Crossing that line.

We met outside WHSmith's at Waterloo Station. I remember it so well. It was a warm and sticky Monday early evening, and as I saw him walking over to where I was standing, we both beamed.

This isn't one of those past moments that I'm trying to add a rosy tinge too, I am not even trying to romanticise that moment. It wasn't romantic, it was just memorable. We hadn't seen one another for maybe 6 weeks, and smiling, hugging and saying hello felt good.

I think it has as much poignancy as a moment as the first time I ever met her. Maybe because something was new, it felt significant.

Sitting in the wine bar across from the station we drank red wine. At that time I could never have guessed how 3 years later my drinking a glass of wine could sometimes have such blush making consequences. 

We were talking about the book The Ethical Slut, something that she had spoken about to me the year before, and all three of us had read it ( well, all four of us ). At that time I'd read it out of curiosity, knowing that polyamory was something that I'd been imagining for a long time, just not knowing it was called that.

And that was when he said it.

" If I was in a poly relationship then I'd love you to be one of my partners. "

Not a gushing line, not even an especially well articulated line given his skill with language, but the first time that words of a different nature had been verbalised between us. 

For months we had sat there in our professional work sessions, one hour a week, both knowing there was more to be said, both knowing that more WAS being said, just not between us.

She had told me about their fantasies, not in any detail, but enough for me to know that my presence in them at times, had brought them both great enjoyment. As these conversations between she and I developed a little more and I came to understand more of what they shared between them, my mind did wander. 

There was an occasion when he and I were sat at his kitchen table, working, and I felt suddenly gripped by a vision of him having me bent over it, knickers pulled down, skirt flapped up and his cock fucking my bottom.

I think I left his that day confused.

We danced in those meetings, enjoying being on the surface but being tickled by what we both felt was bubbling below.

And with her it wasn't feeling like so much of a dance. What was bubbling below felt dangerous. I was both compelled by her and full of uncertainty. 

I don't think I responded when he said those words to me. I'm sure I will have smiled and I'm sure he knew that it was something I'd imagined, but at that time she was always in my thoughts too.