Swingers - Pt 3

Are you entranced by the magical spell woven in this tale yet? I sure am.  I can't wait for each installment, anxious for the next weekly post.  Wow, do they know how to have fun or what?

We've heard Colb's side of things, this week we get to hear from Tangyr.

Swingers Pt 3

by

Abyrne Mostyn

Tangyr fought hard to keep the smirk from becoming a giggle. She knew she had Colb’s attention, not because she could see the evidence of his need jutting through the loose trews he favored, but because of his breathing...or lack thereof. The odd hitch betraying him even before she heard the exhale as she turned to close her door. No matter what the scenario, she could always tell when she heard that catch; it was almost as if he could do nothing but a long, slow, shallow inhaling and that was not enough to fuel him so he never let it out again. After a spell there would be a mad ‘whoosh’, a hard heavy sighing sound as he had to let go some air for there to be room for more.

Making sure to give a sashay of her hips as she began to reach for the handle, she knew that he was well on his way to their morning rendezvous when his breathing caught. The moment protracted, ending when the film of her linen shift stirred with the hard exhale he had no choice but to let out from across the hall. Breathe or pass out; as of yet breathing had always won. They had lingered long enough and she softly closed the door fighting to stifle the fit of laughter vying for the surface. His erratic breathing in these moments always giving him away.

Almost from the night they had met she had started to piece together what would drive him and what he could do without, all by listening to him breathe.  From the first they had possessed an electric connection.  The kind of meeting where you shake hands and do the nicey-nice but somewhere between the clasping of hands and the letting go part you missed the words because you learned everything you needed to know about them by touching. His breath had caught in that moment and her whole body had nearly shuddered.  It was what she imagined finding the other half of yourself was like.

That party was the first that they had been together, the pull to be so close to one another that it was nearly impossible to tell where one began and the other ended was irresistible. Choosing a partner for the night a forgone conclusion, and saying goodbye in the morning a sorrow not familiar to swingers. Maybe it was the moonlight. Maybe it was the drumming. Whatever it was, it was intense. Although they had re-enacted that night many times; in the loft, in a long forgotten wood-ringed meadow, in every conceivable place they had been; it was never the same as that first night; sometimes it was better.

It had been a September bonfire party. Fall had come early that year and the evening was crisp with smells from the on-gong harvests. The group had gathered at a member’s barn a few miles outside of town. The fire already ablaze when she first saw it, and roaring its call by the time they had all arrived and were gathered round it. Men had been given implements for drumming; women, Murphy bells, they danced and drummed well into the night under a full moon.

Colb had held a gourd looking thing with taught skin of some kind across the opening for the drum head, and it released a higher pitch than those around him when he struck it. She knew every time as she went past the moment when he noticed her as his drumbeat was suddenly out of rhythm. Rhythm required breathing. It was hard not to giggle at the realization. Even now sitting here getting ready for another party, she could not stifle the giggles and let out a loud bit of laughter, slamming her hand across her mouth too late to stop it echoing.

That night had seemed to end in the space of that drumbeat. They had retired to a secluded area, and just a moment later it has seemed to be daybreak and time to go. Swinging had never been somber, but that morning had defined it. The temerity of the night underscored by his parting demand, “Tell me your name.”

The months to the following March gathering seemed endless. It should have been December but they were not in the same area for that party. The antithesis of the time it took the first night to end, she’d aged an eternity waiting to see him again. Seemingly he had too by the ‘starving man offered bread’ look on his face when she walked into the party . The room seemed to heave a collective sigh as they released their baited breath in unison, turning back to their respective conversations. A beeline would have taken too long to reach him and yet she tried to make her path to him seem random. She failed. He failed. They met in the middle of the room and found that with so much hanging between them they had no idea what to say, instead clasping hands and letting what was between them do the talking.

They knew in that moment that there was no way they could continue coming on someone else’s arm, hoping to be in the same group to see one another and immediately sought the host. Before the night was ended, hearts were broken while theirs connected. None would lose their invitation to come, but all would be banned if there were any lingering animosities come June. They left the gathering and their partners before dawn broke, the first and last time they were together in and out of the party.

Sitting back on the settee this night, her giggles and smirking resolving to a well fulfilled smile, she knew that had been one of the best decisions of their lives. Was it destined to be? Or was it circumstance? The September moon? The music and dancing? The protracted, anguishing wait for March hoping then to see one another again? Whatever it was it was something. It was everything; and yet it was so much more.