The Past part 2: Flyers

the names used in this post, in the whole retelling of this tale, have all been changed in order to hide true identitities

I have mentioned before that Hub worked in professional sports. It got him certain benefits and perks in a lot of places. One such place is a bar that I will refer to as Flyers. That is, of course, not the real name, but it was located near the airport and was a favorite hangout for pilots and others in the airline industry so I think the name fits the place.

Flyers offered Hub free drinks and food. Having anyone associated with the team in the bar was good for business. Where the players and staff went, the fans followed. Hub and I didn't frequent Flyers much during the season though. It was off-season, when the fans were conveniently involved in watching a different sport and off stalking those players, that we chose to hang at Flyers. Over zealous, star struck fans were not our favorite people to spend time with, for what I think should be obvious reasons. So, it was in the off-season that we would spend most Saturday nights at Flyers.

In our time there we got to know a great deal of people. There was of course the Flyers staff who were wonderful people that took great care of us whenever we were there. Then there were the pilots. We had gotten to know a few of them pretty well. One of them, Brent, was an insanely funny guy who became a good friend of ours who we would actually hang out with outside of the bar. There was only one other person, Jake, that we had ever hung out with outside the bar, and he was an incredibly sweet man who became like a bit of an older brother figure for us. (he declared himself too young to be an uncle or father figure) Then there was Terry, who was also insanely funny, a loud and proud of it bisexual, and was at Flyers enough to be considered part of the decor. We never hung out with him, except at Flyers, but he was always part of our group when we were there. Some of the others were good drinking buddies, but not anyone we would hang out with anywhere else. Still, when we went to Flyers it was a bit like Norm walking into Cheers. People knew our names and were glad to see us there.

Then there was the karaoke crowd. Saturday nights were by far the most fun to be at Flyers and it was all due to the karaoke. I do not sing, and neither does Hub so that is not why we were there. No, it was the entertainment value that brought us in. It was not that the people were good, but rather the fact that they were so bad, that kept us coming back. We would sit in the back corner with our pilot buddies and trash talk the karaoke singers. It was how our little group had fun. That and jaeger bombs.

The karaoke crowd was almost always the same people. There was the occasional newbie, or random person who had just happened to wander in. Mostly though, it was the same people week after week, singing the same songs and putting their own "funk" on it. Some even had choreographed their own dance routines. That added to the entertainment value for our little group.

All the groups got to know each other. So there we would be, the Flyers regulars... the pilots, the karaoke people, and Hub and I all hanging out on Saturday nights. Nothing ever really seemed to change until one day when the couple I now refer to as the "swinger singers" came in.

The night they breezed in the door, most of us knew there was something different about them. I don't know what it was that raised our awareness about them, but everyone at our little table in the back felt it. Our group watched them all night, fascinated by them for reasons none of us understood at the time. They stayed for a couple of hours and then headed out the door with a wink and a wave in our direction as they left. The air in the room almost seemed to change and the night was suddenly just a regular Saturday night once more.

The SS couple became regulars at the bar themselves. They got to know everyone and mingled throughout the room. They were extremely flirtatious, and both of them were very good looking. He had a way of slipping in beside me at the table or at the bar and talking like he'd known me for years. She just screamed of sexuality and flirted with everyone, man and woman alike.

One Saturday they didn't show up and that made them the topic of conversation for our little group. Terry was the first to say out loud what we'd all been thinking, "they're swingers!" and went on to list the many reasons he knew it to be true. We had all seen the signs and felt the same way. It was Terry and Brent though, who had actually witnessed them leaving the bar with another woman one night and had been dying to tell us all for a couple of weeks.

That night after we had gone home Hub did exactly what I had expected. He declared that people who would be up for what we had been fantasizing about for the past few months had just "naturally" appeared in our lives. Still feeling the excitement of a night out, and the effects of a couple jaeger bombs, I agreed with him. Our fantasy talking that night evolved into planning a conversation with the Swinger Singers.


Disclaimer: The re-telling of these events from my past are not meant as an endorsement of the swinger lifestyle. It is not meant to glorify swinging in anyway. In fact, the whole story is meant to demonstrate how swinging can destroy a marriage and ruin the love and trust between two people. I also want to make people aware that just because someone goes along with this lifestyle it does not mean they truly want to do so. They may be doing it simply to make their partner happy, while it is slowly eating away at their own soul.