3 comments/ 30485 views/ 1 favorites An Immodest Proposal By: Mudak Chapter 1 "I saved you a seat," called out Chandra as she saw Vanessa walk into the classroom. "Thanks." Vanessa walked quickly to the desk that Chandra had indicated, put her backpack down between her own seat and her friend's, and sat down with a relieved sigh. "The prof here yet?" "Not yet." Vanessa reached into her bag and pulled out a pen and a pad of paper. A guy sitting behind the two co-eds leaned forward and said, "So... D'you girls believe stories they tell about this class?" Vanessa turned around and smiled at the guy who had struck up a conversation. "I don't know. I'm just glad that he's later than I am." Chandra joined in. "It certainly looks interesting. I'll say that much." "Yeah, I guess you could say that. By the way, I'm Justin." He reached forward to shake the girls' hands. "Vanessa." "Pleased to meet you, Vanessa. And you are?" "Chandra." "Enchanté" Chandra giggled as he kissed the back of her hand. After a moment, Justin glanced down at his watch. "Ya know what I hate? I hate it when the teachers can't even make it to their own classes on time. I mean, it's not as though they're coming from someplace off-campus. Half the faculty have offices in this building. I mean, what the fuck?" Vanessa nodded her head. "Exactly! What the fuck!" "I don't care if this is the most interesting chemistry course this school offers. It doesn't look good when the instructor's late on the first day, ya know?" Chandra and Vanessa scowled, staring at their new friend. "What? Was it something I said?" Chandra said, quietly, "Um, Justin. I don't know how to tell you this, but this isn't Chemistry." "Wait? What?" "It's Linguistics. Linguistics 249. The Use, Misuse, and Abuse of Words," said Vanessa. "Oh. Well, I feel sheepish," Justin said. He stood up, picked up his satchel, and hoisted it over his shoulder. "It was nice meeting you two." Vanessa said, "Nice meeting you too," trying to suppress her own laughter. Justin walked slowly towards the door, turning sharply on his heels before he actually left the classroom. He hit one of the light switches on the wall and the front half of the room was plunged into semi-darkness. Turning to face the class, he said, "All right, class. I'm Professor Justin Wells. Welcome to Linguistics 249. Your official course manual calls this course... I'm sorry, Vanessa. What do they call this class again?" Vanessa blushed, both at having been put on the spot like this and at the antics of their professor who had apparently pretended to be a student. Instead of answering, her thoughts drifted to whether or not anyone else in the class hadn't believed him to be another student. "Vanessa? Don't be shy!" "Oh, sorry, professor. It's The Use, Misuse, and Abuse of Words." "That's a nice course name, but I prefer the much simpler..." He retrieved a small black remote control, clicked it once, and a PowerPoint demonstration appeared on the white board at the front of the room. The title slide had a single word on it: WURDZ. "I'll start you guys off with a simple question," Professor Wells said as he looked around the room. "Does anyone see anything wrong with this title?" There was a low murmur throughout the room before Chandra said, "You spelled it wrong." "Oh. All right. Does anyone else think I spelled it wrong?" A few people raised their hands, and the class gradually came to the consensus about the typo that appeared in large letters before them all. "Why do you think I spelled it wrong?" A guy sitting a few rows behind Chandra and Vanessa called out, "It's spelled W-O-R-D-S!" "Oh, I see," said Professor Wells, feigning ignorance and suddenly giving the air of someone who hadn't realized the information he had just been provided. "But why?" Everyone in the classroom looked around at each other, unsure of how to answer this question. Finally, a young woman in the back of the room called out, "But that's the way the word is supposed to be spelled!" "Ahh! That's how it's supposed to be. The convention of spelling! Of course. But isn't this class about the use, misuse, and abuse of words?" He paused for a moment and added, "Now. You all knew exactly what I was saying with this title page in spite of the spelling convention, right?" The students started nodding slowly, with a few members of the class mumbling, "Right." "So I just misused the word 'words' and you still understood what I was saying. One thing you'll learn in this class is that sometimes it's not as important 'how' you say something as long as you can convey the proper meaning of what you're trying to say. Now. Would anyone disagree with me when I say that the way it's presented here, as W-U-R-D-Z, is probably closer to the actual pronunciation of the individual letters than the convention I knowingly defied?" A few students shook their heads but everyone remained silent. "This is because the written language changes much more slowly than the spoken language. The human tongue is naturally lazy and tends towards things that are easier to pronounce. The written language is much more disinclined to change because," he gestured towards the girl who explained the spelling convention, "there are conventions in written language that we are all somewhat bound to uphold. "In this class, we'll be talking about using, abusing, and misusing words. When and why it's done, how it's done, and the consequences of doing it. We will be defying conventions and, as a part of a class experiment, we're going to see how -- if at all -- we can influence change in the language. So there are a few things we need to be mindful of." He clicked on the remote in his hand and the PowerPoint slide changed to read "Words are metaphors." "First," he said loudly before returning to his normal tone of voice, "Remember that all words are metaphors for whatever concepts they represent. If a language needs a word, it will likely either acquire the word from another language or just invent it on its own. The English language is particularly good at doing both of these things. Over time, the meanings of words can and will change." He looked over the classroom and saw his students scribbling down his message. He smiled broadly and paused until the pens started to slow down. He clicked the remote again. The next slide said, "Nothing is off-limits." "Second! We must be willing to embrace taboos and shatter conventions. We cannot do this unless we embrace words we might not like. Knowing where a word comes from and why it exists must be the first step. Let's use an easy example. Think of the name 'James'. That's a good, formal name, right? But the familiar version of the name is 'Jim.' Can anyone think of an offensive word that underwent this same vowel shift? Long 'A' to short 'I'?" There was a low mumble throughout the class but either no one knew, no one wanted to hazard a guess, or anyone who knew was too afraid to admit to knowing. "All right. I'll say it. The Spanish word for black is 'negro.'. And the 'E' of that word is the same vowel sound as what we saw in 'James'. So there was a familiarizing vowel shift from that, that gave us the word 'nigger'. Of course it's a hateful word today but at its heart, I don't think it always was. It was almost a friendly word when it first started out in the language." He clicked on the remote again and the next slide appeared on the screen. "Minimize ambiguity." "Finally! An important point that bears making in terms of the actual study of language is that, as long as you can express what you actually mean, the words themselves become secondary. You can say something using five words or fifty words. As long as your meaning isn't lost in the words, they're both correct." He turned the lights on and faced the classroom, smiling broadly. "So let's have fun with this! That's about it for today. Please pick up your syllabus for this class up here on my desk on the way out. My office location and hours are at the top of the syllabus, but I would like to warn you that my office is fairly small, so I don't think I can actually receive more than two students at any given time. More than that, and you'll probably need to wait outside the office until the student in front of you leaves. "So, without further ado, have a great week everyone! I'll see you all next week." The students all stood up and filed out of the classroom, picking up copies of the syllabus on their way out. When Vanessa and Chandra approached his desk, he smiled at them. "I hope you two didn't mind my little ruse at the beginning of the class. I like to do that kind of stuff, especially when we talk about defying convention." "Not at all, Professor, or, should I say, Justin?" giggled Chandra. Vanessa nodded her agreement. He laughed. "See you two next week, unless you want to talk to me in my office before then." He winked at Vanessa as he picked up his satchel and walked out of the room.   Chapter 2 Vanessa posted the syllabus for her Linguistics class on the cork board above her desk in her dorm room. She let out a sigh as she thought of the handsome teacher who, she wouldn't admit to anyone quite yet, impressed her tremendously. Here was a rulebreaker, a trendsetter, an iconoclast. And whatever else she might say, she really had thought he was just another student, so at the very least, he looked young enough to be a student. She made a note of his office hours. He was in his office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which meant that if she could make the time, she might be able to see him in his office the following day. Should she go see him this early in the semester, or should she wait? She replayed his first class over and over in her head. If she was going to stop into his office, she would need some kind of excuse, some pretense for going, and wanting to get a closer look at his well-chiseled face and physique really wasn't a good enough reason. He talked about the tongue being naturally lazy. What did he mean by that? She got that the spoken word changes more quickly than the written word. After all, there's no shortage of words that aren't pronounced anything like the way they're spelled. In some cases, different people will pronounce the same word differently. But actually being lazy? That didn't make sense to her. She decided that she'd use this point as her excuse to go down to his office. She decided to do some research into that but the only information she could find of any real consequence was a condition referred to as "Lazy Tongue Syndrome," which apparently is a problem where people (usually children just learning to speak) can talk but are not fully understood. She sighed and decided that yes, this was a fairly good excuse to go see Professor Wells. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too transparent.   Chapter 3 Vanessa glanced down at her watch as she got off the elevator in the building that housed Professor Wells's office. 10:45 am. She mused that showing up about midway through his office hours, she wouldn't seem too eager. She hadn't told anyone -- not even Chandra -- that she was planning on going down to see him, but it felt like time dragged in getting to this point. She wondered if anyone noticed the bounce in her step as she walked down the corridor towards his office. When she arrived, his door was closed, so she decided to loiter around some of the nearby desks. She saw an administrative assistant, made a note of her name, and asked, "Hi, Emily. Is Professor Wells meeting with someone right now?" "I don't think so. He usually keeps his door closed." "But his office hours are..." "Right now. Just go up and knock." She walked up to his door and made a fist so as to knock, but she paused to read the cartoons taped to his door. In one, the scene was a bar, with some guy talking to a girl. His mouth is open and the caption below it read, in quotes, "Do you understand the difference between cunning linguistics and fallacious logic?" A second cartoon was a picture of a bedding store whose name is "Nothing Really Mattress." A third cartoon had the appearance of a backyard party or barbecue, but all of the attendees wore medieval clothes. One person has a quote balloon that reads "Joan of Arc burned my steak." A second person, standing next to him, warns, "Don't talk with your mouth full. It's how rumors get started." A fourth cartoon was a scene of what appeared to be a meeting in some kind of a board room. One person is standing, with a quote balloon saying, "... And so we should try to move away from references to the so-called dead white males in order to be more inclusive." Someone sitting at the table has his hand up; his quote bubble has him saying, "Does this mean that Shakespeare should be barred?" A fifth cartoon was clearly intended to be a wedding scene, with the bride very visibly pregnant. Many of the guests around the church wore clothes that were reminiscent of Japanese nobility and a lot of people carried long, thin swords. The caption below it read, "Shogun Wedding". Vanessa laughed loud enough for a voice to call from behind the door, "Is someone out there?" She cautiously pushed the door open and stepped in. "Sorry, Professor Wells. It's just me." "I remember you. You were one of the girls I punked in my Words class yesterday, right? Chandra?" "Vanessa, actually. Chandra's my friend." "Ooooh! Sorry." "That's all right." She felt somewhat dispirited that he didn't remember her name, but decided not to say anything. "I take it you like my cartoons?" "I thought the shogun wedding one was the best." "Yeah, I liked that one. I think all of those cartoons say something about me and what I like and don't like." After a short pause in the conversation, he added, "I'm sure you didn't come down here to talk about my cartoons. What can I do you for, Vanessa?" She took a deep breath and reminded herself of what she'd been planning on saying for the better part of the past day. After a short pause, she said, "I've been thinking about something you said yesterday and I don't really understand it. What do you mean when you say that our tongues are lazy? I googled the phrase and all I could find was something on Lazy Tongue Syndrome, which is when people speak but their words aren't really understandable as the words they think they're saying." Professor Wells smiled and let out a hearty laugh. "Please. Sit down." He gestured towards a chair near his desk. "Can I get you something to drink?" She sat down, crossed her legs, and said, "I'm all right. Thank you." He sat down and looked Vanessa directly in the eye. She smiled and met his gaze for a moment before she looked away. As she looked away, he diverted his gaze somewhat lower and smiled broadly. He then decided that this girl would be his first real follower of the new term. She seemed like a good candidate, both because she seemed friendly enough the day before, and now, with her acting somewhat flustered. Soon, he broke the silence with a cough. "Lazy Tongue Syndrome is a medical term that's really an extreme manifestation of something that's true for all of us. When you speak, your tongue will always try to make sounds that are relatively easy to make, and words that have sounds that are likely to change in pronunciation in some capacity over time." "How do we know that?" "That's easy. You can figure that whenever the spelling of a given word was established, that's by and large a representation of how it was pronounced at the time. How are you feeling? So if we don't pronounce the word the same way, it's probably because our collective tongues have gotten lazier. The middle day of the week. Do you know anyone who actually pronounces it 'wed-nes-day'? No! You pronounce it either 'wens-day' or 'wends-day'. How are you feeling? And you can see words evolving even today. The place where you go to study or to borrow books. Some people might still pronounce it 'li-bra-ry' but others might say 'li-bear-y'. That 'br' sound in the middle of a word isn't easy for us Americans to pronounce. How are you feeling?" Vanessa opened her mouth to speak but the professor cut her off. "And it's not unique to the English language but different languages might have different definitions of what might be considered 'easy.' How are you feeling? How many consonants will a French speaker actually pronounce if they happen to be the final letter of a word? How are you feeling?" "Ummmm" "C, R, F, and L. That's it. And R isn't universal. So how are you feeling?" Vanessa took a deep breath but was cut off by the teacher again. She casually uncrossed her legs and placed her hands on her knees. "Russian's a fascinating one. Almost all vowels are interchangeable in their pronunciation if they're not accented. And where we might add a voice to some consonants at the end of our words -- for example, pronouncing the letter 's' as though it were a 'z', Russian goes the other way, taking the voice out of those same consonants. How are you feeling?" "I'm..." "So our tongues tend towards what's easy and comfortable. And when different people pronounce the same word differently, that's a sign that the language is evolving. Take the word 'n-u-c-l-e-a-r'. How are you feeling? Some people pronounce it the way it's spelled and others pronounce it 'nu-cu-lar'. Both are right, of course. Neither pronunciation is a sign of anything other than the place where they first learned how to say it. How are you feeling?" Vanessa closed her eyes and her head fell forward. The professor noticed this and smiled broadly. She's just about ready, he thought. "The Spanish have an interesting one as many of them speak the 's' sound with a lisp. Some Spaniards themselves attribute it to a speech impediment to a king about a hundred years ago or so, but there's no evidence for that. It's more likely that it was that old lazy tongue at work again. How are you feeling?" Her head bobbed up and down. He leaned forward, placed his hand underneath her chin, and pushed her head back so that he could see her face. "Well, Vanessa, it seems as though my induction worked well. I kept asking you how you're feeling so much that it pretty much shut your mind down and pushed you into a very deep, relaxed trance. Adding confusion to the mix sometimes can do that. You feel very safe, very secure, and very comfortable. You know you can trust me, just as plainly as you know which hand is your right hand and which is your left. So I want you to relax and sink a little deeper into your trance. You are comfortable, secure, and warm. Just sink a little deeper and let your mind go. You have no worries, no cares, and no fears in here." Vanessa sighed deeply. "Safe secure and warm," repeated the professor. "Safe, secure, and warm. You know you can trust me, and you have no secrets to keep from me. Just keep drifting deeper and deeper. Calmer and more relaxed. Very comfortable. Deeper and deeper." She opened her mouth slightly. "Now, Vanessa, I'm going to ask you to open your eyes, and when you open your eyes, you will just see a gray haze in front of your eyes. But opening your eyes will help you sink even deeper and deeper. So on the count of three, you will open your eyes and stare blankly into the gray haze. You'll feel safe and secure in this haze. One.. Two... Three... Open your eyes." She opened her eyes as instructed. There was a vague, distant quality to the look on her face. He stood up and waved his hand in front of her eyes and she didn't flinch or otherwise acknowledge the movement. "Very good, Vanessa. Now, when I ask you a question, I want you to be able to speak freely and honestly. You can trust me and there's no reason for you to hide the truth. Do you understand me?" An Immodest Proposal "Yes." "Very good, Vanessa. I don't really believe you came to my office to discuss the lazy tongue. Why did you really come here today?" Vanessa took a deep breath and said, quietly, "I liked your style yesterday and I couldn't stop thinking about your lecture. And I think you're kind of cute, so I figured I'd come down to your office." "Very good, Vanessa. I'm flattered. You're very pretty yourself." "Thank you." "Please tell me your bra size." "36-C." "That's a very good size. Do you ever go out without a bra?" "No." "I think it would be a good idea if you came to my classes bra-less. You won't even think twice about it. When you know you're coming to my class, you'll make sure you take off your bra before you head out. And, for that matter, you'll also come to my office hours without a bra, too. Do you understand?" "Yes." She reached under her blouse and began to unfasten her bra. "You can keep your bra on right now. But the next time you come either to my office or to my class, you'll be bra-less. And every time after that, too." She lowered her hands and placed them on her knees. The professor paused for a minute and stared at his student. The blank expression on her face, the toothy yet somewhat dopey looking grin. Her willingness to take off her bra at this suggestion. He contemplated his next move. "I have one more suggestion for you. I want you to think about how good you feel right now. How deeply entranced you are, how safe, secure, and comfortable you are. How blank your mind is right now. Any time you hear me say 'a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream' you will immediately fall back into this state you're in right now. No matter where you are or what you're doing, when I say 'a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream', you will immediately go blank and drift back into this trance you're in now. Do you understand?" "Yes." "Very good, Vanessa. Now I'm going to clap my hands and when I do, you will wake up, feeling completely refreshed, with no active memory of my having put you in a trance. The suggestions I gave you will be buried deep in your subconscious, but you won't remember anything other than the fact that I explained what I meant about our tongues being lazy. One. Two. Three!" He clapped his hands a few inches away from her face. She shook her head for a moment and smiled at him. "So do you understand what I meant now when I talked about the laziness of our tongues?" "I ... think so." "Great! I think this is going to be a good term and we'll have a lot of fun in our class. What do you think?" "I agree!" She nodded exuberantly. "In fact, I think it'll be better than a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream." Vanessa stopped moving. Her eyes widened, her mouth opened slightly, and her head slowly swayed back and forth. He leaned forward and waved his hand in front of her face. She didn't react to his movements. "Can you hear me, Vanessa?" "Yes." "Very good. After I wake you up, you will decide we are done with our meeting for today. You will go about your day as normal, and you'll talk with your friends about whatever it is you normally would talk about with them. If you want to tell them about coming to my office, that's completely fine, but that'll be your choice. So I will clap my hands and you will wake up, completely refreshed. One. Two. Three." He clapped his hands a few inches away from her face. She blinked twice and said, "I prefer cookie dough ice cream." He laughed. "Yeah, I like cookie dough ice cream too. But ... anyway, is there anything else I can do for you today?" Vanessa glanced down at her watch. She was kind of amazed at how long she'd been in his office. "I, uh... I think I'm good for now. Thank you Professor Wells!" "Any time, Vanessa. Any time." He stood up, opened his office door, and bowed over with a flourish to let her out of his office. He watched her walk down the hall, admiring the way she wiggled her ass as she walked. He chuckled as he thought, yes, this was going to be a very good term.   Chapter 4 Vanessa met Chandra in their cafeteria for dinner that night. "So anyway, Justin's got this awesome office. And I --" "Wait a sec, Vanessa," scolded Chandra. "I think we should probably call him Professor Wells or something like that." "But he introduced himself to us as 'Justin'." "Yeah, but then we learned he's more than just, er, Justin. He's our teacher, not some guy you met in a bar." "Yeah, I guess you're right." Vanessa diverted her eyes for a moment. "So what'd you go down to his office for?" "Oh! I, um... I didn't quite understand what he meant by saying we've got lazy tongues." "I was wondering about that myself. What did he say?" "He said that speech tends towards easier sounds than more difficult ones and, over time, the pronunciation of words can and will change. But the old way of spelling will linger longer. And it's not unique to the English language. He talked about how most consonants aren't pronounced at the end of French words and how Russian vowels pretty much all sound the same." Chandra nodded her head, listening to her friend. After a short pause, Vanessa said, "You take a look at the syllabus? Next week's topic seems kind of... mysterious." "I did, but I don't remember what it was supposed to be about." "Seven Important Wurdz, spelled W-U-R-D-Z, of course." "Of course. Which seven words?" "Dunno." "You didn't ask him when you were there?" "I didn't think to. Let's keep it a mystery."   Chapter 5 The week felt like it moved at a snail's pace for Vanessa. When Thursday finally rolled around again, she woke up with a start, took a shower, and got dressed. As she rummaged through her closet for a good outfit to wear to her linguistics class, she had a naughty thought: why not go bra-less today? Maybe she could distract the teacher a little bit. She suppressed a giggle as she put on a silk blouse and began to button it up, keeping it open enough to show off her cleavage. She ogled herself in her mirror for a few minutes from all angles before she decided she was ready to go out and have some breakfast. She didn't see anyone she knew at breakfast and, as a result, ended up eating alone in a corner of the cafeteria. She didn't really mind it that much, though, since she spent her time gazing out the large windows and into the courtyard below. She started to think about seven words with a real importance to them, in hopes of guessing what today's lecture would be about. Her first thought -- after she counted them out on her fingers -- was "We hold these truths to be self-evident." (Assuming, she told herself, that the hyphenated phrase "self-evident" only counted as one word.) But what truths about words are self-evident? That they represent whatever concept, action, or object they come to describe? Although this is a true statement, that sounded more like something that belonged in a class that talked more about the history of a language. Kind of like how the word 'pursue' today means to chase after something, but back when Thomas Jefferson wrote "the pursuit of happiness" he meant the word in a similar fashion to how someone pursues a career today. She closed her eyes and imagined Justin wearing a powdered wig and standing around among the founding fathers, maybe even helping Jefferson or Thomas Paine with the editing and publication of their works. Then she pictured herself, a contemporary of the founding fathers, offering her own, private inspiration to fight the good fight, to help craft a young country, starting out in the world and trying to become a more just place. Her daydream lasted for nearly two hours. When she finally glanced at her watch, she realized she needed to run in order to make it to her Wurdz class on time.   Chapter 6 Vanessa paused to catch her breath and wipe her brow just before entering into the classroom. She turned and saw Professor Wells standing behind his desk. He smiled to her and she returned the smile before she took her seat next to Chandra. Chandra whispered to her friend, "Running late again? What happened?" "I'll explain later." The professor looked around the classroom, cleared his throat, and activated his powerpoint display in a manner similar to what he had done the prior week. "Seven Wurdz" appeared on the screen behind him as he said the title of the lecture. "These seven words are arguably the most important seven words in the English language, at least for the purposes of this class. I'm sure some of you guessed what the seven words are, but for those of you who haven't..." He clicked on his remote and the next slide appeared. It was blank, except for a four-column-by-two-row grid. He clicked the remote one more time and the voice of comedian George Carlin filled the room. In perfect synchronicity with the comedian's voice, the grid filled in, as follows: "Shit" took the top row of the first column. "Piss" was placed directly below it. "Fuck" appeared directly to the right of "Shit" "Cunt" appeared to the right of "Fuck" "Cocksucker" appeared to the right of "Cunt" "Motherfucker" appeared below "Cocksucker" "Tits" appeared below "Cunt". The space below the word "Fuck" darkened. The professor assessed the completeness of the slide and turned to face the class once more. "George Carlin called these the seven words you can't say on television. They have been the subject of two high-profile lawsuits. The first one basically confirmed that the Federal Communications Commission has the right to regulate speech over the airwaves and the second effectively validated that these seven words are the ones that can't be spoken on TV." He gazed around the classroom and saw everyone nodding. "All right, everyone. Show of hands. Just want to get a sense of how often you guys use each word. I'm going to say one of the seven words. Raise your hand if you use it regularly. Shit." All hands in the classroom went up. "Piss." A couple of the girls in the back of the room lowered their hands but, for the most part, everyone kept their hands in the air. "Fuck." All of the men kept their hands in the air. About half of the women lowered their hands. "Cunt." Most hands went down. A few men and slightly fewer women kept their hands raised. "Cocksucker". Only two men and one woman raised their hands for this word. "Motherfucker". The three whose hands were raised from the prior word kept their hands in the air. A couple of other women raised their hands as well. "Tits". All of the men raised their hands. Slightly more than half the women raised their hands, although one of the women who raised her hand for the word "Motherfucker" lowered her hand. "Interesting dynamic. Neither of the insult words is very popular. Beyond that, it seems as though the men are more willing to use almost all of these words more often than the women." A general murmur of assent filled the room. "So let's cut to the chase. If you're uncomfortable with any of these words, I'd ideally like to see you get comfortable with them. I will be using all seven words throughout this class and they will become a part of our regular discussions, so if you're too uncomfortable with talking about the word 'cunt' it could be a problem as we progress throughout this semester. "The first thing you need to know is that all seven of these words have been around in the English language for hundreds upon hundreds of years, and are among the English's oldest words. There's some scholarly debate as to how long cocksucker and motherfucker have been in active use in the English language, but both of them are compound words involving much older words." He picked up a laser pointer from his desk and pointed it at the screen behind him. He moved the red light in a circular motion around the words "shit" and "piss", commenting, "We've got two words for human waste..." He redirected his laser to the words "cunt" and "tits" and said, "Two words for -- how shall I put it? Lady parts." A few students laughed at his choice of words. He ignored the laughter and pointed at "cocksucker" and "motherfucker". "Of course, these two words are sexual in nature and are generally used as insults... And finally..." He redirected the small red light in his hand towards the word "fuck." Two students spoke the word "fuck" as he pointed to it. "That's correct," he said. "It's arguably the most interesting of all seven words we have up here. I'm sure everyone here has seen the lists out there that expound on the versatility of the word itself. But linguistically, it's just as versatile. How many other words literally take up your entire mouth in one syllable? It starts with a labia-dental fricative, has a wide-open vowel sound, and ends with a palatal stop. Cunt comes close, moving from back to front instead of front to back, but it's not quite as linguistically impressive." Vanessa stared at the attractive professor and stopped paying attention to his words. She closed her eyes and imagined herself trying to seduce him. Every time he said the word "cunt" or "tits", she briefly came back to the present, but for the most part, she found herself daydreaming. She rationalized her lack of focus by telling herself that she'd be able to go to his office the following day to pick up on whatever she'd missed. She just knew that she had to be comfortable with all seven words. She could do that, she mused. Before she knew it, Professor Wells was dismissing his class. She hastily gathered her books and walked out with everyone else.   Chapter 7 The following day, Vanessa arrived promptly at 10 o'clock in the morning, just as Professor Wells began his office hours. She walked confidently to the door and knocked. "Come on in!" called the professor from behind the door. Vanessa strode in confidently. He smiled as he saw her enter. "What'd you think of yesterday's lecture?" "It was ... good. Honestly, I didn't get a whole lot out of your talk about the specific words but I understand that I need to overcome my distaste for a couple of the words. Nothing I can't work on, though." He gestured grandly to have her sit down. "I want you to repeat after me. We'll go through all seven words together. Can you do that?" She nodded her head. "Great! Shit." "Shit." "Piss." "Piss." "Fuck." "Fuck." "Cunt." She paused for a a moment and looked away from him. When it seemed as though she wasn't going to say it, he said "We'll come back to that. Cocksucker." She stammered a bit but was able to say the word. "Motherfucker." "Motherfucker." "And ... tits." She giggled and said, "Tits." He smiled at her. "Carlin was right. Tits is a friendly sounding word, like a nickname or something." "I'm not sure I'd want that to be my nickname." "I can respect that. Still, we know what we need to work on. It's kind of like a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream." She sat up, stared forward, and opened her mouth slightly. He chuckled silently, leaned forward, and waved his hand in front of her face. She didn't flinch. He paced around his office for a moment before speaking. "All right, Vanessa. First off, I'm going to say all seven words that you can't say on television. You will repeat them without hesitation, with no qualms about any of the words, and with no emotional connection to any of them. Are you ready?" "Yes." He repeated the seven words as he had done before he uttered the trigger phrase. Unlike before, she repeated all seven words quickly, in a slow monotone voice. Once the two of them had cycled through all seven words, he returned to "Cunt", "Cocksucker", and "Tits", smiling broadly as she uttered all three words with none of the baggage she had displayed when he first tried to get her to say them. "Now, Vanessa. I want you to imagine a giant pencil in your brain. Can you see the pencil?" "Yes." "Very good. I want the pencil to turn over so that you can see its eraser. It's starting to erase all of your qualms and inhibitions about using profanity and offensive terms. Can you see it doing that?" "Yes." "You are now free to say the word 'cunt' any time you see fit." "Yes. I can say 'cunt' any time I see fit." "You are now free to say 'cocksucker' any time you see fit." "I can say 'cocksucker'." "You are now free to say 'tits' any time you see fit." "I can say 'tits'." He glanced down at her clothes. "I couldn't help but noticing that you weren't wearing a bra to my class yesterday and that you're not wearing one now. How does that make you feel?" "I like how it feels. My tits feel liberated." "I'll bet they do. So... I think your cunt might be feeling a little bit jealous. Maybe from now on, when you come either to my class or to my office, you shouldn't be wearing panties either." "I shouldn't wear panties to your class or to your office." "What does your cunt think of you going without underwear?" She paused for a minute, as if she was asking the question to her vagina. "My cunt likes the idea. Thank you, professor." She lifted herself off of the chair, reached up her skirt, and began to take off her panties. He nodded approvingly. "I was going to tell you you don't need to do it until the next time you come to my class." She stopped taking her underwear off. "But if you want to take them off now, I suppose I won't object." "Thank you, professor." She rolled her underwear down to her feet and stepped out of them. "You might want to put those in your purse, though." She bent over to stash her panties in her purse. Professor Wells started to pace around his office again. This particular girl seemed eager enough that he could move relatively quickly in his control over her. He took a deep breath and said, "Very good, Vanessa. I have a few more instructions for you. The more you think about my class, the more aroused you will become. The more aroused you become, the harder it will be for you to concentrate. This is especially true in my class. After you realize that you didn't pick up enough from my lectures, you will feel compelled to come by my office for more individualized discussions, not unlike what happened today. Do you understand?" "Yes." "You will find my class fascinating and intriguing despite your concentration difficulties." "Your class is fascinating and intriguing." "You'll want to talk about my class, especially with your classmates." "I'll want to talk about your class." "You'll encourage your classmates to come to my office when I'm here." "My classmates will want to come to your office." "Excellent. Now stand up." Vanessa stood up effortlessly. "Lift up your skirt." She did as instructed. "You've got a very attractive cunt. You might want to shave it a little more, though." "Thank you. I will shave it." "You can lower your skirt now." She let go of the hem of her skirt, which slowly fell to just above her knees. "You can sit back down now. Now, when I clap my hands, you'll wake up, feeling completely refreshed and with a better understanding of the harmlessness of the seven words you can't say on television." He clapped his hands in front of her face. She shook her head and smiled at him. "So anyway, Vanessa," said the professor as though nothing happened. "You might want to listen to George Carlin's monologues about the seven words. The original is on his album 'Class Clown'. But he did a follow-up monologue in his album 'Occupation: Foole' -- that's got an unnecessary E on the end of it." She giggled softly and headed towards the door. An Immodest Proposal He held the door open wide for her and they both stepped back when they saw a young man standing outside the door, reading the cartoons, much as Vanessa had done the previous week. "Vanessa," said Professor Wells, "Do you know Keith? He's in your class." "Not really. I've seen him around, though," she said. "I think the two of you might get along pretty well. At least, from what I know of both of you. How are you, Keith?" "Good. Could I talk to you about yesterday's lecture?" "Sure. Come on in. Vanessa was just on her way out." The professor invited his other student in as Vanessa stepped past him to get back to the main hallway. He let out a sigh as he watched her disappearing out of his line of sight. He wished all of his students were as receptive as this one was.   Chapter 8 Vanessa arrived early to class the following week. Chandra teasingly said, "Wow! You made it on time for a change" on seeing that her friend arrived before she herself had. "Yeah, well after last week's class, I kind of figured that I needed to make some changes here and there. Let my hair hang down and my tits hang out... Or something like that." Chandra giggled. She looked at her friend's chest and said, "You wearing a bra?" "Decided not to." Vanessa leaned over Chandra's desk and whispered, "No panties either!" Chandra gaped at Vanessa but couldn't say anything because Professor Wells walked in. "Good morning, everyone! Before we get into today's lecture, I wanted to remind you all that my office hours are on your syllabus and that I'll be happy to talk with any of you about anything -- it doesn't have to be about this class -- if you stop by. A little bit less than half of you have come by thus far. I'd like to think that it's not a waste of time for you to come by. If your schedule doesn't mesh with my office hours and you want to stop by, just see me after class and we'll see if we can work something out." There was a low murmur among the class that came to an abrupt end when the powerpoint display appeared on the screen. "Metaphorically Speaking" appeared on the screen. "In my first lecture, I talked about how every word in any given language is a metaphor for what they originally meant. It's just a matter of figuring out where the metaphor comes from and how some words relate to one another. I'd like to use one combination of sounds. Since vowels generally change their sounds faster than consonants, we need to learn to ignore the vowel sounds and focus on what's really important." He clicked on his remote and the letters M and N appeared on the screen, with a dash between them. "I love this consonant combination in English. The overwhelming majority of words with these two consonants, sometimes separated by a vowel, comes from one of three sources." He clicked on his remote and the phrase "The Greek word for 'one'" appeared under the two consonants. "Can anyone give me some examples?" After a short pause, Keith yelled out "Monocle." "Good! Any others?" A girl in the back of the room yelled out, "Monogram!" Chandra said, "Mononucleosis." "Nice. There's a lot of words in chemistry and medicine that fit this category. You know my favorite? Monobrow." Everyone laughed. The professor clicked on his remote again. The phrase "The Latin word for 'hand'" appeared under the first source. "Examples?" Vanessa, who had started to lose her focus on the lecture, sat up when the teacher cleared his throat. "Um, manicure?" "Good! Any others?" A guy on the opposite end of the room said, "Manifold." "Good! More?" Another girl called out "Manipulate!" "Excellent! Now how about this last one?" He clicked the remote one more time and the phrase 'The old English word for 'thinking' appeared at the bottom of the slide. No one said anything. Everyone looked around the room at each other, each person hoping to see someone else who could answer this question. "You're kidding, right? Easily the most common use of these two sounds in the language. And no one knows any words?" Keith reluctantly said, "Um, mind?" "Good! Any others?" A girl asked, "Mental?" "Great! How about more abstract?" After a short time when everyone was silent, he started to spout off a few more words. "Man. Human. Woman. Monk. Moon. Month. Menstruate." Vanessa half-heard the word 'Menstruate' but decided she'd heard enough and was ready to start daydreaming about other things. She gazed over at Keith, who seemed a bit unfocussed himself. He saw her and smiled. Vanessa closed her eyes and imagined herself flashing Keith, teasing him about how he could look but not touch, whispering in his ear little crudities about her tits and her cunt. She subconsciously crossed and uncrossed her legs. Was Professor Wells talking about something to do with Latin? Something to do with the cunt, but it didn't quite register. She decided she could ask about it when she visited his office the following day. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander. Before she knew it, the class was over. Chandra shook Vanessa. "Time to go!" "What? Oh, yeah." She hastily gathered her books and loaded them into her backpack. As she was moving towards the door, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around and smiled as she saw Keith standing behind her. Chandra said, "Is everything all right?" "Yeah. I'll ... catch up with you in later, okay?" Chandra hesitantly walked out of the classroom. "How are you, Keith?" "Good. I, um.. I just ... Would you like to go out with me tomorrow night?" Vanessa blushed and looked down. She adjusted her blouse before looking up at him and said, "What did you have in mind?" "I don't know. Dinner and drinks? Maybe a movie afterwards?" There was a simplicity in his eyes that disarmed Vanessa. Before she had a chance to think about her response, she heard her voice say, "Sure..." "I'll meet you ... outside the library, then?" "What time?" "Six-ish?" "See you there." She giggled slightly as she turned on her heels and walked out the door. Keith turned to face Professor Wells, who nodded approvingly. "One moment, if you would, Keith." "Sure, professor, what's up?" "I've been thinking about a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream." Keith gazed blankly beyond the teacher. "When you and Vanessa are ready to have sex tomorrow night, I want you to withhold your cock from her until after she has had at least one orgasm. Do you understand?" "Yes." "Very good. I'm going to clap my hands and you'll wake up." He clapped his hands. Keith rubbed his eyes as he waited for the professor to speak. Professor Wells smiled at Keith and said, "Would you please come to my office tomorrow? I have something you might find interesting and I forgot to bring it with me to class."   Chapter 9 The following day, Vanessa arrived at her teacher's office a little early. The administrative assistant who sat near his office said, "He's not in yet. Would you like to just wait here?" "Sure." "He should be here soon. He's coming from a class now." "Thanks." Vanessa paused for a while before asking the administrator, "Say. What do you think about him?" Emily looked up from her computer, stroked her chin, and contemplated her response. "He's got a very loyal following among his past and present students. It's quite impressive, actually." "What do you mean?" "I don't know. I just suspect that some of his students would take a bullet for him or something." Vanessa scowled. She didn't know that she would take a bullet for him but at the same time, she started thinking that she'd like to be one of those loyal followers. "Any idea why?" "Well... I'm sure you've noticed that he's funny, charming, and brilliant." "And good looking!" Professor Wells strode around the corner and finished the assessment. "I'm sorry, Emily. I just assumed you were talking about me." Emily giggled softly and added, "Not to mention humble." All three of them laughed. "You come here to see me again, Vanessa?" "Yes, professor." "Well, you might want to be careful if you don't want people to think you're coming here for a reason other than for help with your studies. Come on in!" He unlocked his door and held it wide open for her. She strode into his office casually and sat down in the chair beside his desk. "So, what brings you into the office today?" "I kind of ... got distracted in your class yesterday. What was the gist of the lecture?" He laughed. "Well, I think someone said 'manipulate' when we were talking about the Latin. That was a great example because it uses the word for hand. So somewhere historically, the word 'manipulate' actually meant to move something around by hand. We could then drop off the 'man' part and substitute other body parts for some very interesting meanings. The word 'pedipulate' is a real word and it means, loosely, to kick around. Can you think of any other body parts that can be used to influence or move things?" Vanessa scratched her chin for a moment and smiled broadly. "What's the Latin word for 'cunt'?" "I like the way your mind works. It's cunnus, but it's not clear if they come from the same origin. So if you want to use your cunt to get what you want, the word would be..." His voice grew higher as he said the word 'be', encouraging her to finish his sentence. "Cunnipulate ... I, um... I guess." "Very good, Vanessa. And the flip side of that, if a guy used his cock to get what he wants..." "What's the Latin word for 'cock'?" "Phallus." "Phallipulate?" "Sounds about right. As far as I know, those words don't exist yet in English. So for our class, we invented it. Cool huh?" "Yeah." "It's like a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream." Vanessa immediately stopped smiling as she sank back into a deep trance before her professor. "I saw that Keith asked you out yesterday. Did you say yes?" "Yes." "Very good. As one of my trance subjects, he's progressing almost as nicely as you are. What are you two going to do tonight?" "Dinner. Maybe a movie afterwards." "Will you two fuck?" "I don't fuck on the first date." "Why not?" "I just ... I want to get to know a guy first." "You don't need to do that. Fucking him will help you get to know him. You'll get to know his cock and he'll get to know your cunt. It's what he's going to want, even if he doesn't say anything. But it's also what you want." "It's what I want." "In fact, when you meet him tonight, you'll decide you don't want to go out anywhere. It'll just be a question of your place or his." "My place or his." "When you see him, if he says he wants to go to a restaurant, just say it's not necessary." "Dinner isn't necessary." "Then you two can go back and fuck with unbridled abandon. It'll be one of your best first dates ever." "Best first date ever." "Of course, you won't wear a bra or panties to your date tonight. Just like you don't wear them to my class. Does that make sense?" "Of course." "Now tell me something, my dear. How difficult is it for you to achieve an orgasm?" "Some times it's more difficult than others." "Well, let's make it a lot easier for you, shall we? First off, you'll be turned on when you see him naked." "I'll be turned on when I see him naked." "When he has a hard-on in front of you, it'll set you off even more." "His hard on will set me off even more." "Once you're horny, the slightest touch can bring you close to orgasm." "The slightest touch can bring me close to orgasm." "You will have many orgasms in rapid succession, each more powerful than the previous." "I will have many orgasms, each more powerful than the previous." "Very good. Have a good time with Keith tonight." "Thank you." "When I clap my hands, you will wake up and not remember anything I told you while you were in this trance." He clapped his hands and he woke up. "So that's what I want you to think about. Think about words as metaphors and see if maybe you can come up with new words to express ... something new." Professor Wells stood up in front of his student. "All right, Professor. I'll ... um ... see what I can do." Vanessa stood up and started out of his office. As she walked away from his office, she couldn't help but smile when she saw that there was a line -- filled with students from her class -- waiting to see the professor.   Chapter 10 Vanessa arrived fashionably late to the library that night. As she walked down the path that led to the main entrance, she saw Keith, dressed quite sharply, emerging through the sliding glass doors. As she got closer to him, she couldn't help but admire his disarming smile. She looked down and heaved a contented sigh. She couldn't quite explain why, but she felt slightly nervous. Maybe it was because she barely knew Keith. Maybe it was because it'd just been far too long since the last time she'd gotten laid. But her nervousness made her a little bit aroused. Whatever the reason, she took a few more steps forward, raised her head, and walked confidently towards her date. "You look gorgeous," he said, admiring her blouse and skirt. She wondered if he could tell yet that she wasn't wearing a bra or panties when she responded, "You don't look so bad yourself, Keith." "Thank you." He cleared his throat before continuing. "So... There's a cool restaurant a few blocks off campus if you'd ..." "Actually, I was thinking. Why don't we just..." She ran her fingers up his chest. "Go back to your place and ... have dessert?" Vanessa let out a slight giggle as she heard herself being much more aggressive than normal. She rationalized it by thinking that, yes, it was time she let her hair down a little more. "All right," he said. She took hold of his elbow and they walked together out of the main entrance of the campus and over to a set of townhouses nearby. They reached his apartment and he reached into his pocket to find his keys. He fumbled with them for a few seconds before inserting the key in the doorknob and holding the door open for his date. She slowly stepped through the door. He pointed up the stairs. "My apartment's upstairs and to the right. Unit number 5." She started up the stairs, making a point of swaying her hips as she took each step. A few steps up, she turned to look to see where he was. She felt a sudden jolt of energy and passion when she realized he was staring at her. Her gasp was not entirely inaudible. She hoped he hadn't heard that, so she hastily smoothed out her skirt with her hands and continued up the stairs. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she stopped outside of his apartment door in the narrow corridor. He soon stood next to her as he unlocked the door to his home. As he put his keys in the lock, the side of his arm brushed her chest, and she felt the friction between the soft fabric of her blouse and her nipples. She shut her eyes for a moment before concluding that her hasty decision to come here (foregoing dinner) was definitely a good thing. Once inside his apartment, he took off his shoes and left them by the door. "Would you mind leaving your shoes there?" She kicked off her shoes and placed them next to his. The two of them entered the living room and he turned to face her. "Can I, um, get you a drink or something?" She lowered her eyes to his pants and saw a faint bulge in his crotch. She felt a slight tingle and couldn't speak for a moment, so she just shook her head and redirected her gaze to his eyes. She could feel how tense her nipples were becoming and was somewhat disappointed that he was looking back into her eyes, rather than at her tits. She wanted him to know exactly how she was feeling but didn't want to come out and say it. The two of them stood in silence for a moment. She stepped closer to him and kissed him full on the lips. She was pleased to feel him responding vigorously, their tongues colliding with each other in a mildly sensual power play. She decided to relent, at least with her mouth. She lifted her hands to his chest and started to unbutton his shirt. When he finally broke the kiss, she had completely unbuttoned his shirt. He smiled at her and stared at her breasts. She took his hands and guided them to her blouse, inviting him wordlessly to unbutton her top and to play with the hard, dark red nipples. When he pinched her, she let out a low moan. It felt so good, so tender, so raw... She whispered, "Don't stop..." She bit her lower lip and whimpered as he tightened his grip on both of her nipples. When the sensation finally overwhelmed her, she let out a long, high-pitched squeak and he let go. She shook her head and regained enough presence of thought to say, "Let's go into your bedroom" as she clumsily tried to unfasten his belt. "Okay," he said as he took over and loosened his belt and allowed his pants to fall quickly to the floor. He stepped out of them, revealing a colorful pair of silk boxers. She followed him into his bedroom. In the doorway, she undid the clasp on her skirt, which fell gracefully around her ankles. Now completely naked, she stepped out of the last bit of her clothes and said, "Do you like what you see?" He nodded his head enthusiastically. She began to rub the soft fabric of his underwear and quickly pulled his boxers down, revealing, at last, how aroused he really was. If she had thought she couldn't get any hornier, seeing that massive hard-on just proved her wrong. For a moment, she felt so dizzy, her knees nearly buckled. She whispered, "Fuck me. Fuck me so hard. I want to feel you inside my cunt." He grabbed her hips and steadied her. "Not yet. I want you to cum for me." She tried to protest but found that her words were lost in ecstasy as she felt his tongue expertly maneuver over and around each fold of skin in her crotch. Soon, he found her clit and began to lick, nibble, and chew enthusiastically at it. As he was eating her out, he raised his hands to her tits and began to squeeze and pinch both of her breasts. The affect was relentless and overwhelming. She began to sway on her feet and nearly collapsed. He saw that she was about to fall and steadied her by grabbing her hips. He stopped licking her pussy long enough to guide her to the bed, where she lay down and spread her legs wide. She looked at him through eyes that were welling up with tears of both gratitude and lust, whispering, "Please! I want you inside of me. I need you inside of me." "Not until you cum!" he insisted, before resuming his assault on her tits and her pussy. She began to moan once again in pleasure, her arms thrashing wildly on all sides. "That's it. I want you to let yourself go. Give in to the pleasure." She opened her mouth wide and began to cry, "Yes! Yes, oh god! Yes! Mmmmmmmm!!!!!!" He slowed down for a moment as he felt some of her juices start to ooze slowly out of her cunt. He quickly licked her clean, sat up, and smiled at her. "Now I'll fuck you." He jumped on top of her and slid his cock straight into her. It was a strange sensation, by comparison, as her orgasm hadn't fully subsided and he could feel her muscles contracting around him even as he pushed his way into her. This, in turn, turned her on even more. Vanessa kept having more and more intense orgasms, each of which gave Keith a mini-orgasm of his own until he could no longer hold himself back. When he finally came, it felt like an explosion to both of them. His body convulsed at the release and he collapsed on top of her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and used her cunt to milk all of the fluid out of him. They both fell asleep without him ever pulling out. An Immodest Proposal Chapter 11 The following week, Professor Wells's PowerPoint display started with the word 'Eponyms'. Vanessa had managed to arrive on time to this class, partially at the urging of Keith, who now sat right next to her. When the teacher strode into the class, he smiled broadly and said, "Who knows what an eponym is?" There was a low murmur throughout the class, but no one came forward with the answer to this question. Professor Wells sighed and said, "An eponym is a word that enters the language from the name of the person who had some degree of notoriety. Their name becomes synonymous with the event or thing they're responsible for. Can anyone come up with any examples of this?" A few students hesitantly raised their hands. The professor pointed to a guy in the back of the room, who called out, "Bell! Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and all of the phone companies took their names from him." "That's a pretty good example, Dave. Of course, the word 'Bell' existed in our language long before the telephone came into being. But it's fair to say that the word 'bell' took on an additional meaning or two thanks to the work of Alexander Graham. Any others?" He pointed to a girl Vanessa didn't know. "Crapper. Thomas Crapper invented the toilet." "Very good, Sophie. Crapper is an excellent slang term for toilet. Thanks to our buddy Tom. Where it's not quite so straightforward is whether the term 'crap' meaning 'shit' begins here or not. There's definitely an interrelationship between the two words, though." He paused for a minute, smiled, and looked around the room. "How about we move away from people's inventions and think about some kind of historical notoriety. Does anyone know where the phrase 'Your name is mud' comes from?" Chandra raised her hand and the professor indicated for her to speak. "When Abraham Lincoln was shot, there was a doctor involved who was named ... Mudd. I don't remember his first name." The teacher quickly said, "Samuel." "Right! Anyway, some people called Dr. Mudd a traitor and co-conspirator for giving medical treatment to Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. And so it became that, when someone's reputation has been tarnished, their name is mud." "Very good. Here's one: who knows what the Donner Party was?" Keith blurted out, "Wasn't that a group of pioneers who resorted to cannibalism to survive as they rode out to get to California?" "I guess you could say that," Justin said. "There's some dispute as to whether they actually did eat the flesh of other members of their party after they'd died, but it makes for an interesting story. In fact, world history is littered with tales of people who hadn't planned on being cannibals but found they needed to, just to survive." Vanessa's train of thought once again started to wander. She gazed down at Keith's pants, wondering when she'd next get into them. She half-heard the professor talking about the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team dramatized in the movie Alive, and Alferd Packer, the only person convicted of cannibalism in American history. Although it sounded like an echo of an echo of an echo, the class clearly started to engage him in discussion as to whether or not cannibalism could be justified. She vaguely heard herself thinking that she'd do it if she absolutely needed to, even if she had no desire to do so. She made a note that she'd discuss this with Professor Wells when she went to visit his office again, as the conversation shifted to Loreena Bobbitt and how her last name has become an eponym of a woman getting revenge on her boyfriend or husband.   Chapter 12 Over the course of the next several weeks, more and more students were having difficulty focussing in the linguistics class and Professor Wells's office hours, as a result, became increasingly popular. Students found themselves chatting amiably in line as they waited to see their favorite teacher. On the last day of the semester, Professor Wells arrived at the class carrying a large wooden box, which he placed on his desk as he stepped forward to speak. "We're not going to have a powerpoint today," he said. A few students shuffled in their chairs and a couple quietly said, "Awwwww," which was met with laughter from other students. He continued by saying, "Today's the last day we'll all be together, but I would like to believe we've all become reasonably good friends this term. I'm hopeful that some of you might go out of your way to take other classes with me, or at the very least, find the time in your schedules to come by my office to let me know how you're doing." He didn't give any of his students the chance to express either agreement or disagreement, despite the fact that a few students, including Vanessa, had made comments to their neighbors that they certainly would keep in contact with him "I think we've all come a long way with our words, thoughts, and actions these past few months. I hope you're all more comfortable with your own words, and how they can be used, abused, and misused. And I hope you know the right and wrong ways to use, abuse, and misuse your words, just as there are right and wrong ways to use, abuse, and misuse other things, including yourselves. "And that, class, is how we should wrap things up a little bit. It's kind of like a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream." The trigger affected the entire class at the same time. Several students dropped their pens or books to the floor. Others, as they straightened up, created noise by lowering their feet to the floor in front of them. Once he was certain that all of his students were completely under his command and that all transitions to mindlessness had been completed, he spoke again. "All of you, please stand up and strip naked." Everyone did as instructed. He marveled at both the speed and efficiency of their actions. "I believe that my words are exceptionally powerful and that you are all now willing recipients of my words and the power they represent. As such, I am going to use my words to compel each and every one of you to do something that most people would find, at best, unethical and, at worst, repugnant. We discussed this a few weeks ago, so I want you all to imagine that you are survivors of a plane crash and are awaiting your rescue. Your wounds have been dressed and are healing. Not everyone on your plane was as lucky as you were, and all of the bodies of those who didn't survive have been moved away from the wreckage of the plane. Unfortunately, you are now starting to get hungry and you don't have any sense as to how long it will be before you're rescued. "Inside this box are human body parts. Brains, hearts, a lot of muscle. I want you all to come up here, grab something out of the box, and eat it." The students lined up at his desk. He opened the box and, one by one, the students reached into the box to pull something out. "Looks like you've got a heart, Vanessa," he said to her encouragingly when she reached the desk. "The meat of the heart is probably the tastiest of all human flesh. Dig in and enjoy!" She examined the deep-red object in her hands for a moment, opened her mouth wide, and bit noisily into the meat she held in her hands. "You're right. Wow! That's so ... tender, it's like it melts in my mouth." She hastily shoved the rest of the heart into her mouth and chewed it up quickly before swallowing it. She let out a quiet belch, blushed, and said, "Excuse me!" "You're excused," said Keith. "How was it?" "Delicious. I never would've guessed at how good it tastes." "I know. I mean, I feel sad for the people who didn't survive and all, but we have to live and, well..." He looked around to make sure no one was too close to him when he said, in a low whisper, "If human flesh is this good, I ... well, I just hope we're not found too soon, ya know?" "I hear you," giggled Vanessa. The professor walked around the room, ensuring that all of his students were eating -- and enjoying -- their gruesome feast. After he had circumnavigated the room once, he spoke loudly and forcefully. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have heard rumors and hearsay about the real reasons why dining on human flesh is considered immoral or illegal, and I desire to know if it's true. Some say that human flesh is an aphrodisiac. Does the flesh you have eaten have an impact on your own flesh?" Vanessa was licking her fingers clean when she felt a jolt in her pussy. "Oh!" she said, involuntarily. She began to breathe heavily. Her reaction to the question posed by the professor was quickly echoed by several other women in the class. Vanessa turned to face Keith, whose cock was now standing on end, and cried, "Fuck me! Fuck me now!" In no time, the lecture turned into an orgy, with the students pairing up with each other with wild abandon, in many cases not caring about the identity of the person whom they fucked. Professor Wells smiled broadly as he watched with a rapt appreciation for the power of his own words. The sound of a dozen women moaning their individual pleasures, he mused, filled his ears an otherworldly yet strangely melodious tone. He allowed the bacchanalian reverie to continue for another ten minutes before he spoke again. "All right everyone! I'm going to clap my hands twice. When I do, you will have an orgasm, stand up, return to your desks, and get dressed. Once you sit back down, you will wake up, knowing that at some point in your recent history you engaged in cannibalism to survive after a plane crash. You will not speak of this incident except among each other." He took a deep breath and clapped his hands twice. The students' collective moans reached a crescendo, after which they each completed the instructions laid out to them by the teacher. It didn't take long before every student in the class had returned to his or her seat. After a brief pause, he spoke again. "Well, I'd say we have had an excellent term here. We explored the boundaries of what words can and cannot accomplish, and I daresay we each learned something about ourselves and the world around us as we undertook this educational journey together. "For those of you who might be looking for a good class to take next term, I cannot recommend the course on Metaphor in Sociology strongly enough. It's taught by my good friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Morrison. If you appreciated the exploration of the words we use as metaphors, it's a natural next step." Several of the students wrote this down quickly. "I know I'm repeating something I already said, but I hope that you will all keep in contact with me, both as you continue your university education and in life. I do so love hearing what my former students have accomplished." There was a low murmur of assent throughout the classroom. "So, unless you have anything more to add, I'm going to let you all go early." He paused for a minute and surveyed the class. Each student looked around to each other, wondering if anyone would speak. "All right! Class dismissed!" He walked to the door and swung it open. The students lined up and each shook his hand and thanked him before walking out of the room and into the hall. Vanessa was at the end of the line. When she finally reached the door, she stood on the tips of her toes, kissed him on the cheek and said, "I've never enjoyed a class as much as this one." "Thank you! I think you made some great contributions to the class this term. I appreciate your participation." She giggled and disappeared into the hall.   Chapter 13 Professors Morrison and Wells met in a local restaurant to discuss the just-ended semester. "So, Justin. How many students are you sending to me for next term?" "Well, my "Wurdz" class had 24 students in it, and I've asked them all to sign up for your --" Dr. Morrison interrupted his colleague with a hearty laugh. "You 'asked' them? Really? Is that all you did? For some reason, if you ask your students to do ... well, just about anything, it's a safe bet that they're going to do it." "All I did is suggest it to them." "Yes. It was just a suggestion. I got it. You can literally get your students to do anything. And I do mean anything. If you wanted one student to go out and commit some heinous crime, they'd do it without question and you and I both know it." "But I'd never do that!" "Right, but you could." "Whatever." There was a brief pause in the conversation. Robert broke the silence by asking, "So how'd you send your students off this year?" "Oh, nothing spectacular. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Suggested taking your class. I guess that's about it." "Fuck you, Justin! Just the other day I was telling a friend of mine that you always do something outrageous on the last day of class. Like the time you arranged a hieros gamos ritual." Justin began to laugh. "I wouldn't call it a true hieros gamos. It felt more like the big famous scene from the movie Eyes Wide Shut than anything." "But that movie was supposed to be hieros gamos and you know it." Justin peered at his friend and colleague over the top of his glasses. Robert returned the gaze with an equal intensity. The two university professors stared at each other in silence for nearly a minute before the linguistics teacher relented. "All right. Fine. This year I made my students eat human flesh because I had them believe they survived a plane crash." "Really?" Professor Wells nodded his head. "Did you really feed them human flesh or did they just think that was what they were eating?" "I think you know better than to ask that question, don't you, Rob?" Rob raised his drink to his lips before answering, "Yes. Yes I do. I don't know how you maintain such control. I take it you didn't personally take advantage of any of your students this year?" "I never do. There's always one or two who are tempting and this year her name was Vanessa, but I remained professional with her." "She going to be in my class next term?" "Probably." The two men both took sips from their drinks. Professor Wells broke the silence. "I've told you enough about my Words class. Now tell me about what you did with your classes this past term." - end -