The five men sat on the deck in Ned´s back yard. The Broncos were playing an exhibition game on a small, portable television, and they half-watched it as they sat, sipping drinks in the late summer sunshine. The women had gone shopping, not wanting to compete with the Broncos for attention.
“How did you find this place, Ned?” Rudy asked. “So private, yet such a great location.”
Ned popped another can of beer. “Took a while. I looked all over the county, and then some. Louisville, Longmont, Lyons, what have you. I wasn´t in any rush; I had a place down in Martian Acres, and it was okay. And, I was having trouble with Francie.”
“Martian Acres?” Sheldon asked.
Phil interrupted, “Yeah, down along 32nd street, whole bunch of pretty awful ‘50s ranches.” Sheldon nodded in recognition. “Really called Martin Acres, but it´s kind of a time warp. Not as much as Lafayette, though. Lafayette´s even got a Tastee Freeze.”
“Francie´s your old girl friend,” Ed said to Ned, checking the facts.
“Yeah. I knew we were in trouble, so I was sort of planning ahead.”
“Didn´t she suspect?” Ed asked.
“Well, she was suspicious, all right, but not of that. And I was squirreling away any cash or assets I could lay my hands on, too, because of that.”
“How did that happen?” Rudy wanted to know. “I guess you didn´t see trouble coming.”
Ned was already without a shirt. He stood up and slipped off his shorts as he replied. “No. See, I grew up on the flatlands out south of Limon. Very conservative family; the whole town was like that. When I got away to UC Boulder, it was like moving to Sodom and Gomorrah. I had a ball for a long time, really got into grass and pussy. But when I settled down, as it were...”
“Weren´t you out of state for a while?” Sheldon asked. He had already taken off his clothes.
“Yes, I was in Chicago and then in a town in western Massachusetts. Very different. I met a lot of people there I liked; I keep in touch with some of them. And I got to know some girls that made the homegrown variety seem pretty tame. But, in the end, I came back to my roots, I guess you´d say.”
“Back to your roots, all right, but the tree was a little different, I´ll bet,” Ed said.
Ned looked at him, grinned. “Yeah. That´s right. But you see, I hooked up almost right away with a Colorado girl – came from the Western Slope. That´s pretty predictable. She´s a nice girl; pretty, good in bed, liked a little grass now and then herself. I thought I really had it made.” He peered into the mouth of the can in his hand. “I did, too, for a while.”
“You told someone she thought you were screwing the high school girls,” Rudy said.
“That´s what she thought. I don´t know why, really, cause it´s never really entered my head,” Ned replied.
“Bullshit, Ned.” Sheldon said with a laugh. “I can´t believe that.”
Ned looked sheepish. “Oh, of course. You see one of those young babes when she´s showing off her body, trying to figure out what it´s for and, well,... I won´t deny some of them are a real turn-on.” He mused over his beer can a moment, then continued.
“I think the thing that started Francie off was when one of them came to the house for some reason on a Saturday. I´m pretty sure she was exploring her... well, call it her allure. But this pretty girl showed up wearing jeans that started a half-mile below her belly button and a top that was just a loose band over her breasts, hung on spaghetti straps. Talk about jail-bait! Francie didn´t come down off the ceiling for days. That´s when she started saying I had the hots for these girls. She was kidding at first, but she started looking around, saw how many of them do that, and she started taking it seriously.”
“I suppose you told Francie the girl was only exploring her allure, right?” Sheldon grinned.
“Yeah, she didn´t want me defending what she saw as a threat to her relationship – a challenge.”
“So, after she left, you bought this place?” Ed asked. He reached to one side and added some sunscreen to his chest.
Ned seemed to relax a little, glad the question had deliberately skipped the process of Francie´s departure. “Right. As I say, I looked for it a long time. Found it about a year after she left. Friend of mine showed me how to plant more hedges, feed what was here – all that. It´s been a lot of work, but I love it.”
“How´d you get into nudism, with your background?” Ed asked.
“Good question. When I was in high school, I used to see the nudie magazines. Ever see “Sunshine and Health”? It just spoke to me. I used to sneak off into the hills and take my clothes off – it felt so good I really wanted to try it seriously. Francie thought I was nuts, thought nudism was disgusting. Since I´ve been here, it´s my way of life. And when I heard Dana talk about Cap d´Agde, I knew I´d met friends.”
“You need to see it, Ned. It´s wonderful.” Ed said. “Just imagine getting up in the morning and going to the bakery for bread and croissants without getting dressed. You´ll love it.”
“So, Ed,” Ned said, “How did you get into nudism? I mean, I know, because of Dana, but...”
“Guess it´s my turn,” Ed said, reaching for a beer, taking a drink. “I grew up a geek. I was happier with a bunch of wires, or my Lego set, than with anything else – except possibly my pecker. I guess I played with myself from the first time I found out it felt good.”
“Just like everyone else,” Ned said with a grin.
Ed agreed, “Yeah. But, being a geek, I wanted to show it to someone, run experiments with it. But, I´m an only child, so I couldn´t.”
“Where did you live?” Rudy asked.
“Outside of Austin,” Ed said. “Nice place, and I did get outside a lot, when I wasn´t tinkering. There was a girl next door, a year younger than me, and we used to walk off down the arroyos or along the river together. We´d go swimming a lot in the summer, just take off our clothes and go in the water.”
“Wish I´d had a chance like that,” Rudy said.
“Trouble is,” Ed responded, “it never occurred to me to try and play with her, and she never gave me an opportunity, really.” There were unbelieving noises. “See, I was ten and I´d read a book about sex, and so I thought I knew what it was all about. Didn´t need to try it out. After all, I´d read the manual!” The others laughed, and he grinned ruefully. “By the time I woke up to reality and got other ideas, she´d moved away. But I sure did know that going without clothes is fun.”
“What about high school? Didn´t you have girl friends?” Sheldon asked.
“Sure. But they all belonged to the Union, you know,” Ed grinned at Sheldon´s expression. “You know, N.B.T.W.U. – the Not-Below-The-Waist Union. They had a closed shop; you couldn´t be a girl unless you joined.”
“Come on,” Ned gibed.
“Well, the ones who didn´t follow Union rules were O-U-T. And God help the guy who was seen with one of them. So, I got to college a virgin, not too smart about sex, even less so about girls. I learned about sex. At least, I lost my virginity, thank God, and got so I could at least talk to girls without getting hiccups. Then, I got a job offer and came to Boulder.”
“End of story?” Sheldon asked. He stood up and stretched, looking upward.
“No, it was the beginning...”
“Look, there´s a hawk!” Sheldon said, pointing.
“Lives in a tree up on the bluff,” Ned said. “Good hunting around here.”
Ed continued. “I wasn´t here a week before I met Dana. She took me to bed immediately, taught me what sex is really about, and I began to learn what an amazing creature a woman is. We went out a lot for about a year, and she asked me, ‘Don´t you have any other girlfriends?´ I said ‘No´, and she told me I was hopeless.”
“What happened then?” Sheldon said.
“We talked about it for a week or two, and I convinced her I was totally hung up on her. She said, ‘Never mind, let´s live together anyway´. But she wouldn´t hear anything about marriage. She told me, ‘I won´t marry any man who doesn´t have experience´.”
Sheldon grinned. “Well, at least now you qualify.”
Ed chuckled. “Maybe. But I don´t see changing anything that works so well. Maybe someday, if we have kids, a family. “
Ned waved his can in the air. “That´s the word, Ed. No, I mean, family is the word I´ve been looking for.” Ed gestured for Ned to continue. “It´s what we have, what we´re making, you see, a special kind of family that works for us. We help each other, we look out for each other. It´s kind of unusual that we all sleep together, but I guess that´s one of the special things about our family.” The others nodded agreement.
Rudy poured himself a Coke. “I think you´re right, Ned. Seems to have happened without anyone realizing it...
“It´s my turn, I guess. I´m from back East: Pennsylvania. Grew up pretty much like you guys, I suppose, got abused by the Union in high school, straightened out in college a little, came to Boulder and went to work. Worked hard – I enjoy it, really, though I protest too much. But I wasn´t really getting anywhere with women. The girls here aren´t much different from those in the East; they´re just as careful about who gets in their pants and at what price.”
“Cynic!” Ed accused.
“Well, maybe. I just think most women are more concerned with how they sell their assets than they are about anything else. Yes, I know a lot of guys are in the market just to get either a short-term piece of ass or a long-term career-booster, but the same goes for the women.”
“That´s a pretty harsh judgment,” Ned observed.
“Yes, it is,” Rudy agreed, “but there´s at least some truth to it. I think I got to feeling that way after seeing how the girls in high school and college traded men like baseball cards, always looking for advantage. So, I was a pretty prickly person while I was first here.
“Melanie was what changed your point of view?” Ed asked.
“Not exactly. Thing was, even though I had this pretty bad attitude, I actually found myself getting friendly with some of the women I knew at work and around town. I discovered I really liked them as people.”
“Now, there´s something radical,” Sheldon said.
“Really,” Rudy said, with a smile. “And the more I got to know them, the better I liked them. And guess what, one night one of them took me home with her and we had a ball. I was flabbergasted. We hung out together for a month or so, making love a lot. Then she told me she had found another boyfriend, and dropped me. I saw him once, and he didn´t show me much. But, I was destroyed. I had been so happy, so fulfilled.”
“What did you do?”
“I called her up, once. Asked her why. She said I was too wrapped up in my work. Go figure. But, just the same, I kept on meeting women I liked. So, I kept dating, getting laid now and then, but really just getting to know what life in the real world is all about.”
“Better late than never,” Ned said.
“Yeah. I wasn´t getting any younger, you know. But I felt pretty good; I was getting ahead in the company and all that. And then I met Mel.”
“Ah,” said Sheldon.
“Ah, yourself,” Rudy said with a smile. “She was running this store, lingerie, for someone in Louisville and getting sick of working for other people. We got friendly, slept together a few times – she made it clear she had several lovers, some of them women, and I shouldn´t get uppity about it.”
Sheldon said, “They´re all bi, four of them, anyway. Isn´t that unusual?”
“Unusual or not, I like it,” Ed said, positively. “I never knew Dana was bi until Jenny moved in, but I love watching, and it´s a hell of a turn-on.”
Sheldon demurred, “Hey, I like it, too. Just wondering.”
Rudy went on, “Finally, Mel quit her job and put her savings and half her ass into buying a little shop down in Broomfield. She worked like hell at it, made it pay. I helped her a bit, setting up the books, all behind the scenes, you know. We got really close, and I asked her to move in with me. Did I get a surprise!”
“What happened?” Ned asked as he rummaged in the cooler for a new can. He adjusted his feed cap against the sun.
“She said, ‘No, not unless you marry me.´ I really didn´t expect that. And then she said, ‘Now, you need to know what I mean by that. We get married. We don´t screw anyone else of the opposite sex without consent´. And I asked her, ‘Is it all right if I screw a guy?´ And she said, ‘Well that´s up to you, I just don´t want you getting pissed when I go to bed with one of my girl friends.´”
“Puts it right on the line, doesn´t she?” Ed observed.
“Of course.” Rudy went on, “And, she wasn´t kidding. She explained she´s always been bi, and wasn´t about to stop. I thought it over and decided, ‘What did I care?´ I was getting laid by an expert, I loved her like crazy... What difference did it make?”
“Didn´t it make you jealous?” Ned asked. “That´s a big problem in that kind of thing.”
Rudy looked around, stood up and went to stand against the rail. Seriously, he said, “Yeah, it did, at first. She almost always told me when she´d gotten laid with one of her girl friends, so she was never hiding anything. I was jealous, but then I realized that usually, when she got someone´s pussy, I got something extra myself. It turned her on big time to come home and get it on with me. So, I gave up on jealousy for a while.”
“What´s that mean, Rudy?” Sheldon said.
“Well, maybe a year ago, I noticed when I got home she´d be wet as hell. Uh, I guess I ought to mention, we usually screw as soon as we get home from work. And, I noticed she was just as wet as if she´d just been laid. Didn´t taste like she had, but there was something going on. And I really got jealous, thinking she was up to something.
“So, one day I confronted her. Accused her of getting it on with someone else. And, she confessed.”
“You mean...” Ed said with suspense.
Rudy smiled wryly. “She confessed that she uses a dildo. Regularly. One of those with a vibrator, though she doesn´t use that feature all the time. She said she´d come home and get off on Horny Harry, and then wait for me to come and give her the real thing. Anyway, we talked about it. She told me she´s always had a big sex drive, and that´s just the way it is; could I handle it. I was a little uncertain – wondering if it meant I wasn´t adequate. But, I decided I could deal with it, and that was the end of my jealousy. Horny Harry´s just one more way we have fun. And when we decided to jump Sheldon...”
“Man, was I ready,” Sheldon said with a laugh. “I was going nuts; no sex for months, since my wife left, except for a couple of times with Sylvia, and then Melanie welcomes me in this sexy outfit. I was in heaven. I have been ever since.”
“Sylvia? You screwed Sylvia?” That was Ed.
“Oops. Forgot. I don´t talk about those things, usually. Sorry, Phil.”
“No problem. She told me.” Phil responded.
Sheldon continued, “Yeah, we slept together twice, then she blew me away because she decided I´d screwed Melanie.” He turned to Rudy. “That first time – she picked up on it and said ‘Bye Bye´. Really a shame. I liked her.”
“What is this stuff about sexual aggression, Shel?” Ed asked. “I´ve heard the girls talk about it, but I don´t see it.”
“If you´d asked me that a few weeks ago, I would have said I don´t see it either, Ed. But Jenny... She´s made a really big difference for me. Showed me something I never saw, and now I´m trying to live with it.”
“How heavy is this?” Ned asked.
“Hey, I don´t mind talking about it – now that I understand it. I´m built large, as you know. And I have a strong sex drive. So, all my life, I´ve tried to hold myself back, last as long as I could, so as to – well, you know, the longer you last, the better it feels.”
There was general agreement on that.
“Well, while you guys were on vacation, Jenny began asking me about all this, why I feel this way, how it came to be that way. We talked almost as much as we fucked. And, I began to realize that, while lasting a long time is good for me, it could be exhausting or tiresome for a woman, especially every day or more.”
“I´d think a discovery like that might be a little depressing,” Ned ventured, rubbing sweat off his chest.
“Well, yeah, it did depress me, when I realized it. But Jenny showed me the flip side. She found out she could make me come whenever she wanted, and she took control now and then. It´s wonderful, and it made me realize what she was talking about. Funny thing, too. She told me she´d always been submissive, and she gets off on being in control sometimes. So she said it was fair to teach me about my submissive side...” He shook his head. “It´s really wonderful, and I can tell she´s shared it with the rest of them.”
“The bottom line, guys, is that my wife was right, but neither of us knew how to deal with it, how to handle the situation. I think about what that´s meant for me in the past, and for all the women I´ve known, not just my wife. I´m sorry if it turned out badly for them, or for her, but I´m really glad I found Jenny.”
Everyone agreed with that.
“Phil,” Ned asked, “you´re new, you feel like putting in your oar?”
“Well, I guess so, up to a point. As you know, Sylvia and I haven´t joined into your family affairs, and I sure don´t know what´s going to happen there.
“I´m from California, and let me tell you that things aren´t any different out there than where you grew up. There´s a lot of emphasis on looks and sex, but it isn´t really different. I realized pretty quickly that I had to have my own approach to things, so I decided that I was going to decide what I was willing to go for and not get sucked into someone else´s system. It generally worked pretty well. So, when Sylvia hit me with her little bomb, I told her ‘No way´. She´s thought it over, and I think we´re all right so far. That is, she´s not laying down the law to me, and we´re getting along all right. No guarantees, though. We´ll just have to see what happens.”