“Get your head out of the gutter, Natalie. I was talking about my work.”
I furrowed my brows skeptically. “You write about sex…professionally?”
“I study ethics. One of my areas of focus, including the one that I’m writing my book on, is the philosophy of sex.”
“Okay. What does that mean exactly? You’re looking at whether having sex is ethical?” I asked, suddenly intrigued.
“It’s complicated,” he said softly. “I’ll back up. Philosophy is the study of what really matters, such as knowledge, reality, and existence. It looks at how we know what we know, whether or not there’s a god, if we have free will, what is right and wrong behavior, et cetera. Ethics is the latter.”
“Who knew I’d be getting a philosophy lesson tonight?” I said with a laugh.
“I don’t have to explain,” he said with a shrug.
“No, keep going. I’m interested,” I insisted, leaning forward. “We’re talking about right or wrong.”
“Yes. The ethical theory that I most agree with is from Aristotle.”
“Hence the dog.”
“Indeed. As I mentioned on Lewis’s yacht, for Aristotle, you want to reach eudemonia, the ultimate state of happiness. And developing that happiness is done by creating good habits…essentially.”
“This has something to do with sex, I presume.” I tilted my head and smirked.
Penn arched his eyebrow. “Well, the general theory regarding sex is what we call the standard view. Sex is okay between two people in a committed relationship—preferably marriage—and the purpose is for procreation.”
I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough. “Well, that’s incredibly outdated.”
“Is it?” he asked calmly. “I think most people will say that waiting to have sex is a smarter, safer choice.”
“Yeah, and those same people are having sex before marriage,” I pointed out. “I doubt anyone only has sex to have kids.”
“Right. I don’t think people follow the standard view, but that’s what is set up as the paradigm. It’s the best way to mitigate the risks of having sex.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you don’t subscribe to this mentality,” I said cheekily.
“I do not.”
“Color me shocked.”
“I enjoy sex,” he said blatantly. “Most people enjoy sex. It’s a pleasure unto itself and for much more than procreation. And the basis of my research is dismantling the standard view in an Aristotelian ethical fashion. It’s proving to be challenging.”
“I couldn’t imagine doing what you’re doing. Challenging sounds like an understatement. You’re trying to disprove a cultural stigma.”
“Well, in philosophy, we try to explain the existence of God and our reason for being. I would hope that I could explain why sex for pleasure brings us happiness.”
I laughed and nodded. “Fair.”
I sank back in my chair again and assessed him. I knew nothing about philosophy. But I could probably listen to him talk about it all night. His clear love for what he was doing drew me in. I found it interesting that, of all the things that he’d said and done with me in Paris, it was this that felt the most real. That he’d wanted to escape his family and become someone else. That he’d wanted to be a professor and study philosophy. I hadn’t known how much of that was bullshit, but six years later, he was living it.
“You really were telling the truth in Paris,” I said softly.
“About everything that mattered.”
“Huh,” I said, getting to my feet and moving to stand before him. I took the glass of bourbon out of his hand. He looked surprised when I drained it. “Would have never guessed.”
“Disappointed?”
I shook my head. “If I could change in six years, maybe you could too.”
“Maybe?”
“It’s still up for debate.”
“Seems fair.”
I held up the empty glass. “Want another?”
“I can get it.”
“Yeah, but I offered.”
“Are you going to get your own or keep drinking mine?”
“That’s up for debate too.”
“Then, make it a double,” he said with a flash of a smile.
“Be careful, Kensington. Leading an ethical life comes from creating good habits. Wouldn’t want to see you slip up,” I teased as I walked back toward the house.
“One philosophy lesson, and she’s already teaching the teacher.”
“I’m a quick study.”
“Don’t I know it?” he said, his eyes molten.
I knew that look. I knew exactly what he was thinking about—every minute we had spent together where he taught me just how much sex wasn’t for procreation. Now, I was thinking about it, too. And I knew that we absolutely couldn’t have a repeat. Ever.