Ingrid compulsively picked up her phone again, checking the time. Three minutes to 7pm. She hustled over to the kitchen of her small, one bedroom apartment and finished slicing the loaf of freshly baked bread--a round loaf with a hard, cracked and textured surface. It had turned out magnificently, but being the anxious perfectionist she was, could only see the part that had gotten a little burned. Next to the bread was a plate decked with slices of various kinds of cheese, arrayed in rainbow-like concentric circles. With the various colors of the different types--from the white of the Gruyere to the yellow of the Gouda to the deep orange of the habanero cheddar--it almost looked like a sort of rainbow, too. This made her smile.
Behind her, Ingrid's coffee table in the center of her open living room-kitchen space already sported five small plates alongside a bowl of hummus (store-bought this time) with chips and fresh carrots and broccoli for dipping.
Yes, you could easily accuse Ingrid of being one of those liberal types that bakes artisan bread and eats organic vegetables. Likely, she wouldn't even complain at the designation. And yes, she lived in a small apartment downtown and had a cat instead of kids.
But there were ways Ingrid wasn't so typical, either. For starters, when she browsed for handicrafts on Etsy she looked at leather whips and floggers, not candle holders, jewelry, or vintage shot glasses. Her appearance and style weren't necessarily run-of-the-mill either. She sported a nose ring and one side of her head was shaved. The rest of her hair was long enough to nearly reach her shoulders and she could comb it over the undercut if she needed to. She usually did this when showing up to her day job where she worked as a technical writer for a home furnishings company. But nothing could hide the exotic shades of blue that her hair cycled through regularly.
But perhaps the biggest give away that Ingrid was a little "different" was the large, wooden St. Andrews Cross in the corner of the living room. Given that her entire apartment was just shy of 600 square feet in size, the intimidating edifice was simply impossible to miss and frankly dominated the room--emotionally and physically. When her friends asked her why she featured it so prominently, she replied simply that it was too large to fit in her small bedroom and that she never invited anyone into her apartment (a sacred space for her) who couldn't handle her kinky side. Indeed, the vast majority were pretty kinky themselves.
Whisking the cheese plate (one side now burgeoning with slices of warm bread) over to the coffee table, Ingrid pulled her phone out of one of the many pockets of her army green cargo pants. The bulky, canvas pants looked a bit odd on her skinny figure, contrasting strongly with the tight-fitting t-shirts she wore, but that was the charm of her style, actually--illogical, but with just enough method to the madness to come off as uniquely hers. Combined with the random slogans or names of obscure metal bands emblazoned across her shirts, it worked somehow.
Just in time
, she thought. The cheese plate had touched down right at 7:00. She bent backward into a sort of "limbo" pose, stretching her back and earning a few ominous cracks.
Why am I so compulsively punctual?
Ingrid stood there in the silence of her apartment, feeling the familiar anxiety and unease she always encountered when hosting friends--even friends as close as the four who were on their way. The silence continued as she considered the orange, summer evening sunlight striking across the sky and silhouetting the downtown skyline.
Perhaps a better question
, Ingrid thought to herself as she sighed,
why are my friends pathologically late?
Settling in on her sofa to wait, Ingrid thought of the
Dungeons and Dragons
campaign they were about to start together. Ingrid had volunteered to be the Dungeon Master, a role she had played with this group in the past. It was a role she loved and, truth be told, she was good at it. If she was honest with herself, Ingrid was never happier than when she was at her desk, aeons deep in notes and lore and maps, creating worlds for her friends to inhabit and explore.
This time, though, things were going to be different, and it made her nervous. You see, Ingrid understood (as all good DMs do) that the most important variable in the success of a D&D campaign is the dynamic between the players at the table. Are they connecting with the story and the challenges their characters face? More importantly, are they connecting with one another? Is there space and trust enough for true vulnerability?
The reason Ingrid loved D&D so much was not only that she had pretty much grown up living in fantasy worlds, from Jacques to Salvatore to Tolkien. It was because more than traditional storytelling, where one person--the storyteller--weaves a narrative and everyone else--the audience--listens in rapt silence, Ingrid loved
collective
storytelling. In her mind, D&D was great because everyone at the table gets a say in the story that unfolds. At Ingrid's table, the choices of the characters really mattered, and not just in determining the outcome of a battle, either. They shaped whether the story that unfolded, week after week, was one of good vs evil; a quest for redemption; a struggle against inner demons; a journey of personal discovery; or anything else they (her friends, that is) came up with.
Ingrid set the stage, but her players spoke the lines. And there was no script.
For this to work, it required all the players to engage with one another in a wholehearted manner. It demanded listening, courage, and authenticity. If done well, it produced a special kind of intimacy that felt like magic.
But if it went wrong, it could fall totally flat.
Ingrid chewed her nails, a classic anxious habit of hers. You could fairly accurately read her recent mental and emotional state simply by examining her finger tips.
I've never mixed kink and D&D before
, Ingrid worried for the 47th time.
What if they don't like it? What if it doesn't work? What if it feels contrived?
She had, of course, already discussed the unconventional idea with each of her players at length. She had been clear and explicit about the parameters, and everyone had given their enthusiastic consent. And her friends were all pretty kinky themselves.
But still.
Ingrid's anxious spiralling was rudely--but mercifully--interrupted by a sharp rap on her door. She compulsively checked her phone again: two minutes past the hour.
Must be Silus.
Sure enough, as Ingrid peered, shy and uncertain, around her apartment door (though she had done this countless times before, she still felt this way each time she did it) there stood a handsome man dressed in gray slacks and vest over a plain white t-shirt.
"Hey Silus," Ingrid offered, immediately a little shy and awkward. She showed it by subconsciously hunching her shoulders, going into something of a 'perma-shrug'. Ingrid's posture wasn't the best normally, but it got even worse when she was feeling socially uncertain. It's not that she was romantically attracted to Silus. Ingrid considered herself more of a "kinky asexual." Ingrid did, however, have quite the intellectual crush on her friend, his luscious dark skin contrasting beautifully with the white t-shirt and complementing nicely the dark gray of his vest.
"Hey there, Ingrid," Silus responded in his rich, velvet voice. He hefted a cardboard carton containing hard seltzer and offered, "I come bearing gifts."
Ingrid smiled and blushed deeper. "Well, then I guess you can come in."
Silus strolled down the short hallway and into the kitchen as if he lived there, kicking off his shoes as he went.
"You know, Ingrid," he said cheerily, "I never can get over how much I love your apartment."
"I kinda like it, too, I think," Ingrid meekly concurred, after a pause.
"The exposed brick gives it so much texture and character. And the flood of natural light from all these windows is just amazing!"
Ingrid's was a corner unit and, though small, was not short on light or character.
"Thanks, Silus," Ingrid replied, folding herself up into a tight ball on the sofa. "What are you reading lately?" she offered, eager to change the subject to something less focused on her.
"Oh, this new book. It's a fantasy, of course." Ingrid nodded along enthusiastically, far from surprised. "It's got all these queer characters in it, which is great. And it goes out of its way to avoid tropes and classic stereotypes. Kudos to the author on that front."
"But?" Ingrid prompted.
"Well," Silus said, staring up at an angle in contemplation, as if carefully choosing his words. His magnificent crown of black hair, curling wild and free, looked like a halo of wisdom and, Ingrid noted, framed his naturally handsome face nicely. "It tries maybe a little
too
hard to be different," he concluded finally. "For a while there, I had little idea what was going on, and wasn't well anchored in the world."
"I know what you mean," Ingrid sympathized. "I've read lots of those. I guess there's something to be said for tradition, after all."
"Yeah, maybe. The sense of wonder we all love from fantasy and sci-fi sort of gets lost if you can't immerse yourself in the world the author is creating because they don't give you a proper tour of the place."
The two talked for a while longer, sipping seltzer and snacking on the delights Ingrid had prepared. In many ways, this was Ingrid's favorite part of Tuesday evenings. In her heart, Ingrid wished she could spend more time with Silus, just like this. But he was all over the place, his life and heart shooting out in a thousand directions. Though she hardly knew any of them (Ingrid was the consummate introvert), she was certain he had hundreds of friends--each of them, like her, wanting more of his time than they got. She felt that 4 hours each Tuesday was already more than she dared ask for.
When the second knock came at the door, Ingrid realized she had stopped checking the time, had stopped touching her phone altogether. She hopped up off the couch and trotted lightly to the door like a slight, goth, fae creature.
"Hey!" The cute Asian American girl greeted her with a bright smile and a single, half-circle wave of one hand.
"Come in!" Ingrid replied in a rare burst of bubbly enthusiasm that only Yuna could bring out in her. The two friends embraced like school girls. Stepping back from the embrace, Ingrid looked over Yuna's shoulder at the quieter girl stepping into the apartment behind her.
"Hi Emma!" Ingrid's welcome this time was no less warm, though perhaps a notch softer. Emma returned the greeting with a soft, genuine smile and began taking off her cross trainers. Yuna, meanwhile, picked up the shopping bag Emma had set down and excitedly withdrew its contents.
"We found ice cream mochi!" she declared, reveling in her triumph. Ingrid's eyes went wide.
"No way! These are the kind we had that one time at the end of the last campaign, too! Where did you find them?"
"Oh, you know me," Yuna said in an off-hand way. "I know all the Asian markets." A second later, Yuna leaned in to whisper in a conspiratorial tone, "Actually, my halmeoni found them," inducing a giggle from Ingrid.
Ingrid looked her friend up and down. As usual, she was very tastefully dressed--white short shorts and a navy blue tank top went perfectly with a stylish black leather jacket and red Converse Allstars. Her straight, black hair was cut in a bob that framed her cute face and complemented her irrepressible gregarious energy.
