‘Oh, there’s a scene,’ said Justin confidently. ‘You can participate in it as much or as little as you like, but it’s definitely there. So you’re new to kink?’
‘I suppose. I’ve had a … I haven’t done much. I’ve been interested for a long time though.’
Maz appeared with the drinks and I exhaled deeply, hoping she would dilute the scrutiny I appeared to be subject to.
‘Yay, a total newbie,’ she said. ‘You’ve been so brave, coming here alone. And it’s a great first step – we’re all friendly and experienced. Even if you don’t want to play with any of us, we’ve got loads of advice and help to offer.’
Play.
The word didn’t fit. My secret fetishes had always seemed so dangerous, so serious, a deadly delicious poison infecting my bloodstream, threatening my chances of a sane and ordered future. What was frivolous about that? But perhaps, after all, it could be no more than a game.
Weirdly crestfallen, I gave Maz a weak smile.
‘I’m glad I came,’ I said. ‘You’re all very – approachable. This is quite a scary thing for me to do.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Justin. He had a kill-you-stone-dead sexy smile, all lips and teeth. Maz had chosen well. ‘And I bet you were expecting a load of guys in leather carrying whips in their holsters. Well, I suppose Rev is a bit like that …’
We all laughed, Rev more than anyone. My disappointment faded – why would I be disappointed at meeting people who understood me at last? I decided to cheer up and embrace the opportunity. If nothing else, it would be a learning experience.
And I learned a lot that day.
I learned that Maz had come over on a student visa and stayed after meeting Justin through the MasterMe website two years earlier – she was an A&E nurse working at the general hospital. I wondered if her nursing skills ever came in handy in her private life, but I refrained from asking. I learned that Rev was recently divorced and “back on the scene” after taking a break for a few years. I learned that Lawrence had been a spanking fetishist from boyhood, but only with the advent of the internet had he been emboldened to explore his interest, having suppressed it for fifty years. Our generation was lucky. We could take our sexuality and run with it, let it evolve and develop instead of stuffing it under the bed and putting on the stiff upper lip. I was moved by his story.
‘Don’t be like me,’ he said. ‘Don’t try and deny who and what you are.’
‘I won’t,’ I promised.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ said Justin with a devilish wink. ‘Not now we’re on your case.’
Ah, Justin. An interesting man. A lecturer in astrophysics at the local university, he looked wholesome and earnest but Maz assured me that he wielded the meanest cane this side of the Thames. And whenever he smiled “wholesome and earnest” flew off his face, replaced by “filthysexygorgeous”.
By two o’clock, both Lawrence and Rev had left, pleading other commitments, but Justin, Maz and I got another round in, and this time I felt comfortable enough to let go of my tight-reined self-control and order a bottle of Mexican lager.
‘It’s a shame your web dom disappeared,’ Maz sympathised, having been regaled with the story of SecretSadist. ‘But hey. His loss is our gain, eh, Justin?’
I looked rapidly from each to each. In what sense?
‘She means,’ said Justin, putting the drinks down, ‘that you probably wouldn’t have come to the Munch if you were still in touch with him. Steady on, Maz, it sounded like you were trying to seduce poor Keris here then.’
‘Shit, sorry, didn’t mean it to come out like that!’
Justin left a beat, putting a contemplative finger to his lip before speaking again.
‘Though if you were interested, of course …’
The beer bottle was slippery in my hand. I put it down.
‘Interested? In what? You’re … I mean … You’re together, aren’t you?’
‘Sure,’ said Maz, taking an insouciant chug of her alcopop. ‘We’re together. But we aren’t exclusive. We’re poly.’
‘You’re …’ For some reason, the only image that sprang to mind was acres of agricultural polytunnels flapping in a field. ‘Poly?’
Justin laughed. ‘Polyamorous.’
‘Polyamorous? Is that like, bisexual?’
‘No.’ Maz was delighted, enraptured even, at my naïveté. ‘It means we have a kind of open relationship. But not the kind where we go off individually and sleep with other partners. We like to include other people in our relationship, I guess, is one way of putting it.’