She found Ethan again. He wasn’t taking notes like usual. His eyes held hers.Hey, he mouthed.
Hi.
Naomi walked away from the mic; she was loud enough on her own.
“Sometimes sex can mean giving someone access to the parts of yourself that you spend a lot of time and energy covering up. And I know what you’re all thinking. Isn’t that hard enough?”
Tender like a promise. Tender like a sunrise. Tender like your key in the front door at midnight, letting you in, welcoming you home.
“And here I am, asking you to give away more.”
Naomi let her hands fall open at her sides.
“I guess what I’m saying is, try to figure out, ideally before you get naked, if the person you’re with wants you. Not anyone. Not a fantasy. Or a pedestal-poised ideal. Not theyouthey wish you were. You as you are. Full stop. No modifier.”
This time when she looked for him, Ethan wasn’t in his seat. But that was okay.
“I’m talking about the type of intimacy that happens when someone’s looking right at you, and most of all—this is the important part—when you let them.”
A commotion in the hallway caught her attention. Raised voices. She shook her head to refocus.
“Listen, for all my experience, I’m not an expert. What I’m telling you isn’t a rule or a secret ingredient. It’s a theory, like anything elseyou’ve heard in this class. You can have great sex with someone you just met. You can have terrible sex with someone you love. It’s all okay. I can’t stress enough that there’s no shame in fucking without feelings.”
Someone to her left clapped.
“You decide what makes sex exciting. What makes it special for you. When you’re ready.”
A sea of faces stared back at her. Some nervous. Some mildly scandalized. A few thoughtful.
The hallway altercation grew louder. Footsteps over shouting. Naomi fought to hold the audience’s attention, to keep them focused through her gaze and the volume of her voice.
“Sex doesn’t have to be a big deal to be worthwhile. But sometimes itisa big deal, and that’s okay too.”
The restless room grew quieter.
“Maybe this is the kind of dare that only appeals to me, but what if your next great sex doesn’t come from a position or a technique or a toy? What if it comes from you, letting go of whatever it is you thought you were supposed to be?”
A hand went up, an older woman she’d never seen before. “It sounds like you’re saying that if we try hard enough, any of us can have great sex?”
“Yes,” Naomi said, catching a flash of dimples in reply. “Absolutely. I’m not gonna lie, sometimes you have to work for it. But you can have great sex even if it takes you hours to come. If you cry afterward, or hell, in the middle of it. Believe it or not, I have it on good authority that you can have great sex even after accidentally giving someone a bloody nose.”
An unfortunate accident.
“There are a lot of ways to be intimate with someone. And what you need will change over time. One of the things that makes sex worth having is the ways in which it can surprise you.”
Something hit the door of the auditorium hard. Heavy, like a person’s entire weight pushed against the wood.
“What the hell?”
Naomi was up the aisle before anyone else could react, pushing open the door to see what in the world was going on. Her breath caught in the base of her throat, and she fell back a step.
Oh no. Not again.
•••
SHAME STARTED ASa hot breath against her neck. The scene in the hallway hit Naomi by degrees. First, the posters with images frozen from her films, screamingly vivid. Then the flyers, scattered across the ground like broken glass, corners torn like they’d been ripped from someone’s hand. She had to bend her knees and tilt her head to make out the photos of Ethan’s face Photoshopped over Josh’s to create a warped version of Frankenstein’s monster. She closed her eyes. Took a step back until her heels hit the wall.
Faces turned toward her, twisted in anger, mouths open, yelling, lashing pink tongues.