The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2) - Rosie Danan Page 0,84

working to transform. The promise in the sweet burn of this new kind of work was comforting in its familiarity and heady with potential. It was hard to explain. She just felt . . . full when she was with him, satisfied in a way she hadn’t realized she’d been craving.

Naomi had lain in bed last night and given her ceiling all the sappy smiles she’d tried to hide during the day, asking herself what it was about him that made her softer and stronger at the same time.

The best articulation Naomi could come up with was that he made her tender. Which was . . . not a word that anyone had ever used to describe her.

Tender like petals pressed between pages of a book. Tender like a release of poison from her bloodstream. Tender, a cousin to weak, but with a quiet power she couldn’t deny.

Naomi had built Shameless. She knew what it felt like to take a theory you held about what the world needed and make it real. For the entire duration of her twenties, she’d rioted in art and business both. But this lecture series with Ethan was different.

It still held notes of rebellion, of steering social change, but while Shameless had operated outside of established systems, in open defiance of them even, the Modern Intimacy series was designed to build a bridge between a synagogue that had existed for a hundred years and people searching for belonging in an increasingly distant culture. And it was Naomi’s job to see them safely across.

She hoped she was up to the task.

Something about the parking lot was weird tonight. She shoved her keys in her bag. There were too many cars. Too many people lingering by the entrance, their voices kicking up as she passed.

“Is that her?”

“No way. That’s not her.”

Naomi ignored them and the warning crawling down her spine. She had somewhere to be. Her lecture started in ten minutes. Those people weren’t her problem. She had a class waiting.

Except when she got to their usual room, it was empty. She pulled out her cell phone and saw two missed calls from Ethan and a string of text messages.

6:30 Have to move to auditorium C.

6:45 Some members of the press here. Did Clara invite them?

6:47 Looks like standing room only.

Naomi closed her eyes and tried to slow the beating of her heart. She inhaled deeply and let it out through her nose. Okay, so her audience had grown. That was fine. Still just another lecture. Another type of performance. This group of people would see exclusively and exactly what she wanted them to, just like everyone else.

According to a sign bearing city ordinance, auditorium C could safely seat 750 people. But when Naomi entered the room and skimmed the audience, attendees had spilled into the aisles, sitting on the steps or leaning against the back wall.

She took her place behind the podium. This one didn’t have wheels. For some reason, she really didn’t like that.

“I suppose you’re all here tonight because you heard this was the lecture about sex, right? You wanna know what a self-declared pleasure professional is going to say about taking off your clothes.” Her voice carried through the microphone, too loud and not languid enough by half.

The audience rippled, elbows pressed to desks as heads ducked forward, pens poised, fingers braced over keyboards.

Naomi found Ethan in the back row, like always, and straightened her shoulders.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve all noticed, but in our formerly puritanical and currently patriarchal society, sex makes some people nervous,” she said, this time at the right volume. “Sometimes, even me.”

The click-clack of someone typing with enthusiasm rang out across the auditorium. Naomi straightened her shoulders.

“I’ve spent a lot of hours having sex. A few of you know that better than others.” She nodded at a male reporter in the front, earning her a few laughs.

“It’s always been a bit untenable. There’s no way, really, to predict how sex will be with a new person. All the theories about the way they kiss or the size of their instep are nothing but grasping at straws. I’ve had ugly sex with gorgeous people. Sex that’s not worth remembering. Sex that made me forget my own name. Sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes it’s funny. Occasionally, it’s funny how bad it is.”

Naomi focused on her students, the ones that kept coming back week after week. She’d come to talk to them, not the press. “Listen, I want you each to