Page 6 of Prosecco with My Professor
“Why did you run out?” Jade asks.
“Because it was embarrassing. I wasn’t expecting that!”
“What?” Jade asks, her brow wrinkling.
“I wasn’t expecting him to put his mouth down there! I just thought…I don’t know! I couldn’t stop thinking about how it had been a few hours since I’d showered and I had just peed at the bar and I haven’t done any upkeep down there because obviously I wasn’t planning to go home with a guy and…” Great, now I’m crying. “I guess I’m just not ready yet.”
“Hey,” Tessa coos. “That’s okay. It’s all taking steps and trying something new, right?”
“Emma, babe, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you.” Jade sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, the skin under her teeth turning white as she worries it.
“You didn’t pressure me. Really. I was excited at the bar, but when he was actually…you know…I just couldn’t turn my brain off and enjoy it.”
“You definitely have to be in the right headspace for it,” Tessa says. “A bit of confidence goes a long way.”
I sit up, wiping my eyes, and give my friends my best attempt at a smile. “It gets better, right?”
“Of course it does!” Jade assures me.
Sara agrees, even though I think it’s more wishful thinking than anything else.
But Tessa, the only one of us actually in a relationship, smiles knowingly and goes a little dreamy. She must be thinking about her boyfriend, Luc. Sara, Jade, and I exchange glances and then Jade lunges for the other bed, grabbing a pillow. Sara and I take the ones from behind us and whack Tessa.
She laughs and squeals, fending off the blows as best she can.
We don’t pillow fight for long—seriously, a pillow fight at our age? Bruce, my ex, would have keeled over with a heart attack over me having a pillow fight with my “hot friends”—and end up all on the same bed, sprawled out and laughing.
Weapons down, Jade returns to the important topics. “It’s a great sign that he went down on you, though. Like, I hate to say how low my bar has gotten lately. I’m fine with any foreplay, but goddamn, so many men want to skip right to p-in-v, and I’m fucking tired of it.”
Tessa hums. “You know, the first time Luc went down on me, I asked if he wanted me to shower first. I get that we’re all human and have bodily functions and whatnot. It’s a legit concern, but some men just really like it. And then, once you get into it, you don’t really think about anything else.” She shrugs.
“Hard agree,” Jade adds.
That’s what I worry about. Sometimes, with Bruce, he gave up before I could come. It’s so hard to stay present.
Plus, I’m pretty sure Jade and Tessa keep their pubic hair relatively trim. Maybe I should ask for some tips.
Tessa departs for the bathroom, and Jade and I vacate to the other bedroom. I shower, washing off any lingering smells of wine and hot Italian men, and then get in bed. Jade, in the other bed, flips over on her side to face me before I turn out the light.
“I’m sorry your night didn’t work out,” she says softly.
“I know. But it was a step forward, and I wouldn’t have been brave enough for that without your support. Thanks for that.”
“Any time, babe. And now you’ll probably meet some cute fellow MBA student who’s a few years younger than you but has all the eagerness and stamina that comes with it, and he can rock your world.”
I chuckle at that. Luc is younger than Tessa, but I’m not sure that interests me. I like the maturity and self-assuredness Santo carried. Maybe there’s someone like that waiting for me, and maybe he’ll be in the crowd of new students.
It’sa teary goodbye with my best friends, but it’s tempered by the fact that I’ll see them again in a month. After waving to the car that whisks them off to the airport, I take my things and call my own Uber to go to my new apartment.
I have two large bags with me from my time in Madrid and a small bag for the weekend. My intention was to leave the big bags packed until I got to my new place, but I made a huge mess looking for things in them—half of which I ended up finding in the smaller bag after a harried search—and I didn’t pack them up as neatly anymore. Hence, I greet the landlord of the apartment complex with bulging bags I can barely carry, plus a handful of sweatshirts that mysteriously no longer fit in my suitcases.
The man is nice enough, showing me the small entrance with double doors, the (very European) cramped elevator where we stuff my bags in with us, and the small apartment that I’ll be living in.
It’s fully furnished, so by the time my bags are in and we’ve made a few trips down to the storage area to get the boxes I shipped over ahead of time, the space is feeling rather tiny. Plus, my apartment is one of the unrenovated ones in the building, which means it is cheaper. I think most of these are unfurnished and nicer. Since it’s just me, I don’t need a lot of space, but I wanted to be close to the school.
I’m not the only one moving in today—down the hallway there are boxes stacked outside of another door, and someone else is moving in on the first floor too.
“We house a lot of students and professors,” my landlord explains. “Not…how do you say in English? Dormitory?”
