Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,13

been great but what would they ever talk about outside of bed? They had nothing in common. Nothing at all.

Now, as she shifted restlessly in her rickety office chair, she knew she had to put Saturday night behind her. She’d been over this and over this all weekend and the conclusion was always the same. So what if she’d had the greatest sex of her life? For him, it was probably just another anonymous sexual encounter. She should treat it the same way.

Trying to muster her willpower, she turned her attention to the next paper.

Bryon’s poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” is an important poem because it’s a really romantic poem about Harold and not the crazy sister that Bryon liked to sleep with.

Oh boy. Not an auspicious start, when even the poet’s name was spelled incorrectly.

The office door opened, and Cassandra Murphy, a fellow doctoral candidate and Leanne’s best friend, rescued her from reading another torturous line.

“Tell me again why earning this degree was a good idea,” she moaned as she laid a stack of books on the adjoining desk. “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs—I should be clear of it shortly before retirement—and Julia and I decorate with milk crates while eating no-name macaroni. My comps are in two months and I already feel like flinging myself from the observatory tower.” She threw herself dramatically into a chair. “I have been reading, I am reading, I will be reading.”

Leanne smiled sympathetically. She remembered how harried and emotionally drained she’d felt when she faced her own monumental two-day comprehensive exams last year.

“You’ll more than survive. You’ll blow them all away and get the green light to begin writing your thesis, which will wow the entire academy and make them say ‘Judith Butler who?’”

At the mention of the oft-controversial lesbian theorist, Cassandra grinned.

“I’d be willing to share the stage with her. As long as I get top billing in the conference programs.” Reaching for the shelf where they kept their not so emergency cookie stash, she continued between mouthfuls, “Julia had good news, though. She’s had her abstract accepted for the next MLA conference. It’s in St. Paul.”

For a moment, Leanne was distracted by the great news. Only the best humanities scholars were accepted to present at the Modern Language Association’s annual conference and being chosen was a huge feather in Julia’s cap. “That’s fantastic. I hope you took her out to celebrate.”

“I never need a reason to celebrate with the woman I love.” Cassandra laughed. “But yes, I let her supersize the fries and the drink. If that ain’t love, I don’t know what is.” Her eyes sharpened. “Wasn’t this the weekend for the ghastly Gillian’s hen party? Did you end up going? How was it? Really, really awful or just sorta-kinda awful?”

I had the best sex of my life and three orgasms, all within half an hour of meeting a perfect stranger.

“Not bad.”

“Right.” Cassandra snorted. “I’ve met Gillian. Fun and Gillian don’t usually travel together. So, tell me, did the bride-to-be get falling-down drunk and do something tacky and embarrassing? And if she did, puh-lease tell me you got pictures.”

“Well, Gillian didn’t…”

“Ooh, that sounds promising.” Cassandra rolled her chair over, straddling it with her long legs. Leaning over its back, her chin resting on her arms, she smirked. “Let me guess. You went to the strip club, got wildly drunk and had noisy, kinky, public sex with a total stranger before being discovered in a compromising position.”

“Um…yeah. That’s about the size of it,” she admitted before hastily qualifying her statement by adding, “but I wasn’t drunk.”

Dead silence.

For the first time in their friendship, she discovered just what it took to render her voluble friend speechless. Visibly regrouping, Cass closed her mouth with an audible click before running an uncertain hand through her short, spiky hair, trying to look as though Leanne’s pronouncement hadn’t knocked her for a loop.

“Okay, well, if you’d said you’d had noisy, kinky, public lesbian sex, I would have been excited that you’d finally seen the light, but really, sounds like the same old, same old heterosexual routine…” Her voice trailed off as she took in Leanne’s face. Her joking tone disappeared. “You okay?”

Leanne tried to nod but how could she explain to anyone, even her best friend, what she’d been thinking when she couldn’t even explain her behavior to herself?

“Lee? Are you okay?” Cassandra’s voice was sharp with concern and Leanne felt her panic ebb a little in the face of her best friend’s warm