I swivelled my chair round. ‘Just what is it,’ I asked her in admittedly fatuous frustration, ‘about pussy?’
She giggled and shrugged. ‘Well, if you don’t know, I don’t reckon I can tell you.’
‘No, I know it’s a daft question, but really, where does the visual power come from? Striptease, the can-can, the fan-dance, the split skirt, the miniskirt, they all posit a desire to see this somehow climactic organ. Men and women alike, we all crane and strain for that moment of revelation, but of what?’
‘Nuts, isn’t it?’
‘Very specifically, no.’
‘Tee hee. S’pose not.’
‘Anyhow, your arrival is a boon and blessing,’ I told her. ‘Not just because I love to see you, but because, for once, you’re not forbidden fruit. If women were available on prescription, I’d be told to take two of you before meals…’
‘Hey. Not sure I like that,’ she said ruefully. ‘I like to be forbidden, or, at least, exotic…’
‘Oh, darling, you are all of that,’ I growled.
‘…not sort of standard issue therapeutic. You mean this not being allowed to have a relationship bit? Well, yeah, at least you know that I’m not going to want to move in or depend on you or anyone else.’
‘Exactly. Straight out of the text-books. Ex-addict’s dream…’
‘You should be an escort in the States,’ she said suddenly. ‘My mate Annabel said that a while back when she heard your voice on the phone. She’s right, too. That voice, that energy, you’d make a fortune…’
‘You reckon?’ I considered the irresponsible vision that her words conjured. ‘I’d almost do that, you know, if it didn’t just mean fat, blue-rinsed matrons, endless Viagra and the slow death of the soul. Lots of sex, adventure, lots of new, interesting people…’
‘Yeah, you’re good at the giving bit,’ she said dreamily, readjusting the cushions so that she could lie back, ‘just no good at having things taken from you. Good at the excitement and the novelty, bad at the day-to-day grind…’
And that is when she said it.
She said, ‘You ought to try swinging, you know. Probably not standard therapy, but you’d like it…’
‘I don’t know…’ I frowned, but yes, my heartbeat quickened.
On the one hand, the word evoked associations with freedom, sensuality and uncritical acceptance. I had enjoyed just eight very happy threesomes to date, and I had loved the experiences. There had been no pleading or striving for acceptance or pardon. Sexuality had simply been acknowledged, shared and celebrated.
On the other hand, I associated the organised version with shamefaced suburban desperation, sleaze and squalor.
I said, ‘It always sounded like fun in theory…’
‘So, why not?’
‘Ah, I wouldn’t know where to start,’ I said, very much hoping that she might have a few suggestions, ‘and I’m too ancient, aren’t I?’
‘Of course you’re not! Fuck, there are swingers out there well into their sixties. You’d be a breath of fresh air. Decent looks, manners, slim. Answer to a maiden’s prayer, you.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Well, I would like to try…’ I sidestepped out from behind the desk. I picked up my mug. As I bent to lift hers from the coffee-table, I kissed the top of her head. She raised her lips to kiss mine with a ‘Mmmmm’.
‘Anyhow,’ I asked, as I headed for the kitchen. ‘How do you know all this? Swinging’s not your scene, is it?’
She cocked her head this way and that. ‘Er, yes and no,’ she replied. ‘I mean, it’s a counter-culture, isn’t it? And there are real people on that scene. And they’re seekers, aren’t they? And the sex—the erotic stuff, the sights and stuff - can be really good.’
I walked into the kitchen, leaving the door open behind me. I flicked on the kettle and rinsed the mugs under the tap. ‘But yeah,’ she called over the sofa-back and her arm, ‘it’s mostly sort of middle-class and can be scared and up its own arse. But, you know, we’re talking people trying to face their fears and be what they are. I prefer the free party scene. Less accent on the sex there. Sex is just, you know, one of the means of expression, and everyone is just mad. The swing-scene, it’s like “We’re all mad and free but in a sane and respectable way”, you know?’
‘But how—when were you involved?’
‘Oh, shit. You can’t not be. You point me at ten houses, I’ll find you at least one swinging couple.’
I made the coffee and headed back into the sitting-room. ‘So, would you give me a hand?’ I asked casually. ‘Getting started, I mean.’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah, OK. You set it all up. I’m saving for a big trip, so I’m going to be around for the next six months or so. I’ll do a few parties and meets with you. Give me enough notice, I’ll come with you. You’ll make friends quickly, though.’
And that was that.
In volunteering to escort me, Lisa was presumably volunteering to have sex with a number of males and females as yet unknown to us. This struck me as, at once, strange, shocking and exciting. I felt grateful to her. I still, for some reason, regarded such an undertaking as a sacrifice. She disabused me of the notion with a shrug. ‘Sex is a pleasure, and I don’t fuck people if I don’t fancy them, so it’s no big deal.’
No big deal to her, perhaps, but the notion that I could enjoy a full, exciting and adventurous social and sexual life, do no damage and return to privacy, hard work and freedom was enthralling.
Lisa and I went to bed at around three o’clock. Darkness fell, lives began and ended, hours and half-hours pealed about the world. We did not notice. We took breaks for cigarettes and chat, and even once to take the dog out, lock up the hens and fry a few eggs for ourselves before returning to the chaotic and cluttered bedroom to resume our joyous conversation until early morning.
I had been terrified when first I emerged from the clinic. For thirty years I had not fucked a girl without at least a glass of champagne to enhance her glamour and quiet my critical faculties. I had feared that the whole business might prove comical or simply depressing. I need not have worried. Sex was far better and more interesting and intense than in my drinking days.
And now I had the chance to join the secret, underground society of swingers.
I WAS INTERESTED…Oh, bollocks. I was fascinated and excited at the prospect.
For all my eagerness, I was properly cautious.
My experiences of addictive activities had been good, which is to say in the long term, bloody awful.
I took up smoking at fifteen in the music-school practice rooms. Now I accounted for an ounce of roll-up shag a day. I started drinking alcohol at seventeen and soon found myself downing a litre and a half of whisky, with Guinness on the side, every night. Cocaine had never been a threat. It had simply permitted greater alcohol consumption with more sex. It had just been a sauce to the principal ingredient.
Swinging seemed to me logically and emotionally desirable, but I knew that many people thought it morally reprehensible. Until now, I had never really considered why.
I discounted at once all objections from the huge majority. All those of both sexes who read