THE WIFE SWAPPERS CLUB
Written by Rick Archer

This is a story about the infamous Jet Set International, a Wife Swappers Club that used to exist on Mangum and 34th Street. We will get to the juicy stuff soon enough, but first let's set the scene. 

At the start of 1978, the dance world in Houston was much different than the landscape today 20 years later.  Here we go.

Rick Archer, 2001

Dancing in Houston, Summer 1978 Back in 1978, Partner Dancing had been in hibernation pretty much since the Jitterbug Happy Days back in the Fifties. In the late Seventies, the Houston dance scene consisted mostly of free-style dancing to Disco music.  Western Dancing was virtually non-existent in Houston.  Only a very few people who grew up in small-town Texas knew how to Western dance.  Salsa was unknown in Houston. Swing Dancing was still dormant.  There was some Whip being danced to the Commodores and Barry White, but the numbers were very small.  Then came Saturday Night Fever in 1977.

It is a common misconception that Saturday Night Fever began the Disco craze.  This is not completely true.  Disco dancing and interest in the music had been growing steadily since 1974.  What Saturday Night Fever did was take an emerging phenomenon and turn it into an explosion of near-nuclear proportions! 

SNF hit the movie theaters in November 1977.  At this time I was teaching two one-hour Disco Freestyle and Line Dance classes a week at a dance studio called Stevens of Hollywood (near Shepherd on Westheimer).  

Suddenly the whole world wanted to learn to dance Disco.  By January 1978 the phone never stopped ringing. It seemed like every person in Houston who had never danced in their lives was now interested in learning how to Disco dance.   I was literally in the right place at the right time. There weren't that many Disco teachers in Houston.  Despite the fact that I didn't have that much basic training in dance, I was at least already established as a teacher.   To handle this surge in interest, by the end of January I was teaching group classes every night of the week plus private lessons as well.  Practically overnight I had become a full-time dance instructor.  It took only one month to go from teaching 1 hours a week to 20 hours a week. Thank goodness I was young because I had a real job during the day as well.  I worked both jobs for a year. I was so tired I was ready to drop!  Finally I quit my social work job in January 1979.  My other choice was to die trying.

My motto in the early days of 1978 was to accept every teaching opportunity that came along. Mr. Lance Stevens was the owner of Stevens of Hollywood.  In addition to questions about group classes and private lessons, Mr. Stevens got all sorts of oddball requests as well for teaching opportunities outside his dance studio.  Many of these opportunities he shoveled off to me.

Mr. Stevens loved the Whip and Ballroom dancing, but he hated Disco music and Disco dancing.  Fortunately he didn't mind shuffling this side business to me.  No problem.  I was a vacuum cleaner willing to suck up every opportunity.  

Was I ambitious?  You bet.  This was the first real taste of success I had experienced since finishing college five years ago. 

Take a Walk on the Wild Side - Tales of the infamous Jet Set Club

Of all my gigs however, none was even remotely as strange as my offer to teach Disco lessons at a infamous den of iniquity, the Jet Set International Club, the notorious wife swappers club. 

One day in May 1978 I walked into Stevens of Hollywood. Mr. Stevens had a big grin on his face. "Hey, Rick, I got a new job for you.  You just got an offer to teach at a wife swappers club!"

Well, to be specific, it was Mr. Stevens who had gotten the offer.  But he didn't want it so he passed it over to me.  I bit my lip nervously and asked him what he knew about the place. Mr. Stevens said he knew the place only by its reputation.  Then he just smiled.  He said the man who owned the place - I think his name was Bernard but I might be mistaken - also owned strip joints around the city as well.  To be frank, I wasn't sure this was my cup of tea.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I was no prude, but I was definitely more the monogamous type by nature.  Then I reminded myself I not only didn't have a wife, I didn't have a girlfriend either.  So what did I have to lose? Then I remembered my cardinal rule - accept every opportunity.  Yes, that was my rule - take whatever comes.  Ride the Disco Tidal Wave as far as it would carry me. This was a good philosophy.  This is EXACTLY how I started my career.

So I swallowed up some courage.  After a phone call to set up an appointment, I met with Bernard at his club after my classes that night at Stevens of Hollywood.  The place was deserted!  Apparently the club did thriving business on Fridays and Saturdays which were the prime 'Swap Nights', but things were kind of dead during the week.  That's where I came in.

Bernard wanted Disco lessons as a way to boost attendance at the Jet Set on Thursdays. He said Thursday was one of his slow nights. Judging by attendance on this particular Thursday night, I could certainly see his point. So I agreed to come out the following week and start classes at 10:30 pm. This seemed kind of late to start a class, but it was what he wanted.  I shrugged.  Oddly enough, this late slot it fit my schedule.  I would teach at Stevens from 7-10 pm, get in my car, and race over to the Jet Set.

As I drove out there for my first lesson, I still had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I was game.  Bring it on.  However as soon as I got there I lost almost all of my courage.  After seeing a parking lot that was totally empty on my interview, I was astonished to find the parking lot was completely full.  There was only one possible explanation. 

Sure enough, inside the place was crowded from wall to wall.  Bernard was so happy to see to me, he literally hugged me!  Good grief.  Then he practically carried me into the club.  Bernard had been plugging my Disco class hard, but never expected it was going to work.  Now he was shocked himself to see this kind of a crowd.  But he had made one mistake: he said I was coming at 10 pm.   So for the past hour the crowd had been building.  And for that entire hour, one patron after another had asked the same question: What time's the Disco teacher going to be here? 

But Bernard didn't have my number to call for reassurance.  So he had been frantic that I might not show up!

The dance floor was a raised platform in the exact center of the room about 1 1/2 feet off the floor. It was built in the shape of a circle and resembled a stage.  It had no railing of any kind. I was pretty nervous with so many people.  What would we do if everyone wanted to participate? There just wasn't room!  And what if somebody fell off?

Fortunately most of the guests preferred to watch. The stage was big enough to take almost everyone who wanted to participate and the rest pushed tables back to dance on the carpet.  We started out with some line dances. Everyone was so excited to dance the Hustle!  The night was a roaring success. 

A crowd generates a crowd.  Once the idea got around that there would be people at the Jet Set on a Thursday night, everyone had a reason to show up.  Each week attendance was very strong. 

A curious thing happened to me about a month into the lessons.  One night in the restroom during a break in the lessons, one of the customers asked me if I was married. No.  He frowned.  Did I have a girlfriend? No.  He frowned again.  Did I have a woman of any sort, an ex-girlfriend or something?  Well, not really.  This guy was kind of desperate about something.  His next question took the cake.  Did I have a female neighbor?  NO! 

He wasn't going to give up easy.   Why was he pushing so hard?

The guy was really disappointed.  Finally he explained what the problem.  It seems his wife had specifically sent him in the restroom to set something up with me.  My face turned red with embarrassment.  Then he asked if I had a sister.  NO NO NO!!!  For a moment, I thought he was going to ask about my mother.

He was desperate to set up a 'swap' and was very frustrated I hadn't offered him any options. Good grief. Finally, he blurted out, "Well, hell, will you go home with her anyway?"  Now I really felt awkward. 

I was sweating.  Taken off guard, I stupidly blurted out, "When did you have in mind?" 

"Tonight, of course!"

I knew who his wife was and considered her attractive, but still I turned him down.  This was just much too weird for me.  I was no prude, but if I wanted to spend a night with a woman, I preferred to be alone with her. The idea of a husband listening in another room, worse asking to watch, or much worse offering to join in was not very appealing.  So I declined as politely as I could under the circumstances. 

Well, this guy reacted like I had insulted him or something.  "My wife's not good enough for you?"  He stomped out of the bathroom in a big huff.  Now get this: The next thing I knew, Bernard asked me to come sit with him in his private booth.  He looked me in the eye and said, "Rick, there are some pretty serious rumors flying around the club tonight. I have to know something. Are you gay?"

What!?  First I said "no", then I asked Bernard what had brought this on.  However it wasn't hard to guess.  Apparently my restroom buddy had never had his wife turned down before!!  It infuriated him that some kid didn't want to sleep with his wife… or maybe it infuriated her and she made her husband miserable in turn.  Who knows?  But in retaliation he spread it around the club that I was gay.  The message spread like wildfire. Word quickly had gotten to Bernard.  Apparently this club was supremely homophobic. 

Now Bernard looked me even closer in the eye.  Maybe he was remembering our hug and wondering what he had been thinking.  All right, hold on to your seats.  He asked if I would mind going home that night with one of the waitresses to prove I wasn't gay!!  He actually pointed to a particular woman across the room.  I glanced at her.  She was pretty hot.  No question about it.  But this was just way too weird. 

I didn't know what to say. I was speechless. I just stared at this man incredulously. I was a babe in the woods compared to the people in this joint.  I knew they played in a different league with rules I could only guess at, but this was so far out of my realm of experience I had nothing to fall back on.  Bernard's suggestion was so bizarre nothing in my previous experience had ever prepared me to deal with it.

Fortunately, I didn't need this job. I had not only one, but two jobs at this point.  So I got up on my high horse.

"Bernard, let me tell you again. I am not gay. You have nothing to worry about.  But I'll be damned if I am going to sleep with your waitress just to keep this job."  

This wasn't easy for me.  I was 28 years old, but I was still the youngest person in the entire club.  Bernard was probably 50.  I wasn't used to confrontation with authority figures so I was shaking like a leaf.

Bernard looked at me carefully for a while, then said, "Okay. I was just testing you. See you next week?"

Rolling my eyes, I assured him I would be back.  My guess is if I hadn't been making money for him, this story would have had a different ending.  But I kept my job.

Attendance was definitely off the next week, but by the week after that, everyone was back again. Apparently Bernard must have stood up for me despite my unwillingness to prove my 'manhood'.  Looking back, it took more 'manhood' to stand up to this man than it did to score with some anonymous waitress who was probably more used to being bullied than I had been.

Invasion of the Nice Girls

After a couple months, I had begun telling some of my friends at Stevens of Hollywood about this place. A bunch of them were really curious. I had told them about the raised stage and how dark the place was. I told them about the hidden booths along the back wall where the couples could mingle out of sight.  Practically no one in the place ever sat alone. There would be four, six, eight people at each table or booth. And I might add there were always plenty of hands groping in private places where they didn't belong in public. The couples would build up some interest before driving off to someone's home for the exchange… it shocked me at first, but then I got used to it. 

Don't forget this was the 70s. There were fewer medical risks in those days plus more social acceptance than at any other time in history. Added to the mix were the suggestive Disco lyrics - 'Push Push in the Bush', 'Freak Out', 'Love to Love You, Baby', 'Shake your Booty', 'Shake your Groove Thing', 'I'm your Love Machine', and so on.  For some people, the Seventies marked an entire decade of decadence. 

So now the imaginations of my friends were running wild - especially the men.  They figured the place was a non-stop orgy.

My friends asked if they could join me for my lessons. I told them I couldn't see why not. So now we had a bunch of Disco dancers showing up on Thursdays as well. This group of a dozen people was having a marvelous time. They picked the perfect night for their first visit.  One of Bernard's strippers from another of his clubs was in attendance for my Disco lesson.  She got a little drunk and took her top off. 

All of us dropped our jaws in amazement to stare at her awesome body.  Sadly, one of the bartenders ran out as fast as possible with some 'pasties' to make her legit in the eyes of the law.  My guess was this was not the first time this had happened.  I asked the DJ for the inside scoop.  He confirmed it was quite common on the wild Saturday nights for women to dance topless here at the club. 

At this point, my tagalong friends were in love with this place.  Naked women!  Bad girls everywhere!  They were taking a true walk on the edge of sin.  Plus they had each other for protection so they felt secure.  And fantasize they did! 

The problem was that they had big mouths.  REALLY BIG MOUTHS.  They went back and told more people at the studio about their wild adventure.  They were so proud of themselves for risking their lives at the Jet Set Club with their fearless leader Rick!

Listening to their tales were three teenage girls from Saint Agnes, a Catholic girl's school.  They had been taking Disco lessons in one of my group classes that summer before heading off to college in the Fall.  

One of the three, Veronica, was the biggest headache of my life.  Veronica would soon be a freshman at St. Thomas University here in Houston.  At 18 Veronica was a sheltered kid with a grown woman's figure.  And she had a big crush on me.  Veronica wanted us to date and made her wishes obvious.  I wasn't completely against the idea either. She was smart and she was beautiful.  Unfortunately at 28 I felt much too old for her.  Gosh, was she pretty!  If she had only been a few years older...  Although legally Veronica was old enough for me to date, I was unable to shake free of my conscience despite a lot of inner discussions over the matter.  As far as I was concerned, she was a nice girl and I felt protective. Veronica wasn't so sure she wanted to be a nice girl any more.  She had decided she was old enough to move up in rank and figured I was the right guy for the job. She knew about my mixed feelings and was determined to persuade me otherwise.  I was in my twenties with all the raging lust that comes with the age.  When a beautiful woman comes knocking, a man's walls of resistance erode swiftly.  Lead me not into temptation; I can find it all by myself.  Now you know why Veronica was a major headache.  I very much wanted to date her, but I still didn't think it was right.

As I write the story twenty years later, there's no question I did the right thing by resisting her, but I also remember that the temptation nearly drove me nuts.  No, I was not gay.  Not even hardly.  I had sleepless nights thinking about Veronica.  In fact, as I type the story today, my fingers are trembling even now as I reminisce about the struggle.  She really got under my skin.  This conscience stuff is difficult!

The moment Veronica overheard the whispers about the Jet Set Club, she was all ears. Without my knowing what was going on, Veronica talked her two girlfriends into a wild night at the "Wife Swap Club" as my buddies called it.  Sure enough, one Thursday night I walked into the club and there the teenage threesome sat with some other people from the studio ready for their lesson!  

Thanks to big mouths, I had my three teenagers from a Catholic girl's school at the Wife Swappers Club.  Oh great. 

Let me add that all three of these girls were very pretty.  Out on that stage, every dirty old man in the place suddenly got interested in my Disco lesson that night!!  Now mind you a lot of the patrons were your everyday model citizens who just wanted a little meat on the side, but at least they were fairly discrete about it.  

However some of the regulars made my skin crawl. Every time I saw one of the girls with one of the perverts, I would quickly do the move and yell, "Change partners!"  It didn't help.  One of the men decided to grab a generous portion of Veronica's butt on a dance pattern with both hands as she gyrated in front of him. She actually let out an audible yell!  I don't think anything ever prepares you to be publicly molested in such a gross way.  In a huff, Veronica sat down while the man just laughed at her.  It wasn't a pretty sight.  But in a way, things worked out for the best.  The three girls quickly left the premises before the strippers could show up or someone came offering their wives in exchange for the three girls. 

That was the first and last time for the three girls at the Jet Set. I might add this also solved my problem with Veronica. Somehow deep in her mind I got blamed for the creep's indiscretion - sort of guilt by association - and Veronica's ardor cooled considerably. I suppose I was relieved that Veronica backed off, but I was reminded that the Lord sometimes works in very mysterious ways.

The Night of Terror!!

The Jet Set was always a dark place. It was very hard to see. This of course was intentional. They had some extra lighting for the stage which they used for the lessons, but would turn them off whenever the music was played. The Swingers loved acrobatic steps - it was sort of Disco meets Dirty Dancing in their minds. The men would freely touch women in inappropriate places from time to time.  Unlike Veronica, the women didn't seem to mind.

I was teaching a move called the 'Death Drop'. In this move the man suspends the woman in mid-air by holding her hands high. She bends at the knees and falls backwards, only to be stopped at the end of her arms by the man holding her hands. When the move is done right, the woman's body is supported by her feet at one end while she hangs from her arms at the other end. Her head is very close to the floor while one leg kicks up in the air. It is not a particularly dangerous move except when the man is drunk…

Teaching at the Jet Set was always difficult because a lot of people did drink. And people who had been drinking didn't pay very good attention. Mostly they became noisy and tried to be the center of attention.  Everybody was a comedian.  I soon gave up teaching any really complicated moves because the concentration level was just too poor. 

On the night in question we had just mastered the 'Death Drop' move. Maybe 'master' isn't the right word here, but we had gotten as close as we were going to get under the circumstances. I had ten couples up on the stage for our Disco lesson. This meant the floor was extremely crowded, especially for an acrobatic move. Nevertheless they wanted to practice to music. The DJ would play the music at half volume so I could call out directions over the music. But as usual he turned off the Stage Lights, plunging us into gloom. Only people at the ringside seats could really see us in this light.

For safety purposes, I had half my couples do the move while the other half stood on the edge of the stage.  This allowed enough room for the women to fall backwards without catching a knee in the back of their head or something equally dangerous.

Five men dropped their partners backwards. Suddenly the bar was rocked with a blood-curdling scream that made the 'Psycho' scream sound tame. 

'I'm Blind!!! I'm Blind!!! Oh my God, I'm blind!!!'. 

In the darkness with the music playing, no one could figure out where the screaming was coming from. Everyone was looking everywhere but the screaming continued. And it was scary too because the place was so dark - the DJ had his headset on and didn't hear the call for lights. 

There were a lot of frantic people scurrying around as if someone had just been stabbed with a knife!  Fear was everywhere!  Her screaming was causing pandemonium!  People were actually running out the front door! 

I was scared too!  The screaming seemed to be coming from someone right next to me. I noticed one woman on the floor whose face had disappeared.   I had a hunch I knew what the problem was. The woman's face had gotten caught under another women's dress and she was too drunk too understand what had happened!  (Note: the picture is NOT the actual move, but it should give you a rough idea of what actually happened.) I suppose when the man had dropped his partner backwards, her face had fallen under another woman's floor-length black dress. The 'blind woman' was completely drunk.  She had panicked to being plunged into total darkness and began to scream.

Her partner didn't help things either. He was so drunk he didn't even realize it was his own partner that was screaming!  Even worse, he left her hanging there with the stupid dress on top of her face while he scanned the club for danger!  Here she is screaming bloody murder and he doesn't even bring her up! I dropped to my knees and pulled the dress off of the woman's face. Once her sight was restored, she stopped screaming. By this time the DJ had figured out something was wrong and had turned the lights back on. Order was restored immediately as people realized it wasn't the Texas Chainsaw Massacre after all.  Now the place started to roar!  This was apparently the funniest thing that had ever happened. The whole club erupted in laughter that never seemed to stop.   Jokes about the Headless Dancer and how Disco Dancing can make you blind passed around the room. The embarrassed man and woman crawled off the stage in search of a secluded booth. They were both crimson red at the unwanted attention. When they thought no one was looking and they were sober enough to walk, they left never to return again.

Conclusion

Not long after I broke up with Nancy I stopped teaching at the Jet Set.  I estimate I had been there for about six months.  At this point, I had run out of new material to teach because everything had to be kept so simple.  My friends had stopped coming because I wasn't teaching anything new and the regulars from the Jet Set started to drop off for the same reason.  I was tired of yelling over the noisy crowd, I was tired of the constant smart-aleck remarks, and I was not having fun any more. 

But mostly I didn't want to run into Nancy.  She continued to take my breath away.  I just couldn't bear to be around her.  Plus I could tell that she still liked me.  But Nancy and I were from two different worlds.  If I was the trophy wife kind of guy, well maybe, but that's not me.  I just couldn't see it working in the long run. 

I never quite managed to fit in either at the Jet Set.  I learned first hand the true meaning of 'consenting adults'. This was their life-style and I didn't think it was my place to condemn what was going on since I had never walked in their shoes so to speak. However privately I always felt vaguely uncomfortable because it was so easy to fear that which I didn't understand. 

I had no regrets for the time I spent at the Jet Set and I had no regrets when I left.  It was definitely an interesting stop along the way.  

As the Grateful Dead would say, what a long, strange trip it's been!