Chapter 3: The Beginning of a Solution

Russ and I talked specifics the next day as we drove up to the Embarcadero for lunch. He started the discussion by pointing out that we really needed to find another couple that had the mirror image to our situation. His rationale was that they would both have their skin in the game whereas single people wouldn’t.

Moreover, a married couple might be more prone to be supportive of the absent spouse, since they also had a spouse across the country. I agreed with his premise.

True to form Russ also had created a list of potential issues and concerns. He listed them off for me, and told me this was his ‘preliminary’ list.

• What is the potential threat to the longevity of our marriage?

• Will this impact whether and how we love each other?

• How would we find another couple?

• Would their marital problems become ours?

• What if someone got pregnant by the other lover?

• How would we avoid STDs?

• What if we fell in love or only one of us did?

• Would one of us be jealous of what the other was doing?

• What do we tell our parents?

• Would we actually live together or just visit?

• How frequently would we make love? Multiple times a day?

• Would we still do video sex or ‘porn’ calls?

• What happens if we need a ‘spouse’ at some other function?

• How do we deal with comparisons? (size, heft, performance, tightness, wetness, taste,... )

Over lunch, we started to talk about each of the areas Russ had raised. Some were simple to dispose of, while others required a lot more thought than we gave it that day. As we talked, even more questions came to mind. True to form, we laughed a lot about the various issues and possibilities.

We’d keep the realistic view about our marriage that we’d always had, plus the other relationships we’d form. Perhaps we would fall in love, but that didn’t mean our marriage would end; in our discussion we acknowledged that a person could love multiple people at the same time – love in every sense of the word, including lots of sex.

Russ and I agreed that we’d developed ‘romantic feelings’ for Brad and Lindsey when we’d been having our ‘fuck fest weekends’. If things had gone on longer, those would have developed further.

If things got too imbalanced because one partner was in love and the other wasn’t, we should have a pow-wow with the other couple. Everything – emotions, worries, concerns, and happy situations – had to be shared. We needed the ultimate in communications between all four of us.

As for assuming another couple’s problems, if either of the other couple or both became too much of a burden and they were using us as a crutch, we could always end things – or vice versa. We talked about how to create a ‘soft landing’ in such a situation, but we always had to be ready to walk away from what we were doing and with whom.

We agreed not to broadcast our peculiar arrangement to family or casual friends unless it became too obvious. We would not hide our arrangement from the few couples that knew of our new situation and whom we were close to. There was always a chance one of them might know of a situation that we could connect with.

As we talked about admitting to our close friends that we were looking for an ‘inverse relationship,’ I admitted to Russ that we could always just try going to a swinger club to get our rocks off, so to speak. He waffled as to whether that was a viable long-term model.

We talked about relaxing the rule about finding people from work to develop temporary relationships with. The problem with that is that one of us might find satisfaction, but the other would still be scrambling to find a partner.

Back at Russ’ apartment, we started a game we called ‘Fantasies’. We created short mini-stories to share about some situation that got sexual and became satisfying. We’d start with how we met them, who the person was, what we’d do with each other, how it’d feel, how it might taper off or end, and whether there’d be a segue into something else.

We went back to Russ’ list. If we created a bond with another couple and had a social engagement, or if we needed a ‘spouse’ for a business function of some kind, we’d just say we ‘borrowed’ a friend for the occasion. Russ said that if we continually showed up with the same person time and again, tongues would wag.

We didn’t expect this to be a problem since most of our outings were with our close friends or family. We would go solo to family functions, but we’d let our close friends in on what we were doing and why.

Russ said, “We need two stories – the public one and the private one. The private one is the reality that we create with the other couple. The way we’ve been talking, that’ll involve a lot of sex with my ‘temporary wife’ or your ‘temporary husband’.”

He shrugged, “I’m okay with most of our non-business friends knowing or thinking they know what that is like. The motivations, what we’re doing, the implications, and the results would all be known.

“The public story is the ‘Little White Lie’ that we tell other people who we’d just not want to hear the private one. For instance, even though you are fucking the ‘temporary husband’ ten times a day, you tell your parents, for instance, that you went to such-and-such with a neighbor or friend from the university. There’s no further explanation, and certainly no hint that sex is taking place.

“What’s important is that you be consistent in the stories, and that we tell each other who is getting which version of the truth.” I wondered whether we could keep all of that straight.

We didn’t think jealousy would be an issue if we were both open and talked about what was happening frequently, particularly if either of us felt the green-eyed monster appearing on the horizon. I’d read about polyamory and how they viewed jealousy, so I thought we could make that adaptation to what we’d been taught.

I explained about ‘Compersion’ to Russ, and he got the concept right away. “I agree. Once whatever we do is operational, I’ll feel good that you are being satisfied. Believe me, I’m already sorry that I leave you in the lurch when I head to the west coast. I’ll live with the guilt forever.”

As usual, Russ’ more practical sense of things made the jealousy issue a little more real when he told me to shut my eyes. He said, “Now, imagine you’re tucked into bed and it’s about one in the morning. You know it’s ten o’clock on the west coast and that I’m getting ready for bed, and so is my beautiful female companion. We’re both nude and horny, and we can’t wait to fuck – to make love. You envision us falling into bed with our hands all over each other, playing with each other’s intimate parts. You imagine me rising over my partner and sinking my hard cock deep into her pussy; you can almost hear the moans of pleasure across three-thousand miles. You watch us make love, and cum, and cuddle each other.”

After a silence, Russ said, “Julie, how do you feel?”

I nodded – speechless. I could see his point. Unless I’d just had my own pussy pounded into oblivion by some handsome stud of a guy, I’d have some twinges of jealousy. Russ was getting nookie, and I wasn’t. I could imagine he might feel the same way, wondering what I would be up to.