swing?

Code names. We agreed on code names, because being incredibly famous, unique and special snowflakes we didn't want the swingers Googling us if we decided we didn't like them.

The official plan: go to a well known pub, SMS the hosts, meet, greet, flock off to fuck.

Our plan: go to a well known pub, SMS the hosts, meet, greet, run away. Baby steps.

We had dinner together, not far from the venue. Walked hand in hand to the pub, nervously. What were we doing? Why? We weren't even horny, just nervous. Wrong time of the month really, but we were still curious.

We got to the pub, SMSed the hosts. We had convinced ourselves that it would be just us and the peeps organizing this, it would all be a miserable failure as we left. We were therefore bemused and surprised at the reply: at the back bar, about 8 couples

8 couples? 8 couples! That's 16 people!

Turns out they were pretty nice. Also turns out we were too flummoxed to remember our assumed identities and kept calling each other by our real names. The host at least humored us. Oh well. We stayed for drinks, relaxed. Chatted a bit with one of the couples, then another couple. The host wandered by now and again to make a joke and put people at ease. More and more couples kept arriving.

After about 3 drinks the word rippled through the crowd: time to go!

I looked at Rosa. This was our cue to run away; but I had relaxed, she had relaxed. We had people we were comfortable talking to and we were curious, so we decided to go along. We'd told people we were absolute beginners and probably only voyeurs at this point; noone seemed to mind.

Time to go!

Slowly the group made it's way out of the pub, gathered outside like students on a field trip, waiting for the teacher to lead them back to the bus. It was quite amusing, actually. Jokes were made.

Then a friend of a friend, an attractive young woman we'd met at a party a couple of times before crossed the street and looked right at us. Ohshitohshitoshit. Be cool.

I grin and walk right to her, bravely launching into routine small talk. Rosa follows, slightly more flustered, makes the excuse that she wasn't wearing her glasses and was unsure who she was talking to. Our friend of a friend jokingly replies "What? Two nights of passion and you've forgotten me already?"

We titter.

...and worry silently that one of the swingers might overhear, take her seriously, invite her along...

But instead the group wanders off without us, as we continue making conversation. Once we've exhausted all the mandatory pleasantries, our friend of a friend wanders off. Following the swingers, of course. Catching up with them immediately, in fact, leading her bike and having a hard time getting through the massive mob.

Rosa and I just stand still, laughing. Waiting for her to get far enough away that we can follow without giving away our lies. Hoping she doesn't overhear anything too incriminating.

We catch up with the group in the corner shop where everyone is buying booze. We follow their lead, buy a bottle. Follow their lead down the street and follow their lead into the apartment that had been rented for the occasion.

The tiny, barren, oddly shaped apartment. It felt quite crowded, with over a dozen couples milling awkwardly about. Many of them inexperienced like us. Young, older, all shapes and sizes and colors.

Someone tried to find some music on the tiny telly, but gave up. Bare light bulbs cast unflattering shadows; I turned off the light in the kitchenette where we'd pitched camp.

After a bit the host announced, somewhat formally, that he and his girlfriend would be adjourning to the bedroom and people were welcome to join them. From that moment on, whenever we saw him he was wandering around with a t-shirt, socks and no trousers. With his really quite impressive dong flopping about. Not exactly elegant, but somehow comical enough to not add to people's insecurities.

Soon after the announcement, his girlfriend returned, pouting. "It's no fun if no one is going to watch!" she whined.

That broke the ice. The voyeurs gathered in the corridor outside the bedroom, craning their heads. The hosts got it on, soon other couples joined them. The couples we'd been idly chatting with in the kitchen turned to each other and began to kiss, touch. I watched as the woman I'd been chatting with had her little dress lifted up, and up, and up, by her tanned boyfriend.

Soon we were alone in the kitchen.

At this point, we were both quite drunk. I was starting to get a bit horny from the things going on around us, but Rosa was in more of a bemusedly shocked state; she was happy to watch, but wasn't interested in making out with me, let alone anyone else. We spent some time in the corridor with the voyeurs, but after a while began to feel that I couldn't really stay there any longer without doing something. As Rosa was emphatically not ready to do more than watch, I suggested we leave and go somewhere private.

I shook hands with the man wearing no pants and we made our belated escape.

Well, we tried to anyway. What actually happened was we found ourselves stuck at the gates and ended up having to return to request a code which would actually let us out. I promptly forgot it before reaching the gates, but luckily Rosa has better memory than I.

So on the second try, we truly did escape, only to find it wasn't even midnight and we had time to go for a quiet drink together to talk things over. Which we did.

We were glad we went; it was an experience! Not a bad experience, not a fantastic one either, but definitely an interesting and amusing one. Once I'd regained my composure and we'd talked a bit, I began to regret calling things short. It would have been fascinating to see how things developed. But such is life; and it was the right decision at the time, we were out of sync and needed to regroup.

We'll probably give it another try, sometime.

I still want to see my girl on her knees in front of another man, she still wants to see me touching someone else...