Unashamed (11 page)

Doug’s laugh transformed into a high-pitched monotone techno song, producing a steady beat of shrill man noises until, in an effort to breathe, a deep snort interrupted the flow, which threw Tim into hysterics on the floor, silently ticking.

Kay and I scurried around the island, past Tim on the floor, and Doug who was wheezing. Our hands tried to catch the liquid still dripping from our noses. We stood at my kitchen sink, towels at our chins while the boys gave each other high-fives in a true male-bonding form.

There is something to be said for the innocence of youth. When a person gets older, things like this may get a chuckle at best, but these theatrics makes being twenty a viable reason to build a time machine.

After recomposing ourselves, the four of us had a wonderful night dancing and drinking. We tried to watch a movie after coming back home, but, if a wisecrack about anal sex sent us into hysterics, a movie was not the best up-tempo idea. The four of us got bored, and since drinks were low, the boys agreed to a beer run, which made me responsible for entertaining Kay. The first thing I grabbed was my photo album. We flipped through the pages, looking at photos of my life before marriage when Melanie, Annica, and Lynn demonstrated the universal lesbian sign in practically every shot. Kay complimented my appearance in each picture, even the random high school photos that fell out of the back of the book. She couldn’t stop telling me how pretty or hot I looked and how envious she was of me. She joked that, if she were gay, she would sleep with me and we laughed—although she seemed serious and it made me slightly uncomfortable.

When the photo album was out of pages, I turned to music and crouched by the stereo to flip through CDs I thought she would like. It definitely helped me to break eye contact, yet still be engaging. I played specific songs for her as she swayed in enjoyment. Her compliments continued as did her smiles and gentle touches.

I thought I was picking up faint signals of interest but ignored them all until Kay boldly said, “I’m totally serious. I’d let you fuck me. Hey, maybe we should go to my place. I have CDs you might like.”

I didn’t even have time to think about anything. When she opened the door of opportunity, I walked in it as fast as we walked through my shitty, dirt yard to her front door.

When we opened it, we were met with a beautiful blue glow from a huge terrarium that held a snake. We walked over to it as she excitedly explained the species and how terrible she felt for the mice when she had to feed it. She didn’t turn on any lights as she walked down the dark hallway into a bedroom. From the room she called to me, “Come back here! I didn’t show you our new bedroom set, did I?” I walked slowly as my eyes adjusted. She was sitting on the corner of the bed, smiling, as I approached the doorway.

“The light switch is behind you,” Kay said.

The bright light made both of us wince when I flipped the switch. She bounced and beamed, “It’s so wonderful! Come try it!”

I took two steps into the room and pressed on the mattress with my hands. “Sure is nice,” I agreed.

Kay stood up. “Sit. You have to sit on it.” She walked to the light switch and flipped it off as I sat on the corner of her new bed.

“Why did you turn the light off?” I asked her silhouette.

“I don’t know.” She stood staring at me with the blue illumination on one side of her face. I sat for a second and let a feeling swell inside that told me I should do something, but I chickened out. “We should probably go.” Kay didn’t move; she just stood in the doorway as I sat on the bed. To move through the awkward moment, I nervously stood up in the dark and moved my hand as if Vanna White were presenting a vowel. “Well, you lead the way.” My brain was swirling like it was trying to solve a riddle. What did this feeling want me to do, and why was it pressing to have it accomplished this instant? In slow motion Kay turned to face the blue light, so I stood to follow. My body and mind screamed in unison for me to make a move. I could almost hear the words as the connection from my head to my mouth wiggled my tongue to do it now or I would never do it. A slap is the worst that could happen, and, even then, I could blame it on the alcohol, so there was nothing to lose.

In an instant that seemed like a lifetime, I grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and pressed her against the wall for a passionate kiss. At first she uttered a surprised “Oh,” much like an actress in a classic film. Her body was rigid and a little scared. She then relaxed a little to return kisses when her mind wrapped around the idea. When she realized that this was turning her on, she moaned and wrapped her arms around me to pull me in for more. It was a brief two minutes of uninhibited passion before we paused to shake things off.

Her eyes squinted as she licked her lips and let her head roll away from me on the wall for support. What she was saying and what her body was telling me were two different things all together. “The boys should be back by now. We should go,” Kay whispered as she heaved upward and rolled her body against mine. She grabbed my breasts as she rolled her hips and leaned in for another kiss. She repeated telling me that we needed to leave between kisses and rubbing each other’s clit through the seams of our pants. I was the one who stepped away from her in an effort to actually leave the hallway. It took her a second to realize that I wasn’t coming back, so she slowly turned to walk toward the door without saying anything. When she reached it, she hesitated opening it. I kissed her once more, just to hear her moan again, and reminded her that maybe we should bring some CDs back since that was our cover story. We giggled.

My eyes were focused on where I was going, unlike Kay, who was giggling, smiling, and rubbing my arm as we walked in the dark toward the shining light from my living room windows. I felt liberated over what just happened and I was happy, but she reverted to a girl after her first fingerbang. She was hanging on me and very fluid with her movements, which was more from arousal than from the alcohol.

“They are going to know. I can’t stop smiling,” she said as if I didn’t notice.

“No, they are not. Just act normal.” I gently slid my right hand down my left arm to detach her hold on me.

“I can’t. I want to kiss you again,” she said after I had separated us.

“Shut up. I do, too. Keep walking.” I was smiling, of course, but I knew that we could not go back into the house smelling of each other while shooting flirtatious glances.

We arrived to the back sliding glass door and opened it to see the boys sitting on the couch, drinking beers. Our drinks sat in a pool of condensation while the husbands talked and waited for us to return. Tim asked what took us so long and looked unbelieving as we explained ourselves like guilty children. I hoped the boys didn’t see the state of arousal in my face or the way I stood uneasily.

Kay and I sat at the island, sipping our drinks and chatting away, hoping a conversation would make the pulse in our loins disappear. Tim and Doug stood in the middle of the living room, talking. Every now and then their laughter would burst through the music, halting our conversation long enough for a look before we resumed chatting.

During one pause, the husbands seemed to twitch to the music. “Are they trying to breakdance?” I asked Kay. She shrugged as we watched their horrible attempts to simulate robotic movements. They tried feverishly to mimic the jerking of eighties breakdancing favorites.

“Come on, girls,” Tim said as he jerked and posed in random awkward positions. “Come (pause and pose) breakdance (pause and pose) with us.”

“Yeah,” Doug shouted with boyish excitement as he tore off his shirt. “Bet you can’t beat this move.” He spread his hands out like Jesus on the cross. A movement began in his left hand to his elbow and left shoulder. The flow travelled through his neck over his right shoulder and seemed to shift down his entire right arm until his fingertips finished the wavelike motion where he pointed to Kay, who threw her head back with laughter and intense clapping.

Tim, never to be outdone, stripped down to his boxers, sat on the government-tiled floor, and then forced his body to spin like a top on his bony ass. The faster Tim spun, the higher Doug’s laughter got. Then he took his pants off to join Tim. Kay asked why the boys were getting naked.

“Because they are idiots,” I answered, obviously unimpressed.

“Because we are hot for you, baby,” Tim told his wife. “Come on. Dance with us,” he begged as the song changed automatically.

I looked over to Kay, who was dancing a little jig on the bar stool next to me. “Come on, Emma, don’t you want to dance with me?” she asked as she pulled at my arm. My eyebrows scrunched together, questioning if she was even remotely aroused from earlier. She seemed altogether unfazed nudging me with her eyes to hit the floor while our half-baked husbands polished tiles with their asses. I sat on my uncomfortable stool, shaking my head as I sipped my drink and “tsked” her in true Annica style.

When the laughter stopped, Kay and I looked over to the boys, who waited with bated beer breath for that particular moment. They stood completely naked with hands interlocked behind their heads until our eyes met their midpoints wherein they rocked back and forth, forcing their penises to slap the inside of their thighs. When the slaps beat in rhythm, all four of us roared in thunderous laughter. Even I had to admit, that was a good one.

These two were seriously some fucking awesome neighbors. Our backyard “picking up dog shit” conversation would be much more interesting now that I had made out with the wife in the foyer and seen the husband’s penis slap his inner thigh until it was red.

Funny as it was, in the moment of the whole situation, I was embarrassed for all of them and still turned on from my little tantalizing teases at Kay’s house. I just wanted them to stop being stupid, even though I was smiling. I could feel the night getting ugly if they didn’t.

I maintained in my fully clothed prudishness the only level of stability in all the madness. I meditated, not with tantric words, but when surrounded by idiocy, silence is golden. It had been this way since childhood, into my twenties, and beyond to present day.

With all my adventures and wild side, I sometimes really wonder how I can be so duel-natured. When faced with people doing stupid things or when I hear the mumblings of morons, disgust overwhelms me, which renders me silent. In my head I repeat the phrase “in the company of fools” over and over with a shake of my head. It’s a mystery as to where the saying came from, so I can’t give credit, but thank you, Jesus, for wise words. The phrase has saved my ass from rabbit-punching someone in the throat on several occasions. When confronted with idiots, I repeat it and simply breathe. I certainly had to repeat it in my head that night because I nearly murdered my half-naked husband, neighbor, and his wife on government housing tiles. Can you imagine what I would have told the military police
? Well, I’m sorry officer but they tried to defile me like devil nymphs and I begged them to stop.
I think not.

In the company of fools. In the company of fools. In the company of fools.

I guess in all the commotion of the loud music, embarrassment, and ass cheeks squeaking painfully on the floor, my silly little meditation helped me to seize the moment. I grabbed Kay’s arm and dragged her to the master bedroom. I was completely and utterly on autopilot. All other activities ceased to exist. If silence could ring in one’s ears, it would have deafened me. I heard nothing.

The wife swapping lasted all night. Everyone was too intoxicated to have an emotional response. They moved to Germany weeks later as Doug and I continued with our lives. We never talked about it, nor did we care that it actually happened.

A few months later, Doug and I were stationed in Germany. We were at least an hour and a half from where they lived and never attempted to contact them. About a year later we literally met with them by accident. We got lost, saw what appeared to be their truck in the parking lot of a military complex, guessed what door it belonged to, and knocked. By dumb luck, Kay answered the door.

We stood with Kay and Tim in the hallway after catching up as if we used to be respectable can-we-borrow-some-sugar neighbors. The whole wife-swapping ordeal was never mentioned. We even made arrangements for me to stay the night the following evening so Kay and I could catch up and do some shopping. We shopped like normal friends, minus one little indiscretion in the changing room. We came home on time, cooked dinner, and watched some television with the kids. Kay bathed her daughter and new baby girl. Once they were happily tucked into bed and asleep, we chatted online with lonely men about our friendship, which turned into chatting online with horny men who wanted to see us fuck on web camera. We thought it was funny and had more than a few laughs at their expense.

We finally became bored with their nagging requests for a show and decided to call it a late evening. Our eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and squinting, from trying to read computer text for an extended period of time. I headed straight for the bottom bunk in her eldest daughter’s room and tucked myself in. Kay retired to the bathroom for a shower. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

However, if my life were truly that boring, I wouldn’t be writing a book. So, as the story goes, Kay leaned over me to shake me awake while her daughter slept above us. There was a deep breath of shock as I was suddenly pulled from the beginning of my slumber before I asked, “What happened? What’s the matter?” and rubbed my eyes.

“Nothing, I just wanted you to know that I had so much fun today,” she whispered as she knelt next to the bed.