Before It's Too Late

Author's note

I originally published this as three short stories some ten years ago but felt it was missing something so have now merged them and added new material which I feel makes it a better read.

I hope you enjoy it.

Coolpen

Prologue

Part One

Chapter One

Dinner with Mike and Elaine

Chapter Two

Jen's story

Chapter Three

Rob meets Elaine in the mall

Chapter Four

Rob's story

Chapter Five

Mike and Elaine come for supper

Part Two

Chapter Six

Sped Hall

Chapter Seven

Rob and Jen reminisce about swapping with Mike and Elaine

Chapter Eight

Walter wraps up the estate and has dinner with Pattie

Chapter Nine

Jen's account of the evening with Mike and Elaine

Chapter Ten

Pattie has fun with Sally's vibrator

Chapter Eleven

Walter comes to lunch

Part Three

Chapter Twelve

Jen tells Rob she's found an ad

Chapter Thirteen

Rob's account of their first visit to Sped Hall

Chapter Fourteen

Jen's account of their first visit to Sped Hall

Chapter Fifteen

Rob again after Sped Hall

Chapter Sixteen

Jen Looks for Jerry

Epilogue

Prologue

How would it start? What would we say? Is it something that we'd plan or just something that would turn up unexpectedly, not unwelcome but not invited either?

Here we are, Rob and Jen, well into middle age now and married for a long time, the kids gone and the end of the mortgage in sight, happy and contented and, more than anything, comfortable with each other and yet, and yet there are the what ifs: what if we'd met someone else all those years ago; what if I'd accepted that offer from the wife of those friends of ours from two houses and two towns ago; what if you hadn't come back to us after the break you took while struggling with our young family and the feeling that you'd lost yourself?

And what if we play out the fantasy of being with someone else, the fantasy that was tossed into the conversation at dinner with some new friends a few nights ago, tossed into the conversation as easily as a joint is passed around with the cognac?

I remember we were both a little uncomfortable at first, not because of the tone of the conversation - hell we're both broad minded - but because, inadvertently, we were in danger of speaking an unspoken truth between us: that now, after all the years of struggle and hard work, we've finally arrived at a place with no worries and a rosy future before us except that although we wouldn't be with anyone else, we both wonder what it would be like being with someone else.

Is it too late for us to find new excitement in our relationship?

Before it's too late?

Chapter One

Dinner with Mike and Elaine

"Are you ok to drive hon?" Jen asked, glancing at me and smiling.

"Yeah I'm fine."

I was concentrating on driving the ten or so miles home from dinner with Mike and Elaine. That's one of the big advantages of being our age, enough money to buy the seclusion and quietness of a house in the country and that also means that our neighbours are of a similar age and outlook. We'd met Mike and Elaine on holiday just after Christmas and as we'd got on well together, we'd swapped email addresses with them after discovering that they lived not very far from us.

I glanced over at Jen.

"What do you think of Mike and Elaine now that we've met them again?" I felt my belly tense with excitement as I asked, hoping that Jen's reply would be favourable.

"They're a really nice couple, very friendly. It was a lovely evening."

I waited a while, allowing my breathing to settle before continuing.

"That was an interesting conversation at dinner wasn't it?"

There was a pause before Jen answered.

"Which one? D'you mean about the swapping?"

"Yes." I paused again choosing my words carefully. "Do you think that they were trying to tell us something that they...?"

I left the question hanging in anticipation of Jen's answer.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps, but why us if they were?" Jen replied. "They hardly knew us before this evening and I'm sure they have their own arrangements if they're into that." There was the merest hint of a catch in Jen's voice as she continued. "Unless they were propositioning us, y'know, testing the water?"

I didn't answer, just waited for Jen to continue.

"Anyway, whatever they were after, they were good fun, I liked them, especially Elaine and I'm sure we wouldn't be the first people to turn them down if that's what they were after."

Again I didn't reply so Jen continued.

"And in any case, I'm sure we'll bump into them again sometime so if they proposition us then we'll know won't we." She laughed and poked me in the ribs to let me know she was making a joke.

"Yeah I guess." I said as casually as I could but wondering at Jen's reply. Was she hoping that Mike and Elaine would proposition us? I thought about the evening.

From the moment we'd walked into their house it had felt easy, like we'd known each other for years; a couple of drinks before dinner and then Elaine's wonderful cooking, plenty of wine and lots of noisy conversation punctuated with laughter. At one point I'd had tears rolling down my face as I laughed at something Mike had said and in the middle of this Elaine had just said "Hell we're laughing like a foursome at a wife-swap party" and we laughed all the harder until exhausted, we quietened down and Jen asked with a smile "Is this how people laugh...when they're... when they're doing that?"

As Jen told me later, it had been on the tip of her tongue to ask "Now how would you know that Elaine?" but she'd thought better of it and quickly re-phrased her question to the less intrusive one she had asked.

And that was how the conversation had changed from careless laughter to intense conversation, at times almost philosophical, deep and probing.

Jen had asked:

"Do you think a marriage can really survive infidelity, even when it's condoned and mutual?"

"But it's not infidelity if you both agree to it. Infidelity is literally a breaking of faith and if you both agree then you're not breaking that faith are you." Elaine sounded almost exasperated, as if she wanted Jen to agree with her.

"But how would you feel if you knew that Mike was having sex with another woman?" returned Jen. Mike seemed almost startled that he had been included by name in the conversation.

"But it's not like that either; it's not 'another woman'." Elaine exaggerated the words, making quote marks in the air with her fingers.

"It's the wife of the man that you're having sex with at the same time."

The way that Elaine had answered Jen made me pay more attention; it was as if she knew about swapping from experience rather than just speculating on how it might be.

Elaine took a drink of her wine and continued, this time as if she were back-pedalling a little.

"In any case I don't think they all have sex do they? I mean I think some people just kiss and cuddle or perhaps dance sexy or fool around a bit, y'know, touch each other." She glanced at her husband as she said this, as if for reassurance.

"Mm I'll have to think about that. Perhaps you're right." Jen smiled, defusing the tension a little. She put her hand on my thigh under the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze; maybe she just wanted the comfort of knowing that I was there, that my presence made it safe.

Or perhaps she was excited at what was being discussed.

Mike and I had watched the exchange between Elaine and Jen with quiet fascination, our two wives arguing the point about fidelity and then Jen apparently almost conceding Elaine's point.

I had an erection under the table that was threatening to burst out of my trousers and I was concerned that Jen would discover it. Would she be upset that I found the conversation arousing? We were discussing swapping and Jen wasn't just dismissing it out of hand. I guess every man has had the fantasy a few times but here we were talking about it with another couple, discussing it as if it was something that ordinary people like us do all the time.

I shifted in my seat, trying to adjust my trousers a little, sure that everyone could see what I was doing.

"I think that the biggest danger would be jealousy." I said, feeling that I had to add something to the conversation. "I mean it could be very easy for one partner to feel that the other was more attracted to the other person's partner or ..." I stopped, realising that I was making the point badly but the other three were waiting for me, waiting to hear what I had to say.

"No go on Rob." said Mike.

I took a slug of wine and cleared my throat.

"Well supposing, just for the sake of argument, that it was the four of us, y'know swapping. I think there could be a real chance that Elaine could become jealous of Jen with you Mike," I gestured in his direction "or that I could become jealous of you with Jen, or some other combination. Do you see what I mean?"

Jen laughed.

"By some other combination," this time Jen used her fingers to make quote marks in the air

"You mean me with Elaine do you? I know that you men get off on that fantasy."

She leant across the table and took Elaine's hand in a conspiratorial way.

"If that ever happened we girls would have to look out for each other." She winked at Elaine and we all laughed.

I'd never heard Jen like this before. Certainly she's no prude, we have a good bedroom repertoire, but she is at heart a private person. Maybe she was changing, coming out of her shell.

"Yeah, yeah." I waved at the laughter. "But it's an important point." Suddenly we were quiet again and the personalisation of the conversation had brought us face to face with the reality of it.

Mike came to my rescue.

"No, you're right Rob. But the only way to keep jealousy at bay is to be open, I mean completely open, everything shared, absolutely nothing hidden; jealousy feeds on imagined inequalities, on the perception that something is being withheld."

Just as with Elaine earlier I had the distinct impression that Mike was speaking from experience, that he and Elaine had swapped partners and were OK with it. Were they checking us out as possible partners? I glanced at Jen and Elaine; they were still holding hands across the table, both listening to intently to Mike.

There'd been a pause in the conversation after that as each of us absorbed the truth of what Mike had said. But how would one surmount the hurdle of being open like that, of saying 'I'm ok about swapping, how about you?'.

I imagined how a conversation between Jen and I might go:

'Darling, did you ever think about swinging, you know, having sex with another couple, do you think it might be fun, that we should give it a go?'

And then I imagined the thoughts that would race through Jen's head:

'My god he's trying to tell me he's having an affair' or 'He's not happy with me, he wants someone else.'

Even if that's what we both wanted, how could we possibly risk broaching the subject without first knowing that the other would be receptive to the suggestion?

Mike moved round the table topping up our drinks; he filled the glasses easily but when he came to Jen he paused and then poured the wine more slowly into her glass so that the trickling sound of the wine grabbed our attention. Into the silence he dropped the question that we had all been thinking:

"Have you two ever thought about it? Swapping?" He continued to pour the wine, the sensuous trickling sound of the liquid filling the silence left by his question.

Jen broke the silence, laughing lightly as she answered to mask her discomfort at being forced to answer.

"Well no, I don't think so, have we hon?" she said, turning to me and, in that instant, we both knew that we had thought about it, thought about it a lot and were now thinking about it more seriously and the opportunity that presented itself.

After our conversation about Mike and Elaine, Jen had fallen asleep on the drive home but woke as the car scrunched over the gravel of the drive.

We didn't talk much as we got ready for bed, Jen in her nightie and me nude. That wasn't unusual; Jen had always been a chilly person, wanting more bed covers than me and then of course there was the usual fumbling under the covers and the sweet almost ritualistic surrender as Jen gave up her nightie and her body to our lovemaking. Then there were the nights when Jen came to bed naked, discarding her nightie in the bathroom, signalling her desire to have her own sexual needs satisfied but tonight we were both absorbed in our thoughts and had had enough to drink to make sleep come easily and quickly.

We cuddled and kissed as we always did and then turned over to sleep.

I must have fallen asleep almost immediately but woke, disturbed by Jen's breathing. Instead of the slow, steady rhythm of sleep she seemed to be holding her breath and then releasing it in a series of little bursts before breathing in again with a gasp that she held.

I was about to touch her shoulder and ask her if she was alright but then something else broke into my sleepy senses; there was a rhythmic sound from Jen's side of the bed and in the gloom of the bedroom I could just make out the covers on Jen's side moving in time with the sound.

I held my breath and lay as still as I could, at first not believing what my senses told me was happening but there was no doubt about it: Jen was masturbating and I knew in an instant that it was for her alone, that she wouldn't welcome any intrusion from me.

Of course, I knew that Jen masturbated and she knew that I did. We masturbated together at home and when I'd been away on business trips we'd talk on the phone - steamy conversations, mutual masturbation separated by a hundred miles.

I'd call Jen around ten in the evening when I knew that she'd be in bed after seeing to our then young children.

"I miss you." I'd say.

"I miss you too," she'd reply. "I can smell your smell on the pillow and if I touch myself I can imagine it's you, your hands caressing me, teasing me." And even though there was no way of knowing, I knew for certain that she'd be stretching and arching as her hands ran over her breasts and belly, her nipples hardening in response to her own touch.

"You're making me wet," she'd say.

"You're making me hard," I'd reply and I'd lie on my back stroking my erection as I cradled the phone to my ear.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Stroking my cock, thinking of you."

"Are you going to make yourself cum?"

"Yes, and you?"

"Mm of course."

"Are your fingers wet?"

"Yes, wet and..." I'd hear her slurp as she lifted them to her mouth. "...wet and creamy." and then that little mewing sound as she explored her folds again and found her clitoris.

"I'm cumming sweetie, cum with me" and I'd increase my speed, stroking my cock for all I was worth.

"Me too...now..." and I'd cum, spurting my semen onto my chest and belly, listening all the while as Jen's mewing turned to a series of little gasps as she orgasmed, the same little gasps that I could hear now as I lay besides her in the dark.

My cock hardened as I thought of her fingers wet with her juices and I held my bursting member as I listened. I wanted to stroke myself and cum with her but the difference was that tonight, Jen wasn't masturbating with me, she was masturbating with someone else, someone imagined, perhaps an imagination fired by the conversation at dinner.

But who?

I lay still as Jen settled herself but I knew that she wasn't sleeping. I wanted desperately to move over to her, to lift her nightie and enter her from behind - spoons.

"You awake darling?"

Jen wasn't moving but the sound of my voice seemed to freeze her; she had thought that I was asleep all the while. I moved over to her and snuggled into her, my cock nestled between her cheeks. The hem of her nightie was still up around her waist.

"Don't know why but I just woke up feeling horny for you."

I could almost hear Jen's mind racing as she tried to guess whether I'd heard her masturbating.

"Mm that feels good." Jen wriggled her ass against my erection. "What woke you?"

"Oh, I don't know but I'm glad that I did." I held my cock and moved it between her legs, feeling the slippery wetness there from her orgasm. She was still tense and I knew that she'd be wondering how to explain the state she was in but I said nothing and just eased myself into her.

"You're wet; you feeling horny too?"

"I am now," she replied, pushing back to bury my cock in her.

We moved together in a familiar and comforting way but somehow I felt detached from her. What had she been thinking while she'd masturbated? Had she imagined herself with someone else? Was it Mike she was thinking of? Had the dinner conversation gone deeper than I'd thought?

I pulled at her hips, thrusting harder, wanting to reclaim her for myself.

"Hey, steady tiger." Jen changed her position a little. Go easy hon."

Would Elaine say that?

Elaine?

Where the hell had that thought come from? Suddenly my mind was full of Elaine and it was Elaine that I was fucking and Elaine wouldn't say 'go easy'; she'd say 'fuck me Rob, fuck me'.

I eased up, slowing to a stop without climaxing and we lay like that for a moment until Jen pulled off me, turning over to face me.

"You ok hon?" She stroked my face and kissed my forehead.

"Yeah, I'm ok, just a little more tired than I thought."

"That's ok, I am too. Sleep well." She kissed me again and then turned over, settling her head into her pillow and then, as if to reassure me:

"I do love you, always."

"I love you too Jen."

And we do love each other; but something had changed.

Chapter Two

Jen's story.

I guess that many would say that as one of the 'baby boomer' generation I've had just about the best of everything. Life was good growing up and although socially conventional my Mum and Dad were easy going and remarkably open about emotions and sexuality.

I lost my virginity at college, had my flings and then a few steady relationships, some long some short, before I met Rob but I knew at once that he was the man I wanted to be with and to father my children.

Like most young couples we struggled at first but all in all we were doing fine but then, four years after the birth of our second child, I suddenly felt that I just couldn't do it any more, couldn't carry the burden of the kids' demands, running the house, always being there for Rob and the crushing sense that I had lost 'me'. I seemed to have no identity of my own that was separate from the house or the family. For a man this would have been a so-called mid-life crisis but us women, us mums, we're not supposed to have those, we're supposed to just soldier on but I couldn't and I just cracked.

I told my neighbour that I had to go out, asked her to look after the kids for a couple hours, wrote a note for Rob and left or, more truthfully, ran away.

I wanted to vanish, to be anonymous so I turned off my phone, caught a bus, then a train and a few hours later I was on the south coast and I was free.