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PART 1: ADAM

Adam: I grew up as a straight-laced Christian. I was active in the church, a Boy Scout, athlete and really a model child. My weakness was always chastity, which was a problem in the church because morality (chastity) is probably the thing the church likes to control the most. The church brainwashes its youth to feel dirty any time youth has any sexual contact with the opposite sex. Necking? Nope! Petting? Hell No!! Masturbation? Que a year “Probation”, and Sex? You might as well fashion yourself a scarlet letter and buy a bus ticket to hell because hell is the process you’ll go through repenting of that sin. The church goes through such great lengths to make sure the youth practices chastity that when kids screw up, they either carry that extreme (and I do mean extreme) guilt with them until they decide to repent or worse contemplate suicide because they feel like their lives are over and have ruined their family name.
 

Part 2: THE RELIGIOUS FALLING OUT

When we moved to New England, things started to change for us. We had a hard time fitting into the church and began questioning a lot of things. It all came to a head one Sunday in early 2016 when I was pulled into the Pastors office. Standing in his office dead tired just having flown a red eye in that night and going straight to church, he did something that was the straw that broke the camels back. We have not and never will let anyone or anything come between the bond that we have. From that moment on, the church was no longer a church that could keep families together forever, it was a church that was threatening to tear a family apart by using the same brainwashing and pressure it uses with kids. Walk the straight and narrow or else…..
We walked away, not looking back. Belle had no guilt about walking away because she always had serious questions about the church. I, on the other hand, struggled with it. Remember while I wasn’t an extremist, I did walk the straight and narrow save some morality and tithing issues. I feared my family going off the rails and losing their North Star, but I also knew the brainwashing toll the church had taken on me.

Part 3: ASHLEY MADISON

When Ashley Madison had their user database hacked and the 55 million accounts linked, Belle and I began to ask the question “Are humans really meant to be Monogamous? Now neither of us were on Ashley Madison or any app like that, but it got the conversation going.  At the time I was taking a Sociology class that was exploring the influence religion had on marriage and why churches created it.  We also explored what was considered cheating?  Was it anything outside of the relationship?  What if was done with full knowledge and consent? What if it was done together?
That conversation led us to realize we were much more open to playing with others than we ever realized, so we started exploring the options.

Part 4: LET'S GO CHECK IT OUT (Club Nasty)
-By Belle:

Making the decision to realize a fantasy was not as easy as we thought it would be. Adam showed me the website for ‘Club Nasty’ a few times but wrapping my head around actually going was another level of nerve I didn’t have. There were a few times we thought about it but actually making a choice to get an overnight sitter, book a hotel, make the drive and pay the cover charge was overwhelming. It meant we were doing this. We were opening ourselves, our marriage, up to outsiders and whatever this new lifestyle would bring. Making that choice weighed heavy on shoulders but ultimately we did just that.
The drive out to the club seemed to flash by as anxiety blazed through me. Our arrival at “the club” didn’t do much a quail the flush of emotions swirling through my body. Said “club” wasn’t a club at all, at least not the type of club one thinks of when going out for a night of drinks and dancing. Club Nasty was an old house converted into a swinger dive with a large dirt parking lot encircled by evergreens. At first, things didn’t seem too shabby as you walk out from amongst the cars a large planked deck with wrap around stairs welcomes you into the back doors of the converted home. The deck was complete with an outdoor bar, bbq grill and a large inset hot tub that would comfortably seat 8-10 people.
Walking in the back door and into a four-season/screen room, we were greeted by an older lady who took our names and checked to see if we were on the list. She then took our money and pointed out the spread of food on a couple of folding tables we had passed on the way in. We nodded and thanked her, and the awkward silence to followed signaled we were on our own from that point on so we decided on a self-tour around the place, which was pretty empty at the point so we must have been a little too early.
From the screen room, we stepped into the kitchen/dining area that was flanked by a living room on the left and a hallway that lead to the ‘master bedroom’ on the right. The living room set up with one very used microfiber couch, a fireplace and a large flat screen tv sitting on the mantel and not much else. We didn’t investigate the master bedroom at all as I was already extremely uncomfortable with the atmosphere so we the door opposite the master hallway down to the basement. This is where swinging stopped dead in its tracks for me. The basement was a low ceilinged space divided into several small bedrooms just large enough for a queen sized bed to fit in each one. The mattresses in each room sat on the ground atop shag carpet that must have been installed sometime in the mid to late ’60s. The trim and paneled walls also hinted at the last remodel the space had undergone. It felt dank and sleazy to be horrifyingly honest. I could not imagine being naked in any portion of this house let alone having sex there.
I was really good at that point. I was nervous and now creeped out on a whole new level of creep that I wasn’t previously aware existed inside me. Adam, however, wanted to give it a little more time since there wasn’t really anyone there yet, so he suggested we at least check out the couples and have a drink to loosen up a bit. So we climbed the stairs back up to the kitchen, and since there still wasn’t anyone there, we made our way out to the deck and had a drink and talked about what we just saw.
After some time and more people showed up we decided to go back inside to check out the scene. Walking in a second time was unlike the first. This time the kitchen had two couples standing around the tiny center Island and you would have thought we barged in and asked them all to step aside for the queen. The women looked me up and down with a level of disgust on their faces that you usually see in movies, fictional, drama-filled, made up stuff to increase the drama movies. I turned to the living room to find a place to retreat to and hopefully a friendly face. It was a foolish notion to think there would be such a place. In the living room, I took up a seat on a very deflated couch while Adam went to grab us another drink (which we had left in the basement fridge). While Adam was gone, I was being figuratively undressed by a single male that was standing by the fireplace. His gaze was steady, and he was making eyes at me that said, “I’ve got dibs on you.”, which was possibly not at all what he was thinking, but that what I thought he was thinking and I was so not okay with that thought!
When Adam got back I told him I was not feeling it, he encouraged me to give it a while, and if I wanted to go, we could go. With porn now playing on the huge tv and the eyes of the room feeling like they were on me, I wanted to go or at least go outside. We went back to the deck to talk and process some more but I was done, there was no going back in that house. My skin was crawling at the thought of anyone in that house touching me or me touch anything in that house!
We left…and drove to the only restaurant that was open at the time, Applebee’s.  We sat there processing what we had just seen and pretty much squashed swinging forever.  On our drive back to the hotel we stopped at an adult toy store and bought some toys, drove back to the hotel and had sex, just the two of us…then promptly fell asleep because we party like rockstars, that just turned 80.