On New Year's Eve this year, I went to a large swinger party with B on my arm and an assortment of friends. We spent much of the evening with B's friends Tim and Karen. I'd met Tim & Karen before at the Halloween party I went to with B, and they seemed like nice folks. We spent most of the afternoon and evening together, and sometime during the party, we ended up in a naked pile together in Tim & Karen's room. I had a romp with Tim which I thoroughly enjoyed. Sadly, however, it was not to be repeated. We got together socially a couple of times after that, but before Tim and I had a chance for a rematch, he and Karen moved overseas. They both took contract positions with the military in Iraq, and headed for a war zone, much to the chagrin of all of their friends back home. They've kept up with us all via Facebook, email, and instant message on their prehistoric internet connection over there, and given us glimpses into what life is like in a warzone (for non-soldiers).

Last week, Tim made it back stateside for a brief visit. I found out he'd gotten back to town on Tuesday morning. I had plans with a girlfriend Tuesday evening, an unchangeable commitment Wednesday, and was planning on leaving for vacation first thing Thursday morning. By the time I returned from vacation Monday night, he'd be gone again. I hated the thought of missing him on his brief stint stateside, so I asked my girlfriend if she'd mind rescheduling our plans - thankfully, she understood.

Tim and I spent a lovely evening catching up over food and snuggles and sex... all of which was fantastic, by the way... but what fascinated me most was hearing about life in the warzone, and most specifically, Karen's ongoing affair with an Iraqi. Tim and Karen have an open relationship, and even in the absence of available women for him over there, he is happy that Karen has found someone special on whom to focus her attention. I find the whole thing fairly remarkable. She is working with the Iraqi military forces, and her lover is, like her, a civilian contractor working for the Iraqi military. However, as an Iraqi, he is not allowed to socialize with the Americans, much less visit their residences on base, much less socialize, visit, and/or have sex with an American WOMAN on base. If he's found out, he could lose his job, the job he took which is way below his education and qualifications, and which pays a pittance, but which must support some 8-10 people. I found it surprising that he would risk all of that to sneak over to the American housing side of the base to spend nights in the bed of his new American lover, who'll be gone in a few months' time.

But I'm super happy for them to have found something in that desert war zone to make life a little more livable there. And I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to spend an evening with Tim on his brief visit home!

-Vixen

As promised, here is a report on how my weekend with Sam went...

So... Sam was coming through town as a halfway point on his way to a training seminar, and I offered to let him crash at my place. The training started at 2pm Sunday, so his original plan was to drive here Saturday evening, then drive the rest of the way Sunday morning. Well, last week he suggested that he might be able to come Friday evening, if that would be OK with me. I told him that was fine, as long as he didn't mind spending the day Saturday with me at the pool tournament my team was competing in this weekend. He seemed peachy with that.

I expected him at 9 or 10 Friday evening, and planned on practicing for the tournament on my teammate's pool table after work till 8 or 9. Sam said he'd text me when he was on the road to let me know when to expect him. When he texted me at 4:30 from less than an hour away, I was more than a bit surprised. Knowing I had plans to run drills with my (much more adept at pool than I) teammate, he offered to busy himself with some shopping until I was free. Instead, I checked in with my teammate to make sure it was OK, and told Sam to just meet me at my teammate's place, as it was basically on the way to my place. He and my teammate got along well, chatting it up about their mutual love of rugged outdoorsy activities as my teammate coached me in pool, and thankfully he didn't seem overly bored. In fact, he seemed to enjoy sitting back and watching us play pool and drinking a few beers.

After we left there, we grabbed some dinner and then headed back to my place...

( Read on for what happens next )

I met a Sam some months back at a party at B's place. B lives a few hours away, and Sam lives a few hours beyond that (i.e. 4-5 hours from me). It was a vanilla party, but some of the friends in attendance were of the swingeriffic variety. Sam was there with his commonlaw wife of a dozen years.

"Demz mah kind o' people" - I really liked them, we fell easily into conversation, we all hit it off swimmingly, and... I ended up making out with the two of them for a good long while in B's kitchen. B wandered by every now and then and gave a happy little chuckle that I knew meant "Oooooh good for them, finding fun with one another!"

I'd have been happy to take our makeout session somewhere a bit more private and escalate it, but she put on the breaks, as they'd been "taking a break" from swinging for a while. So we just enjoyed a bit of snogging and some good company and that was that.

He and I have kept in touch with online chats a few times a week ever since. Not too long after we met, he and his girl split after he caught her in some pretty heavy lies. Being that they were never legally married, their split was perhaps less complicated than some, but nonetheless, tearing apart two lives that had been enmeshed for a dozen years is never easy, and I was a sounding board for him throughout the process, someone to talk to, so, we've gotten to know one another much better over the time since we met at that party, often commisserating about our mutual dating woes.

A few weeks ago, he mentioned that he and some colleagues are driving a few states away for a conference, and will be stopping in my area overnight on the way there and back to cut the drive time in half. I suggested that he stay with me, and he jumped at the chance.

( Read on to see what happened... )

Ahhh, what a weekend.  A fun time was had by all!  A dozen of my nearest and dearest swingeriffic friends converged upon a local pub to socialize and freak out the locals.  When we arrived, we seized upon a corral of leather couches and made it our home base for a while until the pub managed to pull together enough tables to seat a dozen of us.  Throughout the meal, the poor waitress must have been getting SOOO confused, every time she came back to the table, people were sitting in different spots.  When she was trying to figure out who went on what checks, There was lots of explaining along the lines of "I'm with him - the guy nuzzling on the girl at the other end of the table".  I'm sure with our loud carousing and flirting we were getting many funny looks from the pub patrons, which I suppose could be considered part of the fun ;)

Back at the house after the pub, we set about enjoying ourselves thoroughly.  Food, drink, good company, good flirting, and (eventually) good sex with great friends made for one fine evening!

And, oh yes...  you're probably wondering how things turned out with Mr. Small World.