Page 21 of Follow Your Bliss

“Ah, now it makes sense why you were treating her like she was an amorous skunk at the shower.” She gazed at me with a small smile, eyebrows up. “Are you a virgin?”

I sputtered for a second. But was I surprised at her frankness? “No.” I laughed. “I’m not.”Do not ask her if she’s one.

Nope. Not good for landlord-renter relations.

“Well, if you want some unsolicited advice, my mom would tell you that you’re right to run in the opposite direction from Misty.”

“Why’s that?”

She shrugged. “Is sex important to you?”

“Yeah.” My face heated up. Which is one of many reasons why the past two years have been difficult. Why the past half hour had been difficult. And now she wanted to talk about sex?

“Then it’s important to be sexually compatible with a potential mate. And if you already don’t like her touching you?” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “It’s only downhill from there.”

“I wish my mom thought like you did. Misty’s got her fooled into thinking she’s a wholesome woman of the church. Mom thinks I’m not into her because I’m not used to dating ‘women of quality.’” I put that into air quotes.

She rolled her eyes. “Your parentstotallydid it before they were married.”

I laughed at the sheer absurdity of that thought. But the frankness of this conversation was more than a landlord and his renter should be involved in. “I guess it’s the quiet ones you have to watch for, huh?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You. Dr. Ruth junior over there.”

“Listen, you try having a mom who’s a sex therapist. Do you know what she gave my girlfriends as party favors at my eighteenth birthday party?”

I edged toward the door. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“Vibrators,” she said, not breaking eye contact.

I rubbed the back of my neck. I needed to get out of this apartment. And into a cold shower.

“Yeah, and she didn’t ask me ahead of time if it’d be okay.”

“Wow. I don’t think my mom’s ever done anything as embarrassing as that.”

She laughed, pulling ribbons and bolts of fabric from boxes. “It was fine. My friends were excited to get them. Told me I was so lucky to have such a cool mom.”

I should’ve walked out, but I had to ask. “Why vibrators?”

“So we, as young women, could be in control of our own sexuality and not rely on someone else to find gratification.” She licked her full lips and leaned over to dig in a box, giving me a clear sightline down the middle of her shirt from cleavage to belly button. “And to learn what we liked. Sexually.”

What did pretty Rose like? Sexually?

I held my water bottle in a strategic line down my crotch. I had to get out of here.

“She didn’t want us to fall into a bad relationship just because we were horny. Like she said she did with my dad.” She stood and pressed her hands to her stomach again.

“Good for her. Hey, did you eat anything today?”

“Um…” She dug through another box. “Coffee.”

It was past ten. She was going to make herself sick. “I’m about to make myself breakfast,” I lied. “How do you like your eggs?”

“No, no, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” She pressed her hand to her stomach again and walked behind a stack of boxes.

“I’ll make ‘em scrambled.”

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