"Back then? With a sort of awkward inexperience, and a bit of a conservative hangover," he admitted. "My upbringing was so strict, so repressed and Victorian. I think it made me go too far the other way. The early sex scenes are brutal, something... done to someone rather than with someone," he admitted, searching for a particular paper to show her an example. He finally found it, an early draft of Up In Michigan that he was slightly embarrassed of now. But he never minded sharing himself with Abi.
"This one was eventually published, a later draft was out with a publisher when the suitcase was lost," he explained. "My parents wrote to tell me how disgusted and ashamed they were, and couldn't be convinced that it was fiction," he told her. It was always good to know that your family thought you were some kind of rapist.
"You ever going to show me something of your writing?" he asked of her.
His eyes followed the tossed cards, and he laughed, shaking his head at her. "I wanted to keep every single one, just because I knew I was going to prove them wrong one day. I've always been an egotistical bastard," he chuckled.