Written by Paul Lewellan
To Pamela: Forty-five years of love and counting.
In the dim light of the den I watched in fascination as my neighbor Cormac removed my wife’s sock. “Your feet are gorgeous!”
“My husband loves feet,” Livy murmured. At this point, my best friend’s wife and I were semi-naked, our pleasure interrupted by our spouses at the other end of the room. “He’s always trying to sniff my shoes or lick my toes. Disgusting.” I idly played with her breasts as we watched.
Cormac was kneeling, massaging Arlene’s right foot, then he showered the pads and arch with kisses before reverently setting the foot on the floor. He lifted her left foot and roughly stripped off the other sock.
“Sometimes Arlene comes when I suck her toes,” I told Livy.
“How do you know?”
“Everyone in the house knows.” We resumed our kissing but were interrupted my wife’s moans. Rapid fire, “Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh!” Then, “Oh-h-h-h-h-h!”
“I’ll be damned,” Livy said in amazement.
When Arlene and I moved to West Des Moines three years ago, Cormac Kicklighter arrived at our front door five minutes after the moving van. “Hello, neighbor,” he said. “Need a hand?”
“Absolutely,” my wife told him. “Porter has no spatial or common sense.”
Cormac managed the Pet Care Unlimited Distribution Center in Ankeny. He oozed order and efficiency and embraced physical labor. He’d strapped on a tool belt.
“Anyone thirsty?”
Cormac’s wife Livy rolled up a cooler stocked with Sioux City Root Beer and craft beer from Exile Brewing. “Drink local.” In tow was her five-year-old daughter dressed as Wonder Woman. “I understand you have a daughter.” Marigold “Goldie” Kicklighter instantly became Stephanie’s best friend.
“A playmate for Steph is the best housewarming gift ever,” Arlene told her.
“You haven’t tasted my sangria.”
“My wife is a horrible cook,” Cormac explained, “but an ace bartender.” Livy worked as an actuary for Midwest Casualty and Life headquartered in downtown Des Moines. I was the firm’s new VP for Marketing Operations.
“We should carpool,” Livy suggested. “Parking downtown is a bitch.”
As couples, we had much in common: college educated, two-income households, precocious daughters, moderate politics. We were meat eaters and sports fans. My wife and I were ELCA Lutherans; they were Missouri Synod.
There were differences. Arlene had a MA in Library Science and found employment at the suburban branch library walking distance from our home. A consummate reader, she had an encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary biographies and feminist poets.
Livy was pure math, precise and predictable. To unwind she solved five-star Sudokus and read bodice-rippers: Beatrice Small, Catherine Coulter, Rosemary Rogers, Johanna Lindsey, Kathleen Woodwiss. “I like to know how a book ends.”
Cormac obsessed over order, in the warehouse and in his home. He was not cerebral. “He loves wood. He collects heirloom hammers.” Livy told me on one of our early commutes, “He lives to sweat.”
“I do not.”
I was older than the others. My first advertising job was with J. Walter Thompson pitching medical textbooks. Through a series of risky and improbably successful career moves, I acquired a reputation for dragging agility-challenged corporations into Twenty-First Century high-tech marketing. Midwest Casualty and Life was on life-support. They hired me to resuscitate.
Later that first day, after the movers had gone and we shifted to sangria, we learned one other difference. Arlene and I were each on our second marriage. Livy and Cormac had been childhood sweethearts. “My family moved in across the street from his when we were five.”
“But you’ve dated other people….”
“We told our parents we did, but that never happened. We spent every moment together.”
“So, you’ve never…been…with anyone else?” I couldn’t hide my incredulity.
“Never,” Livy said proudly. “Never even kissed another man,”
“Weren’t you curious?” Arlene blurted out.
“Of course.” She shrugged.
The subject of sex came up again this summer. Arlene and I were grilling out on our new patio. My wife and I occupied the matching Adirondack chairs Cormac built us as a Christmas present. We’d given the Kicklighters a bottle of 15-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve. We were all several glasses into Livy’s prize-winning sangria.
“Does sex ever bore you?” she asked. There was no irony, no humor in her comment. She was deadly serious.
“Well, duh….” I picked up my drink, preparing to elaborate.
Arlene waved me off. She leaned in to her best friend. “But last weekend’s getaway wasn’t boring, was it?”
“What getaway?”
Livy looked sheepishly over to me. I was apparently the only one in the dark. “My parents knew we’d been struggling so they offered to watch Goldie over the Fourth of July weekend.”
“We tried to spice thing up,” Cormac explained.
My puritanical friend was the least spicy man on earth. “Give me an example.”
“I went to the Lion’s Den and bought sex toys, lubricants, and ropes.”
“I bought lingerie online and some outfits for us to role play.”
“Arlene and I used to do that.” I shook my head. I reluctantly admitted, “In the end it was still just the two of us.”
“Shut up, Porter. Let them talk,” my wife said firmly. “I think exclusivity is wonderful,”
“Easy for you to say,” Livy snipped. Her face was flushed with wine, her words beginning to slur. “How many partners have you had?”
“We agreed when we met that we wouldn’t talk numbers or names.”
Arlene was an attractive woman, still is. I have certain attributes. Our friends knew that before our daughter was born we’d been part of the swinging scene. They’d never pressed for details.
“Ballpark?” Cormac insisted.
Arlene didn’t budge.
“I’ve been doing research.” Livy sat up straight and faced us. “I read that the average man has 14.3 sex partners in his lifetime.”
Arlene huffed. “It’s more like half that. Maybe seven. Fewer for women. But that’s an average. It might be sixteen in Louisiana, and three in Utah.”
“Utah?” Cormac wasn’t tracking.
“Two-thirds of the residents are Mormon,” I explained. “Their religion stresses abstinence.”
This was unfamiliar territory for us, talking intimacy with the Kicklighters. Arlene and I had a sex-fueled life prior to Stephanie’s birth, but our sexual history wasn’t something we chose to share. “Don’t get hung up on numbers….”
Cormac cut me off. “I bet you’re both above average.”
“Leave it at that,” Arlene said sharply. “Tell us about your getaway.”
Livy explained, “We booked a suite at the River Ridge Resort and Conference Center.”
“Hiking trails, kayaks, and ziplines?”
Cormac shook his head. “No time for any of that. We were focused on one thing. Between the on-demand porn, our suite’s hot tub, the sex toys and the costumes we brought, we never left the room. We wore each other out.”
Arlene and I exchanged glances. “We used to have weekends like that.”
I paused to adjust my mighty sword.
“Our last day we went to the spa for manicures and pedicures, and a couples’ massage,” Livy added. “We booked a reservation at the resort’s best restaurant and dressed for supper. We arrived early for drinks at the bar….” She faltered.
“I went to check on our table,” Cormac said. “When I came back, there was a hunk sitting in my stool chatting up my wife.”
“He was gorgeous,” Livy told us. “Smooth, but not subtle. I told him I was expecting a friend. He asked if he could buy me a drink while I waited. I thought, ‘Why the hell not?’”
“You should have seen her face as she flirted with him. She was glowing. So I walked right past her and took a seat at the far end where I could watch. I had the bartender deliver her a drink. When she turned to thank me, I mouthed the words, ‘Go for it’.”
“The Hunk touched my thigh, and when I didn’t object, he began stroking my leg. His hands were smooth, not calloused like Cormac’s. This wasn’t like our role plays. My heart was racing. I felt desired.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I uncrossed my legs. He got bolder.”
“I was fascinated. And aroused…! I mean, Livy has always been a flirt…. You know that. But this was different. This was real.”
“He put my hand on his erection. I started to pull away, but then this sexy, older woman eased onto the stool beside Cormac. A red cocktail dress, stiletto heels, impeccable makeup.”
“Cleavage?”
Cormac nodded. It was his turn to shift uncomfortably. “Cougar asked what I was drinking.”
“She was all over him,” Livy huffed. “He forgot about me.”
“So you started stroking Hunk’s hardon,” Arlene suggested.
“How did you know?”
“That’s what I would have done.”
“Then the pager announced our table was ready….”
“What did you do?”
Cormac seemed surprised that I had to ask. “Livy and I went to supper.”
“What!” Arlene couldn’t believe it. “That is definitely not what I would have done.”
Livy struggled to explain. “Picking up someone at the bar was never our plan….”
“Of course, it was. You might not have admitted it to each other….”
I blurted out. “You went about this all wrong.”
“Hell, we know that.” Livy untangled herself from her husband and stood up. “Why do you think we wanted to talk to you?”
“We should move inside,” Arlene suggested. “The girls can watch a movie downstairs or play Legos.”
Each house had advantages. We had a small patio, swimming pool, and garden in back. The Kicklighters had a pickleball court, basketball hoop, handcrafted lawn furniture, and a $2500 Weber grill Cormac never touched. Livy kept a fully stocked bar but her ultramodern kitchen went unused. Their dining room table was covered with Goldie’s art projects, and the basement was Cormac’s wall-to-wall workshop. Arlene and I had a basement game room with a pool table, 85” Sony TV, futons, popcorn popper, and microwave. Our daughter had filled the guest bedroom with Legos.
Livy noted the two empty sangria pitchers. “If we’re going to keep talking, I’ll need more to drink.”
My pride was a fully stocked 155-bottle dual-zone wine cooler we’d bought on sale at Costco. “You two settle the girls in the basement while I get a bottle of wine that will amaze you.”
Cormac popped up. “I’ve got one that’s better.”
“Really?” My friend didn’t know a merlot from a Malbec.
“Wanna bet?”
Over the years we had fostered a rivalry. He cheered for the Packers, Hawkeyes, and Cards. I backed the Bears, Illini, and Cubs.
“What do I win?” Our bets were rarely monetary. The loser mowed the winner’s lawn or washed his car, bought beer flights or rounds of golf.
“A kiss from the loser’s wife?” Arlene purred.
“Where did that come from?” I protested. But, of course, I knew. “Who decides the winner?”
“We do.” The women’s statement left no room for discussion.
“Deal.”
Our wives relocated the girls, popped popcorn, and set out sleeping bags.
When we regrouped in the kitchen, the mood had shifted. My wife confronted Cormac. “Show us what you’ve got.” She did a wiggle and a hip bump, both moves impaired by too much sangria.
He removed the bottle from its sack. “It’s a 2016 HJW Vineyard Riesling.” He pulled out a scrap of paper and read, “Green apple, white peach, and lemon notes, followed by a lasting crisp finish.” He looked up and grinned. “Named the ‘most stunning Riesling made in America.’”
“He spent $50 on that bottle because a cute salesclerk at the HyVee Liquor Store batted her eyes,” Livy said sarcastically. “Now he thinks he’s a wine connoisseur.”
After Cormac uncorked it, Arlene grabbed the bottle. “Judges go first.”
The women made a show of swirling the wine in their glasses like they’d seen the experts do. They inhaled the bouquet. Each took a sip.
“That’s absolutely delicious,” my wife announced. Arlene turned to Cormac. “This could be your lucky night. I am a really good kisser.” Then she turned to me. “What do you have, Big Boy?”
Arlene only called me Big Boy in the bedroom. I let it slide.
I raised my entry. “It’s a Viña Vik Millahue 2013. Vik’s a Norwegian billionaire who bought a vineyard in Chili. It blends Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from three different vine clones from three different plots. I bought it for $135 to celebrate my next performance bonus.”
“You’re an idiot, Porter.” My wife’s face turned scarlet. “You were never going to hit that bonus target.” Arlene seized the bottle and poured the wine into fresh glasses. The women let the vintage aroma linger before sampling.
“Oh…this…is … the…best.”
“No comparison,” Livy confirmed. “Bold. Spicy and fruity. Porter wins.” She was beaming. I was too.
“Actually,” Arlene said, “you win, Liv.”
Livy glanced at Cormac. He nodded. “We’ll see about that.” She walked over, took my hands, and put them on her hips. “Well?”
“Make it good, Porter,” my wife whispered. “She’s waited a long time for this.”
Livy reached up to pull my lips to hers, but I resisted. “Take it slow and easy. No need to hurry. I’m not going anywhere. You know that. We’re neighbors.”
“Sorry. I never know what to do with my hands.”
“Pockets,” I said.
“Put them in my pockets?”
“His pockets,” Arlene instructed.
“Naughty,” she laughed, the reached around me and slide her hands into my back pockets, drawing us closer. “Oh my!” My erection, of course, was out of control.
“Honey, it’s a large one,” Arlene assured her, “but it’s just a penis.”
“Close your eyes,” I told Livy. “Take a breath. Slowly exhale.” She melted into me. Our lips met, feather light touches at first, then firmer, each kiss more urgent than the next.
“Is there a time limit?”
“Shut up, Cormac,” my wife said. “Wait your turn.”
I touched Livy’s tongue with mine. It was as if I’d unlocked a door. Our passions surged.
Finally I heard, “Beep! Time’s up,” Arlene said. “Check that off the list, Livy. Kissed another man.”
Livy pulled her hands from my back pockets where they’d been massaging my butt cheeks. “Now that was a kiss.”
“I’m a good kisser,” Cormac whined. “You’ve never complained.”
“That’s because I didn’t know what I was missing….”
Arlene waved off his protests. “With your permission…,” she asked me. I nodded.
She turned Cormac, “Show me what you’ve got.” He tried to grab her, but she stopped him. “Patience! When you kiss a woman for the first time, don’t break down the door. Knock softly, and wait to be invited in.” He looked confused.
“My husband isn’t good with metaphors,” Livy explained.
“The first time you kiss a woman, gently meet her lips.” Arlene demonstrated by touching her lips to his, softly, then again, and again, each time more insistently.
She pulled back slightly. “Use the tip of your tongue to trace the edge of her upper lip. Retreat, and when she reacts, playfully kiss her again. Move to her bottom lip.” She demonstrated.
I stared in fascination.
“Awkward.” Livy grabbed the bottle of Vik, and dragged my wife into the living room. “We need to talk.” Arlene grabbed the other bottle as she went by.
Cormac stared after them. “When did we lose control?”
“Years ago, good buddy. Neither of us stood a chance.”
“They’ve got both bottles of wine.
“What would you think about a 25-year-old single malt scotch?”
“It would be wasted on me. I need quantity, not quality right now.”
“But we’re not barbarians…. I’ll garb the Glenfiddich 12.”
He followed me to my study. “Isn’t sex supposed to get easier once you’re married?”
“Nope. Just the opposite. A good household requires order, discipline, rules, time tables, and routine. Good sex demands playfulness, creativity, and few boundaries. It’s tough to transition from being Trashman taking out the recycling because it’s Wednesday to Tarzan swinging on the bedroom vine ready to ravage Jane.”
“You did all right just a moment ago.”
“Exactly my point. I was the new set of lips on the block. You’re there every day. Difficult to keep things interesting.”
“Livy was interested….”
“And intense….”
“I couldn’t watch.”
“I understand.”
“So I watched Arlene watch you. That told me what I needed to know.” Now it was my turn to wonder.
I handed him a tumbler of the smoky scotch. “Tell me about your little retreat. Her idea?”
“Mine.” He hesitated. “I’ve had trouble lately…, you know…, getting it up.”
“That’s natural. You were worried you wouldn’t please her.”
Cormac glanced into the other room. “I love Livy….”
“But…?” I poured myself a scotch and got comfortable in an old Winsor chair.
Cormac sat on my office chair. He sipped the scotch before answering. “I saved my virginity for Livy. We did the deed at a church camp retreat. We met in the mess tent after lights out. After camp, we told our parents Livy was pregnant and dared them to break us up.”
“But she wasn’t pregnant….”
“No, but there was no going back on the virginity thing. Our parents agreed not to fight us, provided we waited until after high school graduation to get married. We both went to the U of I and tied the knot our first week on campus.”
“You seem happy.”
“I am. We are, though I wish I’d had the chance to explore other options before Goldie came along. I believe she thinks the same.”
“Given all the romance novels Livy consumes….”
“Exactly. Now you understand.”
But I didn’t. Cormack was hiding something. Something from their getaway. I heard my wife call out, “We’re waiting….”
We regrouped in the living room, the door to the basement slightly ajar so we could hear the girls. I lit the gas fireplace and a half dozen candles.
Arlene and I settled onto the couch curled up next to each other. Cormac sat in my La-Z-Boy, with Livy at his feet, her arm draped over his knees. On the coffee table were the wine bottles along with the scotch. Everyone had a glass of something.
My wife spoke slowly and deliberately. “I admire what you two did at River Ridge. You realized your marriage needed a spark, you talked about it, then did something about it. And it worked….”
“But Porter said….”
“Let her finish,” I suggested.
“You tried new things. You role played. You dressed for dinner. You stepped out of your sexual routine, but….”
“I know,” Cormac groaned, “we should have followed through with Cougar and Hunk.”
“No,” I told him, “you shouldn’t have. Going to supper was the right thing.”
“But I told Livy to ‘go for it’.”
“That’s not the same as giving her permission because she couldn’t be sure what ‘it’ meant,” Arlene explained. “Now if back in your room, Livy had said, ‘I’d like to experience sex with another man,’ and you said, ‘Go for it,” then she would know. And you could have worked things out. Could she pick up anybody? Or did you have to approve her choice? Straight sex? Only oral? One time? Could you watch?”
I stepped in. “If Livy had said earlier, ‘I’d like to have sex with somebody else,’ and you’d responded, ‘See who you can pick up at the bar,’ then saying, ‘Go for it’ would have been enough.”
Arlene turned to her friend. “For your safety, Cormac needed to know where you were going and who you were going to be with.”
Livy looked confused. “How would I tell him that?”
“Be creative,” Arlene suggested. “Tell Hunk ‘the girlfriend I was meeting is running late, so we have time for a quickie. What’s your name and room number? I’ll give her a call. When she arrives, maybe she’ll join us….’”
Cormac brightened. “That does mean I could have sex with the Cougar?”
“Only with Livy’s permission.”
“How do I get that?”
“Back in the room, right after you said ‘yes’ to her request, you could have asked permission to do the same. Again, decide the rules. With whom? What can you do? What can’t you?”
“That’s seems cold and impersonal.”
“It’s not. What if Livy had supper with Hunk, gave him a good-night kiss, then went back to your suite, and found you naked with Cougar in the hot tub? How would that have gone?”
“She would have skinned me.”
“It would have served you right.” Livy poured herself more wine. “You got off on watching me get groped. That pissed me off. And when you that old blonde came, frankly, the pager couldn’t go off fast enough.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“You didn’t ask? At supper you said, ‘We blew our chance.’ What am I supposed to do with that?” Livy turned to my wife. “After supper we tried to replay what we could have done differently.”
“But here’s the thing….” The words spilled out of Cormac. “We didn’t really want anonymous sex. We wanted….”
Livy cut him off. She took a breath. “Back in our room, replaying the bar scene, Cormac had trouble…getting started…. I told him, ‘Pretend that it’s Arlene at the bar.’ Instant erection. Hard as a board. And when we got to the sex part….”
“Livy said, ‘Fuck me like Porter would.’”
Arlene exhaled. I hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.
I took a drink of scotch. “So, tonight isn’t about advice…?”
“Don’t tell me you aren’t attracted to Livy,” Cormac hissed. “I watched how you kissed her.”
“Oh, I am,” I assured him, “but I’m married, and so is she.”
My wife turned to Cormac. “And I know you’re attracted to me…. I admit, Mr. Kicklighter, when you look at me sometimes, I see a starving man. It’s been a long time since Porter was that hungry. But my husband is right. We’re married, and we play by the rules.” She finished her glass of wine. “Rules, though, can be changed.”
I let her comment linger, then added, “Make us an offer.”
“What do you mean?” Cormac sputtered. “We want to have sex with you. You want it, too.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“They’re right.” Livy turned to him. “They know what can go wrong. Arlene won’t risk her marriage. Neither will Porter.” She turned back to us. “What if … for the rest of the summer, now until Labor Day, we agree to be more than friends and neighbors?”
“Explain,” I urged.
“Teach us what we need to know if Cormac and I want to try an open marriage.”
Arlene looked over to me. I nodded in agreement. “I could give you both kissing lessons. Porter could teach you Sexual Positions 101.”
“That sounds clinical.”
“It won’t be.” The expression on my wife’s face shifted. She’d made a decision. “But we’ll need something in exchange.”
“Such as…?”
“We’re hosting a fundraiser for the library. I’d like Livy to bartend and shamelessly flirt with potential donors.”
I stepped in. “And I’d like Cormac to build a St. Andrew’s cross for the adult playroom in our spare bedroom.”
They were surprised but readily agreed. “Anything else?” Livy asked.
“Until Labor Day, we only couple with each other,” I said. “We agree on who can do what, with whom, when, and where.”
Cormac asked. “What happens Labor Day?”
“The contract expires,” Livy said flatly. “We renegotiate.”
“But still friends and neighbors…,” Cormac asserted.
I didn’t contradict him, but I knew better. The world had shifted. Neighbors turned to lovers. So much could go wrong. Still, I thought, worth the risk.
“Agreed.” And it was done. “The fire has died down. Perhaps we should turn off the lights and break for more kissing before we get to the rules.”
About the Author
Paul Lewellan lives, writes, and gardens on the banks of the Mississippi River. He shares his retirement cottage with his accountant and wife of forty-four years Pamela, a rescue kitten called Caitlin Cat, and Buddy an ancient Maltese.
Some of his other works include:
“Dream Date,” Spank the Carp, October 2025.
“Goddess of Little Memphis,” Rock Salt Journal, Fall 2025.
“Instinct,” Allium, a Journal of Poetry & Prose, Fall 2025.
“Tornado Alley,” Lowestoft Chronicle, issue #64, December 2025.
Paul can be reached at paullewellan.com. You can also follow him on Substack at paullewellan@substack.