The One Worth Finding by Teresa Silberstern

get it, I get
cranky.”
    “ How long has it been since you
had sex before me ?” she asked with a smile.
    “ Five years, four months,
twenty-seven days and three hours.” He said without hesitation, and
they both laughed.
    “ Wow,” she
whispered ,
“that’s long.”
    “ What about you?” he shrugged.
“How long since you had sex?”
    “Eight years.” She said. She knew that
her smile looked forced.
    He leaned forward, clasping his hands in
front of him. Such beautiful hands, his fingers slim and long, the
bones delicate. Elegant, but masculine hands.
    “Who was he?” he asked
softly.
    For a moment, Tara couldn’t talk, rendered
speechless by the pressure of her memories and the sweet compassion
of the man before her. A man she couldn’t let into her life.
Because she belonged to another one. No matter how much she loved
Dr. Aaron Harte, he could never be hers.
    “ My husband.” She finally said,
her voice eerily calm . “Jeff. We were married four years. The best four years of
my life.”
    “Was he your sub?”
    She swallowed.
    “ Yes,” she whispered, “his need
for anal stimulation wasn’t anywhere near as strong as yours. But
he found pleasure in it. And like you, he had his eyes on his
Domme’s needs more than on his own. He knew how much I loved to do
it. So he indulged me. I knew how much he loved the whip, so I
became a pro at using it. That’s what I’ve been doing at the club
all those years, you know? Whipping strange subs. I met their
needs.”
    She didn’t have to finish that thought
for Aaron to know that nobody had met her needs.
    She could see how much he wanted
to touch her, and part of her wanted it , too. Part of her wanted to scream
at him to take her away, to bring her to a place where her demons
couldn’t follow. But she knew that wasn’t possible; it was a fairy
tale, nothing more.
    “What happened to Jeff?” he finally
asked, and she knew she had to tell him.
    She expected absolute trust, didn’t
she? He deserved no less.
    “ Car accident,” she said, “eight
years ago. A drunk driver- crashed into his car. My husband died
five days later at the hospital.”
    She saw her pain in his eyes,
felt their souls touching and thought , no. No God, please. It can’t
be.
    “Tara.” He whispered, and there was no
need to say more.
    She knew what he felt, had seen inside him
since they’d met.
    “ He was everything I had,”
s he said.
“And after he was gone, I was empty. Dead. Void. And that can never
change. I always knew it was the end. That there was nothing coming
for me after that.”
    He put his hand on hers, and the
contact became her lifeline, became everything that kept her from
crashing. They made small talk while they ate, but always, always
his hand came back to hers, holding her for most of the evening.
Giving her something she’d thought lost.
    When they said goodbye in front of the
apartment where he was staying, they kissed long and soft and
infinitely gently.
    “ Goodnight,” he said warmly,
nuzzling her ear, gushing sweet , hot breath against her clammy skin.
    “ Thank you for the wonderful
evening,” she replied, “and Aaron, don’t enema tonight. I want to
help you with that tomorrow.”
    He nodded slowly.
    They separated, and she felt bereft,
the cold felt like impending death. She shivered.
    She opened the driver’s door of her
car and watched him ascend the stairs to the house.
    “ Aaron,” she called out to him
and almost gasped when he turned around. So, so beautiful. “I’m
glad that you came here, that we met. No matter how short our time
together is… it’s good to know I’m not dead. I’ll be forever
grateful to you for showing me that.”
    And she got into her car and drove off
before he could answer, hardly able to see the street in front of
her for all the tears that were blurring her vision.

    Aaron lay on the side of his bed fully
dressed and felt so cold his teeth where chattering. He knew it was
nerves, nothing