By Donna Ferstand

The last time I saw Adam I was 16 and a virgin. He was my first love, and his every adolescent utterance had monopolized the pages of my journal for months. We’d met on one of those “summer in Europe” programs for teens, and on returning home—me to Long Island and him to Manhattan—we saw each other on and off for about a year. It was the epitome of an innocent tryst, replete with ice-cream sundaes, carnival rides and inept groping sessions. Eighteen years and one divorce later, I got an email from Adam. He had Googled me, he said, and he thought it might be fun to catch up.

I called him later that night. We talked about our respective jobs and asked about each other’s families. We reminisced about our two months together in Europe as teens, and then, once we’d exhausted all the requisite niceties of “catching up,” the conversation turned to sex. At the time, I’d been experiencing a post-marriage euphoria and sexual liberation of sorts, accompanied by Anaïs Nin novels, exhibitionistic fantasies and enough porn sites on my favorites list to start my own search engine.

I soon confessed this all to Adam, who, in turn, shared with me his voyeuristic tendencies and his taste for “public play.” He sent me a link to his online dating profile, and I emailed him some recent pictures of myself. He was as funny, charming and handsome as I’d remembered, and I imagined an endless parade of sexual possibilities with him. By the end of the two-hour conversation, I was like a teenager again, as enamored of Adam as I’d been before. Perhaps it was this altered state that prompted me to do what I did next: I agreed to accompany him to a swingers club that Saturday night.

At 8 p.m. on the evening of my planned reunion with Adam, I stood naked in front of my full-length mirror, trying to conjure up images of my 16-year-old self. Although the days of Donna-the-virgin were long gone, I had to admit that Donna-the-soccer-mom didn’t look half bad. Of course, I did have some reservations. My sexual exploration, to date, had occurred within the anonymous confines of cyberspace, and the idea of “going public” was daunting, to say the least. And then, of course, there was Adam. Although I knew we could “never go back,” I was also loath to forever desecrate the idyllic memories of my first love with the present-day perversions of two people nearing the abyss of middle age. Drifting into literary land, I fancied myself a slightly altered version of Edith Wharton’s Archer, sitting on a bench outside Madame Olenska’s Paris flat, 30 years gone by, deciding whether to see her again. In the end, though, Archer chose to walk away. I decided to get dressed for my date.

Since Adam had been to sex clubs before, I was, ironically, the virgin once again. As we discussed the impending event over pre-swinging drinks, our conversation was oddly reminiscent of our teenage exchanges. He assured me that I “didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do.” He wouldn’t pressure me. We could take things slowly or even just watch. I began to relax. We drank, we kissed, I drank a little more, and then we were in a cab and on our way.

My first impression of the club was that it was hardly the den of debauchery I’d imagined: There was a dance floor, balloons along the walls, and a buffet table with hot and cold offerings. A few couples were dancing, while others were watching and standing around the non-alcoholic bar. It was like going to the prom all over again.

“It’s not very crowded,” I observed.

“Everyone’s in the back,” Adam said, taking my hand and leading me past the bar into a locker room.
I changed into the standard-issue white robe and followed Adam down the hallway, gripping a small hand towel like a security blanket. We peered into each little room, where couples performed multiple combinations of every sex act imaginable, stopping to take in one particularly twister-like melee.

“Do you want to go in?” he asked.

“Um… maybe in a minute.”

I noticed a tall, robe-less woman approaching us. She stood in front of me, perched on black stilettos and ran her fingers through my hair. Unsure of what to do with my hands, I placed them on her shoulders. She moved one onto her breast, where it remained, more or less immobile. I felt Adam behind me then, holding my waist as he leaned forward to make out with our new friend. As they kissed, her hands moved down to untie my robe, where she was impeded by the tight double knot I’d made. Within seconds, her partner materialized and, with the skill of a sheepdog, she quickly herded the three of us into a nearby empty room. Adam then disrobed, leaving me the only one still clothed. The three of them eyed me questioningly, and so I did what Adam had told me would be perfectly acceptable: I opted to watch.

As I sat on a chair in the corner of the room and took in the scene, I contemplated my reluctance to join in. It wasn’t that I was opposed to swinging or to any mode of adult, sexual expression, for that matter. Watching the three of them was actually exciting, kind of like watching a virtual-reality porn flick, and I could see myself getting into this down the road. But I realized I didn’t want to have sex with “Adam, et al.” before I’d experienced “Adam singularis.” And although I knew that nearly two decades had passed, I needed to re-create some semblance, however fleeting, of where we’d left off before we could embark on any present-day exploration together.

When the ménage ended, I expressed this to Adam, who promptly invited me back to his apartment. He had some old photos he wanted to show me, he said. I got dressed, and as he showered, I waited near the buffet table, drinking a Diet Coke and making small talk with the couple. She was a school psychologist, she said. He was an attorney. They lived in Westchester and had been married for 16 years.

“How long have you guys been together?” she asked.

I couldn’t resist.

“We met 18 years ago,” I said, adding, “But we haven’t had sex yet.”

In the cab on the way to Adam’s place, my initial giddiness and excitement at our reunion resurfaced. Later that night, after reliving our brief, shared history through old photo albums, we consummated our lengthy acquaintance with some old-fashioned, innocent one-on-one. In the midst of it, all my romanticized, teenage notions evaporated as I realized that Adam-of-the-past would never have compared to Adam-of-the-present. And as I demonstrated to him the many benefits of age and experience, I no longer wanted to go back.