Eight hundred swinging singles were determined to have the weekend of their lives … and our reporter was ready for every single encounter (or so he thought!)
Swinging Singles — Orgy in the Catskills
Last winter, suffering from the post-holiday blahs, I was perusing the personals column in a local tabloid when an adjacent ad caught my attention. “Singles Weekend,” the bold type proclaimed. “Spend a fantastic holiday in our mountain resort where you’ll meet people just like you!” I found the prospect of a holiday not too far from home to be intriguing, but the last thing in the world I needed was to meet people just like me — in other words, depressed, defeated, and degenerate.
Beneath the ad copy was a series of pictures depicting hordes of healthy-looking snow bunnies lounging around the hotel’s ski slopes, skating rink, and swimming pool. The juxtaposition of all those ex-cheerleader types right across the page from the endless listings of lonely hearts kindled my imagination. Maybe I ought to look into this, I thought, jotting down the address. And when the brochure finally arrived, I had almost made up my mind to go.
“Give it a try,” a friend urged me. “My cousin’s gone to a few Singles Weekends there and come back with all sorts of mind-boggling stories.” He related a few that made the “leisure activities” listed in the brochure sound more like heats at a sexual Olympics. “That’s the only reason anyone goes there,” he said. “What’s more, you could stand the company of a new woman or two.”
Or three, I thought. And by the time I turned into the hotel’s driveway, I was already intoxicated by the various possibilities of what lay ahead.
Singles … 4:30 P.M. — IN THE LOBBY
The lobby of the hotel must have been the result of an interior decorator’s bad dream: a stunning example of Hasidic rococo culled from the late-Miami Beach/Kitchen Sink period, in which taste was obviously considered déclassé. Here among the Greek columns, crushed-velvet sofas, gilt-framed mirrors, crystal chandeliers, and potted palms is a small army of … well, singles, I guess; singles as far as the eye can see, engaged in a kind of predatory cakewalk.
“Beat It” is blaring out over two mammoth loudspeakers and setting forth a portentous anthem that seems to underscore the festivities. A few couples try to dance, but for the most part the early arrivals — numbering well into the hundreds — are poised to check out the merchandise.
And the merchandise, so to speak, is displayed like the boat show at the New York Coliseum. Clusters of unattached men and women have positioned themselves strategically along the great hall, posed just so with their blue-jean shanks sunk into the sofas, legs crossed, and arms draped circumspectly over the chair backs with fey mannequin detachment. Smiles convey deceptively mixed meanings while goblets of white wine sway exotically in free hands, never touching the molten surface of high-gloss heavily varnished lips.
Here under one roof we have the available-elite, the ready-willing-and-able, the commitment-conscious who yearn for — oooohh, that word — relationships (say it again: relationships, aaahhhh). Yet messages are flying around the room at a speed faster than if sent by Federal Express, and they all say the same thing: Hands off, buster; this is strictly a preview of what’s to come.
It’s into this pageant I stumble. Dragging my suitcases through the fray, I prepare to trudge conspicuously toward the registration desk — past the suburban beauty queens and the jocks and the socially aloof — when a rouged-up woman in mauve pedal-pushers edges toward me, shifting her chassis into emotional overdrive.
“Here, I’ll take those for you.” she says, grabbing my suitcases. “It’s pretty much of a hike over to registration. You should have parked by the west gate; you would have saved yourself a lot of trouble.” Slinging one of my bags over her shoulder, she maneuvers through the crush of singles with missionary skill. “You do have a car, don’t you?”
“Mind answering a question?” Judy asks me in the Nightcap Lounge. “I just want to know how many times you can come.”
I admit as much, careful to sound as casual about it as possible.
“Yeah? What kind?”
I pull out my rental agreement to double-check. “An ‘84 Mustang.”
“Oh.” There is a long, painful silence before she shrugs and sighs. “Well, I guess that’s okay. By the way, here’s a spare key to my room,” she says, removing a duplicate from what looks like a night watchman’s ring of masters, “just in case we get separated later on.”
“What’s your name?” I ask, more out of convention than curiosity.
“Debbie. So … whaddya do?”
What do I do? Let’s see now, I do the mile in seven and a half flat, a mean roast leg of lamb, and occasionally drugs to take the edge off the ol’ bones — all of which are irrelevant to Debbie’s inquiring mind. For “What do you do?” — or, more specifically, “Whaddya do?” — is, to the Singles Weekender, the most pressing sociological question since “What is your sign?” fell out of vogue. Which is why I wince as I say, “I’m a [pause] writer.”
The confession stops Debbie dead in her tracks. She turns to me, ashen-faced, and for a moment heaven and earth actually seem to stand still.
Then, without pausing, she drops my bags, snatches back the spare-room key, and moves away from me with the dispatch of a mortally wounded gazelle.
Not that I hadn’t expected as much. I mean, a writer. The species hardly registers on the Catch of the Century chart, let alone gleans respect. Word has it that this year’s eligible bachelors come solely from the ranks of hard-core breadwinners: doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, quarterbacks, coke dealers. Ideally, one might happen upon a quarterback who deals coke in the off-season, in which case even small talk is to be contingent upon the promise of marriage. Judging from the qualifications, one must rate my Singles Potential (or SP, if you speak the language) as grim at best.
And yet, the Debbie episode leaves me feeling the least bit put off. The bile in my throat begins to rise as I complete the inquisitive registration form. (It, too, wants to know what kind of car I drive; I put down “Mercedes” lest they show me the door.)
Nevertheless, I’m determined to make the best of it. If anyone inquires about my profession, I’m determined to — lie. Yes! That’s what I’ll do. I’ll tell her I’m a lawyer! Better yet, a lawyer-quarterback in the midst of a residency. (Let her worry about her own coke connection.) That ought to serve me well.
I hoist my bags over a shoulder and trudge off toward my room when a scene near the west-gate entrance catches my attention. I move closer to the revolving door in time to glimpse the frantic figure of Debbie charging outside, stepping out of the path of a Jaguar sedan just in time, as it screeches to a halt in front of the check-in area. Seemingly unfazed by the close call, she edges toward the driver’s door, eyes flashing expectantly, as she ogles the backseat, hoping to catch a glimpse of a black housecalls bag, or scattered legal briefs, or, God help her, even a stash of glassine envelopes.
The driver, a rugged sort in a gray denim jumpsuit, slides out from behind the wheel and pauses by the open door. Debbie takes the cue, and sidles quickly to his side. Their chests touch ever so gently as she gazes into his eyes and breathlessly poses her legendary question: “So … whaddya do?”
“I park cars,” he replies. Then, ignoring her mournful screams, he steps over Debbie’s crumpled body and heads toward a bellhop standing by the doors.
Singles … 5:30 P.M. — IN THE BAR
The Nightcap Lounge is sort of a provisional DMZ located between the lobby and the disco where beleaguered guests can find a dark corner in which to escape the hustling crowd. A combo plays snippets of Billy Joel hits from an elevated bandstand while, all around it, Bloomie’s children swirl cheerfully in a social convention known throughout Western civilization as “mingling.”
Random sections of the lengthy S-shaped bar are packed with amaretto-sodden singles in the process of mingling themselves into submission. I’m more than a bit intimidated by the crowd’s enviable finesse, the small talk, and the seductive stares. Instead of sticking around, I pad off to a relatively secluded section of the lounge, away from the bumper-to-bumper social traffic, in order to spend a few minutes looking over the “Weekend Activities Guide” provided by the hotel’s social staff.
From the look of things, the three days promise to be — according to the program — fantastic. For starters, there’s the fantastic “shim swim” clinic at the indoor pool; a fantastic art auction; a fantastic five-course dinner, followed by fantastic line and square dancing with Miriam (“She’s fantastic!” I hear someone say); fantastic under-the-stars ice skating; the fantastic Singles Champagne Dance; fandiscotastic dancing; and, of course, the ever-fantastic Catskills staple: SHOWTIME IN THE IMPERIAL ROOM starring the fantastic Dick Capri. All, I might add, scheduled for the express purpose of introducing single guests to one another. And that only covers the next six fantastic hours or so.
I’m about to move on to Saturday’s events when I feel a steamy amaretto-scented draft waft frothily along the nape of my neck. I silently curse the hotel’s feeble ventilation system, then reconsider when a faint snurfling sound coming from the same general vicinity prompts me to swivel around on my seat. There, looming not more than three inches from my ear, is the face of an incredible-looking creature burdened with waxy skin and rheumy eyes. The face, I discover, belongs to Judy, a registered nurse in need of a little first aid of her own, who claims there’s nothing like a Singles Weekend to cure one’s primary social ills.
“The weekend sounds pretty … fantastic,” I begin lamely, realizing by now that I’d rather be anywhere else. “Especially the Get-Acquainted Bash on the tennis courts.”
“I think it sucks,” Judy says, inhaling a handful of cocktail peanuts like a hypersonic Hoover. “Mind answering a question for me?”
Uh-oh, here it comes, I think — one more career interview to hurdle. Only this time I decide to head it off at the pass.
“I’m an attorney,” I say, extending my chest with lawyerly pomp.
Judy looks at me like a bewildered owl, then laughs contemptuously. “Yeah? Well, who gives a shit?”
“I just thought …”
“Look, you can save that crap for the Cabbage Patch dolls,” she says, jerking her head in the direction of a few single women working the other side of the bar. “I just want to know how many times you can come.”
My best De Niro expression says, “You talkin’ to me?” — only there’s no one else standing within reasonable earshot.
“Is this a toughie?” she asks, indicating my obvious hesitation.
I promise her that it’s not. It’s just that I’ve never stopped to take inventory of my various orgasmic performances before and need a few seconds to reflect on the facts. A moment later I come up with the only workable approach to a particularly ludicrous situation. “Do you want it in quarts or liters?” I ask.
“Times-per-night will do,” Judy grins, obviously delighted that I’m getting into the spirit of things.
“Hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long,” the naked girl says, curling up on the bed. “Gary, here, has one hell of an imagination when it comes to taking showers.”
I finally give her a ballpark figure, to which she shows neither disappointment nor surprise. Instead, her eyes drift down toward my lap, where the proof of the pudding lies tucked securely behind a well-fortified pair of jeans. “Think you might want to go for a new record?” she asks coquettishly. “Word has it I can inspire the impossible.”
Judy embarks on an abbreviated sexual resume of her ability to make men come, as though she were talking about offshore drilling. “I hit a guy here last spring who got off a good nine loads,” she says.
Stunned by her immodesty, I’m nevertheless impressed by the startling statistic. “Nine?” I gulp, experiencing a steady evaporation of what little confidence I had.
“Then there was the stockbroker at Grossinger’s over the July Fourth weekend who hooked up a little gizmo to the Magic Fingers and it was look-out-Charlie. We might’ve been at Yellowstone the way Old Faithful kept coming off every, hour.” Judy throws out her arms and sighs in a kind of contented grizzly-bear yowl that alarms half the bar. “I don’t know, I think it has something or other to do with the mountain air. So — whaddya say?”
Everyone’s got their approach, I imagine. Debbie’s was “Whaddya do”; Judy works with “Whaddya say.” Of equal desperation, they might be equally interchangeable. Only, soon I am going to have to accept a challenge or settle for being a spectator for the duration of the weekend festivities. Which means it is time to tender a commitment. Why not try the impossible? I think. Better to go down coming than not to come at all.
I let my hand play lightly along the small (if there is such a place) of Judy’s back, too dejected over what I am about to do to gaze once again into her eyes.
“I say, let’s go for broke,” I mutter, pulling her closer. But there seems to be a bit of resistance on her part. She doesn’t answer, nor does she acknowledge the willingness of my hand, which has moved resolutely to her waist.
“Judy — whaddya say?” I ask, resorting to the native tongue. When I finally look up, however, her eyes are engaged in torrid flirtation with two sides of beef in matching Sassons, who seem to have materialized out of the smokey miasma obfuscating the Nightcap. A moment later they’ve pulled up chairs and are discussing the possibility of combining resources in an effort toward establishing a new record for sexual longevity. A tag team, going over the moves.
“Just think of it,” one of them says, “when one of us has to stop and refuel, the other takes over. You got nonstop action here, Judy. We can try for 30 times — 15 apiece. Whaddya say?”
“Whaddya say!” Judy echoes, wriggling free of my hold in a move that would impress Mark Gastineau.
I can’t believe what’s going on. “Judy, Judy — whaddya say?” I plead. “Whaddya say?”
She stops and turns back in my direction. “Excuse me? What was that?”
“Wha … whaddya say?” I whisper.
“What do I say? About what?”
“About going for a new record. About the mountain air.”
“Oh, right — those,” she says, seemingly mystified by my interest. She looks over her shoulder at the two guys whispering madly to each other, then checks her watch. “Tell you what — I should be down before nine. Then we’ll talk about it. Whaddya say?”
“Whaddya say!” I reply meekly.
“Whaddya say, Judy!” I hear from behind, and turn to find the bartender pointing to eight on the clock on the wall.
“Whaddya say?”
Indeed.
Singles … 6:45 P.M. — IN THE HALLWAY
With less than 15 minutes until dinner, take the elevator to the sixth floor in order to shower and dress for the occasion. But getting back to my room is like running interference patterns through a live mine field. Everywhere I turn, a singles guest swings blindly into my path on his or her way to a neighboring room. Doors have been routinely left ajar, and if one is clever enough, a resourceful eye can glimpse images of shapely young women in various stages of undress.
Across the hall, I notice a gorgeous young thing, hardly into her twenties, as she removes a football jersey she’s wearing, then stares at her naked reflection in the bedroom mirror. I inch toward her door to get a better look at what appears to be the makings of an incredible body. She has that lean, leggy look, finely sculpted. Slowly, she begins to knead her shoulders …
This must be the fantastic fuckfest, I think, preparing to make some kind of an entry. After all, she’s left the door ajar. Anyone walking by might stumble into the wrong room. Hell, it’s an honest mistake. I figure I’ve got nothing to lose. What’s more, I can’t help feeling this whole thing has been staged for my benefit. I’m convinced she saw me in the hall and is playing to a happily captive audience.
Just as I’m about to cross the threshold, however, a door opens to the adjoining bathroom and another young, naked couple emerges. The man is on the rugged side, with overly developed muscles that seem almost comical in contrast to his puny member. But his partner is a different story altogether. Tall and shapely, she has one of the most remarkable derrieres I’ve ever seen, and I stop dead in my tracks lest I break up this promising scene. “Hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long,” she says, curling up on the unmade bed. “Gary, here, has one hell of an imagination when it comes to taking a shower.”
“Actually, it looks like we got here just in time,” Gary says, shuffling up behind the girl in the mirror. “Looks like your roomie worked herself into a lather while we were gone.” He nuzzles up against the nymphet ….
This is too much for me to bear. I back up a few steps, preparing to leave, when I realize I am not watching the action alone.
“They weren’t kidding when they promised us ‘a room with a view,’” someone says. Behind me, languishing in an open doorway, is a tousle-haired man grinning with a panoramic show of teeth. “I’m Joey,” he says, coming at me with an outstretched hand. “Looks like we’re gonna be neighbors this weekend. This your first time here?”
I admit that it is, only to learn that Joey and his roommate, Stanley, haven’t missed a Singles Weekend in over two years. “It’s the only sensible place to unwind when you find yourself in a slump. Just ask Stanley — there’s nothing like it to raise the ol’ batting average, if you get my drift,” he says, grabbing a handful of gabardine at his crotch.
Joey is a self-confessed “garmento” from New Jersey who deals in better-quality children’s wear; Stanley’s a pharmacist from New Rochelle. And together they’re the incarnation of Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin’s wild-and-crazy guys: grotesquely patterned shirts, polyester suits, Naugahyde ankle boots — all the accoutrements necessary to woo the “foxy chicks.”
“You gotta remember that style is everything to these women,” Joey advises me, fondling his open shirt collar. “You gotta look sharp to get results,” he adds, with a bit of a swagger. “There’s too much action around, but if you’re not head and shoulders above the competition, you won’t make points.”
“The idea is not to leave here alone,” says a veteran named Beverly, who admits that she’s “paired off” with a different man each night of the last four Singles Weekends.
“Get a load of this,” Stanley says, leading me to an adjoining bedroom door. Dropping to one knee, he jams his eye up against the keyhold and grins appreciatively. “Here, see for yourself.”
There, on the other side of the door, is a couple rehearsing what looks like a scene from the X-rated version of The Pirates of Penzance.
“Those two just met a half hour ago,” Stanley sighs, helping me to my feet.
“Yeah,” Joey concurs. “I was the schmuck who gave her directions to the ice-skating rink. My good neighbor said he’d take her there personally. Guess they sorta took a detour. It just goes to show that you’ve got to capitalize on every opportunity, or learn to go without.”
Stanley informs me that sex in every variation is the unwritten rule of the weekend. “Every man and woman comes with an open mind,” he says, then snickers roguishly, pleased by his unintentional joke. “Most are willing to try anything new. As a matter of fact, I already bumped into a woman at the bar who presented me with an interesting physiological challenge.”
“Was her name, by any chance, Judy?” I ask.
Stanley looks at me with deadpan surprise. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
“The trouble with you,” Joey advises me, “is you gotta unwind — y’know, loosen up a bit. No matter how you look at it, you’re gonna get laid — it’s a fait accompli. So take the pressure off. Relax. Think of the next few hours as taking a stroll down Fifth Avenue, window-shopping. You see something you like, you take it home with you.”
“Yeah,” Stanley says, “and if you’re not happy with the merchandise, you can always return it in the morning. No questions asked.”
Still, there’s a measure of finesse involved in the process, and both men fall back on their own respective strategies. Joey has his best success in the dining room, where it’s relatively easy to have yourself seated next to the woman of your choice.
“I try to take my time about it,” he says, checking his pasty reflection in the mirror. “l work my way around the dining room, noting the location of where the quality chicks are seated. (The last thing you want to do is wind up stuck at a table full of dogs; that’s the ultimate shame.) Then I slip the maitre d’ five bucks to scratch some other guy’s name off that table reservation and put me there in his place. If everything goes as planned, I can have my hand in her mashed potatoes by the end of the second course.”
Stanley tags along for the ride but usually has a difficult time striking up a conversation in the midst of other people. His prescription for love is filled instead by wandering the halls after midnight.
Traditionally, Singles Weekend women who “get lucky” invite men back to their rooms for part of the night — or at least until they’re finished with (as the schedule might say) the fantastic bedroom festivities. More often than not, however, they forget about the clock, and their roommate has to wait it out on the floor in the hall until the door is unlocked.
“So I cruise the corridors looking for the best of what’s left,” Stanley grins sheepishly. He figures that any woman locked out of her room is depressed and more than willing to sleep with anyone … even including Stanley. “And, anyway — I don’t mind rejected women,” he says. “I even identify with them.”
Occasionally, Joey strikes out at the dinner table and takes to the hallways too. “But only as a last resort,” he says. The night’s usually filled with possibilities and places to pick up single women. And if all else fails, they both agree there’s no place for scoring like — the disco.
Singles … 10:30 P.M. — AT THE DISCO
By ten o’clock, the flock of young birds in their off-the-shoulder dresses flit noisily around the entrance to the no-frills disco that resembles a shadowy Romper Room for emotionally arrested adults. Eight hundred predominantly suburban, predominantly upscale singles lurch about to electronically simulated jungle rhythms, thoroughly convinced that this is the most effective way to impress someone of the opposite sex. And rest assured that everyone is pulling out all the stops to do exactly that. This is the weekend’s main event before bedtime — the “final heat,” so to speak — and to the discerning eye, the anticipation is almost palpable.
I take up a position just inside the door to facilitate a bird’s-eye appraisal of late arrivals. Within seconds, the ground rules pertaining to this style of singles courtship are made strikingly clear, with partners-that-be doing their best to prove the old adage that love, indeed, hath no pride. From where I stand, a steady flow of gussied-up men and women file past a makeshift reception line, where they get a shameless once-over before making their way to the floor. I watch with mounting fascination as Phil, a 36-year-old dentist from Connecticut, corners a woman standing alone at the bar and asks her to dance.
“With you?” she laughs, crunching on a chunk of crushed ice. “Honey, it’s too early in the night to make that kind of concession. But who knows? See if I’m still here in an hour.”
He stumbles pathetically away, only to be intercepted by a chesty discophile trussed up in a see-through party dress. “Wanna dance?” she asks.
Phil leers at her truculently. “Get lost!”
“Wanna have sex?”
“I guess so,” he shrugs, looking her up and down as if she were a late-blooming geranium. “Just give me five minutes.” Whereupon Phil retreats to a balcony overlooking the floor to see if it’s worth, as he puts it, “holding out for a more promising-looking partner.”
I feel increasingly like a visitor to some parasexual stockmarket where humiliation is the current medium of exchange. The time-honored negotiations of two partners similarly attracted to each other are nonexistent here. There’s none of the usual smiling, flirting, having a drink, chatting, getting a phone number, or, if you’re really lucky, lining up a date. That brand of leisurely romantic pas de deux might be better likened at a Singles Weekend to a toreador harassing the bull.
Speaking of which, there’s plenty of that stuff around, too. In a span of 20 minutes, I manage to overhear the same guy introduce himself to five or six women, each time embellishing his apprenticeship at Merrill Lynch, until finally he’s just a heartbeat away from a company directorship.
Not that lies of that sort do much damage: The illusion of big money, even if it’s just a faint, fleeting whiff, is aphrodisiac enough to make most Singles Weekend women believe they are one step closer to their dream of marrying into that secure wonderland best characterized by its swell of food processors, VCRs, ultrasonic humidifiers, and two-Subaru garages. The symbols of upwardly mobile respectability loom just over the next breakfast biscuit — if only you can find someone equally as desperate and willing to spend the night with you.
“The idea is not to leave here alone,” says a veteran named Beverly, who admits she has successfully “paired off” with a different man each night of the last four Singles Weekends she’s attended. “It’s all right to be on your own when you check in, or around the pool, and even at dinner. But here, you’re in a do-or-die situation. You’ve got to hook up with a guy or face spending the night — and maybe the rest of your life — by yourself. Or worse: having to make that long walk to the elevators without a man, only to wind up sitting alone outside your room for a couple of hours. Just walk down a few hallways after midnight and see what I mean. Thanks, but no thanks. My philosophy is ‘every girl for herself,’ and, take it from me, it gets pretty hostile in here as the night grows older.”
I see what Beverly means when she spots her roommate leaving with a guy who looks smug enough to actually have a couple bucks. “Who’s the lucky man, Jackie?”
“None of your business,” Jackie says, hooking her arm through one belonging to her prize catch. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
Beverly snickers contemptuously. “Okay, be that way. But I refuse to spend another night suffering while some guy hangs around trying unsuccessfully to get into your pants. One of these days, dearie, you’re gonna have to throw in the towel and give sex a try.”
Jackie yanks her arm free. It occurs to me she’s about to pop Beverly one in the snout. Instead, she stomps fitfully on the floor with both feet and rushes away from us without another word.
The guy watches Jackie depart with a sense of dumbfounded humiliation. “Don’t look so crestfallen,” Beverly says, brushing his shoulder with the back of her hand. “I just saved you from five or six hours of fruitless begging. Which, as I see it, puts you soundly in my debt.”
“How can I ever repay you?” he asks, sliding an arm around Beverly’s waist.
“I’m not sure. But come on up to the room and let’s talk it over.”
A few minutes later, I decide I’ve had enough. I choose to turn in early, buoyed by the inexplicable feeling that I’m much better off right now than any of my fellow participants. Going upstairs alone seems to me like a triumph of the spirit, a victory for self-esteem. Equally incongruous, I realize it’s the first (and last) time I’ve ever flirted with the concept of celibacy and didn’t seriously question my emotional outlook.
Singles … LATER THAT NIGHT …
The corridor outside my room looks like a Catskills branch of the Center for Displaced Single Refugees. So many women sit spread-eagled on the floor outside their rooms, cradling their heads in their hands, that for a moment I imagine they’re sconces that have been placed there in another display of the resort’s garish architecture. A few have fallen mercifully asleep; others wince periodically, reacting in part to the muffled noises emanating from behind the locked doors, in part to the procession of eager couples who step over them (sometimes on them!) on their way to other rendezvous.
I prefer to feign blindness. For any number of reasons, it seems easier not to look directly into the eyes of the vanquished multitude, especially when I realize that under less favorable circumstances I might be sitting there among them. My objective is to simply get to my room without incident and close the door on this decidedly unfortunate chapter in the ongoing saga of courtship hysteria.
“Think of the next few hours as taking a stroll, window-shopping. You see something you like, you take it home with you.”
It occurs to me that I’m the only single man negotiating his way through a mass of wounded women when an arm lashes out and, in one swift action reminiscent of something I saw on “Wild Kingdom,” snares me by the ankle.
“What’s the hurry, tiger?” my captor inquires, uncoiling from her former striking position. Standing up, she introduces herself as Eileen, a physical therapist from Yonkers, and assures me that her professional dexterity carries over into other areas of her life. Eileen, I learn, considers herself a victim of circumstance. She and her roommate both brought men back to their room at the same time earlier in the evening. When the situation of who-is-going-to-do-what-and-where became a bit awkward, it was decided that something had to give. Both men hopped into bed with the roommate, while Eileen was shown the door. Still exasperated by the unfairness of it, Eileen bristles, “They wouldn’t even let me stay and watch!”
“Well, when do they intend to let you back in?” I wonder aloud.
“Never. They’re in for the night — maybe even for the whole weekend.”
“That’s not fair. Where do they expect you to stay while all this is going on?”
Eileen looks up at me and smiles sweetly. “Got any ideas?”
Once we reach my room, Eileen hangs the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. “The maids have a habit of entering without knocking,” she says, expertly drawing the chain across the inside latch.
“I’ll bet they do,” I say, wondering if this serendipitous arrangement doesn’t smack of a little too much advanced planning. It’s impossible to broach the subject, however. The walls on either side of my room are banging with a kind of wanton animal ferocity. “Stereo,” I joke feebly.
Eileen stops her various chores to listen to the racket. “Why does that woman keep moaning ‘Golda Meir, Golda Meir’?” she asks, though I haven’t the heart to tell her the phrase she’s mistaken for the name of the beloved Israeli prime minister is actually “good in my ear, good in my ear.”
“C’mon, let’s get some sleep,” I suggest, suddenly livened by the prospect of engaging in some fantastic sex at the hands of Eileen, physical therapist extraordinaire. After all, wasn’t that why I had traveled all the way up here in the first place? Hadn’t I fantasized for weeks about a nightlong Catskills bacchanal (even if the object of my desire had been more on the order of Rachel Ward than — well, Eileen)? Didn’t I owe it to myself to partake in the festivities along with the rest of the singles crowd?
You bet I did.
I strip down to my Jockeys. Eileen steps out of her dress in one perfect motion and displays a voluptuous side of her that I’d barely had time to notice in the hall. I am about to slip into the bed when I notice Eileen rearranging the pillows on the couch. That’s when it dawns on me that, somewhere along the way, something got lost in the translation. “Well, let’s go,” I say, holding up the covers in a gesture that translates to: “There’s plenty of room here for the both of us.”
Instead, Eileen collapses on the couch. “You mean, you thought this was leading to casual sex? Here? And with someone I don’t even know?” Her voice rises in pitch with each successive syllable until it’s a whiny shriek. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
As you might imagine, we have heard many, many swingers stories over the years. Considering our circle of acquaintenances, we can probably even believe most of them. The best swingers stories, though, come from those of us who have been on set when a movie company decides to shoot at a local swingers club. An amazing number of professional porn performers get remaarkably creeped out by having sex in a place where people come there to do it all the time, clearly bolserting the theory that humans are weird, weird animals. Should you wish to do your own research, however, we do encourage it. Just tell us the stories later.
