Thomas, Sarah and I were simply friends who did a lot of things together because we were completely comfortable with each other and genuinely liked each other's company. When we were together and Thom spent the weekend, it was almost like family, and this was long before Thom became Sarah's lover. After Thom became Sarah's black lover, the atmosphere was still comfortable and family like. Thom making out with Sarah and making love to her was as natural as me doing it. I enjoyed watching the great pleasure Thom could give Sarah, and I enjoyed her enjoyment of Thom's lovemaking.
We innocently slid into wife Sarah taking a regular black lover, no planning, no knowledge of such a "lifestyle", barely even aware of the "wife swapping" or "swinging" beginning to sneak into public consciousness back in 1978. There was no internet, no B2W, nothing really to clue us into "alternate marriage lifestyles".
Sarah and I were a totally normal, young couple married only 3 years, no children at the time. We had moved away from the Southern Mountain area around the borders of VA, TN & NC where we both grew up, and were living in coastal NC at the time because of a career move.
In Christmas 1976, ( our 2nd "Married Christmas"), we'd went home to visit the folks and then returned to coastal NC. Sarah was very angry to learn that our new co worker Thomas, the only black guy on our crew at the time, had been totally ignored during the holidays by the rest of the guys, and left alone. From that point onward Sarah always made sure to invite Thomas FIRST to any fun or holiday gathering we put on for the guys and their wives/girlfriends.
I know its an odd concept for those not of the Mountain South, but even though Sarah and I were raised that race mixing was "wrong" and that interracial sex is TABOO, our religious upbringing taught us that all are children of God and are brothers and sisters in faith. So in an odd way, that teaching is not racist at all, even though the TABOO makes it seem so on the surface. Anyway that is why Sarah was so angry at Thomas being left out over the holidays. Sarah was of strong faith as a Baptist, while I was more agnostic. But I respected her faith and attended church with her almost always, because I did genuinely like many of the people there.
Anyway that is how the friendship with Thomas started, and that friendship grew stronger and stronger thru the next 18 months until Thomas and Sarah became regular lovers. Initially there was no hints of sexual attraction at all until we had known Thomas for about 15 months or so. Sarah had really gotten to know Thomas well by spending a lot of time with him, and Thomas was at our home a lot, along with our other co workers. So Sarah and Thomas not only really clicked with each other, but there was also a natural comfort level between them that made them totally at ease together. Plus I think Thomas was really touched at how angry and concerned Sarah had been over the crew forgetting about him over the holidays!
It was sometime after 15 months of friendship with Thom that Sarah began feeling uncomfortable around him, an internal feeling to her only, as Thomas never acted toward Sarah in any way other than friendship. It took me a bit of time to see it but I began to recognize that Sarah's discomfort toward Thom was because she was physically sexually attracted to him, but mentally in total denial of that attraction. Her upbringing would not let her admit the truth of her attraction. It took weeks turning into months of discussion between Sarah and me, until we both worked out the truth of her powerful sexual desire for Thomas, and how to deal with it.
The next problem was telling a stunned Thomas the truth and working out with him how to handle Sarah's sexual desire for him. Thom had grown up in the Coastal NC South and was also well aware of the Southern TABOO, and never in his wildest dreams thought his friend's wife would desire him, and that desire would become reality. So Thom had to work out things in his mind too, before he and Sarah finally became lovers. I won't go into the night it happened as I've already told the details several times here on B2W.