Reading the responses, thank you le Bouc and Jackie, brought to mind the few other incidents like this scattered over the years. I have lived in the same small southern America city for the last 35 years. In hindsight, I'm surprised to have even had these 'encounters' over the years.
I walked into a classroom a little early one night after work. I was trying to do some self-improvement to enhance my promotion potential. Anyway, I interrupted a conversation about shibari. I'm positive that I heard correctly as the word was repeated several times and there was some context. Three faces turned to me when they finally noticed I had walked in, looking both slightly amused and slightly guilty. I looked at them and not wanting to cause more concern than I already had, I said "What?" and looked down like maybe my shoe was untied or I had food on my shirt. They immediately turned back to each other and began talking about the homework. For a moment I wondered if I had just heard what I wanted to hear, and that might have been the case if I hadn't heard as much as I did. Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing.
Then there was the guy walking with a woman at the mall, back when there still was a mall here. They looked like any young couple taking shopping stroll. Except she wore a collar with a leash clipped to it and he was holding the other end. The best part of this was the reaction of everyone else. A few looks of muted disapproval, one maybe of revulsion. The young couple, who were maybe 10 years younger than me at the time, did a good job of not reacting, though they had to have noticed the wide berth most of the other shoppers gave them. I always wondered what their story was.
Years later, I met a few of my friends after work and we decided to get dinner. We walked into a restaurant that was off the beaten path in our city, and were immediately met by a waitress wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words "I have the pussy. I make the rules" in bright pink. She motioned us toward a back room where we could see a gathering of people, mixed gender and age. The guy that was first through the door, I was behind him and could see and hear everything that was transpiring, said something like, "Oh, no, it's just us. We aren't with any group." The waitress smiled and took us to a table and said she'd be back to get our drink order. As soon as she was gone, we all looked at each other with assorted WTF expressions. One of the others started speaking, "Did I read that right?" and before the conversation could continue, the waitress was back. This time, she wore a white T-shirt with the restaurant's logo. The discussion about her shirt died before it could start, instead there was almost a collective sigh of relief and being the herd of nerds we were, we started talking work. Later, the event in the back room broke up and a large group of folks filed past us on the way out. None of them stood out. I jumped to the conclusion later that the meeting was a munch or some similar gathering. It was the only thing I could think of that fit the evidence.
Last, but the most memorable, once again while out shopping, I got out of my car in a crowded parking lot. My habit was, and still is, to look around for possible trouble before I lock the car. This was in the days before key fob remotes and also cell phones. I was just out of college and had only recently moved to this city. Anyway, the back seat of the car next to me held a hogtied woman. On this, there is no confusion or uncertainty. She was blindfolded as well as tied. Her restraint was not rigorous. She was not bowed backwards at the waist and she was wearing street clothes. I was alarmed, and became even more alarmed at the three women hurrying aggressively toward me. They stopped out of arm's reach, and one had gone around the car so they were on both sides of me, and said something like "It's okay. It's a prank." This did not assure me. To use a more modern expression, I was thoroughly triggered by the scene unfolding around me, and I responded to their aggression with some of my own. "I'm calling the cops," I said. Of course, this meant I'd have to get past at least one of them to get to a phone. It never occurred to me to start yelling and attract the attention of someone else in the lot. Now they looked as alarmed as I probably did. They repeated the claim of a prank and said something about a sorority. I calmed down slightly and said, "I need to hear it from her, or I'm calling the cops." They objected again and I insisted. Finally one of them opened the back door and they all stepped away. Keeping my eye on the one nearest me, who was two or three good steps away, I talked to the woman in the car. She assured me it was indeed a sorority initiation, that she was in no danger, and actually said thank you. I left the door open, locked my own car, and walked away, wanting to be as far from whatever had just transpired as I could get. I was now tightly wound and absent any fighting or running for my life, my adrenaline had no place to go. The girl I walked toward, the one who had circled behind me, got out of the way with alacrity. No one said a word. I didn't make any new friends in the Greek Life crowd, that's for sure. They were gone when I came back to my car. I did wonder later what sort of story they told, if any.
The one other thing these incidents make me wonder about is how they might have led to something else. I am not now, nor have I ever been 'out' about my kinky disposition, except for a couple of ex-girlfriends and my wife, and I never even meant to tell my wife. She found out anyway. Clearly, I've got a lot of baggage in and around that area. I've always wondered what it would be like to be out. I've known people who were, but who also weren't obnoxious about it. If you asked what they did the past weekend, you were as likely to get a story about a ski trip as a story about going to a fetish con. If you nervously changed the subject, like I would always do, they went with the flow. It's water under the bridge now. Especially now that my mailbox is full of AARP solicitations and pamphlets about medicare or long term care insurance.
But I still wonder if the grass would have, or even could have, been greener on the other side of that towering fence.
Eido
