In Search of the Final Freedom: Chapter 56A

In Search of the Final Freedom: An Erotic Socio-Political Novel

BOOK FOUR

Sounding the Clarian Call

Chapter 56

Valentine's

Once again Bonnie sat around the table at a local Waffle House with the group who had become quite close over the last year. She was so happy when Marcy suggested they move their little weekly gathering from Saturday morning to Mondays after they got their kids off to school. It seems that this, her last semester teaching at Jeff Davis, she didn’t have a first-period class even on the days she did teach. She was sure that at this point nobody would notice that she wasn’t in the drama room until her 2nd period class began at 9:20. Since Bonnie rarely worked on Mondays and DeeDee could adjust her own schedule to go in later on Mondays, Monday it became.

The only downside was that they would have to change Waffle House locations to the one near Jefferson Davis High rather than the one in town. They liked their waitress who always served them, but there was no helping that. Bonnie was working her way through the ham and cheese omelet she always ordered as Slosh was telling about the fallout among the faculty regarding the beach pics that Dr. Collins was making sure the conservative church-going teachers knew she’d found. “At first there was some outrage that I was still coming in to work, but now it's more like those people just don’t acknowledge I exist.”

Yes, Bonnie was glad for these times. As always there was a time of comparing notes about the doings of their four teenage kids who they simply called The Quad. It seems now they had gotten over the stage of flaunting their new freedoms, things were settling down to a steady routine. They all agreed it had been the right thing to give Sarah and Lamar the Marshal’s house for a week and leave the four of them to share the space for those three nights. “I have to admit,” Trish said, I am surprised how much Byron has grown up in the past few months. Bailey has been so good for him. Bonnie had mirrored that sentiment several times since Christmas about Lamar as well.

Trish gave an update on the progress of the construction of her new home on the lake. “They’ve had some more weather-related delays, but it is coming along nicely. We should be able to move in in April even though the landscaping will have to wait until the pool and boat dock are all finished. The general contractor said that the heavy equipment would just tear things up if they started earlier.” She looked across the table and said, “Bonnie, I’ve been thinking and the more I see how things are coming together the more sense my idea makes. Would you be terribly hurt if this summer we hold the Sunday family swim times at my new place. It looks like they will save those big old trees on the slope down to the water, so with summer foliage, the pool area won't be easily visible from the lake’s surface. And you have to admit, your place was getting crowded and this year I expect Carlotta and Anson will be coming. They are now a couple.”

Slosh jumped in, “Francis Tomlinson and I have talked several times. It seems that Brandy’s son DJ, has told her son, Will, pretty much everything. And back before Christmas Hillary asked me how much she could tell her mother since her little brother was bringing stories of our doings home. Of course, I told her she could tell her mother anything she chose to. So, all that to say, Francis and I have talked and she and James will also likely be joining us on Sundays when we restart.”

Trish picked back up, “So, would you be hurt if we move the family swim times on Sundays to my place this summer? I will have a lot more room inside and out, and unlike your place, we will have a full view of the swimming pool all the way down to the dock right from my new living room. Last week they put in the glass and I just stood there looking at the view I’ll have, it is spectacular. It was worth the whole year of getting permits and working with the architect and general contractor just for that view alone.”

Trish’s comments about her new house led Bonnie to tell her friends that she would be driving out to her mother-in-law’s new place on the lake for lunch. “While I think if one was on a boat it would be closer, but on the roads Mom’s new place is a good five miles from Trish’s new house. Sherry and I will be going out together. After Misty’s talk with Cooper’s mother, it seems as part of her transformation, she wants to get to know Sherry better, and through her perhaps, we might draw her into our group. The prospect gives Cooper the willies, but I think it would be great for everyone, especially for my kids.”

Slosh put in, “I agree. I was going to get to my mother’s visit. It went very well indeed, better than I could have hoped. And with my beach photos surfacing at school the very week she was here, it couldn’t have been any better. That helped her talk. Nothing like a mother defending her child, even a 51-year-old child, to break down barriers that have stood for decades.”

Bonnie had to agree with that. Though it made her hurt for DeeDee whose relationship with her mother was a painful subject.

Marcy went on to talk about her mother’s visit and how they for the first time ever, talked about both of their relationships with Margarete. “There were a lot of tears, we both loved her so much, and the pain of her passing hurt, but just talking about it pulled Mom and I closer. I think Aunt Margarete would have been happy to see us on the couch looking through some of those old photos.”

There was a moment of silence as they waited for their friend to compose herself. “Mom surprised me when Sarah asked about her going nude on stage in Oh! Calcutta! in New York. She talked for an hour about being in that show and about her time on Broadway in general. I’d never heard most of what she told Sarah. Before she left, she agreed to at least think about buying herself a small place here for the winters. She’s never done that before. Though I know her roots are deep up there, I really think she’d be happy here with family close. Especially as we talk about how little time I still have with Sarah before she goes off to college in a year in a half. She’s pretty sure she wants to go to Oberlin. I can’t believe she is already starting on her application for early admission.”

It was DeeDee who said what they all were thinking, “In just a few short years, we will all be empty nesters. Can you believe that?”

No, Bonnie couldn’t wrap her head around the idea, but DeeDee was right. At least she had a year longer with Lamar than DeeDee and Slosh had with their girls.

DeeDee then asked Trish, “How are things going with you and Beth Ann?

“Very nicely. I go over to their place once a week, usually Thursdays, and make them dinner. Beth Ann does a lot of things well, but her culinary skills are limited, and I enjoy cooking for a whole family like that. Afterward Beth Ann, Calvin, and I retire to their bedroom for an hour or two. Calvin understands that time in their bed is mostly about Beth Ann and me, and he’s not pushy.”

DeeDee asked, “SO are you and Beth Ann like girlfriends?”

Trish shook her head, “No, it's not like that exactly, but it is more than just friends with benefits. I’m not sure how to describe what we have. We just found at the Arabian Night party that we just sexually clicked, more than just on the physical level. Again, I don’t know how to describe what we have, but we both enjoy our time together very much.”

Slosh put in, “That’s OK Trish, you don’t have to give it a label. I’m just glad it’s working for you. Does Calvin feel excluded?”

Trish laughed, “No, he gets his and that is enough for him. Not only does he get his when I’m at their house, but every week or two he calls and asks if I’m free for a long lunch. If I am he comes over… but when he does, the only thing he ever eats is me.”

The other women laughed.

“And I won’t pretend I don’t enjoy those afternoons, because I do; but I always tell Beth Ann about our afternoon tête-à-têtes. They have a deal that for every time he comes over to visit me like that, she gets a night out and he watches the kids.”

Bonnie laughed, “Now why didn’t I think of that when my kids were younger?”

They all laughed.

***

When she got to work on that third Tuesday in January, Bonnie was assigned another task. While Amy had indicated that Bonnie would need to start a blog someday, she’d never put her foot down and said to do it now. However, on that third Monday in the new year, she did. Bonnie was ordered to start a blog. She had looked at Amy’s blog from time to time, but other than that she had never seen one. She didn’t know if Amy’s use of the medium was typical or an aberration. However, she had spoken to Gayle Simmons-Perkins about this very thing while she was in Minnesota, so Bonnie decided to take her up on her offer of help.

On the phone, Gayle told Bonnie "There are a number of kinds of blogs. Many, particularly by academics are like mine, very formal with essays as the primary posts."

Bonnie replied, "But that's not me. That is more my husband.

"

Gayle suggested, "Well there are also good blogs that read more like a diary or like you are just chatting with a friend."

"That sounds better, but what should I write about?"

Gayle laughed, "Oh, you have lots to write that people would find interesting."

"Like what?"

"Just act like you are talking to your best friends. Imagine you are sitting around your living room, what would you tell your close friends about what you have done over the last week?"

Bonnie thought for a moment, "Well...let's see, last week. I went to speak at a convention that focused on polyamory and other alternative relationship lifestyles in Pittsburg. It was actually pretty interesting. It wasn't like an academic convention, but more like an adult ComicCon. People were dressed up in all sorts of sexy, kinky, and sometimes plain weird outfits. When I wasn’t presenting, I went to a session on rope bondage techniques with two live nude models, one male and one female. One of the ballrooms was set up as a playroom with different themes. Like one session where only men participated but only women could be spectators. I actually stopped in on that one. It was pretty hot watching a room full of guys doing each other. But the rule was no anal sex, so it was all oral stuff. Additionally, there were a dozen or so hospitality suites sponsored by poly groups, swinger groups, BDSM groups, and such."

Gayle asked, "And did you partake more directly in any of the activities other than going to that one session on bondage?"

"Well, I was scheduled to speak on Friday afternoon and then again on Saturday. So I had plenty of time. I went to a burlesque show Friday night. It was really quite good. And yes, I spent a good while in one of the hospitality suites sponsored by a swinger's group. There I met a very nice young couple who offered to be my guide as it were. They took me to an event called The Darkroom Party. The convention organizers had a suite of rooms set up with dark plastic sheeting over the windows and a sort of light lock to get in. Inside the suite, it was utterly pitch black. Oh, and everyone inside was naked, so when I used my hands to guide myself around, I touched a lot of bare flesh."

Gayle probed "And what was it like?"

"My hands were all over people I couldn't see and other people's hands were on me. I kissed people not even knowing if they were men or women. My tits and pussy were touched and kissed by people I could not see. And, I wasn't a party pooper. Before we left the dark room I had like six or seven dicks in my mouth and found my mouth on almost that many pussies. I didn't actually give any serious blow jobs and none of the guys came. It was just playful teasing. It was actually really fun. Afterward, I went with the couple to join some of their friends in the public playroom. It was couple’s orgy time. Imagine this, in a fully lit hotel ballroom with what seemed to be padded gymnastic mats on the floor and seating for spectators and the doors to the lobby wide open. There were perhaps thirty or more people in different orgy groupings. Only couples were allowed to play, but there were a good forty spectators. The couple I was with paired me up with a single guy for us both to be allowed to join in the action. Like the guy's only time, no anal sex was allowed. Condoms were required for vaginal or oral sex and there were marshals to enforce the rules. But still, I really had a lot of fun in what one person called a puppy pile… people just piled up squirming on each other. That was a first for me. Again, I put more dicks in my mouth just for the fun of it but two of them got excited enough to fill their condoms. I ate out three women, one to orgasm, and beyond that, four different dicks found their way into my vagina. And of course, both men and women went down on me. I didn’t fuck the first three guys long enough to cum, but the last one, he had me in doggie while I ate out his wife. We seemed to have drawn the attention of the spectators. They cheered when his wife came then he came right afterward. We stayed until the couple’s time was over and we were shooed out. I have no idea how many times I climaxed with all those people watching. It seems my new life is full of more firsts than I ever dreamed possible. I spent the night in bed with my guides and just went back to my room in the morning after a round of morning sex."

Gayle put in "And you said you didn't have anything to write about. Not that you haven't told me enough for a week's worth of posts, but did anything else happen of interest this week?"

"Yes, one more thing. Amy told me I was confirmed to present to a group called The Progressive Christian Coalition. She said it is an umbrella group of liberal Christian organizations, sort of a left-wing alternative to the Moral Majority, and this is their biennial family conference. I've never been invited to speak at a family event. It appears someone on their planning committee has not only asked me to do five sessions over a Friday and Saturday in March, but I am part of a track of sessions called 'Human Sexuality: The Final Freedom.' So, they must know what my sessions are like. In addition to my two standard presentations, they want one for parents on raising sex-positive children and two just for teens between the ages of fourteen to nineteen entitled 'Be a Sex-Positive Teenager in a Sex-Negative World'."

Gayle said "I actually am familiar with the group. They date back to the 70s but have grown exponentially in the past decades with the rise to power of the Christian Right. I'll call a few friends and see what other useful information I can find. But, all of that is what you can put in your blog.”

Bonnie cut in “Oh, and Amy said that rather than me posing for her at random times, for the winter and spring, we will do it every Wednesday afternoon. She is working on a second series with me as an earth mother figure, queen of the dryads, posing with younger models as my acolytes. I guess she found those paintings brought in more money than anything else she did for the art show. I’ve already posed with a couple of models, male and female. For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posing with my twenty-year-old assistant, Nell.”

“Posing?” Gayle queried. Bonnie had forgotten how little Gayle actually knew of her life. She explained how she and Cooper had posed for Dr. Douglass and even took & sent a phone pic of the painting on her office wall. “In the fall I posed by myself and with several young women in languid glamour poses, but back in November, I did two erotica sessions with a hot Brazilian graduate student.”

“Erotica?” Gayle asked.

“Yes, she painted us having sex. In the first session she just generally guided us taking photos and making sketches of us in different positions. But the second time she had us pose in one position for over an hour, then take a break, and then do the same thing for another hour.”

“Oh… you really do mean erotica,” Gayle said with a nervous laugh. She then said, “Yes that would be something readers would most definitely enjoy hearing about. The entries can be short or long depending on what you want to say. But I'd make at least three posts a week and when you talk explicitly about sex on the road, you might want to use not only pseudonyms for the people but for the locations as well."

With that advice and technical help from Cooper's graduate assistant, Lilly, Bonnie started blogging.

That evening, Bonnie had another weeknight speaking engagement in Atlanta. She was very happy that Cooper was able to go with her. Last Tuesday night had been his monthly board meeting/night with Amy and tomorrow night (Wednesday) he was slated to spend the night with DeeDee’s client who was in Augusta for business. It amused her that virtually every week now her shy, bookish husband was having sex with at least one other woman, sometimes two, or even three (like last week). She’d never imagined that was possible.

Her presentation at a community center for a social activist group went well with a good crowd. However, one particular visitor was most welcome, Heather. Bonnie had not seen her in several months, though she spoke to her on a regular basis. The stunningly beautiful twenty-year-old blond was sitting with a strikingly handsome young man. She knew who the man was from the pics that Heather had sent her. While Heather had texted Bonnie that she would try to make the meeting, Bonnie had not expected her boyfriend to be with her.

Bonnie finished her lecture and then spoke to several people individually. As the room emptied, Heather pulled the young man in her direction. After giving Bonnie a big hug, she introduced the tall young man, “Bonnie, this is Allen.”

Bonnie had heard how Heather’s relationship with Allen had been growing more serious since the last time Heather had shared their bed. Both she and Cooper were truly happy for her. While her husband had developed a real attachment to Heather, they both knew that he could never give her the kind of relationship she really needed. Bonnie had no idea how much this man, Allen, knew about that relationship.

When Cooper made his way to the front of the room, Heather gave him a hug and a kiss (on the lips). She said to her boyfriend, “This is Cooper Campbell, my special lover and the man who has kept me centered through all the changes in my life.”

“Well,” Bonnie thought, “that answers that question.” Cooper put out his hand for Allen who didn’t show the least bit surprised by her introduction.

Cooper put out a hand and said, “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from my wife.”

The young man smiled and said “And, I have heard a great deal about you…” then, with a grin, he added, “…I’ve seen all the photos Heather has that go with the stories about you and her. You can’t know how much I appreciate all you have done for my Heather. She says she doesn’t know how she’d have made the transition to her new life without you and your wife.”

Bonnie truly was impressed with those words. Sure, they lived that way, but she knew their expansive view of love and sex was exceedingly rare. She decided right off that she didn’t want to get into this conversation standing in the community center. Bonnie suggested they take their conversation to the tavern across the street from the hall. Everyone agreed and their talk continued over coffee and a plate of mediocre nachos.

Cooper told Allen, “Heather is very fortunate to have found such a confident young man who can love her for who she is, rather than what others expect she should be.”

Allen answered “No more so than you. You set the standard I hope to match. That last set of photos your wife showed in her presentation said as much about you as it did her.” He paused and thought then asked, “Or was that last set of photos of your wife and that man digital magic rather than a real photo?”

Cooper smiled, “Well it was real in as much as it was real penetration by a male model that Dr. Douglass had arranged for. Though the photo itself was all shot in a studio, not in a park.”

Allen nodded, “From what Heather has told me that kind of thing is pretty normal for you guys. She has opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing relationships. The idea that neither partner in a relationship should give up the right to enjoy sex with whoever they please is radical. And not that we are even talking about it, but she has a very different expectation for her marriage than I’d ever heard of. I’ve never met a girl who says flatly she does not want a monogamous relationship or marriage. What is just as impressive is that Heather didn’t wait till she’d caught me before telling me all that. On our second date she told me about you and what you do for her, and only after I said I was cool with that, did she tell me all the other stuff she does with other men. So, I know all about what she does with the LeMarco’s and their clients when she is in Atlanta.”

It soon became clear that Heather wanted Cooper and Bonnie to fill Allen in on the philosophical underpinnings of a sexually open relationship from the perspective of an experienced married couple. After perhaps half an hour, Bonnie summed it up “Allen, you just have to understand that Heather is not her body. She is a marvelously complex person who lives in that strikingly beautiful body of hers. With her body and sexuality, she does a lot of things. She uses it to express herself. She uses it to socialize and build relationships. She uses it to provide photographers a muse for their art. She uses it to show love and affection. She uses it unabashedly for her own pleasure and frankly, she uses it for business. I should add, that I use my own body for all of those things too. But you should consider, that the reason that you have such amazing sex with her is because of all the ways she uses her body, not in spite of them. Believe me, I know that when you make love to Heather it is wonderful. I know because I have plenty of first-hand experience.”

He let out a little laugh and agreed.

Then Bonnie made her point, “When Heather uses her body to make men feel good through sex, it really is a good thing. Good for her, good for them, and ultimately good for you. By having a loving relationship with a woman who has an expansive view of her sexuality, I can promise you that you are not losing out on anything. Cooper learned that firsthand when we were dating in college. I know all about Heather’s sex life, and I can assure you I was having sex with more men when I was dating Cooper than Heather does. I think Cooper will attest, and our over twenty years of successful marriage will attest that he didn’t get cheated because I didn’t limit my sexual pleasures to just him.”

Cooper nodded to support what she said. He could see in Allen’s eyes that her words seemed to give him some sort of validation. Then she went on “Heather told me that she’s told you many times about her special relationship with my husband. She finds it important to be with him every couple of months. She spent the night at our place before Thanksgiving and I think she told you all about it.”

He nodded.

Looking at Heather she asked, “With that clear, may I assume you plan for the four of us to go to a hotel now?”

Heather nodded. Bonnie looked right at Allen, “You have to know that actually seeing Heather have sex with another man is different than simply knowing she does. Are you ready for that?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I trust her, and if this is what she says she needs, then I totally support her.”

As they gathered their things to go, Cooper overheard Heather telling his wife, “While I’m with Cooper, I promise you that Allen will show you a very good time. If you think he is very good-looking when he is dressed, wait till you see him naked …” she looked around and added, “…and not only is he hung, he can cum two or even three times almost every time without losing his hard-on. And with you, I’m sure he will still be hard after his third.

Bonnie grinned at Heather, “That sounds great, really great, but I’m going to set my phone alarm and we will have to leave at 11:00, no matter how much fun we are having. OK?”

Heather nodded, then Bonnie added, “But after tonight if Allen is still OK with it, we can set up an overnight.”

They drove in their two cars to a hotel just off I-285. Though Bonnie had told Cooper during the drive this was a first for the couple, Allen didn’t show any sign of discomfort as Heather and Cooper got undressed right in front of him. Heather went to one knee and took Cooper’s penis in her mouth. Bonnie cut her eyes to see Allen's response to seeing his girlfriend sucking another man’s cock. His face was impossible to read though. Once Cooper was fully erect the two of them got on the right-hand bed. Heather mounted Cooper right off. Their lips came together even as she was easing herself down onto Cooper’s erection. Initially, she used her entire body as she rode him, with a rolling motion that went from her thighs, through her torso all the way to her head. Soon however she settled down to only a barely visible slow hip thrust in what Bonnie knew would be a prolonged time of emotional and spiritual renewal for her. Still, Allen’s face did not betray his feelings.

Only after Cooper and Heather had begun their quiet time in the lotus position did Bonnie turn to Allen and begin to undress him as he focused on the couple on the bed. As Heather had said, he was indeed well-hung. He was so well hung that once she’d gotten him fully naked and used her oral skills to bring him up to full staff, she couldn’t get much more than the head into her mouth. Bonnie normally didn’t like sucking a cock that she had to strain to get her lips around, but not only was Allen as well hung as Heather had said, but he had a sexual magnetism that she couldn’t ignore.

She suddenly felt a wave of heat between her thighs followed by enough moister to make rivulets drip into her panties. It’s not that the first time she took a new man’s cock into her mouth didn’t always turn her on, because she did. If it didn’t turn her on, she would not have done it once or twice nearly every week for the past five months. But this was different. There was something she couldn’t describe that made her crave him. A memory of a nature documentary she’d seen came into her head where the narrator spoke of an overwhelming desire to copulate. That is what sucking Allen’s dick gave her: an overwhelming desire to copulate with him. That feeling is what made her put in the work to overcome the size of his organ in her mouth.

Yet, all the while she knelt in front of him with his cock in her mouth, she was sure he never took his eyes off his girlfriend riding Cooper’s lap. That didn’t bother Bonnie exactly, but she found herself wanting him to want her… at least for the moment. Only when she stood and began as sexy of a striptease as she could pull off, did she finally get his full attention.

With Allen focused on her, Bonnie guided him to the second bed and resumed pleasuring him with her considerable oral talents. Despite his size, she relished the feeling of him in her mouth. Her desire for him must have shown because once he was lying on the bed, it didn’t take long to bring him to climax. When Allen filled Bonnie’s mouth with thick and distinctive-tasting semen, she kept drawing him out until his orgasm had fully run its course. However, he did not soften at all. Heather’s claim regarding his staying power was as accurate as her physical descriptions. She mounted him as soon as she’d swallowed the last drop. He felt amazing as her little lips and vagina strained as she slowly lowered herself onto his girth. Unsurprisingly, the inner pressure caused her arousal to reach critical mass in just minutes. The truth was she had fucked a lot of guys in the past year… a lot…but she couldn’t think of any more arousing on a purely physical level than Heather’s boyfriend. She made sure everyone in the room knew she was cumming…. and then cumming again…. and again.

Even though Bonnie got rather loud with her expressions of pleasure, Cooper and Heather appeared to be barely aware of it. As much as Cooper told Bonnie his quiet times with Heather were just for her, she knew her husband got a lot out of them as well. Several times as she and Allen moved from position to position, Allen looked over to see his girlfriend just barely rocking her hips in Cooper’s lap. Sometimes they would be whispering softly to each other, other times they would be kissing, and on and off Cooper took one of Heather’s nipples into his lips; but they did not move out of that basic position.

Allen finally asked Bonnie “Is that all they do?” then later he asked, “How long will they stay like that?”

To the first question, Bonnie answered, “Pretty much, she just sits on him like that, or sometimes they lay in spoons with him holding her.” To the second Bonnie answered, “It depends on what is going on in her life and how long it’s been since they’ve done it. Normally they go between forty-five minutes and an hour.” Bonnie had predicted the time pretty closely. Cooper and Heather engaged in their quiet spiritual union for just under an hour, after which Heather invited her boyfriend and Bonnie to join them on their bed.

Over the prior three months, Bonnie and Cooper had spent an hour in their bed with Butch and Tabitha most Sunday afternoons. In that time, they had learned a lot about successful foursomes. In most cases, it was not so much a foursome as Cooper making love to Tabitha while Bonnie and Butch did the same beside them. There was just something about that close proximity to her husband doing another woman while Bonnie felt Tabitha’s husband’s long cock deep in her. Sometimes she would hold Tabitha's hand, or even kiss her while the men worked. Other times she’d lay beside Cooper and hold his hand while Tabitha rode him and Butch lifted her thighs to bury “the snake” in her. Both couples had come to value that sixty minutes before they started work on the week's youth meeting. An unexpected side benefit was that Bonnie now knew how to manage two couples in the same bed quite well.

Guided by those months of experience, Bonnie took a place lying on her back beside Heather and directed the men to stand on their knees and enter them by lifting their hips and spreading their legs. Bonnie knew this was the best way for Allen to watch as Cooper’s erection penetrated fully into Heather’s body. Conversely, it gave Heather a clear view of her boyfriend’s oversized organ stretching Bonnie out as he filled her. And for her part, as Bonnie looked down between her legs at that gorgeous man thrusting that equally gorgeously big cock into her was something she could do all night. With the trio of hard orgasms that she’d had on the other bed, her immediate sexual tension was temporarily spent and her body had adjusted to the oversized penis so she was able to relax for a while and just enjoy the show. Not that he didn’t still feel great in her, but the need to cum was only slowly coming back. Bonnie was sure this was one of the things Heather had wanted out of this first time.

Bonnie had been right in predicting that Allen would have a very hard time taking his eyes away from the penetrative nexus between Cooper and his girlfriend. She was not surprised that while Cooper maintained his cool; for Allen it was too much. Watching another man’s erection sliding in and out of his girl, even while he was fucking that man’s wife was just too much for him. Within five minutes, Allen began pumping his second load of semen into Bonnie. But, as Heather had said, he didn’t even soften a little. However, the added lubrication provided by his semen was both sexy and welcome as it improved the experience for Bonnie. Allen might not have gone soft; however, his arousal seemed to slacken a little and he slowed his strokes to match Cooper’s rhythm as his persistent hard-on displaced the cum and it began to run down between Bonnie’s ass cheeks.

Even though Allen’s climax had lessened his urgent need caused by watching Cooper fucking his girlfriend, it was not until the two women began quietly chatting even as the men were stroking their erections into them that Allen finally pulled his eyes away from Heather’s labial lips spread around the base of Cooper’s cock. It was obvious to Bonnie that poor Allen just didn’t understand how Heather and Bonnie could carry on a conversation while he couldn’t hold back his orgasm. But this too was part of Allen’s initiation into Heather’s lifestyle.

Bonnie’s phone beeped at ten minutes till eleven. “OK, guys,” she said as she and Heather rolled over to get on their hands and knees. “You have ten minutes to get us off and cum yourselves… but we expect you will do those two things in that order.”

Heather laughed at Bonnie’s command. Allen blanched. She was sure that all of this was very far from any experience he’d ever had. It was no surprise to Bonnie that Heather climaxed with Cooper doing her in doggie well within the time limit; nor was she surprised that she was able to get off with handsome Allen with his wonderfully big dick drilling her. Thus, all four of them climaxed before Bonnie’s phone alarm went off again.

Bonnie and Cooper got dressed to leave, but Heather and Allen opted to spend the night in the hotel room. While it had been a very nice couple of hours for her and Cooper; she knew it was a huge moment for Heather and Allen. There was nothing like that first time when you share your sexuality with another couple and watch your partner with someone else.

On the hour-plus drive home, they talked about how Cooper and Heather bonded through sex. In doing so, they (again) talked about how DeeDee saw sexuality and spirituality as two sides of the same coin. They were slowly moving toward her views on this. But Bonnie countered with, “But there is also a purely animalistic lust in some sexual interactions. Don’t feel bad, but Allen had me crawling out of my skin with desire. I’d seriously considered asking to stay the night so that I could go on having sex with him.”

Cooper chuckled, “So does that mean you want to work out an overnighter with them?”

With a smile, Bonnie said “You got that right. And if we do, I might go till dawn.”

When they got home, Bonnie pulled Cooper into doing sixty-nine, something they very rarely did. While she well knew they both enjoyed him giving her oral sex after she’d been with other men, she’d never really thought about gaining the same satisfaction by giving him oral sex after he’d been with another woman.

The reality is that the taste and smell of a woman on a man is not nearly as strong or persistent as semen in a woman. Yet as she focused on it, she thought she could still taste Heather on Cooper’s shaft. Of course, she knew Cooper could fully taste Allen on and in her. However, when she simply swallowed him down, she could distinctly smell her in his pubic hair. She tried to imagine how for over an hour, Heather’s vaginal lips had held Cooper’s erection. It pleased her to watch them like that, and yes, smelling Heather while she held Cooper’s cock in her mouth was pleasing. Once she had the odor fixed, she could hold on to it as she began to move up and down on him.

Yet even as she was breathing in the scent of Heather, another thought came to her. While she was concentrating on Heather’s aroma, she was simply taking for granted the comfort and pleasure she derived from the taste, texture, and smell of the man she loved more than anyone in the world. She thought on how many hundreds, thousands, of times she’d held Cooper’s erection in her mouth out of both love and desire. Because he was always there for her, it was so easy to take the rock of stability he was in her life for granted. Sure, she’d been swept up in Allen’s masculine allure, but the truth was, even that first time with Cooper, over twenty years ago, he was a far better lover than Allen was. And it was because of the foundation of love and security she had from Cooper that she was able to, week after week, have carefree sex with several new people on each of her trips. She never had to hope her bedmate would become a soulmate to care for her through life’s travails because she already had that with Cooper. She could give and receive pleasure simply for enjoyment's sake.

Bonnie rolled her tongue around the half of Cooper’s erection she had in her mouth and considered that he truly did have the perfect penis as if God made him just for her. He was bigger than average and she liked that, but he was not so big as to make it a chore to mouth fuck him or to swallow him down to the root if the urge hit her. She was truly blessed with the perfect man for her and it was only because he was in her life that she was free to do the things she enjoyed so much. Most of all she knew deep down in her soul that he loved her today, tomorrow, and forever. Those thoughts brought on a burst of love and desire to bring forth his semen and swallow it down as an act of love.

As it happened, with those thoughts in her head, it was the first time she ever recalled both of them having an orgasm while in sixty-nine.

It was nice to have another first with Cooper. That didn’t happen very often.

.

****

Two days after their time with Heather and Allen, when Cooper came to pick Bonnie up at the FFF office for their drive home, the door was locked and the lights in the office area were off. He knocked on the glass but got no response. He was just about to call with his cell phone when Nell came to the door and let him in. She was carrying a camera and quickly said, “Bonnie said you would be here right on time, so I was listening for you. She’s in the studio with Daniel and Dr. Douglass.”

He already knew that the plan was for Bonnie and Nell to pose together for Amy in the afternoon. Bonnie had been posing a few hours each week since the early fall and she seemed to find it relaxing. Nell ushered him into the backroom art studio. Because they had moved into the space ‘as-is,’ they had not moved the short wall just inside the door to the open space Amy had claimed for her studio. Because of this, there was not a line-of-sight view from the door to the posing stage. So, it was the sounds of sex, not the sight that greeted Cooper… and the sounds said things were well underway.

In the studio space, he found his wife, laying back on one of Amy’s swoopy posing lounges with Daniel driving his dick into her. The room was filled with the moaning and sounds of the hard fucking. Amy had a paintbrush in her hand and was adding color to a sketch she’d already made. Nell moved closer to the couple and began shooting photos.

Amy, without looking from her canvass said “Daniel arrived early. I was about done with what I was doing with Nell & Bonnie for the day, so I asked him if he would be up to posing as a young satyr servicing the Forest Mother. As you can see, he didn’t mind one bit.”

“No, I guess he didn’t,” Cooper said. Then when he realized that Bonnie was at the verge of climaxing, he added, “And I can tell my wife didn’t mind either.”

“No, she didn’t,” Amy said over Daniel’s grunts, Bonnie’s active vocalizations, and the slurping and slapping sounds made by him thrusting his erection as deep into her as he could. This was not what Cooper expected to see when he arrived, but he felt his penis stiffening as he watched. It was quite a sight.

When he’d first watched Bonnie have sex on the San Dinero, just about a year ago, he’d been fixated by the sight of the men’s erections going into his wife and how her little labial lips wrapped around the shafts as if her pussy was gripping them. But, in the past few months, and perhaps especially just the past few weeks since he spent the afternoon with DeeDee and Brother Paul, his view had changed. While he didn’t fully buy into all they believed about sex and spirituality, he understood the connection. From the very first time Heather had quietly sat in his lap only slightly moving and rhythmically gripping his erection with her PC muscles, he understood she was drawing upon his energy and love. He’d never been able to explain it, but he knew it was real. After he had considered what DeeDee and Brother Paul said, he now could see the spiritual connection made when two people bond through sexual union.

Now, as he watched Daniel and Bonnie, he could see it was not just the physical act of his dick going in and out. He decided the entire interaction between Bonnie and Daniel was a ballet, a physical and metaphysical ballet. He watched how Daniel’s entire body was part of the process: his legs and stomach and back and arms. His eyes were fixed on Bonnie’s expression of pleasure from his actions. When she let out a cross between a sigh and a moan, and her thighs and hips began to visibly quiver, Cooper knew she was climaxing and was sure she was gripping Daniel's erection tightly as she did.

Daniel responded by shortening his strokes and rapidly increasing the speed. From beside Amy, Cooper could see Daniel’s entire body tensing like a sprinter waiting for the gun. For a moment the short strokes continued as the tension built, then pushing his penis as deep into Bonnie as it would go, he let out a deep grunt from his core. Cooper could see his buttocks squeeze and his entire body vibrate. Daniel was disgorging an offering of obeisance, a sacred offering to his goddess of love. It was not like an offering; it was an offering because he knew that both Daniel and Nell worshiped Bonnie as the wellspring of sexual love and fertility. Three times Daniel’s buttocks clenched and he grunted as streams of semen were sent to fill Bonnie’s sacred chalice. He took a deep breath and twice more he gave to Bonnie of his sacred essence. And each time he gave the offering, Bonnie let out a sigh of acceptance. Then there was silence, save the sounds of heavy breathing.

(One of Nell’s photos. This one caught her boyfriend’s climax)

Nell, who had knelt before them making photos softly said, “Wow. That was amazing.”

Daniel stepped back; his mostly stiff penis glistened with the combined sexual fluids. He stepped over and kissed Bonnie softly on the lips. “Thank you. You are the most amazing woman ever.”

Nell stepped up on the platform and kissed Bonnie as well. But her kiss only started as a soft peck like her boyfriend had given. Bonnie reached up and put a hand around Nell, and the kiss became hard, and deep, and long. When Bonnie finally released her, Nell said “I am so glad you came into our lives. Thank you so much for making our world so much richer.”

Bonnie softly said “And I am glad you are in my life as well.”

Taking her boyfriend’s hand, Nell asked, “Do you mind if I take a copy of what I shot home with me? I got both stills and videos of all of that.”

“Sure,” Bonnie said, her voice still breathy. “In my desk drawer, there are two brand-new thumb drives. Use one for yourself and make a copy for me to take home too. Then you can leave the camera on Amy’s desk.”

Amy was still painting as the young couple left. To Bonnie, who was still lying on the curved posing bench, she said, “Your muffin must be overflowing with cream. I didn’t think he was ever going to stop pumping it into you.”

“Me too. He gave me a lot.”

“I’d appreciate it if you can give me a few minutes to finish capturing your pose laying like that. As Daniel was giving it to you, a vision of a new painting came to me. I’m going to paint him as a satyr servicing the forest mother.” Then to Cooper, she said with a smile, “I’m sure you can find something to do for a few minutes.”

He did. Amy was right, Bonnie’s muffin was filled to overflowing… but it wasn’t when she got up to get dressed fifteen minutes later.

***

As January drew to a close, Misty's pace was nearly as grueling as her mother's. Not only was she filling some of Mom's shoes at home and guiding the activities of the Euro-Club; but she was also working long hours at school getting the yearbook photos ready in time for the printers.

Additionally, she was regularly using her new home studio to build her portfolio. Weekly she had formal photo sessions shooting both her own friends and those of her mother. She found she really liked shooting male nudes. It was different and presented new challenges to improve her skill set. She found it disappointing that several of the boyfriends of club girls seemed to just assume sex was in the offing just because Misty was shooting them. She told them that it was not professional to do so. And she meant it. Yes, she’d had sex with Everleigh after her shoot, but she rationalized that Everleigh had been primarily having sex with Caitlin and she’d just joined in. That inconsistency bothered her and simply reinforced her commitment that it would not happen again.

In addition to shooting nudes of adults and her eighteen-year-old friends, she did fully clothed, bikini and lingerie shoots for all of the Euro-Club members. She also tried her first formal photo shoot of a couple having sex. Kelly and Cody made love for her on a bench in front of her black backdrop. It proved far more difficult than she had anticipated which only inspired her to ask more of her friends to let her practice shooting erotica. In February, she sent some of her best images to Kate Evans for feedback in an effort to improve. She was happy for both the compliments and critiques from the world-famous photographer. Kate assured her that she was getting better with each effort.

Over a month in, Misty thought her love affair with Tommie was going strong, but not in the way that teen romances so often go. As much as they wanted to, the reality that they lived in two different social spaces simply could not be ignored. While it was true that their connection via their joint work in the school's publications was very strong, the differences in their external social world could not be more stark. Tommie was very involved in his own church youth group, a group that was strident in its opposition to everything that both the Euro-Club and the St. Thomas youth group stood for. It was fortunate that Misty and Tommie did not share the same lunch period so that neither had to choose to abandon their own school friends during the primary social time each school day. While the Euro-Club would have been all too happy to have Tommie join them, the outspoken conservative evangelicals would not have been as welcoming to Misty. Though she tried to pretend all was well, it was significant that Tommie never suggested they spend time as a couple around his social group. All their dates were with the club girls and their boyfriends.

Despite the fact Misty knew why he did not invite her to join him with his friends, she was all too happy to have him join hers. Friday night became their regular date night. Since Tommie's mother had begun insisting that they not date alone, that meant they were always with at least one Euro-Club couple. If Tommie's mother had known the sexual mores of the people with whom they were double dating, she likely would not have been so keen on this method of ensuring couples do not "go too far." As it was, there was no getting carried away and going too far in double dates with Euro-Club couples; every date ended with sex by design. He'd even found a way to spend the night with Misty twice by honestly telling his mother that he was spending the night with one of his male buddies. Of course, those male buddies were Euro-Club guys who were sleeping with their girlfriends in the Campbell's guest/playroom. However, Misty was more than a little concerned by the fact that he would not let anyone but Caitlin share Misty’s bed with them, even for parallel sex. She was sure that was a portent for future problems. He also resisted any sort of explicit sex play in front of her friends.

Significantly even when Misty and Caitlin agreed that they could have “full contact” threesomes with Tommie, it soon became clear that he didn’t think they should. The day after the second time Caitlin had been with them and he’d turned down her request to put his erection into her, Misty asked him about it. Even after Misty assured him that she liked the idea of watching them do it, he told her that he just didn’t think he should. He went on to say that while he was having oral sex with Caitlin when she joined them, he wouldn’t do that with anyone else. Their talk was not confrontational, and he explained that having Caitlin in the bed with him seemed OK because of their deep loving relationship, but he didn’t think they should have others join them. All this made Misty very glad she’d asked Caitlin not to screw him that first night. Guilt is a powerful emotion and it could poison their relationship.

Yes, it was not everything she wanted for the present, and she had serious concerns for the future; but Misty tried to put those things out of her mind and enjoy what she had. She was very much in love. That in itself was joy beyond words, but added to that, their sex was intoxicating. In addition to Friday nights, most weeks he would make a detour by her house a couple of times on the way home from school for rushed, but hot, sex.

On Friday after the January Euro-Club meeting, Kelli & Cody set up a triple date with Cody’s Cousin, Jake Carpenter, and Maria-Jane Rojas. Jake was also a senior at Jeff Davis, who occasionally came to the St. Thomas Youth Group but was not a regular. Though Misty and Kelli hadn’t talked about it, there was no question that the assumption was after dinner they‘d watch a movie, spend time in the hot tub, and then they would all have sex… together. She’d not had sex with any guys but Tommie since they started dating, but she’d never even hinted that she would stop doing so.

At the theater, Misty made a point to drag Maria Jane to the lady's room with her so that she could ask “Are you OK with what I’m sure Kelli assumes will be some sort of group sex once we get out of the hot tub tonight?”

Maria Jane laughed, “Of course, I expect to do both Cody and Jake tonight. Though, as I understand it, your Tommie is sort of a wild card. But, Misty, I’m super excited. This is my first Friday night on a date with high school people since I was in seventh grade. Don’t worry about me, I can handle anything those boys throw at me.”

Misty couldn’t miss how she’d emphasized the word boys. Surely that was how she saw them since she was used to dating college guys.

Then Maria Jane followed up with “The real question is are they up to what I can throw at them.”

Misty couldn’t help but laugh.

After the movie, the next stop was the hot tub. For Tommie, just being around nude people was still quite the forbidden fruit. He even seemed to enjoy the extended show that Misty, Kelli, and Maria Jane put on kissing, fondling, and fingering each other. Misty very much enjoyed kissing Maria Jane and hoped she would get to do more with her later on. But when Kelli began to give Cody a blow job as he sat on the side of the hot tub, Tommie told Misty they needed to go inside to give the others some privacy. Whether he was afraid Misty would have sex with one of the other guys if they did not leave, or if he just didn't approve of group sex, or even if he was concerned that he would break down and have sex with Kelli or Maria Jane; Misty never knew.

All this kept bringing to mind Tommie’s lie by omission about what had really happened at the New Year’s Eve party. Misty had never confronted Tommie about hiding what Rebecca told her happened while she’d been in the house talking with Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Broderick. It seems Rebecca had pulled him behind one of the nearby trees and given him a blow job. Misty only found out about that weeks later. Rebecca had asked Misty when she was going to get to join her and Tommie for a threesome to finish what they’d started at the party. When Misty had explained that he would only do threesomes with Caitlin, Rebecca had replied, “Well he didn’t feel that way when I blew him New Year’s Eve.”

When it was evident that Misty hadn’t heard the story, Rebecca was glad to tell all. Misty was amused imagining Tommie totally baffled as to what he should do as Rebecca sucked him to climax just outside the fire’s light ring. On the other hand, he’d had more than ample time to tell Misty about that little moment, but he chose not to. That little bit of secrecy concerned her. Misty was sure that he felt guilty about it and wondered if that was part of the reason that he’d refused to do threesomes with anyone but Caitlin. That revelation, then his insistence they stay in her room while the other two couples had a noisy foursome across the hallway further reinforced Misty’s feeling that she had pushed Tommie as far as she could.

It was two days later that Tommie told her that his church was having a big youth event on the night of the school's Valentine's Day dance. It was going to be a "True Love Waits" themed event specifically aimed at giving Jeff Davis students a “Christian” alternative to, what they saw as, the over-sexualized dance at school. Tommie told her that he was expected to go because he was one of the student leaders. The simple fact he was going to an event like that and pretend that he believed that true love waits for marriage before sex was upsetting to Misty on its own. What did that mean he and Tommie had? Was it fake love? Then he dropped the bomb on her when he said directly "You would not like it. I don't think you should come with me." followed by telling her that he was taking a girl from the church as his date for the night. That hurt.

Yes, she knew if she went with him, she would hate it and her presence there would be disruptive. After all, she was the girl with all those naked pictures on the web and the leader of the group that openly advocates for teen sex. More to the point was that there was no way she would have gone if he'd asked her. She could not begin to sit silently and pretend she believed all that crap. She couldn't understand how he could. She didn't understand why he did not just stand up to his mother and the others at his church and skip the event. Misty strongly suspected that not only his mother but his entire group of "Christian" friends had no idea that he and the infamous Misty Campbell were even dating; let alone know they were screwing every time they got a chance. He was ashamed of her. That was the only answer. She was hurt and then became angry.

Her response was to send out an email inviting the club girls and their dates to her house after the Valentine’s Day dance. On the spur of the moment, she made up a theme: The Taste of Love. She was pleased with her idea. She sent the email while growling, “If Tommie doesn’t want to be with me on Valentine's, then I’ll fuck my brains out with my real friends.”

****

The Valentine's Day dance was actually rather a big deal at Jefferson Davis High School. Sarah and Bailey were quite excited about going to the dance with their boyfriends. They had both badgered their mothers into buying them ridiculously expensive dresses just for the night. Bonnie and Trish were both excited that their sons were finally taking a girl to a dance… it was the first time either one had ever done that. Thus, the Valentine’s Day dance was an event not just for the high schoolers, but for all four mothers of the quad.

It was not just those four who were making preparations for the biggest social event of the Jefferson Davis High School calendar, all of the other Euro-Club members who went to Jeff Davis were going with dates. Even Caitlin had agreed to go with Jerry Opel, one of Everleigh’s stable of guys in the youth group. Caitlin however made it clear to him up front this was a social date. She didn’t spell it out, but Misty knew she and the GCSU student who worked for her father were moving toward a relationship. One thing was certain, Euro-Club girls were popular now. Even the newest girl (Maria Jane) was well-known around school as a club member and had a barrage of invitations, though she accepted the one from Cody’s cousin, Jake Carpenter. The popularity of the club girls was solid proof that their social media campaign had been a success.

Misty's plan for an all-night After-Dance Party was shot down as soon as her parents found out. It seems she’d not thought to ask to tell them, just assuming it would be fine. When Bonnie found out about the planned party from Slosh and Trish, she made it clear to her daughter that she was not going to let Misty sponsor an all-night party on a night when neither of her parents would be home. However, she helped Misty develop a plan "B".

The new plan nixed the word "party" entirely and gave an end time of 2:00 AM. Instead of a party invite, she let Misty make a casual invitation to the club members plus Everleigh, Naomi, and Mimi, to stop by the house for a “drop-in get-together.” Bonnie also repeated what she’d said about dates from the last Euro-Club party, “We take enough risks as it is, and now the girls are well known they will be targeted by boys who do not share our values and would exploit them and us if they can. I know it might cause some of the girls a problem, but I’m going to be firm on this. Only boys who are part of our church Youth Group will be allowed to come to the drop-in. There can be no exceptions. Make sure everyone knows that.”

Her mom’s stipulation about the boys solved another problem for Misty. She couldn’t invite Tommie anyway since he didn’t go to their Youth Group. Sure, she knew that her mom would have made an exception for Tommie, but Misty didn’t ask. The date restriction in the revised announcement didn’t really come as a surprise to the girls. Only Lindsey had already accepted an invite to the dance from a guy outside their group. Misty talked to her and the simple expedient was that she wouldn’t mention anything about the little drop-in scheduled for after the dance.

As part of the new plan, Misty let the club members know that she would have her studio set up starting in the late afternoon so the club girls could come by the house to get photos with their dresses and dates without paying the huge fee asked by the professional photographers at the dances. The memo told the club members that Misty’s studio would be ready by 4:30 PM (two hours before the Jeff Davis dance began) and be available for an hour after the school dances for those, particularly the Baldwin Central High girls, who couldn’t come to Misty’s beforehand.

Misty would go up to the Jefferson Davis High dance just long enough to make shooting assignments for the publication's staff photographers, but she’d not be going dressed up. So she was both going and not going to the dance. Misty was amused that in the end, Tommy did have to miss the start of his church’s True Love Waits event. As Editor-in-Chief of publications, Tommie had to be at the Jeff Davis dance from 6:30 to 7:30 to supervise the publication’s yearbook sales booth. Misty, still in a pique, told him “There is no reason for you to come by my house after your church event. My parents have restricted the after-dance drop-in to people in my church Youth Group. Her anger over this was the first real manifestation of the underlying conflict in their relationship that simply had been ignored since that night of the Christmas Party.

The parents of the quad of teens jointly agreed to spring for an afternoon and night's worth of food & drinks. There were two small but important lines at the end of the new invitation email. The first was to reiterate the not-a-party’s Taste of Love theme and put out the suggestion that each couple brings a bottle of flavored oil. The second let the club members know that while the not-a-party ended at 2:00 AM, Mrs. C. had agreed that those club girls who needed to, were free to stay the night.

In preparation for the “not-a-party,” Tuesday after school, Misty and Lamar cleaned up the storage room at the end of the upstairs hallway and blew up the two air mattresses from their camping gear to make an extra bedroom. Upon seeing how they’d set up the storeroom, their mother said “It sure looks like the playroom at a swingers club to me.”

“No, it's just the overflow bedroom. My guess is a lot of couples will be ready to get busy as soon as they arrive, but we only have four bedrooms,” Misty said disingenuously.

“Oh really?” her mother replied as she stepped into the room to get a look at the big photos she and Lamar had hung up on the walls, “Is that why you hung up the sex pictures that the LeMarco’s gave us after their party?”

“I didn’t want the walls to be bare,” Misty said with a growing smile.

“And the sign on the door? The Pleasure Cave?” her mother asked pointing to a large sign on the store room’s open door. Joanne had originally made the image for the party to go downstairs, but at Misty’s request, she’d made a second one for this door. The image was of a young woman bent over with a Valentine’s heart superimposed on her.

Misty answered, “The sign? Oh, Joanne originally made it for downstairs as a welcome sign. Her intent was to show that the heart shape has always been overtly sexual since it is just a simplified version of a woman’s rear as seen when she bends over for sex. Connie was Joanne’s model for the graphic, notice all the freckles.”

Her mother nodded then repeated “Pleasure Cave? Then she read the notice at the bottom of the sign: condoms required for entry. Does that mean entry into the room or into Connie?”

Misty’s smile covered her face now, “Well double entendre is a wonderful literary technique. So, you can take it either way.”

Bonnie put a hand on Misty’s shoulder. “I actually am impressed with your planning. However, you have a problem. If these beds are just for sleeping, those air mattresses are fine; however, if as the sign says this is to be a pleasure cave, then they won’t work.”

Dejectedly Misty said, “Oh. I wondered about that. Should I just make a pile of blankets like we did after Joanne’s birthday party downstairs?”

“How about this?” Her mother said. “Go to Amazon. If you can get some inexpensive memory foam mattresses here by Friday, use my account and order them. It won’t hurt to have a pair of foam mattresses available for other parties. Stick with queen-size, I don’t think two kings will fit.”

And that is what Misty did.

The new “not-a-party” plan was actually better for some of the girls who did not go to Jeff Davis because not all the schools had a Valentine’s dance. In the revised planning process, Misty decided to call Megan LaCroix and Amelia Summerset, who both went to the exclusive private school in Milledgeville. She had heard that their school had no Valentine's activity planned at all, so Misty asked them to help her out with the drop-in. She told them, "Since my photo studio is in the back of the house, I'll need help with the door, refreshments, and welcoming people while I'm shooting. Then for the hour or so that I am gone, I will need someone to be the acting host in case someone shows up then." Both Megan and Amelia said they would be happy to get a chance to do something for Misty and the club.

Ashley Ericson-Webber, who was not planning on doing anything special that night since Valentine’s Day wasn’t until Monday, agreed to be the event’s adult chaperone for Friday’s not-a-party. With Bonnie’s approval, she called Margret Adams and asked if she would be up to helping chaperone the ‘not-a-party’ party at the Campbells. As Ashley explained it to Bonnie, “I told her the room checks entailed actually walking in on couples having sex and asking if they were using condoms. She said she would love to but she had one request. She asked if I could do any checks when her daughter was upstairs. She said she was happy Joanne is confident enough in herself to have sex with whoever she chose just for her own pleasure, but she didn’t want to walk in on her doing it. I told her that was fine, we could work that out on the night of the not-a-party.”

And so the plans were set.

****

Magnolia LeCroix planned a Valentine’s Day party at her place for her open-minded friends and lovers. A few weeks in advance a formal engraved invitation arrived for Cooper, Bonnie, and/or Trish Simms. The formal nature of the event was spelled out by stipulating that for the dinner, appropriate attire would be black tie for men and evening wear for women. However, the invitation also said, “Bring your elegant playwear for the second half of the night’s festivities.” It seemed clear to Cooper that this was to be more than just a sex party, but rather it was to be a real social event. At the bottom of the invitation, it was stated: “For the privacy and security of my guests, this is a closed event for my personal friends. Only persons named on the invitation will be admitted.”

When Cooper left to pick Trish up for the party on Friday evening, Misty had already begun work in her “studio” in the game room. She was shooting photos of club girls and their dates before they left for their dance. Part of him didn’t like leaving before the adult chaperones arrived, but Misty was trustworthy so it wasn’t a problem that Ashley would not arrive till after 10:00 that night. He gave his daughter a hug and let her know (again) that he didn’t know what time he would be back.

Cooper had never been to Magnolia’s home, though he’d been invited to bid on designing it a decade before. It was reached via a gravel road nearly a mile long that ran through her family’s well-known peach and apple orchards. When Maggie had moved back to Hancock County, she’d found the old home place simply beyond repair, so she demolished the place that dated to the 1910’s and had a replacement built. Cooper knew all this because he’d been contacted with her general ideas regarding the project, but he’d declined since his specialty was commercial, not residential design.

There was an attendant at the gate at the end of the drive who checked their invitation off against a list he held. Cooper wondered if the real reason for this step was to assure those invited that Maggie took their privacy seriously. To make the point, the attendant said “Ms. LeCroix requests that you do not use your camera phone to take photos. There will be a photographer present and she will forward your photos to you.”

As they pulled away from the gate to park on an area of lawn indicated by a sign, Trish said, “Boy somebody is being careful. I guess that is a good thing.”

Cooper agreed with her. The home certainly was impressive with a front façade that gave the general appearance of traditional Southern architecture, but to Cooper’s eye, it was clearly of modern construction. Inside the home it was spacious and elegant, there was no question it had been built in the 21st century. Inside there was another attendant to take their coats and usher them into a large foyer where a woman played on a full-sized grand piano.

As much as he appreciated Trish coming as his date, he wished Bonnie was on his arm. As long as he’d known Trish, he had no idea if this kind of formal event would be intimidating to her or not. He’d only met Mr. Simms once after he, Trish, and Byron had moved to the area when Lamar was in second grade. While the scuttlebutt at Rotary Club said he was involved in shady investments, nobody knew for sure. What they did know was that he and Trish never were part of Sparta’s social scene. Though Trish had begun bringing Byron to St. Thomas Methodist Church right off, she and Bonnie had not really become friends until after her husband had left his wife and son to set up house with a much younger woman.

If Trish was intimidated by the glitz, she gave no sign of it. She and Sherry had taken a cue from what one of the board members had done at the New York Art show in that they had both bought layered gowns and then removed the opaque inner layer. Trish looked very sexy indeed and seemed not the slightest bit uncomfortable. As they entered, she engaged freely with the other guests.

Shortly after the 7:30 start time, it appeared that everybody expected was there. From what he could tell, there were no more than thirty guests. As they moved around the room, he and Trish gravitated over to Slosh who was talking to Steve Hill, one of the county commissioners. Significantly, the woman on Steve’s arm was not his wife. That got Cooper looking around. He recognized most of the men and a fair number of the women from civic and social functions. This was a rural county and he’d grown up here after all. What got his attention was that, aside from Mike & Slosh, and Sherry & Herb, he only saw two couples that he was sure were married to each other. But that was not too surprising to him. Sherry had told him that Maggie had a circle of sexually liberated friends who lived out their libertine lifestyle outside of the presence, and knowledge, of their spouses and families.

He tried not to act surprised at some of the people he saw. No matter how formal, he knew this was a sex party. One of the few married couples he saw was Tad and Cindy Norman. He’d known both of them pretty much all his life since all three of them had graduated from Jefferson Davis High the same year. Tad was one of the few men left in Hancock County who still made his primary living off of cotton, though now it took something like 2,000 acres to make it profitable. Cindy was a CPA with her own accounting firm. She had managed his mother’s holdings ever since his father passed. More recently, Cindy had helped Cooper set up an LLC as an independent architect. He never would have imagined them as swingers, but they wouldn’t be at this party if they were monogamous.

Even though Cooper knew that he had a sex life more active than he could have ever dreamed possible, it was only his second real “swinger” party. What made this so different than the one at the LeMarco’s for him was that it was right in his hometown. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first swinger party in Handcock County ever.

Only after Maggie had greeted him with a kiss that lasted several seconds was he able to introduce Trish to the hostess. “Trish is a special friend that fills in for Bonnie when she is out speaking for the FFF.”

“Yes,” Maggie said, “when we were making up the guest list Sherry explained your relationship.” She looked over Trish in her more than slightly see-through dress and said “Very lovely indeed, then greeted Trish with a kiss on the cheek. “I think you will be very popular tonight.” Then, turning back to Cooper, she asked, “So, where is your wife this week?”

Cooper had to think before coming up with “St. Louis. This afternoon she spoke to a student group at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. That is new for her, but over the next few months, she will be on university campuses quite a bit. This evening, well right about now, she should be wrapping up a presentation entitled, Staying in Love with Your Spouse with an Open Marriage.”

He went on to explain that it was not Bonnie’s normal FFF lecture, “she’d developed this for use at swinger and alternative lifestyle events in the late fall. Sherry had been very helpful in preparing the presentation. She imparted the lecture with the wisdom born from over a decade of swinging with her late husband. For the swingers in St. Louis, Bonnie was presenting, for the first time, a fully fleshed-out lecture complete with explicit visuals from both her photos and Sherry’s. Afterward, she would have a booth in the lobby that she would man till about 11:00.”

Cooper was pleased that Maggie appeared to be quite interested in what he was saying. She even added, “If you are interested, and it is OK with Sherry, I have a whole album of the three of us from those years. I think you already know that we were a triad long before that term was coined for that kind of relationship.”

Cooper quickly said, “I’m sure we’d be interested if you and Sherry are willing to share some of your photos.”

Magnolia said she’d talk to Sherry and then asked, “What kind of reception does Bonnie get from swinger groups?”

“It seems to vary based on how the person or group that invited her promotes her talk in advance. She expected a good turnout tonight because the Valentine’s event is a joint effort of several regional swinger groups and the coordinator was at a conference she spoke at before Christmas.”

“Her work is important,” Maggie replied. “I hope it goes well. I’ve got you slated for about ten minutes between dinner and the little activity I have planned. Will that work?”

“Yes,” Cooper answered, “Not a problem.”

Cooper tried to make a round and greet several people he knew by face or name but little more. In most respects it was like any other mixer… well other than the overtly sexy and revealing dresses worn by the women.

At 8:00, the guests were led through the back door to a tent pavilion that encompassed both tables for dinner and the swimming pool. He thought that was interesting and original. Right off, after her initial greeting, Maggie said, “We’ve enclosed the pool tonight and the water is wonderfully warm. I didn’t suggest you bring a swimsuit because… well I don’t believe in them.”

She got a round of laughter after which she spelled out that after dinner there would be a fun little game. “I want to welcome you all. I expect that most of you know each other to one extent or another given that nearly all of us grew up here in Hancock County. More than that, you are all in my circle of friends. OK, let’s be honest, I’ve fucked most of you.”

Her guests laughed and Magnolia smiled broadly.

“And those I haven’t fucked yet, I’m sure I will at some point in the future.”

More laughs.

“Sadly, it probably won’t be tonight though. I’m afraid my hostess duties will come first, but every one of you have received invitations to one of the small soirees Shery and I are hosting all winter and spring. Those will all be much more informal than this, and I’ll have more opportunities to …. Uhm… get to know each of you more intimately.”

More laughs

“I’m sure you’ve noticed the 5x7 index card and pen in front of you. In preparation for a little game we are going to play after dinner before the food comes out, I want you to take the pen and index card in front of you, and write a very short description of the most unusual place you’ve ever had sex. But, don’t share what you write with the people around you. After dinner, the game will be to match the stories, which I shall read, to the right person. Now, I know we’ve not done introductions, and we aren’t going to, that is part of the game as well.”

The dinner was catered by the best restaurant in the region and was as good as the reviews said. Sitting at the table with him and Trish were two men and two women, none of them had come as part of a couple even though two wore wedding rings. One of the men, Al Dawkins, he knew from a community board he’d served on a few years back, the other man he’d never met. Trish however, knew him from the gym to which she’d been going for the past year. When she saw him earlier, she whispered that for months she’d been trying to get up the nerve to come on to him, but hadn’t done it.

Cooper knew only one of the women at the table from a couple of school fundraisers. Her name was Janet, Mrs. Janet Stowe. Her husband owned a half dozen fast-food franchises and they had a child the same age as one of his, but he couldn’t recall anything else. The other woman neither he nor Trish knew previously at all.

After writing out their answers, Sherry and Maggie went around and picked up the index cards. Once the last card was taken up, the salad was served. Initially, the conversation stayed on the usual subjects with those people who knew each other chatting. Cooper talked with Janet Stowe who sat to his right. Of course, they talked about their kids. After a few general comments about Jeff Davis High, she noted her surprise at seeing a teacher from the school present, but then came back with “But, I’m here too, aren’t I? My husband thinks I’m at a cabin for the night with a group of mothers planning an event for the kids.” There was a round of knowing nods followed by some discussion about the subterfuges the men and women used to cover their tracks.

A little while later Janet told Cooper, “My daughter simply idolizes your Misty. Without a doubt, she sees her as a role model for standing up to the school bullies.”

That got Cooper’s full attention, and soon there was a discussion around the table about the effect Misty and the Euro-Club were having on students at the local schools. The woman he did not know said that she and her son, who was in seventh grade, had talked about the Euro-Club and the pictures from Miami that had been showing up on the web all fall. It seems that Misty and the club were disruptive to the normal school social order well beyond the direct issues of nudity and teen sex. From what Cooper heard around the table, it was almost like a “Nerds Revenge” situation in that none of the Euro-Club girls who were so well known and admired by the younger kids were from the normal in-crowd. Janet said, “My youngest, my son, is in the strings program at the middle school. He has pictures he printed up of two Euro-Club girls who also play the violin, Celia Shultz and Tori North, taped up in his room. They are way racier than anything I thought I’d let him put on his wall, but I think those girls are a good role model for him.”

Cooper didn’t really know either girl beyond that they were regulars in Youth group. Celia was the one with pink hair, and Tori was a little cutie-pie with freckles. He did recall something Misty had said over dinner back at the end of the summer about Celia’s talent. And both girls had been at the house to talk to Bonnie when they’d gotten home from Tennessee. So, he did know both girls, but not very well.

Janet went on about how for her son and evidently for many of those who played the strings, “Those girls were breaking the nerd mold for all of the kids who were learning to play the violin, viola, or cello.” She made a point to say that it helped that the strings teacher told the middle school that Celia was one of the best high school violinists in America right now. Cooper didn’t know that.

The conversation about the impact of the Euro-Club on the Hancock County teens morphed into talk about Bonnie’s nude photos. One of the men asked Trish if she was the same person he’d seen in topless beach photos with Bonnie. The table conversation was on topless and nude beaches when the last of the food was taken off and Maggie stood up, went to the light rostrum, and introduced Cooper. Cooper just had a few notes and spoke for around fifteen minutes on the origin of the FFF, its mission and the reception his wife was getting as she traveled. When he was done Maggie took a few minutes to lay out a case for some sort of group to defend sexual rights in Georgia, though she did not go beyond that it should be done. After which Maggie allowed for a few questions before letting the guests know that Cooper would be around the rest of the night and would be happy to talk about the FFF.

She was right, he would love to play the role of FFF board member rather than hob-knob. The little game afterward was a good icebreaker. Once the identity of each writer was revealed, Maggie asked a few follow-up questions but left more to be said which set the stage for conversations the rest of the night. It was an excellent plan for a party of thirty-something people.

As the game wrapped up, Maggie said “You will find my bar well stocked and towels for those who want to swim will be put out once dinner is cleared away. As per the invitation, once we are done here, anyone who wishes to, can use one of the bedrooms to change into what I euphemistically called party clothes in the invitation. I’m sure you understood that meant club wear or lingerie. However, you might want to leave on those lovely dresses for a while longer. Simply put, wear whatever you feel comfortable in. I just ask that if you do get into the pool, please dry off before coming into the house.”

Cooper trusted that Maggie knew what she was doing… and she did. Once the dinner was cleared away, the pavilion became a dance floor. Music, mostly from the 80’s & 90’s played loudly, though inside the house proper there was plenty of quiet places to socialize. Later in the night, at about 2:00 AM, a breakfast buffet was laid out in the pavilion area. The house’s six bedrooms were busy on and off from about 11:00 till nearly dawn. Cooper felt a very different vibe here than he had at the LaMarco’s swinger party. The good parts, like openness and fun, were the same, but it didn’t have the exploitive overtones.

As he socialized and talked about the FFF, one by one the women changed from their evening wear into club wear and lingerie. When Trish did so, she went hunting for the guy she knew from the gym. With a wink, she told Cooper that the guy wasn’t going to get away from her tonight. Cooper missed Bonnie terribly and he called her twice. The first time she didn’t answer but texted him back. Due to her talk on open marriage, she had a steady stream of people wanting to talk to her. In her text, she said, “I will definitely talk to Amy about making the lecture on open marriage part of my normal repertoire.”

When he called her the second time, about 12:45, she said she had just finished a romp with “A sweet young couple. They couldn’t have been much over twenty-one, the minimum age to get in.” She went on to say that they had been hanging around her booth talking to her on and off all evening. They had only been married two years and they had both been totally monogamous since they first started dating their freshman year in college. Not surprisingly, this was their first swinger event. “Finally, about 10:45 I just asked them if they would like to come to my room for a threesome once I closed my booth. As you know, I’ve found I really like the role of the older more experienced woman guiding young couples, just like I’ve done for Nell & Daniel and Heather & Allen.” When she said that, Cooper recalled how she’d guided Nell and Daniel last summer as they got their first taste of an open relationship right in Cooper and Bonnie’s bed. That had been just a taste, since then the young couple had enjoyed threesomes with Bonnie and with him. Thus, it was of no surprise to Cooper that she’d offered to guide a young couple who had been hanging out at her booth all night. Before she hung up, she let Cooper know she’d previously agreed to spend the night with the couple who'd been her hosts. That too was no surprise to Cooper.

Once he’d put his phone away, he wished he could find an artful way to go home; but he didn’t think it would be right to make Trish end her night just because he was lonesome. He made his way to the foyer where the pianist still played. It spoke well of the home’s construction that the outside music stayed outside allowing for the foyer to fill with the lovely melodies played live on the grand piano. Slosh found him standing by the piano listening to an old show tune.

“What kind of party is this?” Slosh asked Cooper with a smile.

“Parties just aren’t my thing. I like quiet nights by the fire.”

“Yes,” She said, “I remember you skipping out of the Halloween Party. Though as I understand it, you and DeeDee had a very nice time.”

“We did. Just the two of us. Other than Bonnie, I think I enjoy just being with DeeDee more than anyone else I know. And I don’t mean the sex, I mean just being with her.”

“Are you falling for her?” Slosh asked.

“No, oddly it's not like that. It is like we see the world in the same way and we have many of the same motivators. We’d make a terrible romantic couple, but we are very compatible as friends.”

With a smile, Slosh shot back, “Friends with benefits you both enjoy or so says DeeDee.”

“Yes. I enjoy being with her like that too. I don’t have to work to perform for her and that is very relaxing.”

From across the foyer, Cooper saw a woman, Shirly Jean Parker, come into the room… completely naked. Yes, this was a swinger event, but it was still attention getting. She began motioning to Slosh.

Slosh saw her and put up a hand indicating she understood. ““Well Cooper, are you up to performing tonight? You have an old friend who has been asking about you, and not just tonight. I was evasive at the soiree two weeks ago, but your presence here answered the questions she was asking.”

That little introduction got Cooper's interest up. And old friend?