It had all happened in a blur. One moment Ben was simply attending a local kink meetup and in the next he was laying bare a secret to a woman he barely knew.
He had noticed her when she entered—the swish of her long brown hair as she walked across the bar and the way her flower print dress lifted just a little as she leaned on the bar top to order a drink. Although he couldn’t place it, she looked vaguely familiar. She was not much older than him, perhaps 35 or 36. But she moved through the room with a confidence that he had never known himself. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her and was surprised when she approached him.
“Jo,” she said, extending a hand, her dark eyes flicking upwards to meet his own. “Short for Josephine.”
“Ben,” he replied. “Nice to meet you.”
They talked for ten or fifteen minutes at most. And yet somehow he felt at ease with Jo, as though he could tell her anything and it would be alright. That’s how he let slip that he was newly single and the cause was his infidelity.