I’m on the phone with someone I’ve never met and we’re planning how we’ll go about having sex in the near future. I have answered an ad placed by Vikki and her husband in a “swinger’s” magazine. She and I talk and she agrees to call me in the middle of the following week. Here’s the deal: I meet this couple in a bar and we have a drink and visit. If we all like each other, we make plans to get a hotel room the next weekend. I pay for the room for the night, both me and hubby screw her brains out, and he gets it all on tape. Why does this strike me as odd?

I’m wondering, “How do you go about having casual friendly conversation in a public place about double penetration with someone you’ve just met, sitting next to her husband?” Is there any kind of etiquette about this wife-sharing stuff that I need to know? In other awkward social situations, a little humor helps. What would that be? Something like, “You know, that reminds me of a funny story. I had my dick in this guy’s wife’s mouth while he was running the video camera when...”?

I’m feeling old-fashioned at this point. I can remember a time when having sex with someone else’s wife was something you did only when hubby was miles away, and you and the woman were scared shitless of being caught. Generally, this fear was the main attraction in the deal. If there had been no danger there would be no excitement.

I guess the thrill for the husband in these situation is that they get to see some strange guy get really worked up over what is “his.” He can watch the proceedings and gloat that he gets to sample this stuff whenever he wants (well, whenever she decides he can have it, if you want to be honest about it).

My own foray into this world got 86-ed by Vikki’s husband. She said “He feels uncomfortable about it.” Maybe hubby would be less uncomfortable about being forced to satisfy both his wife and a nubile 19-year-old, but that’s just a wild guess.

You walk a fine line in these situations between being unexciting to the female and exciting enough to get the husband jealous. Here’s a distinction I don’t get: it’s okay for hubby if his wife lets some strange guy do her anally, but god forbid she thinks for a moment that he’s cute. That’s like buying your wife the cheapest piece-of-shit jewelry possible, so that she won’t expect “too much” on other occasions.

And how does the wife feel about this? There’s probably at least a trace of the primal in this situation. You have a woman ready for sex who’s got two different guys willing to do anything to impress her. And she gets to experience pleasure from more centers at once than she and hubby could manage without the liberal use of electrical/ hydraulic equipment.

I suppose there is the rare case here and there where the female is so rapacious (try finding a word like “rapacious” in T&A Times!) that her partner needs to “farm out” some of the work. Instead of having her roam the streets (or bars) for nameless bangs, at least he’s got some say over who and when.

One last item: don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re getting into a menage-a-trois when one of the original “deux” hasn’t been informed of the situation. When her husband or boyfriend comes home early and catches the two of you in bed, a hearty invitation from you to “Join in pal, this stuff’s fine!” is not called a menage-a-trois. It is called “demandez-pour-la-balle” (asking for a bullet).