Straight-jackets and Engagement Rings

So there I was, bound in chains, wearing my straight-jacket, covered in blood... thinkin’ “Romance. This is Romance.” Now I know this sounds a bit "out-there" but I assure you it happened and there is a perfectly logical explanation for the events that took place: I met him in the tiny back-room where those three guys "auditioned" myself and two of my female companions. We already had the job though. The three of us were seasoned and our experience almost guaranteed us the jobs. We were good at what e did. So they asked us to improvise and they gave us stimulation, scenarios and situations and in the end they made us scream. It was fun. We wanted to impress them, I did especially. One of them, I didn't recognize him from before, he was new and I liked the way his twisted little mind worked. He asked me to turn around, he wanted to see my hair, his eyes wanted to enjoy my ass. When the idea of corn being creepy and a bit of a mood thing came up I chatted with him about this short animation I though of and liked (check it out here.) I struck up conversation after conversation and we talked about strange things like my killer corn-stalks and the creepiness of clowns. I remember wanting to talk with him more. I got hired. It was almost a month later when I saw him again. It was my first night n the job and I was finally getting the chance to work with everyone and as they fitted me for my uniform and walked me through my duties, I saw him across the room and couldn’t help but smile. I remember the shirt he was wearing because I got his attention and motioned at his shirt with a mile and a ‘thumbs up’. I liked his shirt. (Useless details I know, but I smile to remember it and it’s the details that are so important in life.) He pulled me aside, away from the blood and the crowd and asked me if I'd be comfortable with getting naked in front of him; A strange request normally but not in this job. He said he wanted to go out and have a beer with me sometime, asked if I’d travel half-way around the world for a weekend of paid "fun" with him. I told him my lunch-break was at 6. Inside my mind I was jumping for joy, reasons unclear but I remember liking him a lot after all was said and done and wanting to spend as much time with him as I could. He had charm, he had wit, he was honest and fun and his motivations could not have been sexual in any way considering the circumstances. We were both there on the job; his was artistry, to build, to create. His job was to take our ordinary bodies and make them into extravagant and extraordinary expressions of mood, Our job was to invoke feelings in our clientele such that they would return and would pay more. That lunch-break came and I was so excited I could barely contain myself. I left the asylum and sat on a barrel at the front door eating my turkey sandwich. (I know it doesn't make sense, it's not supposed to.) I was so nervous he wouldn't show, but sure enough out of the crowd emerged that hansom brunette and he had with him a gaggle of other people I simply couldn't pay attention to or see. I remember them only because I remember thinking to myself: "Huh! He has people with him... Of course he has people with him, I'd follow him too if I could!" We went back to the break room where it was unlikely we would have had to deal with anyone else. We tried to talk, but another employee kept badgering him; so eventually we went outside to chat some more. Blood pouring from my face we discussed everything we could think of from board-games to movies to people-watching. Long story short (too late! [a reference to the movie Clue if you must know]) he said he'd drive me home that night (I'd gotten a ride to work that evening with the two afore-mentioned friends whom had accompanied me to the “auditions”) and I could hardly wait for the day to end. I went back to work and was so loony with joy that my co-workers couldn't stand me... Well, it’s not like they could stand me before, hence the straight-jacket and the blood. But with a bottle of tequila stashed in a corner slowly disappearing, and with young corruptible minds coming through constantly, the night flew by. Still one of my favourite moments was when I lost my head only to jump over the fence after it. The screams and the fun! I was pacing and smiling, talking to myself... the boss came by and asked if I’d been drinking… I answered yes, and he said “good it’s help your character!” I sipped more and in the crowd not far behind him came that man. I was just so nervous that I could barely focus. They all liked it though, crazy seems to work for me. So when he came through I frolicked up to him in my straight-jacket and planted such kiss between his neck and his cheek that we both took a step back. Looking at each other we smiled and I said unwittingly: "Did I really just do that?" I was staring off into the almost tangible thought hovering in the air beside him. I shrugged my shoulders and skipped away, off to corrupt another young and impressionable mind. Sober as a button I was happy as a lark. Apparently, so was he. So that night my girls were tired but they came with me to meet him in Italian: the loft-style preparation and break-room. We all chatted for a bit and I told the girls to go home; they were obviously tired and he'd agreed to give me a ride home. Nervous and anxious I sat there on the couch, staring at my phone thinking "What am I getting myself into?" I turned the phone off, then turned it back on then off again then on again… I called an old friend of my, no answer, and I waited, considering what might happen that night, I decided I felt comfortable. When I climbed into his white jeep I glanced about and could not help but feel slightly awry at the amount of tools and random bits contained there. His vehicle was a wood-workers dream; trust me I dream about it still... And as I sat there I thought about how I was either awfully dumb or awfully smart for putting myself into the situation I was in. Alone, at night with a strange man I'd only spent a grand total of under an hour with. It was nearing midnight as we pulled into the fast-food joint by my place. A couple of chocolate milk-shakes and a couple of burgers later we arrived at my door, food in hand resolved to chat for a bit about anything we could. We spent six hours together that night. We chatted up a storm and found that we had so very much in common. We asked each other prying questions and were comfortable with delving into each other's minds. We opened up to each other and answered questions I found out later, that neither of us had ever really told about before. Moreover, we really enjoyed the company and the mind of one another and as we talked we fell more and more for each other. He stayed the whole night, we talked. We played a version of twenty-questions, though it was more like loaded questions. We became aware of so many intimate details about one another and it was wonderful. Sitting there in my favourite chair, he beckoned me to him and as I sat on his lap we kissed, it was passionate, deep, meaningful... Perfect. When he had to leave that morning, we both longed to stay together longer. We had done nothing more than kiss and talk that night, thought the option had come up. We swapped contact info and for the next month or so we continued to play our version of "twenty-questions" over e-mails. Learning more and more about each other we were attached to our e-mails and we were both enthralled by each other. When he came back to town I was ecstatic. I was so over-run with excitement that I broke a sledge-hammer, as he puts it, beating the crap out of a car. Four days and three dates later, after talking about death and how funny it was that I was in a straight-jacket when we first started getting to know each other... he proposed. So there I was, bound in a straight-jacket, chains and a collar, a bottle of Tequila in one hand and a severed head in another staring at that man thinking "oh my god! He actually thinks this... is romantic!" Strangely, I did too and we both still do.