Lisa and James look at each other, then at me. I can see they don’t know what to say. I have never been so ashamed in my life. My hands are shaking, and I clasp them together under the table. What if they don’t want to be friends with me any more? What if they think I’m a freak? The remains of a MacDonalds sit on the table between us. I haven’t really touched mine. I wasn’t hungry.
“Female domination?” says Lisa. “Wow.”
“I mean, I always knew there was something,” says James. “You never talked about sex much. To be honest, I always assumed you had some sort of conflicted lesbian thing going on. I thought about trying to get you to open up a couple of times, but I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”
“You mean that guy is into getting tied up?” says Lisa. I decide to avoid this question and respond to James instead. Alex was okay with me telling Lisa and James I was dominant – and aware of the resulting assumptions that would be made about him – but he didn’t want me to share any details.