California Reaming - A Woman's Adventures In Polyamory

So, we resume the party with me atop R, grinding pubic bone to tailbone. The feeling is a bit indirect, but quite lovely. I can't recall doing this before, but my partner D - who remembers far more about our sex life over 15 years than I seem to - tells me later that I have done this same maneuver with him.

He recounts how he came home from work one day, then suddenly I wanted to leap his bones. I got his clothes off apparently and then zeroed right in on his cute little ass. He was quite pleased.

For the life of me, I can't remember it. Gee, and here I thought I was inventing this maneuver for the first time at this party. Well, tonight it feels like my first time. Lucky me.

I happen to glance around the room as I am slowly grinding away, and wonder of wonders, I see I am the ONLY woman who's on top of her guy. Duh, what's that all about?

Like I said earlier, this is a relentlessly hetero crowd. Relentless being the operative word. For these couples, most of them anyways, to even be here...that's a major leap forward. For the woman to get on top, that may have to wait, hopefully until only the NEXT sex party.

I am trying to take my time, but the pressure keeps mounting, until I finally come. It feels intense, my hands are digging into R's upper back now, I hope I'm not leaving a trail of marks. My nails are modest. My movements slow down to next to nothing.

D gets annoyed with me at these moments, I tend to slow down my grinding when I'm on top and nearing orgasm. For a guy, this is not always the best moment to go slow. Guys seem to need a lot more motion that I may be able to supply them at this point. Usually we try to compromise.

Given my druthers, my theory is that I like to really get into the orgasm itself, and the best way to do that is to strip away all the movement, keep the verbalizations to a low minimum, and in the stillness of my own body the sensation of the orgasm occurring is like a volcanic eruption inside me.

So, the upshot is that I don't need a lot of movement at all.

The stillness renders it even more intense. I get to savor it in absolute calm and quietness.

Try it sometime.

I hope the spectators in the peanut gallery had a good show.

The mattresses are all occupied except the one nearest the aisle. Two sets of couples are playing in the far corner. The women actually look like they are playing together, but in the jumble of limbs and the soft lighting it is hard to tell. I am not getting my hopes up though for finding fetching fellow females I can play with. This IS a relentlessly heterosexual night out. I toss in the towel on that one. And that makes sense, no? Since I am about to play with the Towel Guy.

But R seems like he's running out of steam. I am still stroking his dick. I ask if he wants me to suck it, but he seems not too interested in putting a condom on. A no-no. So back to the hand.

I am starting to remember what my partner D told me recently, about guys with large members. Sometimes it takes a while to fill the tank, if you catch my drift. Especially in an older guy, as R obviously is.

I am running out of tricks. I ask R if he wants me to give him a full body massage, using my body. He likes the thought of that, and rolls over onto his stomach.

I get on top of him, and slowly rub my body around on his. I wish I had eyes in the back of my head, I would love to see this in the mirror. At least the folks in the aisle watching are getting a sensuous show, I hope. I would love someone to videotape us, but that simply isn't done at any of the parties.

As I am doing this, I find myself honing in on R's tailbone. Being he's a somewhat lean type, I can actually find his tailbone. And it is certainly finding me. Before I know it, I am slowly grinding my pubic area on top of that tailbone.

TO BE CONTINUED

The really fun room at this party is upstairs, off the locker area. It features about seven mattresses pushed together, and a ceiling that is entirely covered in mirrors.

What makes this unusual is you are encouraged to enter and watch the play. There's an aisle about two feet wide and twelve feet long, where you can walk in and stand and look at the people on the mattresses.

This is unusual in that "looking" so directly is not encouraged at a lot of parties. Here it seems to be quite alright. And people take advantage of that. The wall is packed with spectators. Later it occurred to me why they allow this. I think it's because not that many couples are actually having sex. In fact for some of these couples, it may be their first time at a sex party. And when it's your first time, there can be a little hesitation about how to proceed. You get your feet wet, as it were, by watching others indulge. Certainly a way to work up to your own action.

I enter the "mirror room" with R, a trim older guy with salt and pepper longish hair, and a fabulous package. He and I met earlier in the hottub room. I had then gone back for another soaking, after which I stretched out on one of the benches.

At this point R walked in and saw me. He comes over, and before I know it I am complimenting him on his package, and asking if I can touch him. He readily obliges. But unfortunately R is a Worker Bee. He is the towel man, in charge of rounding up the dirty stuff and washing them. He goes back a long way with the couple who run the party. In fact, this being the thirty year anniversary party, he tells me he was there at the very first one.

He's in great shape, and I love looking at his dick. I begin using my hand on R, and he starts getting nice and hard. But then he remembers the towels, he invites me to accompany him on his chore.

We go down to the washer/dryer area, where R does his thing. Then we head upstairs to the mirror room, to continue our acquaintance there.

TO BE CONTINUED

Being a water baby at heart, I always like to jump into pools, fountains, lakes, oceans, and hottubs. So I have to check out the hottub in this place. Kind of lukewarm, but that's ok, you can stay in longer. And when you stay in longer, you can meet people you can diddle under the waves. And vice versa.

I get into the waters with another couple, A and B. At least I think they are a couple. He is the friendlier one, she seems a little remote and distracted. Does she wonder if she really wants to be here, I thought. After a few friendly words, he invites me to sit between them. After a few more friendly words I feel his hands roaming around my leg.

But I can't quite read the vibe between the two of them. Is she pleased I am there? She still seems remote. After a few more minutes, she gets out.

An attractive black guy gets in, and the three of us start chatting. Before long I have two sets of male hands roaming around my legs. Then the white guy gets out, he seems as uncertain about life as his ladyfriend. I hope he goes in search of her. Uncertainty always requires company.

The black man and I spend more time in the tub. I ask him who his partner is, he says she's "over there." There being the benches for resting in the hot tub room. I look over and see her there, quietly resting. She seems to have no interest in anything.

I move into another part of the house, the social area, where I begin a conversation with the older New Zealand woman. A friend has told her and her husband about this party in the bay area, so they decided to go. I suppose there are tour guides now for the world traveller that hone in on the good sex parties. Why not? It's another attraction you want to see when you're roaming around the globe.


TO BE CONTINUED

The house overall was small, everything felt cramped. Especially the dance floor, which was about five by five. Feet that is. Although you wonder if they mean inches. Obviously they weren't planning on this crowd cutting too many rugs tonight. How could you, dancing as it were on a postage stamp?

I am always up for dancing, even to crappy music. I danced for a while with this live-wire of a young woman who was the liveliest thing in the place. A real cutie. I couldn't quite figure out who she came with, she seemed friendly with everyone. I started harboring evil thoughts about her early on, but then the tide of events turned me one way, and her another. She was too jazzed up anyway, I never witnessed her being prone or anything close to it throughout the evening.

A few of the women were really attractive. But woman on woman play did not seem to occur here, contrary to what my male friend had reported. Except with a pair of couples on the bed in the mirror room, and it was such a pile of limbs in the soft lighting that I could not tell which parts belonged to whom. I think the girls may have been playing together, albeit briefly.

They have monitors who can take the new people on a tour of the place, showing them where everything is and whatnot. They walk the women to their cars when it's time to go home too. A nice touch.

Parking is a bit of a bother in this Oakland neighborhood. They ask that you not deprive the neighbors of their spaces, so you are invited to park down the block a ways. They actually post people on the street to observe that guests are doing this. It's always nice to have good relations with your neighbors, especially when you want to throw sex parties every Saturday night.

Interestingly, they don't require you to take it all off when you check in. Some parties do, and frankly I prefer those. There's enough anxiety about going to a sex party without having to worry about what in blazes you're going to wear. Please God, strip me of my clothes (and my pretensions) as I walk in the door. You should either change into erotic attire, or you're butt naked.

This party suggests you bring a lock for the locker you are assigned. People tend to fold a towel around themselves when they come out of the hottub and start to roam around. Full frontal nudity is not the norm here. People stay clad until they are ready to play, then clothes get put in the lockers.

TO BE CONTINUED

First, the logistics of the place. A house of several stories, with a hottub upstairs, a social area with food and check-in in the middle, and the play rooms around this.

The food was so-so, no liquor served but you can bring in your own wine. Soft drinks and punch are served to the guests, who numbered around 25-30 couples. With a handful of us single women. Guys are not admitted unless they are part of a couple.

Recently, In L.A., I heard a party had trouble with so-called "couples," where they pose in togetherness as a way of getting in the door. But then the guy wanders off making himself rather obnoxious with the other partygoers. What does his partner end up doing, I wondered. Is she off being obnoxious too? It's sad but true, however, that women can never really BE obnoxious in this situation, try as they will. It's always more the guy. What else is new?

This particular party avoids that problem by the owners interviewing both people over the phone, to verify they are in fact a "real" couple. At least you're under one roof. Seems like you could still fool them if you really wanted to, but the track record for this party has been good over the years. They have parties every weekend, without problems of any major sort. That speaks for itself I guess.

The age range tends towards older people. There was a New Zealand couple on tour who heard about this, they must have been pushing 70 easily. Good for them, says I. There were a number of them. The average age was probably around 30-55. Racially it was somewhat mixed too.

The music was so-so, even though you had the novelty of a real jukebox that played without quarters being needed. You just made your selection. But there was no interesting electronica, or techno, or Arabic trance to listen to. Just pop tunes from a ways back in time. I think music is important to a party, and at other parties they have played fabulous music. So it can be done.

TO BE CONTINUED

I had a birthday in June, and I was feeling rambunctious. I thought I would celebrate by treating myself to a sex party. I have attempted in these pieces to cover a range of parties which have different styles of play going for them. This one particular party I had avoided, however, because it sounded so relentlessly heterosexual. And I refused to put my partner D in that position, as a bisexual man who would feel a bit out of sorts there.

Boy On Boy Play is a no-no, we were told. It is not in the realm of possibility.

But for me, in the interest of research, and of fun, I finally decided I was going to go, on my own, as D was working out of town again. He had already bestowed his blessing. Of course, he wrangled out of me that I must tell him all the Juicy Bits.

I also decided to go because I had heard from a male acquaintance that the women there were attractive, and some of them engaged in play with other women.

This particular party in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay area has been operating for a long long time. The couple who run it are friendly and organized and they run a good party.

But when I first walked in the door, the vibe nearly put me off staying there. My first impressions were not good at all. The people looked singularly unattractive. Americans are getting bigger and bigger. It is sadly a fact of life today. Everyone is gaining weight, except me. I could use a few pounds, so I am doubly annoyed.

And the crowd was not as upscale as I had anticipated. We could have been in the 'burbs, embarking on wife-swapping. Too relentlessly middle-class pour moi, I'm afraid.

Had my partner D been with me, I know he would have wanted to go almost immediately. I would have too, had he been there. We would reinforce each other's testiness about the situation.

But I made a decision that I was going to stay, and explore the scene, and write about it. I was a reporter with an assignment, firstly, and a sex drive second.

It was not a bad decision, as the evening turned out. I don't know if I would want to go again to this party. But I was happy I stayed.

TO BE CONTINUED

Last time I began describing a trip my partner and I took recently to NY city. The subject of my wanting to have other male sexual partners came up on our first night. I had not intended it, but various things conspired that day to make me pretty cranky. Like the long plane flight, my first one in quite a while. I realize I do not travel as well as I once did. Getting into Manhattan from JFK was a hassle too, and once I landed at the Carlton Arms I was not sure I wanted to stay. The place was a little too funky, I thought, even though I had travelled everywhere via youth hostels when I was younger.

Part of why the Carlton is so cheap is that a) there is no TV in the rooms, and b) you share a bath/showers down the hall. I turned on the smaller shower and promptly pulled the knob off, which nearly fell and landed directly on my big toe. Not a good omen. I resolved I would persuade D to move us somewhere else in the a.m. The room we had, in spite of the elaborate art work, was small and narrow, barely functional. You get a full bed, a sink, a chair, a closet.

So all this conspired to put me into a funk of sorts. To add to my paltry pile of woes, I had to scope out the neighborhood to find a liquor store, get some drinks for us, some ice, and D always likes a ton of water wherever he stays.

We aired everything out that we each had to say. This is a prerequisite for us. We try to fully say everything as fully as we intended to say it. Get it all out there. It gets intense, we both get highly emotional. Often D cries. He is far more the female player in this situation, I suppose I am closer to the male.

I am pretty convinced that polyamory will inevitably bring me back to D. Because I will always, consciously or not, be making comparisons. I do already, and D always comes out way ahead of the pack. Once couples can tune into this fact of life, there is no need for jealousy. We cross our (briefly) troubled waters, D is resolved that he wants me to enjoy myself, he is reaffirmed in my belief and connection to him. It is very satisfying to both of us that our relationship is strong enough to weather these events. Now we can really start to enjoy our trip. And we do.

We were so worked up with the discussion that the thought of having sex afterwards was kind of ephemeral at first. Nebulous on the one hand, more insistent on the other.

But those pandas. We couldn't resist attempting, and attempt we did. It took us a long while, surprising for us, we tend not to like long bouts of sex. But I was so keyed up I had a terrible time trying to focus my mind. But I persisted, and he persisted, and it was intense when we both finally came.

Then we hang out some more, talking like crazy as usual. The fleet's in town, whose fleet we don't know. A fleet is a fleet is a fleet. Noises of raucous revelry permeate the Carlton from a bar somewhere close by. We celebrate along with the drunken sailors, in abstentia, smoking some more pot afterwards and mixing ourselves another drink.

New York state's alcohol laws, for us native Californians, are a complete joke. You can't walk into the rather new Whole Foods in Manhattan and buy your fine wine along with your food. You have to make ANOTHER trip to find a liquor store. What's that all about, I asked myself. I thought the world believed now in the virtues of One-Stop Shopping.

Blue laws, I believe they call these. To go with their blue balls one supposes.

You realize with discoveries like this that America, the east coast of America that is, was settled by Puritans. It shows. We all know too how the state's drug laws have been enforced over the years. Draconian is usually the word that springs to mind. Even with marijuana. We savor every toke as we rant and rave about this.

But, on the other hand, you can find the most disgusting porn imaginable in New York City. What's THAT all about? It's a very schizoid phenomenom.

D told me that when he was growing up a feral youth in Brooklyn, he would go to porno theaters where you could whack off. That was the whole point, no? So when he got to Los Angeles some years later, he was very surprised at how the porn theaters get the guys all worked up, but then you aren't allowed to whack off. That's a no-no. It made no sense at all to D.

Makes you wonder, if the two coasts are dickering about stuff like this, what do you suppose is going on in the areas in between?

We all partake of a collective shudder.

D and I take a walk into Chelsea to buy some porn. His favorite store has amazing porn, including one DVD entitled "The Fantastic Goat." Let your mind roam free on that movie, I think you can seuss out where the plot goes. I feel confident there's a female involved there, somewhere.

The store is run by Pakis, or maybe they are Indians. D heads off to explore the aisles, and I do the same. I am trying to find some good girlie porn.

What is my standard for good girlie porn? I don't know, I haven't seen much of it at all, that's good anyway. But I like normal looking women, not some blonde bimbo freak with outrageously phony boobs who's about as lesbian as my mother. European porn has a lot of women who look like that. Normal, that is. The people in their films always seem to be having a good time. I do like a certain level of production values. I especially like to see strap-on play, being rather recently arrived at that form of play myself. Mostly I like to feel some heat, I like to see people having fun of all sorts and connecting as if they enjoyed each other. Men, women, we love it all.

When D is on the road, he often sends me pictures of interesting looking women he finds online. In compromising situations. He especially loves the older women collections. I was the first older woman D had ever been involved with. There is a fourteen year difference between us. He says now I have absolutely ruined him for younger women.

I am so pleased.

So I'm here in this porno store looking for tapes like that. One of the clerks watches me like a hawk. Have there never been women in here before? When did these guys get off the boat? We wonder. I make a point of picking up and ogling the most lurid tapes I can find, just to tweak him.

We finally round up a motley collection of German DVDs, a couple of Italian ones and some boy tapes. I need to research at home where the good lesbian porn is hiding. D is especially happy at the content of this store and its prices.

We should have gotten "The Fantastic Goat." That might have been fun. He would have gone well with the decor at the Carlton too. We decide to stay at the Carlton, I end up loving the place. But we do move to a larger room. No more pandas. I draw the line at kids and animals though. But I think goats are kinda cute.

Don't you?