Not well

The two found an empty study room and got down to work. No matter how hard she concentrated, Emily just couldn’t focus on her data. It was like there was a mental block preventing her from even wrapping her head around the most basic formulas. She barely realized that she’d started sucking on one of her fingers. She glanced over at Matt who seemed to be having a hard time with his data too.

“Are you like stressed too?”

“What? Uh, yeah.” Matt was shaken out of a reverie of some kind by her question.

“The numbers are so hard.” Emily had a petulant tinge to her voice.

“Maybe if we looked at each other’s?” He started pushing his laptop toward Emily.

“Oh… sure.”

Emily stared at her colleague’s data. She only half remembered what he was even working on, let alone able to figure out what he needed to do with his raw data. She stared at it intently, trying to get her brain to work. The fog around her mind was totally impenetrable. There were shadows of answers on the walls of her mind but she couldn’t quite grasp any of them.

“Here,” Matt spun her computer around. “I think I’ve figured you out.”

He explained himself in full. And Emily kind of got it. But she had to ask a number of questions that made a look of incredulity cross Matt’s face. How could she not know some of these basic things? Emily wrote down what he’d said nearly verbatim to try to wrap her head around later.

“If you’re gonna write that much down you’re gonna have to put me in your acknowledgements.”

“Oh my god, yeah of course.”

The thought to offer him a blowjob crossed Emily’s mind. Acknowledgements were one thing, but she wanted to thank him right now. She saw his eyes go wide and she realized she’d thought out loud. She had actually offered her oral services to her cohort-mate.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No totally.” Emily giggled, trying to pass it off as a joke. Except she hadn’t been joking. In fact some part of her was disappointed he hadn’t taken her up on her offer.

“For the amount of time I just saved you, I’d expect at least to fuck you.”

Matt laughed at the absurdity of the offer, but Emily caught herself seriously considering it. After all, he did need to be thanked properly.