Swinging from My Trial Balloon

Despite how late Saturday night had gotten to be, the energetic sex we'd had a few minutes earlier had keyed us up enough that Amy and I weren't falling asleep right away. It provided an opportunity to ask her a question I'd been thinking a lot about lately.

"I don't want you to think that I'm killing to do this ..."

An odd way to start this question. It puts me sort of at a weak place. But I was uneasy about pushing the topic of swinging out there. I mean, in a non-fantasy, serious context. I'm sure my discomfort was showing. Even after all these years, the fear of rejection persists!

"... but would you ever consider checking out a swingers' club? You know, we could go to those places and not do anything ... just check it out."

There was a long pause. Somehow the pause actually assured me that she was okay with the conversation. It wasn't that she was so aghast as to be speechless; she was seriously considering my question and her answer. Why do I find myself amazed at her open-mindedness ... over and over again?

She finally said: "I think the hardest thing for me, still, is the idea that someone who didn't love me as much as you do would find me attractive enough to want to fool around."

"Again," I reiterated, "it's not like that would even be up for discussion the first time. I would want to go with the agreement that we'd keep our clothes on. That said, I think you'd be surprised how attractive you are, how much attention you'd get."

"Well, I'm sure that once I was there and I saw what the other people there looked like, I would see that this wasn't as much of a concern," she said. "But I can't help it."

"I totally understand."

We kissed a bit, and then I said: "I have my own misgivings too. I wonder what it's like to be in a world where these people have made it so much a part of their life ... where the lifestyle has become so prevalent to them. I think it would feel strange to be around people who had made sex such the major driving force in their lives."¹

And there's another misgiving I have too, and it's probably an unfair judgment against these kinds of establishments: From the pictures I've seen of the public areas in many of these clubs, they just seem so ... tacky. I've seen rooms that look like they jumped right out of The Ice Storm, circa 1973, and I imagine a lot of somewhat impersonal surroundings. I worry that we (well, Amy, mainly) are viewed as "fresh meat" from the moment we walk in. I worry that there's not going to be anyone at these places to talk to ... who I would be the least bit interested in spending time with outside of the confines of the club. None of which is to say that I'm fascinated to cross the threshold and see what it might be like inside. Maybe it'll help me get over some of these prejudices.

"I think the other big thing for me," Amy said, "is that I'm at a point my life where I'm feeling pretty risk-averse. I think when the kids are a little bit older, I'd be more willing to consider things like that."

The truth is — and I told her — I can't really imagine something like this happening in the near future either. For all my fantasizing about "expanding the marriage bed," when I look at the reality of the situation, I come to this conclusion: Hell, we can't even sleep through a whole night right now! We're a long way from having the "freedom" to head out for a long evening away from home.

I'm sorry, in retrospect, that I didn't plumb Amy's mind some more about what "risks" she was specifically thinking about when she said that. But I will come back to her later on that.

This was maybe a very gentle sort of ice-breaker. But I feel like there's no need to bring it up again soon, after we both acknowledged we're several clicks away from the fantasies involving other people becoming a reality. Thankfully, there are a number of other fantasies still in play! If nothing else, I know that I can continue to explore these threesome/foursome/moresome ideas with Amy in the privacy of our own bed and discover interests and predilections related to these scenarios in the future.

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¹ Oh, shut up. I know what you're thinking. Your "bullshit meter" just went off, didn't it? But honestly, you'd be surprised how much more to my life there is besides sex. Really. This blog is only about sex. If you read my other blogs, you'd see there are actually other things I think about! But you're not here to read about that stuff, are you? [Return]