On New Year’s Eve in 2005, Christy and Mark Kidd — six years into living in New York City, but still lonely — found an ad in Time Out for an all-you-can-drink bash. Despite several dubious specifics, including a Garment District location, house music and a $100 admittance fee, they went.
It was sleazy setting replete with red-velvet curtains and moist air. Down a hallway, they came upon an empty room lined with wall-to-wall mattresses.
“It was a relatively normal party,” Mark says. “Except we realized everyone in the back room was having sex.”
They wanted in. It would take longer than you might think.
Their new book, “A Modern Marriage,” is a chronicle of Christy and Mark’s lives as swingers: the group sex, the jealousy, the secrecy, the STDs and hygiene issues, the emotional and psychological dangers.
“The whole situation caught us off-guard,” Christy says.
“We were very naive,” Mark says.
It was an ungodly mess, men and women climbing all over and under each other. – Christy Kidd, recalling her and husband Mark’s first time at a swingers party
Christy is now 43; Mark is 42. They’re native Texans who describe themselves as otherwise square: conservative accountants who live in Kips Bay, whose preferred drink is Dr Pepper and who didn’t know what constituted an orgy.
Both had unstable childhoods — Christy’s mom has been married five times; Mark’s, four — and say they’ve spent their lives searching for the stable relationship they share.
They’ve been married for 14 years, and swinging, they insist, has made their marriage that much stronger.
“This is a love story,” Christy says. “We’re normal. We have the same issues other people do.”
Until today, their friends and family have had no idea — but the time has come, they say, to share it all.
“We’re by no means trying to get people to become swingers, but there’s another way to live that can be amazing,” Mark says. “I would like to think we can touch people’s lives.”
At that first swingers party in 2005, Christy and Mark reacted with revulsion and excitement. The book is written in her voice only; they worried that a man’s perspective would be “too creepy.”
Christy writes about seeing naked women lined up against a wall, with a small man “who looked like an elf … bring[ing] one woman after another to climax.” Partygoers who weren’t having sex were squatting down next to copulating couples to get a better look.
“It was an ungodly mess,” Christy writes, “men and women climbing all over and under each other.”
Mark recalls their reaction differently. “We were so blown away and completely turned on,” he says, “that we wanted to explore more.”
At the party, they only watched, but when they got home, it was all they talked about. By the next morning, they decided to go for it. Nevertheless, they came up with rules, including:
No. 2: We do it only if it’s fun.
No. 8: Never have sex with each other in front of other people.
Writing those rules, they’d find, was easier than keeping them.
Couple No. 1 was found on Adult Friend Finder. They made a date to meet Frank and Wendy (the Kidds have changed all names) at a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen — they didn’t want to run into anyone they might know.
They were shocked when Frank and Wendy showed up, looking a good 15 years older than their profile photo.
But Frank and Wendy were willing to initiate them.
“As virgins, you probably don’t want to do full swap first time out of the gate,” Wendy said.
Christy and Mark had no idea what that meant.
“Full swap is mutual exchange,” she said, “up to and including penetration. Intercourse.”
Wendy advised they start off with “soft swaps” — everything but. Despite their lack of attraction, Christy and Mark agreed to meet Frank and Wendy at a cheap motel way out on Long Island; they were afraid no one else would swap with them.
The next Friday, they met for their date. They had dinner in their motel room, then they all stripped down to their underwear. With no trace of self-consciousness, Wendy went to the hall to retrieve her carry-on bag, then unpacked piles of sex toys.
“We didn’t go there,” Christy says. “If I were to use one, I’d want to be sure it was properly sterilized.”
Undeterred, they bought a bigger bed for their apartment and began hitting sex clubs again. Despite the grimy environs, Christy says, people from all walks of life participate: surgeons, lawyers, brokers, network meteorologists.
Yet these were never the types of people Christy and Mark encountered. Next up were Ken and Lana. They had one night of awkward passion before Lana ripped into Ken about losing his job at a local car dealership.
Then there was the aluminum-siding guy and his wife, a manicurist. But when Mark couldn’t perform, the exasperated manicurist disengaged. Arriving home, Mark was so upset, he slammed the front door in Christy’s face. “Poor guy,” she writes. “I don’t think I ever felt so bad for my husband as I did that night.”
Mark promptly got a prescription for Cialis. At clubs and parties, he swapped his Dr Pepper for Red Bull and vodka and was sure to splash on Kenneth Cole cologne.
Weeks later, back at the wall-to-wall mattress room, they hit it off with a guy who looked like Derek Jeter and his girlfriend. “Before we knew what was happening,” Christy writes, “we were all four having sex.”
They were convinced that they were the most solid couple in the scene, that nothing or no one could break them apart.
“Lovers and life mates,” Christy writes, “who could f–k other people but still keep the faith.”
As for STDs, they say they’ve never heard of swingers contracting anything. “What’s more safe?” Mark says. “Single people hooking up at a bar, or a sex party?”
Little by little, boundaries were erased. One night, Christy found herself alone in their living room, earphones on, watching episodes of “Breaking Bad” while her husband and another man — who had slept with Christy and had enough — tag-teamed a 19-year-old girl in their bedroom.
There was the night at a swingers party when Christy blacked out during sex with a stranger.
When she came to, she heard chants of “Go, Mark! Go, Kate!” and followed them to a room where her husband was having sex, a crowd cheering them on.
Humiliated, Christy joined in the cheering.
“There’s only a few times I’ve felt jealousy that’s overwhelming,” Christy says. “I really just had to — I don’t want to say suck it up — but it was tough.”
The most significant swap of their lives began during a trip home to Austin in December 2007 to visit their families.
Mark called his old high school friend, Brett, who liked to imply that his wife, Terri, was truly wild. It was rumored that they were building a sex room in their new home.
The foursome met up at a karaoke bar in a strip mall. Terri talked about her Kegels and Mark asked if they’d like to get a room.
That night, they swapped partners.
Christy and Mark felt connected to Brett and Terri on a deeper level, and they embarked on a two-year-long “committed” swinger relationship: Christy dated Brett and Mark dated Terri.
They were long distance, so there were regular New York-Austin flights and vice versa; the new couples would go off and do their own thing, for hours or even days.
Brett and Terri had an 8-year-old daughter, Tiffany, and though the Kidds would stay over at the house — and swap with Tiffany home — Mark says Tiffany never had any idea. “We were very careful about any PDAs in front of her,” he says.
Things quickly got complicated. Mark and Terri fell in love; so did Brett and Christy.
Christy found herself more jealous of the experiences Mark and Terri shared — going to museums and Broadway shows — than their physical intimacy.
Mark felt the same: When he saw video of Christy and Brett skydiving together, he had to leave the room.
“It was disturbing. They looked really close,” Mark says. Still, he was in denial about the sustainability of the foursome. “We didn’t realize it was getting as sick as it was,” he says.
They were so delusional that Christy and Mark decided to have a baby. At first supportive, Terri became increasingly distant.
When Christy began in-vitro fertilization treatments, the text and emails dwindled. Christy eventually got pregnant, but miscarried at six weeks.
If all couples did this, there would be less infidelity in the world. I have an outlet if I need it. There’s no reason to cheat. – Mark Kidd
Brett was the first to crack. At the sight of Terri and Mark looping arms on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, Brett ran to the gift shop and began trying to tear his hair out.
Terri announced she wanted a divorce and wanted to be with Mark — which Christy says was never a possibility. “I actually kind of laughed,” she says.
Her carefree attitude — whether genuine or a put-on — was short-lived. Terri disappeared for two weeks; Brett and Mark took it hard. “We both got dumped by Terri,” Mark says.
Meanwhile, Brett was calling Christy constantly. Everyone was jealous of everyone else in the quartet.
“It was a little upsetting on my end, because Brett was obsessing on Terri more than me,” Christy says. “I felt like he unloaded a lot on me about his feelings for her. And I was jealous that he was upset that Terri and Mark were exchanging their feelings. It’s hypocritical, I know, but I couldn’t help it.”
Meanwhile, Brett and Terri’s traumatized daughter, Tiffany, was calling the Kidds surreptitiously. “That was very emotional for us,” Christy says. “She wanted someone stable to talk to.”
Brett and Terri got a divorce — then Mark cut ties with Brett.
“Mark had to make that happen, because I was so invested in the relationship,” Christy says. “It was very hard to cut him off.”
Today, Christy and Mark remain happy swingers. They both tend to live in the moment, which may explain why they haven’t given much thought to the potential fallout from the book, or this article.
Incredibly, they both insist they have never been unfaithful to each other.
Maybe it’s because they insist there’s no downside to swinging, that it hasn’t had any negative impact at all.
“It definitely enhances the quality and intimacy of the sex between me and Christy,” Mark says. “It does not dilute our sex life.”
They also say that seeing their spouse desired by strangers gives them an incredible sense of validation.
They know not everyone will see it that way.
“My mom will probably stop speaking to me for a while,” Mark says. “We’re doing something she’d consider immoral.”
“I think my mom will be shocked,” Christy says, “but I don’t think she’ll judge us.”
Mark, who works for a fashion designer, says a superior found the book online a few months ago, but there’s been no fallout. Christy, who has had her job for just a few months, says her new employers have no idea.
“I’m not ashamed of the book, or what we do,” she says.
Incredibly, they both insist they have never been unfaithful to each other. “We do this together,” Christy says. “I don’t need to cheat on him or go outside the marriage.”
“If all couples did this, there would be less infidelity in the world,” Mark says. “I have an outlet if I need it. There’s no reason to cheat.”
As for the future, they’d like to adopt children one day, and Christy says they’d be willing to take a hiatus for that. But they’ll never give it up for good.
“We’ll do it as long as we can,” Mark says. “I can’t think of life without it.”
Source: NYPost
