"My Only Foursome: A Tale in Several Acts" It happened in the Springtime of 1974, at Easter in fact. At that time, I had been renting a century old one room schoolhouse in Otis, Mas- sachusetts in the foothills of the Berkshire mountains, a lovely old New England kind of place. George, the local schoolmaster, was an old friend of mine, and he had suggested some months before that the schoolhouse would be an ideal place for me to get away on weekends, to read and write, and in general just to be away from the distractions of the city. The schoolhouse itself had been converted into what was really a very cozy one room, rustic efficiency - two couches in the main room (not couches really, but two single beds with cushions propped against the walls), a "kitchenette" off to one side, small bathroom and shower, and, in the rear, up a ladder and under the ancient eaves, a sleeping loft with one double mattress and a heavy comforter which was in fact a heavy sleeping bag unzipped, open, to accommodate two. The ambience was very much enhanced by the absence of electricity, light being provided by kerosene lamps, heat by the antique wood burning Franklin stove. At night, anything requiring much light simply had to wait till morning.... At the time, I was seeing Elizabeth, the lovely twenty-eight year old sister of my good friend John, who with his wife Molly, had another house four miles down a dirt road, through the overgrown woods. Their house was adjacent to a long disused and almost abandoned cemetery where- in rested the bones of some who had fought the British two centuries before, and birthed a new nation: it had an almost sacramental aura. Elizabeth had long, dark brown (almost black) hair, which she wore straight, and large, very expressive brown eyes. We had been dating only three months, and our relationship in consequence was fresh, new, deli- cious. Very compatible, exciting sexually, we were still exploring and discovering each other, in every sense. For this long weekend, I had invited some friends to stay over. They were Paul and his quiet, I thought shy wife Joan, who drove down from Toronto to visit. Paul and Joan are friends of mine from Dublin, who married in 1972, and whom I had met five years earlier on an island off the west coast of Ireland. In January of 1974, they emigrated to Canada, and were having a difficult time adjusting to what for them was a different and alien culture: I knew they were looking forward to seeing me and meeting the others, because they had made virtually no new friends since arriving in North America, finding the Canadians a distant and inward people. I had no inkling of what was to come.... Elizabeth and I drove up from the city and arrived in Otis on Friday afternoon, had a lovely meal with George at his beautifully restored colonial home, and settled in at his house to wait for Paul and Joan, since there was no phone at the schoolhouse and we had given George's number to Paul and Joan, should they need to call. They arrived at about ten, exhausted from the four hundred mile drive. We all went back to the schoolhouse, sat around for a few hours having drinks, and then went to bed, Elizabeth and I in the loft, Paul and Joan on the couches in the living room. The night was very still, and I was sure that Paul and Joan must have heard the sounds of our lovemaking in the loft: Elizabeth loved my tongue on and in her pussy, and moaned almost uncontrollably when she came. And after her first climax, she told me, she needed me in her, hard, harder, pushing, and pressing down against her pelvic bone. She was an assertive lover, and was always the one actually to put my cock inside her, holding her soaking pussy lips open with one hand and guiding me in with the other. And I liked (still like) that kind of assertive- ness.... The next day, all six of us (with Molly and John's two year old daughter Annie) spent the day hiking in the woods, Paul and Joan general- ly getting to know my American friends. That night, ravenous, we grilled steaks at Molly and John's place (which had electricity), listened to music, and sipped fine old Irish whiskey brought for us from Canada by Paul and Joan. Molly, John, and their little girl were tired, so Paul, Joan, Elizabeth, and I drove back to the schoolhouse, lit the lanterns, stoked up the fire, turned the (portable) radio to what was a soft-rock station (I seem to remember Joni Mitchell's "Blue"album being played: "My Old Man," "Carey," "River," and so forth). We stayed up for about two hours, and in that time smoked some very mellow marijuana, for Joan a new experience. I have no recollection of what we talked about, remembering just that we were all comfortable together, "mellowed out" in the argot of the sixties.... And then it just seemed to happen, naturally. Joan said, simply, "Let's go up to the loft." Just like that. I looked at Elizabeth, and her eyes were heavy lidded, shining. They always were like that when she was aroused, and I had more than once told her that they (her eyes) betrayed her thoughts. I even had shown her a passage from the sixteenth century Arabic treatise "The Perfumed Garden," which reminded me of her and her lovely eyes. Shaykh al-Nefzawi, the author, purports to have gotten this advice from one of the noted courtesans of his day: Oh you men, one and all, who are soliciting the love of woman and her affection, and who wish that sentiment in her heart to be of an enduring nature, toy with her previous to coi- tion; prepare her for enjoyment, and neglect nothing to attain that end. Explore her with the greater assiduity, and, entirely occupied with her, let nothing else engage your thoughts. Do not let the moment propitious for pleasure pass away; that moment will be when you see her eyes humid, half open. Then go to work, but, remember, not till your kisses and toyings have taken effect. Her eyes were very humid.... Located as it was up a ladder and under the eaves, it was impos- sible to stand up in the loft. To go to bed, one undressed before climbing the ladder. Even at this point, I was not too certain about what was going to happen, or, more properly, who was to be with whom. That question was answered wordlessly by Joan, quiet, shy Joan, who was nude first; when she turned, looking me full in the face, unbuckled my belt, unzipped my jeans, and pressed her hand inside, hard against me. We were first up the ladder, Elizabeth next, Paul last. By the time they got into the bed next to us, Joan was already stroking my by now very erect cock. The lights were out, and the only very dim light pro- vided by a waning moon shafted through the window, whose top was about even with the top of the ladder, just below head level. So I really couldn't see very much, just outlines, but I could hear, and there was no mistaking what was happening on the other side of the bed. Paul was already atop Elizabeth, his motions and her responses shaking the mat- tress. And then she began to moan.... But Joan and I had just begun, really, feeling each other all over, I on my back, she by my right side, her face over mine kissing, my cock still in her stroking hand, my knee pushed tight up into her groin. And then she half sat up, and began licking her way down my chest, down further, and took me into her mouth, licking and sucking. For me to get at her, to reciprocate, because space was so tight, she had to get on top and lower her pussy down to my mouth, her knees on either side of my head, even as she kept working at me. My legs were parted, she cupped my balls in her hand, fondling them, at the same time continuing to work me with her mouth. And all the while this was happening, Elizabeth was on her back beside me, her legs also parted, so that the outside of our thighs were pressed together. It was very exciting... They finished first, were already finished, when Joan and I revers- ed positions. Joan was not only orally oriented, she was also very vocal. "Come on, get on top of me...I want you inside me. Fuck me, fuck me hard...I love your cock...give it to me... come inside me, come...." And that too was exciting. And so I did. And this time, it was our movements, and Joan's urgent and thrilling sex talk, that aroused Paul and Elizabeth again, and they fucked again, beside us, at the same time. Afterward, nothing was said. We lay there quietly, for how long I don't know, but none of us slept. Finally, Elizabeth got up, went down the ladder, and into the living room, it being clear by then that there was no way all of us could spend the entire night in that one bed. So a little while later, I too got up and went into the living room, where Elizabeth was lying on the couch, on her side, facing the wall. I got in beside her, behind her really, and found that she was still awake. Not knowing what she was thinking, or feeling, I turned on my side, so that my chest was pressed against her back, spoon like, and cradled her against me. I reached around her to cup her small breasts in my hands, stroking them and feeling her nipples stand. Then I moved my left hand down to her groin, and began stroking there too. She responded by push- ing back against me, parting her legs, her left leg raised, resting on my hip. Then, in her assertive way, she reached behind her and took my cock in her hand, guiding it to, but not into, her. Still behind her, almost passive, my cock was between her legs, and she was rubbing it against her clitoris. When I moved to get into her, she pushed me back, and said "Not there; I want you here," placing me at the opening of her anus, rubbing up and down. We had never done that before, and I remember wondering if this was something about Elizabeth's sexuality that I hadn't known. My cock was already so wet from being rubbed between her pussy lips that it slid right in.... Afterward, she told me that, in fact, she had never before had anal sex. I asked what had made her want me that way, and she told me that she wanted to give me something that was for me, only. We never did it again because, she said, it hurt too much.... Finally, we slept. When the four of us got up the next morning, it was a glorious Easter Sunday, sun shining, the daffodils already up. I think we all felt somewhat sheepish, embarrassed perhaps, by what had happened the night before because very little was said about it, and everyone spent a long time in the shower.... It was Joan, ultimately, who volunteered a quip about our having truly cemented the bonds of friendship. The plan for Easter dinner was to eat at the schoolhouse in the late afternoon, all of us, including Molly, John, and little Annie. But before that we were all visiting with George and his wife in the big house up the hill. I was doing the cooking, with help from Elizabeth, and before we went up for brunch and Bloody Marys with George (his Sunday morning ritual), we had put a large leg of lamb into the Franklin stove to roast over the coals. At about two in the afternoon, I explained to the others that I had better go back to the schoolhouse, to check on the roast, and stood up to get my jacket, saying I would be back in about thirty minutes. At this point, Elizabeth said she would come with me to help. I said that really wasn't necessary, that I could manage on my own. But she persisted, saying that one person shouldn't have to do all the work. So we went back to the schoolhouse, checked the roast in all of five or ten minutes, and I again noticed Elizabeth's eyes.... She was washing her hands at the kitchen sink when I came up behind her and pressed myself into her rear, putting my hands up underneath her sweater, feeling and gently squeezing her breasts. She wore no bra. Turning around then, she put her arms around my neck, our mouths found each other, and we pressed, and rubbed, together. I reached down to the top of her jeans, undid the button, unzipped them, and slid my hand down between her lips, finding her already very wet. In time, I pushed the jeans down. Her panties followed, and I lifted her by the waist, sitting her on the kitchen counter next to the sink, took off her boots, then her jeans, then the panties.... I was still fully clothed, she was naked from the waist down, and open. The counter was just a bit more than waist high, and there was a barstool, conveniently just the right height for me to sit on.... "Lean back," I told her, "...its my turn to do something for you." Lowering my mouth down, I licked the inside of her thighs, then higher to her pussy, I opened her with my tongue. She was resting on her elbows, her legs apart and over my shoulders. Holding her open with my fingers, I found her little clitoris, standing, and licked there. And then, again, she began to murmur, and to moan.... Because of her position, and because it was broad daylight, the sun shining through the windows, she could see plainly my face buried in her groin, licking from anus to clit and back again. "My God, it's so exciting to watch what you're doing to me..." and with one hand she pressed me harder against her, squirmed on the counter, and came, and then I started again.... We didn't get back to George's for about another hour, and when we did, it was Joan who smiled a knowing smile, and asked, sotto voce, "What kept you?" Late that afternoon, after dinner, they left, for the long trip back to Canada. But Elizabeth and I stayed the night, Easter Sunday night, and made love again that night, and again in the morning, before finally driving home. The schoolhouse itself seemed suffused with sexual- ity, and desire. What it was that happened that weekend I really cannot explain. Nothing seemed planned, it just happened, I thought.... And now, almost thirteen years later, Elizabeth and I have long since parted company as lovers, but are still friends. But writing this account of that in- credibly carnal weekend, and reading what I've written, I find that the memory still has a potency, and excites me. Perhaps I'll send a copy to Elizabeth, for auld lang syne.... Paul and Joan never did become acclimatized to Toronto, and moved back to Ireland two years later, where Paul is a prominent, successful tax consultant, and quiet, retiring Joan, is the model wife, the mother of their two beautiful and perfectly groomed young children. They are socially prominent in a very strait-laced, almost puritanical society. Dubliners love to gossip. So I wonder what they would think if they knew what I later learned. You see, though I for long thought that that weekend had just happened, nothing could have been more remote from the truth. It had all been planned, orchestrated if you will, by an- gelic, innocent Joan.... And I also know that Elizabeth and I were not the first, or the last, to be so willingly seduced.... And Paul and Joan are still together, and she remains a modern Diana, a huntress, a goddess of wooded places....