Push

'Maybe it's the people? You must've been somewhat attracted to Chris for him to think you were flirting.'

I thought back to my interactions with Chris. 'My guess is that he was under the impression that I knew I was going to a swinger's party and he thought I was giving him an early signal I was interested in him.'

'True,' Keith agreed. 'Good point.'

I stared out the window as we drove up to the farmhouse.

'Are you attracted to Kitty?' I asked.

Keith didn't respond.

'No, seriously,' I prodded. 'On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate her?'

Keith parked the car. 'On a scale of one to ten? You're a ten and she's a nine.'

'Nine or nine and a half?'

Keith relented. 'Nine and a half.'

I mulled that over. 'That's a high score. And I think she likes you. Chris seemed to like me. If they were agreeable tonight, we could...' I trailed off, because I didn't need to elaborate.

Keith reached for his cigarettes. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'There's still a part of my that thinks it's a bit sordid. I'm worried this will change things for us.'

'After all we've been through, you think some pre-agreed adultery will fuck us up?' I asked curiously.

'I don't know. I'm just concerned.'

I understood where he was coming from. 'How about we just go along and eat dinner and see where things lead? If we're both happy, and Chris and Kitty are, we go ahead. If not, we come home.'

Keith nodded. 'Sounds like a plan.'

~~~~~~~~~

Michael, his wife and three kids lived in a rented a house on a working farm that was owned by a foreign investment company. The kids were staying with his parents, so it was just him, his wife, us and the other guests.

'The investors bought three adjoining farms,' Michael told us as he led us in, explaining his living arrangements. 'They kept one house for their farm manager and rented the other two out.'

'So you rent land and rent a house,' Keith said. 'Do you find it hard to compete with the international farming conglomerates?'

I kicked my husband. There's no topic too personal or too controversial for him. Nor is any time inappropriate. If ever there was someone to rock up to a swinger's party and start discussing the effects of foreign investment in Australia, it was Keith.

'Don't answer that,' I told Michael. 'He'll have you talking politics all night.'

Keith held up his hands in surrender. 'Sorry folks. The mouth engaged before the brain.'

'Nah mate, it was a fair question,' Michael said. 'If it wasn't going to upset the ladies - and my wife'll react the same way yours did if she hears us talking - I'd discuss it with you.'

Thank God for Michael's wife, I thought to myself. I was testy, irritable, which was my stock standard reaction to unfamiliar situations. I hated surprises, hated being thrown into the deep end, and swinging was about as new, frightening and intimidating as it could get.

We'd bought alcohol with us; wine for our hosts, and a six packed of pre-mixes for us, and we started on the drinking straight away. It didn't matter much, because the other guests, to whom we were introduced, were doing the same. Chris and Kitty were nowhere to be seen.

'Can we go home yet?' I whispered to Keith. 'This really isn't going so well. Everyone's ignoring us.'

'Maybe we're just antisocial?'

'Maybe my husband can't go five minutes without investigating world affairs.'

'I was just curious,' he said. 'I probably should have asked him about the prickly pears.'

'The what?'

'The cactus,' he said. 'I always thought they'd been all but eradicated from Queensland, but I've seen tons of it out here.'

'Humour me, but how on earth do you know anything about prickly pears or whatever they are? Is this another snippet you got from the cow-fucking farm boy you got shit-faced with?'

'Nah, it was my Year Seven project,' Keith said.

It must've been nerves, but I exploded into laughter. I had the tiniest bit of Jack and Coke in my mouth and had to struggle not to spit it out. The bubbles in the soft drink made my nose itch and eyes water, and I guess it sounded like I was choking, because several people turned around.

'Fuck,' I muttered. 'My mascara will be running and my lipstick's fucked. Why are we doing this?'

'We must be insane,' Keith said, wiping my eyes for me. 'How about I go and have a smoke, and then we head off?'

'You're not leaving me inside, by myself, while you have a cigarette. I'll come out with you.'

We slipped back out to the front of the house. The evening was warm enough that I was almost actually sweating and my heels sunk into the ground.

A dusty dual cab ute pulled up and Keith and I exchanged glances when we saw who it was; Chris and Kitty. They were both dressed up and they were both nervous, but Kitty was a show master, and she smiled a bright smile and called out a 'hello' as they made their way towards us.

Chris seemed even younger and more innocent out of his work clothes, and Kitty was just radiant. Her dress displayed a body that I could only have dreamed about having, and she'd redone her hair and the bright pastel colours near the end were like something out of a magazine.

Chris and I did that weird routine thing, where men kiss a familiar's woman's cheek and half-hug her, which admittedly isn't ordinarily that weird, but it is weird when a man who is probably going to have sex with you touches you in a way that ordinarily conveys nothing but respect and familiarity. Don't even ask how it had become so certain, so concrete, that this was the couple Keith and I would swap with. Looking back, there really wasn't anything in our past interactions that signalled this, and yet it remained an indefatigable fact, something none of us would argue with.

'Damn grass,' Kitty exclaimed, lifting her foot. 'I love wearing heels, but I always end up sinking.'

'Me too,' I agreed, and we compared heels.

I wanted to tell Keith that this was how you conversed with near-strangers; non-controversial topics and a commitment to agreeableness, but that would have been like asking the moon to turn green.

Kitty reached into her handbag. 'I need a cigarette before we go in. These things always make me so nervous.'

I hadn't realised she was a smoker, but she pulled a packet of rolling tobacco from her purse and rolled a smoke with a level of skill most fifty year old tradies would have been impressed by. Chris, like me, didn't smoke, but neither of us moved away from our partners. We were used to the smell. Maybe for Chris, like me, there was even a degree of familiarity and comfort in it.

'Have you done this before?' I asked her.

'Um, yes and no,' she replied, glancing at her husband. 'One of my old friends came to visit me a few years ago, another carnie girl. Bisexual. She and I started drinking and talking, and you know how girls get, we were talking about men and she said there was no couple she more wanted to go to bed with than Chris and me.' She grinned at Chris. 'He didn't need much convincing. He'd been drinking, too.'

'That sounds like fun,' I said.

'It was,' Chris agreed. 'Really strange, though, watching your wife with another woman.'

'I don't think I could do it,' Keith said. 'It'd be stuck in my mind; what if another woman could do something I couldn't?'

Good old Keith, asking the important questions. How do you feel about foreign investment? How do you really feel about your wife having sex with another woman?

Thankfully, Chris wasn't offended.

'Maybe because I didn't have time to think and worry about it beforehand, it was easier,' Chris replied. 'It was good, though. We had a great time, and we chalked it up to a once-off, but six or so months later we were talking about it and thought it might be good to try that sort of thing again.'

'The problem is that you can't find single women,' Kitty added. 'We had, shit, five men respond to some very discreet online ads we put up, but no women. We didn't want another man. We were about to give up and let it slide into the past when Michael's wife made contact with us. She'd recognised the background in one of our pictures and told us that there was a very discreet, small group that occasionally met up and were we interested?

Chris and I thought about it and decided that yes, we'd be potentially interested in a straight partner swap. We've come along to two meet-ups, one here and one further out, with the same group. The first time we swapped and it wasn't really good. Personality wise, age wise, there was no one like us so we 'settled'. The second time we decided just to go home. This is our third shot.'

'Third and final,' Chris said. 'It just becomes pressure. All we wanted was a bit of fun. Not much happens out here.'

'Absolutely,' Kitty agreed. 'We were really happy when we found out you two were the new guests coming along.'

'Trust me, if we didn't know you two, we wouldn't be here tonight,' I said. 'We didn't exactly know what sort of party Nora had organised for us to attend. She only told us today. We've never, ever, done anything like this.'

'You're not obligated to be here,' Chris told me, not unkindly, just matter-of-factly.

'We know,' Keith agreed. 'But as you said; sometimes you just want a bit of fun.'

There it was; the verbal agreement, the final signatures on the unwritten contract that stated Kitty would be sleeping with my husband, and I with hers. I felt strangely at peace, as though I didn't need to stress any more.

I glanced at Chris, wanting to weigh up how physically attracted I was to him, and saw that he was trying to discreetly look at me. We caught each other's eye and smiled guiltily. When Keith slept with me, it was something he did with me, but the expression on Chris' face spoke more of the things he'd like to do to me. I was inherently reduced in stature, no longer somebody's wife, but somebody that he was going to fuck.

Keith and Kitty finished their cigarettes and the four of us went inside. Everyone else was talking amongst themselves, and I could see why the couple beside us would have struggled to fit in and swap. It was quite unintentionally clique-y, and Kitty and Chris were a good eight to ten years younger than us, and we were in turn a good eight to ten years younger than the others. There was a notable generation gap.

Chris and Kitty, Keith and I sat down together, ate together and drank together. The others didn't exactly ignore us, but they didn't try and draw us into conversation. We all knew that plans had been made, arrangements configured. The only thing left to do was decide who was sleeping in whose bed, but I knew that wasn't far away.

Between dinner and dessert, Kitty and Keith went outside to smoke. I felt weird sitting next to Chris, because... I don't know why. I just did. I was going to be sleeping with him, and really, what does one say to the man with whom you're going to break your marriage vows? It was fine with Keith around, he was familiar, he provided comfort, but Chris and I together was an odd, uncomfortable combination.

I excused myself to the bathroom. I tried to fix my make-up and fluff my hair, which is fine and blonde and has a tendency to go limp. I wasn't much to look at compared to Kitty. She was still a twenty-something and young and blond and fun. I was something else, someone older and more mature and more reserved. I wasn't unhappy, just pragmatic.

I made a detour on the way back to the dining room, out to the front of the house. Through a window I saw Kitty and Keith. They weren't smoking.

What a fucking punch to the gut. I felt sick, devastated, betrayed. It was an ugly moment, confrontational in every sense of the word, and I wondered how willingly Keith would return to me in the morning.

'I lied to your husband,' a male voice said.

I turned around. Chris.

He gestured out the window. 'I know what you're doing. Torturing yourself. Who wants to see someone they love getting it on with someone else? I was fine with Kitty and Bridget getting it on together, I thought it was great when we all went to bed together, but the next morning, when I was sober and confronted with reality, the guilt set in. The doubt set in.'

'You're not really selling this whole 'swinging' thing to me,' I joked weakly.

He came and stood beside me and stared at his wife, who was still kissing and touching and flirting with my husband. 'It took me months to fully get over it. I never breathed a word to Kitty, but I'd lie awake at night staring at her, thinking 'what if'.'

'And then?'

'And then I realised that sometimes things are no more than what they seem. Not everything has a hidden message. Sex can be just that; sex. The desire for it, and the attraction to other people, doesn't die just because you love someone. No one will ever compare to Kitty. She's a royal fucking twit, mad as a bat, and she still thinks I believe she was a virgin the first time I fucked her, but she's my twit, my mad wife, and no one will ever take her place.' He gave me a sideways smile. 'And yet that doesn't stop me from wanting you.'

I felt myself smile back, even though I was still confused and surprised by what he'd said.

'Why?' I asked.

'Why do I want to sleep with you?'

'Yes. Why?' I wasn't fishing for compliments, merely curious.

Chris shrugged and gestured helplessly. 'Because I shouldn't be wanting a woman like you. You're older than me. You're married to someone else. You'd never otherwise cheat. How long have you been with your husband?'

'Nineteen years.'

'And you haven't cheated, have you?'

'No.'

'Haven't swung?'

'No.'

'Keith said over dinner that you had a bad habit of flirting with clients, employees, and colleagues. Do you?'

I shrugged guiltily. 'Maybe.'

'I'll take that as a yes. And let's just say you flirt with eight different men each year. That's a nice conservative number. Keeping with conservative guestimates, at least one quarter of them, that's two each year, went home and thought about sleeping with you.'

'I wouldn't say it was that high.'

'I wouldn't say it was that low,' he argued. 'I'm not even talking about the men who saw you walking down the street. I'm just talking about two men, from the eight that caught your eye each year, wanking while thinking about you on your knees, or your hands and knees, or your back, or whatever it is they prefer. Two times nineteen. Thirty-eight. Thirty-eight men who you've flirted with have wanted to fuck you, but not one of them got near the target.' Sometimes stirred within Chris as he rattled off the numbers and he no longer looked quite so young or innocent. 'I'll beat them all to it. I'll sleep with Keith's wife. And, moreover, I've got his permission to do it.'

I blushed. 'Oh God. And, um...' I tilted my head out the window. 'Your wife.'

'My wife is talked about, gossiped about, and propositioned quite regularly. And yet the only men she sleeps with are the ones I okay.'

'You okayed Keith?'

'I did.'

The two of us stared out the window. Keith and Kitty were now smoking, but it was easy enough to read their body language.

I glanced over at Chris. He had a totally different body type to Keith, a totally different face. I was willing to bet his politics were different, too, though God knows being married to Keith I was well and truly sick of hearing about that particular topic.

I reached out and touched his arm. He was in a short sleeved shirt and the cotton of his button down was both new and rough, and his arm was brown and more muscled than I'd expected, and dusted in dark blonde hair. Feeling more confident, I stepped up to him and breathed in his scent. Clean. The only thing I could smell was maleness and his cologne mixed with the rum he'd been drinking.

'I want to take a liberty,' he said.

I stepped back, embarrassed. 'Sure. I'm smelling you. It can't be worse than that.'

'Oh, it is.'

My curiosity piqued. 'What do you want to do?'

'It's no fun if I tell you.'

We stared at each other. I could feel myself blush. The expression on Chris's face was lust mixed with something more sinister, something more power-hungry.

'Go ahead,' I said nervously. 'Do it.'

A hint of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. Then, moving more quickly and more powerfully than I would have thought him capable of, he pinned me against the wall. He pressed his mouth against mine, his tongue forcing it's way in.

While I was struggling to react, to kiss him back and keep my balance, he reached beneath my dress. Without any sense of delicacy, his hand slid under my panties and found my cunt. He shoved two digits inside, pushing deep, deep into me. I yelped and squirmed, shocked by the brutality, but Chris didn't release me until he was good and ready. It was only a few seconds, but fuck, they were a long few seconds.

He pulled his fingers out from my pussy, broke the kiss, and straightened my dress.

'I've never fucked a woman with a hairy cunt,' he said.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dessert was excruciating. The food was good, something involving meringues and sauce and ice-cream but I only fiddled with it, not really interested in eating.

Chris made eye contact with me as he licked the two fingers he'd had inside me.

'You like it that much do you, Chris?' our female host asked, noticing what he was doing.

'Something on my hands tastes good,' he agreed, not breaking stride.

I nearly died inside but everyone else took his comment at face value. Chris raised an eyebrow ever so slightly and I blushed, which made him smile.

After dessert had finished everyone else was still very chatty, but the four of us were keen to get out. Nervous and horny is a combination that doesn't lends itself to patience.

'Come back to our place,' Keith suggested to Chris and Kitty. 'There are two bedrooms with King Size beds.'

Chris and Kitty were agreeable, so we all headed back to our place. We travelled separately in our own cars, which gave each couple time to talk, plan, discuss and set rules.

'It's nearly show time,' Keith told me. 'Are you still good with this?'

I nodded. 'You?'

'I kissed her,' he confessed. 'While we were out the front, smoking.'

'I know. I saw you. Chris saw you, too.'

'Did you mind?'

'At first I did. It hurt. It really, really hurt. I wanted to run out there, screaming, and tell her to get away from you, and to get you off her. But then Chris came up and he talked to me, and a lot of what he said made sense.'

'He likes you,' Keith said. 'As a person, I mean, not just as a sexual partner. He likes you.'

'Maybe. You like Kitty.'

He half-snorted and half-laughed. 'She's crazy. Ballsy.'

'Chris said she's as mad as a cut snake.'

'I don't even doubt it. I'm surprised she's stayed with him so long. She must love him.'

'The way I love you,' I said.

'Exactly, 'cause God alone knows neither Chris nor I deserve our wives,' Keith agreed. 'And here we are. Fuck, Penny. He'd better be good to you. I'm confident he will be, but my God, he'd want to treat you right.'

'I'm sure he will. He's dirty-minded, though.'

'He's pure country. Just be glad he hasn't invited a lamb to join the festivities.'

I laughed. 'You really should stop teasing country people about bestiality.'

'It's not like they can hear me. Besides, can you imagine what they must say about us?'

'Probably nothing, because we're perfect and all that shit,' I joked.

Keith grinned, reached across and rubbed my leg. 'I love you. As strange as this sounds, I'm glad we're doing this together.'

'Me too. I just wish I knew more about what we were expected to do. Do you think you and Kitty spend the full night together, and Chris and I do the same, or do we do our respective thing together than go back to our partners?'