Every year, my wife Dawn and I spend a three-day weekend at a mountainside resort in New Hampshire. Once the holidays are over, we meet with a few dozen friends at a chateau-style lodge and rent rooms or cabins. It started as a group of eight outgoing couples—old college friends and their spouses. Each year, we became friendlier with members of another group who booked on the same week. Eventually, the two factions combined and grew into a crowd so large we needed to move our opening night party to the rental pavilion.
Each weekend, after the initial get-together, smaller groups would form for a variety of activities. Some would ski, some would hike or go to festivals, and some just hung out for two more days. But a select few were known to get together for fun of a more risqué sort. That was the crowd I always wanted to join, but Dawn told me time and again she wanted no part of it.
I treasured her too much to push the issue, but I daydreamed. I pictured Nikki Hendricks wrapping her lips around my throbbing girth and lolling her tongue on my aching knob, or feeling the velvet squeeze of Lexi Gordon's inner architecture. But as much as I relished those images, I wanted to watch my precious wife please other men—as long as I was present, that is.
It wasn't a cuckold thing—not at all. I suppose it stemmed from a desire to affirm what I already knew. To watch her entice and enchant a man would undergird my understanding of her bewitching charm. Dawn was always the prettiest girl at the party. Her apple-red hair glistened with strawberry highlights, contrasting her sparkling emerald-green eyes. Her fit form always fascinated me. I wanted to be the alpha she returned to after leaving a man breathless with the prowess of her wiles.
Several years back, as we sat in Boston traffic trying to make our way north, Dawn seemed unusually apprehensive.
"You gonna tell me what you're uptight about?" I asked.
"Nothing," she sighed. "I'm just thinking."
"Which means you're worrying. What's the matter?"
"Think maybe you'd like to go to dinner tonight?"
"Dinner?" I asked, "On the first night? C'mon, hon, we'd miss the opening night party."
"I was thinking maybe instead we could—" She stopped short and huffed. "You know why," she whined. "Lexi and Nikki were trying to talk me into it again. Did Cal or Cooper try recruiting you?"
"Nothing to recruit," I jested. "I say we give in."
"Sari!" she snipped, levying a weak punch to my upper arm. "You don't really wanna have sex with other men's wives, do you?"
"They seem to have a ball. I mean, they do it year after—"
"Ugh," she grunted, punching harder. "You'd have to watch their husbands do it with me. I don't think you could."
"Hmm," I offered, looking at her out the corner of my eye.
"Why? Why would you want that?"
"Bragging rights," I insisted. "Be honest. Doesn't the thought intrigue you on some deep level of conscience? Isn't the primordial being in you still craving new genealogy?"
"I've evolved," she huffed. "It's not right,"
"It's not socially acceptable," I argued. "That in and of itself doesn't make it wrong."
"What does it make it?" she asked sarcastically.
"A matter of contemplative—"
"Just drive."
****
We checked in just before dark, giving us time to order a quick meal before going to the opening party in the large rental pavilion. As usual, Dawn looked good enough to eat. She wore a thin-strapped green dress, hemmed just above her stocking-covered knees. Her rich red hair was pinned up to show her dainty neck and shoulders. For comfort, she wore black flats instead of heels, but she was just tall enough to pull off the look.
We milled around as a couple for the first hour or so. But eventually, we broke off and had separate conversations. I found myself on a sofa, talking with several old buddies while Dawn bustled around spreading her ever-friendly smile and effervescent charm.
By eleven o'clock, I was certain we would be leaving early for the umpteenth time. Dawn still moved about, reminiscing and laughing with couples and singles alike. As talkative as she was, she skillfully avoided any offbeat subject matter—that is, until she met a tall, olive-skinned girl with long brown hair and ice-blue eyes. The middle-age woman wore a short black dress with a shawl and knee-high boots. A sparkling bracelet and classy watch adorned her wiry arms. She sat with Dawn, gracing the wingback chairs before the gas fireplace as they spoke cordially.
Ignoring the conversation around me, I watched from fifteen feet away as their chat grew more intimate. Dawn's green eyes gleamed with interest as the woman went on. I knew the look, having seen it many times, usually before we made some major purchase. Dawn's smile always had a way of broadening when she trusted someone, and she always tapped her finger when the gears got to turning.
And tap she did. I could hear her shiny nails ping off her wine glass as they went on. Her brows rose and her eyes widened when a tall, beefy man slid up to her new friend's side. I thought of going over, but something stopped me. I'd been dropping hints to Dawn for more than a decade. If this girl and her hunky husband were talking her into doing what I hoped, perhaps it was in my best interest to stay put.
My heart pounded in my chest as Dawn followed the couple onto the front deck. Standing up, I crossed the floor and stood by a coat rack, peering through a window to see them. Their breath steamed in the cool night air as they spoke on the sparsely populated porch. The man stood between Dawn to his left and his wife to his right. He pointed over the rail to the mountainside below, then wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulder.
That was all fine by me, but when he rubbed his other hand between Dawn's shoulder blades, I felt a lump in my throat—a gripping angst at the thought another man dared to touch my precious wife without my permission. But I realized that if Dawn were to be talked into partner sharing, it would need to be on her terms. The man's wife was there. Surely, I reckoned, everything was under control.
Dawn turned to him and nodded, clicking her heels in an excited giggle. The three of them shared a laugh before heading back inside. My pulse pounded in my ears as Dawn strutted through the door and across the floor toward me with a playful frolic in her eyes. Anxiety gripped me as I waited for her tell me we would be stealing off as a foursome. I inhaled, readying to act surprised when she broke the news.
Standing before me, she smiled and brushed my cheek with her palm. "Give me the extra key to our room," she sang.
