Mom and I Swing

"You saw me?" I countered.

"No, I was pretty busy and you were behind me, remember? Angie mentioned you saw us and Jilly also told me about it, before we left. Jilly said you had some feelings of jealousy?"

'If Mom were going to freak out, she already would have,' I thought, before answering, "Yeah, I did. What jolted me is I'm certain I felt more jealousy about seeing you with those two guys than I felt for Angie. It came as a surprise after not feeling jealous seeing you with Dad or Tommy. Angie's my fiancee. Shouldn't I be feeling more jealousy about her than you?"

Mom caressed my cheek and said, "Maybe, maybe not. It could just be about your expectations not catching up to events. You opened your relationship with Angie several months ago, right?"

"Yeah..."

"You imagined her being with other guys before and after that decision but this is the first time you've actually seen her with a stranger, versus someone you know, like your father or brother?"

I nodded and said, "Yes. I've heard about a couple of guys she's been with since then but seeing it is different. Yet, that's not what made me jealous. At least, not a lot, compared to you."

Mom continued, "Because you've already adjusted mentally and emotionally to the idea of Angie being with guys you don't know, seeing her tonight didn't produce as much of a response as it might have if you had not opened the relationship first and spent time thinking about her being with someone else. The very first time your Dad and I swapped with Sam and Jilly, I was extremely jealous of her but got used to them being together. It just took time."

"But, why was I feeling jealous about you tonight, when I haven't the rest of the week?" I asked.

Mom answered, "It might be that you didn't spend time thinking about me with strangers, like you did with Angie. You've been hit with a lot in a short amount of time, baby. The first adjustment you had to make this week was to being with me, the second to my being with Tommy, not to mention the paternity shocks and being with Jessica. When would you have had time to absorb my being with guys you don't know, even if they aren't strangers to me?"

"None, I guess. You knew those guys?"

"Larry and Chad? Yeah. I had been with both of them maybe a dozen times when I was a member. I knew they like foursome action, while their wives Kyla and Mary prefer one on one, whether male or female. They started as swappers but discovered they could get their preferences met better in the club environment. When Angie and I wound up dancing with the men at the same time during the mixer, I suggested we play together. You had already left with Cassie. We had swapped positions several times before you saw us. For reference, Chad was the guy whose cock I was sucking and Larry was on his back. If you also saw your Dad, Larry's wife Kyra was the woman he was 69ing with. After that, I went off to a private room with Kyra, your Dad went off with Mary, and Angie continued with Chad." Mom paused briefly before asking, "You do know you can't be possessive of me, right? Especially not in public?"

"Oh, I know that, up here," I said, tapping my skull. "It was actually my confusion that you were the main source of the jealousy that froze me in my tracks, until Jilly pulled me away. I wouldn't have done anything to interfere. I just needed to turn away and go somewhere else. I hope I would have done so on my own without Jilly intervening but I'm glad she did. Now that I'm thinking more clearly about it, I actually think you being my mom is the biggest part of why I was jealous of those men but not Tommy," I answered.

"How so?" Mom asked.

I replied, "We've talked about being lovers as an addition to our mother/son role, which implies they're somewhat separate. However, I think I find it easier to share you as a lover with Tommy because I've already spent my whole life sharing you with him, as our mom. Any jealousy of him I might have had as a kid, I outgrew. But, I don't have any history with Larry and Chad to prevent me from being jealous of them. I certainly expect Dad to be your lover, so there's no jealousy of him."

"So, how are you going to handle it, the next time you're at the club with me? Or are we going to solve it by attending on different nights?"

I said, "The bigger issue tonight was my confusion about what I was feeling. The jealousy itself balanced against feeling turned on by watching you both. I think, if I experience the jealousy again, I'll understand its source better. Plus, not going back for at least a month, when I'm home for Christmas, should give me the time to process everything, like you said. At the same time, we should try to coordinate nights so that we are seen making an effort to play separately part of the time, so people don't think I'm actively trying to see you."

Mom asked, "And how was your first time being one on one with Jilly? Was it everything you hoped for?"

I answered, "Physically, Jilly's a fantastic lover. That topped any fantasy. Emotionally, I felt she was keeping some distance from me, like she didn't want to connect as much as I would have hoped, because of Dad. I felt a stronger sexual connection my first time with Jessica, even though I never fantasized about her."

Mom said, "That's possible, that Jilly wants to reserve her heart for Stan, after just getting him back in her life. She does have sex with a lot of guys at the club without any strong emotional connection, so she might just be out of practice in letting someone new into her heart. She actually hasn't dated since Sam died, in part because your Dad was there for her, instead, then the club met her physical needs for sex. Do you want to be in love with her?"

"In love? I can reserve that level of love for Angie," I answered. "But if this family merger is going to work, we all have to feel some degree of love for each other, whether familial or passion, preferably both if we're going to be intimate. I certainly want to feel more love flow between Jilly and me than she'd feel for some average guy she only knows at the club, I know that much. She's already my sister's mother, my brother's stepmother and if she pseudo-marries you and Dad she becomes my pseudo-stepmom, too. Tack on lover and it seems weird to keep that much emotional distance."

"She has adjustments to make, too, baby," Mom said. "Most of those roles you just mentioned are surprises to her. Yesterday was like some Star Trek transporter accident. Everything got a little scrambled and we're having to deal with the things that got revealed. Sam's whole legacy has changed and part of Jilly's self-image is as his widow."

"Not to mention the new McDougall connection. She's just found out about new inlaws and two nieces."

"That's right," Mom said. "It feels so tangled. That's not usually good, if you want to keep your footing. We talked about incest being part of an expanded box that makes up our relationship and the floor not being steady? That was when there was only one incestuous relationship involved, you and me. Now, we expand the box even more to add in more people, with more incestuous ties. Even Tommy and Angie being cousins would raise eyebrows, with some folks. Imagine that floor now covered in vines that want to trip you up. We all have to be really careful."

"Isn't it easier, if all the people we're close to are in the know?" I asked.

"It would be, if our lives were limited to just the seven of us," she said. "Instead, that circle is only part of the story. There are still plenty of people who don't know, can't know, family, friends, coworkers. All of it times seven, now. You'll return to your part-time lover at school, unable to tell her about most of the sex you've had this week. It's a lot of people to accidentally discover the secrets, if we start feeling overconfident, just because we can be open within our group. Anyone else finding out could decide to report us to the police, then all of us are in trouble."

I thought about that for 15 seconds, realized something, then said, "Mom, this is going to sound strange, so bear with me. We probably wouldn't be lying in each other's arms tonight, if not for secrets already getting out. The pact for Dad to stop swinging was essentially born from you telling Dad about Grandpa. That was the first secret you chose to divulge. Then, your desire for Tommy and me became the second. You shared that secret with Jilly to explain the pact and it spread to Jessica, Tommy and Angie. I just realized that I wound up being the last of the seven of us to know you wanted me to be your lover."

"True," Mom said. "Although I didn't know Jilly had let that slip. I thought she and Stan were the only others who knew."

"Regardless, would Tommy's triad have stayed secret, if they weren't aware of that secret? After the DNA test results showed that he and Jess aren't related, would they have kept waiting for an answer to why you, Dad and Jilly parted ways or would they have come forward? If so, I wouldn't have gotten involved with Angie, for her to be in a position to talk Dad into ending the pact. For that matter, what would have happened if the pact had never existed because you never told Dad about Grandpa? Would you have seduced Tommy at 18, behind Dad's back? How would that have affected your marriage? There are lots of ways this could have turned out worse, with perfect secrecy."

Mom absorbed that and said, "Stan said you asked yesterday if he thought that the seven of us were fated. I'm really beginning to think so. That everything inexorably led to this week and the seven of us coming together, however risky my instincts say that is. I just hope we're not also on a path to trouble we can't dodge, either."

"That's what faith is for, isn't it?"

~~~~~