Shortly after I started college, I hooked up with a slightly older guy (mid-20s – he celebrated his 26th or 27th birthday that year) who lived in the same building as I did. I met him when I moved in; he helped my roommate and me with the move, and we all hung out together from time to time. And a little later, he and I got to know each other much better. We dated, and he became one of my formative sexual experiences. He introduced me to a lot of new stuff, especially kinky stuff and finding out that there was more to sex than blowjobs and missionary or doggy was an excellent experience for me. Not only that, I had bad boyfriends during high school, and he helped me get over those experiences.
We started exploring kink very slowly; I started out with learning about safewords, then some D/s play, rough sex, and he gradually introduced new things to me. We would always talk about what was going to happen, and afterwards, we would discuss what I felt, what I got from the session, where we could improve, etc. It was good to talk like that; it gave us both the chance to let the other know if we were getting what we wanted. It’s something I have taken forward in all the relationships I have had since my time with him.