Page 13 of Business or Pleasure

She nearly drops her mug, liquid splashing down the side. “Oh my god. Who?”

“A guy I met at the bookstore bar.”

“I need more than that,” she says. “The extent of my social life is one-sided flirting with the barista in my office lobby. I have to live vicariously through you.”

“Well...” I decide to start with the positives. “At first, it was great. We were vibing, he was funny and a little nerdy in this supercute way. And you know me—as soon as I detect even the slightest hint of creepy, I’m gone.”

“You do have an excellent creep detector.”

“Thank you.” A bite of toast, and then I keep going. “He was in town from LA for a conference. We got into this friendly argument about how Seattle doesn’t have any good by-the-slice pizza places—”

“True—”

“—and we tried to find one. So we ate a bit, talked a bit, flirted a bit...” My face heats up as I remember the way he looked at me as I rolled up his sleeves. It’s ridiculous, how much I like you. “Oh, and then I realized I forgot to buy Maddy’s book. I still have to go back and pay, by the way. I don’t want that on my conscience.” As if it’s a Pavlovian response, I reach for my glass of water. “Then we wound up back at his hotel. At which point we proceeded to have”—I lower my head to the table made from reclaimed wood, pausing for dramatic effect—“the worst sex of my life.”

This time, my cousin drops her fork onto her plate with a sharp clang. “No, no, no—what? That’s not where I thought this was going.”

“Trust me, neither did I. It was the Murphy’s Law of sex—everything that could go wrong, did. His watch got caught on my necklace, lube went everywhere, and then he just... jackhammered his way through the rest of it.”

“And I’m guessing you were left slightly unsatisfied?”

I nod. “I don’t even think a map would have saved him. Poor guy was clueless,” I say. “If we’d been dating, I would have tried to help him out a bit more, but it felt so strange, giving instructions to someone I didn’t know.”

It strikes me again that I could have said something. Could have told him, Hey, I’m not there yet and showed him how to get me there. I’ve grown comfortable giving directions in bed, but I can’t help thinking it wouldn’t have been worth it during a one-night stand. Besides, I’ve learned that not everyone wants to be coached. Some past boyfriends took it as an insult, although with those who were open to it, we managed to have good, communicative relationships after some initial fumbling. But that definitely wasn’t everyone, and I wasn’t in the mood to do any ego soothing last night.

I imagine him waking up this morning, reaching to the other side of the bed only to find it empty. A slight pang of guilt settles in my stomach.

But I would have been gone at the end of today, anyway.

Noemie gets up and refills her mug, then takes a sip while she leans against the kitchen counter, looking pensive. “I want to ask how sex ed could have failed so many men in this way, but I didn’t know where my clitoris was until I was twenty-five. So, it definitely failed me, too.”

This I know, because when she told me a few years ago, I was all too happy to recommend a starter vibrator and a list of my favorite sex-positive influencers. And it wasn’t the first time—I’ve had other friends ask me the same thing. Ever since the first intro course I took for my minor, it’s felt completely natural to talk about. No shame or embarrassment. Or maybe it was always supposed to be natural, but society tried to convince me otherwise.

“He seemed to think mine was located in my kidneys.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying so hard not to laugh.”

“And I’m trying to erase it from my memory, thanks,” I say, but I can’t help laughing, either. Surely, the more space I have from it, the funnier it’ll be.

Noemie heads back to the kitchen table and lays a hand on my shoulder. “I have just the thing.”

“This is downright inhumane,” I manage. I jump right, left, throw my arms up and then back down. Above us, green and purple lights flash in time with the techno dance track. “You—are—a masochist.”

“I prefer the term ‘aerobic connoisseur.’ ” Noemie bounces on the trampoline next to me, her dark ponytail swinging from side to side. Her form is perfect as she launches into a set of ten jumping jacks. I can already feel myself lagging behind, muscles protesting.

“Knees up, punch it out!” the instructor shouts from the front of the room. “Beautiful! Double time!”

I force my legs to go faster, struggling to catch my breath. During her rare weekend free time, Noemie loves trying the latest exercise trends, and as a result she’s dragged me to hot barre, aerial Pilates, and now, to Trampoline XXX—seriously, that’s the name of the class, and when she texted me the link while I got dressed, I was very concerned about what I was about to click on. There are twenty of us in a dark room, sweating on top of mini trampolines while neon lights blink overhead. It’s sensory overload, and maybe that’s their tactic: distract you from the fact that you’re exercising with blinding optics and terrible music.

The song changes, the instructor bounce-bounce-bouncing to a Jennifer Lopez remix. “Find that beat, press those heels down. Do it for J.Lo!”

The trampoline trembles beneath me as I work to keep my balance.

“At least you’re not thinking about last night, right?” Noemie says.

“Shhh, I’m trying not to disappoint J.Lo.”

On my trampoline, I bounce harder and harder, until the music ends and the instructor gives us all a round of applause.

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