Terminus a quo

Marlowe might tell you that the starting point was a look in my eye, some form of body language that told him it was ok to ask the question, but for me, the starting point was a blank e.mail - a sign that someone had thought of sending me an email but changed their minds for a reason I wasn't sure of. As you learn more about me I'm sure you'll realise that I have a curiosity complex about as wide as a canyon so a blank email couldn't be left unanswered. That part is almost inconsequential now though, it was an opener to the conversation the next day, in a car with Marlowe's wife and a friend who also frequents the scene.

Never has a 2 minute drive inspired such imagination, interest and intrigue. I can't remember exact words that Marlowe used (my memory isn't quite that good) but it was along the lines of "I've noticed that you seem to have an interest in kink, is that something you'd like to explore or something that you just flirt with?" at which point, my mind was racing. "Yes!" was my exact answer. "Yes, it's something that I'd love to explore" at which point, the journey was over and we were once again surrounded by friends for pizza and a post-game drink at my flat.

I didn't have too much time to think that night until everyone had gone home. I didn't know much about what was meant by the kink-scene (in fact, I still don't really) or what kind of things Marlowe would be into, whether this would lead to actually exploring some of the things that I've been dreaming about for years, or whether this would just be an interesting topic of conversation between friends. I had no idea about Marlowe's links to the scene, his abilities or preferences and that was by far the scariest part, something I would really need to talk about before taking any further steps.

I have a lot of hangups about sex.. actually, that's not quite accurate, I have a lot of hangups about people and how they treat sex. After some particularly nasty experiences a few years ago I find that I can't just play with anyone at any time, I need to mentally prepare myself for it, I need to know and trust who I'm playing with and most importantly, I need to be able to relax. Luckily, I have pretty good instincts about people - not always, but for the most part, I can tell whether I'd be ok playing with someone or whether I'd freak out and scare them off for good. Marlowe was one of those people that I hadn't really considered in that way before - you know, what with him being happily married to an absolutely amazing woman (more on that later), being completely out of my league and not likely to be interested in little plain me.. but yeah, he's extremely attractive, intelligent, funny and has a personality that whispers "I care about you too much to let any harm come to you, we're going to move at your pace and I have good enough instincts to know when something isn't right - more importantly, I know how to deal with things if they don't feel right." And that's how I knew that Marlowe was the right person to corrupt what's left of my innocence ;)


(note: I've never had a relationship based on play rather than sex so at this point, the terms are almost interchangeable, for this I apologise - I'll make the distinction clearer when talking about things that happen in the future but for things that pre-date this blog, you can assume that the terms are interchangeable.)