Family vacations can be tough on married lovers, but the long school holidays can also offer additional opportunities for meeting. One partner may take the kids to visit grandparents, for example; leaving a working partner in town, and providing the perfect opportunity for evenings together, or even lunch-time trysts (for which it’s always difficult to get a hotel room, because they won’t let you in til two or three o’clock).
I must confess I’ve never been entirely comfortable in the role of ‘back door man’ (not in that sense, at least). When you’re in the other couple’s home, you’re very aware of the presence of the other man, manifested everywhere about the place by his clothes and possessions; by evidence of his taste and interests in books and CD’s and pictures. It’s sharply brought home to you – in a way that no amount of hotel meetings will ever do – that they have a life; a life into which she has surely poured an enormous investment of emotions, time and effort. And you’re surrounded by that life they’ve made: the photographs of family holidays, the children’s drawings, the furniture and décor they’ve bought together on shared shopping trips……
It’s a different matter entirely, when you’re brought in as rogue male to fuck a woman in front of, or in tandem with, her partner. In that situation, their life together doesn’t mean a damn thing to you, because you’re not having a relationship with her. It’s a little weird until you’ve got over initial nerves, but in some ways it’s easier…. You’re top dog, for a while, and there’s a real buzz from being the one adding the spice. (Getting her off is easy, not only because of the novelty factor - and sometimes the fact that she’s going to get two cocks and four or five loads of spunk - but also because she’s extra-excited for him to watch her doing all those things with you.) So if anything, you get an extra frisson from their relationship; from the fact that she’s being a slut with you in front of him: though rightly or wrongly, you always suspect that the best sex takes place between them after you’ve gone….
When you’re someone’s regular lover, you’d think it would be good for her to entertain you at home now and then – she can be more relaxed and in control, she doesn’t have to get in and out of outdoor clothes, she doesn’t have to watch the clock, or get up and go home to a partner’s chit-chat afterwards, and so on – but there are new worries. She’s wondering whether neighbours will see you leaving, or hear the noise you’re both making; she has to check that her partner and children are really where they say they are and won’t turn back or arrive unexpectedly to catch you in flagrante. (At the same time - and even while she’s taking practical steps to make sure it doesn’t happen - the possibility, however remote, perhaps adds a little something. And if pushed, I’ve got to say I think there may be a naughty urge to desecrate their perfect home, too.)
For me, I find there’s a queasy, uneasy sense of intimacy with the other couple, as she phones to check-in with her absent family: part love and genuine concern with their doings, part controlling instinct, and partly, of course, in order to ensure he doesn’t ring while we’re having sex. Last time I went round to hers under these circumstances, I sat with B on a sofa in their lounge, while she made the call: chatting fondly to the children, one after another; then with her partner, sweetly enquiring how things we’re going and wishing him goodnight. The familiar endearments trip easily off her lips. Yet all the while she’s talking to him, she’s stroking my burgeoning erection through my jeans; knowing that once she’s got off the phone, she’s going to be wrapping those same lips eagerly around it in the sanctuary of their bedroom. I have enough sense of my own betrayal to be dealing with, and don’t really want to be quite so closely inscribed into her infidelity; that’s her business.Nevertheless, as she ends the call, I find I’m eager to be lead upstairs….
I think it must have been the summer before last that we had a wonderful week, a perfect week, while her partner took the kids way up north somewhere. It was hot in the south, I remember that. Every night, I’d make my excuses – gym, work, a drink with a friend – and I’d stroll over after dinner, through the balmy evening air. People were spilling out onto the pavements from pubs and bars, in their casual shirts and shorts. Along the back alley I always took to evade the curiosity of neighbours, honeysuckle tumbled over garden walls, filling the air with scent, and in the soft, fragrant dusk clouds of moths would flutter and spin around each lamp down the alley-way.
I always paused before knocking, when I arrived at her door. Side lamps and candle light would gently illuminate the interior, as I peeked in through the blinds. And I’d see her then, oblivious as yet to my arrival - a vision, as she moved about their warm kitchen at the back of the house, lighting candles and pouring wine - fresh from her bath and already wearing black lingerie and stockings for me. I hesitated on the threshold, stealing a precious moment of anticipation and holding it tight; before I knocked quietly and broke the spell.
