Gerald Summers: The Mouth Merchants

"Yes, of course, Joanna might prove to be a delicate matter for me, but I'm sure that I'll be able to handle that when and if it ever really becomes a problem.

"Sex clubs may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they've worked miracles for Mark and me. I don't think we could've stayed married without our little group sessions!"

Liz R- is absolutely right in her last statement; she and her husband couldn't have stayed married without their involvement with what she refers to as their "little group sessions." The latter, however, cannot be considered as anything more than temporarily supporting crutches that will let both the subject and her husband down once these same Sessions become commonplace and unfulfilling.

The Motto

"Have you ever gotten to the point where you get sick and tired of sticking your cock into the same goddamned cunt?

"Well, that's the way I was feeling along about last March. It wasn't as though I didn't love Susie. Hell, love means a lot more than just wanting to luck somebody. At least to me it does.

"But Susie sort of had this idea that since I wasn't as interested in fucking as I had been on our honeymoon, that I didn't love her anymore. And she got to be sort of a bitch on the subject. So bad, that at times, I just didn't feel like going home anymore. But when you've got three kids that you love, and a wife that you love, and a house that needs to be paid for, you try to work problems out instead of just rebelling against them.

"We were in bed one night-Susie and I-when she moved over against me. To tell you the truth, I'd had a lousy day at work, and I was bone tired. I just didn't feel like fucking around. But I half-heartedly responded to her feeling around on me. But then the thought came into my mind: I was faking being excited, and why in the hell should I have to fake anything at all with my wife. Why not talk over what I was, or better wasn't, feeling?

"Susie sensed my preoccupation and she moved back to her side of the bed. 'You're just not interested anymore, are you?' she asked. And her voice sounded so goddamned sad that she made me feel like a heel.

"But here was my chance to bring our problem out into the open. I turned to her.

"'Susie,' I asked. 'Do you remember the first time we fucked?' She nodded.

"'Remember how excited we both were?' I continued. And the thought of that first screw with Susie got me all sort of excited. It had been so good, so wonderful, that I'd never had anything to compare it with. 'Well, let me tell you something,' I added. 'I love you just as much now, or more, than I did that night we first screwed around.'

"And I meant what I was saying. Susie and my first fuck hadn't been an 'in-the-sack-ten-minutes-after-we-met' luck. We'd been going together for almost ten months, and had already agreed to get married, before she let me stick my prick in that gorgeous cunt of hers. So when I said I loved her as much as I did then, it meant something.

"I think she realized that because all of a sudden the pouting look left her face. She looked at me and moved a little closer.

"'Is this all leading up to something?' she asked, and I could tell by her voice that she was willing to talk about our problem.

"'Yeah,' I answered, still a little hesitant to say what I wanted to. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was hurt her.

"'Well, go ahead,' she said. 'Let's get it out in the open.'

"I took a deep breath and started talking. 'The truth is, Susie,' I said, 'I'm bored. Sexually bored. And that doesn't mean I don't love you. It just means that I'd like to have some different experiences, some kicks. I want both of us to have them. You must be a little bored with me by-this time, too.'

"Sure enough, she started to cry. But I got her out of that fast. And after a reasonably short time, I got her to admit that she wasn't all that excited about my fucking her either. She just had always thought that love meant wanting to screw all the time. I got her out of that idea right off.

"Eventually, though, we- got around to talking about the real problem. 'What's your solution?' she asked.

"Again I took a deep breath. 'I think,' I said, not knowing how in the hell she'd take it, 'we ought to include other people in our sex lives.'

"You would have thought I'd hit her in the face with a tire jack. She just stared at me. Then, instead of crying like I thought she'd do, she started to laugh. 'You mean "swapping",' she said matter-of-factly.

"'I don't know what I mean,' I said. 'It's just that some guys at work are all the time talking about them and their wives fucking around with other people, and •they say it helps them at home. They don't fuck as often, but when they do, they want to.'

"Susie got out of bed. Marched out, as a matter of fact. For a couple of seconds I thought she was going to leave the bedroom, walk out of the house, and never be seen again. But that wasn't what she was up to.

"She went to the dresser drawer and pulled out a newspaper. Then she came back to the bed. She handed it to me. It was a copy of an underground newspaper that came out of Los Angeles, and the paper was opened to the personal ads section.

"'Look at the third ad down in the fourth column,' Susie said. I threw her a suspicious look and then looked for the ad she was talking about.

"'I bought the paper last week,' she explained before I could locate the ad. 'I just wanted to see how freaky Los Angeles was.'

"Susie's interest in Los Angeles stemmed from the fact that we were heading out there for our vacation in just three weeks. Actually, it was more of an obligation than a vacation. My mother and father had retired out there, and we were going to take the kids out to visit them.

"I found the ad. 'French Culture Club (and we don't mean paintings or cooking) has openings for broad-minded couples.' Weekly get-togethers. Visitors to the Southland welcome.' Then an address was given.

"'That means they suck,' I said to Susie. Christ, already, just from reading the ad, my cock was getting hard.

"'I know that,' Susie said. 'I thought it was interesting, but I didn't want to say anything.'

"Well, the result was we talked for another hour about whether we wanted to try the 'French Culture Club' when we were in Los Angeles. The decision was affirmative; in fact, affirmative to the degree that I had to hoist my ass out of bed and write a letter that very night.

"And then, brother, I got back in bed and fucked Susie for what seemed like four hours. We hadn't had a luck session like that in years.

"'See,' I said, when we finally were beat, 'it's working already.'

"'I'll say,' Susie said, and grinned as wide as she could. 'I think my pussy's going to be sore tomorrow.'

"I grinned hack. 'You say the nicest things, baby,' I said. We both laughed and finally went off to sleep.

"An answer from the FCC came in just ten days. It came in the form of a nice letter from a guy named Dave H-. He was, he said, the president of the club. And, he added, he would be glad to introduce both of us to the club. There was, though, a sort of initiation that new people had to go through, whether they intended being members for one week or for the rest of their lives.

"Dave concluded with the statement that if we were interested we should call him when we got to Los Angeles. And finally, a postscript said that their club was dedicated to the arts of the tongue. If we wanted to luck the standard old cock-in-the-pussy method, we had to save that for at home-or find another club.

"Susie and I talked the situation over and agreed that since we both liked to use our tongues on each other, it might be a real kick to use them on other people.

"'And,' Susie added. 'It's sort of nice reserving outright fucking for when you're alone. I mean you keep something for yourselves.'