Checking Out the “Swing Set”

On some level I have always know who and what I am yet it’s taken almost 20 years to actually speak those words aloud not only to myself but to my partner. I knew after my first threesome that I wanted more yet my social conditioning made me feel shame at wanting something that others deems unacceptable. It didn’t help that after what, to this day, is up there with one of my all-time favorite sexual experiences—my then-husband looked at me after the fact like I was a two-headed freak of nature and accused me of all sorts of things which at a later date I will cover, probably in my “SepiaQueen’s Journey to Freakdom” series.

Yet the truth of who I am had been slowly rising to the surface and causing deep ripples of unhappiness in me. So much so that a couple of months ago I told Smokedawg, aka my life partner and husband, that maybe we should split up. Oh, I knew he was a kinky bastard yet I also knew deep down he was a “good” boy and while we had always maintained a policy that if one of us ever had an “oops” and slept with someone else it would not be the end of our marriage as long as we were honest about it. For Smokedawg, he had always been willing to concede that what I need sexually might be to frankly get the shit fucked out of me by someone else on an every-now-and-then basis. But the fact is despite the fact we said those words, in almost 14 years of marriage I never felt as if I could really act on those feelings. After all often when he said this, his voice hardened and there was a sense of “don’t push me,” so I never brought it up until…

Last month after a night of relaxing over a bottle of wine, I can’t remember how I brought it up but I posed the idea of us having sex with others as a couple. In other words: Swinging. Mind you, this came on the heels of us just trying to figure out what it was that was making me want to end our marriage. I am not sure why I felt I could bring this up at that time but I knew we were in a better place than we had been and besides when sipping a relaxing glass of Merlot I figured worse case he would say “no,” I would laugh and blame it on the wine.

Imagine my surprise when he said “why not?” I will spare you all the chatter but I will say that once it was clear I had the green light for us to explore immediately I went into research mode and found sites that catered to swingers. I also quickly discovered that they felt a tad skeevy but I learned there were so-called lifestyle events, more like private parties that catered to folks interested in swinging. You have no idea how happy and surprised I was to discover one monthly event that was only 30 minutes from our little city. It was 3.5 weeks until the next event and I immediately filled out the application to attend, paid and we received confirmation.

Boy oh boy, we were going to actually do this! All month we were thinking about this, feeling giddy about taking this step; however, in true research mode I had already moved on from swinging to thinking maybe that was a tad much and that maybe we should look into polyamrory, since after many late night talks we both admitted that the idea of having sex with people we didn’t know might be strange. Furthermore we wanted deeper connections and while our love and family is solid we are also open to loving others.

Goodness all this research was making my mind weary and the closer we got to event night I started feeling unsettled, asking myself “are we really going to do this?” In fact Saturday came and I was still wondering if perhaps we should just take advantage of having a sitter and go see a movie rather than check out this party. In the end curiosity got the better of me and we ended up going. On the drive there my heart was beating, the actual event was being held at an inn that was made available to the group for the night, it was in a classy town. Yet the closer we got to the event, I almost felt like I was about to puke my guts up. Oh boy!

Well we parked the car, and walked in and on first glance it was seemingly very normal. Immediately we were greeted by a very young and attractive couple who were the organizers. I can assure you in a line-up if someone asked you to pick out the swingers these two would really be least likely to be considered. After a few minutes of talking they explained things were running a little behind due to a scheduling snafu with the inn but showed us to the food (my heaven, even the food was normal) and then showed us to the hospitality room upstairs. Uh? Hospitality room upstairs and “oh shit what have I gotten myself into?” ran through my head.

Turns out yes the hospitality room is where action can and did happen later in the evening but when we entered there were simply other couples chatting like ole friends, some getting dressed or shall I say partially undressed (it was a stripper theme that night, and a couple women were wearing next to nothing and putting on pasties) and they were all looking really normal. We were introduced to the group and immediately we received a warm welcome and almost instantly most of my nervousness went away. Again these people looked really normal I am talking like professors and nurses—not a soul looked like an aging porn start from the 70’s, which is what I thought we might encounter.

After about 20 minutes of small talk, the event officially begins and  imagine my surprise when a half hour into the festivities, I go to grab a snack and run into an acquaintance of mine: a very professional, very educated person I have known almost 5 years now. Our eyes lock and I immediately went into “oh shit” mode! We continued the eye lock and just eventually laughed and greeted each other, turns out he and his girlfriend have been in the lifestyle a while, and Smokedawg and I end up spending a fair amount of time hanging out with them. Turns out knowing someone who knows the ropes is useful.

As the night progressed both Smokedawg and I relaxed, we chatted with many people eventually danced with others, which for Smokedawg—who has two left feet—is a big deal. Granted, this was more bumping and grinding so he managed well. We even met another person we didn’t know but with whom I share a friend in common…good gravy this world is small! Granted it was also her first time and she continued to look nervous all night.

While we did not have any sexual contact with others we considered the night a success. I actually got on the stripper poll and danced with another gal. Mind you I stayed fully clothed but Smokedawg told me it was still sexy as hell. I even snagged a dance towards the end of the night with the uber-sexy DJ who very gently guided me to massage his chest…all the while Smokedawg watched on and I watched him to make sure he was cool. As he told me, yes he was very cool watching me with the DJ, actually made him a tad warm.

In the end, we went to a party where yes some people were scantily clad, and yes some people had sex (oh we did peek in on that….can you say hawt! Five people when we went in: a couple going at it on one end of the bed and a man and two women licking and fingering each other on the other end of it.) but we drank, talked, flirted with others and went home to some hot sex the following morning between us. We are pretty sure we will be back again, if nothing else such an event served to warm us up even without others involved with us in the sexy action.