Tequila Sunrise

Saturday night we were both exhausted from moving heavy furniture, cleaning, painting, replacing damaged carpet. Once we showered the grime from our skin, neither of us had the energy to do anything more than cuddle with one another before we lost our battles to remain conscious.

By Sunday evening, we had gone through the house minutely, leaving only enough furniture and decorations for potential buyers to envision how the spaces will look when furnished.

As we were finishing up in the Yates' house Sunday evening, Travis pulled me aside to the back porch so we couldn't be overheard, "We're planning another private gathering Saturday. If you and Rachael would like to join us, we'd love to see y'all. I'm sure one of the women have talked to Rachael by now but y'all talk it over and let us know what you decide. We'll be at the same house as the last time. Albert and Maryanne have a better layout than anyone else."

I told him that Rachael and I would discuss it and give someone our answer.

*****

As we lay in bed, sweaty and spent, our breathing and heart rates gradually slowing to normal levels, both of us basking in the euphoric bliss that we had anticipated for so long, Rachael brought up the upcoming intimate party.

"We've been invited to another cook out this weekend at Albert and Maryanne's house."

"Yeah, Travis mentioned it this evening."

"But you haven't said anything about it. So, I guess you want to do something else, then?" I thought I heard a hint of disappointment in her voice.

"Not necessarily, I had planned for us to discuss it tonight, but we've been a bit busy until just now, you just brought it up before I did."

"So, you do want to go?"

"I want us to discuss it and decide together. I can't tell you what you can or can't or will or won't do. We've got to come to a mutual agreement on our decisions, especially important decisions and decisions which could have lasting consequences."

"Okay, so what are your thoughts about this weekend?"

"Well, first, you do know what's going to happen if we decide to go, right?"

"Yes, it's a sex party. Well, an almost sex party."

"Oh, make no mistake, it is a sex party, whether anyone has intercourse or not. And despite what anybody claims about it staying a 'soft-swing' situation, sooner or later somebody's gonna get fucked. What's going to happen then? Is that going to ruin our neighborhood dynamic? Will it split marriages? I don't know if they've talked about the possibilities or asked these questions or not."

"Maybe we should all sit down and talk this through, make sure everybody understands what's at stake." Rachael conceded.

"Honestly, the lifestyle isn't really foreign to me, I guess I've been part of it since I started dating Holly, and I can't deny that I like it, but unless there's a side of you that even Holly didn't know about, this is all uncharted waters for you."

"No, I've never done anything like this before."

"My point is, I don't want to assume too much, despite everything we've done the past three days, hell, the past several months. I'd like to think you and I are lining up for the long play, I hope we are anyway, and I don't want you to ever feel like you're in a situation where you're being controlled against your wishes. And I don't want you to ever have reason to doubt me about anything. If we are becoming a couple, I'll never mistreat you, I'll never lie to you or hide anything important from you, well, excluding my job and case details. I'll never cheat on you or be unfaithful in any way. And I've got to have the same assurance from you."

"I have no problem with that, and I feel the same way. I know how it feels to sit at home not knowing where my husband is but being certain that wherever he is, he's with another woman. And if that's why you don't want to go to those parties, I'm okay with that. I'm perfectly satisfied with one partner." She assured me.

"Babe, I think you're misunderstanding me, I'm not saying I don't want to go, I'm saying that if we do go, we both go without reservations, and not because the other wants to. It has got to be a mutual agreement with both of us. And if we do become part of this group, I don't see it as being unfaithful to each other as long as we both want to be a part of it, and we never hide our activities from one another." I clarified.

"Okay, then I suggest we go and try it out this weekend and then decide if we want to continue in the future." She proposed.

"Then that's what we're going to do."

"What about limits and boundaries?" She asked.

"Do you mean how far are we willing to go sexually with the others?"

She nodded affirmatively.

"At the risk of sounding like a man and a horndog, I think limits on something like this are ridiculous and unrealistic. Intimacy is intimacy and different levels or degrees after a point are irrelevant. If you're going to be intimate enough to kiss, grope and make out with another person you might as well go all the way. Once you've reached that level of intimacy, you're over the edge already. Ultimately, we'll need to adhere to what boundaries the group in general has in place but as far as I'm concerned, if we get involved with this group or with other couples later, our only rules should be no secrets, no lying to one another and if by some stretch of the imagination one of us starts catching feels for someone else we have the balls to talk about it and make a calm decision."

"You're right, of course. I wonder why they haven't considered these points, themselves." Rachael queried.

"I don't know. We can bring it up with them and see where it goes."

"We can figure it out tomorrow, after all, tomorrow is another day."

"Goodnight, Scarlett."

Rachael giggled and snuggled close to my side. Contentedly, we slept.

*****

On Tuesday, when I arrived home from work, I noticed Albert removing envelopes from his mailbox and I waved him over. I told him what Rachael and I discussed about the party and our own self-imposed boundaries and asked if the rest of the group had ever actually sat down and discussed why they had imposed the limitations they had in place. His answer was that he wasn't sure why, it was just what they agreed to before the first time they got together. He said that he and Maryanne had talked about their limits after Breanna and Travis admitted that they had both performed oral at one party but no one else had discussed it to his knowledge. We agreed that maybe we should all get together and find out what everybody expected and where everybody's comfort level was before our weekend tryst.

I was telling Rachael about my talk with Albert while we were eating dinner when our phone rang. Rachael stood to answer another of my '80's throwbacks: a wall phone with a fifteen-foot coiled wire handset. She talked for a couple minutes, and I heard her say "Give us about a half-hour to finish supper and we'll be right over. Bye." She hung the phone up and sat back at the table.

"That was Maryanne, everybody's coming over to their house to talk about this weekend. You must've got Albert thinking."

"Hmm." I nodded and we continued eating.

We finished our meal and cleaned the kitchen, and once Rachael started the dishwasher, we walked to the Siebold residence where we were led downstairs to the playroom again and I noticed that we were the last to arrive this time. Albert handed each of us our preferred drink and we joined everyone else on the sectional.

Veronica looked across at me and said, "Jim, I hear you want to change our rules."

I cringed, one of the fears I had expressed to Rachael was that this would end up affecting our relationship as a group in a negative way and I was suddenly afraid that my concerns had caused that to happen anyway. "No, Rachael's and my boundaries are ours alone, we intend to adhere to the most conservative boundary set by whoever we engage with. I only wondered what metric was used when the current boundaries were set, nothing more than curiosity. We want to ensure that we fully understand what everybody's expectations are so nobody has any reason to be upset."

Veronica grinned, "Honey, I'm only playing, I'm not mad but I couldn't resist pulling your string. From talking here the last few minutes, it seems that we've all asked these same questions ourselves, we just haven't asked anyone outside of our own house, so no couple knew any of the other couples felt the same way."

"Honestly, I suggested the no intercourse rule because I've never done anything like this before." Johnny confessed, "I wasn't sure I could handle knowing Carolyn was having sex with another man."

The other men and a couple of the women all agreed with him either verbally or by nodding their head.

I asked the obvious question, "And how do you feel about that now?"

Nathan said, "The first time, I started getting upset when I saw Breanna kissing Johnny, especially knowing how passionate she can get but then I realized that I was holding Melissa and was experiencing a new level of excitement that I hadn't felt since Breanna and I first started dating. Not a better excitement, but different, and after we got home that night? I was just glad I didn't have to work the next day because we didn't sleep three hours all night! After that, I looked forward to the parties not only for the fun I'd have here but even more for the fun I'll have when we get home later."

Unanimously, everybody agreed that their experience mirrored almost exactly what Nathan had described.

I addressed everyone again, "I don't have a lot of experience in this lifestyle, but I've been aware of and on, at least, the periphery of it since I started dating Holly and like I told Rachael, you can limit yourselves to soft-swing all you want but the longer you keep doing these things, especially with the same people, sooner or later somebody's going to cross that line. They may or may not plan to do it but eventually somebody's passion is going to reach a level where stopping or turning back will be impossible. If that happens and you still have these rules in place, somebody else is inevitably going to feel betrayed and rightly so. If you go beyond what is established as acceptable behavior, even if deep down everybody wants to take that step, you have betrayed both your and the other person's partner. That is never beneficial to any relationship; it's caustic to the marriage's involved as well as the overall group's relationship."

"Oh, no." Breanna gasped. "I never thought of it like that. I am so sorry, Veronica, and everybody else. After the first couple of parties, Nathan and I agreed that we would be ok with whatever the other did as long as we shared our experiences afterward. I was being selfish when I did what I did with Tyler, I didn't even consider the effect it would have on you or even on the rest of the group."

Veronica smiled, "Thank you for apologizing Breanna, it could have turned out bad, but we had come to the same conclusion ourselves, probably about the same time y'all did, so for us it wasn't a big deal. Just something we could tease the two of you about. I'm sure Tyler didn't put up much of a fight, either." Which drew another round of laughter from the group.

"Wait a minute," Melissa had an epiphany, "Has everybody made the same agreement with their significant other?"

Each person looked at their partner and grinned.

Rachael glanced at me, then spoke to all present, "It appears so."

Noel sat up straighter, "Did what I think just happened, happen?"

Melissa turned to her husband and with just a little more than a hint of excitement in her voice, "I think we just took the safety off, stud." And was rewarded with another earnest round of laughter from everybody.

I scanned each face in the room then back to Rachael, "This just got interesting." And she giggled.

*****

The week passed by with no major incidents. Usually, it seems that for every case I close I have another assigned to take its place, but I ended this week four cases fewer than I started with on Monday, which is a win in anybody's book. Breanne started the process to get Rachael's house listed on the real estate market and she seemed optimistic about a quick sale. And I took Rachael on our first official date on Friday.

I took her to a place just north of Atlanta, in Woodstock, the food was good, I had a pan seared salmon and Rachael had an angel hair pasta dish and our table on the balcony had a perfect view of the stage where a Pink Floyd cover band performed. By the end of the evening, Rachael professed to be the newest fan of the Floyd and I played most of 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Dark Side of the Moon' for her on our drive back home. We decided to wait until the party the next night before we got playful and as we drifted off to sleep, I appreciated how much better I seemed to be resting with Rachael lying beside me.

*****

I stepped out of the ensuite, drying my hair with a towel and found Rachael putting in her earrings in front of the dresser mirror. She was wearing a sundress so thin that it left no doubt that she wore no bra beneath. I had to look much closer before I could discern the faint shadow of a string around her hips confirming that she at least wore an excuse for panties. I was suddenly tempted to pull her to our bed and blow off the party, claiming her for myself alone but I knew she was looking forward to tonight at least as much as I was. So, I compromised, I tossed my damp towel onto the foot of the bed then wrapped my arms around her from behind and nuzzled against the side of her neck, nibbling at her unoccupied earlobe until she turned to face me, giggling.

"You keep that up and we're either going to be late or we'll have to apologize tomorrow for not showing up." She cooed before kissing me then pushed me away with a smile.

"Nah, we wouldn't miss out, I guarantee they'd either move the party over here or come drag us over there. I just hope I can live up to the expectations they seem to have built. You, however, are going to stop their hearts."

"I appreciate you saying so, but I know better." She said as she turned away from me.

I touched her shoulder and turned her back to face me, "Now, you just wait a second, do you not remember the reaction you got when you undressed for the hot tub the other night? Nobody was acting, those reactions were genuine. Hell, even the women were green, wishing they had your appeal. Right now, I'm having to force myself to not lock the doors and keep you here all to myself. I swear, Brian needs his ass kicked for doing this to you."

"I hope I can believe that someday." She responded with a tear at the corner of her eyes.

I hugged her closer, "Did you know that Holly always said you were prettier than she was? And did you also know that I could never directly deny it when she did? All I could tell her was that she was absolutely gorgeous, and she didn't have to worry about anybody being prettier than her. But I could never tell her directly that you weren't. I never lied to her about anything, not even that. Now, fix your makeup and lets finish getting ready or I really will lock the doors and turn out the lights." I kissed her again and turned to dress in the clothes she had chosen for me.

We were almost at the bottom of the stairs when Maryanne broke the news, "The McArdle's won't be here tonight, Carolyn's mom had a fall last night, so she and Johnny drove down to Claxton to be with her."

"I hope she's okay." Rachael offered.

"I know, right?" Maryanne replied. "She'll call and fill us in as soon as they know something for sure.

We found a spot on the sectional and Rachael leaned against my side as we joined in the ongoing banal conversation. Once everyone was accounted for and sitting around the pit, the atmosphere gradually seemed to change as we prepared to take a step most of us had never taken before, but we were all anticipating nervously. Everyone sat for what seemed like long minutes but could only have been mere seconds, waiting for someone else to ask the question everyone wanted to know the answer to.

Finally, Albert broke the cloying silence, "Okay, I guess we should decide, are we doing this? Are we ready to forget all the rules and boundaries tonight?"

Noel amended, "No, I don't think we should eliminate all rules and boundaries. I think we need some form of self-governance. I think we should keep obvious rules like nobody does anything against their will, we all stay clear of anything that might cause injury regardless of what permission someone gives, that permission can be withdrawn by that person at any time, for any reason, no questions asked. Now, limitations? I think that if what we do satisfies the nature of what I just described then nothing's out of bounds. No limits on how far two people choose to go. We all got our tests this week, right? Everybody's clear?" everybody confirmed that we'd visited the health clinic or our personal physician for STI tests and our results were negative, each person laying a paper copy of their results on the coffee table in the center of the pit for anyone present to examine.

"Does that sound good to everyone? Anybody have anything else to add? No? Okay, then I guess it's time to take the training wheels off this bike and go for a ride."

Maryanne spoke up, "Actually I do have one suggestion, since tonight is the first time most of us are going to have actual sex with someone other than their spouse, maybe we'd all be more comfortable staying here in the same room? That way if you're nervous you might feel safer and more comfortable knowing their spouse is close by. If anybody would be more comfortable not seeing that, feel free to move to one of the other rooms as usual,"

"Does that cover everything? Anybody have something else to add?" Albert clarified.

When nobody else said anything, he nodded and turned to Maryanne, "I'll get the lights and start the music." He moved behind the bar to start the stereo then turned all but a few lights over the bar off leaving only enough light to make out other people but offering the illusion of privacy.

Maryanne stood in front of the pit, "Let's start with dancing, find your partner and come over here where we have some room. Switch up a few times until you feel you're with who you should be with tonight then find your piece of real estate and have fun. Oh, have any of us decided on condom rules? We have some in a bowl on the bar if you want some."

Rachael and I glanced at one another at the same time, grinned and shook our heads 'no' before returning our attention to the group assembled.

We danced the first song, each of us basking in the other's presence before kissing and pulling apart to find a new partner.

I turned and found myself face-to-face with a grinning Veronica, I took her into my embrace. We moved around the miniscule impromptu dance floor while we shared kisses and roamed the other's body with our fingers. I had her nipples standing proud and my fingertips running through her bare, saturated slit and she almost successfully broke my dick out of its textile prison before the song changed, signaling us to swap partners again.

Melissa drifted into my arms for the next dance. She lost her slacks somewhere during the first song and her shirt was completely unbuttoned, allowing me to explore beneath her bikini cut panties and matching lace bra with little effort. Before the first verse of our song ended Melissa had determinedly dropped my khakis around my ankles requiring me to step out of them before I tripped and embarrassed myself on the dance floor. Thanks to Veronica's recent efforts, my erection was standing proud through the fly of my boxers and Melissa immediately began stroking my length while our tongues dueled. When she reached between her legs, moving my hand aside to replace it with her own, then wrapped that now lubricated hand around my rigid shaft again and resumed stroking, I nearly lost control. She reached down again to pull my fingers out of her pussy and directed them toward my mouth. I greedily sucked her juices from my digits then she pulled them to her own mouth to search for anything I missed. When the song ended, I was ready to drag Melissa to the closest flat surface and bury my face between her thighs to see how many times I could make her scream but there were two other women I wanted to sample before making my decision.