May in June

The scene negotiations were hot; not so much overtly sexual as they were emotionally intense. I watched as the young man in tight black T-shirt and faded jeans snugged over snake-thin hips tried to read the intentions of his partner: an attractive, soulful-eyed young woman, similarly clad and exuding an innate confidence that gave her the appearance of being older than her years.

It was obvious that the young man wanted something, but there was some hesitant delicacy in his ability to express it. He leaned toward her, and I saw that it wasn’t just the air conditioning which had brought his nipples to attention under the skin tight fabric — the small barbell piercings held them permanently erect. He tried again to elicit some agreement from her, but she still seemed reluctant, as if she were torn between her own hungers and desires, yet trying to be sensitive to his needs. The tension was palpable; they both wanted something, but seemed to be testing each other. Finally, she asserted her dominance, and settled the negotiations to their mutual agreement. The scene was about to begin.

“No, I want my own Philly cheese steak sandwich,” she told him, imperiously. “You can just get whatever you want.”

Slightly envious of the way that they could order such food with abandon, I asked for a grilled chicken sandwich (for which I later removed the bread to reduce the carb count) and a glass of water. It was a small Greek pizza restaurant at the woodsy edges of the greater New Haven area, and I was sitting across the booth from Maymay and Helio Trope.

I don’t often get out to meet other bloggers or internet friends, so it was a most pleasant surprise when Maymay emailed me a few weeks ago, wondering if I’d like to meet for a bit before he packed his few worldly belongings and headed out west. He was headed back to NYC, and realized that he would be passing my neck of the woods. I invited them for dinner at the Edge household, but as things worked out, the only time we could meet was going to be mid-week for a late lunch. Mrs. Edge was unable to drive down to meet us, but the consolation prize was that Maymay and the attractive and engaging Helio Trope were able to first stop by my little manufacturing business to get the quick tour.

It was while walking around a grimy, old machine shop that I discovered something about Maymay; he’s unbelievably fascinated with everything around him. I’ve taken people around my place and watched them look around nervously, or sometimes with a sense of boredom. It’s not surprising; we rarely get a chance to see how things work outside of our own jobs, and the lack of context often makes such information as exciting as looking at your grandparent’s vacation slides of Delaware.

May, on the other hand, looked at everything, and tried to make it fit into some kind of context in which he could better understand it. We briefly discussed the kind of programming that I do (machine controls), and he made some analogies between what I do and how I do it to some of the things that he, himself does. Unfortunately, we weren’t running any really cool machining jobs at the time, but he seemed no less impressed. The tour finished, and we headed out to lunch so we could chat more openly.

During lunch, we realized that we had known each other for about 10 years, having met and run across each other at different times in various online groups and forums. Ten years? That’s like, what, half a century in Internet time, isn’t it?

The problem with meeting friends for lunch is the short amount of time that you have to to catch up. I felt like we were trying to squeeze in ten years of questions in an hour or so. We touched on quite a few topics — setting up munches and groups (and the various group dynamics that invariably go along with them), internet communication, blogging, Fetlife and other online groups, Male Submission Art, and his plans for the immediate future.

Surprisingly, we only barely touched on the topics of chastity and orgasm denial; surprising mainly because those kinds of groups were the ones in which he and I would frequently meet. I did, however, give him a set of stainless steel locking pins and spacers out of the prototypes that I’ve been working on. Later on, I noticed that Helio Trope was wearing a Masterlock key on her necklace, the kind that is usually sold with the CBx000 devices.

It came up in conversation that the two of them had been talking about something, and Helio Trope suggested that I might be a good one to contact about it. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we actually talked about whatever that topic was. May or Helio, if you’re reading this, drop me a line and let me know.

In person, Maymay was every bit as hyper as I’d expected him to be from his writing. I found him to be quick, bright, and engaging. Similarly, even though I’d never met Helio Trope (online or off), I found her to be very comfortable to talk to, and by the end of lunch it seemed like we were all chatting like old friends. It was a most enjoyable time, marred only by my trying very hard not to eat the side of thick, crispy french fries on my plate. At the end, I hope I did not embarrass them by grabbing the check; in my own personal mythology, I was simply helping out some nice, younger people.

I wish both of them every success.