“No, it usually isn’t. Other spaces can be very efficient about deciding who is worth their time.” There was no bitterness in his remark, just observation.
“And here?” I asked.
Stefan glanced at me. “Here, people take a little more time before they decide you don’t belong.” Another pause and hisvoice softened. “And more often than not, they decide that you do.”
“And the kink?” I asked. “Is that part of it? Or separate?”
“It overlaps, but it’s not the same thing.”
I frowned again. “Explain that.”
He studied his hot chocolate. “Kink is an inclination—something someone is drawn to. BDSM is a structure—a way of organising kink, for people who want it.” He paused. “Not everyone who wears leather does all of it. Not even close.”
“Whenever I see BDSM porn, it always seems so… vigorous? Heavy?” They weren’t the words I was looking for, but they were the best fit.
He frowned slightly. “Wait a moment. There’s a quote I saved years ago, from an American porn star. Let me find it.” He put his mug down, grabbed his phone, and scrolled.
I drank slowly, turning what he’d said over in my mind.
At last he smiled. “Found it.” He read aloud, “The simplest explanation I have of BDSM is that it’s a highly enhanced intimacy. To the unversed it can seem merely like one partner imposing his will on the other, but the truth is that it should involve one partner being able to take the other someplace connectively, physically, and sensually he wouldn’t be able to go normally or on his own, or if he were able to squirm away.”
I grinned. “I like that last part.”
He set the phone aside and covered my hand with his. “There are a lot of practices,” he said. “But none of it is compulsory. That’s the point. You find what speaks to you. And you leave the rest.”
I let out a slow breath. “So when I see… all of that, it doesn’t mean everyone’s into everything.”
“Exactly.”
I paused. “And what about signalling? I saw a lot of different coloured hankies tonight. They were… codes?” I flushed. “Something I read once.”
Stefan stroked his beard. “Yes, that goes on. It can be useful.” His eyes twinkled. “And sometimes it’s taken far too seriously. I remember being in San Francisco one year, during Folsom. A man was wearing a leather shirt with green piping, and a few very enthusiastic younger guys went up to him and asked, ‘What does the green mean, Daddy?’”
“And?”
“He looked at them and said, completely deadpan, ‘Green.’”
I laughed. “I like him already.”
“So did I. That porn star who I just quoted? That was him.”
I stared at him. “Did you and he…” When he merely grinned, I expelled a breath. “Wow.” I paused. “And what about you?”
He frowned. “What about me?”
“What does leather mean to you?”
Stefan didn’t answer right away, and I appreciated that.
“It’s part of who I am, not something separate, or something I put on for a weekend.” He sighed. “It’s a way of being honest.” When I frowned, he continued, “Because it requires you to know what you want, and to say it, clearly, without hiding behind what you think you’re supposed to be.” He chuckled. “Not everyone sees it that way. I once had an altercation with a woman outside Romeo. She ranted at me, telling me I was a deviant, that I was mentally ill.” He picked up his mug and drank some hot chocolate. “Then suddenly there were four or five guys in leather standing with me. Not in a menacing way, you understand, but there for me. She decided to continue on her walk.”
“Leather… it’s important to you, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
I drew in a deep breath. “And if I don’t fully understand it yet?”
“That’s fine.”