Whenever I gave a presentation, I teetered on the verge of a panic attack the entire time, then had one after I finished. My body shook with nerves while my stomach churned with queasiness, making me clammy all over. Countless presentations had ended with me curled up in a ball on the floor of a bathroom in tears after throwing up my soul into a toilet. I’d have to take four showers afterward to feel clean again.
But this time was different. When it was my turn to go up to speak, an eerie calm pervaded me. With Armand there as my anchor, his steadfast belief in me kept me steady as a rock. All the other participants faded away until he was the only one in the auditorium as I approached the podium. Seeing him smiling at me from the audience set me at ease. His confidence in me steeled my backbone and gave me faith in myself I never had before. The pressure to perform and my conviction that I was about to fuck up disappeared, leaving in its place a desire to share my research with him. It was another opportunity to let him further into my world and be a part of the thing that mattered most to me.
I wanted him to understand my field, because it was the key to understanding me. I needed to find beauty in the broken things pieced back together again, because I had been shattered and rebuilt more times than I could count. On my own, I had been an inferior artisan who had tried to patch myself with transparent glue, hoping nobody would notice the cracks within me. But Armand had filled in my splintered fractures with the most beautiful gold known to man. And where the original pieces of myself had been decimated beyond patching, he added fragments of himself to fit my holes and complete me. For the first time, I was someone worth showing to the world.
As the words flowed out of me with ease, I had a weird, almost out-of-body experience as I watched myself with wonder. Never in my life had I been so self-assured in front of a group before, let alone a crowd of nearly one hundred people. I was powerful and in control, comfortable in being the foremost authority aboutkintsugiin the room. It gave me the confidence to go off script and add a few extra details. When I finished and the audience applauded, I didn’t fall apart. I experienced overwhelming pride at having given the best presentation of my entire academic career.
The only thing I had been dreading more than presenting was fielding the Q&A session afterward. I could control my part of the talk, but the open-ended nature of the audience questioning my knowledge had kept me awake at night before I flew to Hawaii. Because I was always in a state of panic, I was ready to fall apart at any second. The idea of someone asking me something I didn’t know the answer to was a terrifying prospect.
But Armand raised his hand first, letting me stay focused on him. I gestured for him to ask me his question. “You mentionedkintsugiadds beauty and value to pieces to elevate them into works of art. How does it do that?”
That was a question that would normally have made me come unglued and beat myself up for being inadequate by not being clearer. But it was Armand asking me, so I didn’t interpret his question as a passive-aggressive attempt at showing the weaknesses in my presentation. Instead, I saw it as him trying to learn more about me, which filled me with indescribable joy.
“Kintsugielevates a piece of ceramics into something more valuable because the gold emphasizes the history of the object. Bothwabi-sabiand Zen philosophy embrace the precarity of existence as being beautiful because it’s imperfect and ephemeral.”
Seeing Armand nodding in understanding gave me the courage to continue answering his question. “No one escapes life unscathed, because being broken is part of life’s journey. By using gold, lacquer, and other precious materials, it honors the history of an object while marking it as something worthy of becoming a treasure. The patched-together pieces become greater than the sum of the whole through the elegant repair. It reminds the observer not just of the fact that we can be broken, but it’s proof we can also survive. It’s evidence of how we’re capable of healing and coming out better than we were before because of what we endured.”
His brilliant smile added more gold to the cracks in my soul. I barely remembered answering the next two questions before I returned to my seat. Instead of my normal exhaustion, I was invigorated by the experience. I was riding high and didn’t care what anyone thought of me. It gave me the strength to lean over and give Armand a passionate kiss as a thank-you for being thekingold to mytsugirepairs that had turned me into a treasure.
* * *
It wasa powerful magic to experience an amazing day without wondering what was going to ruin it. Not only had I nailed my presentation, but Armand and I had a fun lunch with Vigo and Alain. We laughed and joked as if we had been close friends for years instead of a day and a half. With my boyfriend at my side, his confidence in me imbued me with a self-belief I had never experienced before. It let me have fun without my normal anxiety holding me back by hiding in a corner while praying no one talked to me.
I feltfreein every sense of the word. Free to be who I really was, to have fun without a single care, and to love Armand with all that I was. It meant I could enjoy my research without self-doubting myself and make friends without worrying about them secretly hating me. For once, I saw life as being limitless with possibilities. I didn’t just feel like I could do anything; IbelievedI could do anything.
By the time we returned to my room at the hotel, I was ready to take on the world. As we undressed in between kisses, desire unfurled within me as I burned for more of Armand. It drove me to get on the bed first. I didn’t experience fear when he pinned me down with his larger form. Instead, I was hungry for more.
When he gave us a chance to catch our breath, he smiled down at me with a look of such love that it made heat pool in my belly. He caressed my cheek with a tender touch. “I witnessed the most beautiful flower in the world come into full bloom today.”
I covered his hand with mine, pressing a kiss against his palm before nuzzling against it. “If I did, it’s because you helped me grow.”
“Seeing you filled with so muchjoie de vivretoday has been amazing,” he said with fondness. “I’m in awe of you.”
“It’s weird how I feel like a different person and my real self all at the same time.”
He gave me a sweet kiss that melted me into a puddle. “That’s because this is the real you that you’ve been too afraid to be. This is yourkintsugiself on full display. It’strès beau.”
“You’re a miracle worker.” I moved my hand to lace my fingers through his hair. “I want you to take me. Make me yours, Armand.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure in my life.” Everything in me knew I was making the right decision. “My heart is already yours. I want my body to be yours, too.”
He kissed me hard, making me moan against his lips as his tongue teased me into a frenzy. His cock rested against my belly, which turned me on in a way I never would have imagined. It fueled the craving inside me rather than stoke my fears.
He moved on to kiss and caress me all over. My enlightened state kept my anxiety at bay, allowing me to enjoy his attention to the fullest without my inner asshole ruining everything. My body undulated as I soaked up his affection like the first beautiful spring day after a long, harsh winter. I lost myself in his talents, so it came as a surprise when he ran the pads of his fingers over my entrance.
“Promise me something,” Armand requested.
“Anything.” I would do whatever he wanted to have him keep pleasuring me.
“If you want to stop atanypoint, promise you’ll tell me without worrying about hurting my feelings. Even though you said yes now, you can change your mind. You have my word that I’ll stop if it’s too much to handle.”
It amazed me how well he knew me already. “I promise I’ll ask you to stop if it’s too painful.”
“I’m going to do everything I can to make it not hurt, but if it does, tell me. Please don’t suffer through this because you don’t want to disappoint me.”
Him caring more about my well-being than his pleasure made it easy to give myself to him. “I will.”
