what she'd done to me and from the shower itself.

I rotated my hand so I could claw her. Her hands were against the shower tiles, and my left hand circled her, below her arms, and found her left tit. I maintained my balance by leaning against her upper back, so we were both largely supported by her hands on the wall.

It didn't take long for her either. I knew her eyes were shut as her hips started rotating rhythmically. Her knees begin to buckle slightly. I stepped back to remove my weight from her back and my left hand went from caressing her tit and squeezing its nipple. Her head began to rock in sync with her hips, waves emanating from what she was feeling in her pussy.

With me holding her, she could move her right hand from the wall to her clit, and she started rubbing it fast. As soon as her finger touched her there, her body's motions were magnified. I could feel the tsunami beginning to course through her. Her finger was rubbing faster and faster as I tried to control my own fingers inside her, all while securing her as her knees increased their bend.

Then her body stopped moving, except for her finger. Suddenly she pulled that away and exploded, her "oh my God"s echoing in the small space. I'd slowed my hands' movement, almost caressing the inside of her pussy until her right hand pushed mine out of her, and I used it to hold her tighter as she came down, removing her own left hand from the shower wall.

Her breath was short. I don't know how long we'd been there but the water was still warm. We were both completely spent. We gave ourselves a final rinsing, turned the shower off, and dried off with the plush towels that Cunard had kindly provided.

After we took turns brushing our teeth and otherwise preparing for bed, we lay next to each other. And as with looking at her first thing in the morning after all these years, saying "goodnight" and hearing her say "goodnight" remains the perfect end to my day.

The Sixth Day: Off Greenland. Maybe?

We were joined at breakfast on Friday by one of the couples we'd met the night before. They were Brits and would be flying back to London after a few days in New York. Sally and Bill. About our age. He was a bit taller than me and had a full head of gray hair.

Sally was an inch or two taller than Diane and was a bit larger on top. Her hips were wider and her hair was light brown with a tint of red. It dangled below her shoulders.

Unbeknownst to me, Diane and Sally had spoken alone in the Ladies' Room during dinner and had met on the second day of the trip. Unbeknownst to me, Bill and I were among the topics of their conversations. This I learned after the breakfast, which was meant as a getting-to-know-your-husband thing.

As Diane and I left, we headed for a walk on the deck.

"What do you think of Sally?"

I thought she was quite attractive but didn't dare think more. Or say that.

"She seemed nice."

"Nice? Tell the truth. Would you like to fuck her?"

Now Diane had never said something like this in the thirty-five or so years we'd been together.

I stopped.

"What?"

"It's a simple question. Would you like to fuck her? I'd like Bill to fuck me."

This was holy-shit time. I mean, of course I'd like to fuck her. She was a very attractive Brit with nice eyes and big tits.

Diane pulled me to the side.

"Look. This is the one chance we'll have in our lives to explore sex with someone else. Free and clear. No commitment. No responsibilities. Haven't you ever thought what it would be like to be inside a woman who wasn't me?"