You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead (17 page)

The year we went was no different, and after three desultory circulations around the room and one particularly unsavoury encounter with an obese man dressed as an X-rated Garfield, we were on our way out the door requiring a stiff drink and a hose down when we found something that caught our eye.

A couple in their late thirties were standing next to a booth labelled
MELBOURNE'S MOST EXCLUSIVE PRIVATE
SWINGERS NIGHT
. The man had dyed blond hair and stiff, high-waisted jeans. He eyed us with interest as we stood in front of the booth, glancing through their advertising material and business cards. His wife was a tight little package with a broad, engaging smile and warm eyes, like a sexy primary school art teacher.

‘
Soooo
. . .' She started over in our direction. ‘How are you two enjoying Sexpo?'

We lied that we were enjoying it just fine. And she?

‘Oh, I
love
this time of year. Meeting new people. It's like a big party!'

Her enthusiasm was hard to fault. She really did seem to be having a good time. Her eyes darted around excitedly, and we had the distinct sense she may have been waiting for someone better looking than us to come along. When her social flitting swept her off in another direction, shrieking hellos at a pair of familiar faces, the man who through polite mumbles identified himself as her husband pressed a pamphlet into our hands and disappeared after her like a crowd controller at a Britney Spears concert.

The pamphlet itself was basic, made clearly from a home office computer printer and featuring ornate purple borders, the type you might see on a year nine project about the origins of Valentine's Day. Inside were further, more detailed introductions to ‘your hosts' Alan and Cara, as well as a mild description of what a night at Melbourne's most exclusive private swingers night might entail. (‘Discretion assured—a safe, secure, relaxed party, where couples can explore each other in a supportive, sophisticated environment.') There was an email address and a mobile telephone number with a request not to call ‘during business hours'.

We decided to contact them. Obviously we made this decision when we were drunk, two days later, when the stain of Sexpo had begun to recede. It can't have been
that
bad, we told ourselves. And they seemed like nice people. Open-minded. It couldn't hurt to find out a little more.

‘We're not committing to anything,' I said to my boyfriend, topping up my enormous glass of wine. ‘It's just a phone call. We're just
curious bystanders.
'

Given that we'd already exchanged face-to-face pleasantries at Sexpo it was presumed we'd be swept into Alan and Cara's sacred circle and welcomed with open arms and legs, possibly given a hero's welcome and ticker tape parade. It was not so. Getting information about their swingers party was going to be more difficult than translating the rantings of a crack-addicted Welshman. Alan and Cara demanded photographs (‘Full face headshots please, no hats, masks or wigs'), money up front (‘Fifty dollars per person, to be transferred into account name
PLAYFUL FRIENDS PTY LTD
'), and to converse with us at length on the phone before they'd even begin to impart important details. What difference our telephone personalities made at this point was anybody's guess, but we dutifully called (outside of business hours) and took turns talking to Alan, like teenage girls passing the phone between them when pranking the school heartthrob. Alan had a list of questions, mostly for me.

‘Have you done this sort of thing before?' he said. ‘What aspects of swinging interest you the most? Are you a sub or a dom?'

It was like a quiz in
Cosmo
's sealed section. I felt deeply embarrassed about being put on the spot, and concerned that any wrong answer might result in a mocking bark and abrupt hang up.

‘We haven't decided to commit to anything yet,' I wanted to tell Alan after every probing question. ‘We're just curious bystanders.'

I guess they were just trying to ascertain that my boyfriend wouldn't turn up on his own, leeringly holding a bottle of wine and shrugging ‘She got an urgent job in Tokyo and couldn't make it. Now, where's all that free pussy I've heard so much about?' which apparently was an all-too-common sin in the swinging world. Men would place photographs of themselves with a beautiful looking woman on adult websites, promising to bring their better halves along for long and involved games of Pin the Penis on the Vagina, only to duck in on the night with a shifty expression and some lame excuse about how sorry Leanne was she couldn't make it. These women never existed, they were simply a front to get erect men into couples-only parties, and Alan and Cara were doing everything in their power to prevent such a thing occurring at their private event.

‘They don't want a
cock forest
, you see,' my boyfriend later informed me with a solemn expression.

I pictured a roomful of sad-looking men standing around with their erections undulating lightly in the breeze,
wisha
wisha wisha
, like Enid Blyton's magic trees.

When Alan and Cara finally believed that I was a real human being and not simply an animatronic device tricked up with a lady's voice, they proffered us an invitation to their next party. It was to be held in three weeks' time, and we were emailed a list of the rules we simply
must
adhere to if we were to be allowed entry.

These rules, we saw, were strict and numerous.

Unaccompanied men will NOT be allowed entry.

Small amounts of alcohol are permitted (no red wine please13)
but we are a DRUG-FREE event and anyone found breaching the
rules will be asked to leave IMMEDIATELY.

‘Why no red wine?' I asked my boyfriend.

‘I don't know. It might spill on the carpet or something.'

‘It might spill on the
carpet
? What about all the semen??'

There was also the matter of ‘small' amounts of alcohol. In our world, ‘small' meant a bottle of wine every weekday. And why would anybody want to watch a stranger bounce their testicles up and down on their wife's face if they weren't at least mildly intoxicated? Liquor was an equaliser, a relaxant, a gateway to recklessness. Without liquor we would be sober and uptight. We would be curious bystanders.

Dress code: smart evening wear ONLY, with ‘scanties' and lingerie
for the ladies and briefs/boxers for the gentlemen later in the
evening
.

We knew Alan and Cara's idea of ‘smart evening wear' differed wildly to ours. We had seen their photographs online. They tended to favour satin corsets and leather thongs. My boyfriend's idea of smart evening wear involved suit pants and his only pair of Converse without holes.

And finally: NO MEANS NO!

It's not as though I was afraid of being naked in public.

When I started working for a certain youth radio network I felt it only right and fair that I preface my potential employment with a warning regarding my shady past. ‘
You
should probably know
,' I told my future employer with downcast eyes and what I hoped was a genuinely humble expression, ‘
there are naked photographs of me all over the internet.
' I told them in part probably because I wanted them to think they were getting a real livewire, a tearaway handful at least seven times more fun and interesting than Jane Gazzo; someone who would provide value for money and always keep them on their toes (within legal boundaries). Also I supposed that I feared the moment partway through the year when I felt a tentative tap on the shoulder and heard the words ‘Listen, we just got a phone call from Sydney Confidential . . .'

We must all learn a lesson from all those poor idiotic
Big
Brother
contestants who walk into a camera-laden compound with a secret and exit two months later to find that a blurry photograph of them topless astride a Weber barbecue has been taken from a
Picture
magazine back issue and plastered all over the newspapers. There were to be no surprises for my employers, no threatening missives made out of cut-out letters arriving in the post and promising to ‘reveal all' unless certain demands were met. I would tackle this head on, with aplomb, and with the unspoken and vainglorious suggestion that by posing for naked photos I was somehow that little bit more interesting than anybody else ever.

‘She's been a
naked model
?' I imagined my bosses exclaiming to themselves in scandalised tones once I'd swanned from the office in a cloud of deluded bohemian self-worth. ‘Aren't we desperately lucky to have acquired her wide-ranging and provocative talents? Aren't we getting ourselves the real deal? I can't wait to hear what she has to say about the new Dizzee Rascal single between 6 and 9 am weekdays!'

I left the pictures online for a long time because I couldn't really care less who saw me naked. The most humiliating photograph was one that showed me rolling around in my underpants pretending to read
The Australian
. The too-tight knickers didn't cause me major concern, but there's no way I wanted to be seen in public reading anything that Greg Sheridan is paid to write op-ed pieces for.

My parents were often naked, and in conversations with friends even now I'm surprised to hear tales of their folks scurrying self-consciously from room to room covering their flesh with oversized beach towels or stretchy t-shirts. Our household was a naked one and I had grown up with a fairly broadminded view on the human body. I found sexuality curious rather than titillating—what people chose to do and why in the privacy of their own homes was of great interest.

Bored one night, my boyfriend had filmed me giving him a blowjob. We watched the footage back together, silently. It wasn't an erotic experience by any stretch of the imagination. I had never seen myself at that angle before, not least partaking in that particular activity. It was like getting the chance to see yourself onstage. After the video finished, my boyfriend turned to me.

‘Well? What did you think?'

I studied my face on the screen.

‘I never realised,' I said after a thoughtful moment, ‘how much I look like my dad.'

Alan and Cara's party was in Kew, near my old high school. I looked out the window of the taxi and watched the hall, where I'd danced onstage with Christie McKay to Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes's ‘The Time of My Life' for the subdued enjoyment of the entire junior school, pass by. I wondered how many people from that assembly hall had taken the path that I was taking now. Perhaps some of them would be in attendance tonight, creating a situation that would rate on the awkward scale somewhere between ‘excuse me, I do believe you've taken my umbrella by accident' and ‘darling, that was Mr Grainger from number seven. He said you sleepwalked again last night and shat in their hall cupboard.'

We reassured ourselves, in the cab, we weren't committed to
doing
anything. That we could remain curious bystanders at all times.

‘If you're in any way uncomfortable,' my boyfriend said, holding my hand, ‘we just leave. No questions asked.'

‘We're not committed to anything,' I repeated.

‘Not a thing,' he replied. ‘No contracts, no signatures. Alan and Cara don't know where we live. Let's just go in, have a look around, and see how we feel.'

The house was a tidy, warmly lit terrace. Unobtrusive. We asked the taxi to drop us a little way up the street, as advised.

Please be discreet when entering
, the list of rules had reminded us,
and think of our neighbours
.

My friends Sugar and Hotman lived in Collingwood and were convinced their neighbours were swingers.

‘What makes you so certain?' I asked them.

‘Visitors coming and going at weird hours,' Hotman replied.

‘And lots of
couples
,' Sugar added. ‘And there are all these . . . weird, awkward hellos at the front door. Like they don't
know
each other well. Except from, you know. Kinky web chats.'

This was a lot of assumption based upon what could simply be a Tupperware party or prayer group and I was too kind to ask Sugar and Hotman what the fuck they were doing watching the door of their neighbours' house with such unnerving intensity anyway. The fact is that we always suspect
something
weird is going on with our neighbours. We hear them fight or have sex and then lie awake under the doona giggling to ourselves about their messy, chaotic lives and how lucky we are not to live there or be in that relationship.

I was once in my study at night having a long and involved phone conversation with Gabi and just as we'd moved onto the topic of what we might be eating for breakfast the next morning there was a startling
bang
of someone's fist on the window facing the street. Fearing a gang of rapists, street urchins or John Hopoate admirers I raced to the back of the house in a mild state of panic.

Tim
, I hissed.
I think we're being burgled
.

I had seen the bang as a sort of kindly yet ominous warning; that our home invaders were giving us a chance to neaten ourselves up before they kicked in the front door and beat us to death.

Tim hauled himself reluctantly into action, familiar as he was with late-night proddings along the line of, ‘Tim—I think I might have diabetes', and, ‘Tim—I think the music of Fleetwood Mac may no longer be relevant and that fills me with a quiet yet searing sense of despair.'

‘Nothing,' he said with a long-suffering sigh when he returned. ‘There was
nobody
there. Can I go back to bed now please?'

He later told me he'd received a visit the next day from our neighbour, Brent, who had come over with a sheepish expression.

‘My wife told me to apologise . . . I didn't mean to scare your girlfriend,' he mumbled.