Chapter 17: Awkward

Alice was unembarrassed. She said to Joan Coswell, “Well, if you want to talk about sex that covers a pretty broad spectrum of things. Are you interested in technique, lifestyle, emotions, relationships, variations, types, location, physiology, kinkiness, toys, shows, clubs, or what?”

Joan whispered, “All of it, and what you think about it. I don’t know what questions to ask, and I’m not even sure whether this is the right subject, but for now it might be.”

Alice threw her head back and laughed. The reaction made Joan blush even more. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but we could be here for days if we talked that much about MY favorite subject. Don’t be embarrassed; for us, sex is very normal and something we openly talk about, usually in an unrestrained way.

“Let me reiterate a few things that were said at the party that are more about my philosophy, which is also the philosophy of the circle of friends that I live with. First, in our Circle – basically the cohousing compound and our friends and neighbors – we believe you can love more than one person, and we include all the parts of love and interaction in each relationship, including but not limited to sex.” Alice went on and itemized some of the major tenets about Circle life: non-monogamy, non-exclusivity, couples-only versus multiple partners, safe sex, jealousy-compersion, non-possessiveness, non-ownership, choice, tolerance, forgiveness, spirituality versus adherence to a religious doctrine, mind-body-spirit connection, soul mates – not, boundaries fixed and flexible, equality, no age paradigm, and more.

Joan leaned forward and sat enraptured by every word Alice said, simply nodding to encourage her to keep talking and smiling, as each piece of some puzzle seemed to snap into place for her. Occasionally, in a low tone, Joan would mutter, “Yes!” Alice’s salad sat untouched, but for that matter so did Joan’s.

Alice finally ran out of steam, and sat back. “Well, it wasn’t all about sex, but in a way it was. We should eat. I think we need to get back to work.”

“Oh, I get it,” Joan said. “I know what you mean. I listened hard. I wished I’d had a recording of what you said, but it’s too late now. Maybe next time. As for work, this was much more important to me.”

Alice chuckled, “I could do it all again, but another day. You have more questions, I can tell.”

Joan thought about how to pose a further and rather blunt question. She finally just blurted it out, “You have sex with multiple men and other women; you pretty much told me that the night of your big party. What’s that like? How do you feel?”

Alice smiled after wolfing down a bite of lunch; “Wonderful. Guilt free. Loved. Loving. Lusted after. Horny. Sated. Compelled. Happy.” She thought a moment and then gave a specific example, “Saturday night we had several guests staying with us. They were women, and mainly wanted Dave, but we had some of the other men in the Circle come by the house, too. I made love with four other men over the course of the night, and so did most of the other women. I also made love or got loved by a few of the other women, too. I felt all of those emotions with every person.”

“Were you alone having sex?”

“Mostly we were together in our bedroom in the large bed I showed you. Sometimes the women were side-by-side as the men serviced us. We like that, it’s fun, and we get a lot of arousal from doing it, plus we can lean to our sides and kiss or touch one another. Later, some of us went for a nude swim and then there were with others on the pool patio on chaises as we made love with them.”

“Do you ever get tired of it? The sex?”

“NO!” Alice said firmly and grinned. “I can’t get enough of it. I’d do it all day long but for the men need to rest, and we do need to work and do a few other things to live reasonably in spite of our large polyamorous marriage between everybody. You have to recognize that I’m compensating for having been raised in a highly puritanical way where sex was NEVER discussed, it was a bad part of life, and we were intentionally shielded from it.”

“How’d you ever get to where you are now from that upbringing?”

Alice told her the story about catching her best friend fucking a guy in his car in the company parking lot, and then went on to talk about the challenges Dori had given Dave and her, to get them moving to a more rational posture about sex and life.

Alice added, “As we got comfortable about sex with each other, Dave and I also got comfortable about love and romance with others outside our marriage – neighbors who we loved, and then came to love in a physical way. It was a natural progression. We didn’t just wake up one day, and ‘poof’ we were sexual beings. We phased into it.”

“What would you do if you knew what you wanted your life to be like, including highly sexual, but you were afraid to talk to your husband about it? I just have no confidence in this area ... hell, in any area in my life where he’s concerned. I can barely talk to Brian about anything.”

Alice finally realized the whole point of the luncheon. She realized the reason Joan had become almost angry and peevish at the party after learning about the freewheeling relationships between everybody in the Circle. She sat speechless for a few moments, obviously thinking of how to answer the question.

Alice finally posed, “Are you sure he would rebuff your discussion?”

Joan thought, “I’m not sure, but we have been like you were before your transition. We never talked about sex or our marriage or problems. When I start, he tells me I’m crazy, or not seeing things as they really are, or my mind is making up stories. He means it, too. It’s been that way for a couple of years. We started dating and were hot and heavy even when we got married, but all that quickly cooled to what we are today. Some days I wonder whether Brian is having an affair, but then I realize he’s just at work all the time with his head down doing his job. Like your Dave, he’s a geeky engineer. If I raised the subject, he’d tell me I was wrong and losing my mind or he’d try to remind me that we already talked about it, but we didn’t or I’d remember.”

“You could get a referee to help the discussion get started in the right way for you,” Alice offered.

“Would you do it? Maybe with your husband? We could have you for dinner. We could kind of have the discussion you just told me about the Circle. I know Brian knows some of it, because he said he did the night of your party.”

Alice balked, “Errr, Dave reports to Brian. I’m not sure that would be a good idea. Surely, you could find someone else that’s a mutual friend for you and Brian. When I suggested it, I was thinking along the lines of a marriage counselor.”

Joan shook her head, “I like our other friends, but none of them think the way you and Dave do. I mentioned counseling to Brian several times, and he goes through the roof and accuses me of trying to sabotage our marriage with weird outside interventions. What I want is what you have and what you do. It’s taken me years to figure that out, and days since I saw your arrangement to understand that it is EXACTLY what I want. I just hope it might be what WE want – Brian and me. He’s an engineer, like Dave, and can be pretty straight and pedantic. If I bring any of this up, he’ll think I’m off my rocker. He tells me that all the time anyway.”

The scene resembled one of the Circle’s smaller gatherings; only it was in a warehouse set designed to look like a luxurious living room. The furniture was what Mike called ‘Ten Footers,’ meaning it looked good so long as you didn’t get closer than ten feet to parts of it that were torn, stained, or damaged. Mike had picked up most of it at estate sales, consignment shops, or junk stores for a fraction of what it cost when new.

On one of the long white sofas in front of a faux marble fireplace with majestic artwork over it, Julie lay nestled between Emily’s legs lapping, munching, and sucking away on the very used pussy of the older woman. Emily had been made up to look like a mature redhead with a tarty look to her eyes and face. She’d had sex with three younger men all afternoon, experiencing actual orgasm after climax after cum and repeat, each more intense than the last and driving her to heights of pleasure she had not known before with so many partners. She loved the group sex and it showed in everything she did. The fact that several others were filming her while she had sex was just icing on the cake. She loved being an exhibitionist and never wanted the thrill to stop.

“Ooooooh fuck,” Emily gasped as another orgasm rolled through her body from Julie’s ministrations. Emily had been sucking on Dave stupendous cock, that was mostly flaccid, but had that freshly used look to it. Emily had discovered that she loved to suck on men’s cocks, too, the more the merrier – two at a time was stupendous. This was new to her. For years, she’d rebuffed every attempt Derek, her husband had made to get her to ‘just try it’ for him. Was he in for a surprise when she got home to him?

Julie and Dave slowly pulled away from Emily, and the camera panned down her body to the wet pussy on full display. The lovely piece of wet physiology was filmed for a full minute and then Mike loudly announced, “FADE TO BLACK. CUT. FILMING HAS STOPPED. THANK YOU EVERYBODY. THIS WAS A GREAT AFTERNOON.”

From behind the set, in several folding chairs, twelve other Circle members wildly applauded and gave catcalls for more, more, more. Emily rose up on her elbows and looked at the group and laughed. “You all are incorrigible! I can barely move, plus I’m still pretty full of you know what ... except what Julie got.”

Dave leaned down and kissed her, “Anytime, Babe. You were wonderful. Thank you so much for the privilege of being in your film even though my face never showed.”

Mike and Dev also came over and expressed their appreciation to her for the raucous and free-spirited sex the quintet had shared. Julie lapped her lips at winked at Emily. She’d even gotten Emily to dine at the ‘Y’ after Dev had fucked her and left a load.

Mike teased Emily, “I bet Derek fucks you inside out when he sees this little film.”

Kat had joined them. She said to Emily, “I’m making this a priority next week. I should have something for you by Thursday, but I will have some clips to show tonight. After you’re dressed come see me and I’ll give you my cellphone number so you can check on my progress. I need your number, too. Your husband is going to love this stuff.”

Mike said, “After I’m happy with the version we edit, we’ll put it up on the Internet. Kat can give you the link address to see and share, if you dare. You’ll have a free account to all my other films, too. I think this’ll be one of our best sellers. I haven’t done this large a group to such an extent, although some of the other studios have. Maybe this’ll set a record of some kind.”

Emily shifted to the edge of the bed and stood on wobbly legs. Julie helped her up and then gave the older woman a hug, their bare breasts pushing together in an erotic display of sapphic love. Emily moaned again, something she’d been doing a lot of all afternoon.

Dev came up to Emily and put his arm around her in a protective gesture. “You all right, baby? You look a little wasted. Want me to hold you for a while?”

Emily nodded and Dev moved more solidly behind her and surrounded her with his large muscular arms that looked like they belonged on Atlas; his dragon tattoo was very evident, amplifying his bad boy image. He cradled her into his warm body and nuzzled her neck as he sat on the edge of the bed with her in his lap. “Em, I loved our time together. I hope you join us. Everyone thinks you’re so nice and friendly. You’re a natural for the Circle.”

Emily ate up the words of encouragement and affection. If this was what the Circle was like all the time, she had no doubts. She just wondered how to deal with her husband. Would Derek ever think of joining something like this? Would his girlfriend Abby? Would the Circle even want them? How soon could she join? Would there be other hurdles to cross? Would she join and then not like all the sex? Would her marriage survive if she did? Could she do both?

Dave came over. “Em, honey, you look like you’re thinking up more unanswered or unanswerable questions by the second. Stop. Just accept what the afternoon was, and accept the love and affection we have for you. Don’t over-analyze your life at this point; it’ll unfold in a very nice way. We’ll all see to that.”

Dev nodded in support. He muttered in her ear, “Dave’s right. We love you and won’t let anything bad happen in your life.”

Dave paused and turned back, “Are you happy? Are you glad you did the filming?”

Emily said, “Oh, God, yes. It was wonderful and the most fun I’ve ever had. I kind of hated for it to stop, but I know we all tired each other out. I can’t believe that I’ve been fucking for six hours straight more or less.”

Dave chuckled, “The men have remarkable recovery powers. Saturday night will bode well for you if you can stay over.”

Emily grinned, “I can. Derek went off with Abby for the weekend. They were doing wine tasting somewhere over in the middle of the state and planning on staying over. We used to do stuff like that, but stopped years ago.” In a moment of reflection she added, “Some of that was my doing. I’m changing back; that stuff was fun.”

Brian stuck his head in Dave’s office on Wednesday afternoon. “Hi, Dave. Can I interrupt?”

Dave, Nancy, and an engineer named Todd were looking at the extremely complex interconnecting network of medium and high voltage lines in the three-state area.

Dave nodded, “Sure, come on in?”

Brian balked, “Out here in the hall for one minute.”

Dave exited his office and joined Brian.

Brian smiled, “Joan and I wanted to invite you for dinner on Friday evening, but I’m embarrassed that I don’t know how to invite the rest of your family – your wives. Derek and Emily will be there, too; if that makes a difference. Do I invite all four of them, your wives that is, or what?”