Love Thy Neighbor

I think my morbid fascination with swinging began at a friend's wedding several years ago. I was a bridesmaid and had gone to the bachelorette party with the bride and many of her friends a few weeks prior to the wedding. After the bachelorette party, I showed the photos from that night to Canetto. He mentioned casually that he thought one woman in the pictures was attractive.

At the wedding, I was chatting with this woman. She said to me, "Wow, your husband it really good looking." So I said to her (in an innocent, returning-the-compliment-kind-of-way), "You know, he said the same thing about you when he saw the pictures from the bachelorette party."

Tim walked over at that moment and what happened next is kind of fuzzy, because as soon as she made a not-so-subtle reference to the fact that she and her husband were looking for another couple to "have some fun with" -- I hightailed it out of there --pretending that the bride needed some assistance that only I could provide. (Tim loves this about me...whenever things get awkward I take off and leave him to deal with it. Hi, sweetie!) Of course, her husband was a cop and she was a teacher. Not surprising, from what I've read about this "lifestyle".

A few months after the wedding, I told the bride the whole story, leaving out names so as not to incriminate anyone. The bride said, "That was Rachel, right?". Don't know what's more disturbing...that my friend was friends with a swinger, or that she didn't give me the heads-up about it.

This weekend, we're going to a housewarming party for one of the dilettantes. She and her husband just moved to Ashburn. Apparently, Ashburn has a huge swinging community. (So retro, right?) So, guess what the rest of us dilettantes are getting her for a housewarming gift? A fishbowl, a keychain, some condoms and a copy of "The Ice Storm." God, we're hilarious.