“Ever have anybody from my neck of the woods before?”
“Why do you ask?” Helen looked at me shrewdly.
“Just wondered if we had any acquaintances in common.” I kept my voice casual.
“You mean from Indiana? That’s where our mutual friend said you were from. What’s the scene out there?”
“There are some swingers. But it’s mostly calm. Too calm. You know how it is. Everybody’s underground. That’s why I wondered if you’d met any Hoosiers. I figured I might look them up when I got back home.”
“Not really. There was a girl from out that way that Barry brought along one night, but I never got to know her well. She only came the one time, and I don’t even remember her name.”
“Barry brought a girl? I thought it was strictly married couples?”
“It is. But Elsa was out of town and Barrv didn’t want to miss out on anything. Tell the truth. I think he called our mutual friend and had him fix it up. George decided the girl wasn’t our type, though, and he told Barry not to bring her hack again.”
“Why wasn’t she your type?”
“Too German.”
That was all Helen had to say on the subject. It wasn’t much to go on, but it might be a lead. Then again, it might not. As I followed Helen back to rejoin the others, I decided I’d just have to go on playing it by ear.
George had organized another variation of Blind Man’s Buff, and it was in full swing when Helen and I returned. We sat down on the couch to watch. Across from us, on the other couch, were Ingrid, Elsa and Hortense. They were seated with their dresses pushed up over their hips. None of the three was wearing panties.
Phil, blindfolded, was on his knees in front of them. George was guiding Phil’s head to sip at each of them in turn. Then Phil sat back on his heels, thought a moment, and finally spoke.
“Ingrid first, Hortense second, Elsa third,” he said.
“Pretty good,” Barry chuckled from the sidelines.
“You got it right,” George told Phil as he removed the blindfold.
“I’m an expert wine-taster,” Phil said smugly. “And the vintage I choose is Hortense.”
He led Hortense off to another part of the house. Helen took her place on the couch and beckoned to Barry. The other two girls joined me, and George followed them. “Flip a coin, Elsa,” he instructed. “Ingrid, you call it.”
“Heads,” Ingrid called.
“You win,” George told her. As she slipped out of her clothes and lay down on the rug, he turned to me. “Do you prefer left or right?” he asked politely.
“It makes no difference.”
“Very well. Then I’ll take the left one."
George knelt and took Ingrid’s left breast between his lips. I followed his example with the large, quivering right globe. Elsa dined at another part of the shapely table.
Ingrid seemed insatiable. Sighs and moans were followed by a series of cries that shook her whole body again and again. Her breast-tip was rigid, the flesh so hot it seemed to sear my lips. Finally she scrambled to her feet, grabbed me by the hand, and tugged me off to a corner of the room. Here the voluptuous blonde virtually toppled me and slammed down on top of me like a tigress gone berserk. Time dissolved into a mad race We galloped through together. And then it was over and we huddled together, exhausted, in a corner on the rug.
“Look.”
I followed Ingrid’s pointing finger to where George and Elsa were running a different sort of race. George had Elsa by the ankles and she was sort of walking on her hands. Each time he lunged, she’d jump another step with her hands. Yet, at the same time, her small, plump derriere seemed to move in the other direction, back against him.
“They’re too much.” Ingrid giggled.
“Is George always so athletic?” I asked.
“New people inspire him.”
“But surely Elsa isn’t new to him.”
“No. But your wife is. I think he’s just working himself up to take care of Hortense.”
“Have you ever seen him with a new girl?”
“Yes. Once. There was this girl Barry brought. But George was disappointed in her, though.”
“She swung the wrong way?” I made it sound like a guess.
“That’s right. She was one of those punishment nuts.”
“Yeah. Helen mentioned her,” I admitted. “Said she came from Indiana. You don’t happen to remember her name, do you?”
“Don’t tell me you dig that sort of thing?" Ingrid drew away from me a little.
“No. I’m just wondering if I know this chick. After all, she is a fellow Hoosier.”
“Oh. Well, her name was Carrie.”
Carrie! Now it really felt like I might be getting warm. Carrie was Cromwell’s wife’s name. “Sort of a goody-goody type with mouse-brown hair?” I asked Ingrid.
“She had brown hair, all right. But there was nothing prissy about this girl. She was too far out for our clique.”
“She didn’t happen to mention her last name, did she?"
“Don’t be silly.” Ingrid looked at me suspiciously.
“How come you ask so many questions?” she wanted to know.
“It’s his business to ask questions.” Phil had returned with Hortense, and he’d answered Ingrid before I could. “He’s a sex investigator from an outfit called O. R. G. Y.”
“What?” It was a general echo that ran around the room as everybody stopped what they were doing and more or less broke apart to turn their attention to me.
“You said it would be all right to tell them, Steve,” Hortense said. “I hope I didn’t goof.”
“You didn’t,” I assured her. “But I guess I’d better explain to these good people--”
“What kind of sex investigator? . . . He’s some kind of spy! . . . What’s this G. R. G. Y.? . . . They’re undercover agents! . . . Why did they have to pick on us? . . . A government check of some kind! . . . What are they after? . . . Like that security shake-up with the queers in the State Department! . . .”
The questions and the accusations flew thick and fast. It was a few minutes before I could get them calmed down enough to listen to me. When they finally did, it still took quite a while before I could convince them that we weren’t out to -blackmail them, or prosecute them, or make public their activities, or hurt them in any way. “We’re just compiling data,” I assured them over and over again. “We don’t want to curtail your activities. If anything, this survey by O. R. G. Y. should result in a wider tolerance of private sex practices by groups such as yours.”
Finally they relaxed with it. George Putman, who was a lawyer, pointed out to the others that Hortense and I had been willing accessories to the evenings activities and therefore couldn’t harm them legally without implicating ourselves. With this assurance the general attitude changed from suspicion to a willingness to cooperate, a willingness born of their being flattered by our “professional” interest in their activities. Indeed, during the next phase of the fun and games, they outdid themselves in trying to impress us.
This was particularly noticeable with Elsa. The birdlike little woman insisted on devoting herself to “entertaining” both Hortense and myself at the same time. The others rested, chatted, watched, and made good-natured remarks as Elsa introduced us to “a few innovations for the benefit of your study.”
She took a jar of honey, coated her inner thighs and palpitating womanhood with it, and then applied it liberally to the matching area of my body. She then curled up beside me and sipped the honey. At the same time, she had Hortense sample her own sweetness. It’s hard to explain in words, but there was definitely something about the stickiness that was more than ordinarily arousing. I could tell that even Hortense was carried away by it. Certainly Elsa was omnivorous. And as for myself, despite my depleted resources, Elsa’s appetite was so uninhibitedly expressed that I couldn’t help being inspired to satisfy it.