The CIM

As told to Jeannie Duncan ©

The following was related to me by a woman I met at one of the fishbowl parties. I had not exchanged more than a dozen words with her but when we ran into each other at the mall, we both reacted as if we were old friends. - You know how it goes, we yacked it up like ex-schoolmates and decided to have lunch. Over tuna salad and coffee we exchanged personal histories and while agonizing over whether to go for the cream pie, she launched into an account of her first extramarital adventure.

I can't remember just where or with whom the idea originated. It just quietly germinated in the combined subconscious of the four of us during our Saturday bridge games and found form in the conversation accompanying the good-night brandy. It surfaced with a name, 'The Compassionate Insurance Mutual' or 'CIM', and developed from that into a private joke or game. With vaguely assumed articles of responsibilities and benefits, the theoretical pact was a game of 'what if' possessing no real form until the Saturday when Ronald brought a rough draft all neatly typed and double spaced, with a copy for each of us to edit and amend. By midnight, with much hilarity, we had a mutually acceptable second draft.

The theme of that initial document was that; in the event of the demise of any one of the four of us, it would be the responsibility of the surviving couple to guarantee that the widowed would not be deprived of a healthy social life. The rationale was that it would be much easier and safer for a threesome to gather a fourth than for a middle aged single to pick up a new partner. In essence, the three survivors would be pledged to remain a solid social unit. It took us two weeks to face up to the true concerns which prompted our desires for a definitive pact and it was Helen who first mustered the courage to express them.

"You know," She announced as she scooped up the final trick of the evening, "If anything should happen to one of us, heaven forbid, there will still be enough equipment available among the three survivors to supply everybody with a healthy and happy sex life even if we don't find an acceptable fourth for bridge."

Helen was the only one of us capable of making such an outrageous remark. Two months my senior and pushing forty, she still retained the bubbly enthusiasm and sexual innuendo of the well endowed cheerleader we had known in high school. Often threatened with a diet but never subjected to one, the full body had not run to fat as is so often the fate of chubby adolescent beauty and Helen was fully aware of the attention she could command with a twitch of a shoulder. In high school and later, at university, she was never short of invitations to the prom or the frat party but quiet Ron was always her preferred companion and as soon as he received his degree in engineering, she had him wedded and bedded - I'm not sure in which order. Twenty some years later, Helen could still flaunt her sexuality and tease Ron with her conspicuous desirability. Ron would counter with a wry smile and infuriate her with his non-demonstration of jealousy.

I, with my slender hips and minuscule bosom, should have been jealous of Helen but I never was. An underlying insecurity I sensed in her drew me to her and she responded with a dependency which bound us like sisters. I suppose that a psychiatrist could have made a case of us and I sometimes had vague doubts of my own leanings until I met Larry and a lifetime of dormant sensuality began clamoring for attention. Larry was two years out of a catastrophic marriage and I was the twenty eight year old virgin spinster but it was he who primly insisted on marriage before sex, although ten minutes after meeting him I would have gone with him anywhere, anytime. No conditions.

Anyway, to get back on track, after the revelation, or rather admission of the sexual connotations of the insurance pact, development of the articles became a semi-serious project. A fourth article of responsibility was proposed, debated, polished and accepted. After bridge the next Saturday, when Ronald had poured the brandy and handed around the snifters, Larry produced four envelopes and ceremoniously handed one to each of us.

The following day Ron and Larry had an afternoon golf game so Helen came by to join me for lunch. As we settled at the kitchen table with our sandwiches and coffee, Helen opened the conversation. "Ruth, I've read over our CIM three times since last night and each time I've positively raped poor Ron. Nothing has ever turned me on so fiercely. Ron finally took it away from me and hid it."

It took me several minutes to stop laughing. "So tell me, dear friend, was it the thought of some day screwing Larry that turned you on or was it the vision of your Ron slipping it to me?"

Helen sat up with a start and glared at me. Slowly her look of consternation was replaced by a broad grin. "So I'm not the only one who's been fantasizing."

It was my turn to feel flustered.. "Well, yes." I admitted. "That article four is heady stuff. It's given me some pretty erotic fantasies about Ron but what really turns me on is the thought of Larry's beautiful tool sliding up between those gorgeous thighs of yours."

Helen squirmed in her chair. "Now stop that or I'm going straight out to the golf course and waylay my husband at the twelfth green."

"The thirteenth tee would be better." I laughed. "Can't be seen from the club house."

"But seriously," Helen picked up after our hilarity had subsided, "Don't you see the flaw? Ruth, it would never work. This morning I realized how selfish I had been, turning myself on with fantasies of being in bed with Larry and accepting him into me without considering the implication that either you or Ron would have to be dead. Either way, it's too big a price."

We sat together in sober silence for several minutes. I got up and refilled the coffee cups. "Dammit." I stirred an extra spoon of sugar into my cup. "Just last night I had the biggest orgasm of my life- imagining I was you as Larry put it to me - and now you've not only dashed cold water on the thought, you've given me a complete cold shower." I took a sip of my coffee, took the sweet mess to the sink and dumped it down the drain. "And the CIM allows only two beneficiaries. What kind of insurance is that?" Helen uttered a short ironic laugh. "Yeah, two out of four get some extra screwing while the other two just get screwed."

"But the basic idea of the CIM is sound." I protested. "It would be wrong for a beautiful body like yours to ever be without friendly, caring male companionship. Oh, I know you could pick up almost any man you fancied but I also know you wouldn't. Helen, I am your friend, Larry is your friend - more than a friend. If anything should happen to Ron, I would gladly agree to the provisions of article four and share him with you."

Helen reached across the table and placed her hand over mine. "While you stayed home with only a memory of a fantasy. How could Larry and I could ever get it on with that on our minds."

"But it's still an exciting fantasy." I said ruefully, "It does make one feel deliciously wicked to contemplate spreading the thighs to accept the husband of one's best friend - yes, Helen, I've dreamed on that too." Our eyes met and I felt a flush creep up my neck and flame my cheeks.

I'll never say who first voiced the thought we shared. "But if the memory were of more than just fantasy?"

We shared a moment of quiet contemplation. "That is a wicked thought."

"Isn't it?"

"Hmmm. Let's see - nobody gets 'had', nobody gets left out - I'm game if you are. - One thing."

"Yes?"

"How do we get the boys to think it's all their idea?"

"Maybe it is. Who brought up this CIM thing in the first place?"

By Saturday we had put together an act to test the boys. Helen set the stage by leaning well over the table as she sat down. Her fantastic cleavage was barely constrained by her filmy blouse.

"You know, Helen," I laughed, "You keep waving those gorgeous tits in my husband's face, I'm going to start worrying what he might do to collect on our insurance mutual."

Ron spoke up and destroyed our carefully rehearsed script. "I'm the one should worry. He offs me and gets both of you. I'd better watch my back."

"While Larry watches Helen's front." It was the best I could come up with. So much for plans.

Ron laughed and looked me directly in the eye as he picked up the deck and began to shuffle.

I knew at that moment that it was just a matter of time.

It was several weeks later, the first week in June, actually, that the four of us went water skiing at Lake Mead. Setting up camp on a sandy beach near the western end of Black Canyon, we spent a marvelous day, skiing, swimming and diving from a high rock face into a crystal pool at the end of a small inlet leading off from the canyon. As sunset approached, we returned to camp and barbecued dinner. A large pontoon boat was beached about a hundred yards up the beach and the four couples with it were frolicking in the warm waters of the lake, all completely nude and showing no concern for being observed by us.

Helen was the first to make a remark. "That looks so much more comfortable than sitting around in a damp bathing suit." Standing up, she stripped and proudly strode into the lake. I was three steps behind, my bathing suit back in the sand. After swimming about a hundred yards straight out, I heard a splash behind me and turned to see Ron's smiling face. As we slowly swam a few hundred yards parallel to the beach, I could see that he too had discarded his swim shorts.

The sun had disappeared and it was quite dark by the time we got back to the beach but we could make out that one of the air mattresses had been moved. After toweling off my hair, I took Ron by the hand and led him to the remaining one.

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