We let the river control us, sometimes sitting almost still for many minutes, and sometimes rushing over little rapids in the river. We talked a lot, laughed even more, visited with passing tubes, and got out and swam to cool off. It was a heavenly day.
They offered night runs as well, for a larger fee, but there was no way I would try that. The crowds and the sun kept the snakes at bay. You couldn't pay me enough to tube the river at night. That is how horror movies and Steven King novels begin.
When we reached the last pull-out point, we stood up and dragged our tubes up the river bank to the waiting buses. We tossed our tubes into the tube bus and boarded the people bus for a ride back upriver through the winding roads to our car.
We drove back to the hotel, showered, and got ready for a night out dancing in the state's oldest dance hall nearby. We danced into the wee hours, and got back to the hotel early Monday morning and slept 'til noon.
Monday was spent driving home, happy, spent and content. I enjoyed outings like this. Normal couple stuff. I still liked going out, partying at both clubs. But stuff like this where it was just the two of us was a nice change.
Chapter 31
Another Other Club
When I spoke with Caleb on the phone during the week, we talked about taking a cruise. We had been talking about how relaxing our tubing trip had been and how nice it would be to get away for a week. I had been on a cruise before and threw that into our vacation wishes, describing for him how much fun I had, and how nice it is to go to multiple destinations but to have your hotel come with you.
I sighed when he inevitably brought the conversation back around to sex clubs by asking if they have swinger's cruises. It seemed to me we couldn't have a conversation anymore that didn't involve the club in some fashion. Every talk seemed to circle back to either the last time we went, or to the next time we were planning to go.
I must admit the thought of a ship full of naked partiers cruising the open waters and taking over Caribbean ports did make me wonder enough to look it up. According to the websites, it seemed like the ships had the same general rules as the club. For the most part nudity was allowed in the pool and hot tub areas, but you had to have your bottoms and nipples covered in the common areas such as the hallways, buffets and dining rooms. They proclaimed to be lenient, mentioning that panties and pasties kept you legal.
Each night had a dinner theme. Formal nights still actually meant formal, suits and tuxes for the guys, gowns for the ladies, but afterward in the bars and playrooms, clothing was optional and costumes were preferred. Sex was only allowed in your personal cabins and in a few playrooms set aside for that purpose. They took over large rooms on the ship that were normally reserved for exercise or dining, cleared everything out and put mattresses on the floor. Single ladies and couples were allowed in the playrooms, but no single men. Men had to go into the playrooms accompanied by at least one lady.
I was tempted. The thought of dancing all night in various costumes and letting it all hang out, literally, for a week of sun, snorkeling and wild abandon did seem like something you would see on TV during spring break. I wondered if they had any shadow boxes.
My next thought was did I want to be in a very large tropical version of That Other Club for a full week? Trying to have breakfast in the morning, barely awake, seeing boobs everywhere. I wasn't sure about the afore mentioned panties and pasties while trying to maneuver the buffet line. Or going to the pool to get some sun, wondering if the person who sat there before you had used a towel. Or bare butts glistening all in a row poolside instead of the normal rows of bathing suit covered bodies. I've been to water parks. There are many people I would pay to keep their clothes on.
Wild, costumed, late night parties drunk and naked was one thing, but daylight was something else. Most people should not be naked sober in the daylight, hung over and trying to eat a pizza and play cards. I told Caleb I'd think about it.
Friday night brought us to a sports bar for dinner. It was supposed to be the six of us again, Brenda was joining us for the second week in a row without her daughter, but Robert and Maria canceled at the last minute. The very last minute, actually. The four of us were already at a table when Maria called Jean and apologized. She said it was a minor family issue, but said it was nothing we needed to worry about.
So instead it was Caleb and I, his ex-whatever Jean and her friend Brenda. It could have been awkward, with Caleb being the only guy, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. The sports bar had a band and they were really bad. We ate, drank and made fun of how awful the band was. They got worse the more we drank.
I'm not sure how, but we got on the subject of things we have never done, and Brenda mentioned that she always wanted to go to a gay bar, but no one would go with her. There was one downtown in particular that she'd heard about, her friend from work also works there on weekends as a bartender. She said she didn't want to go by herself since the friend would be working and unable to hang out with her, and she didn't want to plant herself by her friend on a barstool.
None of us had been to one either, so we decided a change of pace could be fun. We paid our bill and left to check out the gay bar. Caleb and I followed them since Brenda said she knew where she was going. All of downtown was packed on a Friday night, so we had to park blocks away and walk. This seemed to be the place to be, at least for the gay crowd. We passed the open doors of quite a few clubs, weaving around people in various states of undress on the sidewalks. One bar had a sandwich board out front, with a poster of a female impersonator show about to start inside. Cops were everywhere, but seemed lighthearted and friendly.
We walked up the stairs into the club Brenda led us to. The music was pounding, and the darkness of the club was lit up with flashing neon lights. We paid our cover charges and headed to the front bar, where Brenda could see her friend through the crowd already.
As Brenda introduced everyone over the sounds of the music, the bartender yelled that the first round was on the bar and she welcomed us, doing a quick point of all the important parts. The restrooms behind us, the large dance floor here, the stairs leading up to the smaller dance floor upstairs and another bar there as well. She told us to have fun and if we needed anything at all to come back and see her.
Jean said she needed to stop by the bathroom before we went exploring. We watched as she passed two girls making out against the blank wall between the guys and girls bathrooms. She passed them and pushed the ladies room door open, turning back to shoot us an 'are we sure about this?' look before she went inside. Brenda shrugged her shoulders back at her. Caleb and I grinned and turned to each other. I said, "That's nothing. Can you picture Jean at That Other Bar?"
"Actually, I could. She is pretty open about stuff. I don't think I would want her where we play, but I would bet she would go."
When Jean came back we took our drinks and walked around the bar. The dance floors were crowded, but it didn't look much different than any other bar. Girls dance with girls so often that the crowd of mainly women on the dance floor did not seem strange. Even watching them dance back to front, rubbing against each other, hands on each other, looked normal. Watching them kiss each other was a little odd, but nothing Caleb and I hadn't seen before in the other clubs. We had even partaken in some of that, so I felt quite at home.
None of the girls were dressed outrageously, but some of the guys were. The girls were dressed for any other club, some a bit more Goth than others. Some were dressed a bit manlier, in jeans and man-shirts, some wearing ball caps. You could usually tell who the "female" was and who the "male" was in the lesbian couples, but it was the guys who went all out.
The guys covered every bit of the gay spectrum, the well-dressed typical gay guy you go to for fashion advice was partying just as hard as your wilder, flaming, flamboyant ones. Everyone had something pierced, and there were a lot of people with their hair either shaved in weird spots or colored wild colors. There were a few cross dressers in here as well, who look
ed like they could have starred in the impersonator show down the street.
As almost normal as the girls making out looked, watching guys make out was a different story. Maybe because I hadn't been exposed to it much, but watching two guys kiss was just weird. I didn't have a problem with it, hell we were intruding on their turf, but still, it was weird.
Caleb initially kept real close to me, making sure no one mistook him for gay, but soon we all relaxed into it and got out on the dance floor. Jean and Brenda thought it would be fun to pretend to be gay, so they did a lot of hand holding and touching while they danced, but I never saw them kiss. Caleb still wasn't much on dancing with abandon, so he watched a lot from the sidelines as I danced with the girls.
We saw a few bar fights, girls can be really catty no matter which sex they sleep with, so there was some hair pulling and name calling. We heard a shout of, "Stay away from my girlfriend, bitch," being yelled from one girl to another, right before they were escorted out by two burly security guards. They didn't seem to put up with a lot of trouble here, which was nice.
One of the more flamboyant guys threw a drink at another guy, but he quickly turned and walked out before anyone could really react.
Other than a few of those kinds of fights, which happen every night at any club, the night was pretty calm. I danced the fast songs with the girls, and most of the girls around us on the dance floor either ignored us completely, or would join our group for a dance. No one mistook us for gay, but no one had a problem with us being in their bar either.
One guy hit on Caleb; I thought he was going to come unglued. Such a large, tall cop being so thoroughly out of his element was hilarious, but he was a good sport. He was usually the life of the party, so I think he wanted to harass people and pretend to be gay, but considering that no one here was pretending, and they were being so welcoming of us, I don't think he quite had the nerve. Watching him not quite dare to throw himself all in was fun. He isn't out of his element very often.
I think this place brought out a wild side to Jean though. We were all talking around a table when hair-pulling came up. Jean turned to us, and asked Caleb if he ever took a hand full of my hair and pulled. The question threw Caleb, who was already off balance in here, and he said, "What?"
So Jean demonstrated. She said to Caleb, "When you guys are doing the nasty, do you ever reach up and grab a handful of her gorgeous hair, and pull? Get all in control and shit?" As she asked, she did it. She grabbed a handful of my hair. Not in the fighting way, but in the hot, passionate way, like she had done this many times, and pulled. Not enough to hurt, but just enough to take control.
I answered first, and said, "No, he doesn't, but he really should. I do like that."
She laughed and turned back to Caleb, saying "All that hair, just begging to be yanked on, and you've never pulled it? From behind? Or face to face, to bite her neck? She said she likes it, what the hell have you been doing? Do I need to teach you a few things?"
Caleb turned bright red. It was a shade I had never seen on him, since it was usually my job to blush. He stammered through a response, but she'd already had her fun and turned back to Brenda.
I laughed at him, but tried to turn the advantage to myself, saying "You know how I pull on yours sometimes?" He said yes, and when I asked if he liked it when I pulled his hair, he again said yes. So I said I liked it too, and if he ever felt the desire, he should feel free to try it. "Not during the softer, sweeter moments, but, you know, during the hotter, hard core, I-have-to-have-you-now sessions."
He still seemed a little stunned, so I showed him instead. I pressed against him, kissing him, hard and fast, and when he really started to respond, I took hold of his hair and tugged his face back away from mine. I looked at him, his eyes already glazed with lust from my kiss and this place, and said, "Just like that." I pulled his mouth back down to mine, and kissed him again. By the time we broke for air, the girls had left us and were back out on the dance floor. 'Remind me to thank Jean later,' I thought.
After a few more hours of dancing and drinking, they called last call. We had already stopped, since two of the four of us were driving, but I was amazed we had closed down the bar. I hadn't realized how late it had gotten. This had been fun. Different to be sure, but definitely fun. And it fulfilled one of Brenda's wishes, so it was a good night all around.
We walked to our cars, dodging a livelier and staggering crowd on the sidewalks. The many cops seemed a bit more tired, but still friendly enough. I bet dealing with this crowd every weekend became tiring.
We said our goodbyes and headed off in separate directions. In the car, Caleb and I pondered whether or not to head to That Other Club. It was after 2 am, but we knew the place would still be swinging for hours.
We decided to go home. Since we had stopped drinking, by the time we got to the club, we would have to hang out with everyone sober, or try to catch up. Neither sounded appealing at this hour. Besides, we'd already seen plenty at this club. The main difference was no one got naked.
Caleb said he did want to go home and practice some hair pulling, so with a blush and a giggle, we headed back to his place.
* * * *
Saturday after breakfast we decided to go to Six Flags. It was hot, the lines were too long and although we had fun, Sunday we just stayed at his house, recovering from a summer Saturday at an amusement park. We had breakfast, watched a movie, and gone upstairs for an afternoon nap. When I woke up, I was alone in Caleb's bed.
I went looking for him, and found him downstairs on the phone. I was used to hearing him on the phone on a weekend, that was when his out-of-state parents would call and catch up. Instead of a Sunday family dinner, he had a Sunday family phone call. But this one sounded different. He got off the phone pretty quickly after I came down stairs and looked guilty.
"Who was that?"
He paused a few seconds, but said, "That was Laura."
"Laura who?" I asked, my female radar on alert.
"Remember last weekend at That Other Club? We were talking to a couple, Laura and Ray. I introduced you at the snack bar? She said we should get together sometime? You said yeah, that would be fun?"
"Vaguely, I was just trying to be nice. You got her number and called her?"
"Well you had walked away, and I was going to give her your number, but I don't know it by heart and I didn't have my phone in the club, so I gave her mine. She called me, and I didn't want to wake you up, so I came down here."
"What did she want?" I asked, irritated.
"Just to talk, to get to know us. She wants to get together."
"Us?" I asked testily, "Or you?"
"Us. She asked me if you had mentioned them at all."
"Why would I mention them?"
"Well, she said Ray was interested in you, and she, umm, said she was interested in me, but Ray was asking her to find out if we could get together. He had her call, because the women are supposed to initiate anything like this. He got the feeling you were not into him but he wanted her to find out. Actually, she said he was acting all pouty about it, because he wasn't used to girls not being interested in him."
"Wow, that sounds a little Jr. High. OK, first, no. Ray is creepy, I didn't like him at all, and I was barely civil to her. Why in the hell would she call you if the girls are supposed to be in control of this? Shouldn't she have waited and said something at the club next time we were there? She shouldn't call you."
He broke in and said, "They were going to, but we didn't go Friday night, so she called today."
"Are you interested in her?"
"Not really, but I told her I'd ask you. I figured maybe, since you didn't remember the time we really played at the club, and you really seemed to like it, that maybe you wanted to try it again. With a couple. I didn't want to say either yes or no without asking you."
"Eww, no. That's gross. And it's a Sunday afternoon."
Caleb laughed, "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I don'
t know, just that they are the last thing I'm thinking about. That's not lazy Sunday afternoon after nap stuff, that's drunken Friday night stuff. Gross, and no, I don't like him. Even if I did, I don't want to swap. Do you want to swap? Have sex with her? While watching me with him? That was never in the cards. No sex remember? And no guys? Did you want to change that?"
"I don't know, I said I'd ask you. But if you don't want to, then that's it. No more about it."
"I don't like our Friday nights being able to call you on a Sunday. Defeats the whole purpose of no consequences."
"I just answered the phone."
"After giving her your number. I don't like this, I keep thinking about the conversation we had before, on how you think it is OK to first date. Have you gone out with her?"
"No, I promise, she called today for the first time. I have no interest in her as a date. She isn't anyone I would pursue as a relationship. If she hadn't been interested in both of us, I would have told her no. I didn't want to answer for you. That's all. If you hadn't said 'yeah, getting together sounds like fun' I wouldn't have given her a number. Besides, he does sound weird. She was telling me how he gets angry at little stupid things, and like I said, he was pouty that you didn't seem interested."
"Oh hell no. He sounds like my ex, angry and pouty over perceived slights. I bet he is abusive. I researched this a lot before I broke off my last relationship. He is no one I want to get involved with, and I suggest you don't encourage her either. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but that situation is nothing but trouble, and I refuse to have anything to do with them, in or out of any club. Do not give her my number."
"OK, that is fine. I will handle it. Don't let this ruin our weekend, though. I meant nothing by any of it, I promise. I was surprised she called. As for talking about swapping on a Sunday, anything we do we need to be able to talk about, openly, on any day. So if you still don't want to do anything more than we've already agreed on, that is fine. But we do need to be able to approach each other. People are going to ask us, it is going to happen. We can't let the fact that people are going to be interested in either one or both of us get between us. We are playing in sexually charged waters, naked. People are going to want to play with us. It is the nature of the club."
One Swinging Summer: (Corrupted 1-4) Page 20