Excerpt: Swingers' Party
From an upcoming True Tale. You might be able to guess what it's about.
I had been to a couple of “house parties” before. Typically, they were humid, packed with sweaty pulsing bodies, dark, and your shoes stuck to the floor more than they should. I would inevitably be pressured into playing Flip Cup and would have a terrible time trying to flip that fucking cup while being ridiculed by my team.
But I knew this party would be different. It was an adult party. With real adults. Not the proto-adults who would magically appear skin-crawlingly close behind you while you were dancing at the 18+ club, their hips gyrating clumsily and their hands hovering around your waist, not quite touching, forcing you to scooch away as politely as possible. And it was an adult party. With sex. Not just a quick fondle on a dance floor, but actual sex happening right there, for all to see. That evening, for the first time in the two-and-a-half weeks since my breakup, I forgot about my ex. I didn’t feel like the shattered shell of a person attempting to cobble herself together. I was excited.
It was a Halloween party, but after a fruitless trip to the thrift store earlier that day, we decided to forego costumes. I wore my leather miniskirt, knee-high boots, and a t-shirt I got from a web development conference, which I had cut into an off-the-shoulder job - smart and sexy, I thought. After putting the final touches on our makeup (or the final spritzes of cologne, in Samuel’s case), the three of us gamboled down the stairs like colts out to pasture.
LeAnn, Samuel’s mother, poked her head from around the open door of the refrigerator.
“Where are y’all off to?” she asked.
To have sex, I thought, feeling my face flush. I could tell by the energy zipping between the three of us that they were thinking the same.
“Just gonna grab a drink,” Samuel replied smoothly. “We’ll be back late.”
“Oh, we have drinks here,” she said, gesturing around the kitchen.
“We were thinking it would be good to get out of the house,” Samuel answered, darting a glance in my direction. I chipped in by arranging my face into a more downtrodden expression.
“Oh, of course,” she cooed, nodding sympathetically at me. “That sounds fun! Have a good time. Drive safe.”
“Will do. Thanks, Mom.”
Feeling deliciously naughty and terribly eager, I was practically skipping to the car. I imagined this was how it felt to be a teenager sneaking out of the house for a late-night tryst.
“How are you feeling?” Blake inquired, her gaze serious.
“Honestly, good. Really good. Excited. Nervous.”
“If anything is too much, just say so, and we can go.”
“We should have a safe word,” I said. “Banana! No, that might come up.”
The three of us burst into laughter at the shamelessly naked truth of that statement. God, it felt good to laugh. It seemed as though the last time I had laughed was very long ago indeed.
“Cum up,” Blake riffed, shaking her head as her laughter subsided.
“How about ‘penguin squid’?” Samuel suggested, a combination of their favorite animals.
“Yes, perfect!” Blake answered.
“Sounds good, I’ll just start talking about the mutant penguin squids and no one will want to have sex with me anyway, so leaving will be easy.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure that’s the turn-off you think it is,” Blake joked.
The drive was far shorter than I had imagined it would be - twenty minutes at most - and the house far plainer. I had been imagining a Hugh Hefner-esque mansion, but this was your typical American ranch house, nestled among the trees of a quiet cul-de-sac. Light sprang into the night through the gaps between drawn curtains, along with muffled music and the chatter of party-goers. No one would suspect that in this unremarkable home, costumed strangers were performing various sex acts with each other.
And before that day, I would never have suspected that I’d be one of them.
Thanks for reading/listening!
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Love ya.
💛 Maia
fuuun