u/Professor_Bre

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I'm a 48-year-old educated woman. I teach biology and anatomy & physiology, so you'd think I'd have a reasonably solid understanding of how the human body works.

Apparently there was a small but important gap in my education. 😂

I knew oral sex could transmit STIs. Of course I knew that.

What had somehow never crossed my mind was that I could get gonorrhea in my throat, have it spread beyond my throat, and end up seriously fucking sick.

Yet here we are.

It started with a sore throat. Then my joints apparently decided to stage a coordinated rebellion. Fingers, wrists, feet—pain and swelling that seemed to keep moving around. I went from "huh, this is strange" to multiple medical visits and eventually being admitted to the hospital.

Then came the plot twist:

My throat swab was positive for gonorrhea.

And the bigger plot twist: the infection had disseminated. I was being treated in the hospital for a systemic infection, with IV antibiotics, blood cultures, an echocardiogram, and considerably more medical attention than I had ever anticipated receiving as a consequence of giving someone a blowjob.

At some point I just had to appreciate the sheer fucking absurdity of it.

I knew oral sex wasn't risk-free.

I knew gonorrhea existed.

I knew infections could become serious.

Somehow my brain had simply never assembled those facts into the sentence:

"One day a blowjob might land you in the hospital."

Apparently Professor Bre still has some continuing education requirements. 😂

I'm doing much better, and I'm incredibly grateful that I got treatment when I did. But since this particular possibility had never occurred to me—and I literally teach people about the human body—I figured there had to be at least one other grown-ass adult out there who didn't know either.

So there you go. My confession, my humiliation, and today's accidental public-service announcement:

Sometimes you give head.

Sometimes you get ahead.

And sometimes you get admitted. 😭😂

I woke up this morning feeling like absolute garbage, with a sore throat, and slowly began remembering why there are cigarettes in my house even though neither of us smokes.

And somehow, that's not even the interesting part.

Yesterday was already a lot. I found out that someone I’d known and cared about for twenty years had died, and I was heartbroken. I cried. I drank wine. Then I drank more wine.

At some point later in the evening, my boyfriend was feeling considerably more adventurous than I was. I was perfectly content letting him entertain himself while I continued my very responsible evening of drinking wine and making excellent decisions.

He wasn't having much luck finding company through the usual channels, though, so he expanded his search to another app.

This should probably be the point in the story where I tell you that my boyfriend is bi-ish, I'm extraordinarily difficult to shock, and our relationship has never exactly been conventional.

So none of this seemed particularly remarkable to me.

He told me he had invited three people.

Three.

Apparently his reasoning was that people flake.

This is the same strategy airlines use when they overbook flights, and in retrospect perhaps it should not be applied to gentleman callers.

Nevertheless, Gentleman Caller Number One arrived.

I was mostly an amused observer at first.

Mostly.

Wine has a funny way of renegotiating the evening's itinerary.

So there I was, participating in an evening I absolutely had not anticipated when—

the doorbell rang.

Because Gentleman Caller Number Two had arrived.

There are moments in life when you suddenly become aware that the evening has gotten completely away from you.

This was one of those moments.

There was an awkward little changing of the guard, some polite conversation, and somehow the evening continued with our second guest.

And that's how a Friday night that had started with me crying and drinking wine ended up becoming something considerably more… interactive.

This morning, my memories started returning in installments.

I was sore.

I was hungover.

My throat hurt.

I started drinking water and reconstructing my Friday night like an investigator arriving at a particularly confusing crime scene.

Then I checked my camera roll.

Apparently Drunk Me documented the crime scene herself.

Oh, right.

THE CIGARETTES.

Neither of us smokes.

He quit about ten years ago. I haven't smoked in decades.

Apparently last night, however, he decided he wanted a cigar, went to the store, and returned with one disgusting cigar and an entire pack of cigarettes.

I smoked two.

There is photographic evidence.

Why?

I have absolutely no idea.

At this point I think my brain had simply stopped supervising me.

So, to recap:

I cried over someone I loved, drank entirely too much wine, accidentally participated in an unexpected threesome, smoked two cigarettes for the first time in decades, and woke up with a sore throat wondering exactly when my life became this ridiculous.

And the weirdest part?

I'm not even sure this qualifies as unusual anymore.

On the last day of class last semester, after final exams, L asked for my phone number.

And since he's no longer my student, I can finally tell you his name is Luke.

Luke did text me. And eventually we decided to meet for drinks.

I wanted to be able to come back here and tell you this wild story about how amazing the date was. That all of that tension we'd built up over the semester carried right over into real life. Maybe we'd have a few drinks, end up at a hotel, and I'd come back with an even better confession to tell you.

But here's the truth.

The drink was the best part of the date. 😂

And honestly, that surprised me.

I'd spent an entire semester being incredibly attracted to this man. There had been so much buildup between us—the flirting, the anticipation, those private moments in my office, and probably most of all, knowing that we shouldn't be doing any of it.

I think the naughtiness and suspense were a much bigger part of the attraction than I realized at the time.

Because when Luke and I were finally sitting across from each other at a bar, with no reason to sneak around and nothing stopping us anymore, something was different.

I was still attracted to him. Very attracted to him.

That part definitely wasn't imaginary. Every time he touched me, I felt electricity in my whole body. The kiss Goodbye was amazing but left me wanting more than what he could offer.

We just didn't have that much to talk about.

The conversation was fine. He was still sweet. I still enjoyed being with him. But I kept waiting for that other kind of chemistry to kick in—the kind where one conversation turns into three more and suddenly you've been sitting there for hours.

It didn't.

And that was probably the biggest surprise of the whole thing.

For months I'd thought the physical chemistry between us was the thing pulling me toward him. And it was definitely part of it. But apparently I need more than that.

I need someone who makes me curious.

Someone who makes me think.

Someone I can talk to for hours and still want to know more about when we're finished.

Maybe Luke and I were always better at flirting and teasing than we were ever going to be at dating. And honestly? There's nothing wrong with that. Not every attraction has to turn into something bigger.

Classes start again in a little over a week, so I suppose it's almost time to put my professor hat back on and behave myself.

Although, if last semester taught me anything, it's that I should probably stop making predictions about how that's going to go. 🤭

For now, I'm taking one lesson from Luke with me:

Physical chemistry can get my attention.

Keeping it takes something else entirely.

So here's my guilty conscience question...

Have you ever wanted someone so badly and then finally had the opportunity to be with them, only to realize the attraction wasn't quite enough?

Because apparently I need someone who can stimulate my mind just as much as everything else.

Thursday was the last day of the semester.

I'd spent almost a month pretending I wasn't looking for "L" every time he walked into class.

I watched him during the final exam more than I should have. He has this habit of running his hand through his hair when he's thinking, chewing on the end of his pen, scribbling something on scratch paper before typing another answer.

He was the last one to finish.

When everyone else had left, he walked up to my desk, smiled, and asked, "Can I call you Bre now?"

I laughed a little harder than I meant to.

"I guess you can."

We stood there talking for what felt like forever about absolutely nothing. Summer plans. His internship. My vacation. Neither of us seemed to want to be the first person to walk away.

I kept wondering if I was imagining the chemistry still being there or if he felt it too. Every time our eyes met, I looked away first.

He told me he loved the way my pink dress fit and said that it distracted him during his whole exam.

Then he asked if he could have my number.

I said yes but I didn't ask for his.

He put his hand on my cheek and asked if he could kiss me. I couldn't find my voice so I just nodded. Then, he kissed me and walked out the door.

I've replayed that conversation this weekend more times than I'd ever admit.

Either way... I don't think I'll forget the last day of class.

I wonder if he's going to call.

Should I even answer?

What was I thinking?