One evening L and I were out on the town. We were going out to celebrate my being offered a new, more lucrative job nearer our house. We went out to a club not too far from where we live in search of fun and excitement.

At the club we alternated dancing with sitting around checking everything out. There weren't a lot of people there, but enough to make it interesting. L saw a girl she thought was cute and mentioned that she'd like to meet her and try to take her home. I told her she should go for it.

A word of explanation may be in order here. L and I have an open relationship. We are both allowed to seek sexual liaisons outside of our relationship. Although this is somewhat unusual, we find it makes our relationship more dynamic and less prone to stagnation. It can also cause problems, but I have found the benefits outweigh the negative aspects.

Anyway, L decided to talk to the girl (we'll call her J) and they hit it off. Before long we were leaving the club with the girl and some of her friends to go to an after party at one of their friend's house. We stopped at another person's house to get a few things before we left.

As we were sitting around someone brought out some MDMA. L asked if I was interested in rolling that night and after some consideration I decided to go ahead and do so. It had been a while since I had visited with that state of mind and I thought it might help me relax and enjoy the evening.

The pills were large capsules, stuffed full. They had a slight greenish tint. After we swallowed them someone broke out a joint and passed it around. I decided to go ahead and try smoking some pot to see how it would affect the ecstasy.

A few hits got me quite stoned. Ten or fifteen minutes later I began feeling the MDMA. An unmistakable lightness and warmth manifested in my solar plexus and spread out from there to the rest of my being. I felt incredibly at ease and comfortable.

Around this time we all got back into our vehicles and headed for the after party. When we arrived I quickly realized I didn't know anyone there except the people I had come with and one guy I had met at a party a year and a half before.

L and J disappeared somewhere, leaving me with three people I barely knew and a bunch more I had never seen before. By this time I was rolling along quite nicely so I didn't mind a bit. I sat down and began having conversations with the people around me.

Several people there were DJ's and artists from the local music scene. I talked to them about music and drugs and parties and whatever wandered into my head. Several joints were passed around so I maintained a pretty good cannabis high on top of my roll. The combination made me very, very talkative. I couldn't shut up.

L stopped by a few times to say hello and grab a quick hug and/or kiss. Her girl sat down once or twice as well and engaged me and the people I was sitting with in conversation. Everything seemed really nice and I was completely relaxed. The weeks before had been very stressful as I looked for a new job and tried to settle into living with L full time. All of the stress and unhappiness I had carried around for the last few weeks evaporated, leaving me totally at peace for the first time in a while.

We stayed until late, maybe four or five in the morning. By the time we drove home I wasn't feeling much of anything from the MDMA but a warm afterglow. I'd had a great night, meeting several nice people and connecting with them in a genuine way. It had been nice to see L flirting and playing with a cute girl that she obviously liked. I had been able to relax and forget about how difficult things had been for me recently. I realized that I had been increasingly, upsettingly uptight since I had moved. I had been all but refusing to relax and enjoy my life, although things should have been great. I decided I was going to turn things around and have more fun, more good times and less stress.

After L and I went to bed she asked if I were mad about her being with her girl. I was quite surprised at the question and said so. I had found it strangely cute, if anything. I told her so and told her also not to worry about it. I wished her best of luck with the girl and assured her I was OK with it. We discussed our relationship for a while, especially the open aspect of it. Ecventually we decided all was well and drifted off to sleep together.

This trip was important to me in a strange way. As I said it allowed me to relax at a time when I felt like I literally couldn't do so. It dropped my stress level considerably and made the next few weeks much more bearable. As my relationship with drugs evolves I find that my expectations of what I will get out of a trip and my uses for different drugs has changed considerably. For the most part this trip was basically recreational, but on the other hand it helped me in ways that the most mind boggling revelatory experiences often simply can not. It acted as an antidepressant of sorts, relaxing the huge knot of tension I'd been carrying around and allowing me to enjoy myself for a few hours. The effects lingered, leaving me feeling cleansed and relaxed for several days afterward. The whole trip was quietly, pleasantly beautiful.