It was Friday after work and I was beat. As I stood in line for the Park-'n-Ride Bus, my brain was whirring, and I couldn't turn it off. We were counting down to Zero Hour, the time when the nuclear explosion would occur. The decision had to be made at eight -- only three short hours -- and I still wasn't sure.

Zero Hour. Shit, that's what we called it. Zero Hour. That's what it was. Natalie and I had been invited to join a spouse-sharing group and tonight was our initiation. We had to decide by eight whether or not we wanted it. Did we remain monogamous or swap?

That is like a nuclear explosion, you know. Our marriage -- the one we're in now where we promised to forsake all others as long as we both shall live -- is gone, eliminated in a flash. A new marriage takes its place. One where we promise to love, honor, cherish, and fuck around, taking on other sexual partners as we shall both agree. Or maybe more. Or, maybe, we split up after it, divorce, go our separate ways. Hell, who knew?

One thing was perfectly clear. Natalie wanted to do it. I don't know if she wanted to spouse-swap or if she just wanted Sam Hambrick to mount her. She had the hots for him. That was perfectly clear. That did create another alternative to my dilemma, I guess. I could just tell her to go fuck Sam and no one else. Would I'd rather live with that? I mean, which would be easier -- swapping, and knowing five other guys were fucking her, or knowing it was just Sam?

So, there I was. Like a zombie, I entered the bus, found a seat, and stared out the window. I don't remember the ride to the car park lot, or getting into my old VW Rabbit and driving home. But, when I got home, my mind kicked into high gear. From the moment I stepped out of the car, everything about that weekend is remembered perfectly, clearly, and in brilliant living color. Everything.

I was twenty-two then and Natalie was twenty-three. We were both a year out of college and a year into our marriage. We had been together two years, although we had known each other for five and dated off and on before we became serious about each other. Natalie was a third-grade teacher. I held down an entry-level position for a major company. No kids, and none planned. We lived in a nice three-bedroom patio home in a nice little development full of nice patio homes. Two-car garage. Starting the American dream.

It was six-ten when I opened the back door and stepped into my kitchen. I could hear the Beatles playing in the bedroom and knew Natalie was getting ready. The house seemed empty and sterile as I walked toward the bedroom, but in the bedroom, the house was alive. Music blared. All the lights were on. And I could hear Natalie singing along with the Beatles in her high, clear voice that never managed to hit all the notes.

I stripped out of my suit as quickly as I could and opened the door to the bathroom just as the water turned on. Natalie spun around to look at me. Her face absolutely beamed.

"Timmy," she said happily. She jumped into my arms and kissed me hard, with her arms around my neck and her body on mine. "Quickie. Come on," she said, yanking me toward the bed.

I suspect an unemotional connoisseur of women's bodies would say Natalie was average, but I thought she was beautiful, a beautiful, sexy woman-creature that was mine. All mine. For now. She climbed on the bed, pulling me on top of her.

"No foreplay. Just stick it in," she said, guiding my dick into her cunt.

I never considered myself a ladies' man, but I had enjoyed more than a few when I met Natalie. Sex with her was different. It was the way she felt under me and the way my cock fit her cunt. Most of all, it was the way we fit together mentally, the way she looked at me when we fucked or made love or just held each other. All of those looks said "I love you" more than words ever could.

Natalie was super-horny and orgasmed almost immediately, whimpering and groaning with her head lolling and her eyes open but unseeing. I liked the way she came. I always had.

She stared up at me, eyes still hot, need still evident. "Let it go, baby. Come in me," she said. Her heat flashed up a notch. "Think of all those new pussies you're going to get," she said.

My cock wilted.

"Oh, baby, don't be anxious," she whispered in my ear. "It's going to be great. You'll love it. I know you will. They want you, you know. All of them. They want my stud to fuck them. My stud. You are mine, Timmy. No matter how many women you have, or men I have, you are still mine. Always mine. My husband. My lover. Till death us do part."

I rolled on my back. She kissed my cock, kissed me, and bounded off the bed. As I watched her go back into the bathroom to shower, I remembered what Brooke had said. Brooke, Sam's wife. My sister.

The spouse-swapping group had five couples. Natalie and I -- if we joined -- would be the sixth. The driving force behind the group was Sam Hambrick. Sam was smart, smooth, and had inherited money. He also was handsome as hell. The ladies all loved him. His wife was my older sister, Brooke. Brooke was the good-looking child in my family, better looking than Caroline, my younger sister, or me. She was also the sexy one. And the wild one.

Sam is the one who broached the swap club with me, and asked us to join. But Brooke was the one who sat down with me to tell me about it. It was last Saturday as Brooke and I sat at my kitchen table with our coffee cooling before us.

"The club gets together every two weeks or so. Sometimes we go to out to dinner and dancing. Sometimes we go to our house for beer and barbeque. Always, we swap before the evening's over. It's a fun, social evening with friends that includes sex, Timmy. That's all." She put her hand over mine. "Now, be honest. You've wanted Taylor since junior high and now you'll have her. Not every week and not every time we swap. But enough."

Taylor was Zach's wife, and she was hot. I had drooled over her since junior high, but somehow fucking Taylor didn't seem important at the moment.

Brooke gave me her sexy grin, the one saying she knew a secret. "And you'll get me. Oh, don't give me that. I've always known you wanted me. I even teased you when we were kids. Tell me, baby brother-how often did you masturbate thinking of me?"

I didn't try to deny it. Brooke was my first fantasy-mine, and a lot of other guys.

"What happens the very first time?" I asked.

"The initiation?"

"Yes," I replied.

"We'll start the evening off like any regular party. At eight o'clock Friday night, you and Natalie tell us your decision. If it's 'No' then you two go home and the rest of us will stay and fuck our brains out. If it is 'Yes, ' then the initiation begins. If you want to watch her first time with another guy, Sam will take her into the bedroom and fuck her. All of us will be there watching. If you don't, Sam and the guys will take her away. We girls will take you away."

She leaned forward and whispered, as if sharing a dark secret. "It's a guy's fantasy, Timmy. Until Sunday morning, we five wives will be your harem. We'll do whatever you want whenever you want. We'll caress you and massage you body with oils. We'll fuck you and suck you until you don't want any more."

"What happens to Natalie?"

"She has a gang-bang. Five guys will fuck her in every hole she has. They'll use her in every way they can think of. She'll be used until she's comatose, but they won't let her sleep. They'll pump her full of caffeine and use her some more. When you get her back Sunday morning, she'll be sore, bruised, exhausted and the best-fucked woman on the planet."

Brooke looked concerned as if she was worried about me and had something else to say. "How many guys has Natalie had?" she asked.

"Two besides me. Well, that's what she said," I replied.

"That's nothing. She's going to have five and she's going to have them for thirty-six hours. A gang-bang changes a woman, Timmy. I know. It changes them forever. For me, the change was good. I love being what I am. But for Natalie?" She hesitated before saying, "There are a couple of other things you should know. I'm not supposed to tell you this, so never mention it. Sam can't find out."

"What?" I asked.

"I said you'd have the fives wives at your initiation and that's true. But there will seven women there. Two couples we initiated broke up and the wife stayed in the group. That's another benefit of club membership for a guy. The guys screw two extra woman outside of the group play time. One more thing. Natalie will be pierced. She'll get a golden rod through her clit hood."

"Why?" I said.

"It makes a woman hornier. Almost every time we move, our clit feels the rod. Besides the physical stimulation, it reminds us of fucking and of the group, of getting laid and belonging. Want to see mine?"

Brooke was teasing but she would have done it, yanked down her panties and showed me her pussy. Hers was the first pussy I'd ever seen, sneaking a peek through a tiny hole in the wall between our bedrooms.

"Not now," I said.

"We all want you and Natalie to join us, Timmy. We really do. There are seven women just waiting to fuck you. All you have to do is say 'Yes.'"

"What if I say 'No' and Natalie says 'Yes'?" I asked.

"That's between you and her. But... Taylor and Zach said 'No' at first. But Sam wanted Taylor and he can be very persuasive. It only took him a month before he was screwing Taylor. Then he shared her with the other guys. Then he told Zach all of them were fucking Taylor, and offered him another chance to join as a couple."

She didn't say what I already knew. Sam wanted Natalie. My Natalie. I don't know why he did, but he did.

"I doubt if any woman can resist him if he sets his sights on her," Brooke said, reinforcing what she hadn't said directly.

I wondered if Sam was already fucking Natalie, if she had already succumbed to him and his wily ways. I wondered how many of the couples besides Taylor and Zach were in the club because Sam had fucked the wife and the husband went along for the ride. I wondered who the two ex-wives were, and what their former husbands were doing today.

I wondered what the hell I was going to do.

Strangely, Natalie and I didn't talk about Friday night and the club all week. But she must have told me a thousand times she loved me, and wanted me, and wanted to stay married to me. I really didn't have any question about that. I knew she loved me. I knew she would be by my side in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, till death us do part. And I knew someday she would fuck Sam. Maybe not Friday night. Maybe not for a year or two years. But she would do it.

So that's where I was Friday night as I heard Natalie in the shower after our little quickie. The shower stopped. When I went into the bathroom, Natalie was vigorously drying her short, brown hair. She gave me a big smile. I ran the electric razor over my face as she put on her makeup, applying it very lightly as she always did.

I showered and watched her through the glass. I could tell she was excited. Her movements were quick and efficient. She sat down with her bikini in her hand and her fine sewing scissors. I turned off the shower and reached for a towel.