“Because it’s incredibly clean in here. Like I can practically see my reflection in your kitchen floor.”
The blush returns although it’s not as hot. “That’s… me.”
“You like to clean? Or you like to have a clean place?” Marcello moves past me and walks into the kitchen, dragging his fingertips along the marble countertop.
“Both, I guess.”
“Oh, shit, I probably should have taken my shoes off,” he says and does this amusing tip-toe walk back to the front door where he bends over and takes off his trainers. “Sorry.”
“No big deal,” I say and I tell myself that I can clean the kitchen floor again as slightly perverse reward-slash-punishment later if this all goes horribly wrong.
“So,” Marcello says, digging his hands into his pockets. “I guess we should talk a bit about… this.”
“Yes.” I move to stand in the kitchen with him. “We should. Shall I make us some tea? Or open the wine?”
“I think I’d like a glass of the wine, or a beer, or something to calm my nerves a little.”
“You’re nervous?” I move to the fridge. I suppose I’d been so preoccupied with my own anxieties I’d not stopped to think about how Marcello could be feeling.
“I mean, yeah, only a huge fucking amount.” He laughs nervously.
I retrieve two beers and open them. As I hand one to Marcello I hope I also have a reassuring smile for him. Ideally one that hides my own fears about… whatever this is.
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We don’t have to do anything at all.”
Marcello rolls his shoulders back. “Oh, we do,” he says firmly. “I want this to happen.”
I blink. “You do?”
“Yeah, I mean. I want answers. I don’t know if it’s become some new hyperfixation for me or if it’s that mid-life crisis we were talking about but I really feel like I just need to know… what’s going on.”
I lean back against the counter. “You know, it’s okay to not know,” I say, gently. “To not have a label. To just be uncertain, questioning or curious. You don’t have to force yourself into a box. I don’t know much about labels, but I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be restrictive.”
Marcello's hand lowers the bottle of beer before it touches his lips. “Are you… areyouhaving second thoughts?”
“No!” I say too quickly and too loudly. I lower my voice. “I just want you to not get all stuck in defining exactly what you are because, you know, it’s possible you may not get all the answers you want.”
Marcello takes a pull from his beer and then rests it on the counter. “I hear what you’re saying,” he nods, “but ultimately I just want to know… what it’s like. What sex with a man is like.”
I can’t tell if I’m impressed or intimidated with how comfortably he can vocalise what he wants. Probably both.
“Okay,” I say, and then I take my own swig from my beer, and count to three in my head. “Then I think we need some rules.”
“Rules?”
I wince. “Boundaries is probably a better word. Just some guidelines for us both so things don’t get… messy.”
Marcello’s face quirks into a very handsome smirk, his treacle brown eyes brightening. “I don’t mind getting messy.”
I give him the admonishing look I feel I’m supposed to. “I meant in a non-physical sense.” And that’s all I’m prepared to say because I think I’d turn to ash if I actually said “emotionally” like I actually mean.
“Okay, so, rules.” He nods at me as if to start defining them.
“Well, obviously we have to both consent to… whatever we do.”
“Obviously.”
“And, you should tell me things you don’t want to do,” I add.
