Paul wanted to take me up to a playroom straight away but I was very tense and uncertain as to exactly what I would feel when once I got there. We chatted to a Steve and Dawn from Leicester. They were first-timers too. In common with most first-timers, they had drawn lines in the sand which, no doubt, would soon be washed away. They were, for now, soft swingers. They would kiss, touch and enjoy oral sex with others, but the ‘ultimate’ – penetrative sex as an end again – was for one another only.

Steve was in his late thirties or early forties, with thick dark hair, muscles well developed but no longer well-defined, good gleaming teeth which he exposed in a quick, happy smile and beautifully tended hands. She was skittering and tittering because of her nerves. She must have been thirty-five. Her hair was streaked and highlighted to an overall colour of striated honey and piled high on her head. Her body was slim, her hands and legs long. Her breasts were small but the most beautiful teardrop shapes.