Angella Johnson: VIEW FROM A BROAD
`Please let him touch your breast. They’re beautiful and he loves breasts,” pleaded the light-skinned black woman sitting on a sofa beside me and my partner. Her boyfriend, a bespectacled German engineer, was draped over the side idly plucking at my suspenders.
In a room down the hallway of this large suburban mansion, several couples were openly engaging in a Caligula- esque display of carnal knowledge, and I was being invited to join in.
How on earth had I got myself into this menage-a-quatre? This den of iniquity? It was all the fault of my editor (living vicariously no doubt), who had insisted that I attend a swingers’ party for couples.
I think it was Woody Allen who said: “Sex between two people is a beautiful thing. Between five – it’s fantastic!” Yet I had an inordinately hard time trying to find a man to accompany me on this journey into sexual fantasyland.
You would have thought it was every male’s dream, but no. My three white colleagues (I anticipated that a black man might have problems getting in) conveniently had something to do on that Saturday night.
When one was finally cajoled into being my “partner”, he dissolved into such a state of nervousness that at the last moment I was forced to co-opt a friend. But he too suffered from performance anxiety and was trembling like a puppy when he arrived at my house.
“Will they expect me to have sex with anyone? I’m not taking my clothes off. I need a drink,” babbled my date, tugging at his tie.
Our destination was the AAA Swingers Club in Bedfordview, eastern Johannesburg. I had been told by owner John Moller, a former Eskom sales consultant, that this would be the party of the year.
“The theme is priests, pimps and prostitutes. You can come in costume or just wear a sexy black cocktail number,” he said over the phone.
I felt like a nun at a witches’ convention as we entered the house tucked away at the end of an upmarket cul-de-sac. I wondered if the neighbours had any idea what went on as I handed over the R300 entrance fee.
Our first hint of what lay ahead was a woman wandering across the foyer, wearing nothing but five strings of beads across her breasts and a skirt short enough to reveal her appendix scar. Beads of perspiration broke out on my date’s brow.
A beautiful, dark-haired temptress in a skintight dress took my phone number and directed us to the bar where drinks were free and a glittering array of scantily dressed women tottered around in high heels.
At the covered pool area, some 30 people sat expectantly at white plastic tables. Balloons filled the S-shaped pool, cut in half by a bridge that doubled up as a stage, and colourful Christmas tinsel swinging from the roof added to the festive mood.
It was like being at a white shebeen. Regulars strolled in like they owned the place, dispensing hugs and kisses. Some even had their seating reserved.
“You’re looking great, doll,” said a woman to her friend in a brief silver concoction.
“Love the dress (or what there was of it),” said another.
“I see you got a babysitter then,” proclaimed yet another.
They were mostly middle-aged and dressed to theme in sluttish attire. Conservative middle-class people from the suburbs (luxury cars filled the street outside), salespeople, secretaries, teachers, engineers and civil servants (no doubt big on family values).
But this was no Rotary meeting. Porn videos playing on two television screens were a constant reminder, if needed, of precisely what we were there for and offered suggestions of positions I recalled seeing in a gymnastics classes.
I had expected race to be an issue, but spotted several Indian couples, two leggy black women sporting elaborate long hair-weaves and later in the evening the German arrived with his partner. There were no black men.
Guests were all ages, shapes and sizes from the body beautiful to the obese; from the gorgeous to the frankly ugly.
“So what did you think about it?” asked a portly businessman from Sunninghill, who was sitting at the table near us. “We’ve been coming here for a year. It’s scary at first, but then it gets very exciting and you meet some great people.”
He claimed swinging had saved his nine- year marriage. “It freshens things up and keeps sex exciting if you live out your fantasies every now and then.”
Live entertainment followed the canteen-style dinner. Moller, in a scarlet habit and flashing fishnet stockings, introduced male and female strippers.
“Triple A is the only place you can let your hair down and be yourself,” he shouted between a barrage of crude jokes.
He started the club six years ago and says he has more than 700 active couples – about 50 attended the party. “We try to keep it upmarket by screening guests [so how come I wasn’t?]. Not race, but class. Between 60 and 70% are professional people.”
Some want to try out a threesome, some want to swop partners, others just want to watch. There is no pressure, and single males are not admitted.
If things get too rowdy, bouncers mingling with guests quietly eject people.
“It’s better than running around and cheating,” says Moller, who swings with Tristan, his business partner and wife of 11 years – but never at their own parties.
Two stoic-looking black women in overalls walked around picking up empty glasses and plates or wiping baby oil off the stage after the strippers.
Afterwards I went into the kitchen and asked one, whose name was Bella, whether she was shocked at the antics. She smiled shyly and continued to rinse glasses. “Oh, I’ve been here three years so I’m used to it now. But believe me, I’ve seen a lot.”
On the way back to my table I bumped into a young woman (mid-twenties) in a sporty black lycra dress swaying from intoxication. She and her boyfriend were first-timers.
“It’s fab eh?” she slurred.
I later spied them (he was fully clothed and her skirt was wrapped around her waist) lying on a mattress in the voyeurs’ room, his face buried deep in her crotch. And she seemed like such a nice girl.
In the other corner an older couple were in the throes of full-on sex, while several couples sat on sofas watching with benign smiles on their faces. I was dragged away by my red- faced date (honestly, this guy was cramping my style).
Women appeared to be more comfortable than men in this environment, as if celebrating the dazzling realisation that chastity has always been a self- serving male invention.
Cathy, a 30-something chartered accountant, sees it as a way of exploring her sexuality.
“It was very liberating to find my own parameters instead of the ones set by society. I’m very much into eroticism and excitement.”
Luckily husband Phil, who runs his own consulting firm, gets off watching her having sex with other people. “I’m a bit of an exhibitionist. It may take some courage, but I don’t think people should sit on their fantasies,” Cathy added.
There are two voyeur’s rooms – the largest with a huge bed in the centre, surrounded by four mattresses on the floor and sofas lining one wall. I’m happy to report that despite the cavalier sex, condoms (and baby oil) were supplied everywhere.
The house throbbed with sexual energy as music pumped out from powerful speakers while couples fondled and groped on the dance floor to songs with lyrics like “I’m feeling horny, horny, horny”.
Actually the music was so good that I had to stop my date jumping around like a kangaroo on speed by reminding him that we were supposed to be hunting for casual sex. Dancing was intended to be a prelude only.
Which was what the German (remember him?) craved as he slipped his business card down the front of my dress and copped a quick feel.
“Would you like to go to a private room,” he leered.
I saw panic in my companion’s eyes and made a polite excuse. But it had been too close a shave. He immediately insisted it was time to leave.
Ah well, I could always go back at a later date.