I feel like a leper

Last night we went to our usual club. From the RSVP list there didn’t look to be anyone we were going to be playing with but we decided to go anyway. Tom and Mary were there and we figured we might talk to them but probably not much of interest would happen.

We put our stuff in a locker and looked around. The were quite a few new people but no one interesting. We finally settled in the lounge area next to the appetizers. There were some people talking but all the seats near them were taken so we arranged a couple comfortable chairs on the periphery and sort of listened in and chatted between just ourselves. We observed the new couples going through the first part of the orientation but didn’t see anyone of particular interest. There were quite a few of them but none of the men were tall enough to be interesting to Jo or they weren’t in our age bracket.

After a while Uriah showed up, gave us both hugs and sat down beside us.  We chatted about her boyfriend who still  who hasn’t said he loves her. We talked about marriage some. She doesn’t envision ever getting married again but could see him being a lifelong companion. She asked if we planned to get married. We said we hadn’t really talked about it much. Certainly not in the next few years because getting financial aid for Jo’s college age children is easier as a single mother. Jo left as Uriah and I were talking about something of little interest to her. I was a bit concerned because has had a bit of a cough I was wondering if she was feeling so ill that maybe we should go home. So I went looking for her.

Jo was fine, she just went to check her phone for messages from the kids and go to the bathroom. We scouted for other couples in the lobby and saw a particularly attractive woman and a good looking guy come through. Okay. There’s our “prey”. We need to sit at their table for dinner we decided. I put our names on the little cards used to reserve seats at the tables and waited for them to select their chairs. Jo predicted that we would have to move fast because others are probably going to have the same idea as we did. I’m not certain that is what happened but there was another couple that selected the same table as Louis and Roberta and we hurried to place our cards in the two remaining positions at that table.

We struck up a conversation with them and it went well. We talked about kids, where we lived, travel time to the club, and about the personal dynamics of this club with all its floor space compared to house parties. Dinner was served and we went through the buffet and came back to the table. The third couple was there and almost immediately the conversation between Jo, I, and this third couple dominated. Louis and Roberta were kind of left out. We didn’t mean for that to happen but the other woman in particular is one of those “life of the party” types. We talked about the TV series Fire Fly and how it could be used to find out if another couple was compatible or not. If someone didn’t like Fire Fly  then you could scratch them off of your list. Jo and I really liked Fire Fly  but I’m not certain that would be compelling evidence to have nothing to do with potential playmates.

She told us about being polyamorous and with her current partner, there at the table with us, initially just started out as a sexual relationship. And after she discovered she was in love with him she waited four months to tell him because it wasn’t how the relationship had started and what they said they wanted. It turned out he felt the same way about her and it was all good. Jo chipped in that she understood the concept of polyamory and it made a certain amount of sense but it just wouldn’t work for her in practice. She just wouldn’t be able to handle it. I probably could handle it a little better than Jo but still I much prefer the swinging lifestyle to the polyamorous unless maybe we all lived in the same home. I could see that having the potential to work out. Perhaps something like the Line Marriage described in Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as being one of the more functional structures (see also Influence of the Science Fiction Writings of Robert A. Heinlein on Polyamory).

We didn’t get the names of the third couple and weren’t really interested in them as playmates. They were much younger than us and with all of her piercings, the red and black hair, and the bright red lipstick I just didn’t find her of sexual interest.

Louis and Roberta left the table when the entertainment started so they could get a better view. It was a demonstration of fire play. There was a man and a woman on the dance floor with a portable massage table. The woman was nude and the man used isopropyl alcohol to briefly set fire to parts of her body or used a burning glove to stroke her. It sort of bothered Jo and me and we didn’t watch much of it. We did wander off to find Tom and Mary and talk to them some.  They had eaten dinner with Sean and Martha and the two couple seemed to be connecting well. We wondered how that would work out. Maybe they would be interested in a doing a soft swap or something. Martha gave me a hug when we arrived and the others were friendly as well. We watched the fire play some but mostly talked.

Tom and Mary told us how, “It always ends this way…” They have had several different girl friends over the years. They play with another woman as a couple for quite some time then she will find some guy that she really likes and wants to bring him into the relationship with Tom and Mary. That just doesn’t work for Tom and apparently not all that well for Mary. Tom explained it as follows, “So I have my wife and our girlfriend and everything is going well and this guy wants to join us. So he gets the whole prize of two different women and what is it I get out of this?”

Jo and I wandered off when the fire play demonstration was over and looked around to see what else was available. We saw Robert and Lindsey talking to another couple and they appeared to be quite “tight” but not really anything else of interest. Another couple that we had played with a couple times, Mark and Wendy, had eaten dinner at a table some distance from us. Wendy had always shown a lot of interest in me and I liked being with her but the chemistry between Mark and Jo wasn’t all the hot and Jo wasn’t interested in pursing that possibility. Wendy did approach me and said she hadn’t gotten her hug from me yet and I gave her a big hug and kiss. We chatted for just a few seconds before she moved on to the bar area.

Jo and I decided to just go into the play area by ourselves. Because it was pretty early there were hardly any other people around. We went to the mirror room and laid down and talked about the dynamics of the club. After 10 or 15 minutes we started getting sexually aroused. Another couple came into the room and laid on an isolated bed fairly close to us. We probably would have been interested in them even if they had shown an interest in us. We all end up having sex at essentially the same time. It was nice to hear the sounds and see another couple having sex close to us even if we didn’t directly participate with them.

The other couple left before we did and we were alone in the room for a while longer and I nearly fell asleep. Jo asked if I was ready to leave and I agreed. There just wasn’t much going on for us. This was pretty much as expected.

We made our little survey of the play area before leaving. We found Louis and Roberta together in a small bed isolated from others. Apparently they weren’t interested in us or they could have joined us in the mirror room.

As we were leaving Wendy again approached and expressed some disappointment we were leaving they were staying the night. And then Uriah also came up to me and seemed to be expressing disappointment we were leaving.

We left and as we drove home we talked about the evening. “I feel like a leper” she said. At the house party we go to she gets lots and lots of attention from attractive men and we have had 75% success in finding playmates when we have attended. At this club there isn’t that many guys she is interested in and many of those that are interesting aren’t into full swap. There were women, this time, that were interested in me but Jo just wasn’t “feeling the love” and that just isn’t going to work for us.

Jo did sort of a mock survey of herself:

  • Q: Did you find others of similar interests?
    A: No.

  • Q: Did you have a good time?
    A: Yes. But only with my partner. I could have done that at home.

  • Q: Will you attend again?
    A: Probably. But I’m not sure why.

We just aren’t seeing the benefit of attending here. The house parties (see also here, here, and here) we have been going to have worked well for us. But they are only once a month and it is a fairly long drive for us. We had a good time at the hotel party. And people that put on the hotel parties are going to have their own facility next month, closer than even our usual party house, with several parties a month. We decided that place our hopes on the new party house. We’ll keep going to our usual club for a while but things really need to turn around to keep that up much longer.

When we got home Jo had to help her son with something for 15 or 20 minutes and I was nearly asleep when she got into bed. She cuddled up and we went contentedly to sleep. Then this morning we “slept in” and had sex three times before getting up at almost noon.

Quote of the day: Kim

You look so conservative without any clothes on and so wild with them.   

Kim
At a swingers club
December 3, 1997

She was referring to me. I suppose there is a certain amount of truth in that. But more interestingly is that it often difficult to recognize someone when you see them with their clothes on at the mall or a restaurant. Yet you might know them quite intimately from sex parties with their clothes off