Next Step Blues Pt. 04

This is the fourth and final part of our story, in which our 'friends with benefits' relationship sharing voyeur and exhibitionist fun with another couple was on the brink of moving to the next step of swinging. What follows will not make much sense if you have not read the prior parts.

--

That was all nearly a year ago, now. A lot has happened in the intervening time, and not what any of the four of us expected. Eva and Russell have split-up. I'll get to that. And we've not seen Eva again since the day I have been describing. We have seen Russell though, on two occasions and they were... well... diverting. I'll get to that, too.

--

In the end, Jan chickened-out on an immediate callback to Eva and sent her a text message instead, putting it off for a day or two. I didn't see it myself, but gather it said something along the lines of, 'We're flattered and thinking about it. Stay tuned while we think some more'. I also gather an 'OK' response came back from Eva, so the can was kicked down the road, at least for a while.

As you might expect, we talked a lot about the matter in the days that immediately followed. Much of that conversation was laced with angst and uncertainty as we looked at the situation we'd all created, and from all sorts of angles.

As I write of our activities for your reading enjoyment (and, perhaps, helping to refine your own thoughts if you are in, or contemplating, the 'with benefits' thing), I am conscious that readers might not want to hear much of those discussions. I think so because Jan and I read erotic stories too, and enjoy them, so we know readers prefer tales with lots of fucking in interesting situations. That's usually the main theme, and they're great fun to indulge in. But, and here's the thing; in my modest opinion and experience, those stories usually don't reflect real life. Sure, there must be people who have no committed monogamous relationships and who screw everything with a pulse. There must be couples who have a totally open relationship with no concerns of jealousy or sense of loss as each fucks everyone who happens to be available. But that's not us and I doubt it's many people at all, especially at our age. Remember, we came to this playful 'friends with benefits' gig in later middle age and maybe, indeed probably, that colours our view. Our marriage vows still mean something to both of us and we still genuinely love each other. I guess it's fair to say we're both still possessive and jealous if the circumstances throw up an encounter that is challenging to us in that way, and it was a big step to involve others in our sexual relationship at all, balancing the potential for sexual fun and enjoyment with some risk. With that understood, you'll see why the question of 'how far to go?' with our friends was a real and difficult one.

Jan and I talked for hours in the days that followed Eva's phone call and her suggestion that, if we wanted to, they were ready to move ahead to swapping partners for full sex, not just foreplay. If you've never lived that decision in real life you may be surprised to hear that there's a lot to consider. And, make no mistake, women and men are, as far as I can tell, entirely different in how they view things. To give you an idea, one of the things on Jan's mind was whether, after the fun-and-games massage at Russell's hands, she'd be embarrassed when seeing him again. Was he now a sort of 'boyfriend' who had been given permission by her own behavior to get frisky and physical with her, whenever? In our discussions (lubricated with many glasses of wine) she made some interesting points. If, for instance, she was at the movies with Russell and Eva, she wouldn't dream of holding his hand during the show as she does with me, but that very same hand had been probing her pussy with her permission and enjoyment only days ago. Despite really liking Russell, quite a lot as it was unfolding, she wouldn't dream of kissing him passionately on the lips as she does with me, yet those same lips of his might soon be applied to oral pleasures of a very intimate kind on her, and he almost certainly would want her to reciprocate by wrapping her lips around an important part of his anatomy.

From my male point of view, it was tricky, too. Sure, I liked Russell in a man-to-man way, and that was a happy bonus in Jan's and my evolving friendship with them as a couple. Curiously, it made me wonder if it would be easier to share our wives if we didn't now have that personal friendship. People who go dogging, for instance, have sex with total strangers. Would that be less emotionally challenging than bringing into a relationship people who were, in a strange way, friends who are also looking to be almost semi-permanent additional partners? I suspect the typical male answer to these interesting questions is not to contemplate them too closely, instead falling back on the age-old defense, if caught in an indiscretion, of saying 'It's nothing; it was just sex'. As a typical guy who enjoys sexy situations and orgasms, I can see the attraction of that argument. But Jan was really struggling with that concept. It couldn't be 'just sex' to her because across her whole adult life it never had been 'just sex'. In each case (of which I was the final, permanent one) her relationships involved emotions, too. As far as I knew of her dating history, her sexual activity always had been a way of expressing affection and emotion, not an end in itself. So, here was a hard question confronting her. Did she 'love' Russell? No, she didn't. Sure, she liked him but, as she explained, for her (and probably for most women) having a man's dick inside her, whether he ejaculates or not, condom or not, is a very personal matter of significant proportions. So, no; for Jan the 'it's just sex' line didn't cut it.

An important aspect that occasionally got lost amongst the detail of our discussions during that week after Eva's invitation was the fundamental question of whether Jan actually liked the idea of having sex with Russell. She ducked and weaved quite a bit on that, but what it came down to was 'yes', if it felt right at the time, and if I was OK with it. That, of course, led directly to the reverse question: did I want to have sex with Eva? At the risk of sounding completely mad at this point and a disgrace to the macho aspects of my gender, the truth was 'not really'. Sure, I liked Eva well enough. Her vivacity was engaging and those protruding nipples are truly wondrous. But, to be blunt, she doesn't hold a candle to Jan in looks or temperament or sensuality. As a sexual object occasionally available for playful pleasures, I had enjoyed, and could again enjoy, passing time with Eva and sharing orgasms but, perhaps oddly, I wasn't convinced I wanted to screw her. It sounds crass if I reduce it to physical attributes but there was a fair bit about Eva that simply didn't turn me on. What it came down to for me was being content with Eva as a foreplay-only friend with benefits, which had the happy side effect of making me in-line with the rules-of-engagement that Jan and I had earlier agreed to. The tricky things now were these: would that be enough for Eva, and also that Jan herself was contemplating moving outside those rules herself? Funny how things turn out, isn't it?

There were, during those days, also discussions about the less glamorous, less sexy and even more sinister aspects of swapping for sex instead of just foreplay. The fact is that promiscuity of that sort can make you sick. It's not likely to kill you, but.. hey... the health angle is not entirely an irrelevancy. That's not the sort of thing that exciting sex stories like to dwell on, and usually gloss over, but it's true, and when you're contemplating sexual encounters outside your committed, known-to-be-safe partner, those considerations can't be safely ignored. When playing around in the open-marriage and swapping scene, there's really no guaranteed way to know how safe, or not, any casual partner will be. Sure, condoms exist but, beyond that banal fact, they don't solve all the implications.

From what we knew of them at the time, Eva and Russell weren't into the sex-with-others lifestyle (but that understanding was wrong, as I will shortly explain). Indeed, very early in the piece I think we represented their toe in the 'friends with benefits' water; leading ultimately to the offer to swap which had catalyzed all this intense discussion Jan and I were now having. But there were things going on with Eva and Russell that we know now but didn't know at the time. As we were contemplating the question as put, in the context as we then knew it, we still had to admit, when we thought about it, that you wouldn't and couldn't really know what the other parties got up to. As we went round and round planning what our answer about swapping was going to be, we had to agree that Eva could in theory have a different dick up her fanny every other day, while Russell was endlessly dipping his wick in new places, too. To that latter proposition, I should say that Jan was very skeptical, having a view about Russell's style and personality that would suggest the idea unlikely, and knowing Russell as I did, I pretty much agreed with that assessment.

The bottom line (a poor pun, but apt) was that, whether or not they had done anything with others so far, despite being friends with us, they simply weren't obliged to tell us if their fun-filled lusts took them further afield. That was an odd thought that neither Jan nor I had really considered until then: do couples enter a type of monogamous pairing when they contemplate sharing full-on sex with each other? We found out that, no, you cannot assume that. It turned out that, even before popping the sex question with us, Eva was 'out there' in other ways looking and finding sexual encounters.

---

Jan called Eva back about three days later, basically to say 'thanks but no thanks'. She told me that the call was friendly enough but that Eva sounded disappointed, and her tone a little cool after that news had been broken. Vague 'we must get together again' remarks were made to round off the short exchange, but no real plans.

Well. OK. Situation handled. Except it left us both feeling an awkwardness, even though we were sure we had made the right choice for us. I felt gratitude to Jan that she had shouldered the task of communicating with them, allowing me to take the coward's part, but also some guilt that neither Jan nor I had any contact with Russell on the matter. That didn't seem entirely right or fair, and made certain assumptions. So, I bit the bullet, and phoned him myself.

That call turned out to be a real eye-opener. Russell was one very unhappy dude. I can't recall every word now, nor would that be very helpful to re-tell here anyway. The general gist was the call had two main parts: the bit where we discussed Eva's 'offer', and the bit where Russell told me his marriage had turned to dust. The first bit was like a little dance, neither of us wanting to get directly to the point. I started by saying I presumed he knew about Eva's suggestion that we move to partner swapping. He confirmed he did, but surprised me by saying he didn't at the time she made it. Hmmm. That altered the landscape a little. He knew now, though, and knew that Jan and Eva had since talked about it. You can no doubt see how that verbal 'dance' was lining-up. Did Russell want to swap? Would he have agreed to Eva making the initial call had he known? And, knowing now that we'd politely (or so Jan and I hoped) declined, how did he feel about that?

In my experience men are not very good at deep-and-meaningful discussions, so we were both circumlocuting around the proverbial bush. I tried to show a bit of conversational leadership by saying, much as Jan had done with Eva, that we were flattered by the request, but a bit diffident about taking it up. I tried to explain, perhaps insanely, that it wasn't 'personal' about them (Geez, how much more personal can you get than screwing someone?) but that Jan and I felt that, despite very much enjoying playful, sexy pastimes with them, that sharing full-on sex needed to remain a reserved part of our own married relationship. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but there it was.

Russell was gentle and generous in his remarks, which I suppose reflects his overall personality, notably much less hard-edged than his wife. He was almost apologetic as he told me he'd been wondering if or when we were going to cross that line as a couple of couples, and said that any guy who didn't want to have intimate relations (yes, he actually used that euphemism) with Jan must be mad. He said he found her very appealing and liked her very much, or words to that effect. And then, the core point: Yessiree, if given the chance, he would love to take that next step with Jan, and he'd be immensely flattered if she accepted him that way. But he respected our view, actually admired it, which surprised me in a good way.

Maybe unnecessarily, I found myself telling Russell that Jan liked him, too, and had developed a real soft spot for him. "Oh really?", he said, his tone perking up noticeably. Perhaps foolishly (or perhaps not as things turned out) I added how in our recent shared playtime Jan was really into it, and into him, and on the brink, so to speak, of.... I didn't quite say it, but I conveyed the point.

"Wow," he said, "I didn't know, and I'm genuinely flattered". Then added, "but our diversions took us elsewhere and, well, maybe that's for the best for you guys."

There was a slightly awkward pause in this untidy and quite non-linear conversation before Russell said something like, "She would probably have been disappointed, anyway. Eva tells me I'm a lousy lover."

This was a twist I wasn't expecting. "It seems to me you have the basics nailed, at least on the occasions we've been there to see it," I said, trying to make my tone humorous, obviously referring to the same-room sex we'd shared as two couples on a couple of prior occasions.

"Yeah, well, maybe ....., " he trailed off, "but I'm not satisfying my wife now, that's for sure," he said, with is tone of voice shifting noticeably. "She's out there, online and stuff, looking for fun .... On her own, I mean. And finding it."

Now knowing what to say to that, I said something like, "Geez, man. What? When? What are you saying?"

That started the second bit of the whole conversation, and it was pretty full-on, and one-way. I listened, and he needed an ear. Although Jan and I didn't see it, apparently their marital bliss had been on life support for some time. We didn't see them all that often, so that makes some sense. As I then heard, from quiet hints growing louder across a few months, Eva had grown to be quite open with Russell about wanting, needing, a more exciting social life, and more interesting sex life. She had, it seemed, told Russell he was welcome to come along for that journey, or not, but she was taking that train anyway.

Oh dear. What does one say to that? And, there was more. Apparently Eva already had a few clandestine tristes during the daytime when Russell was at work, This, it seems, had come out only in the last few days. It rocketed through my mind when I heard all this to wonder whether the recent offer to swap partners was part of Eva's general desire for 'more', or separate from it. A millisecond later I decided it was a moot point. It certainly put a new complexion on the prospect swapping with them, and in an instant validated much of the agonized discussion Jan and I had shared in the aftermath of the question.

"So.. what are you going to do?" I asked, as the conversation was petering-out.

Russell's reply was bleak. "I don't know, but I think we might be done as a couple." He added, attempting some levity. "Stay tuned. I guess we'll all find out".

--

Well, we did find out. They separated and have filed for divorce. Russell moved away to work in a different branch of his company, and has been living with his brother and wife for a few months. Eva stayed in the house, but that probably won't last once the legal dust settles. As I mentioned, we haven't seen Eva since. She hasn't really wanted to keep in touch. Jan has talked to her a couple of times on the phone, but their friendship has cooled off to a level of cordiality but no depth. We have kept in touch with Russell, not often, but often enough for it to be a friendship still with some depth. He's taken it all quite hard, not sure where he, or they, went wrong.

I am no marriage guidance guru, but it seems to me that the 'where did we go wrong?' question is perpetually unanswerable, except to say that the answer might simply be 'nowhere'. Times change. People change. Affections, passion and even genuine love can wear thin and, worst case, wear out. Some relationships run their course, and end. Eva and Russell's has. In the context of their relationship with us, and the fun we've shared along the way, it makes we wonder whether we unwittingly contributed to their issues, or were merely a symptom of them. I don't believe we caused harm. Hell, it was fun. But Jan and I survived it, and they didn't. I tell myself that there were most likely lots of other factors at play with them than simply 'friends with benefits'. And I'm probably right.

--

The theme of my remarks here is two-fold, I guess. One is to tell the story of our involvement with the other couple, to perhaps inform and enlighten others who are contemplating it, noting there are some salutary lessons. The other part is to celebrate and reminisce the fun parts, and there certainly were some of those. And we have seen Russell twice since, and both occasions were.... fun.

Jan and I took an interest in the evolving story of Russell and Eva, in the bite-sized fragments that came our way, but we didn't obsess over it and it certainly wasn't a matter of daily conversation. That couple was the only external playful dalliance we had going at the time, and we have not sought any others in the months since the events herein. We didn't miss it. There was a sort of unspoken understanding between the two of us that, whilst it had been fun, there were complexities and downsides that, at the least, should be acknowledged. It wasn't clear that those had been the cause of Russell and Eva's relationship -- we thought probably not -- but we felt that external dalliances must have played some part, maybe as a catalyst or symptom. It seemed so for Eva anyway, who was really out and about.

We speculated occasionally about how or if Russell was going to re-partner (as seems to be the modern term) or, at the very least, meet suitable women for social purposes, and possibly more. It can't be all that easy in one's fifties: certainly I would find it tricky. Whilst it seems that Eva had found her way successfully (if that's the right term for her situation) onto dating or sex apps, and had no trouble in seeing that her vivacious personality would ease that journey, we couldn't quite see Russell doing so as easily since he was much more introverted.

All things considered regarding Eva and Russell, we were glad, perhaps even a bit smug, that we had dodged all the angst and drama that was attached to pathway ahead for them both.

--

After several months there was an occasion for Russell to be in our part of the world again. He was in town for a night for business and, rather than stay at a hotel in the city, we invited him to have dinner with us and stay over. We enjoyed a sincerely warm welcome with hugs all round. Despite the gap in seeing one another, before long we had settled into a comfortable and familiar rapport. I'm the main cook of the household (Jan jokingly calls me her personal chef) and whilst that occupied a fair slab of my attention as I prepared the dinner, having a kitchen and lounge-dining areas in an open plan I could still mostly participate in the chatter going on between Jan and Russell.