I wadded up the torn pieces of my speech and placed the paper ball it made on the corner of the podium. “Love is a funny emotion. Not funny in the ha-ha sense, but funny in what it does to you. For over ten years I participated in the BDSM scene and never fell in love. I cared for the women I was with. I wanted their pleasure, but I didn’t love them.
“There’s freedom in that type of play. You have no sort of expectation beyond the scene you’re in. There’s no deep emotional commitment. And another upside is that the person you’re with can’t hurt you. Well, he can hurt you physically, but if you don’t love him, the emotional hurt isn’t as damaging to you. If you want freedom, forget love.
“When you love someone, you have the ability not only to harm their body, but to cut their soul to pieces. And though those cuts may heal, they leave scars behind. With enough scars, you stop feeling anything at all. The skin’s too thick.”
I looked to Abby’s right and saw that Julie and Daniel were sitting next to her.
“If you’re smart,” I said, “you’ll play without love.”
I paused to let that sink in.
“Love makes you do things you never thought you’d do,” I continued. “It keeps you up at night. It makes you sick and drives you crazy. And when you combine it with the intensity of a BDSM relationship? Forget it, you’re just asking for trouble. It’s much safer to play without love.”
The two ladies in the front row looked confused. I couldn’t gather the courage to look at Abby yet.
“I played for over ten years without love. But for the last ten, I’ve played with love. I’ll tell you the truth. Love is hard. Love takes work. And sometimes love truly sucks.” I grabbed the edges of the podium, looked down at the crumpled paper of my speech. “But I would trade twenty years of no love for one hour with it. Because in my experience, there is nothing more beautiful, more worthwhile, more rewarding, or more precious than being with the one you love.
“I’m not smart. I’m not safe. And I’ll trade every bit of my freedom for the prison of love.” I looked back into the crowd and found Abby. She was looking at me with tears streaming down her face. “I can’t talk about building strong D/s relationships, because I royally screwed mine up. But I can talk about what I know, and I know that life is nothing without love.”
There was more I wanted to say. More I needed to say. But grief and guilt crushed me and it was all I could do to grab hold of the podium so I wouldn’t stumble. I dropped my head.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and stepped back from the microphone.
I had to find Abby. I made my way down the stairs off the platform. As I walked toward her, some part of me heard the crowd’s applause and felt the pats on my back and shoulders as I passed people. Some of them even spoke, but there was only room for one word in my world.
Abby.
I hurried as best I could to where she sat, dodging the people who crowded my way wanting to talk, because all they did was block my view of her seat. I probably wasn’t even very nice and I knew I didn’t speak back. As I pushed my way past a huge mountain of a man, her seat came back into view.
It was empty.
I stopped cold.
She’s left me.
My body turned to ice and I couldn’t breathe.
She’s left me.
I struggled to inhale.
She’s left me.“Nathaniel.”
My head shot up and to the right. And in the middle of the aisle, standing with wet cheeks and outstretched arms, was my universe, my everything, my love.
“Abby,” I managed to get out as I crossed the remaining steps between us with four long strides. “God, I’m sorry.” I took her in my arms as hers slipped around me. I held her as tightly as I could, overjoyed with the privilege to do so. “I’m sorry. I love you so much.”
She sniffled. “I love you, too.”
I couldn’t say anything else. The most important words had already been said. There would be time later for words. Please let there be time later for words. What I needed was to hold her. To have her in my arms. To feel her breath on my cheek and her heart beat in time with mine. Everything felt right again while we were in each other’s arms.
She pulled back, but instead of stepping away, she tipped her head up. “Kiss me.”
I could do nothing else other than brush my lips with hers. Once. Twice. And on the third pass, she grabbed my hair and held me in place while she kissed me thoroughly.
The crowd around us once more broke into thunderous applause and she smiled against my lips. She gave me one more kiss and pulled away, making sure she had my attention.
“I’m ready to talk,” she said. “And more important, I’m ready to listen.”
I took her hand and entwined our fingers. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Fifteen
NATHANIEL
We didn’t speak as we made our way back up to our room, but she didn’t take her hand out of mine. Once inside, I led her to the couch and sat down, still holding hands.
“You were a complete asshole last night,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That for one second it even crossed your mind to have me give someone else a blow job?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what upsets me the most: that you considered it or that I did.”
I would never get the image out of my mind of her kneeling while that man undid his jeans.
“I was getting ready to safe-word,” she said. “You beat me to it. Can you tell me why? Why you thought I wanted that?”
“Seeing you dance and having fun with those men did something to me. You were enjoying yourself and I realized it was more than people watching you, because you were getting into the dance with that younger guy. We’d talked about a threesome, and I thought maybe it was the next step you’d want to explore.”
“But you made that decision without talking to me.”
“I was wrong.” Playing with others wasn’t a hard limit for her. But our assumption had always been that if there was another party involved, they wouldn’t touch her in a sexual way. But that had always been more my defined limit. We’d never discussed the exact lines of her limits.
“Damn straight you were.” She squeezed my hand. “But it wouldn’t be fair for me not to admit that a lot of my actions yesterday were because of Charlene. The fact is, I’m never going to be okay with her. And we both have to accept that.”