Summer Wine

It seemed like a good idea at the time. "It's the only way we'll get on the property ladder this decade," John argued, and that was likely true enough.

But even so. "You know they don't pay serious money without nudity - or worse," I retorted. "We've only been married six months! I don't want the whole world seeing me naked." (Okay, that was an exaggeration, but audience stats do suggest millions of viewers, even for the less successful games - the adult ones, anyway.)

John held me by the hips and grinned at me, that sweetly mischievous grin that I adore and find so hard to resist. "You're gorgeous, Honey," he murmured. "You have nothing to be shy about. Besides, I like the idea of other men lusting over you."

This was no revelation. John is always encouraging me to wear clothes a little more revealing than I am comfortable with. That's part of why I love him.

The first time we met was in the first year of college, at a drunken game of Truth or Dare, where I was dared to run naked across the quad and back. It was dark, it was late, it seemed safe enough, so I did it, and from the gossip in the canteen the next day, I did not go unnoticed - although the witnesses, whoever, did not see clearly enough to identify me.

My memory of that night is fuzzy, but I do remember how exhilarating that brief public exposure was, and of course I remember the fear the next day that the truth would be revealed.

This exhibitionist side of myself is not something I dared to explore, however. I was raised to be a good girl, to dress properly, to value serious relationships over one night stands, and above all to believe in marriage to a man as a foundation for raising children.

With the economy going to hell in recent years, a good marriage to a wealthy (or at least ambitious) man is the only sure way to get out of the poverty trap.

John is neither of these things. He's a good man, though, and I love him. We're both lecturers at the local college, John teaching English, me teaching Maths, often to students older than we are. It was on our first date that he reminded me of that Truth or Dare party, and said how he admired my courage to do that, and of course I was horribly embarrassed that he knew of it at all, let alone that he remembered it so clearly.

But I like him, and we both love going to the cinema, and if sometimes he encourages that exhibitionist side of me, and if sometimes I allow myself to be persuaded, that only adds some welcome spice to our lovemaking. So what if we struggled to make ends meet each month, we were together, we were happy, and six months ago, nearly seven, we got married.

Six wonderful months. Wonderful except for the increase in the rent, for increasing debt, and increasing fear for the future.

One of the questions at the pre-game interview was, "Have you and your husband ever had sex in public," and I turned bright red in response. The interviewer's eyes gleamed with delight, and the huge television camera no doubt captured every nuance of my reaction in hi-def 3D.

"Once," I squeaked, a frightened little mouse, once my mouth could form words at all. Up until that point, the very adult nature of the games had been little more than a fantasy, a sweet, teasing, intimate foreplay between John and me, but abruptly it was real. A stranger, a man, was asking me to reveal truths that could see me condemned by friends and family, by colleagues.

I could have lied, I suppose. I could have walked out then and there. But John was right. Being brave and foolish enough to play the games was the one sure way for us to clear our debts and actually lay the foundation for a life together. If we were lucky, sharing a few naughty truths and losing our clothes would be the worst of it.

The interviewer leaned close, as if to suggest my answer would be in confidence and not broadcast loud and clear. "Go on."

"Last month," I started, then faltered, uncertain how to explain it, hesitant to say it at all. Would John, I wondered, dare to share this frankly sordid adventure? Perhaps he was in the next room proudly declaring me to be a saint, chaste and honourable, the ideal wife, the perfect mother-to-be, and here I was confessing to -

"We go to the cinema on Fridays," I said. "John likes me to dress like we're going clubbing. Short dress, high heels. Last month, he persuaded me to remove my thong while we watched the film."

"What was the film?"

"An old one. Madame Web, or something. John was playing with my pussy all the way through."

"Were you wet? Did you come?"

My cheeks were burning. My only answer was a nod.

"Was the cinema full? Did anyone see you?"

"About half full. We were trying to be discreet, but... I don't know."

"So was that all?"

Was I really going to reveal all? "No," I whispered. "We walked home after, and John couldn't wait. We found a secluded spot behind some bushes and had sex."

"Condom or no condom?"

The questions! "No condom." He took me from behind, finished inside of me, and for the rest of the walk home I could feel his cum between my thighs. I hadn't come that time, but John had been so hard, so brutal, that I didn't mind how dirty I felt afterwards.

By the time we got home, John was hard again, and he insisted I stay dressed as we fucked - it certainly wasn't 'making love' - and this time he made sure I climaxed before he did.

"Have you ever cheated on John? Ever had a threesome?"

Safer questions. "No, and no."

Except those weren't safe questions. When the game is revealed, it's a shock. I don't know if it's a game I can play at all, let alone one I can play long enough to win the kind of money John and I need.

"Contestants," a disembodied voice says. "Ready to play... Key Party?"

*

A country mansion, with a pleasant garden, surrounded by smooth, green walls, and topped with a high, bright-white ceiling. It is almost possible to believe the mansion really is out in the country somewhere, and not imprisoned within an industrial warehouse.

A mansion with twelve en suite bedrooms, a king-sized bed in each. No cameras, but lots of strategically placed mirrors. Plain white walls with IKEA furniture, a glass-fronted cabinet with an array of sex toys and at least three different types of lube. A chest of drawers with clothing in a variety of fabrics and colours but very specific in cut. We were allowed to bring with each of us a small bag containing makeup and toiletries, but no devices, and no clothes.

A large, central room with faux leather sofas, with a huge television set to highlights of other adult games, with a pool table and table tennis, and with a chest containing board games and miscellaneous bits.

A large open plan kitchen and dining room with tables and chairs enough for twenty-four. Cupboards and fridge stocked with food and drink; plenty of wine and beer too.

A small interview room just big enough for two contestants to talk to the only obvious camera in the place.

A small heated pool outside with deckchairs around it.

A Big Brother setup, in other words, designed for twelve couples. Twelve young couples, all fairly attractive, apparently heterosexual, recently married, and childless. That much we've managed to learn from talking amongst ourselves during the long afternoon. Twelve confused, fearful and excited couples.

"What do you think the game is?" Lyn asked me, as soon as the ritual of exchanging names was complete. Like me, she's bi-racial, her mother Chinese, my father Tanzanian, and we both have very English husbands. She and Will are from Manchester, John and I are from Sheffield. And now we're in neighbouring rooms.

I shrugged, attempting not to reveal the anxiety I felt, that I still feel. "I watched one couples game where the husbands had to spank the wives at the end of each day."

Lyn burst out laughing. "I saw that too. That one girl, Daisy, burnt the fairy cakes on her first day and got spanked twenty-four times. Went and hid in her room afterwards as if the camera wouldn't focus on her bright red ass."

And indeed, there's a seductive cruelty in staring at the inadvertently exposed bum of a woman sobbing into her pillow. I'd wanted to look away, to not intrude on this private suffering, but the camera had lingered on that rosy flesh and John, sitting beside me, had said, "I bet her pussy's wet."

Probably it was. Mine certainly was, and my own cheeks were more than a little rosy by the time John was done with me.

Daisy's husband hadn't needed foreplay when he came to bed. He'd practically ripped his clothes off in eagerness, his cock had been rigid, and despite the strange environment, the absolute lack of privacy, the pain and the tears, Daisy had responded eagerly to his tentative moves, and the viewers were treated to some passionate amateur porn. As we watched, John took me from behind, smacking my ass with rough enthusiasm, and for once I let myself enjoy it.

"But did you see the one," Lyn continued, "where each morning they watched highlights of the previous night's sex and had to vote off the most boring couple?"

The thought of anyone watching me have sex and judging my performance is honestly terrifying. How humiliating it would be to hear Lyn or anyone say, "Well, I guess Honey does dress and behave like a slut, but she clearly hasn't a clue how to suck a cock. It takes more than a nice pair of tits to really satisfy a man."

I do actually have a nice pair of tits, and I think my lips are perhaps my best feature. John loves to watch me suck his cock, but it's so girthy it makes my jaw ache. (Makes my pussy ache too, in a good way.)

It's bad enough that the cameras will see me naked, and it's starting to feel inevitable that the cameras will be capturing a lot more than simple nudity, but the likelihood is that these people, Lyn and Will and all our fellow contestants that we will have to see and talk to every day, will get to see me in a way only my husband ever should.

"That's awful," I said.

Lyn smirked. "The first night they were all quiet and determined to keep any touching hidden beneath the sheets. By the end, the winning couple was having an hours-long marathon session with every hard core position they could think of. It was pretty hot."

Is that what we signed up for? John would love it, I'm sure. No more hiding in the bushes, just blatant fucking in front of a vast, unseen audience. He's already delighted that I'm required to wear a short skirt and T-shirt, without bra or undies. He and these eleven other men are surrounded by sexy young women with pointy nipples and barely covered pussies. It's heaven for them.

The men, likewise, have no underwear, just T-shirts and stretchy swimming trunks that make clear the outlines of their swollen cocks. It's all completely ridiculous, but exciting too.

At eight o'clock, having all had dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, and had showers and changed - plenty of clean clothes in the rooms, but all the same design - we gather as couples in front of the television.

I have chosen to wear princess pink with sequins. John is in grey. We hold hands as we cuddle up on a sofa. On another sofa across the room, Pete (black trunks, red T-shirt) and Jennifer (red skirt, black T-shirt) are kissing, and the way she's sitting I can see her pussy. It's difficult not to stare, and not for the first time I'm forced to confront the truth that I'm not entirely straight.

I think she knows, as well. I spoke with her briefly earlier on, fascinated as much as anything by her accent that was sometimes London East End, almost Cockney, and sometimes distinctly Geordie. "I grew up in Newcastle," she explained, "met Pete on holiday, we fell in love, got married," all the time studying me with her bright blue eyes.

They're a very sexy couple. Pete's a footballer with an athletic physique and a cocky attitude, though he's not Premier League or anything. Jennifer's a gorgeous blonde yoga instructor with bigger tits than mine, and while part of me feels a little threatened by that, knowing that John has been ogling them surreptitiously all afternoon, part of me wonders what they'd feel like cupped in my hands, her nipples between my lips.

"Contestants," the disembodied voice says, distracting me from my fantasy of lesbian sex. Twenty-four contestants turn to face the screen. "Ready to play... Key Party?"

"Oh, no," I say.

I was prepared for many things. I was prepared for nudity, and for increasing degrees of public intimacy with my husband, with the idea of pushing my boundaries to stay in the game long enough to actually win something. Maybe not the grand prize itself, but enough to make the whole experience worth it.

Six days. That was the calculation. Survive in the mansion for six days. The prize money doubles with every day we don't get voted out, and six days would clear our debts and even pay for a nice romantic holiday somewhere.

Six days. If six days meant parading about naked or even sucking my husband's cock in full view of the cameras... for that, I was prepared.

I am absolutely not prepared for this.

A murmur of astonishment echoes around me.

"Husbands," the voice says, "please place your room keys in the bowl. Wives, have a look round. Which of -"

"What the hell!" Pete jumps to his feet. "My wife's not sleeping with another man."

"The rule," the voice says, "is that the couple must sleep in the same bed. There is no requirement to do more."

"Yeah, right," Lyn says with a derisive snort. "But we all know what the voters will want."

"Fuck," I whisper. "Fuck." I don't want to sleep next to someone else's husband. I certainly don't want to get intimate with some stranger. I search John's expression for an echo of that same horror and refusal, but see only speculation and amusement, the twitching of his lips as he suppresses a mischievous grin I know all too well.

"This could actually be fun," he murmurs by my ear. "I understand if you want to quit now, Honey, but..." John moves my hand to his crotch, to the unmistakable bulge of a hard cock.

It occurs to me abruptly, belatedly, that it's not just me sleeping with other men, it's John sleeping with other women. With Lyn, maybe, or even Jennifer. Of course he's excited. Of course he's eager. Of course I'm jealous.

"It's okay, Pete," Jennifer is saying. "It's just sharing a bed. We won't actually do anything."

Pete scowls down at her. "You'd better fucking not."

I study Jennifer, her pretty face flushed with embarrassment, her nipples particularly prominent, her pussy still in my line of sight, and take a fateful decision. "Okay," I murmur back. "But if you get Jennifer, don't hold back. Make sure Pete knows you've made a cuck of him."

John chuckles. "That's evil. Potentially break up a marriage, just to win a game." I can tell by the erect cock I'm teasing through his trunks that he's not offended by the idea.

"Play to win," I say.

John teases my nipples with his fingertips as he leans in to kiss me. "What about you?" he asks. "Will you make a cuck of me?"

Honestly, I no longer know, and just a few minutes ago I was so sure I would never be unfaithful to John. "Perhaps we should quit now, and not risk our own marriage with this dangerous game."

"Perhaps," he agrees, but his cock is so hard, and Jennifer is definitely flashing me. Pete is kissing her possessively, but her thighs are parted a little too wide for it to be accidental.

"Go put your key in the bowl, John."

*

By the time the dust and arguments settle, there are ten keys in the bowl and two couples have left. "What does that mean?" Lyn asks.

"There will be no public votes for the first two days," the voice explains. "The voluntary departure of a couple eliminates the need for a public vote. If one member of a couple chooses to leave, the other may stay if they are adopted into a throuple. Same sex members of a throuple share one key."

The rules cycle on the television screen, in between clips from our pre-game interviews. The volume is low, but at one point I hear John say, in response to the question about threesomes, "Yeah, once, in college. Me and my pal scored with two hotties, and as soon as we got them back to ours he crashed and we ended up all in my bed."

"You never told me that," I say.

"It wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be," John says. "I was pretty drunk, and none of us had done it before so there was more talk than action."

His disappointment with this is almost comical. His defensiveness too. "You were a virgin?"

"Well, no, not exactly, but I was pretty clueless." He shrugs away this memory and his mischievous grin returns full wattage. "What about you? Ever had a threesome? Would you like to have two husbands?"

The fantasy of having two husbands is certainly an exciting one, and he's teased me about this in the past, but it's not an idea that survives beyond the fantasy. Sex with two men? That certainly has possibilities. Marriage to two men? I can't quite picture it. I find the concept of being romantic with two men a difficult one to process.

"My heart belongs to you," I say, "and no other man." I kiss him to seal the promise. "But if Pete storms out tomorrow, maybe we can adopt Jennifer?"

Now, wouldn't that be interesting?

John laughs. "I may hold you to that."

*

At nine o'clock, we wives retire to our rooms, to ready ourselves. At ten o'clock my husband's key will open the door, but who will be holding that key? Which man will be sleeping next to me in my bed? There's a one-in-ten chance that it will be John, of course, but nine-in-ten that it will not.

I've spent the last hour studying the other men, gauging how I feel about being with them. I've spent the last hour feeling the weight of their own judgement about me. They're all quite attractive, in a way. Not in a way that, in normal circumstances, would lure me into infidelity, not in a romantic way, but if I weren't married, if I were looking for a casual hook-up, then I wouldn't object to any of them.

But I am married, and for all our teasing and our fantasies, I don't like that we're doing this. John and I have been married less than a year. We shouldn't be so willing to risk our marriage in this way. What if John does end up with Jennifer? What if she sucks his cock like a pro and begs him to fuck her ass? What if...

What if he falls in love with her?

Or what if I fuck Pete and John is the one who gets crazy jealous? Because that's where all this is going. A million viewers out there are going to vote, and the enthusiasm with which I fuck other women's husbands will determine how many husbands I will get to fuck.

No condoms allowed either. We've all been thoroughly tested for STDs, but I doubt any of us are on birth control, so that's a whole other worry.

Fuck.

Nothing like sitting alone and waiting for amping up stress levels.

No pyjamas. What is better? To sleep nude? Or T-shirt and skirt? The latter seems daft, and I know what the voters will prefer.

Fuck!

And, of course. When the door opens just after ten o'clock, it's Pete standing there, scowling - not at me, but at some imagined scene, of some other man, perhaps even my man, standing in the doorway of his wife's bedroom.

He hesitates at the threshold, as if his taking even one step within will set off an inexorable chain of events, ending in the destruction of his whole world. And perhaps it will.

Probably it doesn't help that I'm already undressed and in bed, my breasts bare and perfectly visible to him, to whoever opened the door, to whoever might walk past, and of course to the cameras concealed behind the many mirrors in the room. (There's a big one above the bed too.)

Yes, I took that step. It was inevitable, but not without terror. To know that millions of people are watching as you deliberately remove all. To know family might be watching, to know friends definitely are, to know colleagues will never look at you the same way again. It crosses a definite line from mere reality TV contestant to adult entertainment, and being squeamish about it will only incur the viewers' impatience.