She had thought about it, of course, but she wasn't sure of Walter's mind on the matter.  They had a bad habit of second-guessing each other about sex.  When she asked a question, she could see him weighing the response in his mind, deciding which answer was the safest.  They spent so much time trying to determine what the other person really wanted, and not believing the answer.  By the time they went through all of the mind-reading exercises, the truth was frustrated and they were too confused and worn out to do more than tacitly agree to a decision that was a mediocre substitute for what they each really desired.

Karen knew Walter was a jealous person.  That had been one of those precious rare moments of truth, and it had dismayed and pleased her at the same time.  However, there were shades of jealousy.  He got jealous of the thought of her being interested in someone else.  But he got aroused, his eyes intense, when she became excited by a movie, a book, or a conversation.

Fate had a way of seizing Truth by the neck and yanking it out of the mire of self-doubt.  Like a newborn, it might be hideously ugly and squirming at first.  But when the muck was cleared off, there was something new, creation in its finest hour, with ten perfect fingers and toes.  Acceptance came that mistakes would be made, and the pretension of perfection was traded for the miracle of the unexpected. 

At least that was what she hoped would happen.

Karen pressed a kiss between Walter's bare shoulder blades, and rubbed her cheek against his back.  She slid her hand under his arm and trailed her finger down the line of hair on his stomach.  He caught her hand, squeezed it in warning, acknowledging awareness of her mood.  Karen smiled.  He thought she was teasing him.

They had decided to lay down in a row, the filling to a sandwich of blankets and unzipped sleeping bags.  It was easy to crook her leg and reach behind her to find Marla's calf.  With deliberate, not-to-be-mistaken intent, she ran her toes down the slender bone of her friend's shin.

Being a professional dancer, Karen knew it took many coordinated pieces to make a dance come together.  The practical performance could be taught.  But for the dance to truly live and become art, a synergistic moment had to happen, when every participant understood the song that was driving the dance.  One could only hope the seed had been planted in the collective unconscious forged through exhaustive practices, such that all the players could rise to it at the right moment.  The key component was the choreographer's faith in the process.

It was the third day of a vacation deep in the mountains, in the seclusion of the property that belonged to Karen's Cherokee grandmother.  She and Walter, and Darryl and Marla.  Darryl and Marla had been their friends for years, ever since Karen and Walter had gotten married and moved in next to them.  They had established a rapport from the beginning, the first couple that were equally Walter and Karen's friends, not just his friends she had adopted or vice versa.  They had shared good times, common interests, and the quiet tragedies that come with living out the years of one's life.  The connection between them could well be compared to the bonds forged between dancers, tested day after day by grueling practices and by sharing the joy of those moments when all the steps were right.

Earlier in the evening, they had sat around their campfire, next to the hot spring, all of them relaxed by wine.  They had drifted to talk of sex, desires expressed under the passive protection of banter and alcohol.  They had talked about why men liked to watch two women together, and the joking consensus was that a man liked naked women anytime.  Doubling the count gave him double the number of breasts, legs, asses and so forth to view, a visual smorgasbord, better than a tied SuperBowl.  Of course, there was also the idea of those women, four hands, two mouths on one man's flesh at the same time…

Karen pressed her breasts against Walter's back, letting him feel her stiffened nipples, rubbing them in a short stroke over his exposed skin, since he had doffed his shirt for bedtime.

He turned his head, a profile in moonlight.  "What are you doing?" he murmured, amused.  Was that interest in his tone?  Definitely.  But he didn't imagine it could be pursued.  Karen knew better.

She began to press kisses down his spine, slow, wet mouthings that involved a full rotation of her tongue around each bump of vertebrae.  As she went lower, she eased her ass into the cradle of Marla's lap.  Marla was in the accommodating spoon position, with Darryl curved behind her.  While they had all three slept, Karen had removed her clothes, so it was a very bare backside she was placing within caressing distance of Marla's hands.

This was the point in the dance where it all could unravel.  Marla might scoot back and pretend she didn't notice, or the first step onto the stage would happen.

"Karen," Walter protested in a whisper, "what are you doing?  We can't--"

She felt Marla's hand steal along her thigh.  "Turn around," Karen suggested.  The triumph shuddered through her, bringing wetness.

Walter turned carefully, still not realizing anyone other than the two of them were awake, and laid his hand over Marla's on Karen's hip.  He jerked back, startled.  Marla would have pulled back as well, but Karen caught her hand, held it.  Walter lifted to one elbow.  Karen slid Marla's arm up under her own and kissed the feminine fingers, keeping her eyes on Walter's face, revealed by the moonlight. 

Marla liked nail art, and didn't miss a weekly manicure.  Tonight they were painted in a silver metallic gloss.  There was a diamond rhinestone stud on each nail, accented by a simple feathered design of black calligraphy.  Karen sucked on those beautiful fingertips, took one in her mouth to the joining point and then slid it out.  She held Marla loosely by the wrist, but she could feel the tension of the woman curled around her, her arousal transmitting itself to Karen's own wet folds.  She drew Marla's moist fingertip down her sternum as Walter watched, and then moved that silver nail over her nipple and arched, drawing in a breath.  She heard Marla make a similar sound and felt her draw up her legs, tightening her body's triangular clamp on Karen's thighs and rump.

She released her hold on Marla, trusting her friend would linger in the territory into which she had been invited, and reached for Walter.

She curled her hand behind his neck and he obliged, coming closer to lower his head for a kiss.  His hand stole back onto her hip, and encountered just her bare flesh this time.  His palm automatically slid down and around to cup her left ass cheek, his blunt, strong fingers covering it, snuggling the tips into the cleft, pushing on tiny points of pressure that always made her gasp and squirm.  This time the sinuous writhing rubbed her against Marla. 

Marla responded to it.  She tugged on Karen's nipples with those sharp, elegant nails and rubbed her lips at the nape of Karen's neck.  Karen drew her face back from Walter's kiss, and cradled his cheek.  Adrenaline shot straight to her erogenous zones as he turned his head and bit her palm. 

"Do you like this?" she murmured. 

He was a Southern man, rural by birth and childhood, and while verbalization was not his strong point, he more than made up for it in expression.  He nodded, a quick jerk, and she smiled, lowering her lashes. She turned in his grasp, feeling his hand come across her ass and rest on her right hip, pulling her in tight against his aroused cock as she faced Marla.

Darryl was awake now, she saw, and whatever his initial reaction might have been, he was now lifting Marla's heavy mane of hair from her pale neck and working his way up her jugular.  Karen saw a flash of teeth and felt the choreography crash together as Walter set his teeth to the same spot on her throat.  She discovered that feeding two senses with the same act doubled the intensity of reaction.  She moaned as the full impact rippled through her, and then gasped as Walter's hand insinuated itself between her thighs from behind, and two fingers eased into her slippery pussy.

Karen had looked at the ads for "swinging" groups on the Internet.  She knew that it was important to set up rules and boundaries, even with friends.  But she was trusting the moonlight this time, and the years of friendship between her, Walter, Darryl and Marla, to find their way tonight.

Marla's blue eyes were on her.  Not on her face, though her gaze did flicker up to Karen's expression once in awhile.  No, Marla's gaze lingered on Walter's hand, revealed by Karen's lifted thigh, watching the fingers fuck her with a slow, even rhythm.  Her gaze drifted up, focusing on his left hand moving between Karen's small tits, tanned skin cupping pale.  Darryl's hands moved to the same place on Marla, pushing up her cotton tank, as if for the moment the women were mirror images reflecting two different colors and textures.

Marla was lush, the type of figure that was discarded by societal standards but adored by men, and by Karen.  She liked looking at a woman's full breasts, held loosely in a blouse, or at a rounded backside beneath a pair of jeans or close-fitting skirt.

Karen bent forward now, as Walter's hands drove her higher, and ran her tongue between Darryl's index and middle fingers, licking Marla's nipples.  Darryl drew in a breath, and Marla arched into her mouth, letting out a little whimper.

Karen was panting herself, for Walter's clever fingers were rousing her to painful readiness.  She wanted lips suckling at her own breasts, but with this number of players, there were just too many things to want, and not enough mouths, fingers and limbs to accomplish it all.  She had to choose what inspired her first, and at the moment it was a full, open-mouthed suckle of Marla's right tit, the warm skin of another woman teasing her taste buds with its softness and fragrant soap smell.  Darryl's fingers played around her lips, and her tongue curled over the folds of his knuckles, moistening them.

It was mid-October.  Even with the heat of the banked fire, it was cool, and their movements were pulling the blankets away.  Karen saw gooseflesh ripple along Marla's arm.  She must have shivered.  Darryl responded to it, in that lovely way couples together long enough did, detecting the minute differences between a tremble from discomfort and a tremble from pleasure.

A musical piece often started low and mysterious, capturing the interest before it bravely segued off into a playful set of notes.  The segue might change the mood, but if the listener was already woven into the pattern by the initial engagement of notes, the listener would stay with the piece for the promise of an adventure ahead.

Darryl rose up on one arm, hesitated, but proved that he was the bravest of them, even with his uncertain grin.

"What do you say we take this dance to the water?"

Karen turned her head to look Walter in the face.  His jaw pressed against her temple, his hands now motionless on her breast and within her, though her inner muscles were clamping on him with the urgent rippling rhythm of lapping water.  He looked at Darryl, gauging intentions in that way men did.  Karen couldn't decipher what the look meant.  It was a realm in which she had no anchor of experience, no knowledge of what two men, friends, might be communicating to each other at such an odd moment, initiated by their wives.

She had to trust the love she knew was there in the mix of friendship and marriage bonds, and go with that playful musical set.  She eased out of Walter's grasp with a reluctant mewl as his touch stroked her, but then she seized Marla by the hand and tugged her up.  Marla had worn just the soft cotton tank and a pair of shorts to bed, since she expected the sandwich of blankets and Darryl to provide enough warmth from the chill air.  Now, though the shirt fell back in place as she stood up, the low scoop neck showed her incredibly full and beautiful tits.  They attracted the eye with a pearlescent gleam, as if the moon's light were drawn to them, the eternal bond between that heavy pale orb riding the sky, controlling the tides, and the generous responsiveness of a woman's body.  Karen suspected the erect state of those tasty pink nipples was partially from cold, partially from the hunger in Marla's gaze as she took in Karen's nude body.

Karen was the only one completely unclothed and, while she was less modest than most, she felt at a momentary awkward disadvantage.  "Come on," she tugged Marla toward the hot spring, having faith that Darryl and Walter would follow.  She pulled Marla into a skipping run like two carefree children going to play.

Karen's childhood memory of the hot spring was akin to the warm comfort of a mother's womb.  Now it made her think of the way her husband's body surrounded her with heat.  She could roll in it, turn in a dance of woven arms and legs, fingers and lips until they both were drenched with it.

Marla caught her waist at the edge of the pool, pressing her face into Karen's neck and hair. "I can't believe we're doing this," she breathed.

"Believe it," Karen turned to her, put her hands on her waist and slid her fingers under the worn cotton, touching a kiss to the corner of Marla's full mouth.  "I want you, Walter, Darryl…I want all of you.  I feel like I'm going to explode."

"Well, let's see about that."  In a breath, Marla took the reins, sliding her hand down between Karen's legs.

Karen's hands fisted in the shirt she had been preparing to raise over Marla's head, and used her grip for balance as Marla's fingers found her clitoris as easily as her own, stroking down its length and coming away wet.   Karen let out a breathless sigh that turned Marla's blue eyes even darker.

Darryl came up behind Marla.  As the heat of his body pressed against her back, Marla lifted her hand for him to taste.  He drew her fingers into his mouth slowly, his eyes on Karen, and she felt the world start to tilt.

"Easy, girl," Walter's soft voice was there in her ear, his hands on her sensitive flesh.  "Take it slow."

He knew her body so well, and so she leaned into his.  "Darryl," she managed, looking at him and Marla in the moonlight.  "Would you take her clothes off for us?"

Darryl was tall enough to stand behind Marla and raise the shirt, peeling it back from the heavy breasts.  Marla raised her arms as he drew it over her head, funneling her red hair onto one white shoulder.  Karen heard Walter swallow, and his fingers dug into her waist.  Karen pressed back against him, laid her hand on his thigh.  "She makes me feel that way, too," she murmured.

"Oh, yeah?" his fingers crept up, knuckles stroking the sides of her aching breasts, the nipples as turgid and erect as he was, pressed tight against her bare ass cheeks.

Darryl pushed the cotton gym shorts down Marla's body.  There was no underwear beneath, and Karen's gaze lingered on the red curls, her tongue coming out to touch her lips at the sight of the darker, sleek texture of the hair below the labia, revealing the moisture that had leaked from within.

Darryl bent, and his hands played over Marla's body.  Karen thought she could stand there forever, watching how a man's hands moved over a woman.  Squeezing the breasts together with that endless fascination the male animal had with how they felt, jiggled, weighted the palm, a soft cushion of skin and fat over a firm network of tissue and veins, life and desire held in the same grip.  As Darryl's hands moved, so did Walter's, on virtually the same pathways.  Karen wondered if it was unconscious mimicking, or if the men got turned on by the same things, or if the things Marla and Karen liked were that similar.  How could you not adore strong fingers that knew just when to pinch the nipple, while keeping the sensitive globe around it stimulated with the kneading of the palm?   

Most men didn't know that right off.  At first, they moved in on the nipples, not realizing that to be touched and pinched there first was uncomfortable, that the whole breast needed stimulation first, the feel of a palm cupping it, stroking the curve. 

Walter had learned quickly, and now could torture her to orgasm just by the expert manipulation of her breasts.  He would glide down the sides as he was doing now, occasionally tracing a lazy crescent of flesh above the nipple, below the nipple, anywhere but the aureole or nipple itself, perhaps just a brief scrape of the fingernail along them when she didn't expect it. 

He would do that until Karen was writhing and begging to be touched, where a moment before she had not wanted to be touched.  Such were the contradictions of touching a woman's body.  Another woman knew it instinctively, but a man had to care enough to learn.

Just as Karen was about to turn in Walter's arms and climb him with the frenzy of a dance gone savage and uncontrolled, Marla caught her hand, pulled her away from Walter and jumped, plunging them both into the hot spring.

The contrast, going from the heat of desire, to a quick shiver in cool air, to the warm fluid of heated waters, set off a tiny ripple that Karen could have pushed to full ignition if she wished.  But the shock of changing elements brought back a measure of control.

Marla's head surfaced a moment after hers did, and they were facing each other again.  Marla leaned forward, placing her wet fingers on the slick skin of Karen's arms and kissed her, a shy nibble that turned into an open-mouthed caress of lips, and tongues flavored with the earthy taste of spring water.  Two feminine bodies pressed against each other.  Marla's hands slid up and lay against Karen's neck, cheek, ears, all those sensitive points that made her strain into the kiss.  Karen felt the soft give of Marla's breasts against her own, her left nestled in between Marla's.  Marla's movements brushed her peaked nipple along Karen's breastbone, igniting nerve endings there, which were connected to her own breasts and nipples, tightening them further.

The men were in the water now, and Walter was behind her, his hard male body as pleasurable a contrast as the temperature difference had been, with the same effect.  Karen cried out as he set his hands to her hips, lifted her in the buoyant waters and then eased his cock up, deep into her.  She caught hold of Marla's waist, gasping, fighting the overwhelming urge to come.  Walter wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her body against him so she couldn't move.  Karen watched with glazed eyes as Darryl wrapped his hand in Marla's long hair, pressed his other palm against her, down in the water where Karen couldn't see, and then she saw Marla's gaze go unfocused as he penetrated her as Walter had Karen.

Now the two women held onto each other, gasping, watching their varying expressions of desire and frustrated passion.  Karen felt as if each vibration from her pussy was being echoed or felt in Marla's, as if the friction of Darryl's cock was as present in her channel as Walter's.  The thought almost sent her spiraling over.

"Kiss her again," Walter murmured.  "I'm not moving, and you're just going to have to hold on until I do."

He knew issuing her a command during sex excited her even more, even if the command was, on the surface, perversely meant to delay the pinnacle.  Watching Darryl and Marla's expressions as he gave her the order was a painful moment of vulnerability.  It was one thing to be naked in front of each other, another thing to let Marla and Darryl see their emotional loveplay, an intimate glimpse into their relationship. However, the embarrassment was quickly overwhelmed by other, more important considerations.

Walter's command made control even harder, with Marla's glistening breasts above her hands, her open, gasping mouth so close.  Karen covered it with her own.  Walter moved in to accommodate her so she was pressed even closer to her friend.  Karen groaned as Darryl pulled out and then pushed back in to Marla, one hard stroke that rocked Marla's pussy against her own, a quick rasp of tight curling wet hair against shaved mound.  Karen clung to Marla and deepened the kiss, and started just a little when she felt Darryl's hands touch her hair.  His fingers stroked through it, pulling her head more firmly against Marla's to intensify the kiss as Marla might have done.  It also put his hands in a fairly neutral and noticeable area, where Walter could see, and give him the ability to say this was okay or not okay, before things were in a foul zone.

Karen would have smiled at herself, thinking in "male speak", but she was too aroused to laugh. What she felt was akin to laughter, though, the joy that came from flying without fear.

She eased her calves to the outside of Marla's so that their legs were interlocked, giving a counter anchor to the men's thrusting, but also serving the purpose of bringing the women mound to mound.  As the men pushed in, they rubbed, bucked, stroked.  Water channeled through the folds, elemental heat and wet mixing with a different type of heat and wet.

Walter put his hand to Karen's throat, collaring her and drawing her back against the point of his shoulder.  Still pressed against Marla from the waist down, she was nevertheless distant from them so she could watch Darryl's flexing fingers on Marla's hips as he increased his movements, Marla's mouth opening on cries she couldn't contain, as she watched Karen.  Karen knew her body above the water was flushing, as Walter's sure strokes brought her up to the same peak.  The way he held her displayed her body to Marla and Darryl, her breasts quivering with the force of Walter's penetration.

"Put your hands behind me," Walter murmured in her hair.  "Let them see your gorgeous tits, how beautiful you are when you come."

She obeyed at the same moment Darryl bid Marla do the same.

The domination game was new to them, she could see it in Marla's startled expression, but a moment later Karen rejoiced to see that surprise turn to a nervous licking of lips, and a gleam of intensified desire.  Not all women responded that way to commands in bed.  Now Karen knew she and Marla were joined in yet another way, their desires mirrored once again.

Marla reached back, locked her slippery hands as best she could on Darryl's flanks, tilting her lovely breasts up, exposing herself to Karen and Walter, as Karen was doing for her and Darryl.

The rippling was starting in Karen's womb.  "Walter,… I…I'm--"

"Let it go, baby," he gave her permission, knowing as she knew she was beyond choice.  Karen arched and he tightened his grip, driving into her with rough violence.  She split the night with her scream, trying to keep her eyes open through the orgasm so she could watch the hard bounce of Marla's breasts, the mouth opening, the moist tongue gasping for air.

Marla's body went rigid and the orgasm took her, Darryl and Walter at the same time.  Their cries and rocking movements swept Karen along with them for an intense rippling aftershock.  Marla let go of Darryl and seized Karen's waist, unable to balance herself.  Karen had to do the same, so arms and legs became locked together in the intensity of the orgasms, a woven tapestry of pale bodies bathed by moonlight and water.

When the explosion ebbed away, they were still wrapped around each other, and Darryl and Walter were wrapped around them both, the only sound the ragged breathing of the men, the short gasps of the women, and the soft ripple of disturbed waters washing the banks of the spring. 

Time passed.  The men eased out of their wives' bodies as they relaxed. Karen felt Darryl touch her shoulder and Walter's arm.  She raised her head to see Walter doing the same, a caress of Marla's cheek, passing his hand down his own wife's back.  Marla kissing Walter's palm, Karen's lips.  All four remained joined by limbs, these gentle kisses, soft touches, incoherent murmurs.

 Dances had a beginning and an end.  But some dances led to other dances, like a classical piece that had a pause, which was really just a change to the beginning of the next piece.  Karen rubbed her cheek against Marla's, rested that cheek on Marla's shoulder, which put her forehead against Darryl's shoulder.  She felt Marla do the same on her shoulder, and Walter's shoulder.  It occurred to her what a beautiful choreographed piece this dance must have been to watch, witnessed by the moonlight and the nighttime creatures. 

Someone in her dance troupe had commented once that the most stunning New York performance would pale next to dances done without an audience, like the celebrations of fairies meeting deep in the woods.  Those who danced just for themselves and the moonlight.

"How did you know we would be okay with this?" Marla murmured at last, stroking Karen's wet skin.

"I didn't," Karen confided, lifting her head to encompass them all in a smile.  She nestled her chin in Walter's palm at his quick, loving touch, and placed her toes playfully over Darryl's under water. 

"Sometimes you just have to dance, and hope everyone else joins in."