The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2) - Rosie Danan Page 0,107

Naomi had graduated. Schools really needed better funding for the arts.

“Yeah, I’m ready.” She’d prepared her presentation on the plane. “Sex Should Be Shameless.” Half of it came straight from the slides they used for sales meetings. The usual stats about how recent studies showed that nearly thirty percent of college women could not identify the proper location of the clitoris, and only eleven percent of women experienced climax the first time with a new heterosexual partner.

She’d added some context around her own path to studying intimacy, starting to unpack the stigma against sex work for them, along with a discussion of different resources available to help supplement the Greater Boston Area School District’s sad offering. Not that she’d ever admit as much to Clara, but the plan did help a little.

Naomi took the stage. It was easily ten degrees warmer under the old-school spotlight.

“Hey,” she said into the mic. The room settled surprisingly quickly. She wondered why for a moment before remembering she was both hot and famous.

“I’m . . .” Hundreds of faces stared back at her. Younger and softer than the ones she’d grown used to. Wanting in every sense of the word rolled off these seniors in waves. She couldn’t decide if they were more open or more closed than her Modern Intimacy participants.

“I’m . . . well, you might know me by my stage name, Naomi Grant.” She rotated her ring around her index finger. “That’s how most people know me. It’s the name on the poster outside. But, honestly, it feels weird to step back into the footprints of my old life and not acknowledge them. So, yeah. I guess I’ll add that my given name is Hannah Sturm, and I graduated from this high school in 2008.”

“Whoa, dude. That’s, like, so long ago,” a guy in the front row said to his neighbor, who nodded.

Naomi laughed. “You know, in Hebrew, my birth name means grace. I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to being Hannah on a regular basis, or if I even want to, but I’m okay with making room for a little more grace in my life.”

She breathed in a sense of release. Was this what veterinarians experienced when they caught and healed a wounded animal and then eventually got the chance to release it, healed, back into the wild?

Over her shoulder, she saw her slides projected on a big screen someone had wheeled in. The title bold and big. A merry declaration. She gestured at it. “Actually, I don’t think I’m gonna use those today.”

It wasn’t as if she was ever getting invited back here. She might as well discuss what she wanted to.

“None of you know this. But I actually started teaching in live environments for the first time this year. I know it sounds wild, but someone actually let me teach a seminar about modern intimacy.” Someone—because she couldn’t say his name. “I was asked here to speak about the future of sex education, but in putting together that course, I committed to the idea that intimacy is so much more than sex. And I’m more than sex. I planned out a syllabus across seven weeks, and I didn’t get to finish the last one.” She smiled a little. “It’s actually pretty rich in karmic hilarity. You’ll understand why in a minute, I promise.”

A group of teachers had clustered, hands up over their mouths as they whispered to each other. Naomi wasn’t worried. Most of them had been cowards then. They were likely cowards now.

“Anyway.” She took a deep breath. “The last lecture I was supposed to deliver was about how to break up with someone, and I think I’m just gonna talk about that now, if it’s okay with you?”

No one answered. She hadn’t expected them to. Naomi nodded back at the projector. “I’ll put the sex ed slides up on the Internet or something. You can look at them later if you want.”

The seminar was canceled, but the course she’d started with Ethan didn’t feel complete. As if, like their relationship, it had ended on an inhale. She desperately wanted to see it to the finish line. Enough that she’d stand up here and keep talking until they physically carted her away.

“No one ever teaches you how to end a relationship. You go through a breakup, and it doesn’t matter if you were blindsided or if you were planning it for months. It fucking— Can I say fucking? Probably not, huh?” She blinked into the crowd.