Chapter 1

It was 1942 when three couples graduated college. Because the men were joining the Army to fight in the Second World War each couple (all good friends) married. After basic training, the men were all assigned to the same Army Air Corps base, which allowed spouses to live with them each in separate apartments. Two of the three men, Corwin and Fred, were assigned to the Pacific Theatre of Operations while Paul was chosen as a flight instructor at the base. The other two, fearing they might be killed in the war, asked Paul to take care of their wives: Aggie, Alice, and Polly while they were away. Thus began a life-long swinging relationship of the group who called themselves “Musketeers” with the slogan “All for one and one for all.”

Fast forward to 1965 when two couples, the Chapmans and the Holbrooks, the swinging couples in Couples, Sharing in the Faith meet Aggie Cosgrove who arranges a Christmas Gathering at the home of Penny Chapman’s parents (two of the original Musketeers).

1965 would be the happiest, most eventful Christmas at the Hargreaves residence in years. It was 1961 when Penny’s Hargreaves-Chapman’s mother Polly died of cancer. Penny graduated college in June 1962 and was married a week later. Paul Hargreaves married Alice Wilcox in October of the same year. His new wife lost her husband the year before. Even though the Hargreaves and the Wilcox were closer than most lifelong friends due to these tragedies, the joy of Christmas had lost much of its luster, a different kind of luster that was difficult to replace.

Alice was an original member of the Musketeers, a group of three couples that had been intimately connected since WWII. It included Alice and Fred Wilcox, Corwin and Aggie Cosgrove, and Paul and Polly Hargreaves.

Paul was ordered to be a flight instructor and couldn’t join his friends in combat. So, at his friends’ request, Alice and Aggie, along with Paul’s wife Polly, became members of his harem. This was agreed to by his friends that went to war.

From the time of the war in 1942 until Polly was diagnosed with cancer in 1960 the three couples maintained their swinging relationship, which took place on the Army base every week, then in Frankfort, Ky. until the mid-fifties when the Cosgroves moved to Chesapeake, Ohio. After Corwin and Aggie moved, their liaisons happened every six weeks or so until they stopped altogether because of a misunderstanding. As Hargreaves’s grief for his loss of Polly diminished and after Alice recovered from Fred’s death it was a natural occurrence for them to marry. Their years of sexual intimacy plus their great regard for one another made sense for them to become a couple.

The Musketeers were now just three survivors: Paul, Alice, and Aggie. They were in their early fifties and were still young enough to enjoy themselves sexually. The three of them had not been together for years but each desired to put what years they had left back together. Aggie would be coming to Frankfort this year. She was going to her sister’s house for Christmas and would come to Kentucky the day after and stay through the New Year.

Aggie had called Paul and Alice the day after Penny, her husband John and Gary and Cherie Holbrook gave her a surprise visit. She told them how the four of them happened upon her place unexpectedly the night before. She told Paul and Alice that Penny and her husband had a swinging relationship with the Chapmans and that they ended up spending the night sleeping with each other’s spouse the same way that the Musketeers did when they were playing the same game.

“After they left the next morning,” Aggie said, “John Chapman came back supposedly to retrieve the watch that he had left on the nightstand of the bedroom where he and the Holbrook wife slept. You’ll never believe what happened. I’ve been celibate since Corwin died. I thought sex was over for me. Suddenly, this young stud ends up spending much of the day with me in bed. That John Chapman fucked my tiny pussy until it ached. It was just what this old lady needed to light her fire again. The whole thing was so strange but I can tell you this, Aggie Cosgrove is sure as hell going to use this pussy of mine again.”

Though the Hargreaves had met Gary and Cherie before they knew nothing of their daughter’s and John’s involvement with them as swingers. With this knowledge, they hoped a new kind of spice could be added to the coming holiday. Aggie told the Hargreaves about her plans to sell the duplex. “Since the young people were there the night before I was considering a way that they could move in and take over the place.” The Hargreaves suggested that Aggie could move back to Kentucky and move in with them and, whether she found another spouse or not, they could reestablish the relationship throughout their twilight years and enjoy sex with each other the way they used to.

In discussing the duplex, Paul suggested that since Aggie and Corwin built the place to serve as a swinger’s nest for the Musketeers that it would be a wonderful turn of events if there was any way the three of them could help the young couples find a way to buy it. Alice laughed as she said, “Maybe they can invite us down for a wild party or two.”

After hanging up the phone Alice said, “I envy Aggie’s fling with John. Ever since I met him, I’ve always had more than a little lust in my heart for that young man.” Regarding the fact that Aggie told them that it was Penny’s idea for John to come over and be with her the day after they were there, Alice said, “She’s certainly Polly’s daughter Paul, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is Alice,” Paul said. “And if she is her mother’s daughter, I’ll bet she’ll be in bed with Aggie before Christmas.”

Alice thought back to how Polly Hargreaves initiated her and made her an active and eager member of the Musketeers. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right about that Paul. And though it took Aggie a while to get comfortable with bi-sexuality Polly soon had her eating out of the palm of her hand.”

Paul said with a chuckle, “More like eating her out between her legs.”

Laughing at the comment Alice thought for a bit, cocked her head, and asked, “How is it Paul that you never had sex with Penny?” For a reason, all the Musketeers had understood she purposely didn’t say, “Your daughter.”

Before Corwin and Fred went overseas Alice, Aggie and Polly were desperate to get pregnant. They wanted to have their husband’s child of course but not being sure that their husband would impregnate them they had marathon rounds of sex with all three men before the two of them left. Alice got pregnant. When the son was born the child had a remarkable similarity to Paul Hargreaves. Neither Aggie nor Polly got pregnant during that time.

Immediately after the war, the Musketeers met in San Francisco. They took a suite at the Fairmont Hotel where they engaged in a reunion of wild sex. Nine months later Penny was born. There was no question that she favored her mother, Polly. But as she grew there was no doubt that Corwin Cosgrove was her natural father. So, the group always referred to Penny Hargreaves and Jack Wilcox by name and never used “your daughter” or “your son.”

When Alice asked Paul why he never had sex with Penny she added, “It wasn’t as if it would have been incest.”

Paul spilled the beans to Aggie while Alice was on the phone that Penny had sucked his cock numerous times: on the night of Polly’s funeral and often after that. “Like I told you and Aggie, I did have sex with her.”

“But that was only oral sex, Paulie. I was talking about the ins and outs of SEX, so to speak.

“It isn’t what you’re thinking Alice. We ONLY had oral sex.” That he and Penny did have sex confirmed her suspicions. Not believing that they didn’t do it all the way she cocked her head and gave him a doubting expression. “We didn’t Alice. It was only ORAL sex.”

He told her about coming home after Polly’s funeral. “While Penny was consoling me, she went down on me. I was SHOCKED. At the same time, I wasn’t about to stop her. I wasn’t up to resisting anything that night. But it just became something that she felt made me feel better. It did of course and she kept doing it all week ... and then during vacations. We even slept together quite a bit. But we never fucked, Alice. I can promise you that.”

“And just how do you explain that you didn’t, Paulie?”

“I started to put it in once Alice, and she teared up and told me that she wanted to be a virgin when she got married. I respected that.”

“How do you feel about it now?”

“I never regretted not doing it if that is what you mean. But I always wished that I could have. And I always hoped I would have the opportunity to try again. Had I known she was swinging I’m sure I would have acted sooner.”

“So,” Alice said, “now that you know that she is a swinger what do you think you’ll do?”

“I don’t know Alice. But I’m hoping upon hope that we’ll find a way to work it out when they come.” He kissed his wife and caressed her breasts then said, “You’ll be able to work out your lust for John. And I’ll be able to get into Penny’s pants in the way I’ve always wanted to.”

John and Penny

Because of Christmas Eve services, they got a late start from Huntington, not getting out of church until after 8:30. By the time they said their Merry Christmas goodbyes it was after 9:00. The roads were clear so they would have no trouble making it to Frankfort by midnight. Though they never had trouble with conversation when nothing was in the air, both felt the need to talk about what lay ahead of them with Paul, Alice, John, and Cherie of course ... and Aggie.

Most pressing on their minds was the possibility of moving across the river to Aggie’s duplex in Chesapeake, Ohio. They had been living in Huntington for almost three years. While their arrangement of living in two different apartments had been working for the Chapmans and the Holbrooks for the past two years it was still inconvenient. Since John and Penny had the same neighbors during that time, they couldn’t be sure whether they were suspicious about their activities with the Holbrooks, or if they might be talking to others about them. Though Huntington was a city of eighty thousand, it was still small enough to see someone you knew every day. A duplex, particularly a place on the other side of the river would suit them very well. Aggie’s duplex with two adjoining master bedrooms was built for their lifestyle. It was more than they could have dreamed of.

To Penny, even though it seemed like a dream, all the events that led up to it were almost surreal. She was beginning to think that she was living a charmed life, and what would happen with Aggie’s duplex was foreordained. To be sure that her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her she called Aggie after church the Sunday after their first meeting, the day after John went over to retrieve his watch.

Aggie, who had just gotten home from church herself, was thrilled that Penny called her. Polly, Penny’s deceased mother, had been as close as a sister. Polly was the one responsible for luring both Aggie and Alice into committing to the Musketeers in 1942. When Penny called, she asked her to come over for tea.

When Aggie answered the door the two women gave each other a warm hug. Penny reminded her so much of her mother that she almost patted her bottom as she would have patted Polly’s. But Polly would have been the most aggressive and would have cupped Aggie’s ass and pulled her abdomen tight against hers. Though Aggie had eventually become firmly bisexual she hadn’t taken to it as easily as Alice Wilcox had. Hoping that Penny would take to her—an older woman—Aggie had a strong yearning to kiss Polly’s daughter and begin a new relationship if she could. What she had no way of knowing was that Penny was a member of the tribe. She had been tutored by her college roommate from New York, Miriam Stern, with whom she had at least weekly trysts. Then, after the swinging began with the Holbrooks she introduced Cherie to the sisterhood.

The way that Aggie had accepted the two couples on Friday night and the fact that she had been so easily bedded by John on Saturday wetted the younger woman’s appetite to know her completely. Ever since John came home raving about how energetic and exciting Aggie was in bed, Penny was eager to get together with her for a couple of reasons. She wanted to gain a better understanding of her mother and father. And she was interested in experiencing one of the people that were behind the closet door when she was ten years old. She wanted to find out if Aggie was as passionate about woman-on-woman sex as she was and if that should come about during her visit.

Both women were dressed in their church clothes. Aggie made some finger sandwiches and served tea. Both were nervous about meeting and being alone together for the first time.

It’s funny, Aggie thought, with John, it was just like climbing on a new bicycle. The way he showed up on her doorstep was a surprise; what happened next was as if it were foreordained. But the real reason for her nervousness with Penny was something entirely different. It was something that she wouldn’t even bring up unless Penny pressed her about it. It was an unspoken secret—two really—one of which she lived with easily, the other was a point of shame.

Throughout their tea, the conversation began flowing freely. Both women talked about how they grew up. Both had strong religious upbringings and were still devoted to their faiths. They both laughed at how, because of their “lascivious” lifestyles they led two lives. Neither felt guilty about it but Aggie capsulized it by saying, “The Lord knows. I’m not cheating on Him.”

As far as your husband is concerned, she said “Penny gave me her blessing so, I’m not cheating on her. Though I had an uncomfortable feeling about it at first, I remembered how liberal your mother was, so I figured I take the chance.” Taking a sip of tea, she said, “But you have to admit it, Penny, the kind of life we live is a bit strange don’t you think?”

Penny giggled and said with a wink, “I do, Aggie. And it’s extremely exciting.”

Both were quiet for a while. Both had questions they wanted to ask but were hesitant to pursue them. Penny had been asking them in her mind for years. Driving by Aggie’s place on that Friday night was Déjà vu, she’d been there before. She could no longer hold back. “I’ve dreamed about you since I was a child, Aggie.” Straight-faced Aggie wondered what Penny could remember of that weekend when she was ten. “I’ve seen your face in my dreams and have heard your voice. But I can only remember meeting you that weekend when I was ten when I was here in your duplex.”

Aggie nodded her head at the Hargreaves girl’s statement but said nothing. The time had come to discuss things she would have preferred to have left unsaid. She determined that she would let Penny direct the conversation and she would answer every question that Penny asked but I’m not going to volunteer anything.

Penny suspected that her past held secrets about which she didn’t know. When Aggie said nothing in reply, she followed a different path. “I knew Uncle Fred and Aunt Alice. But I can only remember hearing about you and Uncle Corwin; I always thought of him as Uncle Corn.” Aggie nodded. “When I saw those ... um ... pictures of the six of you, the sex pictures, I was shocked. I was in college at the time but when I was here when I was ten, I couldn’t even understand what was going on.”

Aggie just kept nodding.

“Uncle Fred and Aunt Alice were quite familiar to me but the only time I can remember meeting you and Uncle Corn was when I was here that weekend when I was ten. Why do you think that might be Aggie?”

Aggie just looked at her and held a steady, thin smile of attentiveness.

“And I know the pictures I saw on Daddy’s desk were taken after that. But I never remember you being at our home in Frankfort.”

Aggie gave her an uncomfortable smile and shrugged her shoulders.

“And what doesn’t make any sense to me at all Aggie is that John and I have lived in Huntington for almost three years. Yet you ... and Uncle Corn lived just across the river, and I didn’t even know it. Daddy didn’t tell me. Nor did Alice after they got married. And you never even called to say hi or anything.”

Moisture was now gathering in the corners of Aggie’s eyes as she nibbled on her lower lip.

“For goodness’s sake, Aggie is there something wrong with me? Have I done something wrong?”

Aggie folded her arms and leaned her head over the table. She took a couple of breaths and then looked up with tears in her eyes. “You told me that you remembered the noise in the next room when you were here that weekend. And you told me that you ended up in bed in another room with your mother and father, right?”

Penny nodded her head.

“But you don’t know why you ended up in that room, do you?”

“I thought I had a bad dream and Mommy, and Daddy took me to sleep with them.”

Aggie put her head in her arms and sobbed. Penny was confused as to why. After a few minutes, Aggie pulled herself together. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and began:

“There are things that people, particularly a woman; particularly a wife and mother never want to have to tell. When Corwin and Fred got back from the Pacific War Fred confided to Paul that Corwin had been cavorting with underage prostitutes. By the time I heard about it, Corwin said his mind had been warped because of the war. I was devastated, of course, knowing my husband had done those things. But he said he was over it and he had left it behind him.

I am a tiny person as you can see Penny. Corwin was a large man. During our marriage as our sex continued, he began calling me ‘baby,’ ‘kid’ and ‘little girl.’ At first, I just thought it was a harmless kink. But I began to realize that he was fantasizing that I was a little girl.

You were born, Penny, just nine months after we all went to San Francisco to celebrate Fred and Corwin’s return. We were at the Fairmont Hotel, partying wildly just like we did before they left. Aggie’s face masked dread and she turned crimson. As you began to grow Penny, Corwin developed an obsession with you. That night you were here, and we were all in the other room, on the other side of the closet, we all had a lot to drink. We all fell asleep on mine and Corwin’s bed. It was about 1:30 when I woke up. I heard your faint cries. Corwin was not in bed with me.” Aggie stifled a sob. It hit me like a violent wind. Corwin was in your room with YOU.

Penny got a sense of what was coming and asked, “Did he...”

“No,” Aggie interrupted her, “thankfully no. I barged through the closet and into your room. I had my pillow in my hand and beat Corwin as hard as I could with it. You got up and ran out of the room and into the other room and woke up your parents. Your mother ran back into the room with you in her arms, followed by your father. He hovered over the bed and started beating on Corwin with his fists.”

“But...” Penny said, “You said that.”

“That’s right sweetie, nothing had happened. But everybody was convinced that he was on the verge of ... He was just snuggling with you at the time. You were just frightened that a man you were not familiar with was in bed with you. All of us were convinced though that had I not heard you crying...”

“You think he would have...?”

“At the time there was no question in our minds. But we couldn’t take the chance.”

“What happened after that?”

With her elbows on the table, her hands cupping her chin, Aggie sighed. “That’s why you never saw me since, hon. As it turned out Corwin was sick; at least I was convinced that he was. I thought I was doing the right thing when I had him committed to the veterans’ hospital up the river where he underwent shock treatments.

After a couple of months, he was as good as new, but the Cosgroves had been drummed out of the Musketeers. Nobody wanted to even take a chance that something like what happened that night might happen again. I understood it, but Corwin? Corwin was devastated. It eventually killed him.” She shook with a sob and then buried her face in her hands. “I think I killed him, Penny.”

It was Penny’s time to break down. A compassionate person by nature, she tended to take on other people’s grief. But there was more to it. Some might call it a woman’s intuition. But she had a deeper reason for thinking that way or at least thought she had. What happened to Corwin Cosgrove impacted her more than she thought it would. Maybe if I hadn’t cried Uncle Corwin would still be alive.

When she pulled herself together, she braced up and asked Aggie, “Is there something else I should know, something people have been hiding from me?”

It was a defensive comment when Aggie said, “Why do you ask, child?” It was as if she was pleading to the umpire to review the call and change it.”

Penny recognized Aggie’s discomfort. It was like the feeling she sometimes got when her mother had looked at her in an appraising way, she couldn’t understand ... or when her father would stare at her absently, not even realizing that he was appraising her, shaking his head ever so slightly.

Aunt Alice and Uncle Fred were in on it too. They would often look back and forth between her and Paul Hargreaves, kind of shaking their heads in some secret sort of evaluation. She always wanted to ask, “What are you LOOKING at? Or what are you THINKING?” But she could never summon the courage.

“I was in Mom and Daddy’s room once, Aggie. There was a picture of all six of you when you were young. I was looking at Mom and Daddy’s pictures. I could see how much I looked like Mom. But with Daddy, I couldn’t see any resemblance at all. I looked at each couple’s picture in the composite and then looked at myself in the mirror. It shocked me when I recognized the resemblance. But Uncle Corwin looked like he could be my brother, or even...” She didn’t complete the thought.

“Well,” Aggie started to rationalize.

Penny cut her off. “I know what you’re going to say, Aggie. Mom and Daddy said the same thing ... that children often look nothing like their parents and can often resemble friends or even strangers. But it was the way they said it, looking at each other like they were trying to convince both me and them of something that wasn’t true.” Rapping her closed hand on the table, she asked, “Was Corwin Cosgrove, my real father?”

For Aggie, It was like a punch in the gut. The secret they’d all kept for almost a quarter of a century was finally apparent to the person it mattered to most. Polly and Paul had accepted it long ago. There was no choice in the matter. All six of them had acted irresponsibly and had to accept the consequences.

For Aggie, who never got pregnant, there were periods of jealousy that would revisit her now and then. But she always knew it would never change.

There was another misalignment in The Musketeers. Fred and Alice had two children, a son, and a daughter. Though Kevin, the son, was Fred’s without question, the whole group speculated that Coleen Wilcox was Paul Hargreaves’s daughter.

In the scheme of the group, the Hargreaves and Wilcox were producers. But the Cosgroves were not. Without children, they chose not to adopt. Corwin accepted it but never got over it. Penny was a precocious, darling child that strummed every adult’s heartstrings. He longed to be with her to be able to dandle her on his knee, to tuck her in and read bedtime stories to her. It never happened of course. After all that, the most insulting and damaging injustice happened that night in the duplex.