Swing Time

It was inevitable I'd stumble upon another loathsome American practice before too long, and thanks to one afternoon of overwhelming ennui, two bottles of my cheapest claret, three packages of a cigarette brand known as "Kools," and my occasional talent for infinite patience, I was exposed to the practice some colonials call "swinging."

It seems Ralph P_____, one of my gardeners, is a zealous practitioneer of the hobby. I plied the savage with the wine and the "smokes," as he called them weezily, after overhearing a conversation Ralph was having with his wife, if that's what you want to call her. (He certainly doesn't, as the term "ol' lady" is his preferred appellation for Daisy P_____.) In any event, he and Daisy were busily planning the logistics for an evening of "swinging" this weekend.

It seems the P____s had met another couple "on line" - meaning they had rendezvoused on the Internet, that agora of debauchery so popular with Americans. After some negotiations, the two pairs had decided to trade spouses for an evening of sexual deviance. Frankly, the nausea which racked my body prevented me from discerning most of the details, but the idea of Ralph trading his wife with an anonymous male inspired sufficiently revolting images in my mind's eye that the actual particulars hardly mattered. Need we know the contents of Falstaff's dinner to realize his alcohol-related vomitus is a sight best left unseen?

Feigning interest in him generally, I sat Ralph down for an employee review cum annual master/servant bonding ceremony - how 'bout that sporting franchise? and isn't she a comely wench? and the rest of it all. The "comely wench" bait was taken with less hesitancy than a shark devours chum, and Ralph and I were off to the races.

I'll spare you the goriest details, but suffice it to say there are semi-discrete organizations which facilitate the exchange of spouses for sexual gratification. As Ralph proved unwittingly, through both his personal appearance and with pictures of his "conquests," the practice attracts people who could be described charitably as louts, corpulents, mooncalfs, barbarians, maniacs and tomfools. It is also tremendously emasculating, as I had to inform Ralph, with emphasis.

After caning him several times, I told the nurseryman there was a perfectly acceptable alternative to "swinging" which doesn't involve depositing another man's penis into his wife's vagina like a dispenser rod inside a roll of toilet paper. We call it infidelity, which in the vulgate means "fooling around;" I practice it with frequency. His mouth opened wide, whether from pain or understanding, I did not know and could not care.

"You see - it's Ralph, right? You see, Ralph, males are adorned with the golden shackles of a biological imperative which compels them to plant their seed inside every vagina surrounded by what they consider a fine specimen of the female persuasion," I said. "It's a way for them to maximize their offspring, consequently asserting a certain dominion over the planet and, in an admittedly detached, unconscious way - and I'm not assuming you go for this stuff, uh, Ralph - achieve a sort of immortality."

The stench of wine, Kools, and incomprehension dominated my gardener.

"Or to put it another way, you can have your cake and eat it too," I said.

Another blank.

"Ralph, you get to fuck anyone you can lay your hands on and your wife doesn't, and she won't have a clue if you play your cards right," I said. Then I reached for my cane.

"Ohhhhhhhh," said Ralph. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. I get ya'. Some of 'dos guys, they got 'dos big cocks, okay?, and I don't like 'dos big cocks in my Daisy's pussy, you know? It gets her all stretched out, okay?" He bleated further utterances, which, though incomprehensible, I assumed were a continuation of this train of thought.

"Yes, Ralph. Okay."

- Twimbley Duddleston IV