Chapter 10

As they were coming to the end of their long trip from West Virginia to New York City on Thursday they were driving through the Lincoln Tunnel in anticipation of seeing the huge City loom over them as they entered Manhattan. The excitement for Gary and Cherie was tickled by memories of their honeymoon, waiting to see if what appeared when they came out of the tunnel would be as exciting as before. For John and Penny, having never been in a city larger than Cincinnati, the experience would be new to them.

Gary and Cherie Holbrook had promised that they would revisit some of the sights. One would be the porno shop where they saw their first “skin-flick” movie together. It was there where Cherie’s raging sexual obsession had begun. John Chapman would have to spend Saturday and Sunday at the Choir Director’s convention (the reason for their trip) and would miss it. But the Holbrooks were nervously curious to again experience such a brazen sexual depiction.

They were all excited about Miriam’s invitation to dinner on Friday night at hers and Zack’s “loft” in Lower Manhattan. When Miriam called Penny in West Virginia and talked with her at length Penny knew that she had to meet Zack, the man who had captured this rebellious woman that had amazed her for four college years. Miriam told her that Zack was the most exciting man she had ever met. “And you know what kind of excitement I enjoy.”

Penny was completely comfortable with Miriam sharing the details of her’s and John’s relationship with their “swinging” friends. She told how they had met in church and how they had quickly developed as partners in this strange new sexual world. She told Miriam that it was only when Cherie had made such an active move on her sexually that the memories of what Miriam had done with her in their dorm room made her anxious to contact her again.

Miriam told her that when she graduated, she walked away from her college experience, leaving Penny as a memory rather than trying to stay in touch and “risk leading you down a road that she might not be prepared to travel besides being geographically undesirable.” But when she received Penny’s letter and learned of the kinds of things the Chapmans and the Holbrooks were doing together she was surprised that “her little sparrow” had flown so far from the nest.

“Zack and I thought of trying what you are doing with other couples but could never sense the kind of vibes from anybody that would make it comfortable until recently. We found a couple that we’ve started swinging with ... they’re from Africa. We’re still new at swinging though, so maybe you can give us a few pointers he-he-he.”

“Before you see John again and our friends the Holbrooks when we get to the City,” Penny said, “Can you and I get together, just the two of us?”

“What about your friend Cherie?” she said.

“You mean the three of us doing it together? Well, Miriam, I had hoped you and I could meet first—you know—to renew old acquaintances. But I’m sure that Cherie would love to get together another day, she’s an adventurous woman.”

“Of course, sweetie,” Miriam said, “I have some toys I think you and your friend would like to play with.”

“Toys?”

“You know baby—like a dildo? She laughed. “And I have a double dildo that you and I could share. And—get this Penny—Zack has a friend who makes such things. He made us a custom triple dildo for three adventurous women. You can’t believe how much fun three friends can have when they’re all stuck together like that, he-he-he.”

The rims of Penny’s ears turned red at the thought of such a bizarre thing. And she knew Cherie would love it she loves everything. Being away from home would make her more eager to experience the kind of wickedness that New York City had to offer.

Once through the Lincoln Tunnel, they located the Salisbury Hotel which was across from Carnegie Hall. The Salisbury, though it was owned by the Baptist Church, was also recommended by Miriam. After a quick meal at the hotel coffee shop, they headed down to Times Square. During the trip in the car, Gary and Cherie talked about the porno shop they had visited during their honeymoon. “I have to admit,” Cherie said, “I had no idea what a porno shop was before we got married. But when I saw all those toys and lingerie in the window I had to go in and see what it was all about.”

When Penny and Gary were curious about what kind of things a porno shop carried Cherie told them about the toys and the screening room where they showed porno flicks. “I felt sleazy at first but when we came out of that movie and headed back to the hotel, I could have fucked a fireplug. I admit there is no question in my mind that what I saw in that porno movie made sex for me more important to me than I could have imagined. It’s become an obsession with me.”

They sat in the back row of the screening room which had seats for twenty-eight customers of which thirteen including themselves were there. It was a different movie than Gary and Cherie had seen on their honeymoon, and it was in color. By the time the black man on the screen had cum all over the white woman’s tits both Cherie’s and Penny’s hands were flailing their husband’s erect cocks. By the time, the second man came in and was fucking the woman on the screen while she sucked the other man’s cock, both wives were sitting on their hubby’s impaling erections. Long before the movie was over both men had cum inside their wives. When the men’s climaxes sapped their libido, they were ready to leave but their wives made them stay until the feature was over.

After leaving the shop the women were quiet for a couple of blocks. And when the reason for their silence surfaced, their desire to experience a black man themselves, John said, “You just liked the idea of a black guy’s big dick fucking you,” Penny’s ears turned bright red.

Cherie said to Gary, “Would it bother you if either of us did it with a black man?”

“To tell you the truth,” John said, “I’ve never thought about it.” He pondered for a moment then said, “Until I saw Gary’s hard cock, I thought black men had a monopoly on big dongs. But that’s not it. I’ve never seen anything with interracial sex before and I liked the contrast of the dark and white skin. It turned me on.”

“I don’t know,” Gary said with a troubled look. “I was brought up in the wrong part of the country. I never even considered that we would be talking about something like this. It just doesn’t seem right to me.”

In a parental tone of voice, Cherie said to Gary, “Well, baby you’ll probably never have to deal with it. But as for me I’ve seen what it would be like and would love to try it.” Giving him a devilish look, she giggled and added, “And it would be another experience for your sex maniac for a wife to experience.”

Gary smiled and with a look of confusion, he looked like Charlie Brown being exasperated by Lucy.

Friday morning was an early start for a full day. They took the Circle Line cruise around the island of Manhattan in the morning, followed by lunch at Sardi’s and a quick tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the afternoon. Miriam left instructions for them to meet her and Zack at Club Tryst at 7:00. When they arrived, they were asked if they were members of the club. As Miriam had instructed, they told the doorman that they were guests of the Stones. He picked up a phone and spoke to someone then said, “You may go in.”

In the large room of the dimly lit club, each table had a small art deco lamp which gave the deep brown tablecloth a warm glow. Each table had a telephone next to the light. The ambiance of the large, main room was exotic to the couples who lived in a city of only eighty thousand. As their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they made out several doors that lined the walls. They were soon told that these were private rooms like those one might find in a “gentleman’s club” where lap dances were performed. It was these rooms that provided the club with the name “Tryst.” The rooms were private, each with a couch, with no rules governing what couples engaging them could do.

Penny felt a chill run up her back as she recognized a pale-skinned woman with tawny hair, wearing a green mini-skirt and an elegant ecru blouse sitting with an attractive man (her husband). Miriam laughed when she recognized Penny. Feeling giddy she noticed Miriam’s long fingers and remembered how they felt caressing her when they made love in their dorm room at college. Miriam grinned and waved. As she neared the table Penny noticed her former roommate’s braless breasts hanging loose beneath the silk fabric that clung to her pointed nipples. Her husband was dressed in dark trousers and a stylish grey suede sport coat covering a black turtleneck.

Extending both hands Miriam said “PENNY! It’s so good to see you again,” embracing her and planting a passionate kiss on her lips. Shocked and embarrassed Penny’s instinct told her to pull away. But Miriam pressed her tummy against Penny’s, the shock of which caused her to part her lips allowing Miriam easy access with her tongue. Pulling back from the kiss Miriam held Penny’s hands and said, “You still taste as sweet as ever, Penny.”

Embarrassed, Penny feared what her husband’s reaction might be and those of her friends. They were accustomed to such behavior in private but didn’t know what to make of it in a public place. As her eyes scanned the room though she saw other people kissing in the same manner. The women she saw kissing each other turned her on. But two men kissing, in the same manner, was shocking. She spied a man at a nearby table smiling his approval. There were several couples on the dance floor, most clutching passionately. Two women danced belly-to-belly with their hands cupping the cheeks of each other’s behinds.

Realizing Penny’s amazement at what was going on Miriam looked over at Penny’s party and said, “Hello, I’m Miriam Stone and this is my husband, Zack.” Shaking hands, the West Virginians tried to hide their self-consciousness. “Welcome to the Club Tryst,” she giggled and added, “I’m sure you can see how different this must be from clubs in West Virginia. But if you could be here long enough you would get used to it.”

“I guess so,” John said in his usual indifferent way, “Our club is just a place where we go to get drinks.”

“I’m familiar with the South,” Miriam said, “But all the big cities like New York, Chicago, London, and Paris have clubs like this. So just sit back and enjoy it.” With that, she took John’s hands and kissed him, held the kiss, and pulled him to her. Then, smirking at the others, she took him onto the dance floor.

“Would you like to dance, Penny?” Zack asked.

Distractedly watching Miriam dancing with John she said, “I’d love to Zack.”

For the next hour, they enjoyed drinks and danced, each couple switching partners. The men didn’t dance with one another, but Miriam took turns dancing with Penny and Cherie. During one dance Miriam said to Penny, “Your friend Cherie is a hot little number, Penny, isn’t she? But few people are as sweet as you are, my friend.” Patting Penny’s bottom, she said, “I think we’re all going to have fun tonight.”

While Penny and Cherie danced together Cherie told her how exciting she thought Miriam and Zack were. Zack had told her that he found her “incredibly sexy,” and “I can’t wait to get to know you better.” “Miriam kissed me on the lips and tickled the underside of my bottom. I damned near creamed my panties.”

Penny told Cherie that she was thrilled to see Miriam again. “I’m ready for anything these sophisticated people might have in store for us.”

At 8:30 Miriam announced, “It’s time for us to head down to our place for dinner.”

Zack hailed two cabs. Miriam rode with John and Penny, and Zack with Gary and Cherie. The taxis made their way to the West Side Highway, headed south on the elevated road, and exited on Canal Street, turning right at Canal and Broadway. On the way, both Miriam and Zack explained that their apartment was a converted loft that was above a shoe store on Lispenard St. “We only have one bedroom but the main room in the loft is spacious enough to host large parties.” They said that the apartment next to theirs had two bedrooms, which made the rest of the living area less spacious than theirs. “Actually,” Zack said, “the couple next door is cooking dinner for us tonight.”

“They are the Africans we told you about,” Miriam added.

The entrance door to their apartment was in between the two businesses: Faure Dance Studio and a shoe store. When Zack pressed the button and spoke into the small speaker a lilting, high-pitched woman’s voice replied in a foreign, sing-song accent. “May I ask who’s there?”

“It’s us,” Zack said into the speaker. The door buzzed and he opened it. They went up a long dimly lit stairway that ended on a platform with a door on either side. A towering, handsome man with ebony skin waited at the top of the stairs. “Hello,” he said in a rich-voiced African accent, “Welcome to the Stone residence.” His black skin appeared dark blue in the dim light, accompanied by his deep basso voice being spoken between pearly, white teeth made him seem like a guard in a Turkish Harem.

When they all made it through the Stone’s apartment door Miriam said, “This is our friend Gambo Obaraku. Gambo, meet John and Penny Chapman. Penny and I were roommates in college.” He greeted them with an effusive smile. “And this is Garry and Cherie Holbrook, friends of the Chapmans.” Gambo shook hands with the men while taking the women’s hands and kissing them.

“Gambo and his wife Quivina have just moved in next door,” she said. “They’ve recently arrived from Nigeria. They’re both assistant professors of Culinary Arts at Columbia University.”

Just then, a tall, gorgeous-looking woman with coal-Black skin entered the room. She was dressed in a full-length wrap-dress of bright orange with a gold starburst pattern on the front. Miriam’s introduction of the guests was met by another effusive welcome, complete with a ‘bright headlights’ smile.

While exchanging pleasantries it was impossible for the guests to not gawk at the two stunning Africans. Gambo stood six-feet-seven.” Muscular, he was classically handsome. Quivina was over six feet tall. She was slender with a long, wasp-like, hourglass figure. Though her legs were hidden beneath the fabric of her dress they filled it in such a way that none would consider them anything but not stunningly shapely. Based on the way her nipples pushed against the fabric of her dress she appeared braless. Both Gambo, who appeared to be older than Quivina, and she, had strikingly black, almost purple skin.

“Gambo’s family owns two highly successful restaurants in Lagos,” Miriam said. “He wants to establish himself in the educational community here then go back home and open another one in Kenya later. Quivina is furthering her education in the hotel catering business. When they heard you were coming, they insisted upon preparing a Nigerian dinner for us.” Both Africans lit up the room with their smiles.

The moment was a snapshot of the difference in primal attraction: elite African elegance, Eastern big-city acceptance, and Appalachian prejudgment. Two things stood out—Gambo and Quivina. Regardless of their cultural slant, no one could deny the beauty of the two Africans nor the sexual thoughts loping through all their minds.

To the West Virginians, it was “in your face” awareness of New York’s liberal openness. And the guests, each college educated, were presented with the level of diversity apparent in few cities other than New York. It was the home of the United Nations, after all, a bastion of inclusion. The Africans’ presented a cultural first to the folks from the Mountain State and, above all, impressed them with their regal pride.

To the guests and even the hosts Gambo and Quivina were viewed as African royalty. For Cherie Gambo was the embodiment of her unexpected introduction to interracial sex. Having already talked with Penny about her interest in copulating with a black man she was going to find some way to interest this amazing specimen of a man in filling her body with his mysterious inky cock.

To John, with whom race was a minor issue, Quivina’s beauty had just begun erasing any vestige of that obstacle. She was the most electrifying woman he’d ever seen.

Knowing that she might be part of the social evening Quivina had already eyed Gary as an acceptable sex partner.

Penny’s interest was Zack. She had looked up to Miriam in college and had been so intimate with her that she wanted to explore the nature of her collegiate bisexual lover’s husband completely.

Miriam, who was fascinated by what appeared to be pieces of a complicated sexual puzzle, had the same motivation as Penny. She wanted to find out what was so special about John that Penny would be so attracted to him.

Dozens of candles lit the room, casting mystical shadows on the walls and flickered in the mirror that covered the length of the far wall. Soft classical music, the overture to Swan Lake, wafted from hidden speakers. In an unusual display of familiarity, Miriam walked over to Gambo and traced her fingers around his lips with her middle finger. Equally brazen, Gambo sucked her fingers inside his mouth and made them wet. She traced her wet fingers around each of his nostrils then stood up on her tiptoes and licked where her fingers had just traced. While stimulating jealous erections in the three watching husbands her actions liquefied the slots between Penny’s and Cherie’s legs as well.

“You said he was different,” Penny murmured to Miriam, who grinned.

With a wry grin, Cherie said, “Now I believe in prayers being answered.” Penny and Cherie had confided to each other that after seeing the porno movie where the black man fucked the white woman last night, they both were curious about what it would be like to experience a black man for themselves.

The meal consisted of Nigerian cuisine and tasted spicy but had the consistency of an American roast beef dinner. The meat was Water Buffalo, the yams tasted like nut-meg sweet potatoes and the salad included kale along with an elegant kind of fruit that tasted like something between Kiwi and Persimmon. The wine was African but had the flavor and bouquet of a New York State red wine. To the guests, the food was different from what they were accustomed to, cooked, and spiced in such a way that made it the most tantalizing meal they had ever tasted.

Combined with the excitement of being in New York City, the introduction to the avant-garde Club Tryst and its naughty goings on then experiencing the “film noir” characteristics of the Lower Manhattan neighborhood below Canal Street made the West Virginians cognizant of the glamorous confusion offered by the magnificent city that swirled about them. The urbane hospitality of their hosts accompanied by the sophisticated-primitive complexity of the two Africans serving them intensified the prospect of sensual possibilities.

Now grooving with Miriam’s stimulating edginess Penny focused on Zack and Gambo. Having known Miriam’s sexual attentions in college her mind conjured Zack’s and Miriam’s naked bodies in their private acts of sex while thoughts of the two, tall Africans enjoying each other’s ebony bodies added primitive expectation to the mix. images of Gambo’s long, lithe, and muscular black body entwined in Quivina’s long, willowy limbs while his blue-black “snake” filled her mysterious vagina. It must be long as a vaulting pole, she thought as she stifled her short, gasping breaths.

At the same time, the two racially biased men had trouble keeping their eyes off Quivina’s wasp-like, Onyx body that seemed to flow through the room as she walked. Gary wondered if her breasts had the look of “tube tits” that he had seen in old editions of National Geographic. While all that John could think of was what he might see beneath the licorice-colored lips of her pussy when she spread her legs. Would they be shades of gray or pink or oranges, vivid or muted? Would her groove, her inner labia, and her clitoris be dark? Or would they merge with luscious fruit colors such as strawberry, raspberry, or currant?

While finishing dessert with a glass of Cockburn Port Zack and Miriam were tickled as they watched their guests ogling the exotic Africans. Being New Yorkers, they were accustomed to the sophistication of the city that had always been diverse. Nonetheless, they too had been overwhelmed when they had first met their colorful neighbors. Accustomed to the edgy, sarcastic nature of native New York City-ites, the joyful, loving nature of Gambo and Quivina was infectious to the Stones. Every word was spoken with “headlight smiles” from faces that trumpeted the contrast of black, black against white, and how their own whiteness would be contrasted in sexual sharing sex with them. Gambo’s deep bass voice and Quivina’s birdlike lilt made every word worth listening to. Their towering presence and the way they moved conveyed the elegance of aboriginal royalty, something that no one could ignore. They were the embodiment of common sense and good business judgment, yet they reveled in acts of sex as if they embodied fertility rights rather than mere sex.

The Stones wondered if their guests’ enthusiasm for retting the table and helping with the dishes was a mark of mid-American culturalism or if their enthusiasm for exploring their African neighbors was so motivating. But when Cherie asked Gambo, “Do you sleep in a larger bed than we do?” everybody’s eyes flicked to her as if a switch had been flipped.

Quivina giggled in her high, birdlike voice and answered the question by explaining, “The average mattress is seventy-five inches long, but you can order one up to eighty inches. Ours is custom made though, it measures eighty-eight inches.” Her smile was both demure and naughty when she said, “Would you like to see it?” Reaching over the table she offered her hand to Cherie who took it. Quivina’s almost black eyes sparkled when she said in her seductive, lilting voice, “Come Cherie.” Her mischievous grin captured the entire group as she added, “Come everyone.” From their experience, Zack and Miriam repressed mischievous smirks as they joined the group and followed. When they had all entered the room Gambo and Quivina’s bedroom the tall African woman playfully pulled Cherie onto the bed with her and they both bounced.

“Wow,” Cherie said, “this is fucking big.”

“He-he-he Cherie,” Quivina said, “For me, ‘It’s just right,’ just like Goldilocks said. Putting her forehead against Cherie’s she said, “I’ve noticed, Cherie that you have been looking strongly at my Gambo (she was too polite to say “staring”).” Turning to Gambo she said, “Why don’t you lie down beside Cherie, sweetheart, and show her how well this bed fits your lo-o-o-ng body.”