“Really?” I took a sip of orange juice to hide my smile. “So what club was this?” He told me, and then went on to describe the compromising position he’d found himself in, speaking in hushed tones. I was tempted to ask, “So why didn’t you take him up on his offer?” but I knew the teasing could only go so far before I crossed a line.
That’s the way it was with them.
But things were different in my marriage. We’d recently been talking about “other people,” talking about jealousy and commitment and what sex had to do with all of that.
Neither of us was in any way homophobic-rather strange, given his Mormon upbringing and my prejudice father-and in fact, both of us were open to the point of having experimented with a member of the opposite sex at one time or another.
He loved hearing about my exploits with my college roommate, and would often ask me to relate a “bedtime story,” about the times she and I had spent in bed together.
The thought of watching or being with me and another woman inevitably turned him on, almost instantly. All I had to do, it seemed, was suggest the idea, and I could make him hard. And I had to admit-the thought appealed to me, too.
I’d joked, packing my suitcase for our trip, that maybe we’d find someone to take back to the hotel when we were staying in Key West. I was half-kidding, half-not, and his response matched mine, “Maybe. Who knows?”
Of course, talking about it wasn’t doing it. Actually doing something crossed a line, it seemed, and as we spent the afternoon at the beach, swimming and soaking up the sun, I thought about how we could eat our cake and have it, too. Was it possible?