Chapter 6

That first week just seemed as though it flew by. I got settled into the new house and made some minor adjustments that only made the place more livable for me. I found a nice diner only a couple miles from the house and ate there a couple of nights, even inviting Gene, Ed and James to join me. They all did and we had a wonderful time. At first I thought I'd be nervous sharing a meal in a relatively open atmosphere with another white man and two black men, but no one seemed to pay any attention and soon my nervousness was gone and I had a great time and never gave it a second thought.

The three of us spent a lot of time together, both out in public and in the privacy of our own homes. We even set up a 'schedule' of where we'd meet and at what times. With there being just the four of us we were at each others homes once a week starting at James', then at Gene's, mine was next, and then followed by Ed's. Since we're all single it worked out perfectly.

One day I even went out for a walk, to familiarize myself with my new surroundings. I stared at the end of my walk and turned to the north, almost in the direction of my old home. As I walked down the street I was greeted by many of my new neighbors, even though the closest was three blocks away. There were white couples as well as black couples and even a couple interracial couples, once a black man and his white wife and the other a black man and his asian wife. I stopped and talked to the latter for a while and they soon invited me into their home for some iced tea. I readily accepted, since it was getting rather warm.

Once inside I noticed the layout of their house was almost the same as mine. The biggest difference was that when you entered my house the living room swept to the right and the kitchen/dining room was right behind it. In their home the living room was on the left and the kitchen/dining room was on the right. It was the first time I'd ever seen a kitchen located in the front of a house. I was told that there were two small bedrooms and a master bath in the back. I was even given a tour of the place and it appeard to be quite comfortable and lovely. It was decorated in an Asian appearance with posters hanging in the hallway of old Japanese prints.

While we sat there drinking our tea I was finally introduced to them.

"I apologize for not introducing ourselves sooner," the husband told me. "I'm Henry Lister and this is my wife LuAnn."

"Very nice to meet both of you," I told them. "Have you been here very long?"

"We moved in right after the first house became available," LuAnn told me. "We fell in love with the place the first time we saw it and agreed to this place. I think most of the construction was still being done when we moved in, too. Seemed like we'd be here by ourselves for a long time before anyone else moved in."

"I'll bet it was a lot more quite back then," I laughed.

"Not really," said Henry. "With all the construction going on the traffic was something else for a while. Luckily for us the homes around here were the first stage of development and after 6 months the three closest to us were finished and families moved in."

"What do you do for entertainment around here," I innocently asked.

The two of them looked at each other and nodded.

"We do a lot of 'entertaining' here at our home," LuAnn answered.

"And by 'entertaining', you mean?"

"We host a lot of parties here."

I could tell that it was difficult for them to talk about it, so I probed a little bit further, "Do you have very many of them?"

"About once a month," Henry offered.

"And you get a great attendance, I guess."

"Well, we only invite about three other couple or 3 or 4 singles at a time right now. We are hoping to host larger parties once more people move in."

Right now, from my understanding, this part of the Community was only 35% filled, while the other parts, those much closer to the center of the Community, were rapidly filling up as well. I'd been told that most of the homes in this part were now being 're-modeled' for new tennants. I was glad to hear that. I'm basically a 'people' person and I love to sit and talk to people and just sit on my porch and 'people watch' a lot of the time.

"If you'll excuse us a few minutes, Mike, we have to do something right quick. Make yourself comfortable and we'll be right back."

I stood up as they left the room and in a few minutes I could hear the rise in their voices, but I couldn't quite make out what was being said at that time. Before I knew it though, they both re-entered the room and sat down again.

"Mike, can we be straight with you here?" Henry asked me.

"Sure Henry. Honesty is the best policy. Isn't it?"

I could see the redness creep into the cheeks of LuAnn's face now and only then realized that our previous conversation had been somewhat embarrassing for her. I made no comment on it though, as I didn't want to cause her to feel any more embarrassed than she already was.

"We're swingers, Mike," Henry blurted out.

"And?"

"Well, we didn't want to embarrass you," LeAnn answered.

"You're not embarrassing me, LeAnn," I assured her. "I've hosed one such party since I've been here and we all had a great time."