So when they got back to the house I was looking for this, and the way they behaved, the whole attitude, I became quite certain.
And I was glad. That was the surprising thing, that my immediate feeling was joy. I was glad because it would be good for both of them, she needed a man who wouldn’t exploit her, she needed a safe and healthy relationship with a man, and Jerry obviously needed something more than he had with me. And also of course this took away the guilt I might have had for making love with Kay. I can’t explain or pin down all of the feelings I had, but I know that if I had speculated on this in advance I would have thought that I would be very jealous, and actually there was no jealousy at all.
When I saw them, I looked at one of them and then at the other and then I went over to Kay and kissed her on the cheek and said something like, “Poor baby, you’re really leading an active life all of a sudden, aren’t you?”
KAY: I wanted to die. I said, “Oh, Peggy, don’t hate me, we couldn’t help it.”
PEGGY: I said, “Hate you? But I love you, I love both of you.”
JERRY: And we spent hours talking it out, really opening up to each other. At first Kay was convinced she would have to go away, have to leave us. It’s hard to get past your conditioning. But gradually it worked out as we opened up to each other. The thing of it is that each of us wanted a three-way relationship. I loved both of these girls and wanted them both and was delighted that they were having each other, delighted and more than a little turned on by the whole number. Peggy was glad I was the man in Kay’s life and wanted to go on sleeping with Kay herself as well. And Kay loved us both and wanted to go on being part of our family.
KAY: Families that ball together are all together.
JERRY: Right on. So we all wanted this, but the problem was realizing that everybody else wanted it, too. Once we opened up and saw where we were all at, there was really no problem left. All we had to do was keep on keeping on.
PEGGY: The one thing that took a little time happening was for us all to wind up in the same bed at the same time. At first we had a mixed-up scene in which two of us would go off together while the third one read a book or went for a walk. Which was ridiculous but which I would say was also understandable.
Then one day Kay and I were in bed. I was all stretched out with my eyes closed and she was kneeling at the foot of the bed eating me. It was utterly divine. I was like completely passive, just enjoying things, eyes shut, mind floating, when I just sensed another presence in the room. I knew someone had come in, and I opened my eyes and saw Jerry in the doorway, He was fully clothed and he was watching us. But he didn’t see that my eyes were open.
JERRY: I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. Not merely erotic but beautiful in an artistic sense. I don’t think there’s anything particularly attractive in the sight of a man and woman fucking. I think it’s a gas, but I don’t think it’s pretty to look at.
KAY: I do. I love to watch you with Peggy.
JERRY: Call it a personal reaction of mine, then. But I think there is something particularly pleasing to the eye about two women together.
PEGGY: I could see that he had an erection, and I wanted him. And the expression on his face, I knew he was really involved in the whole scene, and I thought, well, why not? Why shouldn’t we all be together?
So I said, “Come on, darling, come join the party.”
JERRY: So I did. I got out of my clothes and went over behind Kay and took her from the rear while she went on kissing Peggy. It was — I can’t even describe how it was. Make up your own ecstatic metaphor.
After that, we all went absolutely sex mad. There are a certain number of things that two people can do in bed, and most couples will try them all in the first few months of marriage. With three, the possibilities for variety are almost endless. From a pure standpoint of physical variety, it just makes an enormous difference when you add a third person to the bed. I don’t have to explain this, it must be obvious to you and to anybody else who stops and thinks about it.
PEGGY: I wonder if it is, though. Obvious to everyone. I know I had never really thought in these terms before, myself. And it really is exquisite. The sensation of being fucked and eaten at the same time. There’s really nothing like it. Of course long before, I had entertained that sort of notion in fantasy. Just in ordinary lovemaking you might do both, you know, first one and then the other, and in your mind you might imagine the two things happening at the same time. But when it really does—
JERRY: I remember one time as the relationship was beginning to swing into gear when the three of us were just absolutely flipped out over each other. We didn’t get out of bed for hours on end, and there were times, you know, you reach a point where it becomes just flesh.
PEGGY: Thanks.
JERRY: You know what I mean. And I would find myself sucking a breast or licking a clit and would suddenly realize I didn’t know whose it was.
PEGGY: You knew it wasn’t yours, lover.
JERRY: True enough. I think it was in one of your books that somebody made the observation that he was convinced God meant people to sleep in threes. I’m always a little leery of people who find God’s will a perfect explanation for their own idiosyncrasies, but in a figurative sense I can dig it in this case, because it’s just so much better.
JWW: The relationship of Jerry and Peggy and Kay seems to have gone on without any emotional strain or any discernible guilt for any of the three partners ever since its inception. I suspect the fact that all three are basically unorthodox in their approach to all facets of life, and that they are not subject to either direct or indirect community pressure, has more than a little to do with this.
The question of offspring from this triangular union has never come up, nor will it; early in their marriage, while he and Peggy were still living in New York City, the two decided that they were not temperamentally inclined to raise children and that both the political climate of the world and the very real problem of the population explosion were such that they felt morally more at ease not having any children. Accordingly Jerry submitted at the time to voluntary sterilization.
There was a brief interlude, he said, when he began to regret the operation. It is reversible in a certain number of cases, and he considered finding out if it could be reversed, and as an alternative he and Peggy considered adopting a child. He attributes this uncertainty to a decline in the quality of their marital relationship — “When things go wrong you start thinking it would be better if you had a kid” — and the impulse passed completely and evidently forever when Kay entered their lives. In a sense, just as Kay was seeking in them a family substitute after her second divorce, I suspect she fills the role of a child in their lives.
JERRY: Not long after all of this between the three of us took shape, I began to be interested in knowing a little more about other people in the same approximate situation. After all, misery isn’t the only thing that loves company. So does ecstasy. I wanted to know what sort of adaptation other trios made, and what motivated them.
I picked up a lot of books on the subject, and of course a large proportion of them were just hoked-up pornography. No case histories in any real sense of the term, and excessive descriptions designed to turn the reader on, and most of them not doing the job very well, either. The typical 42nd Street crap.
But I also picked up some books that seemed legitimate enough, including yours, several of yours, which is how I happened to write to you in the first place, as you know. And for the most part I read about trios that came about as a result of swinging.