Knocked Up on Valentine's Day

by Amy Brent

  “It was very good for me,” I sighed, totally unashamed, not embarrassed in the least. Me and Iz had been besties for a long time. She knew how I was wired and vice versa. I’d seen her do some off the wall shit with guys, so me diddling myself in a Starbucks was no shock to her.

  “So, I take it your plan to use and abuse Professor Holden Moss is on schedule?” she asked as she pried the lid off her steaming cup of black coffee. Izzy was a coffee snob. If you drank anything other than black coffee with no fixings, you were a pussy, unworthy of calling yourself a true coffee-holic.

  “We’re having dinner and drinks at his house at 8 o’clock,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows.

  She picked up her cup and blew cool air into it. The steam rose and settled beneath her dark eyes. “So, you’ll be fucking his brains out by what, 8:05?”

  “Oh, I’m in no rush,” I said, lifting my venti caramel macchiato to my lips and taking a sip. I smacked my lips and sighed. “Heck, we might even make it to 8:10 or 8:15.”

  Izzy grinned at me. “Damn girl, your self-control never ceases to amaze me.”

  “I know right!” I said as I tucked the napkins between my legs to soak up the juices that were still flowing out of me. “Sometimes I amaze myself.”

  “You gonna need more napkins?” Izzy asked.

  “No, I think I’m fine,” I said, scolding her with my eyes. “I may need some fresh shorts, though.”

  “So, you talked to him before class, I assume?” She leaned in and gave me the eye. “Are you sure this is smart? You know what happened last time.”

  “Last time it was different,” I said, hitching my chin at her. “I’ve done my homework this time. Holden Moss is not married, is not engaged, and by all accounts, not a total asshole like Keith Calloway.”

  “Still, you need to be careful,” she said, shaking her head. “I have never liked this teacher’s pet thing you do. It’s just too risky. It could get you kicked out of school and the teacher fired.”

  “Iz, I’m not going to get anyone fired,” I said, rolling my eyes at the notion. “We’re two consenting adults who want to fuck each other’s brains out. The school has no business in our business.”

  “Tell that to the dean,” Izzy said. “Don’t fool yourself, girl. You are playing with fire and you know it.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “But that’s what makes it so freakin’ hot.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Jude

  I spent the better part of the afternoon preparing for my rendezvous with Professor Holden Moss. There was no pretense, no need to play around, no beating around the bush. I was going there for one thing and one thing only—to get laid—and we both knew it. We might have dinner and drinks. We might make a little small talk. We might take the time to get to know each other better. Along with all those mights we would definitely be having sex. Of that, there was no doubt in my mind.

  I thought about showing up at Holden’s apartment wearing nothing but a pair of six-inch stilettos and a trench coat, but I thought that might be a little too old school. Besides, there was no mystery or seduction in showing up naked. We were going to fuck, no question there, but I loved keeping things mysterious, even though I’d already flashed him my pussy and my tits, he had yet to see the whole package close enough to touch and taste.

  So, I slipped into a little black dress, strapless and short enough to show my ass if I bent over, and a red thong. I wore the six-inch stilettos because they made my legs look killer. I left my long red hair down around my shoulders and wore just enough makeup to highlight what the good lord gave me. I checked myself in the mirror one last time, then drove across town to Holden’s place in Willow Hills, arriving precisely at 8 o’clock as planned.

  Holden met me at the door with a glass of champagne in each hand, looking very handsome in a pair of beige linen pants and a short-sleeved black silk shirt open at the neck. I could see the tanned muscles of his chest, his arms roped with sinew and veins. My homework told me that he played on an intramural rugby team and kept himself in killer shape. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him, to feel those muscles for myself.

  “Hi, there,” he said, holding out a glass of champagne as I walked in the door. “Can I take your coat?”

  I took the glass and grinned at him. “I’m not wearing a coat.”

  “Then, may I take your dress?” He gave me a Cheshire Cat grin and wiggled his dark eyebrows. Nodding toward the living room, he said, “Sorry, couldn’t resist. Come on in and make yourself at home. Dinner is almost ready.”

  “Wow, you actually cooked dinner?” I asked as I followed him into the kitchen. Holden’s place was nice, much nicer than mine, and large enough for more than a single person. My guess was he had at least two bedrooms, maybe three. “I love your place. It’s huge. Do you live here alone?”

  “I do live here alone,” he said, showing me to a stool at the island that separated the kitchen from the living room. “I have the occasional roommate and out of town guests, plus the university stipends part of the rent, so I figured what the hell, get the nicest place I could find. And this is it.”

  “It’s a lovely place,” I said, noticing the décor was manly, but not overly so. The sofa and matching chairs were dark leather and a ginormous flat panel TV hung on the wall, but the walls were painted a light tan and the wood finishings were a blond pine. There were no animal heads on the walls, but that was not surprising. Those weren’t the kinds of trophies a hunter like Holden Moss collected.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” he said.

  I turned back toward the kitchen and took a deep breath. “Now that you mention it, I am. And something smells amazing.”

  He went to the kitchen side of the island and took the lid off a large pot that was simmering on the island’s cooktop. He waved the lid to spread the scent of tomato sauce my way. The wonderful aroma of garlic and basil filled the air and teased my nose. “I hope you like spaghetti.”

  “I love spaghetti,” I said, inhaling deeply. I lifted the champagne glass to my lips and gave him a coy look. “Why Professor Moss, I thought you had just lured me here to fuck. I had no idea we were actually going to have dinner.”

  He smiled as he stirred the sauce. “I would never ask a lady to fuck without feeding her first,” he said. He had a boyish grin, wide mouth, lots of teeth. It made his eyes sparkle and lit up his entire face. “Besides, there’s nothing more embarrassing than to be in the middle of having great sex and hear your stomach growl.”

  “So, you speak from experience?” I asked, watching him from over the top of the champagne glass.

  “I’m afraid I do,” he said. He stirred the sauce, then brought the spoon up for a taste. He blew over the spoon for a second, then carefully tasted the sauce. Smacking his lips, he held the spoon out to me with his other hand cupped underneath ready to catch anything that might drop. “Mmmm, that’s pretty good if I do say so myself. Taste?”

  I leaned in and blew on the sauce, then sucked it from the spoon. I had no idea how hungry I was. I had been so caught up in getting ready for my night with Holden that I had forgotten to eat. My stomach growled at the taste. “Oh my, that is good,” I said, licking my lips. “I would say that’s better than sex, but it’s too early to tell.”

  “Then the bar is set high,” he said, smiling again as he went back to stirring the sauce. He glanced up at me. “Can I ask you something?”

  I turned sideways on the stool, crossing my long legs and resting the champagne glass on my knee. I had a pretty good idea what the question was going to be. It was the old, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this with your panties down around your ankles?” routine.

  I held up the champagne glass and gave him a nod to proceed. “Of course, Professor. Ask away.”

  “No offense, but do you do this sort of thing often?” he asked without looking me in the eye. “I mean—again, no offense—and I’m certainly not knocking your tactics. To the contrary, I have spent most of the day wondering wh
at I did to deserve this. But—”

  I interrupted him so he didn’t have to say the words he was thinking. “But do I always show my pussy to strange men in public and invite them to fuck me in private?”

  “Do you think I’m a strange man?” he asked, smiling at me as he stirred the sauce.

  “I think you certainly have the potential to be strange,” I said, teasing him with my eyes. “Or at the very least, a little kinky.”

  He chuckled and gave me a single nod. “I will admit to a certain fondness for kink, Miss Allen. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  “Which was?”

  “Do you do this sort of thing often?”

  I took another sip of the champagne, then dabbed the corners of my lips with my fingertips. “You read my paper, right? This is sort of my kind of thing.”

  He tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot, put the lid on the sauce, and picked up his glass. He leaned back against the sink, nodding as he stared into my eyes. “I did read your paper, and of course I understand the concept of nymphomania or hypersexuality or whatever you want to call it. However—and you might find this hard to believe given the degrees hanging on my office wall—but I don’t think nymphomania actually exists.”

  That caught me by surprise, given that he had spent most of his life studying psychology and dissecting how the human brain did or did not work. For him to reveal that he didn’t believe in the existence of something as ancient and established as nymphomania was a little surprising to hear.

  “You don’t think nymphomania is a real thing?” I asked, giving him a little frown that pushed away the smile. I feigned a southern belle accent. “Why, Professor Moss, what makes you say such horrible things, especially seeing as how you are in the presence of a lady who has been clinically diagnosed as such?”

  He cocked one eyebrow in classic Rhett Butler fashion and pooched out his lips. “Actually, my dear, your paper supports my theory.”

  “Really?” I dropped the playful accent because he had peaked my interest in more ways than one. “How so?”

  He frowned thoughtfully as he sipped the champagne. “You observed quite correctly that in our chauvinistic society it is expected for a man to have unbridled sexual urges because that’s programmed into his base DNA. Call it the instinct of procreation, the desire to prolong the survival of the species, to continue the lineage of generations to come. Correct?”

  “You say it much better and more formally than I did, but basically, that’s correct. Please, proceed.”

  He extended a long finger from the hand holding the champagne glass. “But if a woman has that same primal instinct—or rather acts on the urges generated by that instinct—there must be something clinically, medically, or psychologically wrong with her.

  “Her sex drive must be stuck on high,” I offered, recalling the words my therapist had once used to describe me, right before he leaned me over his desk and fucked me in the ass.

  “Yes,” Holden said, seriously. “She must be a slut or have a mental defect of some kind because for a woman to want to have sex just for the sake of having sex, well, that’s not considered normal in our overly-judgmental, post-Victorian, chauvinistic society.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and said with a hard tone, “Yes, exactly! If a guy loves to fuck—and fucks every willing woman he can—he is just being a guy because that’s what guys do. Even men who are monogamous want to fuck other women.”

  “Yes, precisely,” Holden said, finger wagging in the air. “Humans are the only monogamous species on the planet because the very concept of monogamy goes against the primal urge to procreate and prolong the species. Women have the same urges as men. We just come at procreation from different angles.”

  I shook my finger to match his. “But if a woman fucks as freely as a man—whether she is in a monogamous relationship or not—she is considered a slut or a whore or a nympho, all conditions of the mind which have been blamed on mental illness in some capacity over time. Forget the moral judgment part of the equation. If a woman is doing those things, the bitch must be crazy! That’s the double standard.”

  “Exactly,” he said, tapping the butt of his fist on the counter, making the lid on the pot dance. “A double standard established somewhere in times past by a man who had no other explanation as to why some women acted like men when it came to sex.”

  “Maybe he was trying to explain why his own wife fucked around on him,” I said, eyebrows flexing. “What? She cheated on me? The bitch must be crazy!”

  Holden covered his mouth to keep from spraying champagne across the island. “Yes! Or perhaps, in his closed Victorian mind, there was no other reasonable explanation because ladies simply did not act that way. Unless they were ladies of the night who were paid to do so.”

  “You mean prostitutes. Women with no moral turpitude.”

  “Yes, exactly,” he said again, hands cutting the air as if he were conjuring his point from thin air. “Or witches or vixens or sirens who used their sexuality as a dark power over men.”

  “You’re really going deep here, Professor Moss,” I said with a smile. I drained the champagne glass and fanned myself with my free hand. “It’s a little unexpected, but it’s sort of getting me hot.”

  He smiled and tried to ignore the comment because he was still in professor mode, which I found adorable.

  He went on, “So, why should there be a double standard for men versus women? Why are men just doing what comes natural to the male of the species, but when a woman does it there must be another reason why? She must be ill to do those things. When in truth, aren’t we all just answering the same inherent call of the wild, so to speak?”

  I blinked at him because he had taken the thoughts right out of my own brain, though I had branded myself a nymphomaniac years ago and had come to wear that brand as a symbol of pride. Whether I liked it or not, I had allowed myself to be defined by my sexual desires. They drove every decision I made, affected every relationship I forged, even made me do things I might not have done if I wasn’t out to prove the point that I was proud of who I was.

  But what if I wasn’t a nymphomaniac at all. What if, as Holden suggested, there was no such thing as nymphomania? What if I was just a woman who answered the call of her own primal instincts rather than suppressing them? If that was the case, I had answered that call over and over and over again.

  “So, you’re saying that nymphomania is not a real thing?” I asked the question and let it hang in the air for a moment. “You’re saying that I really just like to fuck and it’s biological, not psychological? I’m just a horny girl?”

  He let his big shoulders rise and fall slowly, eyeing me with a slight smile. “Would that be so horrible? To know that your brain is fine and you’re just fulfilling the sexual needs of your incredibly, sexy body?”

  “No, that wouldn’t be horrible at all,” I said. “Except that I’ve spent the last five years trying to sort things out in my head. Maybe I should have been focusing more on my womb than my brain.”

  He let his head bob. “So, you’re one of those people who went into psychology to help explain your own issues. Or those things you thought were your issues, like your ‘hyperactive’ sex drive—and I’m not saying your sex drive is any more active than most women your age. Maybe you just act upon those urges where other women suppress them. Ever think about that?”

  “So, it’s not a sexual issue,” I said, flexing my eyebrows at him. “It’s a self-control issue.”

  “It might not be an issue at all,” he said. “Just because you act on those urges does not mean you have a lack of self-control. It just means you act. You follow your heart, your head, and your womb. You let your urges lead you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

  I thought about his words for a moment. I felt a tear stinging my left eye. I casually wiped it away with my knuckle. “What if those urges lead me to do things I regret doing?”

  “Do you have lots of regrets
?” he asked, staring into my eyes with a concerned look on his handsome face. He spread out his hands, palms up. “Are you going to regret coming here?”

  I frowned at the thought of regret, which had never concerned me before. “Honestly, I have regretted some of the decisions I’ve made, regretted sleeping with some of the men I’ve been with, but regret is not something I spend much time thinking about.”

  “What about the repercussions of your actions?” he asked. He was in full psychoanalysis mode now and I found it captivating. I had not heard him lecture in class yet, but I knew he was a wonderful teacher, which just made me want him more. I squirmed uneasily on the stool, starting to feel a little like I was being interrogated. I wondered if he had any handcuffs… perhaps a blindfold and gag…

  When I didn’t answer quickly enough, he asked the question in a different way, “Have you done things that affected others?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why are you asking me these things, Professor Moss? Why do I feel like I’m being psychoanalyzed?”

  He blinked at me, then shook his head and smiled. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hands. “I guess I miss practicing.”

  “You practiced?” I asked. “As in psychoanalysis?”

  “Yes, for a short time, after I got my Ph.D.”