Swingers
written by: Doug Hawley
@dougiamm
Interviewer’s note – I started to write my Journalism thesis on swingers, but before I got too far into it, I decided to concentrate on one circle of people. These interviews are the result.
Inter – I see your name comes up a lot in swinger circles Duke, how did it start?
Duke – It started after my marriage broke up. See, my wife wasn’t interested in anything other than getting her hair done and hanging out with her friend Jonquil.
Inter – Tell me about your marriage.
Duke – Well, in high school I was hot stuff. I had a lot of luck with the ladies, but now with the hot clique. At that time Sally was different. She took to sex enthusiastically.
We got married right out of high school and she put me through college. I’ve got to say that I appreciate that. But then sex was both boring and infrequent. I had wanted children, but she was infertile.
The years roll on; we are like boarders rather than man and wife. One day she said to me “Duke, I’ve had enough, I want out.” At that point, I’d had enough, I’m Already Gone.
We wrangle over the finances, but because I am actuary and vice president of an insurance company, I had a pretty good head for getting mine.
Inter – Then you became a swinger?
Duke – I thought that I’d been shortchanged enough in my marriage; it was time to make up for it while I was able. For insurance, I went to my friendly doc and got all the meds I needed to make sure that no opportunity would be wasted.
At first, I went to the personals to see what was out there. It turns out that the women were whores, 300 pounders, junkies, diseased, thieves or all five. It is scary out there on the internet.
What I really wanted was orgies. Without a woman, it was difficult to get in, if you will pardon the joke. Two three-ways and occasional successful pickups were OK, but I wanted more.
One night coming home late from a no hook-up hook-up, my neighbor Freeda was pulling into her driveway at the same time. Freeda is a widow who knew Sally and I casually. She asked “How is your love life since you split”.
I told her “Not so good”.
She said “Same here since Ned died”.
The next day was Saturday. Around noon, Freeda came over bearing a pitcher of margarita. She said “You fix lunch and I’ll make drinks”. I was happy to take the deal.
I made fajita subs to go with the margis. After a while, Freeda said “I might … uh … have a solution to our mutual romantic problems”. I probably appeared a bit stunned. After an awkward silence, I noticed that her hands were on my pants. A little later I noticed that she was massaging me in a very pleasant way.
In the years we had been neighbors, I had never really looked at her, I simply thought “White haired older woman”. I looked at her now and saw a rather fantastic hourglass figure and a face barely touched by age.
Once I tumbled to what was happening, I rather hoarsely suggested we retire to my bedroom. Both of us had built up an amazing amount of desire. An hour later we were sweaty and exhausted.
She said “This was great, but I’ve got some other ideas. My married sex life was active and inventive and I miss that. As much as I loved Ned, I don’t want to be deprived now that he is gone. I’ve been checking out swinger groups, but they are generally not open to solo older women. If I had a handsome younger guy with me maybe I’d be luckier.” As you can imagine, I liked the handsome part.
When we could drag ourselves out of bed, we compared notes. I had mostly keyed on available, beautiful women who turned out to be neither. She had checked on swingers groups, but did not really like to go solo to those that would accept an “older woman”.
She suggested, based on her consumer research that we could join PST, Portland Swingers Together, next Saturday. When talking among outsiders it is known as Pacific Standard Time.
Inter – What was that like?
Doctor’s certificates were required for everyone and condoms for men. Although Freeda was probably the oldest she was one of the best looking women there. Everybody appeared to be middle class with various levels of looks. I was EVER so happy I took my pills beforehand.
Inter – Any particular etiquette involved?
Duke – You can’t discriminate on the basis of religion or ethnicity. You can have a gender and activity preference and some members do. Ladies come first heh-heh. If you can perform and are not otherwise occupied, rejection is considered impolite.
Inter – What have you learned?
Duke – Here a four hour erection is not a medical problem, it is a bonus.
It is a cliché, but if you saw any of us on the street, you would have no idea.
Inter – Do you only swing one way?
Duke – I’m pretty straight. Sometimes in the heat of action, swords cross. While otherwise occupied I did feel something in my butt.
Inter – Going to Freeda…
Inter – Freeda give me a little about your background.
Freeda – Until my husband’s death a couple of years ago I was a very satisfied housewife. Our children were on their own and successful.
I occupied my time after the children were gone by painting, yoga and swimming. If I do say so, I’m one damn athletic and good looking older gal.
Ned died of a stroke. For the first year, I was lost, didn’t know what to do. The kids tried to help me, but nothing did any good.
One of the things that I missed the most was the sex. When one of us was interested, the other was ready to respond. No, “I’ve got a headache”, no “I’m too tired”.
While we were married, I never cheated. I did look at some younger hunks and was curious about the kinkier stuff. From time to time, we had barbeques with Duke and Sally. I kind of had a crush on Duke, but would never have acted on it if he was still married and Ned was alive.
I tried to shake up my life by checking out the W4M on various websites. I had come home from a very bad “date” when I saw Duke in his driveway. My “date” that night thought I should pay for dinner and then submit to whatever he wanted, because I was some needy old woman. If you talked to Duke, you know how that turned out.
I am so pissed that supposedly liberated America is so negative on older women that want sex. The thing that works with Duke and me is that he’s a bit younger than me and now has a woman to go to the orgies with. Given his hair loss our age difference is not too obvious.
The thing is Duke and I can get it on when we don’t want to go out and be perfectly happy. If we want a little variety we swing. It is like I’m walking on sunshine. I’ve even gotten back into my exercise routine and now have a gallery that features my paintings.
Duke knows nothing about art, I know nothing about insurance or finance, but we can spend hours talking about philosophy and politics.
I still love Ned and miss him every day, but with my new life, the depression has lifted and I’m back to my hobbies and have a smile on my face. My kids wonder what has happened. I don’t tell them.
Inter – Any adjustment for your age?
Freeda – After a lot of research, I’ve got the right lotions and creams, ha – ha. I’m thinking about yoga.
Inter – My next stop is Sally.
Inter – Tell me about your marriage.
Sally – I’ve got to admit my motives for hooking up with Duke were not the purest. The mean popular girls in high school were always dumping on me. “Sally, you’ll be dateless through high school. Guys like tits, you’re hopeless.” At that time, Duke was dating that stuck up bitch Joann. I just started finding ways to literally bump up against him. His pants made it clearly obvious he was interested.
After awhile he was all mine. We never saw we really had no basis for a relationship, but just ended up married. We should have known that screwing in high school didn’t mean we had to end up together, but we were young.
I slaved to put him through college, working as a waitress long hours. I got low pay and little tips. He did get a good job after college and I did get to quit work, so we just floated through the next few years.
We did have some conflicts. He wanted children and I claimed to be infertile. In fact, I took birth control pills. Shortly after we got married, I had second thoughts, and didn’t want to be tied down. He wanted more sex and I didn’t. Sex with him was never that great, but I put up with it in order to rope him in. Also, he started to go bald early on and got a little paunch since his football days. To top it off, he made snide remarks about my little chest compared to my big ass. He made it clear that I wasn’t as smart as he was. My only real joy was having my hair styled and he ridiculed that.
I got bored at home and got a job as a bookkeeper at Bruce Helper, CPA. Now Bruce was really nice to me and never put me down. With little cooking at home, Bruce and I started to have nooners. Maybe it was partly revenge against Duke, but I started doing things with Bruce I would never do with my husband, and enjoying it a lot.
For years I spent more time hanging out with my old high school bud Jonquil than at home. She had even less of a social life than I did in school, even though she was and is quite attractive. Later, I found out why she didn’t date.
I couldn’t see keeping up the boring marriage to Duke. Since he has been doing pretty good, I got my Money Honey in the settlement. I may have left a few dollars on the table, but I’m OK now.
You may think it’s petty, but the first thing I spent money on was my 36D’s, what Duke wanted, but missed.
I feel a little bit sorry for Duke now. I wasn’t a good wife, but he wasn’t a good husband either. I hear that he is banging the old lady that lived next door to us. How pathetic is that?
Inter – What does Jonquil have to say?
Inter – What was your relationship with Sally?
Jonquil – We were best buds in school. Sometimes she tried to find out why I wasn’t boy crazy. Yeah, I’m lesbian. Always was and always will be. No teen idol pictures in my locker, no writing my name Mrs. Jonquil Jones. More like hanging out with the women’s softball team.
In school, I was fairly discrete, but some girls liked to practice kissing with another girl so they’d be ready for the guys. I was into that. There was some fairly innocent hanky-panky at sleepovers, but I could pass that off as normal. Plus, I was thought of as an asexual nerd. In the meantime I was checking out lesbian websites and swinging with older girls.
To be honest, I never thought of Sally as my equal. I went on to college and eventually got my Ph.D. in math and now teach college. For some reason, I always had a crush on her. One of those times she was visiting and we had a lot of wine and while she was bitching about Duke, I leaned over and gave her a sloppy kiss and started to rub her thighs. She gasped, stiffened, and then relaxed. I thought she had almost started to purr, but she pushed me away. Nothing ever happened again. With Sally, Can’t Get Next To You.
Inter – Now for Sally’s boss and lover Bruce.
Inter – Bruce, tell me about you and Sally.
Bruce – OK, but you have to keep this quiet. One day I asked her how she was doing, and she answered “Not enough”. I asked “What do you mean not enough”. She said “Not enough adventure, not enough excitement”.
I can’t really explain how what happened next. I was behind her chair rubbing her neck and shoulders. She leaned forward in her chair, and I could see down her shirt. She is really flat, but her nipples were totally erect, so I slipped my hand down her front and played with her nips. She started to make strange noises that I really could not describe or repeat. The rest happened so fast, I don’t know what to tell you, except she is a total sex-machine. She shook my world every which way. Over time we went through the Kama Sutra upside down and sideways.
You have to know that we never had any other kind of relationship, just sex. I still loved my wife, and I had never had any affection for Sally. She is a rather crude woman with little interest in anything outside herself and isn’t particularly attractive.
Sally quit awhile back. Frankly, I’m glad, the guilt was overbearing. Thank God, it didn’t ruin my relationship with my wife.
Inter – Let’s go to what I hope is the last of the Daisy Chain, Bruce’s wife Carla…
Inter – Tell me about you and Bruce.
Carla – You know they say be careful what you wish for? I had a rough childhood with lots of moving around, step-this, step-that. I experimented a little with a lot of different lovers and a few drugs. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore and straightened myself out. I was clean and sober when I met Bruce at a flea market. We were looking to buy the same Bob Seger cd and got to talking. He liked my looks and I liked his stability.
Mostly Bruce is a good guy. Maybe a little too conventional. The same suit times five, one for each day of the week. The same cereal every morning, the same burger from Joe’s Diner every lunch. He wants pasta for dinner without fail. His idea of variety in vacations is different cabins at the same lake every July. He likes to play cards at night when he’s not watching the same TV programs he’s watched the last several years. He was devastated when Buffy The Vampire Slayer went off the air.
I think that he would have been a good father, but we couldn’t have children.
He can be too trusting. I wonder what some of his employees get away with. I think some of them are padding the expense account.
However, he’s keeping something from me he thinks I don’t know. I can smell her on him. Despite the good times, he’s going to have to pay. What he doesn’t know is that he’s not the only one with something going on Behind Closed Doors.
Inter – That was the end of the first round. I came back after a year for follow up interviews. The only one I could connect with was Carla.
Inter – Carla, what has changed in the last year?
Carla – I had the goods on Bruce and divorced him. I didn’t get every last dollar because I was fooling around with Sally at the same time that he was. Well, not exactly the same time – no three-ways, but you know what I mean. Now we split the sheets steadily. We got so serious, we thought about getting married but our lawyer said that case law might stop our alimony.
Nothing much has changed with Duke, Freeda, or Jonquil over the last year. Probably Bruce has changed the most. He now has an elderly male bookkeeper and a live in cook and cleaner. I don’t know what’s up with them. He now hangs out with Duke and Freeda a lot. He may be moving towards the swinger life. In the meantime, he’s taken to wearing plaid pants. What a hoot. I’m happy for him.
Jonquil joins us for three-ways sometimes. I think that she still has a crush on Sally, but I’m not jealous. Sometimes for variety, we have some young guys over, usually bi. We kinda get off on watching them. We usually feed them and give them cab fare, maybe a little extra. They have to get by too.
Inter – Is there a lot of lingering animosity among the daisy chain after the musical beds?
Carla – I’ve given that some thought, and against my better judgment, I go all touchy feely. We get along much better now that you might say we have realigned.
I think that before we were hiding our true selves in the shadows. After all of the commotion, we have become who we were meant to be, and are finally comfortable with ourselves. What A Wonderful World.
Inter – I think that Carla nailed it. Since the interviews have all had crazy musical references, I’ll just wrap up with the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What You Want, But You Just Might Find You Can Get What You Need”.
